“No thanks.” Max turned in the direction of the front door. “You can stay here if you like while I work on the machine.” Boles was trying his best to be encouraging. Though older, the inventor was bigger and in much better shape. “I always am.” Mitch smiled reassuringly. Then we’ll have no chance of putting things right.” Kill him and you might affect every other Boles up and down the line. “Sorry, hell!” Max took a step toward the inventor. “I have a feeling none of my selves knew what they were doing. Shaking his head slowly, Boles rose from his chair. With luck, one where you knew what you were doing.” By the time you got it worked out I’m likely to be in another para altogether.
“The frequency of shifts, the intensity of the effect, seems to be increasing. “It probably wouldn’t matter.” Max stood. If you could tell me how, maybe I could duplicate the results here, and then figure out a way to get you back to the world line where you belong.” “Though it is encouraging to know that in another world I succeeded. I thought all the lights and electrical discharges were real pretty, and that was about the extent of my formal observations.” I didn’t think the damn thing would work, so I didn’t pay attention to any of the operational details. “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about. “What about the final parameters of the distortion arc?” “Do you know how my para self worked out the final settings?” Boles was asking him. Much as he might want to, this para of Barrington Boles could not help him. He wanted home, wanted his own world back, a world wherein he was the only Max and condors did not roam the skies above the absent Point Dume. What if the para effect wore off while he was still in this world, still accompanied by the unlucky Mitch? Would they both be stuck forever in whatever para Fate happened to drop them in, like a spinning coin finally bereft of its momentum? If that happened then both of them would simply have to cope. He could only hope that he would wake up one day and find himself in one where Boles knew what he was doing. Were parallel worlds like an enormous deck of cards that existed in a continuous state of shufflement? How could he gain the attention of the dealer, or was the effect purely random? It was already clear that he had no control over his movements between worlds.
#Alan dean foster into the out of how to
But how? He did not know how he had slipped from his original world into this one, much less how to get back. Obviously, Max now realized, he had to return to his own world line and to that particular Boles, or at least to a para in which Boles’s device worked. He could not try out his corrective idea because the subject on whom it was to be tried had gone away-to a parallel world in which the inventor Boles had yet to succeed. That Boles was waiting on him in his own, original world, waiting futilely for a reporter who had gone slip-sliding away to show up at his house. Which meant that he was not talking to the same Boles who had told him “he had an idea” on how to fix things and to come back Tuesday. Only in this one, Boles’s device had not worked, did not work. He and Mitch were in still another parallel world, all right. Max finally did, and the shadow that he felt falling over him darkened. “And in this one, my machine did not work. “You slipped into a third, all right,” Boles agreed readily.
There are no condors surviving in Mitch’s para Southern California either, so that means that not only did he slip from his world into mine but that together we slipped into a third.” Everything keeps changing around me, and without warning. Not to mention at least one alternate para world in which condors and bighorn sheep still thrive in Southern California. “Then how do you explain him, and everything else that’s happened to me? I’ve had to deal with para women, para burglars, para cars, and even para chimpanzees. As much as I’d like to claim credit for it, my setup didn’t work.” I’m telling you, Max, that you walked out of here a few days ago mildly disappointed in my failure but otherwise unaffected. Sincerity dominated the inventor’s reply, was writ large on his face. Mitch is living evidence to the contrary, and I can offer you plenty more.” “So don’t sit there and try to tell me that your infernal device didn’t work. After all, we’re more than best friends.” He leaned forward slightly and stared hard at the would-be scientist. Until we can figure out a way for him to return to his own parallel world he’s staying with me. “We’re calling him Mitch, but he’s me in every respect.
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