Thrice upon a Time Read Online Free PDF Page A

from Grandpa when we first came in. We didn't think of trying to fool it that time because we didn't know what was going on. So what was the difference?"
    "You just said it," Lee replied. "'We didn't know.' Somehow that in itself was enough to change what happened afterward." Murdoch nodded. Lee thought for a moment, then went on, "Maybe that's not so strange. Present intentions affect future actions all the time. You decided you weren't going to send anything, and sure enough nothing got sent. So we never received anything. The future you was simply not doing what the earlier you had decided not to do. So far it makes sense."
    "So far," Murdoch agreed. "But then something did come in, so evidently the future me changed his mind. The message said MURDOC, so I assume it was from a 'me' somewhere, and from the look of it a me who was a few minutes ahead of that point in time. What would have changed my mind and made me decide to send something after I'd made my mind up not to?"
    A brief silence descended. Lee straightened up, walked slowly across to the storage rack by the door, and stood toying idly with a section of waveguide that was lying in a cardboard box. Then he turned to face back across the room.
    "You hadn't made your mind up not to send
anything
," he pointed out. "You'd only made your mind up not to send whatever came in. So let's assume that the future you who sent MURDOC had also decided the same thing. And since there's no reason not to, let's also assume that he stuck to it. That means he couldn't have received any signal that said MURDOC in his past, because if he had he wouldn't have sent it. But obviously he did send it. So the question is: What made him send that signal back on the spur of the moment, at a time when he hadn't received anything at all?"
    "I shouldn't have to ask that question because I ought to know the answer," Murdoch replied. "A few minutes after I received that signal, I should have become him. But I never was him because I never sent it." He sighed with exasperation and pivoted the chair through a full circle.
    Lee waited until they were facing one another again. "Well, let's imagine first for the sake of argument that you did become him," he suggested. "What were you thinking of a few minutes before that signal came in?"
    Murdoch sat back and covered his eyes with his hand as he tried to cast his mind back to the previous night. "Let me see now… I'd been waiting for a signal to come in. When it came, I wasn't going to send it. We waited… Nothing happened. We've been through that. What then? … " His face screwed itself into a frown as he thought. Lee watched and waited in silence. Then Murdoch went on, "After a while I was starting to get fed up with waiting. I was looking at the screen here and seeing the time-axis empty with nothing on it. I started wondering… " Murdoch's voice trailed away for a second. Then he looked up sharply. "Hey! I wondered what would happen if I decided to send a signal back to a point that was already recorded as having had no signal coming in. I thought maybe I'd try fooling it that way instead, since the other way didn't seem to be getting us anywhere."
    "And the you that sent the MURDOC signal would have existed at just about the time that you were thinking that," Lee said, an undertone of excitement creeping into his voice. "So perhaps he was thinking the same thing. Only maybe he did send something. And maybe that was what we received a few minutes earlier."
    "So what happened to him?" Murdoch objected. "Where is he right now?"
    "You could ask the same question about all the other you's who sent all the other garbage you never sent."
    "Okay, I'll ask it. What happened to all the other me's who sent all the other garbage I never sent, and where are they right now?"
    "Well, if you don't know, what am I supposed to say?" Lee said. He spread his arms wide, then folded them across his chest and rocked back on his heels until he was propped against the