Then it all came back to me in a flash. Just as it came back to Helen and Hank. And the three of us stood there like wide-eyed cretins, trying to arrange our minds to fit an impossible situation.
It was Helen who spoke first. She moaned weakly,
"I—I'm her, now!"
"And if you're her," I quavered, "I'm him! What a mess! I'm that heel who was eating the apple ... I mean, I'm that wise-cracking guy who was hungry ... I mean, I'm both of me!"
Only Hank retained a vestige of self-control. He put his arms around Helen, placed one warm hand on my shoulder. "Now, don't git all het up, Jim. You're both of 'em—that's right. But it don't make no diff'rence, you see, because the time lapse was so small. Atter the merger we became both ourselves, which was lost in Time, an' ourselves which, atter seein' ourselves, went out an' rescued us. Do you understand?"
"Only too well," I moaned. "I understand that the biggest mistake of my life was finding you in that Westville turnip-patch. Oh, if I'd only left you there—"
I tottered toward the medicine cabinet. It was after I groped for the missing bottle that I remembered having handed it to me and breaking it before. I buried my face in my hands, clinging tightly to one reassuring sanity in a mad world. At least I had only one personal history up to a few minutes ago!
Then Hank disengaged Helen gently and moved to the side of his machine. He stared at it long and mournfully—then picked up a screwdriver.
"I promised me," he said, "I'd dismantle this here thing. An' I'm agonna do it, too, afore my good intentions weaken. It's too dangerous f'r a man to have around. Seein' other time-possibilities, experiencin' twin memories—" He stopped suddenly, stared at us. "Twin memories: the ideers o' two minds! I wonder—"
"Wonder what?"