Authentic Science Fiction Monthly No. 46 — page 58: what you’re looking at

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

SAVIOUR casion in the canteen, except that this time he wasn’t dressed in tattered work clothes. ‘All right,” Patrick said, keeping his voice low and controlled so that he wouldn’t shriek out, one after another, the million questions that fought for prominence on his tongue. “How—how long have I been here?’’ he asked, at last. “Something like eleven hours, most of which time you’ve been sound asleep.” “You found me and brought me here ?”’ -The old man shook his head. “‘No,” he said, “‘you came on your own.” He remembered the tunnel, the painful crawling along, the wall. ““But—but how?” “You mean you still don’t know?” He hadn’t dared to think about it that other time, when he’d found himself in the tunnel because—well, because he’d never had it happen to him before. But he’d done something /ike it before; he’d made the toy robotplane move about, and he’d helped Mar- garet to move the spoon. And if he could do things like that why wouldn’t it be possible fer him to . .°..? “Did I—did I sort of think myself here?” Whittam nodded. ‘“‘That’s more or less exactly what you did,”’ he agreed, still with the smile on his face. ‘““And you knew I could do it? You knew, that first time, in the canteen, that I’d come here like this ?”’ “No,” the old man told him. “I couldn’t know what would happen, but only what might. From every point of every line on the Fan there start up other Fans, each with an infinite number of lines, and because of this none of us can see the certainties, but only the possibilities and sometimes the probabilities.”’ “Fan?*. said . Patrick, blankly. ‘““What Fan?’ The old man sighed, fetched an upright chair from the far wall of the little room and brought it over to the bed. He straddled it, then, resting his arms on its back, keeping his eyes on Patrick’s face. “You want the story,” he said. It was not a question, but a statement. ““Yes, yes. How did I-——” The old man cut off his question with a movement of his hand. “This story,’ he said, “doesn’t start with you at all. It’s a story that goes back quite a way, and if you comicloolks.com