Time and Again by Jack Finney, Paul Hecht Read Free Book Online

Neuman."
    "No, come on now, no kidding around!"
    "Rossoff. Dr. Oscar Rossoff."
    "Okay, fine. Just testing; you're clear. Well, you did good, a first-rate subject. I have a hunch you'll do. Next time I may have you bark like a seal and eat a live fish."
    I looked at Rorschach blots then, and told Rossoff what thoughts they started. I looked at pictures, interpreted them, and drew a few myself. I did a short true-or-false test. I filled in words missing from sentences. I talked about myself and answered questions. Wearing a blindfold, I picked up objects and described their sizes and shapes, and sometimes their uses. Finally Rossoff said, "Enough. More than enough. I've generally run tests for several days, sometimes a week, but… we're not really so damned sure of what we're doing that I can pretend to pinpoint the requirements for performing what is probably an impossibility. I have the strongest kind of hunch about you, and no test is going to make me change my mind. They all confirm it, anyway. As well as I'll ever be able to figure it out, you're a candidate." He looked over at the closed door of the office, listening. We could hear the murmur of a man's voice, then a woman's laugh, and Rossoff yelled, "Rube, get your hands off Alice, and come on in here!"
    The door opened, and a very tall, thin elderly man walked in, and Rossoff got quickly to his feet. "It's not Rube," the man said, "and my hands weren't on Alice, I'm sorry to say."
    "It was the other way around," the nurse said, reaching into the office for the doorknob; she closed the door, smiling.
    Rossoff introduced us. This was Dr. E.E. Danziger, Director of the project, and we shook hands. His hand, big and hairy and with prominent veins, wrapped right around mine, it was so large, and his eyes stared at me, excited, fascinated, wanting to know all about me in one look. The words spilling out, he said, "How does he test?" and while Rossoff told him, it was my turn to study him.
    He was a man you'd know again if you saw him just once. He was sixty-five or — six, I thought, his forehead and cheeks heavily lined; the cheek lines were a series of three curved brackets beginning at the corners of his mouth and extending up to the cheekbones, widening and deepening when he smiled. He was bald and tanned, the top of his head freckled, his side hair still black, or possibly dyed. He must have been six feet five inches tall, maybe more; and he was thin and lanky, wide-shouldered but stooped. He wore a jaunty polka-dotted, blue bow tie; an old-style double-breasted tan suit, the coat hanging open; and a brown button-up sweater under the coat. He was well into his sixties but he looked strong, he looked masculine and virile; I had a hunch that he might not at all mind getting his hands on Alice, and that maybe she wouldn't mind either.
    To Rossoff, speaking slowly, he said, "You say yes?" And when Rossoff nodded, he said, "Then I do, too. I've gone over all we have on him, and he sounds right." He turned and stood looking at me soberly and searchingly for some seconds; during this Rube stepped into the office and very quietly closed the door. I was beginning to feel a little embarrassed by Dr. Danziger's stare when he suddenly grinned. "All right!" he said. "And now you'd like to know what you've got yourself into. Well, first Rube will show you, then I'll try to tell you." He gripped his coat lapels in his big freckled fists, his arms hanging loosely, and stood staring at me again, smiling a little, nodding slowly; in approval, I felt, and was more pleased than I'd have thought.
    "I'm in charge of this establishment," Danziger continued then. "I began it, in fact. But just now I envy you. I'm sixty-eight years old, and two years ago when I understood that this project was going to become real, I began taking care of my health for the first time in my life. I quit smoking. I never thought I could and never much wanted to, but I quit" — he snapped his fingers — "like