The Worlds of If
Page 4
cool and humorous, yet sympathetic andserious, and as pretty as a Majolica figurine.
We could scarcely realize it when the steward passed along to takeorders for luncheon. Four hours out? It seemed like forty minutes. Andwe had a pleasant feeling of intimacy in the discovery that both of usliked lobster salad and detested oysters. It was another bond; I toldher whimsically that it was an omen, nor did she object to consideringit so.
Afterwards we walked along the narrow aisle to the glassed-inobservation room up forward. It was almost too crowded for entry, but wedidn't mind that at all, as it forced us to sit very close together. Westayed long after both of us had begun to notice the stuffiness of theair.
It was just after we had returned to our seats that the catastropheoccurred. There was no warning save a sudden lurch, the result, Isuppose, of the pilot's futile last-minute attempt to swerve--just thatand then a grinding crash and a terrible sensation of spinning, andafter that a chorus of shrieks that were like the sounds of battle.
It _was_ battle. Five hundred people were picking themselves up from thefloor, were trampling each other, milling around, being cast helplesslydown as the great rocket-plane, its left wing but a broken stub, circleddownward toward the Atlantic.
The shouts of officers sounded and a loudspeaker blared. "Be calm," itkept repeating, and then, "There has been a collision. We have contacteda surface ship. There is no danger-- There is no danger--"
I struggled up from the debris of shattered seats. Joanna was gone; justas I found her crumpled between the rows, the ship struck the water witha jar that set everything crashing again. The speaker blared, "Put onthe cork belts under the seats. The life-belts are under the seats."
I dragged a belt loose and snapped it around Joanna, then donned onemyself. The crowd was surging forward now, and the tail end of the shipbegan to drop. There was water behind us, sloshing in the darkness asthe lights went out. An officer came sliding by, stooped, and fastened abelt about an unconscious woman ahead of us. "You all right?" he yelled,and passed on without waiting for an answer.
The speaker must have been cut on to a battery circuit. "And get as faraway as possible," it ordered suddenly. "Jump from the forward port andget as far away as possible. A ship is standing by. You will be pickedup. Jump from the--". It went dead again.
I got Joanna untangled from the wreckage. She was pale; her silvery eyeswere closed. I started dragging her slowly and painfully toward theforward port, and the slant of the floor increased until it was like theslide of a ski-jump. The officer passed again. "Can you handle her?" heasked, and again dashed away.
I was getting there. The crowd around the port looked smaller, or was itsimply huddling closer? Then suddenly, a wail of fear and despair wentup, and there was a roar of water. The observation room walls had given.I saw the green surge of waves, and a billowing deluge rushed down uponus. I had been late again.
That was all. I raised shocked and frightened eyes from thesubjunctivisor to face van Manderpootz, who was scribbling on the edgeof the table.
"Well?" he asked.
I shuddered. "Horrible!" I murmured. "We--I guess we wouldn't have beenamong the survivors."
"We, eh? _We?_" His eyes twinkled.
I did not enlighten him. I thanked him, bade him good-night, and wentdolorously home.
* * * * *
Even my father noticed something queer about me. The day I got to theoffice only five minutes late, he called me in for some anxiousquestioning as to my health. I couldn't tell him anything, of course.How could I explain that I'd been late once too often, and had fallen inlove with a girl two weeks after she was dead?
The thought drove me nearly crazy. Joanna! Joanna with her silvery eyesnow lay somewhere at the bottom of the Atlantic. I went around halfdazed, scarcely speaking. One night I actually lacked the energy to gohome and sat smoking in my father's big overstuffed chair in his privateoffice until I finally dozed off. The next morning, when old N. J.entered and found me there before him, he turned pale as paper,staggered, and gasped, "My heart!" It took a lot of explaining toconvince him that I wasn't early at the office but just very late goinghome.
At last I felt that I couldn't stand it. I had to do something--anythingat all. I thought finally of the subjunctivisor. I could see--yes, Icould see what would have transpired if the ship hadn't been wrecked! Icould trace out that weird, unreal romance hidden somewhere in theworlds of "if". I could, perhaps, wring a somber, vicarious joy from thethings that might have been. I could see Joanna once more!
It was late afternoon when I rushed over to van Manderpootz's quarters.He wasn't there; I encountered him finally in the hall of the PhysicsBuilding.
"Dick!" he exclaimed. "Are you sick?"
"Sick? No. Not physically. Professor. I've got to use yoursubjunctivisor again. I've _got_ to!"
"Eh? Oh--that toy. You're too late, Dick. I've dismantled it. I have abetter use for the space."
I gave a miserable groan and was tempted to damn the autobiography ofthe great van Manderpootz. A gleam of sympathy showed in his eyes, andhe took my arm, dragging me into the little office adjoining hislaboratory.
"Tell me," he commanded.
I did. I guess I made the tragedy plain enough, for his heavy brows knitin a frown of pity. "Not even van Manderpootz can bring back the dead,"he murmured. "I'm sorry, Dick. Take your mind from the affair. Even weremy subjunctivisor available, I wouldn't permit you to use it. That wouldbe but to turn the knife in the wound." He paused. "Find something elseto occupy your mind. Do as van Manderpootz does. Find forgetfulness inwork."
"Yes," I responded dully. "But who'd want to read my autobiography?That's all right for you."
"Autobiography? Oh! I remember. No, I have abandoned that. Historyitself will record the life and works of van Manderpootz. Now I amengaged in a far grander project."
"Indeed?" I was utterly, gloomily disinterested.
"Yes. Gogli has been here, Gogli the sculptor. He is to make a bust ofme. What better legacy can I leave to the world than a bust of vanManderpootz, sculptured from life? Perhaps I shall present it to thecity, perhaps to the university. I would have given it to the RoyalSociety if they had been a little more receptive, if they--if--_if_!"The last in a shout.
"Huh?"
"_If!_" cried van Manderpootz. "What you saw in the subjunctivisor waswhat would have happened _if_ you had caught the ship!"
"I know that."
"But something quite different might really have happened! Don't yousee? She--she-- Where are those old newspapers?"
He was pawing through a pile of them. He flourished one finally. "Here!Here are the survivors!"
Like letters of flame, Joanna Caldwell's name leaped out at me. Therewas even a little paragraph about it, as I saw once my reeling brainpermitted me to read:
"At least a score of survivors owe their lives to the bravery of twenty-eight-year-old Navigator Orris Hope, who patrolled both aisles during the panic, lacing life-belts on the injured and helpless, and carrying many to the port. He remained on the sinking liner until the last, finally fighting his way to the surface through the broken walls of the observation room. Among those who owe their lives to the young officer are: Patrick Owensby, New York City; Mrs. Campbell Warren, Boston; Miss Joanna Caldwell, New York City--"
I suppose my shout of joy was heard over in the Administration Building,blocks away. I didn't care; if van Manderpootz hadn't been armored instubby whiskers, I'd have kissed him. Perhaps I did anyway; I can't besure of my actions during those chaotic minutes in the professor's tinyoffice.
At last I calmed. "I can look her up!" I gloated. "She must have landedwith the other survivors, and they were all on that British trampfreighter the _Osgood_, that docked here last week. She must be in NewYork--and if she's gone over to Paris, I'll find out and follow her!"
Well, it's a queer ending. She was in New York, but--you see, DixonWells had, so to speak, known Joanna Caldwell by me
ans of theprofessor's subjunctivisor, but Joanna had never known Dixon Wells. Whatthe ending might have been if--_if_-- But it wasn't; she had marriedOrris Hope, the young officer who had rescued her. I was late again.