Sam, This is You

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  SAM, THIS IS YOU

  By MURRAY LEINSTER

  Illustrated by MEL HUNTER

  [Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science FictionMay 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed.]

  [Sidenote: Sam had led a peaceful and impecunious life--until a voicecut in on a phone and said: Sam, this is You]

  You are not supposed to believe this story, and if you ask Sam Yoderabout it, he is apt to say that it's all a lie. But Sam is a bitsensitive about it. He does not want the question of privacy to beraised again--especially in Rosie's hearing. And there are othermatters. But it's all perfectly respectable and straightforward.

  It could have happened to anybody--well, almost anybody. Anybody, say,who was a telephone lineman for the Batesville and RappahannockTelephone Company, and who happened to be engaged to Rosie, and who hadbeen told admiringly by Rosie that a man as smart as he was ought tomake something wonderful of himself. And, of course, anybody who'd takenthat seriously and had been puttering around on a device to make privateconversations on a party-line telephone possible, and almost had thetrick.

  It began about six o'clock on July second, when Sam was up a telephonepole near Bridge's Run. He was hunting for the place where that partyline had gone dead. He'd hooked in his lineman's phone and he couldn'traise Central, so he was just going to start looking for the break whenhis phone rang back, though the line had checked dead.

  Startled, he put the receiver to his ear. "Hello. Who's this?"

  "Sam, this is you," a voice replied.

  "Huh?" said Sam. "What's that?"

  "This is you," the voice on the wire repeated. "You, Sam Yoder. Don'tyou recognize your own voice? This is you, Sam Yoder, calling from thetwelfth of July. Don't hang up!"

  * * * * *

  Sam hadn't even thought of hanging up. He was annoyed. He was up atelephone pole, trying to do some work, resting in his safety belt andwith his climbing irons safely fixed in the wood. Naturally, he thoughtsomebody was trying to joke with him, and when a man is working is notime for jokes.

  "I'm not hanging up," said Sam dourly, "but you'd better!"

  The voice was familiar, though he couldn't quite place it. If it talkeda little more, he undoubtedly would. He knew it just about as well as heknew his own, and it was irritating not to be able to call this joker byname.

  The voice said, "Sam, it's the second of July where you are, and you'reup a pole by Bridge's Run. The line's dead in two places, else Icouldn't talk to you. Lucky, ain't it?"

  "Whoever you are," Sam said formidably, "it ain't going to be lucky foryou if you ever need telephone service and you've kept wasting my time.I'm busy!"

  "But I'm you!" insisted the voice persuasively. "And you're me! We'reboth the same Sam Yoder, only where I am, it's July twelfth. Where youare, it's July second. You've heard of time-traveling. Well, this istime-talking. You're talking to yourself--that's me--and I'm talking tomyself--that's you--and it looks like we've got a mighty good chance toget rich."

  Then something came into Sam's memory and every muscle in his body wenttaut and tight, even as he was saying to himself, "It can't be!"

  But he'd remembered that if a man stands in a corner and talks to thewall, his voice will sound to him just the way it sounds to somebodyelse. Being in the telephone business, he'd tried it and now he didrecognize the voice. It was his. His own. Talking to him. Which, ofcourse, was impossible.

  "Look," said hoarsely, "I don't believe this!"

  "Then listen," the voice said briskly. And Sam's face grew red. Itburned. His ears began to feel scorched. Because the voice--_his_voice--was telling him strictly private matters that nobody else in theworld knew. Nobody but himself and Rosie.

  "Quit it!" groaned Sam. "Somebody might be listening! Tell me what youwant and ring off!"

  The voice told him what it wanted. His own voice. It sounded pleased. Ittold him precisely what it wanted him to do. And then, very kindly, ittold him exactly where the two breaks in the line were. And then it rangoff.

  * * * * *

  He sweated when he looked at the first of the two places. A joining wasbad and he fixed that. It was where his voice had said it would be. Andthat was as impossible as anything else.

  When he'd fixed the second break, Sam called Central and told her he wassick and was going home, and that if there were any other phones thatneeded fixing today, people were probably better off without phoneservice, anyhow.

  He went home and washed his face, and made himself a brew of coffee anddrank it, and his memory turned out to be unimpaired. Presently he heardhimself muttering.

  So he said defiantly, "There ain't any crazy people in my family, so itain't likely I've gone out of my head. But God knows nobody but Rosieknows about me telling her sentimental that her nose is so cute, Icouldn't believe she ever had to blow it! Maybe it was me, talking tomyself!"

  Talking to oneself is not abnormal. Lots of people do it. Sam missed outthe conclusion to be drawn from the fact that he'd answered himselfback.

  He reasoned painfully, "If somebody drove over to Rappahannock, pastDunnsville, and telephoned back that there was a brush fire atDunnsville, I wouldn't be surprised to get to Dunnsville and find abrush fire there. So if somebody phones back from next Tuesday that Mr.Broaddus broke his leg next Tuesday--why, I shouldn't be surprised toget to next Tuesday and find he done it. Going to Rappahannock, pastDunnsville, and going to next Thursday, past next Tuesday, ain't so muchdifference. It's only the difference between a road-map and a calendar."

  Then he began to see implications. He blinked.

  "Yes, sir!" he said in awe. "I wouldn't've thought of it if I hadn'ttold myself on the telephone, but there _is_ money to be made out ofthis! I must be near as smart as Rosie thinks I am! I'd better get thatdinkus set up!"

  He'd more or less half-heartedly worked out an idea of how a party-linetelephone conversation could be made private, and just out of instinct,you might say, he'd accumulated around his house a lot of stuff thatshould have been on the phone company's inventory. There were condensersand transmitters and selective-ringing bells and resistances and thelike. He'd meant to put some of them together some day and see whathappened, but he'd been too busy courting Rosie to get at it.

  * * * * *

  Now he did get started. His own voice on the telephone had told him to.It had warned him that one thing he had intended wouldn't work andsomething else would. But it was essentially simple, after all. Hefinished it and cut off his line from Central and hooked this gadget in.He rang. Half a minute later, somebody rang back.

  "Hello!" said Sam, quivering. He'd broken the line to Central, remember.In theory, he shouldn't have gotten anybody anywhere. But a veryfamiliar voice said "Hello" back at him, and Sam swallowed and said,"Hello, Sam. This is you in the second of July."

  The voice at the other end said cordially that Sam had done pretty welland now the two of them--Sam in the here and now and Sam in the middleof the week after next--would proceed to get rich together. But thevoice from July twelfth sounded less absorbed in the conversation thanSam thought quite right. It seemed even abstracted. And Sam was at oncesweating from the pure unreasonableness of the situation and consciousthat he rated congratulation for the highly technical device he hadbuilt. After all, not everybody could build a time-talker!

  He said with some irony, "If you're too busy to talk--"

  "I'll tell you," replied the voice from
the twelfth of July, gratified."I am kind of busy right now. You'll understand when you get to where Iam. Don't get mad, Sam. Tell you what--you go see Rosie and tell herabout this and have a nice evening. Ha-ha!"

  "Now what," asked Sam cagily, "do you mean by that 'ha-ha'?"

  "You'll find out," said the voice. "Knowin' what I know, I'll evendouble it. Ha-ha, ha-ha!"

  There was a click. Sam rang back, but got no answer. He may have beenthe first man in history to take an objective and completely