Tony was too flabbergasted to even shake his head.
Mr. Emurian laughed. “This man,” he explained amiably, “would say that the coin comes from a country which is not upon our maps because it is unapproachable by any ordinary means. Yet it is wholly real and actually has a certain commerce with us. It is—hm—have you ever heard of worlds supposed to be like ours, but in other—ah—dimensions, say, or in parallel but not identical times?”
“I’ve read Wells’ Time Machine,” said Tony awkwardly.
“Not at all the same,” the dark man assured him. “And notions of startling new machines for traveling between sets of dimensions or in time itself are quite absurd. Discoveries of that sort are never drastic! When electricity was discovered, it was your own Franklin who observed that it was no new force, but quite commonplace. Every thunderstorm since time began had demonstrated it. Similarly, if travel between worlds or to other times should ever become really practical, it is certain that the discovery will not be dramatic. It will turn out that people have been doing it for centuries as a matter of course, without ever realizing it.”
“You mean—” Tony stopped.
“The legend,” said Mr. Emurian, “suggests that your coin came from a world not our own. That it came from a world where history quite truthfully denies much of the history we truthfully teach to children.” He regarded Tony zestfully and said, “Ordinarily, two things which are equal to the same thing are equal to each other. But two places which are exactly equal to each other are identical—are the same place. Now consider! Suppose that somewhere there existed a world in which Aladdin’s lamp existed and was in good working order. Suppose that upon that world there was a place which was absolutely identical with a place in this world. It would have to be a place where the working or not working of Aladdin’s lamp made absolutely no difference. Now, according to the legend, those two places, on two worlds, would actually be one place which was on both worlds, and which would serve as a perfectly practical gateway between them. Travelers would pass casually through it without ever noticing it. You and I perhaps, pass through such gateways every day without the least realization.”
The dark man seemed to find amused satisfaction in the look of mystified enthusiasm on Tony’s face. He waved a manicured hand.
“Look at this restaurant. Here. Tonight,” he said, beaming. “Today, for example, Calcutta could have vanished in a tidal wave and be sunk forever under the sea. Or it could not. Here and now, we knowing nothing about it, such an event would still have made no slightest difference. So that from this restaurant tonight we could walk out into two different worlds—you into the one where such an event had taken place, and I into the world where it did not. And I might go and live peacefully and die of old age in the Calcutta which to you was utterly destroyed.”
“But we are in the same world!” protested Tony. “We’ll stay in the same world!”
“Probably, but are you sure?” Mr. Emurian twinkled through his glasses. “We have never seen each other before. How do you know that I have always lived in this particular world? How do you know that the history of the world in which I was born is the same? I was surely not taught the same history! And if we separate here tonight, and you never see or hear of me again, how will you know that I remain in the world you inhabit?”
Tony said painfully, but with his heart beating fast:
“I—guess I won’t. But there’s no proof, either, that—”
“We agree,” said Mr. Emurian, nodding. “There can be no proof. I have told you a legend. It says that there are other worlds. They are not quite real to us, because we cannot reach them at will. But according to legend they touch each other at many places, and it is possible to travel from one to another, and in fact we constantly visit the frontier cities of other worlds without ever knowing it. We do not know it, because we are a part of our own world, and there is an attraction; a magnetism; a gravitation, perhaps; which draws us back before we stray far through the gateway of a world which is not our own.”
He regarded Tony benevolently through his eyeglasses.
“As for your coin—sometimes that gravitation or that attraction is not enough. We stray deep into other worlds and doubtless we are very unhappy. Or an object from another world strays into ours. But always the gravitation or the magnetism remains to some degree. That is what my friend in Ispahan believes—so firmly that he might be willing to pay you as much as two thousand dollars for the coin in your hand.”
Tony looked at the coin with deep respect. He had never in all his life before owned anything worth even a fraction of two thousand dollars. His conscience spoke in no uncertain terms. He said slowly:
“I—suppose I ought to sell it, then. I can’t really afford to carry around a luck-piece as valuable as that. I—might lose it.” After a moment, he said wistfully: “I suppose your friend is a coin collector?”
“Not at all,” said Mr. Emurian. “He is a businessman. He would use the coin, I am sure, to get into this other world and set up a branch of his business there. He would import Barkutian dates or dried figs or rugs, or possibly gold and frankincense and myrrh. He might deal in ivory and apes and peacocks in exchange for Birmingham cutlery, printed cotton cloth, and kerosene lamps. And if the atmosphere were congenial he might establish a residence there, staffed with pretty slave girls and Mameluke guards, and settle down to a life of comfortable luxury with no fear of atomic bombs and Communism.”
Tony said more wistfully stilclass="underline"
“How would the coin guide him to Barkut?”
Mr. Emurian gently shook an admonitory finger.
“You accept my legend as fact, my dear sir! You are a romantic!” Then he added comfortably: “I do not know how he would use the coin as a guide. I do know that he would consider that it was not quite real in this world, and hence should be exempt from some physical laws. He would expect it to have some tendency to become more real, which it could only do by returning to its own time and place. How the tendency would show itself, I cannot guess. But I will write down my friend’s name and address. I promise that he will pay you a high price for your token.”
Tony Gregg looked almost hungrily at the coin. An idea came into his head. His conscience, its eyes on that two thousand, protested indignantly.
“I’ll let the coin decide,” he said unhappily. “Heads I sell it, tails I don’t.”
He tossed. The coin thumped on the table. Tails. He gulped in relief and pushed back his chair.
“It’s settled,” he said, flushing a little in his excitement. “And—and I won’t take your friend’s address because I—don’t want to be able to change my mind.”
Mr. Emurian beamed.
“A romantic!” he said approvingly. “It is admirable! I wish you good fortune, sir!”
Tony thanked him confusedly and paid his bill and departed.
Outside, in the spottily lighted street, he felt more or less dazed; his conscience prodded him, bitingly reproachful, demanding that he go back and get the address he had just refused. This was in the Syrian quarter, on lower East Broadway, with signs in Arabic in those scattered shop windows still lighted. Most of the buildings about were dark and silent, and there were only very occasional lumbering trucks for traffic. The atmosphere was a compound of the exotic and the commonplace that did not make for clear thinking. The facts were staggering, too. If the coin in Tony’s pocket was worth two thousand dollars, that in itself was enough to make him dizzy. He had never carried more than a week’s salary in his pocket at any time, and never that for long.
So he rode uptown on a subway train which had come from Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, and would go uptown only to Times Square. At Times Square he changed trains like a sleepwalker and went further uptown still. He was lost in excited, dazzled speculation which hardly let him notice his surroundings. He had come up from the subway exit and was walking toward his lodging when he realized he’d been too agitated to eat the shishkebab he’d paid for. He came to a diner, and was still hungry. He automatically flipped the coin. It came heads. He went into the diner. The man at the stool next to him got up and went out. He left a paper that he’d stuck under him when he finished with it. Tony thriftily retrieved it while waiting for his hamburger and coffee. Then a thrill went all the way down his backbone and he nearly choked. The paper was Racing Form.