Time and Time Again

Time and Time Again, by Henry Beam
Piper

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Title: Time and Time Again
Author: Henry Beam Piper
Illustrator: Napoli
Release Date: July 15, 2006 [EBook #18831]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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TIME AND TIME AGAIN
BY H. BEAM PIPER
Illustrated by Napoli
[Transcriber's note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction April 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this publication
was renewed.]
To upset the stable, mighty stream of time would probably take an enormous
concentration of energy. And it's not to be expected that a man would get a second

chance at life. But an atomic might accomplish both--
Blinded by the bomb-flash and numbed by the narcotic injection, he could not estimate
the extent of his injuries, but he knew that he was dying. Around him, in the darkness,
voices sounded as through a thick wall.
"They mighta left mosta these Joes where they was. Half of them won't even last till the
truck comes."
"No matter; so long as they're alive, they must be treated," another voice, crisp and
cultivated, rebuked. "Better start taking names, while we're waiting."
"Yes, sir." Fingers fumbled at his identity badge. "Hartley, Allan; Captain, G5, Chem.
Research AN/73/D. Serial, SO-23869403J."
"Allan Hartley!" The medic officer spoke in shocked surprise. "Why, he's the man who
wrote 'Children of the Mist', 'Rose of Death', and 'Conqueror's Road'!"
He tried to speak, and must have stirred; the corpsman's voice sharpened.
"Major, I think he's part conscious. Mebbe I better give him 'nother shot."
"Yes, yes; by all means, sergeant."
Something jabbed Allan Hartley in the back of the neck. Soft billows of oblivion closed
in upon him, and all that remained to him was a tiny spark of awareness, glowing alone
and lost in a great darkness.
* * * * *
The Spark grew brighter. He was more than a something that merely knew that it existed.
He was a man, and he had a name, and a military rank, and memories. Memories of the
searing blue-green flash, and of what he had been doing outside the shelter the moment
before, and memories of the month-long siege, and of the retreat from the north, and
memories of the days before the War, back to the time when he had been little Allan
Hartley, a schoolboy, the son of a successful lawyer, in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
His mother he could not remember; there was only a vague impression of the house full
of people who had tried to comfort him for something he could not understand. But he
remembered the old German woman who had kept house for his father, afterward, and he
remembered his bedroom, with its chintz-covered chairs, and the warm-colored patch
quilt on the old cherry bed, and the tan curtains at the windows, edged with dusky red,
and the morning sun shining through them. He could almost see them, now.
He blinked. He could see them!
* * * * *

For a long time, he lay staring at them unbelievingly, and then he deliberately closed his
eyes and counted ten seconds, and as he counted, terror gripped him. He was afraid to
open them again, lest he find himself blind, or gazing at the filth and wreckage of a
blasted city, but when he reached ten, he forced himself to look, and gave a sigh of relief.
The sunlit curtains and the sun-gilded mist outside were still there.
He reached out to check one sense against another, feeling the rough monk's cloth and the
edging of maroon silk thread. They were tangible as well as visible. Then he saw that the
back of his hand was unscarred. There should have been a scar, souvenir of a
rough-and-tumble brawl of his cub reporter days. He examined both hands closely. An
instant later, he had sat up in bed and thrown off the covers, partially removing his
pajamas and inspecting as much of his body as was visible.
It was the smooth body of a little boy.
That was ridiculous. He was a man of forty-three; an army officer, a chemist, once a
best-selling novelist. He had been married, and divorced ten years ago. He looked again
at his body. It was only twelve years old. Fourteen, at the very oldest.