The vertigo hook

Anyone still in doubt as to who won the Civil War ought to read this story. It gives a definite if entirely unsuspected answer.

Even among those who accept time travel as at least a theoretical possibility, there exists a tendency to regard this unseen fourth dimension as something which moves back and forth along a single track. However, now and again some ingenious soul arises with a suggestion that time may move in other directions as well. Not since Murray Leinster's memorable "Sidewise in Time" have we met such a scramble as this.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe October-November 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

It was a long way in time and dimension from his friendly home seas and the Irritant was hungry and ill-humored. The voids about him looked cold, unrelieved by any twinkling of tasty intellect. Not even the flicker of an edible consciousness for eons around. Crossly the Irritant baited a line and cast it in all directions. The bait was a tangled skein of thoughts about Conflict. The hook, a hard and slender curve of sharpened Vertigo.

He began trolling through the blankness of Time....

The Major in Air Corps blues pulled a bound sheaf of papers from his smart brief and slid them across the table. "Of course, Ed, my say-so can pet pretty damn lost between here and the Pentagon but I think you're a cinch for the job."

He plucked the short cigarette from between his thin lips and snubbed it out in the overflowing petri-dish that served as an ashtray. "And"--Major Hall cocked a speculative eye at his friend--"I can't think of a better way for you to get this joint out of the red."

"Quicker, you mean--not better." Ed Wilkes riffled through the specification booklet. "Lump this for me, huh?"

"Right. But first you tell me something, chum. Why should you, an M.I.T. honor grad--a laddie with more degrees than the Kremlin has Reds--bury yourself down here in the mouldering South, presiding angel over the destiny of an insignificant little college?"

He waved his hand in an encompassing gesture that pointed up the stained lab table, the cracks in the wall and ceiling, the general air of save and make do that characterized the entire campus. "Insignificant and crumbling even when Lincoln was president."

"I like Virginia," Wilkes replied. "I am not buried, I am not presiding angel but just Chair of Higher Math--and this place was new in Lincoln's time. I have no intention of fighting the Civil War with you just now but allow me to say--as a Northerner, mind you--that the South has done pretty good. Now sum up this sheaf of High Brass doubletalk." He tossed the papers back to Major Hall. "First, though, let me call in Mosby."

"Who and why?"

Ed swiveled around and flicked a switch on an office-to-office phone. "Worked with me before the war on the argon-valve gimmick."

"The what?"

"A widget to help stabilize thiotimoline," he obliged with bland level gaze.

"Oh."

Wilkes jiggled the switch again. "Hello, Doc Mosby? Wilkes. Got something that might interest you. Wouldst cross the hall and look in? Swell." He hung up. "You'll like Mosby, Pete. Smart as hell. Awful nice to work with too. We've both got classes this summer."

The door opened and a handsome woman came in, an expectant questioning tilt to the dark wings of her brows. She was in her middle thirties, her bright blond hair tucked into a trim bun, and wore a severely tailored linen suit that almost managed to hide an interesting body.

"Julie, this is Major Peter Hall. He sat out part of the war with me at Wright Field. Pete, Doctor Julie Mosby. Chair of Physics, builder of vigorous martinis and good guy."