Space For Hire (Seven For Space) Read Online Free PDF Page A

happened, making it brief. "I was hired by this triplehead from Venus to guard a shipment of spare bodies. Before I could get the job done I was waylaid by a babe with winking nips. She conned me into coming up to her unit in Allnew York where I was sapped and transferred from my world to this parallel one."
    "For what purpose?"
    "They wanted me out of the picture for their own reasons. So they pulled the old parallel universe switcheroo."
    Oliver nodded, double chins wobbling. He walked to the drinkcab and fixed me another Scotch. While I downed it he pondered the situation. Nate always loved to ponder situations.
    "You've come to me because you think that I may be able to send you back?"
    "You guessed it, Nate," I said. "When we knew each other, in my world, you had the same job here at the Museum, restoring 20th-Century movie art, but your hobby involved time and space transportation. You were able to send trees and bushes into other dimensions. But I wasn't sure, in this universe, that you still had the same hobby. But you were worth a try."
    "Oh, I do indeed putter about with time," he assured me. "Just last week I successfully transported a male gorilla into another universe. At least I think that's where he went. My indicator indicated it. With gorillas, you can't be sure of anything."
    "Ever tried it with a human?"
    "Not yet." His eyes gleamed in padded flesh. "You'll be my first."
    We entered his workroom, the area in which he restored the cinema artifacts which made up the museum's collection. Half-restored studio backdrops, in sections, were scattered about the long workroom. Film star posters were everywhere, in various stages of repair. A giant rubber boulder stood in one corner, next to a rubber cliff. Both were seedy and peeling.
    "I've been tinkering with this time stuff long enough to feel fairly secure in what I do," said Nate, bypassing the cinema items and leading me toward his hobby lab. "The amusing thing is, with two Sam Spaces involved, I should have immediately realized that you'd been transported." He rumbled with inner laughter, holding his vast stomach. "The joke's on old Nathan!"
    "What worries me," I admitted, "is that there's bound to be an infinite number of universes in which Nathan Oliver didn't become a time tinkerer and I didn't become a private detective. What if I end up in one of those?"
    "What you say is true. However, the closest ones to us in the cosmic stream are almost identical to our own. An incident or two may vary, yet the basic patterns are fixed. Since you were killed in the act of being hired for your present assignment we must assume that you are in a direct-line universe — which makes sending you back much less complicated."
    Oliver's hobby lab was a mass of tubes, vats, switches and vegetation. He had plants and small trees sitting next to bushes and barrel cactus. I snagged my coat on a thorn.
    "Over here, Sam," he directed.
    Oliver took a potted petunia out of a tall, cone-shaped receptacle and waved me inside. "You take the petunia's place," he instructed me. "I was about to send it off. I'll send you instead."
    "I hope you know where the hell I'm going," I said. This whole business seemed to verge on the haphazard, and I was rapidly losing faith in the fat man. If he fouled this, I could end up anywhere. And maybe the next Nathan Oliver, if I could find him, wouldn't know a damn thing about parallel universes. I'd be stuck for sure. I began to sweat.
    "Don't worry about a thing," soothed Oliver, fingering several small dials along the side of the metal cone. "I'll have you back home in wink." He peered intently at me. "When did you awaken in this universe? What time was it? That's important."
    "Exactly 01800 hours. I checked the tree shadows. I'm never wrong on tree shadows."
    "Hmmmm … and when were you attacked? — in your world, I mean."
    I ran a slow finger along my chin. "I'll have to estimate. Let's see — we left the Agnew at 01600 and took a cab right out