"If you let more in," said Baum, "you'd relieve a lot of conditions on Earth."
"For how long? You're wasting your resources at an appalling rate and increasing so fast it'll soon be standing room only. And at the same time you're planning another ideological war that may blow up the planet."
"It's not us who are planning it," interrupted Baum.
"I know but I'm speaking generally. If we let a lot of you in it'd mean we'd soon be in the same fix—while those left behind would merely breed that much faster and be no better off than they were."
"How long has this been going on?"
"About thirty years. A physicist named Tanezaki discovered the way through but like a smart boy he kept it to himself until he was ready to let in a few carefully chosen colonists from various nations. It just happens that the life on Antichthon—"
"Where'd you get that name?"
"Classical literature. The life of Antichthon is in about the equivalent of your Mesozoic Era of evolution, so there are no intelligent inhabitants to worry about. Now, before you go ..."
"One more. Who's Dimai?"
"Franz Dimai, an Austrian Communist, only we didn't know it when we let him in. He ran out on us with the hope of blasting his way back in at the head of the forces of the so-called People's Democracies. Since he escaped in Antichthonion costume our men were looking for somebody dressed like that.
"It was a one-in-a-million coincidence that they happened to pick you up. You see even our super-psychologists miss once in a while." Harris grinned at Guzman. "As I was saying, we owe you for the inconvenience and if there's something we could do before you go back—money, for instance ..."
Baum thought fast. "Can you confer immortality?"
"Sorry, not yet. Another decade maybe."
"Well then, can your—uh—super-psychologists change or improve a man's character? Without his having to spend a year on a couch?"
"Reckon they can. Why, d'you feel in need of improvement? I'd have said you had a pretty solid character as you are."
Baum said, "Yes, but—It may sound silly but I want love. I want to be lovable. As Mr. Guzman said I'm one of those rigid characters everybody respects but nobody likes much. I'd like to be loosened up so I'd be popular and attractive. To women, for instance."
"Ah! We'll see. Jose, can you make Mr. Baum popular and truly sought-after without lowering his reliability to the danger-point?"
At that moment the telephone rang. Harris picked up the handset, listened, and replaced it with a chuckle. "We needn't worry about Dimai any more. He's been liquidated as a deviationist. Seems he told his story to the bigshots, who decided the idea of another continuum was idealistic fascisto-bourgeois monopoly-capitalist imperialist propaganda and therefore couldn't be true. Well, Jose?"
Guzman brooded over the question for a few seconds and said, "I think so. The Bendix treatment should do it. It may lower his index a few tenths of a point but that means nothing to us. Will you come now, Mr. Baum?"
NINE months later (Earth time) the Antichthonian receptionist heard the code knock 3-2-3-1 on the other side of the portal. He threw the switch. As the mirror faded into a shimmer of lines of force, a dark chunky curly-haired man stepped through. The receptionist recognized Marius Baum. Not having been told to admit Baum, he instantly pushed an alarm button.
Five minutes later Baum, handcuffed to two armed guards, was marched into Harris's office. Harris looked glumly at his Earthly acquaintance.
"I'm sorry for you," he said. "Whatever possessed you to do such a thing? You knew we consider illegal entry a serious crime."
"When I explain," said Baum, "I don't think you'll mind. At least, not if you're that fussy about justice. To make a long story short I want you to change me back the way I was. Then destroy my memories of visiting here and send me back through your trick looking-glass. That way I can't hurt you because I won't even know about you."
"I'll be hornswoggled!" cried Harris. "What's happened?"
"If you'll let me sit—thanks. Guzman's treatments worked too well."
"How's that possible?"
"I went around smiling at strangers and kidding the girls and before I knew it Violet Rogers and I were married and I'd been promoted one grade and assigned a secretary of my own. Pretty little thing too—Heloise Fabry. I used to have lunch with her in that lousy government cafeteria and before I knew it she was madly in love with me, not even knowing I had one wife.
"What with one thing and another she high-pressured me into marrying her too. Not that I was really in love with her but I loved everybody too much to hurt her feelings by telling her I was already married.
"Well, maybe you can get away with bigamy if your job takes you traveling so you can raise your two or three families in different cities. But not in my set-up. I should have known what would happen—but without the old Baum rigidity I couldn't resist temptation. And sure enough Vi called the office when I was out and Heloise answered.
"By a funny coincidence that was also the day when my boss told me he was so sorry but my recent promotion was rescinded and I was to be taken off confidential work and given some routine paper-shuffling job.
"Seems I'd become so popular I'd attracted a swarm of friends who were always hanging around the office to gas or hauling me into a beer-parlor after work to get soaked. So much so that now the heads didn't consider me a good security risk any more. The way they put it, I had been an ideal man for the job but I'd grown—too indiscriminately friendly, they said.
"Next thing I was in jail for bigamy and out of my editorship. When the Lab found out about my arrest they suspended me on a suspicion of moral turpitude and if I'm convicted I'm automatically fired.
"What's more, Violet's applied for a divorce, so it looks as though I'd end up with no wives, since my marriage to Heloise was illegal, just living in sin. I'm out on bail, waiting for my trial.
"My lawyer says he could get me off if I'd done these acts in a state of amnesia, but that the prosecution's psychiatrists can spot a fake case of amnesia in no time. So the only way out is for you to give me some genuine amnesia."
"But," said Harris, "why have your personality changed?"
"So I won't get into trouble like this again! When you've lived with a personality for thirty years you know what to expect, but when a brand new one is thrust upon you, no matter how good it looks on paper, it's certainly apt to throw you."
"You wouldn't want Guzman to make just a slight adjustment?"
"No! I want the old Baum back! He had his faults but he didn't do badly by me. Never anything like this mess. And after this I'm going to look gift horses so carefully in the mouth I could be a veterinary dentist."
"Very well," sighed Harris. "I'm sorry it turned out this way. Who said there are only two tragedies in life—not to get what you want and to get what you want?"
"Wilde?" said Baum.
"I think so. How right he was!" said Harris and pressed the lever of the squawk-box to call Guzman.