The First Murray Leinster by Murray Leinster
Author:Murray Leinster
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: science fiction, pulp, sci-fi, adventure, space opera
Publisher: Wildside Press LLC
Published: 2016-08-22T16:00:00+00:00
SAM, THIS IS YOU
Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, May 1955.
You are not supposed to believe this story, and if you ask Sam Yoder about it, he is apt to say that itâs all a lie. But Sam is a bit sensitive about it. He does not want the question of privacy to be raised againâespecially in Rosieâs hearing. And there are other matters. But itâs all perfectly respectable and straightforward.
It could have happened to anybodyâwell, almost anybody. Anybody, say, who was a telephone lineman for the Batesville and Rappahannock Telephone Company, and who happened to be engaged to Rosie, and who had been told admiringly by Rosie that a man as smart as he was ought to make something wonderful of himself. And, of course, anybody whoâd taken that seriously and had been puttering around on a device to make private conversations on a party-line telephone possible, and almost had the trick.
It began about six oâclock on July second, when Sam was up a telephone pole near Bridgeâs Run. He was hunting for the place where that party line had gone dead. Heâd hooked in his linemanâs phone and he couldnât raise Central, so he was just going to start looking for the break when his phone rang back, though the line had checked dead.
Startled, he put the receiver to his ear. âHello. Whoâs this?â
âSam, this is you,â a voice replied.
âHuh?â said Sam. âWhatâs that?â
âThis is you,â the voice on the wire repeated. âYou, Sam Yoder. Donât you recognize your own voice? This is you, Sam Yoder, calling from the twelfth of July. Donât hang up!â
Sam hadnât even thought of hanging up. He was annoyed. He was up a telephone pole, trying to do some work, resting in his safety belt and with his climbing irons safely fixed in the wood. Naturally, he thought somebody was trying to joke with him, and when a man is working is no time for jokes.
âIâm not hanging up,â said Sam dourly, âbut youâd better!â
The voice was familiar, though he couldnât quite place it. If it talked a little more, he undoubtedly would. He knew it just about as well as he knew his own, and it was irritating not to be able to call this joker by name.
The voice said, âSam, itâs the second of July where you are, and youâre up a pole by Bridgeâs Run. The lineâs dead in two places, else I couldnât talk to you. Lucky, ainât it?â
âWhoever you are,â Sam said formidably, âit ainât going to be lucky for you if you ever need telephone service and youâve kept wasting my time. Iâm busy!â
âBut Iâm you!â insisted the voice persuasively. âAnd youâre me! Weâre both the same Sam Yoder, only where I am, itâs July twelfth. Where you are, itâs July second. Youâve heard of time-traveling. Well, this is time-talking. Youâre talking to yourselfâthatâs meâand Iâm talking to myselfâthatâs youâand it looks like weâve got a mighty good chance to get rich.â
Then something came into Samâs memory
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