Of All Possible Worlds
By WILLIAM TENN
Illustrated by GAUGHAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Galaxy Science Fiction December 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Changing the world is simple; the trick is
to do it before you have a chance to undo it!
It was a good job and Max Alben knew whom he had to thank for it—hisgreat-grandfather.
"Good old Giovanni Albeni," he muttered as he hurried into thelaboratory slightly ahead of the escorting technicians, all of them,despite the excitement of the moment, remembering to bob their headsdeferentially at the half-dozen full-fleshed and hard-faced menlolling on the couches that had been set up around the time machine.
He shrugged rapidly out of his rags, as he had been instructed in theanteroom, and stepped into the housing of the enormous mechanism.This was the first time he had seen it, since he had been taughthow to operate it on a dummy model, and now he stared at the greattransparent coils and the susurrating energy bubble with much respect.
This machine, the pride and the hope of 2089, was something almostoutside his powers of comprehension. But Max Alben knew how to run it,and he knew, roughly, what it was supposed to accomplish. He knew alsothat this was the first backward journey of any great duration and,being scientifically unpredictable, might well be the death of him.
"Good old Giovanni Albeni," he muttered again affectionately.
If his great-grandfather had not volunteered for the earliesttime-travel experiments way back in the nineteen-seventies, back evenbefore the Blight, it would never have been discovered that he and hisseed possessed a great deal of immunity to extra-temporal blackout.
And if that had not been discovered, the ruling powers of Earth, morethan a century later, would never have plucked Max Alben out of anobscure civil-service job as a relief guard at the North AmericanChicken Reservation to his present heroic and remunerative eminence.He would still be patrolling the barbed wire that surrounded the threewhite leghorn hens and two roosters—about one-sixth of the knownlivestock wealth of the Western Hemisphere—thoroughly content withthe half-pail of dried apricots he received each and every payday.
No, if his great-grandfather had not demonstrated long ago his uniquecapacity for remaining conscious during time travel, Max Alben wouldnot now be shifting from foot to foot in a physics laboratory,facing the black market kings of the world and awaiting their finalinstructions with an uncertain and submissive grin.
Men like O'Hara, who controlled mushrooms, Levney, the blackberrytycoon, Sorgasso, the packaged-worm monopolist—would black marketeersof their tremendous stature so much as waste a glance on someone likeAlben ordinarily, let alone confer a lifetime pension on his wife andfive children of a full spoonful each of non-synthetic sugar a day?
Even if he didn't come back, his family was provided for like almost noother family on Earth. This was a damn good job and he was lucky.
Alben noticed that Abd Sadha had risen from the straight chair atthe far side of the room and was approaching him with a sealed metalcylinder in one hand.
"We've decided to add a further precaution at the last moment," the oldman said. "That is, the scientists have suggested it and I have—er—Ihave given my approval."
The last remark was added