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-

-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND CHANCE ***

-

-

-

-

-

-          _For those of you who may be sentimentalists about

-            what you'd do if you could live your life over

-            again, here is the real lowdown about that...._

-

-                             SECOND CHANCE

-

-                           By ROBERT HOSKINS

-

-                        Illustrated by SUMMERS

-

-           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

-                      Amazing Stories April 1962

-         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that

-         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

-

-

-The boy was twelve, and running for dear life. Behind him came the

-sounds of half a dozen pursuers, the faintly sticky slap of leather

-soles coming down on summer-hot blacktopping and the sharp explosions

-of breath let out and sucked back in quickly as out-of-condition bodies

-forced muscles angrily beyond normal limits of endurance.

-

-"There goes the little bastard now!"

-

-"Don't let him get away!"

-

-A scant hundred yards separated pursued from pursuers. The boy stopped

-at the mouth of an alley, panic stealing logic as he glanced over his

-shoulders at the boys coming up quickly behind him. He darted into

-the alley, rounded a curve, and realized too late that he was in a

-dead-end. Boxes and trash were piled against the wall; a fire-escape

-beckoned invitingly just above. He scrabbled up the side of the pile,

-then realized his mistake as it began to shift beneath him. He leaped

-for the fire-escape ladder, his fingers brushing the lowest rung just

-as the pile collapsed, carrying him down and burying him.

-

-"Where the hell is he?"

-

-Hands started pulling at the pile, tearing away debris. The boy bit

-down on his lip, and closed his eyes against the inevitable.

-

-"Hey, here he is!"

-

-They grabbed him and pulled him out. A palm slapped across his cheek,

-forcing his eyes open.

-

-"Okay, you little sneak. What's the big idea? Why'd you rat to the

-Principal?" He shook his head.

-

-"Come on, dammit! Talk! You were talking enough yesterday!"

-

-"Ah, you're wasting your breath. Come on, let's do what we came to do

-and get it over with."

-

-"Okay, if that's the way you want it."

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-Johnson winced, as the first of the blows fell. The picture on the

-screen seemed far away, but the memory of physical pain was suddenly

-freshened. As hands and feet lashed out, repeatedly, raining down a

-storm of punishment on the quivering mass of flesh in the center of the

-picture, once-tortured nerves twinged in sympathy.

-

-"Brutal little monsters, aren't they?" said Cavendish.

-

-"I got back at them," said Johnson. "Every last one of them. I was the

-last kid they beat up."

-

-"Mmmm. Still, that didn't change the fact that you had already received

-a nasty beating yourself. No matter how sweet revenge, wouldn't it have

-been sweeter to have avoided the beating altogether?"

-

-Johnson massaged his crippled hand as he watched the tortured boy make

-a break away from his tormentors. A foot shot out, and the boy went

-sprawling. His chin hit the pavement; only the adult saw the biggest

-of the tormentors bring booted foot down on pathetic fingers. The foot

-twisted, and the man looked away.

-

-"Shut it off!" he shouted.

-

-"Certainly." Cavendish reached out and the screen went dead. Getting

-up, he went to the bar in the corner of the room and returned with a

-tumbler half-full of amber liquid. "Here, you need this."

-

-Johnson tossed off the drink, gasping as the liquor burned its way down

-to his stomach. "Ahhhh!" He wiped his mouth on the back of his good

-hand.

-

-"What do you think of my little machine, Mr. Johnson?" Cavendish

-settled himself behind a cluttered desk, hands folded over his paunch,

-looking extremely satisfied with himself. Pointed mustache and faintly

-slanted eyes heightened the effect of a cat with a stolen canary.

-

-"Your gadget is effective," admitted Johnson. "Just how powerful is it?"

-

-"Fifty years seems the limit it can probe. I've tried increasing the

-power, but beyond fifty years things quickly fade away into a gray fog.

-That's why I wanted to see you so urgently. Another few weeks, and this

-particular event in your life will be irrevocably lost." He glanced at

-the crippled hand. "Considering the direct consequences, I thought it

-would be a good place to start."

-

-"Assuming that I want to have anything to do with this at all."

-

-"Of course," said Cavendish, blandly. "Everything is always an

-assumption."

-

-"Your machine. It can actually send me back through time?"

-

-"In effect, yes."

-

-"I don't believe it."

-

-"I think you do, Mr. Johnson. You want to believe it, therefore you do

-believe it. A man like yourself, aware of missed opportunities...."

-

-"I haven't missed many chances in my day," said Johnson. "If I had, I'd

-never have become what I am today."

-

-"Rich."

-

-"I'd rather call it powerful."

-

-"As you like." Cavendish shrugged. "After all, what is money but

-power? With it, you have the power to do things, make a living, run

-a business, increase your standing in the community. Without it....

-Everything becomes negative. You have the power to die, but nothing

-more."

-

-"You need money, too."

-

-"Of course. I've never denied it. Science has never been a particularly

-profitable field of endeavor--at least, not on my level. For you,

-science has made money. For me, it merely uses it."

-

-"You want money from me."

-

-"Naturally. You have enough for both of us."

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-"But why me?" asked Johnson, suspiciously. "Why not someone else? There

-are other men as wealthy or wealthier than I--Reading, Blackwell,

-Morgenstern, just to name three in this very city."

-

-"Yes, I considered them--all of them, and many others besides. It

-really made no difference which one I finally selected. I chose you,

-Mr. Johnson, for just one reason--the scene just witnessed."

-

-"All right. You've aroused my interest. Now tell me just how your time

-machine can help me."

-

-Cavendish winced. "Please, Mr. Johnson, I do not have a time machine."

-

-"You just said you can send me back through time."

-

-"In effect, Sir; in effect. Physically, no. My machine--temporal

-transgressor I call it, for want of a better term--my machine has the

-faculty of liberating a certain part of the human id, the conscience,

-the soul, if you please, and casting it adrift on the broad temporal

-stream. A strong will can direct this liberated 'something' against the

-general drift of the temporal stream, forcing it backwards against the

-natural current. Back through time, as it were."

-

-"And just how does this help me?"

-

-"From the limited experiments I have been able to perform with

-available funds, I have found that, shall we say from now on, for

-simplicity's sake, the Id, tends to gravitate to early versions of

-itself. Apparently there is some sort of force that binds the Id with

-itself. At moments of crisis, this force is strongest."

-

-"And you want me to be a guinea pig for your experiments."

-

-"Crudely put, Sir."

-

-"But the truth."

-

-Cavendish shrugged. "Consider the benefits to be reaped."

-

-"As yet, I have seen none," said Johnson, bluntly. "Suppose you

-enlighten me some more."

-

-"Opportunities...."

-

-"We covered that before."

-

-"But have we? Consider, Sir; you are wealthy, powerful, in spite of

-your, ah, handicap." He glanced away as Johnson inspected his hand.

-"Just think what might have happened had you not been injured? Who can

-say what new avenues might be opened to you?"

-

-"How much?"

-

-"Then you'll do it?" asked Cavendish, eagerly.

-

-"Perhaps. How much do you need?"

-

-"I have my equipment all ready. But I need a great deal of power to

-operate it. You are one of the directors of Public Power; I need your

-signature on releases for the necessary leads and, of course, the power

-itself."

-

-"You shall have them. When can we be ready to operate?"

-

-Cavendish pursed his lips. "With PP technicians running in the new

-lines--three days."

-

-"Very well. I'll be back."

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-T. Arthur Johnson had not, as he had told Cavendish, been a man to

-pass up an opportunity. Forty years of fighting and clawing his way up

-through the jungle of business competition had sharpened his senses and

-heightened his awareness of what one fatal mistake could do.

-

-Still, no man is infallible; all miss out on something, sometime. Some

-men go through their entire lives making the wrong decisions; they end

-up failures.

-

-T. Arthur Johnson was a qualified success. Qualified, for, although

-successful he might be, as a man he was not happy. It is rarely

-that the two go hand-in-hand. Happiness and success often seem to

-be mutually exclusive goals. Yet contentment is a close cousin of

-happiness, and many let themselves be satisfied with second best.

-

-After checking with Cavendish to find out just how much time would have

-to be invested in the experiments, Johnson arranged his affairs into

-the hands of several trusted managers--trusted because they were owned,

-body and soul, by Johnson. On the morning of the third day, as the last

-of the Public Power trucks was leaving the warehouse in which Cavendish

-had set up his laboratory, Johnson presented himself at the door.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-"Ah, Mr. Johnson." His eyes lit up. "Right on time. I suppose you are

-as anxious as I to get on with the experiments."

-

-"Time is valuable," said Johnson. "I don't believe in wasting it. Shall

-we get on with it?"

-

-"Of course."

-

-The lab seemed little changed from Johnson's earlier visit. An

-adjustable lounge chair had been set up near the screen; from it,

-lines ran into a panel of equipment that the industrialist found

-incomprehensible. At Cavendish's gesture, he sat down and permitted

-electrodes to be attached to his head and arms.

-

-"Comfortable, Sir?"

-

-"Quite."

-

-Cavendish adjusted switches; the screen came to life, showing the

-earlier scene with the youthful Johnson just beginning his dash into

-the alley.

-

-"We regress some twenty-seven hours more," he said. The scene dissolved

-and was replaced by one with the boy in a classroom. The clock on the

-wall read three-thirty; school had been out some fifteen minutes. Timmy

-Johnson placed the last of the erasers in the blackboard trough and

-checked the stack of workbooks with his eye, stopping to shift the top

-one a quarter of an inch into better alignment.

-

-"We are now approaching the crisis point," said Cavendish. "The

-blending of the adult Id with that of the boy will enable you to

-control the actions of the boy."

-

-"Get on with it!" said Johnson, impatiently, anxious to have the affair

-over with.

-

-"Very well." Cavendish closed several switches and the hum of vast

-amounts of power pouring into the little room rose until it set the

-hackles of the men's necks rising. Still it rose, until Cavendish

-closed one final switch--

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-"All done, Mrs. Taylor."

-

-"Thank you, Timmy." She glanced up from the stack of papers and smiled

-at the boy. "I swear, I don't know what I'd do without you. You're the

-best helper I ever had."

-

-Timmy glowed at the praise; he felt the back of his neck warming. It

-was fun helping her out, no matter what the other kids said or thought.

-He scuffed the toe of his sneaker against the heel of the other one.

-"Well, I guess I'd better be getting home, Mrs. Taylor. Mom usually

-wants me to run to the store for her after school."

-

-"All right, Timmy. Good night."

-

-"Good night." He lingered in the door for a last smile from the woman,

-then ran down the stairs to the lockers on the basement corridors.

-He stowed his books in his locker, then twirled the dial on the

-combination lock, bought with money saved out of his allowance.

-

-Timmy started towards the exit, when suddenly he heard voices coming

-from the boys' shower room.

-

-"Aw, come on, Janie! What's the harm in having a little peek?"

-

-"With your big eyes, Danny Grissome, a lot!"

-

-Raucous laughter. "I guess she told you that time, Danny boy."

-

-"Yeah? Well, I'm gonna see what I came down here to see, whether you

-like it or not, Janie. Now come on!"

-

-"No! Keep your dirty hands off me, Danny Grissome!"

-

-Heart pounding in his breast, Timmy edged towards the door of the

-shower room. From the voices, he knew there were at least half a dozen

-boys inside. The door was slightly ajar; the school was supposed to be

-empty, so the boys had been careless. Placing his eye to the crack,

-Timmy tried to make out what was going on, but his field of vision was

-too limited. All he could get were vague impressions of bodies moving

-back and forth.

-

-Frustrated, he leaned his weight against the door. Suddenly it swung

-in, and he fell after it.

-

-"Hey, who's that?"

-

-Rough hands pulled him to his feet.

-

-"Ahh, it's Teacher's Pet Johnson. What are you doing here, stupid?"

-

-Timmy panicked. "I saw what you were doing!" he piped. His voice was

-shrill with fear. "I'm going to--"

-

-Something clicked.

-

-"Yeah?" demanded Danny. "What are you going to do shrimp?"

-

-"I...."

-

-Timmy shook his head; his eyes took on a faraway expression.

-

-"Hey, what's the matter with you, shrimp? Wake up."

-

-Something clicked again, and the adult Id settled into control of

-the youthful body. T. Arthur Johnson looked out on the situation

-confronting Timmy Johnson and came to a decision. It was not the

-decision the boy had--would--make of his own volition. But, then,

-the adult Johnson had one important advantage over his juvenile

-counterpart--he knew the certain and distasteful consequences of the

-boy's activities.

-

-"Well?" demanded Danny. "Get with it, kid. What are you going to do?"

-

-"I'm going to tell Mr. Arkins--unless you let me watch too!"

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-"How's your hand?" asked Cavendish, as he unsnapped the electrodes.

-

-"Hand?" Johnson looked at first one then the other. "What about my

-hand?"

-

-Cavendish looked, then shook his head, puzzled. "That's funny. Now

-where did I get the idea that something was wrong with your hand?"

-

-"I'm sure I don't know," said Johnson, getting up and stretching. He

-felt tired, more tired than he could remember having been in a long

-time. The feeling had become alien to the desk-bound man, but it was

-simply physical exhaustion. He yawned. "How about a drink?"

-

-"Of course." He retreated to the little bar and came back with a

-generous slug in the usual water tumbler. Johnson tossed it off,

-sighed, and wiped his mouth.

-

-"Well?" demanded Cavendish.

-

-"Well, what?"

-

-"Don't keep me in suspense!" begged the little man. "What was it like?"

-

-Johnson considered. "Nostalgic, I suppose. Everyone would like

-another chance to revisit his childhood. You've proven that your time

-ma--Pardon me. Your temporal transgressor, works. But as to your idea

-that events can be changed--well, consider me from Missouri."

-

-"But the machine does work," insisted Cavendish.

-

-"I've already said that," said Johnson, irritated with the little man.

-Cavendish seemed much more pushy than he had at their first meeting.

-Johnson had never cared for that type of person, perhaps recognizing

-too much of himself reflected in the other personality.

-

-"The next part should be simple, then," said Cavendish. "All we have

-to do is find a suitable crisis point in your life, and send you back.

-Once you have changed it--made a different decision--then you'll see."

-

-"Perhaps," said Johnson, a strong doubt in the back of his mind. "Have

-you picked out such a suitable crisis?"

-

-"I think so." He turned to the screen, and began adjusting the dials.

-Gray fog swirled mistily across the face of the tube, resolving

-momentarily into brief scenes as the scientist searched for something

-in particular. At last he grunted in satisfaction, and straightened up.

-

-"Here we are." He sharpened the focus, and it became Johnson's turn to

-grunt in surprise.

-

-"Damn you!"

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-The scene was dimly-lit, obviously happening late at night. Two youths

-in their late teens were busy at the rear door of a service station,

-while another kept peering around the corner, keeping an anxious eye

-out for passers-by. At last the lock of the door gave way to their

-efforts, and all three slipped inside. Cavendish turned a dial and the

-picture followed the actors into the interior of the station.

-

-One of the figures produced a pencil flash; by its thin beam, they

-made their way past a store-room piled high with cases of motor oil

-and transmission fluid and into the garage part of the station. One of

-the figures stopped by a stack of tires and a heated argument broke

-out, soundless though it seemed to the watchers in the future. At last,

-one prevailed over the other and they continued their search of the

-station, stopping at last by the register. One of the boys punched it

-open, and scooped up a small handful of bills, only to have disgust

-register on his face when they turned out to be all singles.

-

-In the meantime, one of the other boys was forcing the coin box on the

-cigarette machine. He scooped silver into his pockets, then turned to

-the soft drink machine at its side.

-

-Sudden light glared into the station, blinding the boys. They stopped

-dead in their tracks, as they tried to shield their eyes from the

-glare. Then, panic-stricken, they broke for the rear and the door they

-had forced to gain entrance. The figures were lost for a moment, but

-soon reappeared, shepherded none too gently by several men in blue. The

-station's own lights came on.

-

-Cavendish suddenly felt pity for the aged man and switched off the

-picture. Without asking, he refilled Johnson's glass.

-

-"No one ever knew about that," said Johnson, softly.

-

-"Your family did a good job of hushing it up," agreed Cavendish.

-

-"We served our time, though--nine months in that stinking county jail,

-after time off for good behavior." He shuddered. Across two-thirds of a

-lifetime, the memory was still painful.

-

-"It kept you out of the service, didn't it?"

-

-"Yes. My folks always claimed I spent the time bumming around the

-country. They said ill health kept me out of the Army. People never

-believed them, though. They seemed to know better."

-

-"Definitely a crisis in your life?"

-

-"Most definitely," agreed Johnson.

-

-"Then if I send you back to the time when you and your companions were

-planning this adventure, and you succeed in talking your younger self

-out of it, you'll be convinced that what I say is true?"

-

-"Yes, that'll do it."

-

-"Good! Events can be altered; time is not immutable!" The little man's

-eyes gleamed fanatically; Johnson for the first time debated the wisdom

-of letting himself be strapped in under his care. But Cavendish was

-already adjusting the electrodes; he finished, and turned on the power

-source.

-

-"I'll send you back to that afternoon," he said. "The three of you are

-gathered in the back room of Cook's News Shop."

-

-"I remember," said Johnson.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-"Hi, Danny."

-

-"Hi," said the leader of the three, looking up. "What do you want,

-Janie?"

-

-"Oh, nothing," said the girl, tossing her pony tail back over her

-shoulder. "But I'll settle for a coke."

-

-"Be my guest," said Danny Grissome, digging a dime from his pocket.

-"But be a doll and drink it at the counter, hey?"

-

-"What's the matter? My company not good enough for the big shots?" She

-sniffed, but accepted the dime.

-

-"Your company's fine," said Grissome. "But we're busy----man-type busy.

-So later, hey? Later."

-

-The boys watched her flounce sensuously through the archway separating

-the back room from the front section of the store, and knew as they

-watched that she was fully aware of their eyes on her. Danny's tongue

-darted over his lips; he sighed.

-

-"Man, I gotta get me some more of that. But not now. We got things to

-talk about now. Important things, right, Art?"

-

-Johnson tore his eyes from the girl. "Uh, yeah, Danny. Sure. Anything

-you say."

-

-"That's right. Anything I say. And don't you creeps ever forget it."

-

-"So who's arguing?"

-

-"Nobody, Flip--not yet. But I got me a feeling all of us in our little

-group aren't happy. Right, Art?"

-

-"I didn't say that," protested Johnson.

-

-"That's what it sounded like to me."

-

-"So excuse me for living." He shrugged. "All I said was that I don't go

-for that kind of jazz. It spells trouble, big trouble. C--O--P trouble."

-

-"Ahhh, you're a real nervous nellie, Art. I tell you, this place is

-a leadpipe cinch. He leaves the money in a register my baby brother

-could walk off with, and the lock on that back door is made out of

-bubble-gum. Now all we gotta do is wait till about midnight, after

-the patrol car swings through. It doesn't come back again for forty

-minutes, and that's more than enough time for what we want to do. What

-do you say?"

-

-"I don't like it."

-

-"You don't have to like it. Just do it. Now, what do you say?"

-

-"Well, okay."

-

-"Good!" Danny settled back and slapped the table. "It's settled, then.

-Flip picks us up here at eleven thirty and we drive over to Blandina

-and park behind the billboard on the vacant lot the next block down.

-Now don't either one of you creeps go fouling up this deal."

-

-"What's to foul?" said Flip.

-

-"Yeah, you're right. What's to foul?" He slapped the table again. "Hey,

-who wants a coke? I'll buy." He leaned around the corner of the booth

-and whistled. "Hey, Janie! Fun time! Tell Sandy to fix us three cokes

-and come on out and join the party!"

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-Art Johnson rounded the corner and approached the coke shop, hands

-sweaty in anticipation of what was going to happen within the next

-hour. He wished there was some way for him to back out of the situation

-and still manage to save face, but it was too late. The pattern was

-set, and events would ride out to their inevitable climax.

-

-Then--

-

-Something clicked.

-

-The youth paused in midstride and nearly stumbled. His eyes took on a

-faraway look. A boy and girl came out of the shop arm-in-arm and nearly

-walked into him.

-

-"Hey, stupid! Watch where you're going."

-

-"Sorry," he muttered, shaking his head.

-

-"Some people," said the boy, "live in a fog." The girl giggled, and Art

-pushed his way into the packed interior of the shop.

-

-"Hey, man!"

-

-Danny was holding a booth open. Art pushed his way through the crowd

-and slid in beside him.

-

-"You're late," said Danny. "What happened?"

-

-"The old lady stayed up to watch the eleven o'clock news. I had to wait

-until she was in bed."

-

-"Well, it's a good thing you made it. We were about ready to take off

-without you. Come on, Flip; let's move out."

-

-"Just a minute, Danny."

-

-"Yeah?" The boy paused, half-risen out of his seat. After staring at

-Johnson's face, he sat back down again. "What is it, Art boy?"

-

-"The deal's off. I'm cutting out."

-

-"What?" He shook his head in disbelief. "You crazy man?"

-

-"No. That's why I'm cutting out." He sighed. "I didn't like this deal

-from the word go. You knew that."

-

-"Yeah. But I never thought you'd go chicken on us, Art boy. Not on old

-Danny. That's me, remember? Danny Grissome. What I say, goes. Anything

-I say goes. Right, Flip?"

-

-"Right, Danny."

-

-"Right, Art boy?"

-

-"Not right, Danny," said Johnson, softly.

-

-"You mean it. You really mean it!" He shook his head, sadly. "What's

-the world coming to?"

-

-"No good end, most likely," said Johnson. "But I don't intend to mess

-myself up any sooner than I absolutely have to."

-

-"I dunno." Danny shook his head again. "You don't talk like the

-same Art boy I know. Hey, is that you, hiding inside that mess of

-goody-goody talk, Art baby? Come on out and join the party."

-

-"No go, Danny." Johnson shook his head. "If I'm not the same Art boy,

-it's because I finally woke up."

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-"How did it go?" asked Cavendish, as he unclipped the electrodes.

-

-"Go?" Johnson shrugged, then stretched and yawned widely. "I guess it

-went all right. I haven't seen Danny or Flip for forty years. Wonder

-what ever happened to them?"

-

-"Ended up in jail, most likely. But what about the crisis? Did you

-succeed in avoiding it?"

-

-"Crisis?" Johnson peered at him through narrowed lids. "Are you daft,

-man? What crisis could there possible be in a bunch of kids getting

-together in a corner sweet shop?"

-

-"But...." Cavendish shook his head. "Things did change!"

-

-"What changed? Name me one concrete thing that's different than it

-used to be."

-

-"I...." He shook his head. "I can't."

-

-"Of course you can't. And for the very simple reason that nothing did

-change. I'm still the same man I always was. And you'd better start

-coming up with some concrete benefits from this gadget of yours. You

-know I put myself into hock to raise the money you needed--I told my

-wife I was adding another franchise to my line. If she finds out her

-jewels were hocked for me to play around with a time machine, instead

-of a new line of cars, she'll flip. So how about it, Cavendish? Some

-concrete results next time."

-

-Cavendish went to the bar and returned with a generous slug of whisky.

-

-"What's this?" said Johnson.

-

-"Why, your drink."

-

-"Drink?" He snorted. "You know I don't drink, man. Have you gone

-completely daft? I haven't touched alcohol since I was a youngster."

-

-Cavendish seemed near tears. He drank the whisky himself, then turned

-back to the machine.

-

-"What are you up to now?"

-

-"I'm looking for a suitable crisis point." The screen wavered, then

-filled with a group of men in uniform--heavy winter garb. They were

-clustered around a small fire in a cave; one seemed to be heating

-coffee in a tin can. Johnson sucked in his breath.

-

-"You know what is going to happen?"

-

-"Yes, dammit! You're a devil!"

-

-"Perhaps." He sighed. "I sometimes wonder.... But no matter." He

-adjusted the picture, and events flowed forward a few hours. The

-soldiers were now at the base of a snow-covered hill. Above them, gaunt

-and bare, the timber-line beckoned with obscenely stretching limbs.

-

-Suddenly a flare shot up from someplace to the right of the little

-band. Its eerie glare picked out unexpected shadows among the trees

-above. One of the soldiers, facing the prospect of near and immediate

-personal death for the first time in his life, panicked and began

-spraying the tree-line with his grease gun. Branches and splinters of

-wood kicked out, until the Sergeant reached out and slapped the gun

-from the boy's arms.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-The men waited until an unheard signal sounded; then the Sergeant waved

-them on up the hill. Slowly, cautiously at first, they made progress

-through the protecting trees. But then they reached the timber-line

-and froze. Cursing, the Sergeant moved from man to man, shoving them

-out of the false protection. At last he came to the boy who had fired

-earlier. Just as the older man placed his hand on the boy's shoulder,

-the boy twisted and broke away, running madly down the hill....

-

-"That's enough, damn you!"

-

-Cavendish turned off the picture and came back to Johnson's side. "They

-court-martialed you, didn't they?"

-

-"You know they did," he said, dully.

-

-"You were unlucky, that's all. Many a soldier spooks his first time

-under fire. A lot of them run away."

-

-"How many of them run right into the arms of their Commanding General?"

-

-"Unlucky," said Cavendish.

-

-"They kicked me out," said Johnson, bitterly. "A dishonorable

-discharge--'cowardice in the face of enemy action'. Said I was lucky I

-didn't face the firing squad."

-

-"Officers are human, too," said Cavendish. "In times of stress, they

-tend to panic."

-

-"They were 'making an example of me'," said Johnson. He laughed, a

-humorless sound that grated on the ears. "Some example. It took me

-twenty years to live it down."

-

-"But people do forget, eventually."

-

-"Not all of them."

-

-"Shall we get on with it?"

-

-"Of course, man. This is what I have been waiting for!" His words were

-sharp and impatient.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-"Hey, Art! Got a butt?"

-

-"Yeah, sure." Art Johnson scrabbled around inside his jacket and came

-out with a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He passed them over.

-

-"Thanks, buddy. God, but it's cold here!" He stripped off one glove and

-warmed the palm of his hand over the glowing coal of the cigarette.

-"Now I know what they mean when they call a place Godforsaken."

-

-"Ease off there, you two!" Sergeant Stebbins glowered their way. "You

-want every chink in Korea to hear you?"

-

-"Sorry, Sarge," muttered the cigarette-bummer. He dropped his voice

-to a whisper. "Hey, Artie! I hear some of the guys in Fox company are

-making book on how many of us live through the day."

-

-"Yeah?" Johnson shook his head. "Some characters'll bet on their own

-mother's funeral."

-

-"Or their own." The boy giggled. "Wouldn't it be funny if the winners

-couldn't collect because they were all dead?"

-

-"A real scream," said Johnson, sourly. "Look, let's change the subject,

-huh?"

-

-The boy shrugged. "Sure, Art. Anything you say."

-

-They lapsed into silence, and Art Johnson considered the improbable

-amount of circumstances that had brought him to the base of this

-numbered but nameless hill half across the world from home. There was

-nothing of home here, and he felt the lack mightily. There was a very

-good chance that before another few hours had passed, he would be dead.

-And then he would never see home again.

-

-He shivered. The thought frightened him. He didn't want to die. Not

-that he supposed any of the other men wanted to die either. But they

-were remote, other beings, alien in Art Johnson's world. What they felt

-he could not guess; what he felt he knew.

-

-_And he did not want to die!_

-

-"Hey, Art!"

-

-"Uh, what is it, Tooey?"

-

-"Chinks, I think. Up there in the trees. God, they're sneaking down!"

-

-"Where? Dammit, where?" He thumbed the safety of his grease gun, and

-brought it up to bear on the trees. His fingers tightened around the

-stock; the trigger started to depress--

-

-Then--

-

-Something clicked.

-

-"Jesus, Artie, they're coming!"

-

-Art Johnson's eyes took on a faraway look. His fingers loosened their

-death grip on the gun. He shook his head.

-

-"_Artie!_"

-

-"Shut up, Tooey!" Reaching out, he slapped the boy's face. "You're

-imagining things."

-

-"But they're up there, Artie!" whimpered the boy.

-

-"Sure they're up there. But not where you think they are. They're dug

-in, in the caves. And it's going to be up to us to dig them out. Now

-snap out of it!"

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-Suddenly a flare shot up from somewhere to their right. It whistled,

-then popped, the white light hurting their night-adjusted eyes. A

-moment later, Stebbins whistled and the men started moving up the hill.

-

-They paused at the timber-line, and Stebbins cursed, moving from man

-to man and urging him out of the false protection of the trees and

-onto the broad expanse of boulder-pocked snow. Above them, another

-two hundred yards, black dots against the snow showed where the caves

-were waiting for them. Johnson could visualize the little slant-eyed

-men within. He flopped to his belly and wriggled forward. Suddenly he

-stood up and dashed twenty yards, then flopped again as bullets whined

-through the space occupied by his body bare instants earlier.

-

-He lay there, face pressed into the snow, until the muscles of his legs

-started tensing of their own accord. Then he was up again, and running

-for dear life.

-

-Gun fire was bursting all around now, a seemingly solid screen of lead

-pouring down from the caves. But the men were getting through the

-barrier; one slammed into the rock wall beside a cave mouth and started

-unlimbering grenades, tossing them in as quickly as he could pull the

-pins. Seconds later a vast tongue of fire roared out, melting the snow

-and scorching the barren earth beneath.

-

-The fire probed down the hill as the side around the cave shook and

-roared. The fire reached and passed over Art Johnson, lying in the

-snow, fingers digging at the rock beneath.

-

-By its orange light, the spreading circle of red around the soldier

-blended into the artificial coloring of the snow.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-"Just think of it!" Cavendish pounded his hand on the desk. "The

-chance to go back and correct our mistakes, live our lives over again.

-The opportunities missed, the chances passed up, the decisions made

-wrong--all can be changed."

-

-The man in the chair swirled the dregs of the whisky in the bottom of

-the glass. "Go on, Cavendish," he said. "You're keeping my interest."

-

-Cavendish flushed. "Thank you, Mr. Blackwell. I knew a man of your

-position would not pass up an opportunity like this. Why, this is

-another chance to make the world! A second chance!"

-

-

-                                THE END

-

-

-

+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND CHANCE ***
+
+
+
+
+
+          _For those of you who may be sentimentalists about
+            what you'd do if you could live your life over
+            again, here is the real lowdown about that...._
+
+                             SECOND CHANCE
+
+                           By ROBERT HOSKINS
+
+                        Illustrated by SUMMERS
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+                      Amazing Stories April 1962
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+The boy was twelve, and running for dear life. Behind him came the
+sounds of half a dozen pursuers, the faintly sticky slap of leather
+soles coming down on summer-hot blacktopping and the sharp explosions
+of breath let out and sucked back in quickly as out-of-condition bodies
+forced muscles angrily beyond normal limits of endurance.
+
+"There goes the little bastard now!"
+
+"Don't let him get away!"
+
+A scant hundred yards separated pursued from pursuers. The boy stopped
+at the mouth of an alley, panic stealing logic as he glanced over his
+shoulders at the boys coming up quickly behind him. He darted into
+the alley, rounded a curve, and realized too late that he was in a
+dead-end. Boxes and trash were piled against the wall; a fire-escape
+beckoned invitingly just above. He scrabbled up the side of the pile,
+then realized his mistake as it began to shift beneath him. He leaped
+for the fire-escape ladder, his fingers brushing the lowest rung just
+as the pile collapsed, carrying him down and burying him.
+
+"Where the hell is he?"
+
+Hands started pulling at the pile, tearing away debris. The boy bit
+down on his lip, and closed his eyes against the inevitable.
+
+"Hey, here he is!"
+
+They grabbed him and pulled him out. A palm slapped across his cheek,
+forcing his eyes open.
+
+"Okay, you little sneak. What's the big idea? Why'd you rat to the
+Principal?" He shook his head.
+
+"Come on, dammit! Talk! You were talking enough yesterday!"
+
+"Ah, you're wasting your breath. Come on, let's do what we came to do
+and get it over with."
+
+"Okay, if that's the way you want it."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Johnson winced, as the first of the blows fell. The picture on the
+screen seemed far away, but the memory of physical pain was suddenly
+freshened. As hands and feet lashed out, repeatedly, raining down a
+storm of punishment on the quivering mass of flesh in the center of the
+picture, once-tortured nerves twinged in sympathy.
+
+"Brutal little monsters, aren't they?" said Cavendish.
+
+"I got back at them," said Johnson. "Every last one of them. I was the
+last kid they beat up."
+
+"Mmmm. Still, that didn't change the fact that you had already received
+a nasty beating yourself. No matter how sweet revenge, wouldn't it have
+been sweeter to have avoided the beating altogether?"
+
+Johnson massaged his crippled hand as he watched the tortured boy make
+a break away from his tormentors. A foot shot out, and the boy went
+sprawling. His chin hit the pavement; only the adult saw the biggest
+of the tormentors bring booted foot down on pathetic fingers. The foot
+twisted, and the man looked away.
+
+"Shut it off!" he shouted.
+
+"Certainly." Cavendish reached out and the screen went dead. Getting
+up, he went to the bar in the corner of the room and returned with a
+tumbler half-full of amber liquid. "Here, you need this."
+
+Johnson tossed off the drink, gasping as the liquor burned its way down
+to his stomach. "Ahhhh!" He wiped his mouth on the back of his good
+hand.
+
+"What do you think of my little machine, Mr. Johnson?" Cavendish
+settled himself behind a cluttered desk, hands folded over his paunch,
+looking extremely satisfied with himself. Pointed mustache and faintly
+slanted eyes heightened the effect of a cat with a stolen canary.
+
+"Your gadget is effective," admitted Johnson. "Just how powerful is it?"
+
+"Fifty years seems the limit it can probe. I've tried increasing the
+power, but beyond fifty years things quickly fade away into a gray fog.
+That's why I wanted to see you so urgently. Another few weeks, and this
+particular event in your life will be irrevocably lost." He glanced at
+the crippled hand. "Considering the direct consequences, I thought it
+would be a good place to start."
+
+"Assuming that I want to have anything to do with this at all."
+
+"Of course," said Cavendish, blandly. "Everything is always an
+assumption."
+
+"Your machine. It can actually send me back through time?"
+
+"In effect, yes."
+
+"I don't believe it."
+
+"I think you do, Mr. Johnson. You want to believe it, therefore you do
+believe it. A man like yourself, aware of missed opportunities...."
+
+"I haven't missed many chances in my day," said Johnson. "If I had, I'd
+never have become what I am today."
+
+"Rich."
+
+"I'd rather call it powerful."
+
+"As you like." Cavendish shrugged. "After all, what is money but
+power? With it, you have the power to do things, make a living, run
+a business, increase your standing in the community. Without it....
+Everything becomes negative. You have the power to die, but nothing
+more."
+
+"You need money, too."
+
+"Of course. I've never denied it. Science has never been a particularly
+profitable field of endeavor--at least, not on my level. For you,
+science has made money. For me, it merely uses it."
+
+"You want money from me."
+
+"Naturally. You have enough for both of us."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"But why me?" asked Johnson, suspiciously. "Why not someone else? There
+are other men as wealthy or wealthier than I--Reading, Blackwell,
+Morgenstern, just to name three in this very city."
+
+"Yes, I considered them--all of them, and many others besides. It
+really made no difference which one I finally selected. I chose you,
+Mr. Johnson, for just one reason--the scene just witnessed."
+
+"All right. You've aroused my interest. Now tell me just how your time
+machine can help me."
+
+Cavendish winced. "Please, Mr. Johnson, I do not have a time machine."
+
+"You just said you can send me back through time."
+
+"In effect, Sir; in effect. Physically, no. My machine--temporal
+transgressor I call it, for want of a better term--my machine has the
+faculty of liberating a certain part of the human id, the conscience,
+the soul, if you please, and casting it adrift on the broad temporal
+stream. A strong will can direct this liberated 'something' against the
+general drift of the temporal stream, forcing it backwards against the
+natural current. Back through time, as it were."
+
+"And just how does this help me?"
+
+"From the limited experiments I have been able to perform with
+available funds, I have found that, shall we say from now on, for
+simplicity's sake, the Id, tends to gravitate to early versions of
+itself. Apparently there is some sort of force that binds the Id with
+itself. At moments of crisis, this force is strongest."
+
+"And you want me to be a guinea pig for your experiments."
+
+"Crudely put, Sir."
+
+"But the truth."
+
+Cavendish shrugged. "Consider the benefits to be reaped."
+
+"As yet, I have seen none," said Johnson, bluntly. "Suppose you
+enlighten me some more."
+
+"Opportunities...."
+
+"We covered that before."
+
+"But have we? Consider, Sir; you are wealthy, powerful, in spite of
+your, ah, handicap." He glanced away as Johnson inspected his hand.
+"Just think what might have happened had you not been injured? Who can
+say what new avenues might be opened to you?"
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Then you'll do it?" asked Cavendish, eagerly.
+
+"Perhaps. How much do you need?"
+
+"I have my equipment all ready. But I need a great deal of power to
+operate it. You are one of the directors of Public Power; I need your
+signature on releases for the necessary leads and, of course, the power
+itself."
+
+"You shall have them. When can we be ready to operate?"
+
+Cavendish pursed his lips. "With PP technicians running in the new
+lines--three days."
+
+"Very well. I'll be back."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+T. Arthur Johnson had not, as he had told Cavendish, been a man to
+pass up an opportunity. Forty years of fighting and clawing his way up
+through the jungle of business competition had sharpened his senses and
+heightened his awareness of what one fatal mistake could do.
+
+Still, no man is infallible; all miss out on something, sometime. Some
+men go through their entire lives making the wrong decisions; they end
+up failures.
+
+T. Arthur Johnson was a qualified success. Qualified, for, although
+successful he might be, as a man he was not happy. It is rarely
+that the two go hand-in-hand. Happiness and success often seem to
+be mutually exclusive goals. Yet contentment is a close cousin of
+happiness, and many let themselves be satisfied with second best.
+
+After checking with Cavendish to find out just how much time would have
+to be invested in the experiments, Johnson arranged his affairs into
+the hands of several trusted managers--trusted because they were owned,
+body and soul, by Johnson. On the morning of the third day, as the last
+of the Public Power trucks was leaving the warehouse in which Cavendish
+had set up his laboratory, Johnson presented himself at the door.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Ah, Mr. Johnson." His eyes lit up. "Right on time. I suppose you are
+as anxious as I to get on with the experiments."
+
+"Time is valuable," said Johnson. "I don't believe in wasting it. Shall
+we get on with it?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+The lab seemed little changed from Johnson's earlier visit. An
+adjustable lounge chair had been set up near the screen; from it,
+lines ran into a panel of equipment that the industrialist found
+incomprehensible. At Cavendish's gesture, he sat down and permitted
+electrodes to be attached to his head and arms.
+
+"Comfortable, Sir?"
+
+"Quite."
+
+Cavendish adjusted switches; the screen came to life, showing the
+earlier scene with the youthful Johnson just beginning his dash into
+the alley.
+
+"We regress some twenty-seven hours more," he said. The scene dissolved
+and was replaced by one with the boy in a classroom. The clock on the
+wall read three-thirty; school had been out some fifteen minutes. Timmy
+Johnson placed the last of the erasers in the blackboard trough and
+checked the stack of workbooks with his eye, stopping to shift the top
+one a quarter of an inch into better alignment.
+
+"We are now approaching the crisis point," said Cavendish. "The
+blending of the adult Id with that of the boy will enable you to
+control the actions of the boy."
+
+"Get on with it!" said Johnson, impatiently, anxious to have the affair
+over with.
+
+"Very well." Cavendish closed several switches and the hum of vast
+amounts of power pouring into the little room rose until it set the
+hackles of the men's necks rising. Still it rose, until Cavendish
+closed one final switch--
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"All done, Mrs. Taylor."
+
+"Thank you, Timmy." She glanced up from the stack of papers and smiled
+at the boy. "I swear, I don't know what I'd do without you. You're the
+best helper I ever had."
+
+Timmy glowed at the praise; he felt the back of his neck warming. It
+was fun helping her out, no matter what the other kids said or thought.
+He scuffed the toe of his sneaker against the heel of the other one.
+"Well, I guess I'd better be getting home, Mrs. Taylor. Mom usually
+wants me to run to the store for her after school."
+
+"All right, Timmy. Good night."
+
+"Good night." He lingered in the door for a last smile from the woman,
+then ran down the stairs to the lockers on the basement corridors.
+He stowed his books in his locker, then twirled the dial on the
+combination lock, bought with money saved out of his allowance.
+
+Timmy started towards the exit, when suddenly he heard voices coming
+from the boys' shower room.
+
+"Aw, come on, Janie! What's the harm in having a little peek?"
+
+"With your big eyes, Danny Grissome, a lot!"
+
+Raucous laughter. "I guess she told you that time, Danny boy."
+
+"Yeah? Well, I'm gonna see what I came down here to see, whether you
+like it or not, Janie. Now come on!"
+
+"No! Keep your dirty hands off me, Danny Grissome!"
+
+Heart pounding in his breast, Timmy edged towards the door of the
+shower room. From the voices, he knew there were at least half a dozen
+boys inside. The door was slightly ajar; the school was supposed to be
+empty, so the boys had been careless. Placing his eye to the crack,
+Timmy tried to make out what was going on, but his field of vision was
+too limited. All he could get were vague impressions of bodies moving
+back and forth.
+
+Frustrated, he leaned his weight against the door. Suddenly it swung
+in, and he fell after it.
+
+"Hey, who's that?"
+
+Rough hands pulled him to his feet.
+
+"Ahh, it's Teacher's Pet Johnson. What are you doing here, stupid?"
+
+Timmy panicked. "I saw what you were doing!" he piped. His voice was
+shrill with fear. "I'm going to--"
+
+Something clicked.
+
+"Yeah?" demanded Danny. "What are you going to do shrimp?"
+
+"I...."
+
+Timmy shook his head; his eyes took on a faraway expression.
+
+"Hey, what's the matter with you, shrimp? Wake up."
+
+Something clicked again, and the adult Id settled into control of
+the youthful body. T. Arthur Johnson looked out on the situation
+confronting Timmy Johnson and came to a decision. It was not the
+decision the boy had--would--make of his own volition. But, then,
+the adult Johnson had one important advantage over his juvenile
+counterpart--he knew the certain and distasteful consequences of the
+boy's activities.
+
+"Well?" demanded Danny. "Get with it, kid. What are you going to do?"
+
+"I'm going to tell Mr. Arkins--unless you let me watch too!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"How's your hand?" asked Cavendish, as he unsnapped the electrodes.
+
+"Hand?" Johnson looked at first one then the other. "What about my
+hand?"
+
+Cavendish looked, then shook his head, puzzled. "That's funny. Now
+where did I get the idea that something was wrong with your hand?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know," said Johnson, getting up and stretching. He
+felt tired, more tired than he could remember having been in a long
+time. The feeling had become alien to the desk-bound man, but it was
+simply physical exhaustion. He yawned. "How about a drink?"
+
+"Of course." He retreated to the little bar and came back with a
+generous slug in the usual water tumbler. Johnson tossed it off,
+sighed, and wiped his mouth.
+
+"Well?" demanded Cavendish.
+
+"Well, what?"
+
+"Don't keep me in suspense!" begged the little man. "What was it like?"
+
+Johnson considered. "Nostalgic, I suppose. Everyone would like
+another chance to revisit his childhood. You've proven that your time
+ma--Pardon me. Your temporal transgressor, works. But as to your idea
+that events can be changed--well, consider me from Missouri."
+
+"But the machine does work," insisted Cavendish.
+
+"I've already said that," said Johnson, irritated with the little man.
+Cavendish seemed much more pushy than he had at their first meeting.
+Johnson had never cared for that type of person, perhaps recognizing
+too much of himself reflected in the other personality.
+
+"The next part should be simple, then," said Cavendish. "All we have
+to do is find a suitable crisis point in your life, and send you back.
+Once you have changed it--made a different decision--then you'll see."
+
+"Perhaps," said Johnson, a strong doubt in the back of his mind. "Have
+you picked out such a suitable crisis?"
+
+"I think so." He turned to the screen, and began adjusting the dials.
+Gray fog swirled mistily across the face of the tube, resolving
+momentarily into brief scenes as the scientist searched for something
+in particular. At last he grunted in satisfaction, and straightened up.
+
+"Here we are." He sharpened the focus, and it became Johnson's turn to
+grunt in surprise.
+
+"Damn you!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The scene was dimly-lit, obviously happening late at night. Two youths
+in their late teens were busy at the rear door of a service station,
+while another kept peering around the corner, keeping an anxious eye
+out for passers-by. At last the lock of the door gave way to their
+efforts, and all three slipped inside. Cavendish turned a dial and the
+picture followed the actors into the interior of the station.
+
+One of the figures produced a pencil flash; by its thin beam, they
+made their way past a store-room piled high with cases of motor oil
+and transmission fluid and into the garage part of the station. One of
+the figures stopped by a stack of tires and a heated argument broke
+out, soundless though it seemed to the watchers in the future. At last,
+one prevailed over the other and they continued their search of the
+station, stopping at last by the register. One of the boys punched it
+open, and scooped up a small handful of bills, only to have disgust
+register on his face when they turned out to be all singles.
+
+In the meantime, one of the other boys was forcing the coin box on the
+cigarette machine. He scooped silver into his pockets, then turned to
+the soft drink machine at its side.
+
+Sudden light glared into the station, blinding the boys. They stopped
+dead in their tracks, as they tried to shield their eyes from the
+glare. Then, panic-stricken, they broke for the rear and the door they
+had forced to gain entrance. The figures were lost for a moment, but
+soon reappeared, shepherded none too gently by several men in blue. The
+station's own lights came on.
+
+Cavendish suddenly felt pity for the aged man and switched off the
+picture. Without asking, he refilled Johnson's glass.
+
+"No one ever knew about that," said Johnson, softly.
+
+"Your family did a good job of hushing it up," agreed Cavendish.
+
+"We served our time, though--nine months in that stinking county jail,
+after time off for good behavior." He shuddered. Across two-thirds of a
+lifetime, the memory was still painful.
+
+"It kept you out of the service, didn't it?"
+
+"Yes. My folks always claimed I spent the time bumming around the
+country. They said ill health kept me out of the Army. People never
+believed them, though. They seemed to know better."
+
+"Definitely a crisis in your life?"
+
+"Most definitely," agreed Johnson.
+
+"Then if I send you back to the time when you and your companions were
+planning this adventure, and you succeed in talking your younger self
+out of it, you'll be convinced that what I say is true?"
+
+"Yes, that'll do it."
+
+"Good! Events can be altered; time is not immutable!" The little man's
+eyes gleamed fanatically; Johnson for the first time debated the wisdom
+of letting himself be strapped in under his care. But Cavendish was
+already adjusting the electrodes; he finished, and turned on the power
+source.
+
+"I'll send you back to that afternoon," he said. "The three of you are
+gathered in the back room of Cook's News Shop."
+
+"I remember," said Johnson.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Hi, Danny."
+
+"Hi," said the leader of the three, looking up. "What do you want,
+Janie?"
+
+"Oh, nothing," said the girl, tossing her pony tail back over her
+shoulder. "But I'll settle for a coke."
+
+"Be my guest," said Danny Grissome, digging a dime from his pocket.
+"But be a doll and drink it at the counter, hey?"
+
+"What's the matter? My company not good enough for the big shots?" She
+sniffed, but accepted the dime.
+
+"Your company's fine," said Grissome. "But we're busy----man-type busy.
+So later, hey? Later."
+
+The boys watched her flounce sensuously through the archway separating
+the back room from the front section of the store, and knew as they
+watched that she was fully aware of their eyes on her. Danny's tongue
+darted over his lips; he sighed.
+
+"Man, I gotta get me some more of that. But not now. We got things to
+talk about now. Important things, right, Art?"
+
+Johnson tore his eyes from the girl. "Uh, yeah, Danny. Sure. Anything
+you say."
+
+"That's right. Anything I say. And don't you creeps ever forget it."
+
+"So who's arguing?"
+
+"Nobody, Flip--not yet. But I got me a feeling all of us in our little
+group aren't happy. Right, Art?"
+
+"I didn't say that," protested Johnson.
+
+"That's what it sounded like to me."
+
+"So excuse me for living." He shrugged. "All I said was that I don't go
+for that kind of jazz. It spells trouble, big trouble. C--O--P trouble."
+
+"Ahhh, you're a real nervous nellie, Art. I tell you, this place is
+a leadpipe cinch. He leaves the money in a register my baby brother
+could walk off with, and the lock on that back door is made out of
+bubble-gum. Now all we gotta do is wait till about midnight, after
+the patrol car swings through. It doesn't come back again for forty
+minutes, and that's more than enough time for what we want to do. What
+do you say?"
+
+"I don't like it."
+
+"You don't have to like it. Just do it. Now, what do you say?"
+
+"Well, okay."
+
+"Good!" Danny settled back and slapped the table. "It's settled, then.
+Flip picks us up here at eleven thirty and we drive over to Blandina
+and park behind the billboard on the vacant lot the next block down.
+Now don't either one of you creeps go fouling up this deal."
+
+"What's to foul?" said Flip.
+
+"Yeah, you're right. What's to foul?" He slapped the table again. "Hey,
+who wants a coke? I'll buy." He leaned around the corner of the booth
+and whistled. "Hey, Janie! Fun time! Tell Sandy to fix us three cokes
+and come on out and join the party!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Art Johnson rounded the corner and approached the coke shop, hands
+sweaty in anticipation of what was going to happen within the next
+hour. He wished there was some way for him to back out of the situation
+and still manage to save face, but it was too late. The pattern was
+set, and events would ride out to their inevitable climax.
+
+Then--
+
+Something clicked.
+
+The youth paused in midstride and nearly stumbled. His eyes took on a
+faraway look. A boy and girl came out of the shop arm-in-arm and nearly
+walked into him.
+
+"Hey, stupid! Watch where you're going."
+
+"Sorry," he muttered, shaking his head.
+
+"Some people," said the boy, "live in a fog." The girl giggled, and Art
+pushed his way into the packed interior of the shop.
+
+"Hey, man!"
+
+Danny was holding a booth open. Art pushed his way through the crowd
+and slid in beside him.
+
+"You're late," said Danny. "What happened?"
+
+"The old lady stayed up to watch the eleven o'clock news. I had to wait
+until she was in bed."
+
+"Well, it's a good thing you made it. We were about ready to take off
+without you. Come on, Flip; let's move out."
+
+"Just a minute, Danny."
+
+"Yeah?" The boy paused, half-risen out of his seat. After staring at
+Johnson's face, he sat back down again. "What is it, Art boy?"
+
+"The deal's off. I'm cutting out."
+
+"What?" He shook his head in disbelief. "You crazy man?"
+
+"No. That's why I'm cutting out." He sighed. "I didn't like this deal
+from the word go. You knew that."
+
+"Yeah. But I never thought you'd go chicken on us, Art boy. Not on old
+Danny. That's me, remember? Danny Grissome. What I say, goes. Anything
+I say goes. Right, Flip?"
+
+"Right, Danny."
+
+"Right, Art boy?"
+
+"Not right, Danny," said Johnson, softly.
+
+"You mean it. You really mean it!" He shook his head, sadly. "What's
+the world coming to?"
+
+"No good end, most likely," said Johnson. "But I don't intend to mess
+myself up any sooner than I absolutely have to."
+
+"I dunno." Danny shook his head again. "You don't talk like the
+same Art boy I know. Hey, is that you, hiding inside that mess of
+goody-goody talk, Art baby? Come on out and join the party."
+
+"No go, Danny." Johnson shook his head. "If I'm not the same Art boy,
+it's because I finally woke up."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"How did it go?" asked Cavendish, as he unclipped the electrodes.
+
+"Go?" Johnson shrugged, then stretched and yawned widely. "I guess it
+went all right. I haven't seen Danny or Flip for forty years. Wonder
+what ever happened to them?"
+
+"Ended up in jail, most likely. But what about the crisis? Did you
+succeed in avoiding it?"
+
+"Crisis?" Johnson peered at him through narrowed lids. "Are you daft,
+man? What crisis could there possible be in a bunch of kids getting
+together in a corner sweet shop?"
+
+"But...." Cavendish shook his head. "Things did change!"
+
+"What changed? Name me one concrete thing that's different than it
+used to be."
+
+"I...." He shook his head. "I can't."
+
+"Of course you can't. And for the very simple reason that nothing did
+change. I'm still the same man I always was. And you'd better start
+coming up with some concrete benefits from this gadget of yours. You
+know I put myself into hock to raise the money you needed--I told my
+wife I was adding another franchise to my line. If she finds out her
+jewels were hocked for me to play around with a time machine, instead
+of a new line of cars, she'll flip. So how about it, Cavendish? Some
+concrete results next time."
+
+Cavendish went to the bar and returned with a generous slug of whisky.
+
+"What's this?" said Johnson.
+
+"Why, your drink."
+
+"Drink?" He snorted. "You know I don't drink, man. Have you gone
+completely daft? I haven't touched alcohol since I was a youngster."
+
+Cavendish seemed near tears. He drank the whisky himself, then turned
+back to the machine.
+
+"What are you up to now?"
+
+"I'm looking for a suitable crisis point." The screen wavered, then
+filled with a group of men in uniform--heavy winter garb. They were
+clustered around a small fire in a cave; one seemed to be heating
+coffee in a tin can. Johnson sucked in his breath.
+
+"You know what is going to happen?"
+
+"Yes, dammit! You're a devil!"
+
+"Perhaps." He sighed. "I sometimes wonder.... But no matter." He
+adjusted the picture, and events flowed forward a few hours. The
+soldiers were now at the base of a snow-covered hill. Above them, gaunt
+and bare, the timber-line beckoned with obscenely stretching limbs.
+
+Suddenly a flare shot up from someplace to the right of the little
+band. Its eerie glare picked out unexpected shadows among the trees
+above. One of the soldiers, facing the prospect of near and immediate
+personal death for the first time in his life, panicked and began
+spraying the tree-line with his grease gun. Branches and splinters of
+wood kicked out, until the Sergeant reached out and slapped the gun
+from the boy's arms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The men waited until an unheard signal sounded; then the Sergeant waved
+them on up the hill. Slowly, cautiously at first, they made progress
+through the protecting trees. But then they reached the timber-line
+and froze. Cursing, the Sergeant moved from man to man, shoving them
+out of the false protection. At last he came to the boy who had fired
+earlier. Just as the older man placed his hand on the boy's shoulder,
+the boy twisted and broke away, running madly down the hill....
+
+"That's enough, damn you!"
+
+Cavendish turned off the picture and came back to Johnson's side. "They
+court-martialed you, didn't they?"
+
+"You know they did," he said, dully.
+
+"You were unlucky, that's all. Many a soldier spooks his first time
+under fire. A lot of them run away."
+
+"How many of them run right into the arms of their Commanding General?"
+
+"Unlucky," said Cavendish.
+
+"They kicked me out," said Johnson, bitterly. "A dishonorable
+discharge--'cowardice in the face of enemy action'. Said I was lucky I
+didn't face the firing squad."
+
+"Officers are human, too," said Cavendish. "In times of stress, they
+tend to panic."
+
+"They were 'making an example of me'," said Johnson. He laughed, a
+humorless sound that grated on the ears. "Some example. It took me
+twenty years to live it down."
+
+"But people do forget, eventually."
+
+"Not all of them."
+
+"Shall we get on with it?"
+
+"Of course, man. This is what I have been waiting for!" His words were
+sharp and impatient.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Hey, Art! Got a butt?"
+
+"Yeah, sure." Art Johnson scrabbled around inside his jacket and came
+out with a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He passed them over.
+
+"Thanks, buddy. God, but it's cold here!" He stripped off one glove and
+warmed the palm of his hand over the glowing coal of the cigarette.
+"Now I know what they mean when they call a place Godforsaken."
+
+"Ease off there, you two!" Sergeant Stebbins glowered their way. "You
+want every chink in Korea to hear you?"
+
+"Sorry, Sarge," muttered the cigarette-bummer. He dropped his voice
+to a whisper. "Hey, Artie! I hear some of the guys in Fox company are
+making book on how many of us live through the day."
+
+"Yeah?" Johnson shook his head. "Some characters'll bet on their own
+mother's funeral."
+
+"Or their own." The boy giggled. "Wouldn't it be funny if the winners
+couldn't collect because they were all dead?"
+
+"A real scream," said Johnson, sourly. "Look, let's change the subject,
+huh?"
+
+The boy shrugged. "Sure, Art. Anything you say."
+
+They lapsed into silence, and Art Johnson considered the improbable
+amount of circumstances that had brought him to the base of this
+numbered but nameless hill half across the world from home. There was
+nothing of home here, and he felt the lack mightily. There was a very
+good chance that before another few hours had passed, he would be dead.
+And then he would never see home again.
+
+He shivered. The thought frightened him. He didn't want to die. Not
+that he supposed any of the other men wanted to die either. But they
+were remote, other beings, alien in Art Johnson's world. What they felt
+he could not guess; what he felt he knew.
+
+_And he did not want to die!_
+
+"Hey, Art!"
+
+"Uh, what is it, Tooey?"
+
+"Chinks, I think. Up there in the trees. God, they're sneaking down!"
+
+"Where? Dammit, where?" He thumbed the safety of his grease gun, and
+brought it up to bear on the trees. His fingers tightened around the
+stock; the trigger started to depress--
+
+Then--
+
+Something clicked.
+
+"Jesus, Artie, they're coming!"
+
+Art Johnson's eyes took on a faraway look. His fingers loosened their
+death grip on the gun. He shook his head.
+
+"_Artie!_"
+
+"Shut up, Tooey!" Reaching out, he slapped the boy's face. "You're
+imagining things."
+
+"But they're up there, Artie!" whimpered the boy.
+
+"Sure they're up there. But not where you think they are. They're dug
+in, in the caves. And it's going to be up to us to dig them out. Now
+snap out of it!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Suddenly a flare shot up from somewhere to their right. It whistled,
+then popped, the white light hurting their night-adjusted eyes. A
+moment later, Stebbins whistled and the men started moving up the hill.
+
+They paused at the timber-line, and Stebbins cursed, moving from man
+to man and urging him out of the false protection of the trees and
+onto the broad expanse of boulder-pocked snow. Above them, another
+two hundred yards, black dots against the snow showed where the caves
+were waiting for them. Johnson could visualize the little slant-eyed
+men within. He flopped to his belly and wriggled forward. Suddenly he
+stood up and dashed twenty yards, then flopped again as bullets whined
+through the space occupied by his body bare instants earlier.
+
+He lay there, face pressed into the snow, until the muscles of his legs
+started tensing of their own accord. Then he was up again, and running
+for dear life.
+
+Gun fire was bursting all around now, a seemingly solid screen of lead
+pouring down from the caves. But the men were getting through the
+barrier; one slammed into the rock wall beside a cave mouth and started
+unlimbering grenades, tossing them in as quickly as he could pull the
+pins. Seconds later a vast tongue of fire roared out, melting the snow
+and scorching the barren earth beneath.
+
+The fire probed down the hill as the side around the cave shook and
+roared. The fire reached and passed over Art Johnson, lying in the
+snow, fingers digging at the rock beneath.
+
+By its orange light, the spreading circle of red around the soldier
+blended into the artificial coloring of the snow.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"Just think of it!" Cavendish pounded his hand on the desk. "The
+chance to go back and correct our mistakes, live our lives over again.
+The opportunities missed, the chances passed up, the decisions made
+wrong--all can be changed."
+
+The man in the chair swirled the dregs of the whisky in the bottom of
+the glass. "Go on, Cavendish," he said. "You're keeping my interest."
+
+Cavendish flushed. "Thank you, Mr. Blackwell. I knew a man of your
+position would not pass up an opportunity like this. Why, this is
+another chance to make the world! A second chance!"
+
+
+                                THE END
+
+
+
 *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND CHANCE ***
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-      Second Chance | Project Gutenberg

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-<body>

-<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND CHANCE ***</div>

-

-<div class="titlepage">

-

-<p><i>For those of you who may be sentimentalists about<br>

-what you'd do if you could live your life over<br>

-again, here is the real lowdown about that....</i></p>

-

-<h1>SECOND CHANCE</h1>

-

-<p class="ph1">By ROBERT HOSKINS</p>

-

-<p>Illustrated by SUMMERS</p>

-

-<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br>

-Amazing Stories April 1962<br>

-Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br>

-the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<hr class="chap">

-

-<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="illus" style="max-width: 20.875em;">

-  <img class="w100" src="images/illus.jpg" alt="">

-</figure>

-

-<hr class="chap">

-

-<p>The boy was twelve, and running for dear life. Behind him came the

-sounds of half a dozen pursuers, the faintly sticky slap of leather

-soles coming down on summer-hot blacktopping and the sharp explosions

-of breath let out and sucked back in quickly as out-of-condition bodies

-forced muscles angrily beyond normal limits of endurance.</p>

-

-<p>"There goes the little bastard now!"</p>

-

-<p>"Don't let him get away!"</p>

-

-<p>A scant hundred yards separated pursued from pursuers. The boy stopped

-at the mouth of an alley, panic stealing logic as he glanced over his

-shoulders at the boys coming up quickly behind him. He darted into

-the alley, rounded a curve, and realized too late that he was in a

-dead-end. Boxes and trash were piled against the wall; a fire-escape

-beckoned invitingly just above. He scrabbled up the side of the pile,

-then realized his mistake as it began to shift beneath him. He leaped

-for the fire-escape ladder, his fingers brushing the lowest rung just

-as the pile collapsed, carrying him down and burying him.</p>

-

-<p>"Where the hell is he?"</p>

-

-<p>Hands started pulling at the pile, tearing away debris. The boy bit

-down on his lip, and closed his eyes against the inevitable.</p>

-

-<p>"Hey, here he is!"</p>

-

-<p>They grabbed him and pulled him out. A palm slapped across his cheek,

-forcing his eyes open.</p>

-

-<p>"Okay, you little sneak. What's the big idea? Why'd you rat to the

-Principal?" He shook his head.</p>

-

-<p>"Come on, dammit! Talk! You were talking enough yesterday!"</p>

-

-<p>"Ah, you're wasting your breath. Come on, let's do what we came to do

-and get it over with."</p>

-

-<p>"Okay, if that's the way you want it."</p>

-

-<hr class="tb">

-

-<p>Johnson winced, as the first of the blows fell. The picture on the

-screen seemed far away, but the memory of physical pain was suddenly

-freshened. As hands and feet lashed out, repeatedly, raining down a

-storm of punishment on the quivering mass of flesh in the center of the

-picture, once-tortured nerves twinged in sympathy.</p>

-

-<p>"Brutal little monsters, aren't they?" said Cavendish.</p>

-

-<p>"I got back at them," said Johnson. "Every last one of them. I was the

-last kid they beat up."</p>

-

-<p>"Mmmm. Still, that didn't change the fact that you had already received

-a nasty beating yourself. No matter how sweet revenge, wouldn't it have

-been sweeter to have avoided the beating altogether?"</p>

-

-<p>Johnson massaged his crippled hand as he watched the tortured boy make

-a break away from his tormentors. A foot shot out, and the boy went

-sprawling. His chin hit the pavement; only the adult saw the biggest

-of the tormentors bring booted foot down on pathetic fingers. The foot

-twisted, and the man looked away.</p>

-

-<p>"Shut it off!" he shouted.</p>

-

-<p>"Certainly." Cavendish reached out and the screen went dead. Getting

-up, he went to the bar in the corner of the room and returned with a

-tumbler half-full of amber liquid. "Here, you need this."</p>

-

-<p>Johnson tossed off the drink, gasping as the liquor burned its way down

-to his stomach. "Ahhhh!" He wiped his mouth on the back of his good

-hand.</p>

-

-<p>"What do you think of my little machine, Mr. Johnson?" Cavendish

-settled himself behind a cluttered desk, hands folded over his paunch,

-looking extremely satisfied with himself. Pointed mustache and faintly

-slanted eyes heightened the effect of a cat with a stolen canary.</p>

-

-<p>"Your gadget is effective," admitted Johnson. "Just how powerful is it?"</p>

-

-<p>"Fifty years seems the limit it can probe. I've tried increasing the

-power, but beyond fifty years things quickly fade away into a gray fog.

-That's why I wanted to see you so urgently. Another few weeks, and this

-particular event in your life will be irrevocably lost." He glanced at

-the crippled hand. "Considering the direct consequences, I thought it

-would be a good place to start."</p>

-

-<p>"Assuming that I want to have anything to do with this at all."</p>

-

-<p>"Of course," said Cavendish, blandly. "Everything is always an

-assumption."</p>

-

-<p>"Your machine. It can actually send me back through time?"</p>

-

-<p>"In effect, yes."</p>

-

-<p>"I don't believe it."</p>

-

-<p>"I think you do, Mr. Johnson. You want to believe it, therefore you do

-believe it. A man like yourself, aware of missed opportunities...."</p>

-

-<p>"I haven't missed many chances in my day," said Johnson. "If I had, I'd

-never have become what I am today."</p>

-

-<p>"Rich."</p>

-

-<p>"I'd rather call it powerful."</p>

-

-<p>"As you like." Cavendish shrugged. "After all, what is money but

-power? With it, you have the power to do things, make a living, run

-a business, increase your standing in the community. Without it....

-Everything becomes negative. You have the power to die, but nothing

-more."</p>

-

-<p>"You need money, too."</p>

-

-<p>"Of course. I've never denied it. Science has never been a particularly

-profitable field of endeavor—at least, not on my level. For you,

-science has made money. For me, it merely uses it."</p>

-

-<p>"You want money from me."</p>

-

-<p>"Naturally. You have enough for both of us."</p>

-

-<hr class="tb">

-

-<p>"But why me?" asked Johnson, suspiciously. "Why not someone else? There

-are other men as wealthy or wealthier than I—Reading, Blackwell,

-Morgenstern, just to name three in this very city."</p>

-

-<p>"Yes, I considered them—all of them, and many others besides. It

-really made no difference which one I finally selected. I chose you,

-Mr. Johnson, for just one reason—the scene just witnessed."</p>

-

-<p>"All right. You've aroused my interest. Now tell me just how your time

-machine can help me."</p>

-

-<p>Cavendish winced. "Please, Mr. Johnson, I do not have a time machine."</p>

-

-<p>"You just said you can send me back through time."</p>

-

-<p>"In effect, Sir; in effect. Physically, no. My machine—temporal

-transgressor I call it, for want of a better term—my machine has the

-faculty of liberating a certain part of the human id, the conscience,

-the soul, if you please, and casting it adrift on the broad temporal

-stream. A strong will can direct this liberated 'something' against the

-general drift of the temporal stream, forcing it backwards against the

-natural current. Back through time, as it were."</p>

-

-<p>"And just how does this help me?"</p>

-

-<p>"From the limited experiments I have been able to perform with

-available funds, I have found that, shall we say from now on, for

-simplicity's sake, the Id, tends to gravitate to early versions of

-itself. Apparently there is some sort of force that binds the Id with

-itself. At moments of crisis, this force is strongest."</p>

-

-<p>"And you want me to be a guinea pig for your experiments."</p>

-

-<p>"Crudely put, Sir."</p>

-

-<p>"But the truth."</p>

-

-<p>Cavendish shrugged. "Consider the benefits to be reaped."</p>

-

-<p>"As yet, I have seen none," said Johnson, bluntly. "Suppose you

-enlighten me some more."</p>

-

-<p>"Opportunities...."</p>

-

-<p>"We covered that before."</p>

-

-<p>"But have we? Consider, Sir; you are wealthy, powerful, in spite of

-your, ah, handicap." He glanced away as Johnson inspected his hand.

-"Just think what might have happened had you not been injured? Who can

-say what new avenues might be opened to you?"</p>

-

-<p>"How much?"</p>

-

-<p>"Then you'll do it?" asked Cavendish, eagerly.</p>

-

-<p>"Perhaps. How much do you need?"</p>

-

-<p>"I have my equipment all ready. But I need a great deal of power to

-operate it. You are one of the directors of Public Power; I need your

-signature on releases for the necessary leads and, of course, the power

-itself."</p>

-

-<p>"You shall have them. When can we be ready to operate?"</p>

-

-<p>Cavendish pursed his lips. "With PP technicians running in the new

-lines—three days."</p>

-

-<p>"Very well. I'll be back."</p>

-

-<hr class="tb">

-

-<p>T. Arthur Johnson had not, as he had told Cavendish, been a man to

-pass up an opportunity. Forty years of fighting and clawing his way up

-through the jungle of business competition had sharpened his senses and

-heightened his awareness of what one fatal mistake could do.</p>

-

-<p>Still, no man is infallible; all miss out on something, sometime. Some

-men go through their entire lives making the wrong decisions; they end

-up failures.</p>

-

-<p>T. Arthur Johnson was a qualified success. Qualified, for, although

-successful he might be, as a man he was not happy. It is rarely

-that the two go hand-in-hand. Happiness and success often seem to

-be mutually exclusive goals. Yet contentment is a close cousin of

-happiness, and many let themselves be satisfied with second best.</p>

-

-<p>After checking with Cavendish to find out just how much time would have

-to be invested in the experiments, Johnson arranged his affairs into

-the hands of several trusted managers—trusted because they were owned,

-body and soul, by Johnson. On the morning of the third day, as the last

-of the Public Power trucks was leaving the warehouse in which Cavendish

-had set up his laboratory, Johnson presented himself at the door.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb">

-

-<p>"Ah, Mr. Johnson." His eyes lit up. "Right on time. I suppose you are

-as anxious as I to get on with the experiments."</p>

-

-<p>"Time is valuable," said Johnson. "I don't believe in wasting it. Shall

-we get on with it?"</p>

-

-<p>"Of course."</p>

-

-<p>The lab seemed little changed from Johnson's earlier visit. An

-adjustable lounge chair had been set up near the screen; from it,

-lines ran into a panel of equipment that the industrialist found

-incomprehensible. At Cavendish's gesture, he sat down and permitted

-electrodes to be attached to his head and arms.</p>

-

-<p>"Comfortable, Sir?"</p>

-

-<p>"Quite."</p>

-

-<p>Cavendish adjusted switches; the screen came to life, showing the

-earlier scene with the youthful Johnson just beginning his dash into

-the alley.</p>

-

-<p>"We regress some twenty-seven hours more," he said. The scene dissolved

-and was replaced by one with the boy in a classroom. The clock on the

-wall read three-thirty; school had been out some fifteen minutes. Timmy

-Johnson placed the last of the erasers in the blackboard trough and

-checked the stack of workbooks with his eye, stopping to shift the top

-one a quarter of an inch into better alignment.</p>

-

-<p>"We are now approaching the crisis point," said Cavendish. "The

-blending of the adult Id with that of the boy will enable you to

-control the actions of the boy."</p>

-

-<p>"Get on with it!" said Johnson, impatiently, anxious to have the affair

-over with.</p>

-

-<p>"Very well." Cavendish closed several switches and the hum of vast

-amounts of power pouring into the little room rose until it set the

-hackles of the men's necks rising. Still it rose, until Cavendish

-closed one final switch—</p>

-

-<hr class="tb">

-

-<p>"All done, Mrs. Taylor."</p>

-

-<p>"Thank you, Timmy." She glanced up from the stack of papers and smiled

-at the boy. "I swear, I don't know what I'd do without you. You're the

-best helper I ever had."</p>

-

-<p>Timmy glowed at the praise; he felt the back of his neck warming. It

-was fun helping her out, no matter what the other kids said or thought.

-He scuffed the toe of his sneaker against the heel of the other one.

-"Well, I guess I'd better be getting home, Mrs. Taylor. Mom usually

-wants me to run to the store for her after school."</p>

-

-<p>"All right, Timmy. Good night."</p>

-

-<p>"Good night." He lingered in the door for a last smile from the woman,

-then ran down the stairs to the lockers on the basement corridors.

-He stowed his books in his locker, then twirled the dial on the

-combination lock, bought with money saved out of his allowance.</p>

-

-<p>Timmy started towards the exit, when suddenly he heard voices coming

-from the boys' shower room.</p>

-

-<p>"Aw, come on, Janie! What's the harm in having a little peek?"</p>

-

-<p>"With your big eyes, Danny Grissome, a lot!"</p>

-

-<p>Raucous laughter. "I guess she told you that time, Danny boy."</p>

-

-<p>"Yeah? Well, I'm gonna see what I came down here to see, whether you

-like it or not, Janie. Now come on!"</p>

-

-<p>"No! Keep your dirty hands off me, Danny Grissome!"</p>

-

-<p>Heart pounding in his breast, Timmy edged towards the door of the

-shower room. From the voices, he knew there were at least half a dozen

-boys inside. The door was slightly ajar; the school was supposed to be

-empty, so the boys had been careless. Placing his eye to the crack,

-Timmy tried to make out what was going on, but his field of vision was

-too limited. All he could get were vague impressions of bodies moving

-back and forth.</p>

-

-<p>Frustrated, he leaned his weight against the door. Suddenly it swung

-in, and he fell after it.</p>

-

-<p>"Hey, who's that?"</p>

-

-<p>Rough hands pulled him to his feet.</p>

-

-<p>"Ahh, it's Teacher's Pet Johnson. What are you doing here, stupid?"</p>

-

-<p>Timmy panicked. "I saw what you were doing!" he piped. His voice was

-shrill with fear. "I'm going to—"</p>

-

-<p>Something clicked.</p>

-

-<p>"Yeah?" demanded Danny. "What are you going to do shrimp?"</p>

-

-<p>"I...."</p>

-

-<p>Timmy shook his head; his eyes took on a faraway expression.</p>

-

-<p>"Hey, what's the matter with you, shrimp? Wake up."</p>

-

-<p>Something clicked again, and the adult Id settled into control of

-the youthful body. T. Arthur Johnson looked out on the situation

-confronting Timmy Johnson and came to a decision. It was not the

-decision the boy had—would—make of his own volition. But, then,

-the adult Johnson had one important advantage over his juvenile

-counterpart—he knew the certain and distasteful consequences of the

-boy's activities.</p>

-

-<p>"Well?" demanded Danny. "Get with it, kid. What are you going to do?"</p>

-

-<p>"I'm going to tell Mr. Arkins—unless you let me watch too!"</p>

-

-<hr class="tb">

-

-<p>"How's your hand?" asked Cavendish, as he unsnapped the electrodes.</p>

-

-<p>"Hand?" Johnson looked at first one then the other. "What about my

-hand?"</p>

-

-<p>Cavendish looked, then shook his head, puzzled. "That's funny. Now

-where did I get the idea that something was wrong with your hand?"</p>

-

-<p>"I'm sure I don't know," said Johnson, getting up and stretching. He

-felt tired, more tired than he could remember having been in a long

-time. The feeling had become alien to the desk-bound man, but it was

-simply physical exhaustion. He yawned. "How about a drink?"</p>

-

-<p>"Of course." He retreated to the little bar and came back with a

-generous slug in the usual water tumbler. Johnson tossed it off,

-sighed, and wiped his mouth.</p>

-

-<p>"Well?" demanded Cavendish.</p>

-

-<p>"Well, what?"</p>

-

-<p>"Don't keep me in suspense!" begged the little man. "What was it like?"</p>

-

-<p>Johnson considered. "Nostalgic, I suppose. Everyone would like

-another chance to revisit his childhood. You've proven that your time

-ma—Pardon me. Your temporal transgressor, works. But as to your idea

-that events can be changed—well, consider me from Missouri."</p>

-

-<p>"But the machine does work," insisted Cavendish.</p>

-

-<p>"I've already said that," said Johnson, irritated with the little man.

-Cavendish seemed much more pushy than he had at their first meeting.

-Johnson had never cared for that type of person, perhaps recognizing

-too much of himself reflected in the other personality.</p>

-

-<p>"The next part should be simple, then," said Cavendish. "All we have

-to do is find a suitable crisis point in your life, and send you back.

-Once you have changed it—made a different decision—then you'll see."</p>

-

-<p>"Perhaps," said Johnson, a strong doubt in the back of his mind. "Have

-you picked out such a suitable crisis?"</p>

-

-<p>"I think so." He turned to the screen, and began adjusting the dials.

-Gray fog swirled mistily across the face of the tube, resolving

-momentarily into brief scenes as the scientist searched for something

-in particular. At last he grunted in satisfaction, and straightened up.</p>

-

-<p>"Here we are." He sharpened the focus, and it became Johnson's turn to

-grunt in surprise.</p>

-

-<p>"Damn you!"</p>

-

-<hr class="tb">

-

-<p>The scene was dimly-lit, obviously happening late at night. Two youths

-in their late teens were busy at the rear door of a service station,

-while another kept peering around the corner, keeping an anxious eye

-out for passers-by. At last the lock of the door gave way to their

-efforts, and all three slipped inside. Cavendish turned a dial and the

-picture followed the actors into the interior of the station.</p>

-

-<p>One of the figures produced a pencil flash; by its thin beam, they

-made their way past a store-room piled high with cases of motor oil

-and transmission fluid and into the garage part of the station. One of

-the figures stopped by a stack of tires and a heated argument broke

-out, soundless though it seemed to the watchers in the future. At last,

-one prevailed over the other and they continued their search of the

-station, stopping at last by the register. One of the boys punched it

-open, and scooped up a small handful of bills, only to have disgust

-register on his face when they turned out to be all singles.</p>

-

-<p>In the meantime, one of the other boys was forcing the coin box on the

-cigarette machine. He scooped silver into his pockets, then turned to

-the soft drink machine at its side.</p>

-

-<p>Sudden light glared into the station, blinding the boys. They stopped

-dead in their tracks, as they tried to shield their eyes from the

-glare. Then, panic-stricken, they broke for the rear and the door they

-had forced to gain entrance. The figures were lost for a moment, but

-soon reappeared, shepherded none too gently by several men in blue. The

-station's own lights came on.</p>

-

-<p>Cavendish suddenly felt pity for the aged man and switched off the

-picture. Without asking, he refilled Johnson's glass.</p>

-

-<p>"No one ever knew about that," said Johnson, softly.</p>

-

-<p>"Your family did a good job of hushing it up," agreed Cavendish.</p>

-

-<p>"We served our time, though—nine months in that stinking county jail,

-after time off for good behavior." He shuddered. Across two-thirds of a

-lifetime, the memory was still painful.</p>

-

-<p>"It kept you out of the service, didn't it?"</p>

-

-<p>"Yes. My folks always claimed I spent the time bumming around the

-country. They said ill health kept me out of the Army. People never

-believed them, though. They seemed to know better."</p>

-

-<p>"Definitely a crisis in your life?"</p>

-

-<p>"Most definitely," agreed Johnson.</p>

-

-<p>"Then if I send you back to the time when you and your companions were

-planning this adventure, and you succeed in talking your younger self

-out of it, you'll be convinced that what I say is true?"</p>

-

-<p>"Yes, that'll do it."</p>

-

-<p>"Good! Events can be altered; time is not immutable!" The little man's

-eyes gleamed fanatically; Johnson for the first time debated the wisdom

-of letting himself be strapped in under his care. But Cavendish was

-already adjusting the electrodes; he finished, and turned on the power

-source.</p>

-

-<p>"I'll send you back to that afternoon," he said. "The three of you are

-gathered in the back room of Cook's News Shop."</p>

-

-<p>"I remember," said Johnson.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb">

-

-<p>"Hi, Danny."</p>

-

-<p>"Hi," said the leader of the three, looking up. "What do you want,

-Janie?"</p>

-

-<p>"Oh, nothing," said the girl, tossing her pony tail back over her

-shoulder. "But I'll settle for a coke."</p>

-

-<p>"Be my guest," said Danny Grissome, digging a dime from his pocket.

-"But be a doll and drink it at the counter, hey?"</p>

-

-<p>"What's the matter? My company not good enough for the big shots?" She

-sniffed, but accepted the dime.</p>

-

-<p>"Your company's fine," said Grissome. "But we're busy——man-type busy.

-So later, hey? Later."</p>

-

-<p>The boys watched her flounce sensuously through the archway separating

-the back room from the front section of the store, and knew as they

-watched that she was fully aware of their eyes on her. Danny's tongue

-darted over his lips; he sighed.</p>

-

-<p>"Man, I gotta get me some more of that. But not now. We got things to

-talk about now. Important things, right, Art?"</p>

-

-<p>Johnson tore his eyes from the girl. "Uh, yeah, Danny. Sure. Anything

-you say."</p>

-

-<p>"That's right. Anything I say. And don't you creeps ever forget it."</p>

-

-<p>"So who's arguing?"</p>

-

-<p>"Nobody, Flip—not yet. But I got me a feeling all of us in our little

-group aren't happy. Right, Art?"</p>

-

-<p>"I didn't say that," protested Johnson.</p>

-

-<p>"That's what it sounded like to me."</p>

-

-<p>"So excuse me for living." He shrugged. "All I said was that I don't go

-for that kind of jazz. It spells trouble, big trouble. C—O—P trouble."</p>

-

-<p>"Ahhh, you're a real nervous nellie, Art. I tell you, this place is

-a leadpipe cinch. He leaves the money in a register my baby brother

-could walk off with, and the lock on that back door is made out of

-bubble-gum. Now all we gotta do is wait till about midnight, after

-the patrol car swings through. It doesn't come back again for forty

-minutes, and that's more than enough time for what we want to do. What

-do you say?"</p>

-

-<p>"I don't like it."</p>

-

-<p>"You don't have to like it. Just do it. Now, what do you say?"</p>

-

-<p>"Well, okay."</p>

-

-<p>"Good!" Danny settled back and slapped the table. "It's settled, then.

-Flip picks us up here at eleven thirty and we drive over to Blandina

-and park behind the billboard on the vacant lot the next block down.

-Now don't either one of you creeps go fouling up this deal."</p>

-

-<p>"What's to foul?" said Flip.</p>

-

-<p>"Yeah, you're right. What's to foul?" He slapped the table again. "Hey,

-who wants a coke? I'll buy." He leaned around the corner of the booth

-and whistled. "Hey, Janie! Fun time! Tell Sandy to fix us three cokes

-and come on out and join the party!"</p>

-

-<hr class="tb">

-

-<p>Art Johnson rounded the corner and approached the coke shop, hands

-sweaty in anticipation of what was going to happen within the next

-hour. He wished there was some way for him to back out of the situation

-and still manage to save face, but it was too late. The pattern was

-set, and events would ride out to their inevitable climax.</p>

-

-<p>Then—</p>

-

-<p>Something clicked.</p>

-

-<p>The youth paused in midstride and nearly stumbled. His eyes took on a

-faraway look. A boy and girl came out of the shop arm-in-arm and nearly

-walked into him.</p>

-

-<p>"Hey, stupid! Watch where you're going."</p>

-

-<p>"Sorry," he muttered, shaking his head.</p>

-

-<p>"Some people," said the boy, "live in a fog." The girl giggled, and Art

-pushed his way into the packed interior of the shop.</p>

-

-<p>"Hey, man!"</p>

-

-<p>Danny was holding a booth open. Art pushed his way through the crowd

-and slid in beside him.</p>

-

-<p>"You're late," said Danny. "What happened?"</p>

-

-<p>"The old lady stayed up to watch the eleven o'clock news. I had to wait

-until she was in bed."</p>

-

-<p>"Well, it's a good thing you made it. We were about ready to take off

-without you. Come on, Flip; let's move out."</p>

-

-<p>"Just a minute, Danny."</p>

-

-<p>"Yeah?" The boy paused, half-risen out of his seat. After staring at

-Johnson's face, he sat back down again. "What is it, Art boy?"</p>

-

-<p>"The deal's off. I'm cutting out."</p>

-

-<p>"What?" He shook his head in disbelief. "You crazy man?"</p>

-

-<p>"No. That's why I'm cutting out." He sighed. "I didn't like this deal

-from the word go. You knew that."</p>

-

-<p>"Yeah. But I never thought you'd go chicken on us, Art boy. Not on old

-Danny. That's me, remember? Danny Grissome. What I say, goes. Anything

-I say goes. Right, Flip?"</p>

-

-<p>"Right, Danny."</p>

-

-<p>"Right, Art boy?"</p>

-

-<p>"Not right, Danny," said Johnson, softly.</p>

-

-<p>"You mean it. You really mean it!" He shook his head, sadly. "What's

-the world coming to?"</p>

-

-<p>"No good end, most likely," said Johnson. "But I don't intend to mess

-myself up any sooner than I absolutely have to."</p>

-

-<p>"I dunno." Danny shook his head again. "You don't talk like the

-same Art boy I know. Hey, is that you, hiding inside that mess of

-goody-goody talk, Art baby? Come on out and join the party."</p>

-

-<p>"No go, Danny." Johnson shook his head. "If I'm not the same Art boy,

-it's because I finally woke up."</p>

-

-<hr class="tb">

-

-<p>"How did it go?" asked Cavendish, as he unclipped the electrodes.</p>

-

-<p>"Go?" Johnson shrugged, then stretched and yawned widely. "I guess it

-went all right. I haven't seen Danny or Flip for forty years. Wonder

-what ever happened to them?"</p>

-

-<p>"Ended up in jail, most likely. But what about the crisis? Did you

-succeed in avoiding it?"</p>

-

-<p>"Crisis?" Johnson peered at him through narrowed lids. "Are you daft,

-man? What crisis could there possible be in a bunch of kids getting

-together in a corner sweet shop?"</p>

-

-<p>"But...." Cavendish shook his head. "Things did change!"</p>

-

-<p>"What changed? Name me one concrete thing that's different than it

-used to be."</p>

-

-<p>"I...." He shook his head. "I can't."</p>

-

-<p>"Of course you can't. And for the very simple reason that nothing did

-change. I'm still the same man I always was. And you'd better start

-coming up with some concrete benefits from this gadget of yours. You

-know I put myself into hock to raise the money you needed—I told my

-wife I was adding another franchise to my line. If she finds out her

-jewels were hocked for me to play around with a time machine, instead

-of a new line of cars, she'll flip. So how about it, Cavendish? Some

-concrete results next time."</p>

-

-<p>Cavendish went to the bar and returned with a generous slug of whisky.</p>

-

-<p>"What's this?" said Johnson.</p>

-

-<p>"Why, your drink."</p>

-

-<p>"Drink?" He snorted. "You know I don't drink, man. Have you gone

-completely daft? I haven't touched alcohol since I was a youngster."</p>

-

-<p>Cavendish seemed near tears. He drank the whisky himself, then turned

-back to the machine.</p>

-

-<p>"What are you up to now?"</p>

-

-<p>"I'm looking for a suitable crisis point." The screen wavered, then

-filled with a group of men in uniform—heavy winter garb. They were

-clustered around a small fire in a cave; one seemed to be heating

-coffee in a tin can. Johnson sucked in his breath.</p>

-

-<p>"You know what is going to happen?"</p>

-

-<p>"Yes, dammit! You're a devil!"</p>

-

-<p>"Perhaps." He sighed. "I sometimes wonder.... But no matter." He

-adjusted the picture, and events flowed forward a few hours. The

-soldiers were now at the base of a snow-covered hill. Above them, gaunt

-and bare, the timber-line beckoned with obscenely stretching limbs.</p>

-

-<p>Suddenly a flare shot up from someplace to the right of the little

-band. Its eerie glare picked out unexpected shadows among the trees

-above. One of the soldiers, facing the prospect of near and immediate

-personal death for the first time in his life, panicked and began

-spraying the tree-line with his grease gun. Branches and splinters of

-wood kicked out, until the Sergeant reached out and slapped the gun

-from the boy's arms.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb">

-

-<p>The men waited until an unheard signal sounded; then the Sergeant waved

-them on up the hill. Slowly, cautiously at first, they made progress

-through the protecting trees. But then they reached the timber-line

-and froze. Cursing, the Sergeant moved from man to man, shoving them

-out of the false protection. At last he came to the boy who had fired

-earlier. Just as the older man placed his hand on the boy's shoulder,

-the boy twisted and broke away, running madly down the hill....</p>

-

-<p>"That's enough, damn you!"</p>

-

-<p>Cavendish turned off the picture and came back to Johnson's side. "They

-court-martialed you, didn't they?"</p>

-

-<p>"You know they did," he said, dully.</p>

-

-<p>"You were unlucky, that's all. Many a soldier spooks his first time

-under fire. A lot of them run away."</p>

-

-<p>"How many of them run right into the arms of their Commanding General?"</p>

-

-<p>"Unlucky," said Cavendish.</p>

-

-<p>"They kicked me out," said Johnson, bitterly. "A dishonorable

-discharge—'cowardice in the face of enemy action'. Said I was lucky I

-didn't face the firing squad."</p>

-

-<p>"Officers are human, too," said Cavendish. "In times of stress, they

-tend to panic."</p>

-

-<p>"They were 'making an example of me'," said Johnson. He laughed, a

-humorless sound that grated on the ears. "Some example. It took me

-twenty years to live it down."</p>

-

-<p>"But people do forget, eventually."</p>

-

-<p>"Not all of them."</p>

-

-<p>"Shall we get on with it?"</p>

-

-<p>"Of course, man. This is what I have been waiting for!" His words were

-sharp and impatient.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb">

-

-<p>"Hey, Art! Got a butt?"</p>

-

-<p>"Yeah, sure." Art Johnson scrabbled around inside his jacket and came

-out with a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He passed them over.</p>

-

-<p>"Thanks, buddy. God, but it's cold here!" He stripped off one glove and

-warmed the palm of his hand over the glowing coal of the cigarette.

-"Now I know what they mean when they call a place Godforsaken."</p>

-

-<p>"Ease off there, you two!" Sergeant Stebbins glowered their way. "You

-want every chink in Korea to hear you?"</p>

-

-<p>"Sorry, Sarge," muttered the cigarette-bummer. He dropped his voice

-to a whisper. "Hey, Artie! I hear some of the guys in Fox company are

-making book on how many of us live through the day."</p>

-

-<p>"Yeah?" Johnson shook his head. "Some characters'll bet on their own

-mother's funeral."</p>

-

-<p>"Or their own." The boy giggled. "Wouldn't it be funny if the winners

-couldn't collect because they were all dead?"</p>

-

-<p>"A real scream," said Johnson, sourly. "Look, let's change the subject,

-huh?"</p>

-

-<p>The boy shrugged. "Sure, Art. Anything you say."</p>

-

-<p>They lapsed into silence, and Art Johnson considered the improbable

-amount of circumstances that had brought him to the base of this

-numbered but nameless hill half across the world from home. There was

-nothing of home here, and he felt the lack mightily. There was a very

-good chance that before another few hours had passed, he would be dead.

-And then he would never see home again.</p>

-

-<p>He shivered. The thought frightened him. He didn't want to die. Not

-that he supposed any of the other men wanted to die either. But they

-were remote, other beings, alien in Art Johnson's world. What they felt

-he could not guess; what he felt he knew.</p>

-

-<p><i>And he did not want to die!</i></p>

-

-<p>"Hey, Art!"</p>

-

-<p>"Uh, what is it, Tooey?"</p>

-

-<p>"Chinks, I think. Up there in the trees. God, they're sneaking down!"</p>

-

-<p>"Where? Dammit, where?" He thumbed the safety of his grease gun, and

-brought it up to bear on the trees. His fingers tightened around the

-stock; the trigger started to depress—</p>

-

-<p>Then—</p>

-

-<p>Something clicked.</p>

-

-<p>"Jesus, Artie, they're coming!"</p>

-

-<p>Art Johnson's eyes took on a faraway look. His fingers loosened their

-death grip on the gun. He shook his head.</p>

-

-<p>"<i>Artie!</i>"</p>

-

-<p>"Shut up, Tooey!" Reaching out, he slapped the boy's face. "You're

-imagining things."</p>

-

-<p>"But they're up there, Artie!" whimpered the boy.</p>

-

-<p>"Sure they're up there. But not where you think they are. They're dug

-in, in the caves. And it's going to be up to us to dig them out. Now

-snap out of it!"</p>

-

-<hr class="tb">

-

-<p>Suddenly a flare shot up from somewhere to their right. It whistled,

-then popped, the white light hurting their night-adjusted eyes. A

-moment later, Stebbins whistled and the men started moving up the hill.</p>

-

-<p>They paused at the timber-line, and Stebbins cursed, moving from man

-to man and urging him out of the false protection of the trees and

-onto the broad expanse of boulder-pocked snow. Above them, another

-two hundred yards, black dots against the snow showed where the caves

-were waiting for them. Johnson could visualize the little slant-eyed

-men within. He flopped to his belly and wriggled forward. Suddenly he

-stood up and dashed twenty yards, then flopped again as bullets whined

-through the space occupied by his body bare instants earlier.</p>

-

-<p>He lay there, face pressed into the snow, until the muscles of his legs

-started tensing of their own accord. Then he was up again, and running

-for dear life.</p>

-

-<p>Gun fire was bursting all around now, a seemingly solid screen of lead

-pouring down from the caves. But the men were getting through the

-barrier; one slammed into the rock wall beside a cave mouth and started

-unlimbering grenades, tossing them in as quickly as he could pull the

-pins. Seconds later a vast tongue of fire roared out, melting the snow

-and scorching the barren earth beneath.</p>

-

-<p>The fire probed down the hill as the side around the cave shook and

-roared. The fire reached and passed over Art Johnson, lying in the

-snow, fingers digging at the rock beneath.</p>

-

-<p>By its orange light, the spreading circle of red around the soldier

-blended into the artificial coloring of the snow.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb">

-

-<p>"Just think of it!" Cavendish pounded his hand on the desk. "The

-chance to go back and correct our mistakes, live our lives over again.

-The opportunities missed, the chances passed up, the decisions made

-wrong—all can be changed."</p>

-

-<p>The man in the chair swirled the dregs of the whisky in the bottom of

-the glass. "Go on, Cavendish," he said. "You're keeping my interest."</p>

-

-<p>Cavendish flushed. "Thank you, Mr. Blackwell. I knew a man of your

-position would not pass up an opportunity like this. Why, this is

-another chance to make the world! A second chance!"</p>

-

-

-<p class="ph2">THE END</p>

-

-<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND CHANCE ***</div>

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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND CHANCE ***</div>
+
+<div class="titlepage">
+
+<p><i>For those of you who may be sentimentalists about<br>
+what you'd do if you could live your life over<br>
+again, here is the real lowdown about that....</i></p>
+
+<h1>SECOND CHANCE</h1>
+
+<p class="ph1">By ROBERT HOSKINS</p>
+
+<p>Illustrated by SUMMERS</p>
+
+<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br>
+Amazing Stories April 1962<br>
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br>
+the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="illus" style="max-width: 20.875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus.jpg" alt="">
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="chap">
+
+<p>The boy was twelve, and running for dear life. Behind him came the
+sounds of half a dozen pursuers, the faintly sticky slap of leather
+soles coming down on summer-hot blacktopping and the sharp explosions
+of breath let out and sucked back in quickly as out-of-condition bodies
+forced muscles angrily beyond normal limits of endurance.</p>
+
+<p>"There goes the little bastard now!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let him get away!"</p>
+
+<p>A scant hundred yards separated pursued from pursuers. The boy stopped
+at the mouth of an alley, panic stealing logic as he glanced over his
+shoulders at the boys coming up quickly behind him. He darted into
+the alley, rounded a curve, and realized too late that he was in a
+dead-end. Boxes and trash were piled against the wall; a fire-escape
+beckoned invitingly just above. He scrabbled up the side of the pile,
+then realized his mistake as it began to shift beneath him. He leaped
+for the fire-escape ladder, his fingers brushing the lowest rung just
+as the pile collapsed, carrying him down and burying him.</p>
+
+<p>"Where the hell is he?"</p>
+
+<p>Hands started pulling at the pile, tearing away debris. The boy bit
+down on his lip, and closed his eyes against the inevitable.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, here he is!"</p>
+
+<p>They grabbed him and pulled him out. A palm slapped across his cheek,
+forcing his eyes open.</p>
+
+<p>"Okay, you little sneak. What's the big idea? Why'd you rat to the
+Principal?" He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on, dammit! Talk! You were talking enough yesterday!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, you're wasting your breath. Come on, let's do what we came to do
+and get it over with."</p>
+
+<p>"Okay, if that's the way you want it."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Johnson winced, as the first of the blows fell. The picture on the
+screen seemed far away, but the memory of physical pain was suddenly
+freshened. As hands and feet lashed out, repeatedly, raining down a
+storm of punishment on the quivering mass of flesh in the center of the
+picture, once-tortured nerves twinged in sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>"Brutal little monsters, aren't they?" said Cavendish.</p>
+
+<p>"I got back at them," said Johnson. "Every last one of them. I was the
+last kid they beat up."</p>
+
+<p>"Mmmm. Still, that didn't change the fact that you had already received
+a nasty beating yourself. No matter how sweet revenge, wouldn't it have
+been sweeter to have avoided the beating altogether?"</p>
+
+<p>Johnson massaged his crippled hand as he watched the tortured boy make
+a break away from his tormentors. A foot shot out, and the boy went
+sprawling. His chin hit the pavement; only the adult saw the biggest
+of the tormentors bring booted foot down on pathetic fingers. The foot
+twisted, and the man looked away.</p>
+
+<p>"Shut it off!" he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly." Cavendish reached out and the screen went dead. Getting
+up, he went to the bar in the corner of the room and returned with a
+tumbler half-full of amber liquid. "Here, you need this."</p>
+
+<p>Johnson tossed off the drink, gasping as the liquor burned its way down
+to his stomach. "Ahhhh!" He wiped his mouth on the back of his good
+hand.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you think of my little machine, Mr. Johnson?" Cavendish
+settled himself behind a cluttered desk, hands folded over his paunch,
+looking extremely satisfied with himself. Pointed mustache and faintly
+slanted eyes heightened the effect of a cat with a stolen canary.</p>
+
+<p>"Your gadget is effective," admitted Johnson. "Just how powerful is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Fifty years seems the limit it can probe. I've tried increasing the
+power, but beyond fifty years things quickly fade away into a gray fog.
+That's why I wanted to see you so urgently. Another few weeks, and this
+particular event in your life will be irrevocably lost." He glanced at
+the crippled hand. "Considering the direct consequences, I thought it
+would be a good place to start."</p>
+
+<p>"Assuming that I want to have anything to do with this at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Cavendish, blandly. "Everything is always an
+assumption."</p>
+
+<p>"Your machine. It can actually send me back through time?"</p>
+
+<p>"In effect, yes."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe it."</p>
+
+<p>"I think you do, Mr. Johnson. You want to believe it, therefore you do
+believe it. A man like yourself, aware of missed opportunities...."</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't missed many chances in my day," said Johnson. "If I had, I'd
+never have become what I am today."</p>
+
+<p>"Rich."</p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather call it powerful."</p>
+
+<p>"As you like." Cavendish shrugged. "After all, what is money but
+power? With it, you have the power to do things, make a living, run
+a business, increase your standing in the community. Without it....
+Everything becomes negative. You have the power to die, but nothing
+more."</p>
+
+<p>"You need money, too."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. I've never denied it. Science has never been a particularly
+profitable field of endeavor—at least, not on my level. For you,
+science has made money. For me, it merely uses it."</p>
+
+<p>"You want money from me."</p>
+
+<p>"Naturally. You have enough for both of us."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>"But why me?" asked Johnson, suspiciously. "Why not someone else? There
+are other men as wealthy or wealthier than I—Reading, Blackwell,
+Morgenstern, just to name three in this very city."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I considered them—all of them, and many others besides. It
+really made no difference which one I finally selected. I chose you,
+Mr. Johnson, for just one reason—the scene just witnessed."</p>
+
+<p>"All right. You've aroused my interest. Now tell me just how your time
+machine can help me."</p>
+
+<p>Cavendish winced. "Please, Mr. Johnson, I do not have a time machine."</p>
+
+<p>"You just said you can send me back through time."</p>
+
+<p>"In effect, Sir; in effect. Physically, no. My machine—temporal
+transgressor I call it, for want of a better term—my machine has the
+faculty of liberating a certain part of the human id, the conscience,
+the soul, if you please, and casting it adrift on the broad temporal
+stream. A strong will can direct this liberated 'something' against the
+general drift of the temporal stream, forcing it backwards against the
+natural current. Back through time, as it were."</p>
+
+<p>"And just how does this help me?"</p>
+
+<p>"From the limited experiments I have been able to perform with
+available funds, I have found that, shall we say from now on, for
+simplicity's sake, the Id, tends to gravitate to early versions of
+itself. Apparently there is some sort of force that binds the Id with
+itself. At moments of crisis, this force is strongest."</p>
+
+<p>"And you want me to be a guinea pig for your experiments."</p>
+
+<p>"Crudely put, Sir."</p>
+
+<p>"But the truth."</p>
+
+<p>Cavendish shrugged. "Consider the benefits to be reaped."</p>
+
+<p>"As yet, I have seen none," said Johnson, bluntly. "Suppose you
+enlighten me some more."</p>
+
+<p>"Opportunities...."</p>
+
+<p>"We covered that before."</p>
+
+<p>"But have we? Consider, Sir; you are wealthy, powerful, in spite of
+your, ah, handicap." He glanced away as Johnson inspected his hand.
+"Just think what might have happened had you not been injured? Who can
+say what new avenues might be opened to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"How much?"</p>
+
+<p>"Then you'll do it?" asked Cavendish, eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps. How much do you need?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have my equipment all ready. But I need a great deal of power to
+operate it. You are one of the directors of Public Power; I need your
+signature on releases for the necessary leads and, of course, the power
+itself."</p>
+
+<p>"You shall have them. When can we be ready to operate?"</p>
+
+<p>Cavendish pursed his lips. "With PP technicians running in the new
+lines—three days."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well. I'll be back."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>T. Arthur Johnson had not, as he had told Cavendish, been a man to
+pass up an opportunity. Forty years of fighting and clawing his way up
+through the jungle of business competition had sharpened his senses and
+heightened his awareness of what one fatal mistake could do.</p>
+
+<p>Still, no man is infallible; all miss out on something, sometime. Some
+men go through their entire lives making the wrong decisions; they end
+up failures.</p>
+
+<p>T. Arthur Johnson was a qualified success. Qualified, for, although
+successful he might be, as a man he was not happy. It is rarely
+that the two go hand-in-hand. Happiness and success often seem to
+be mutually exclusive goals. Yet contentment is a close cousin of
+happiness, and many let themselves be satisfied with second best.</p>
+
+<p>After checking with Cavendish to find out just how much time would have
+to be invested in the experiments, Johnson arranged his affairs into
+the hands of several trusted managers—trusted because they were owned,
+body and soul, by Johnson. On the morning of the third day, as the last
+of the Public Power trucks was leaving the warehouse in which Cavendish
+had set up his laboratory, Johnson presented himself at the door.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>"Ah, Mr. Johnson." His eyes lit up. "Right on time. I suppose you are
+as anxious as I to get on with the experiments."</p>
+
+<p>"Time is valuable," said Johnson. "I don't believe in wasting it. Shall
+we get on with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>The lab seemed little changed from Johnson's earlier visit. An
+adjustable lounge chair had been set up near the screen; from it,
+lines ran into a panel of equipment that the industrialist found
+incomprehensible. At Cavendish's gesture, he sat down and permitted
+electrodes to be attached to his head and arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Comfortable, Sir?"</p>
+
+<p>"Quite."</p>
+
+<p>Cavendish adjusted switches; the screen came to life, showing the
+earlier scene with the youthful Johnson just beginning his dash into
+the alley.</p>
+
+<p>"We regress some twenty-seven hours more," he said. The scene dissolved
+and was replaced by one with the boy in a classroom. The clock on the
+wall read three-thirty; school had been out some fifteen minutes. Timmy
+Johnson placed the last of the erasers in the blackboard trough and
+checked the stack of workbooks with his eye, stopping to shift the top
+one a quarter of an inch into better alignment.</p>
+
+<p>"We are now approaching the crisis point," said Cavendish. "The
+blending of the adult Id with that of the boy will enable you to
+control the actions of the boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Get on with it!" said Johnson, impatiently, anxious to have the affair
+over with.</p>
+
+<p>"Very well." Cavendish closed several switches and the hum of vast
+amounts of power pouring into the little room rose until it set the
+hackles of the men's necks rising. Still it rose, until Cavendish
+closed one final switch—</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>"All done, Mrs. Taylor."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Timmy." She glanced up from the stack of papers and smiled
+at the boy. "I swear, I don't know what I'd do without you. You're the
+best helper I ever had."</p>
+
+<p>Timmy glowed at the praise; he felt the back of his neck warming. It
+was fun helping her out, no matter what the other kids said or thought.
+He scuffed the toe of his sneaker against the heel of the other one.
+"Well, I guess I'd better be getting home, Mrs. Taylor. Mom usually
+wants me to run to the store for her after school."</p>
+
+<p>"All right, Timmy. Good night."</p>
+
+<p>"Good night." He lingered in the door for a last smile from the woman,
+then ran down the stairs to the lockers on the basement corridors.
+He stowed his books in his locker, then twirled the dial on the
+combination lock, bought with money saved out of his allowance.</p>
+
+<p>Timmy started towards the exit, when suddenly he heard voices coming
+from the boys' shower room.</p>
+
+<p>"Aw, come on, Janie! What's the harm in having a little peek?"</p>
+
+<p>"With your big eyes, Danny Grissome, a lot!"</p>
+
+<p>Raucous laughter. "I guess she told you that time, Danny boy."</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah? Well, I'm gonna see what I came down here to see, whether you
+like it or not, Janie. Now come on!"</p>
+
+<p>"No! Keep your dirty hands off me, Danny Grissome!"</p>
+
+<p>Heart pounding in his breast, Timmy edged towards the door of the
+shower room. From the voices, he knew there were at least half a dozen
+boys inside. The door was slightly ajar; the school was supposed to be
+empty, so the boys had been careless. Placing his eye to the crack,
+Timmy tried to make out what was going on, but his field of vision was
+too limited. All he could get were vague impressions of bodies moving
+back and forth.</p>
+
+<p>Frustrated, he leaned his weight against the door. Suddenly it swung
+in, and he fell after it.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, who's that?"</p>
+
+<p>Rough hands pulled him to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Ahh, it's Teacher's Pet Johnson. What are you doing here, stupid?"</p>
+
+<p>Timmy panicked. "I saw what you were doing!" he piped. His voice was
+shrill with fear. "I'm going to—"</p>
+
+<p>Something clicked.</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah?" demanded Danny. "What are you going to do shrimp?"</p>
+
+<p>"I...."</p>
+
+<p>Timmy shook his head; his eyes took on a faraway expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, what's the matter with you, shrimp? Wake up."</p>
+
+<p>Something clicked again, and the adult Id settled into control of
+the youthful body. T. Arthur Johnson looked out on the situation
+confronting Timmy Johnson and came to a decision. It was not the
+decision the boy had—would—make of his own volition. But, then,
+the adult Johnson had one important advantage over his juvenile
+counterpart—he knew the certain and distasteful consequences of the
+boy's activities.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" demanded Danny. "Get with it, kid. What are you going to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going to tell Mr. Arkins—unless you let me watch too!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>"How's your hand?" asked Cavendish, as he unsnapped the electrodes.</p>
+
+<p>"Hand?" Johnson looked at first one then the other. "What about my
+hand?"</p>
+
+<p>Cavendish looked, then shook his head, puzzled. "That's funny. Now
+where did I get the idea that something was wrong with your hand?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure I don't know," said Johnson, getting up and stretching. He
+felt tired, more tired than he could remember having been in a long
+time. The feeling had become alien to the desk-bound man, but it was
+simply physical exhaustion. He yawned. "How about a drink?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course." He retreated to the little bar and came back with a
+generous slug in the usual water tumbler. Johnson tossed it off,
+sighed, and wiped his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?" demanded Cavendish.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't keep me in suspense!" begged the little man. "What was it like?"</p>
+
+<p>Johnson considered. "Nostalgic, I suppose. Everyone would like
+another chance to revisit his childhood. You've proven that your time
+ma—Pardon me. Your temporal transgressor, works. But as to your idea
+that events can be changed—well, consider me from Missouri."</p>
+
+<p>"But the machine does work," insisted Cavendish.</p>
+
+<p>"I've already said that," said Johnson, irritated with the little man.
+Cavendish seemed much more pushy than he had at their first meeting.
+Johnson had never cared for that type of person, perhaps recognizing
+too much of himself reflected in the other personality.</p>
+
+<p>"The next part should be simple, then," said Cavendish. "All we have
+to do is find a suitable crisis point in your life, and send you back.
+Once you have changed it—made a different decision—then you'll see."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," said Johnson, a strong doubt in the back of his mind. "Have
+you picked out such a suitable crisis?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think so." He turned to the screen, and began adjusting the dials.
+Gray fog swirled mistily across the face of the tube, resolving
+momentarily into brief scenes as the scientist searched for something
+in particular. At last he grunted in satisfaction, and straightened up.</p>
+
+<p>"Here we are." He sharpened the focus, and it became Johnson's turn to
+grunt in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Damn you!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The scene was dimly-lit, obviously happening late at night. Two youths
+in their late teens were busy at the rear door of a service station,
+while another kept peering around the corner, keeping an anxious eye
+out for passers-by. At last the lock of the door gave way to their
+efforts, and all three slipped inside. Cavendish turned a dial and the
+picture followed the actors into the interior of the station.</p>
+
+<p>One of the figures produced a pencil flash; by its thin beam, they
+made their way past a store-room piled high with cases of motor oil
+and transmission fluid and into the garage part of the station. One of
+the figures stopped by a stack of tires and a heated argument broke
+out, soundless though it seemed to the watchers in the future. At last,
+one prevailed over the other and they continued their search of the
+station, stopping at last by the register. One of the boys punched it
+open, and scooped up a small handful of bills, only to have disgust
+register on his face when they turned out to be all singles.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, one of the other boys was forcing the coin box on the
+cigarette machine. He scooped silver into his pockets, then turned to
+the soft drink machine at its side.</p>
+
+<p>Sudden light glared into the station, blinding the boys. They stopped
+dead in their tracks, as they tried to shield their eyes from the
+glare. Then, panic-stricken, they broke for the rear and the door they
+had forced to gain entrance. The figures were lost for a moment, but
+soon reappeared, shepherded none too gently by several men in blue. The
+station's own lights came on.</p>
+
+<p>Cavendish suddenly felt pity for the aged man and switched off the
+picture. Without asking, he refilled Johnson's glass.</p>
+
+<p>"No one ever knew about that," said Johnson, softly.</p>
+
+<p>"Your family did a good job of hushing it up," agreed Cavendish.</p>
+
+<p>"We served our time, though—nine months in that stinking county jail,
+after time off for good behavior." He shuddered. Across two-thirds of a
+lifetime, the memory was still painful.</p>
+
+<p>"It kept you out of the service, didn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. My folks always claimed I spent the time bumming around the
+country. They said ill health kept me out of the Army. People never
+believed them, though. They seemed to know better."</p>
+
+<p>"Definitely a crisis in your life?"</p>
+
+<p>"Most definitely," agreed Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Then if I send you back to the time when you and your companions were
+planning this adventure, and you succeed in talking your younger self
+out of it, you'll be convinced that what I say is true?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that'll do it."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! Events can be altered; time is not immutable!" The little man's
+eyes gleamed fanatically; Johnson for the first time debated the wisdom
+of letting himself be strapped in under his care. But Cavendish was
+already adjusting the electrodes; he finished, and turned on the power
+source.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll send you back to that afternoon," he said. "The three of you are
+gathered in the back room of Cook's News Shop."</p>
+
+<p>"I remember," said Johnson.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>"Hi, Danny."</p>
+
+<p>"Hi," said the leader of the three, looking up. "What do you want,
+Janie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing," said the girl, tossing her pony tail back over her
+shoulder. "But I'll settle for a coke."</p>
+
+<p>"Be my guest," said Danny Grissome, digging a dime from his pocket.
+"But be a doll and drink it at the counter, hey?"</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter? My company not good enough for the big shots?" She
+sniffed, but accepted the dime.</p>
+
+<p>"Your company's fine," said Grissome. "But we're busy——man-type busy.
+So later, hey? Later."</p>
+
+<p>The boys watched her flounce sensuously through the archway separating
+the back room from the front section of the store, and knew as they
+watched that she was fully aware of their eyes on her. Danny's tongue
+darted over his lips; he sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"Man, I gotta get me some more of that. But not now. We got things to
+talk about now. Important things, right, Art?"</p>
+
+<p>Johnson tore his eyes from the girl. "Uh, yeah, Danny. Sure. Anything
+you say."</p>
+
+<p>"That's right. Anything I say. And don't you creeps ever forget it."</p>
+
+<p>"So who's arguing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nobody, Flip—not yet. But I got me a feeling all of us in our little
+group aren't happy. Right, Art?"</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't say that," protested Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"That's what it sounded like to me."</p>
+
+<p>"So excuse me for living." He shrugged. "All I said was that I don't go
+for that kind of jazz. It spells trouble, big trouble. C—O—P trouble."</p>
+
+<p>"Ahhh, you're a real nervous nellie, Art. I tell you, this place is
+a leadpipe cinch. He leaves the money in a register my baby brother
+could walk off with, and the lock on that back door is made out of
+bubble-gum. Now all we gotta do is wait till about midnight, after
+the patrol car swings through. It doesn't come back again for forty
+minutes, and that's more than enough time for what we want to do. What
+do you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't like it."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't have to like it. Just do it. Now, what do you say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, okay."</p>
+
+<p>"Good!" Danny settled back and slapped the table. "It's settled, then.
+Flip picks us up here at eleven thirty and we drive over to Blandina
+and park behind the billboard on the vacant lot the next block down.
+Now don't either one of you creeps go fouling up this deal."</p>
+
+<p>"What's to foul?" said Flip.</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah, you're right. What's to foul?" He slapped the table again. "Hey,
+who wants a coke? I'll buy." He leaned around the corner of the booth
+and whistled. "Hey, Janie! Fun time! Tell Sandy to fix us three cokes
+and come on out and join the party!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Art Johnson rounded the corner and approached the coke shop, hands
+sweaty in anticipation of what was going to happen within the next
+hour. He wished there was some way for him to back out of the situation
+and still manage to save face, but it was too late. The pattern was
+set, and events would ride out to their inevitable climax.</p>
+
+<p>Then—</p>
+
+<p>Something clicked.</p>
+
+<p>The youth paused in midstride and nearly stumbled. His eyes took on a
+faraway look. A boy and girl came out of the shop arm-in-arm and nearly
+walked into him.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, stupid! Watch where you're going."</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry," he muttered, shaking his head.</p>
+
+<p>"Some people," said the boy, "live in a fog." The girl giggled, and Art
+pushed his way into the packed interior of the shop.</p>
+
+<p>"Hey, man!"</p>
+
+<p>Danny was holding a booth open. Art pushed his way through the crowd
+and slid in beside him.</p>
+
+<p>"You're late," said Danny. "What happened?"</p>
+
+<p>"The old lady stayed up to watch the eleven o'clock news. I had to wait
+until she was in bed."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's a good thing you made it. We were about ready to take off
+without you. Come on, Flip; let's move out."</p>
+
+<p>"Just a minute, Danny."</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah?" The boy paused, half-risen out of his seat. After staring at
+Johnson's face, he sat back down again. "What is it, Art boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"The deal's off. I'm cutting out."</p>
+
+<p>"What?" He shook his head in disbelief. "You crazy man?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. That's why I'm cutting out." He sighed. "I didn't like this deal
+from the word go. You knew that."</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah. But I never thought you'd go chicken on us, Art boy. Not on old
+Danny. That's me, remember? Danny Grissome. What I say, goes. Anything
+I say goes. Right, Flip?"</p>
+
+<p>"Right, Danny."</p>
+
+<p>"Right, Art boy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not right, Danny," said Johnson, softly.</p>
+
+<p>"You mean it. You really mean it!" He shook his head, sadly. "What's
+the world coming to?"</p>
+
+<p>"No good end, most likely," said Johnson. "But I don't intend to mess
+myself up any sooner than I absolutely have to."</p>
+
+<p>"I dunno." Danny shook his head again. "You don't talk like the
+same Art boy I know. Hey, is that you, hiding inside that mess of
+goody-goody talk, Art baby? Come on out and join the party."</p>
+
+<p>"No go, Danny." Johnson shook his head. "If I'm not the same Art boy,
+it's because I finally woke up."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>"How did it go?" asked Cavendish, as he unclipped the electrodes.</p>
+
+<p>"Go?" Johnson shrugged, then stretched and yawned widely. "I guess it
+went all right. I haven't seen Danny or Flip for forty years. Wonder
+what ever happened to them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ended up in jail, most likely. But what about the crisis? Did you
+succeed in avoiding it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Crisis?" Johnson peered at him through narrowed lids. "Are you daft,
+man? What crisis could there possible be in a bunch of kids getting
+together in a corner sweet shop?"</p>
+
+<p>"But...." Cavendish shook his head. "Things did change!"</p>
+
+<p>"What changed? Name me one concrete thing that's different than it
+used to be."</p>
+
+<p>"I...." He shook his head. "I can't."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course you can't. And for the very simple reason that nothing did
+change. I'm still the same man I always was. And you'd better start
+coming up with some concrete benefits from this gadget of yours. You
+know I put myself into hock to raise the money you needed—I told my
+wife I was adding another franchise to my line. If she finds out her
+jewels were hocked for me to play around with a time machine, instead
+of a new line of cars, she'll flip. So how about it, Cavendish? Some
+concrete results next time."</p>
+
+<p>Cavendish went to the bar and returned with a generous slug of whisky.</p>
+
+<p>"What's this?" said Johnson.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, your drink."</p>
+
+<p>"Drink?" He snorted. "You know I don't drink, man. Have you gone
+completely daft? I haven't touched alcohol since I was a youngster."</p>
+
+<p>Cavendish seemed near tears. He drank the whisky himself, then turned
+back to the machine.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you up to now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm looking for a suitable crisis point." The screen wavered, then
+filled with a group of men in uniform—heavy winter garb. They were
+clustered around a small fire in a cave; one seemed to be heating
+coffee in a tin can. Johnson sucked in his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"You know what is going to happen?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, dammit! You're a devil!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps." He sighed. "I sometimes wonder.... But no matter." He
+adjusted the picture, and events flowed forward a few hours. The
+soldiers were now at the base of a snow-covered hill. Above them, gaunt
+and bare, the timber-line beckoned with obscenely stretching limbs.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a flare shot up from someplace to the right of the little
+band. Its eerie glare picked out unexpected shadows among the trees
+above. One of the soldiers, facing the prospect of near and immediate
+personal death for the first time in his life, panicked and began
+spraying the tree-line with his grease gun. Branches and splinters of
+wood kicked out, until the Sergeant reached out and slapped the gun
+from the boy's arms.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The men waited until an unheard signal sounded; then the Sergeant waved
+them on up the hill. Slowly, cautiously at first, they made progress
+through the protecting trees. But then they reached the timber-line
+and froze. Cursing, the Sergeant moved from man to man, shoving them
+out of the false protection. At last he came to the boy who had fired
+earlier. Just as the older man placed his hand on the boy's shoulder,
+the boy twisted and broke away, running madly down the hill....</p>
+
+<p>"That's enough, damn you!"</p>
+
+<p>Cavendish turned off the picture and came back to Johnson's side. "They
+court-martialed you, didn't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"You know they did," he said, dully.</p>
+
+<p>"You were unlucky, that's all. Many a soldier spooks his first time
+under fire. A lot of them run away."</p>
+
+<p>"How many of them run right into the arms of their Commanding General?"</p>
+
+<p>"Unlucky," said Cavendish.</p>
+
+<p>"They kicked me out," said Johnson, bitterly. "A dishonorable
+discharge—'cowardice in the face of enemy action'. Said I was lucky I
+didn't face the firing squad."</p>
+
+<p>"Officers are human, too," said Cavendish. "In times of stress, they
+tend to panic."</p>
+
+<p>"They were 'making an example of me'," said Johnson. He laughed, a
+humorless sound that grated on the ears. "Some example. It took me
+twenty years to live it down."</p>
+
+<p>"But people do forget, eventually."</p>
+
+<p>"Not all of them."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall we get on with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course, man. This is what I have been waiting for!" His words were
+sharp and impatient.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>"Hey, Art! Got a butt?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah, sure." Art Johnson scrabbled around inside his jacket and came
+out with a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He passed them over.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, buddy. God, but it's cold here!" He stripped off one glove and
+warmed the palm of his hand over the glowing coal of the cigarette.
+"Now I know what they mean when they call a place Godforsaken."</p>
+
+<p>"Ease off there, you two!" Sergeant Stebbins glowered their way. "You
+want every chink in Korea to hear you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Sorry, Sarge," muttered the cigarette-bummer. He dropped his voice
+to a whisper. "Hey, Artie! I hear some of the guys in Fox company are
+making book on how many of us live through the day."</p>
+
+<p>"Yeah?" Johnson shook his head. "Some characters'll bet on their own
+mother's funeral."</p>
+
+<p>"Or their own." The boy giggled. "Wouldn't it be funny if the winners
+couldn't collect because they were all dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"A real scream," said Johnson, sourly. "Look, let's change the subject,
+huh?"</p>
+
+<p>The boy shrugged. "Sure, Art. Anything you say."</p>
+
+<p>They lapsed into silence, and Art Johnson considered the improbable
+amount of circumstances that had brought him to the base of this
+numbered but nameless hill half across the world from home. There was
+nothing of home here, and he felt the lack mightily. There was a very
+good chance that before another few hours had passed, he would be dead.
+And then he would never see home again.</p>
+
+<p>He shivered. The thought frightened him. He didn't want to die. Not
+that he supposed any of the other men wanted to die either. But they
+were remote, other beings, alien in Art Johnson's world. What they felt
+he could not guess; what he felt he knew.</p>
+
+<p><i>And he did not want to die!</i></p>
+
+<p>"Hey, Art!"</p>
+
+<p>"Uh, what is it, Tooey?"</p>
+
+<p>"Chinks, I think. Up there in the trees. God, they're sneaking down!"</p>
+
+<p>"Where? Dammit, where?" He thumbed the safety of his grease gun, and
+brought it up to bear on the trees. His fingers tightened around the
+stock; the trigger started to depress—</p>
+
+<p>Then—</p>
+
+<p>Something clicked.</p>
+
+<p>"Jesus, Artie, they're coming!"</p>
+
+<p>Art Johnson's eyes took on a faraway look. His fingers loosened their
+death grip on the gun. He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Artie!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up, Tooey!" Reaching out, he slapped the boy's face. "You're
+imagining things."</p>
+
+<p>"But they're up there, Artie!" whimpered the boy.</p>
+
+<p>"Sure they're up there. But not where you think they are. They're dug
+in, in the caves. And it's going to be up to us to dig them out. Now
+snap out of it!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Suddenly a flare shot up from somewhere to their right. It whistled,
+then popped, the white light hurting their night-adjusted eyes. A
+moment later, Stebbins whistled and the men started moving up the hill.</p>
+
+<p>They paused at the timber-line, and Stebbins cursed, moving from man
+to man and urging him out of the false protection of the trees and
+onto the broad expanse of boulder-pocked snow. Above them, another
+two hundred yards, black dots against the snow showed where the caves
+were waiting for them. Johnson could visualize the little slant-eyed
+men within. He flopped to his belly and wriggled forward. Suddenly he
+stood up and dashed twenty yards, then flopped again as bullets whined
+through the space occupied by his body bare instants earlier.</p>
+
+<p>He lay there, face pressed into the snow, until the muscles of his legs
+started tensing of their own accord. Then he was up again, and running
+for dear life.</p>
+
+<p>Gun fire was bursting all around now, a seemingly solid screen of lead
+pouring down from the caves. But the men were getting through the
+barrier; one slammed into the rock wall beside a cave mouth and started
+unlimbering grenades, tossing them in as quickly as he could pull the
+pins. Seconds later a vast tongue of fire roared out, melting the snow
+and scorching the barren earth beneath.</p>
+
+<p>The fire probed down the hill as the side around the cave shook and
+roared. The fire reached and passed over Art Johnson, lying in the
+snow, fingers digging at the rock beneath.</p>
+
+<p>By its orange light, the spreading circle of red around the soldier
+blended into the artificial coloring of the snow.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>"Just think of it!" Cavendish pounded his hand on the desk. "The
+chance to go back and correct our mistakes, live our lives over again.
+The opportunities missed, the chances passed up, the decisions made
+wrong—all can be changed."</p>
+
+<p>The man in the chair swirled the dregs of the whisky in the bottom of
+the glass. "Go on, Cavendish," he said. "You're keeping my interest."</p>
+
+<p>Cavendish flushed. "Thank you, Mr. Blackwell. I knew a man of your
+position would not pass up an opportunity like this. Why, this is
+another chance to make the world! A second chance!"</p>
+
+
+<p class="ph2">THE END</p>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SECOND CHANCE ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>