Part 2 (2/2)

That was the first installment. The Protect-Our-Youth state law was pa.s.sed right after that, so I never saw the later installments.

One of my English professors who was bluntly opposed to censors.h.i.+p once said that Mr Wells had invented every one of the basic fantastic themes, and he cited this story as the origin of the multiple-universes concept. I was intending to ask this prof if he knew where I could find a copy, but I put it off to the end of the term when I would be legally 'of mature years' - and waited too long; the academic senate committee on faith and morals voted against tenure for that professor, and he left abruptly without finis.h.i.+ng the term.

Did something happen to me like that which Mr Wells described in Men Like G.o.ds? Did Mr Wells have the holy gift of prophecy? For example, would men someday actually fly to the moon? Preposterous!

But was it more preposterous than what had happened to me?

As may be, here. I was in Konge Knut (even though she was not my, Konge Knut) and the sailing board at the gangway showed her getting underway at 6 p.m. It was already late afternoon and high time for me to decide.

What to do? I seemed to have mislaid my own s.h.i.+p, the Motor Vessel Konge Knut. But the crew (some of the crew) of the Steams.h.i.+p Konge Knut seemed ready to accept me as 'Mr Graham', pa.s.senger.

Stay aboard and try to brazen it out? What if Graham comes aboard (any minute now!) and demands to know what I am doing in his room?

Or go ash.o.r.e (as I should) and go to the authorities with my problem?

Alex, the French colonial authorities will love you. No baggage, only the clothes on your back, no money, not a sou - no pa.s.sport! Oh, they will love you so much they'll give you room and board for the rest of your life ... in an oubliette with a grill over the top.

There's money in that wallet.

So? Ever heard of the Eighth Commandment? That's his money.

But it stands to reason that he walked through the fire at the same time you did but on this side, this world or whatever - or his wallet would not have been waiting for you. Now he has your wallet. That's logical.

Listen, my r.e.t.a.r.ded friend, do you think logic has anything to do with the predicament we are in?

Well

Speak up!

No, not really. Then how about this? Sit tight in this room. If Graham shows up before, the s.h.i.+p sails, you get kicked off the s.h.i.+p, that's sure. But you would be no worse off than you will be if you leave now. If he does not show up, then you take his place at least as far as Papeete. That's a big city; your chances of coping with the situation are far better there. Consuls and such.

You talked me into it.

Pa.s.senger s.h.i.+ps usually publish a daily newspaper for the pa.s.sengers - just a single or double sheet filled with thrilling items such as 'There will be a boat drill at ten o'clock this morning. All pa.s.sengers are requested -' and 'Yesterday's mileage pool was won by Mrs Ephraim Glutz of Bethany, Iowa' and, usually, a few news items picked up by the wireless operator. I looked around for the s.h.i.+p's paper and for the 'Welcome Aboard!' This latter is a booklet (perhaps with another name) intended to make the pa.s.senger newly aboard sophisticated in the little world of the s.h.i.+p: names of the officers, times of meals, location of barber shop, laundry, dining room, gift shop (notions, magazines, toothpaste), and how to place a morning call, plan of the s.h.i.+p by decks, location of life preserver, how, to find your lifeboat station, where to get your table a.s.signment-

'Table a.s.signment'! Ouch! A pa.s.senger who has been aboard even one day does not have to ask how to find his table in the dining room. It's the little things that trip you. Well, I'd have to bull it through.

The welcome-aboard booklet was tucked into Graham's desk. I thumbed through it, with a mental note to memorize all key facts before I left this room - if I was still aboard when the s.h.i.+p sailed - then put it aside, as I had found the s.h.i.+p's newspaper:

The King's Skald it was headed and Graham, bless him, had saved all of them from the day he had boarded the s.h.i.+p... at Portland, Oregon, as I deduced from the place and date line of the, earliest issue. That suggested that Graham was ticketed for the entire cruise, which could be important to me. I had expected to go back as I had arrived, by airs.h.i.+p - but, even if the dirigible liner Admiral Moffett existed in this world or dimension or whatever, I no longer had a ticket for it and no money with which to buy one. What do these French colonials do to a tourist who has no money? Burn him at the stake? Or merely draw and quarter him? I did not want to find out. Graham's roundtrip ticket (if he had one) might keep me from having to find out.

(If he didn't show up in the next hour and have me kicked off the s.h.i.+p.)

I did not consider remaining in Polynesia. Being a penniless beachcomber on Bora-Bora or Moorea may have been practical a hundred years ago but today the only thing free in these islands is contagious disease.

It seemed likely that I would be just as broke and just as much a stranger in America but nevertheless I felt that I would be better off in my native land. Well, Graham's native land.

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