This was getting out of hand, not the way he had planned it at all. “No,
__)
you don’t!” he barked and jumped in front of the Gate. He would have to make them realize, and quickly.
But he got no chance to do so. The drunk cussed him out, then swung on him; his temper snapped. He knew with sudden fierce exultation that he had been wanting to take a punch at someone for some time. Who did they think they were to be taking chances with his future?
The drunk was clumsy; Wilson stepped under his guard and hit him hard in the face. It was a solid enough punch to have convinced a sober man, but his opponent shook hishead and came back for more. “Joe” closed in. Wilson decided that he would have to put his original opponent away in a hurry, and give his attention to “Joe”—by far the more dangerous of the two.
A slight mix-up between the two allies gave him his chance. He stepped back, aimed carefully and landed a long jab with his left, one of the hardest blows he had ever struck in his life. It lifted his target right off his feet.
As the blow landed Wilson realized his orientation with respect to the Gate, knew with bitte~ certainty that he had again played through the scene to its inescapable climax.
He was alone with “Joe;” their companion had disappeared through the Gate.
His first impulse was the illogical but quite human and very common feeling of look-what-you-made-me-do. “Now you’ve done it!” he said angrily.
“Me?” “Joe” protested. “You knocked him through. I never laid a finger on him.”
“Yes,” Wilson was forced to admit. “But it’s your fault,” he added, “if you hadn’t interfered, I wouldn’t have had to do it.”
‘Me interfere? Why, you bald faced hypocrite, you butted in and tried to queer the pitch. Which reminds me—you owe me some explanations and I damn well mean to have them. What’s the idea of—”
“Stow it,” Wilson headed him off. He hated to be wrong and he hated still more to have to admit that he was wrong. It had been hopeless from the start, he now realized. He felt bowed down by the utter futility of it. “It’s too late now. He’s gone through.”
“Too late for what?”
“Too late to put a stop to this chain of events.” He was aware now that it always had been too late, regardless of what time it was, what year it was or how many times he came back and tried to stop it. He remembered having gone through the first time, he had seen himself asleep on the
other side. Events would have to work out their weary way.
“Why should we?”
It was not worthwhile to explain, but he felt the need for self -justification. “Because,” he said, “Diktor has played me—I mean has played you
us—for a dope, for a couple of dopes. Look, he told you that he was going to set you up as a big shot over there, didn’t he?”
“Yes—”
“Well, that’s a lot of malarkey. All he means to do is to get us so incredibly tangled up in this Gate thing that we’ll never get straightened out again.”
“Joe” looked at him sharply. “How do you know?”
Since it was largely hunch, he felt pressed for reasonable explanation. “Why go into it?” he evaded. “Why don’t you just take my word for it?”
“Why should I?”
“Why should you? Why, you lunk, can’t you see? I’m yourself, older and more experienced—you have to believe me.” Aloud he answered, “If you can’t take my word, whose word can you take?”
“Joe” grunted. “I’m from Missouri,” he said. “I’ll see for myself.”
Wilson was suddenly aware that “Joe” was about to step through the Gate. “Where are you going?”
“Through! I’m going to look up Diktor and have it out with him.”
“Don’t!” Wilson pleaded. “Maybe we can break the chain even now.” But the stubborn sulky look on the other’s face made him realize how futile it was. He was still enmeshed in inevitability; it had to happen. “Go ahead,” he shrugged. “It’s your funeral. I wash my hands of you.”