Then he explains the way his machine works. But all I get out of what he says is that there's a law of probability so he can't go back and shoot his grandfather when the old man is a boy or juggle stocks in '47 to pay off and make him rich in '53 and things like that. That is why he wouldn't let us go back into the past. He was afraid we would do something to change history and—bingo.
And he wouldn't let us go into the future very far because up a way the atom bomb gets loose and it is awfully sad to see and dangerous besides.
"That was in the sixties," he says. "Or will be in the sixties. Only I got it figured out so it won't be, Mike."
It's over my head; I just keep on waiting.
He explains that he made a pile of dough in the near future by betting on horse races and cleaning out a few bookies and investing his winnings in stocks he knew were going up (and in fact they wouldn't have gone up if he hadn't looked into the future and known they would so he could go back and buy them) and anyway, he figured the exact day it would be safe to start and so he did.
"Only," he says, "we made a mistake by making you mayor and then congressman. I have it figured out for you to be congressman right from the start—in fifty-four. That gives you two extra years of seniority on Congress and so when the chips are down you have a little more pull."
"Fine," I says and start to take off my apron.
"The thing is," he explains, "there are a couple of lunkheads in Congress that get super-patriotic and they're the ones who cause the trouble with the bomb getting loose." He leans over the bar and looks real serious at me. "And you," he goes on, "are the one who stops them before they get started."
"Me? Me, Mike Murphy?"
"You," he says. "We just go on a different time track from the one we tried before. And this one ought to work." He gives me his grin. "You should see the history books about the year 2000. You're a real national hero, Mike."