Next Door, Next World Part 6

"I'll tell you one thing to your face, colonel," Lance replied, hotly.

"I'm not off my rocker."

"No one has maintained you were," broke in Colonel Nordsen. "But Colonel Sagen had to throw a curtain around you fast."

"Why?"

Neither officer answered.

Finally, Colonel Sagen said, "I think you'd better continue with him, Colonel Nordsen."

Nordsen was a youthful-looking man for his rank, yet prematurely balding. He wore thick-sh.e.l.led gla.s.ses.

"Major Cooper," Nordsen began, "let's go back to when you put the _Cosmos XII_ through its first jump through hypers.p.a.ce. How well do you recall your experience?"

"I'll never forget it. You Earthbound kiwis should try it sometime."

"Did you experience a feeling ... perhaps, rather uncanny ... that the whole thing had happened to you before? What psychologists call the sense of _deja vu_?"

"No, I don't think so."

"Perhaps some other type of phenomenon was manifested? A feeling you'd been split in half, maybe."

"That did happen."

"Describe it."

"It was more than just being split in half. I felt like I was suddenly hundreds of selves. I could see other replicas of 'me' all around."

Nordsen nodded, thoughtfully. "That was what we call the 'Infinite Fission' syndrome. All those other 'you's' were personality matrices of yourself in alternate worlds. Did you notice anything else?"

Lance nodded, grudgingly.

"What?"

"Look, colonel. If I answer your questions, will you answer mine?"

"Any reasonable ones, yes. That's what we're here for."

"Well, there was the disturbing thing about the _Cosmos XII_, itself. I saw images of the ship riding along beside me, out there in the hype.

Where nothing material could possibly exist. Where not even light could reflect back, or any other wave propagation." Lance shook his head, recalling the experience. "What could have caused a hallucination like that?"

"It was no hallucination, Lance. It was real and has happened before. We can rest you easy on that point."

Colonel Nordsen removed tobacco from a pouch, stuffed his pipe, lit up.

Bluish smoke formed a halo about him.

"Lance, the s.p.a.ce Service has been sending ships through hypers.p.a.ce for nearly two years now. Only recently did anybody notice something was seriously wrong with the pilots who came back. Up until then ... oh, a pilot might act a little queer for a day or two. But who wouldn't, cooped up alone in a steel projectile for four weeks? We thought very little of it."

"Uh huh," was Lance Cooper's only comment.

Nordsen transferred his pipe to his hand. "But eventually, even the s.p.a.ce Service gets around to putting two and two together on the slipstick. The incidents kept piling up. A pilot comes back from Epsilon Eridani, for example, and insists on giving everybody left-handed salutes. Another has taken a scout ship to 61 Cygni. He insists at the Officers Club that Colonel Sagen here has a nickname of 'Old Hard-Head'.

n.o.body else on the base is aware of any such thing. Then, still another pilot--"

"Wait a minute!" Lance interrupted. "Hasn't he?"

"Hasn't what? I don't follow you."

"Colonel Sagen. Hasn't he got that nickname? I mean, it was a term of respect and liking, of course. But--"

"No," said Nordsen.

"No?" Lance echoed, disbelieving. "Since when?"

"Not since _ever_, major. Not on this particular track."

"Colonel Nordsen, you're losing me."

"Patience, please. I was about to tell you that still another pilot lands on our base, and he wears a blue tie. Claims the s.p.a.ce Service has always worn blue ties."

"I take it back," said Lance. "I'm a pilot and all pilots are slowly going nuts." Then, it occurred to him to evince more interest or they might ship him back to the brig sooner than expected. "A blue tie, huh?"

"And blue suede chukkas, to match," Colonel Sagen's hoa.r.s.e voice broke in. "Most unmilitary-looking uniform I ever saw on a s.p.a.ce officer."

Colonel Nordsen, the psychiatrist, set his pipe aside. "Gradually, we began building up a file of such weird discrepancies. Another pilot landed wearing a handle-bar mustache. He couldn't possibly have grown so much lip-hair in a month. Yet, the man claimed he'd sported the mustache for years; and that every officer in his squadron was decked out with one, too."

"Tell me just one thing," Lance pleaded. His nerves were gradually getting more on edge. "What has all this got to do with Carolyn Sagen?

Why is she being kept from me?"

Nordsen's eyebrows met, evincing a little displeasure. "Don't you get the drift, major? I've been trying to accomplish two things at the same time. Cushion a shock for you--and explain why what has happened has happened. There is no Carolyn Sagen. The colonel and his wife have always been childless."

Lance got belligerent. "Say that again!"

"There is no Carolyn Sagen here."

"What d'you mean, when you say 'here'?"

Nordsen took off his sh.e.l.l-rimmed gla.s.ses, wiped them, restored them to his boyish face. "I would advise you to brace yourself. By 'here,' I mean on this particular time-track."

Lance stared at him.

"Doesn't the word have any significance for you?" Nordsen asked.

"Time-track? Sure, I've heard of the concept before. It's a theory that parallel worlds branch off when ... hey!" Lance's tone rose to a shout.

"You're not trying to imply that ... that I'm on a diff--?"