TIME AND TIME AGAIN
BY H. BEAM PIPER
Illustrated by Napoli
[Transcriber's note: This etext was produced from Astounding ScienceFiction April 1947. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe copyright on this publication was renewed.]
To upset the stable, mighty stream of time would probably take anenormous concentration of energy. And it's not to be expected thata man would get a second chance at life. But an atomic mightaccomplish both—
Blinded by the bomb-flash and numbed by the narcotic injection, he couldnot estimate the extent of his injuries, but he knew that he was dying.Around him, in the darkness, voices sounded as through a thick wall.
"They mighta left mosta these Joes where they was. Half of them won'teven last till the truck comes."
"No matter; so long as they're alive, they must be treated," anothervoice, crisp and cultivated, rebuked. "Better start taking names, whilewe're waiting."
"Yes, sir." Fingers fumbled at his identity badge. "Hartley, Allan;Captain, G5, Chem. Research AN/73/D. Serial, SO-23869403J."
"Allan Hartley!" The medic officer spoke in shocked surprise. "Why, he'sthe man who wrote 'Children of the Mist', 'Rose of Death', and'Conqueror's Road'!"
He tried to speak, and must have stirred; the corpsman's voicesharpened.
"Major, I think he's part conscious. Mebbe I better give him 'nothershot."
"Yes, yes; by all means, sergeant."
Something jabbed Allan Hartley in the back of the neck. Soft billows ofoblivion closed in upon him, and all that remained to him was a tinyspark of awareness, glowing alone and lost in a great darkness.
The Spark grew brighter. He was more than a something that merely knewthat it existed. He was a man, and he had a name, and a military rank,and memories. Memories of the searing blue-green flash, and of what hehad been doing outside the shelter the moment before, and memories ofthe month-long siege, and of the retreat from the north, and memories ofthe days before the War, back to the time when he had been little AllanHartley, a schoolboy, the son of a successful lawyer, in Williamsport,Pennsylvania.
His mother he could not remember; there was only a vague impression ofthe house full of people who had tried to comfort him for something hecould not understand. But he remembered the old German woman who hadkept house for his father, afterward, and he remembered his bedroom,with its chintz-covered chairs, and the warm-colored patch quilt on theold cherry bed, and the tan curtains at the windows, edged with duskyred, and the morning sun shining through them. He could almost see them,now.
He blinked. He could see them!
For a long time, he lay staring at them unbelievingly, and then hedeliberately closed his eyes and counted ten seconds, and as he counted,terror gripped him. He was afraid to open them again, lest he findhimself blind, or gazing at the filth and wreckage of a blasted city,but when he reached ten, he forced himself to look, and gave a sigh ofrelief. The sunlit curtains and the sun-gilded mist outside were stillthere.
He reached out to check one sense against another, feeling the roughmonk's cloth and the edging of maroon silk thread. They were tangible aswell as visible. Then he saw that the back of his hand was unscarred.There should have been a scar, souvenir of a rough-and-tumble brawl ofhis cub reporter days. He examined both hands closely. An instant later,he had sat up in bed and thrown off the covers, partially removing hispajamas and inspecting as much of his body