He sent the musicians away after he received a grudging “yes” in answer to his question, when he asked if it would be at least a couple of hours before the vremeatron would be fixed.
By nine o’clock Sunday morning Professor Hewett admitted that the repairs would probably take most of the day, not including the time needed to find replacement tubes on a Sunday in Los Angeles. Barney, hollowly, said that, after all, they had plenty of time. After all the picture wasn’t due until the following morning.
Late Sunday night Barney fell asleep for the first time, but he woke up with a start after only a few minutes and could not get back to sleep again.
At 5 A.M. on Monday morning the professor announced that the rewiring was complete and that he was going to sleep for an hour. After that he would leave and try to obtain the missing tubes.
At 9 A.M. Barney phoned and discovered that the representatives of the bank had arrived and were waiting for him. He gurgled and hung up.
At nine-thirty the phone rang, and when he picked it up the girl on the switchboard told him that the entire studio was being turned upside down trying to locate him, and that L.M. himself had personally talked to her and asked her if she knew where Mr. Hendrickson was. Barney hung up on her too.
At ten-thirty he knew it was hopeless. Hewett had not returned, nor had he phoned. And even if he arrived at that moment it was too late. The picture could not possibly be finished in time.
It was all over. He had tried, and he had failed. Walking over to L.M.’s office was like trodding the last mile—which it really was.
He hesitated outside L.M.’s door, considered suicide as an alternative, decided he did not have the guts, then pushed the door open.
16
“Don’t go in there,” a voice said, and a hand reached past Barney and pulled his away from the door, which sighed shut automatically in his face.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he shouted, anger bubbling over, spinning about to face the other man.
“Just preventing you from making a mistake, stupid,” the other said, and grinned widely as Barney stumbled backward, with his jaw dropping and his eyes opening wide.
“A very nice take,” the man said. “Maybe you should be acting in films, not directing them.”
“You’re… me…” Barney said weakly, looking at himself wearing his best pair of whipcord slacks, his horsehide Air Force pilot’s jacket and carrying a can of film under his arm.
“Very observant,” the other Barney said, smiling wickedly. “Hold this a sec.” He held out the can to Barney, then dug into his hip pocket to get out his wallet.
“What… ?” Barney said. “What… ?” looking at the label on the can, which read Viking Columbus—Reel One.
The other Barney took a folded scrap of paper out of his wallet and held it out to Barney—who noticed for the first time that his right hand was covered with a bulky, reddened bandage.
“What happened to my hand—your hand?” Barney asked, gazing in horror at the bandage while the can was snatched away from him and the piece of paper was thrust into his palm.
“Give that to the Prof,” the duplicate Barney said, “and stop horsing around and finish the picture, will you?” He held L.M.’s office door open as a page came down the hall pushing a handcart loaded with a dozen cans of film. The page glanced back and forth at the two men, shrugged, and went in. The other Barney followed him and the door swung shut.
“The hand, what happened to the hand?” Barney said weakly to the closed door. He started to push it open, then shuddered and changed his mind. The scrap of paper caught his attention and he unfolded it. It was part of a sheet of ordinary writing paper, torn along one edge and blank on one side. There was no writing on the other side either, just a sketch that had been drawn quickly with a ball-point pen.
It meant nothing to Barney. He folded it and put it away in his wallet—and with a sudden jar he remembered the cans of film.
“I’ve finished the picture!” he cried aloud. “It’s done and I’ve just delivered it on time.” Two passing secretaries turned their heads and giggled at him; he scowled back at them and walked away.
What had the other Barney said to him? Stop horsing around and finish the film. Would he finish it? It looked like he would—if there had been anything in the cans. But how could he finish it now, after the deadline, and still turn it in on time?
“I don’t understand,” he mumbled to himself as he walked across the lot to sound stage B. Even the sight of the professor working on the vremeatron did not disturb his whirling thoughts. He stood on the time platform and tried to understand what had happened, or what was going to happen, but fatigue combined with the shock of talking to himself had temporarily disconnected his reasoning powers.
“The repairs are finished,” Professor Hewett said, wiping his hands on a rag. “We can return now to the year 1005.”
“Take it away,” Barney said, and reached for his wallet.
Even though it was a sunny day in Newfoundland it appeared dull after the California sunlight, and the air was certainly a good deal cooler.
“What time did we leave the studio just now?” Barney asked.
“1203 hours on Monday. And no complaints, if you please. That was very fast work I did on the repairs when you consider the damage done by that microcephalic musical oaf.”
“No complaints, Prof. I’m beginning to think we still stand a chance to get this picture in by the deadline. I met myself in the building, and I saw myself delivering cans of film labeled Viking Columbus.”
“Impossible!”
“Very easy to say, but maybe you have as big a shock coming as I had. I told me, or he told me or however the hell you say it, to give this to you. Can you figure it out?”
The professor took one glance at the paper and smiled broadly. “Of course,” he said. “How stupid of me. The facts were obvious, right under my nose all the time, so to speak, and I never saw them. How simple the problem is.”
“Could you bring yourself to explain it to me?” Barney said impatiently.
“The diagram represents two voyages through time, and the smaller arc on the right is the one that is of interest because it explains where the other ‘you’ came from with the cans of film. Yes, it is possible to still complete the film and deliver it before the specified deadline.”
“How?” Barney asked, squinting at the diagram, which conveyed exactly nothing to him.
“You will now complete the picture, and it is of no importance how much time you consume after the deadline. When the picture is complete you will be at point B on this diagram. Point A is the time the film is due, and you simply return to a time before A, deliver the picture, then return to B. How magnificently simple.”
Barney clutched the paper. “Let me get this straight. Are you telling me that I can make the film after the deadline, then return to a time before the deadline to deliver the film?”
“I am.”
“It sounds nuts.”
“Intelligence resembles insanity only to the stupid.”
“I’ll forget that remark—if you can answer me one thing. This piece of paper with the diagram”—he shook it under the professor’s nose—“who drew it.”
“I’m sure I do not know, having just seen it for the first time.”
“Then think. I was handed this paper on Monday morning in front of L.M.’s office. I show it to you now. Then I’m going to put it in my wallet and carry it around until the picture is finished. Then I’ll travel back in time to deliver the picture to L.M. I meet the old me in front of the office, take the diagram out of my wallet and hand it over to myself to be put back into the wallet and so forth. Now does that make sense to you?”