Astounding Science Fiction (UK Edition) — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

54 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE-FICTION Shorty shook his head vigorously. “You,” he said. The little man bent down and carefully selected a few stones out of the sand. He pocketed all but one, and fitted that into the leather insert of the sling shot. Then he sat down on a boulder and said, ““We needn’t hide. They’re dumb, those dinosaurs. They'll come right by here.” Shorty looked around him again. There were trees about a hundred yards back from the lake, strange and monstrous trees with gigantic leaves that were a much paler green than any trees he’d ever seen before. Be- tween the trees and the lake were only small, brownish, stunted bushes and a kind of coarse yellow grass. Something was missing. Shorty suddenly remembered what it was. “Where’s the time machine?” he asked. “Huh? Oh, right here.” The little man reached out a hand to his left and it dis- appeared up. to the elbow. ~ ~ “Oh,” said Shorty. “I wondered what it looked like.” “Looked like?” said the little man. “How could it look like anything? I told you that there isn’t any such thing as a time machine. There couldn’t be; it would be a complete paradox. Time is a fixed dimension. And when I proved that to myself, that’s what drove me crazy.” “When was that?” “About four million years from now, around 1941. I had my heart set on making one, and went batty when I couldn't.” “Oh,” said Shorty. “Listen, how come I couldn’t see you, up there in the future, and I can here? And which world of four million years ago is this; yours or mine?” “The same thing answers both of those questions. This is neutral ground; it’s before there was a bifurcation of sanity and in- sanity. The dinosaurs are awfully dumb; they haven’t got brains enough to be in- sane, let alone normal. They don’t know from anything.. They don’t know there couldn’t be a time machine. That’s why we can come here.” “Oh,” said Shorty again. And that held him for a while. Somehow it didn’t seem particularly strange any more that he should be waiting to see a dinosaur hunted with a sling shot. The mad part of it was that he should be waiting for a dinosaur at all. Granting that, it wouldn’t have seemed any sillier to have sat here waiting for one with a-— “Say,” he said, “if using a sling shot on those things is sporting, did you ever try a fly swatter?” The little man’s eyes lighted up. “That,” he said, “is an idea. Say, maybe you really are eligible for—” “No,” said Shorty hastily. “I was just kid- ding, honest. But, listen—” “I don’t hear anything.” “I don’t mean that; 1 mean—well, listen, pretty soon ’m going to wake up or some- thing, and there are a couple questions I’d like to ask while .. . while you're still here.” “You mean while youw’re still here,” said the little man. “I told you that your getting in on this with me was a pure accident, and one moreover that I’m going to have to take up with Napo—” “Damn Napoleon,” said Shorty. “Listen, can you answer this so I can understand it? Are we here, or aren’t we? I mean, if there’s a time machine there by you, how can it be there if there can’t be a time machine? And am I, or am I not, still back in Pro- fessor Dolohan’s classroom, and if I am, what am I doing here? And—oh, darn it; what’s it all about?” The little man smiled wistfully. “I can see that you are quite thoroughly mixed up. I might as well straighten you out. Do you know anything about logic?” “Well, a little, Mr... . uh—” “Call me Dopey. And if you know a little about logic, that’s your trouble. Just forget it and remember that I’m crazy, and that makes things different, doesn’t it? A crazy person doesn’t have to be logical. Our worlds are different, don’t you see? Now you’re what we call a normal; that is, you see things the same as everybody else. But we don’t. And since matter is most obviously a mere con- cept of mind—” ois it?” “Of course.” “But that’s according to Logie. Des- cartes—” The little man waved his sling shot airily. “Oh, yes. But not according to other phil- osophers. The dualists. That’s where the logicians cross us up. They divide into two camps and take diametrically opposite sides of a question, and they can’t both be wrong. Silly, isn’t it? But the fact remains that matter is a concept of consciousness, even if some people who aren’t really crazy think it is. Now there is a normal concept of matter, which you share, and a whole flock Ccomiclbooks.c©