Worlds of Maybe Read online

  None of it made any sense.

  Karn knew what he had to do now. First, find a library and discover how this state of affairs had come about. Second, contact Hethivar by subradio and let them know the situation. If ever there were a case for passing the buck, this was it. Something had to be done, and fast. But Karn was in no mood for making top-level decisions. Right now it was all he could do to cling to his sanity in the face of what had happened.

  He found the nearest library and located a bulky World History, and scanned it rapidly, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century and working forward. When he was finished, he was as close to sheer panic as he had ever been in his long life. It was an effort simply to hang on to his physical manifestation and keep from wavering. It was necessary for him to go through all nine of the Stabilizing Exercises, one after another—a humiliating experience for one who had always prided himself on his coolness.

  But yet, what he had discovered could easily have destabilized a lesser man.

  Terran history ran precisely as it should have run, right up to 1914. The pressures of industrialization and the stresses of upsurging nationalism had built up conflicts certain to erupt into war, in the latter half of the nineteenth century. That was as expected. In 1914, the war had broken out. That, too, was acceptable. The Hethivari Planners had decided to permit the war to begin, as a sort of catharsis for the Earthers, but to end the war before any serious changes in the Terran way of life could be brought about.

  Yet the war had not ended at Dusseldorf in 1916, Karn discovered. Maddeningly, there was no mention of the Allied surrender nor of the Treaty of Dusseldorf. Instead, the Germans had gone ahead and provoked America into entering the war in 1917; almost simultaneously, the Russian revolutionists had successfully overthrown the Czar. It was an unbelievable jolt to read of Germany’s defeat, then of the foolish and suicidal peace settlement of 1919.

  Defeated Germany had rebuilt its strength, with a madman named Hitler feeding on wounded national pride. And Russia had blindingly leaped into the twentieth century, shedding its medieval past and becoming an important world power overnight. Then, a second war, America drawn once again—and this time permanently—from its isolationist shell, Germany and its new ally Japan decisively crushed, Russia advancing to dominate half the world, atomic weapons actually used in battle—

  Nightmare, Karn thought.

  He searched through rows of books, hoping to find but one mention of the Treaty of Dusseldorf, his masterpiece, which had brought all Terran friction to a halt. Not one index had an entry of that sort. Panic assailed him. His grip on the universe tottered.

  It was as if he had never come to Earth to end the Great War. Not one of his interventions had as much as survived in the pages of history. And matters stood at a dreadful impasse right now. The Earthers had already conquered space—twenty years ahead of the original extrapolation, a century or more ahead of Karn’s revised estimate.

  Earth hovered on the brink of self-destruction. That would be too bad for Earth, Karn thought. But—far worse for the galaxy as a whole—Earth also hovered at the edge of its space age. Nightmare of nightmares!

  Hethivar had to be told of this: Immediately, before Karn could make another move. Hethivar had to know.

  It was a simple matter to enter a washroom on the third floor of the library building and depart auto-kinetically for the New Jersey meadow. No one had seen him enter the washroom, and so no one would be perturbed by his failure to come out.

  Arriving at the meadow with virtual instantaneity, Karn activated the scrambler key long enough for him to enter his ship, then once again returned to concealment. Switching on the subspace communicator, he framed a message to the Hethivari Planners:

  Esteemed Sirs:

  The report of Karn 1832j4, assigned to Terran Manipulation. Good sirs, matters here have reached an unaccountable state. Manipulation activity of the previous visit has been totally negated. The Earthers have fought a second war and now have developed atomic weapons and orbital satellites. Our worst fears have come to pass. Unless immediate action is taken the Earthers will be knocking at our gates within a century.

  I am unable to explain the failure of the previous mission. Obviously we must restudy our entire science of probability. But one conclusion is certain; no amount of manipulation can halt the trends already set in motion. Our only course now is a drastic one. If we are to prevent the Earthers from entering space, we may no longer strive to check war on Earth, but rather now we must foment it.

  It would be a simple matter of elementary tactics for me to instigate an atomic war on Earth, considering the uneasy international condition here. Such a war would probably not result in total destruction of Terran life, but would certainly set them back many hundreds of years. Of course, this drastic step contravenes our general ethical pattern, and so I dare not take action of this sort without your permission. Yet, good sirs, surely you will see that the destiny of the galaxy is at stake here. I will await your word.

  He added his wavelength, so they would be able to reach him with a reply, and signed off.

  There, he thought. That should make them sweat a little l

  Subspace communication is not quite instantaneous. There would be a lag of several minutes before the Planners received his message, and it might be hours before they had decided on their reply. Well, a few hours were not likely to make much difference. He sat back to wait.

  Touching off the atomic war would be child’s play, he thought. All it took was a spark in the tinder—an atomic explosion obliterating some large American or Russian city, preferably both. Within minutes, jittery defense bases would send the missiles flying. Karn’s nature was such that he found the idea of such a war repugnant. But still, if it was necessary—

  He still could not understand how his calculations had gone so far astray. Bitterly he saw that it was a mistake to allow Earth fifty years of nonintervention; there should have been a Hethivarian agent here every moment of the time, instead of leaving the planet alone. Hethivar had complacently relied on its extrapolations. As he looked back, it seemed an enormously shortsighted way of handling the situation. But they had been so confident. Well, hindsight never helped anyone, Karn thought. The only path left was the barbarous but mandatory one of smashing Earth, or rather causing Earth to smash itself.

  But—

  His reflections were cut off by the whirring sound of the subradio printer. A message coming back so soon? Why, they had barely had time to consider! Obviously they had met at once and voted him carte blanche.

  The message said:

  Karn, you blasted idiot—

  Are you out of your head? Your message makes no sense at all. Your job is to avoid that atomic war, not to touch it off. And what’s this jabber about -preventing the Earthers from entering space? Why should we do that? And why did you change your wavelength?

  Since you seem to have taken leave of your sensesy you are to return to Hethivar at once. A replacement will be sent you. And if you meddle destructively in Terran affairs you’ll get immediate personality disruption when we catch you.

  If this is your idea of a joke, be advised that ive aren’t amused. And you’d better have a good explanation when you get back here.

  Adric

  For the Planners

  Bewildered, Karn let the message slip through numb fingers. He fought to restabilize himself, and had to run through the nine Stabilizing Exercises twice. This jolt, coming on top of the earlier one, left him reeling. Had the whole universe gone mad? He was dumfounded by Adric’s message. What was he talking about? What did he mean?

  Karn pondered a return message. He had gotten no farther than Highly Esteemed Sirs when his mind unmistakably detected Hethivarian life-impressions somewhere on the planet.

  His outlines blurred in dazed puzzlement. No other Hethivarian was supposed to be within a parsec of Earth at this time. True, Adric had said something about a replacement being shipped out—but it took many weeks to mak
e the trip from Hethivar to Earth. Who could the stranger be? Cautiously, Karn extended a tendril of perception—

  . . . Encountered another mind, a Hethivar mind . . .

  . . . Touched . . .

  . . . Recoiled in shock.

  The stranger was himself !

  There had been no doubt about it. Their minds had met for only a microsecond, but yet Karn had learned that the other one was Karn 1832j4, newly arrived on Earth to engage in manipulation. He had touched the surface of that other mind, and its thought-forms were his thought-forms.

  Karn gripped the walls of his ship and waited for the universe to stop spinning around him. This was what insanity was like, he thought.

  A quiet voice said, “Would you mind telling me just who the devil you are?”

  Karn realized the other being had come to him. He smiled and said, “You’re an hallucination. Go away.”

  I'm Karn. And so are you, it seems.”

  The other wore the body of an Earther, somewhat older, paunchy, balding. But as Karn watched the Earther’s visage gave way, in an instantaneous transition, to Karn’s own. It was not like looking in the mirror, for the mirror reverses an image. This was the actual face of Karn, unfamiliar to him since he had never looked upon it in this fashion.

  “We can’t both be Karn,” Karn said hoarsely.

  “Have a look,” the stranger replied, and extended his mind once again. Karn was reluctant to blend a second time; he attempted a barrier, but he was too late, and their minds joined. Karn looked deep. He saw his own thoughts laid out as neatly as he kept them, all his own memories of Hethivar. Yes, the other was himself.

  But yet not himself. For mingled with the familiar memories were a host of unfamiliar ones. The other had arrived on Earth only minutes before, it seemed. But this was his third or fourth visit. He came to Earth regularly; his job was to protect the planet, to keep it from doing real harm to itself, to guide Earth along into space and into brotherhood with Hethivar.

  It was like looking into a distorting mirror.

  “You’re here to aid Earth,” Karn said.

  “Yes. And you to destroy it. Destroy or else cripple. To keep the Earthers bottled up on their own world, where they can’t harm the Network.”

  “And you’re me,” Karn said. “And I’m you. But we’re opposite.”

  “Curious, isn’t it? And what’s this Treaty of Dusseldorf that stands out so in your mind?”

  Karn said, “I arranged it, in 1916. It was supposed to provide Earth with long-lasting peace.”

  “To turn the Earthers into a bunch of sleepy vegetables, you mean. To rob Earth of the inner conflicts that would drive them into space eventually.”

  “And you want Earth to spread into space?”

  “Of course,” the other Karn said. “That’s been our policy ever since our scouts saw Earth’s potential. They’re potentially the finest thing the universe has ever produced—but they have flaws. So we help them overcome their flaws. You think the Hethivari Network is going to last forever?”

  “No, but—”

  “So why fight the inevitable? We recognize that the Earthers are potentially the next rulers of the galaxy. O.K. We take it gracefully and bow out. We don’t attempt the hopeless job of trying to hold them down forever, nor do we destroy them now while we think we can. I’m here to simmer down some of their energy —to keep them from blowing themselves up, but to make sure that they rechannel those boiling drives of theirs outward, toward space. They’re heading that way now. The Planners sent me here to make sure they get there.”

  Karn had never heard such a recital of insanity before in his life. But he saw clearly what had happened now. He knew why none of the history books mentioned the Treaty of Dusseldorf.

  He felt an instant of sick fear. A moment later it subsided as he regained his self-control.

  “I’m in trouble,” he said.

  I'll bet you are!”

  “Somehow I shifted out of my own world line when leaving nullspace. I don't belong here at all.”

  Brusquely Karn made his way past the other to the control chamber. Sitting down at the control panel, he ran off a quick recheck of all the factors that had governed his conversion from the null-continuum onto Earth’s world line. It took only a few moments to find the discrepancy. He looked up at the other, his heart leaden.

  “Find your mistake?” the other asked.

  Karns facial tendrils quivered in self-annoyance and shame. “Yes. I made a translation error of nearly one per cent. I came out along the wrong world line. This isn’t my universe.”

  “Of course not.”

  “And that explains why everything seemed so wrong here. The Earth I knew would never have sent up space satellites, nor discovered atomics. The Earth I knew would be a peaceful world.”

  “A vegetating world,” the other snapped scornfully. Karn scowled at him. “A world that poses no threat to the Hethivari Network, at any rate. I’m glad this isn’t my world line. I’d hate to be alive when the Earthers come swarming over our world and make us slaves. And you’ll have no one to thank but yourselves.” “We’ll take the risk,” the other Karn rejoined sourly. “But what do you plan to do now?”

  “Get out of this insane world line and back to my own, as fast as I can. I have important work to do.” “Suppressing Earth’s culture?”

  “Ensuring Hethivar’s future,” Karn said thinly. He went on. “I sent a message back to the Planners a little while ago. They thought it came from you, and since it didn’t make any sense they ordered my recall—your recall, that is. You’d better get in touch with them and tell them what happened.”

  “I’ll do that. Will you need any help in departing from Earth?”

  Karn’s eye-slits narrowed contemptuously. “I’m capable of getting back to my own world line, thanks. It’s not that hard to retrace my steps. And then I can continue my work.”

  “Continuing the job of bottling Earth up?”

  “In my world line,” Karn said with a trace of impatience, “the preservation of Hethivar is more important to us than the coddling of Earthers. Go ahead and be altruistic—or asinine; same thing. Luckily, my world line doesn’t have to face the consequences of your actions.” He chuckled. “In fact, strictly speaking, you don’t even exist.”

  The other said testily, “May I remind you that at the moment we’re both in my world line—and therefore you’re the nonexistent one?”

  “I’ll grant the point,” Karn said reluctantly. “But soon I’ll be back in my own continuum—the one in which I negotiated the Treaty of Dusseldorf. The one in which the Hethivari Network will endure for eternity to come, untroubled by Earthers.”

  “I wish you luck,” the other said dryly, and was gone.

  What had happened to Karn was humiliating and annoying, but not irremediable. He had been guilty of hasty calculating, that was all; nullspace has infinite exits, and he had chosen the exit adjoining his own. Exploring probability-worlds was something Karn preferred to leave to philosophers, poets, and other dreamers; he liked to stick to solid reality, the one real world line. All the others were mere phantoms—including, he thought in relief, the one he had just left. Earth satellites and atomics indeed! Nightmare!

  He blasted off from the New Jersey meadow immediately, and, carrying each calculation out to a dozen places this time, retraced his steps, returning the ship to orbit, then converting to nullspace, finally retranslating back into what he hoped was his own world line. He had done the routine arithmetic with scrupulous care this time. He had small fear of a second error.

  He thought about the other Earth, the other Karn, as he expertly guided his ship toward Earth a second time. Karn was no narrow fool; he could understand altruism—but not suicidal altruism. It was incredible to hear someone with his own name and identity declaring solemnly and with a straight face that the proper thing to do was to help Earth attain space.

  It was fantastic. But, Karn thought, that was what made probab
ility-worlds, after all. Now, in this world line, in the real universe—

  He brought the ship down toward Earth and was relieved to see no orbital satellites whirling round the planet. And his radiation detectors picked up no evidence of nuclear explosions; the particle count was comfortably normal for a world that had not yet learned to harness the power of the atom—for a world that never would learn to harness it.

  Karn felt warm relief. This was the world of the Treaty of Dusseldorf, at last.

  Calmly and confidently, he guided the ship through the upper atmospheric levels, down toward the same pleasantly green New Jersey meadow he had used for a landing area in that other world, the world he now wanted to forget. He landed under scramblers once again; there was quite possibly no need for them, but Karn had always been cautious and now was doubly so.

  He noted the time of landing in his records and prepared to leave the ship. Suddenly he sensed another intelligence nearby. For a wild instant he thought it was another Hethivarian, that he had blundered once again and landed in yet another world line than his own. But he calmed himself and realized that this was definitely alien, definitely an Earther—

  Entering the ship that was supposed to be undetectable by any method save neutrino-detector.

  The Earther took form to Karn’s left, against the inner wall of the ship. He was of medium height, stocky, with untidy reddish hair and coarse features. Shocked, Karn was caught midway between his own physical form and the Earthbody he adopted when dealing with the Earthers. The Hethivarian completed the change numbly, aghast at the presence of the Earther inside his ship.

  “You didn’t need to change shapes,” the Earther said mildly. “I can see you perfectly well as you really are. Short and squat, with wavy tendrils on your face, and that big eye in the middle of your skull—”