3.
—Third Tale—
Thomas Jefferson was a gardener by profession. At times he grumbled at his lot. He and his wife Nellie lived in a small, drafty wooden house at the edge of Monticello, a vast and prosperous estate owned by His Majesty's High Commissioner for the American Colonies, the Hon. George Washington.
One day, Jeff (as he was popularly hailed by his betters on the estate) was carrying a huge armload of firewood into the library, when Mr. Washington called him over. Jeff dumped the wood in the corner, dusted off his arms, and stamped over to the great man's table. Washington was alone in the room, poring over a huge book. A curious wooden box engraved with astrological and astronomical signs sat on the table before him. "Jeff," he said, "I am hard at work on a Scientifick Problemme."
"Aye, sir," Jeff said respectfully, removing his hat. Washington's eyes blazed with that crazy light Jeff knew so well. "This Objeckt before me is what I call the Parallelocator. Do you know what that means?"
"No sir," Jeff said with regret. He had a keen mind, but no formal education. He always wished he'd been high-born like Mr. Washington.
Washington leaped to his feet. "See this wire?" He ran along the room, his finger tracing the path of a metal wire that ran from the curious box, out the window, and to a kite fluttering high in the windy air outside. "This brings power down to our machine. With this Devyce, I should be able to see into some of the infinite Parallel Worlds of which ancient Greeks wrote. This entails Problemmes both Pracktical and Logickal, if you get the bifurcation of my drift."
"Aye?" Jeff managed so say. He had no idea what his employer had just said.
"Unfortunately, it does not seem to work." Washington pressed a button on the machine.
Torn Jefferson blinked. "What, George?" Washington barked at a third man present. "Ben, you must get your head out of the clouds, lad!"
Both Tom and George were embarrassed for their friend.
Ben Franklin removed his glasses and polished them. "I confess, Gentlemen, I am uncertain why my device does not seem to work. I was certain of the equations, which the great English doctor Newton laid forth in a secret memoir shortly before his death. What think you, Torn?"
Torn, a visitor at the estate of Governor Washington, said: "Well, Ben, I am a Doctor of Philosophy, not of Metaphysick. I find your concept Intriguing, but highly Speckulatyff." Idly, as the three gentlemen sat in the kitchen, Ben tapped the switch again.
A maid cleared away the supper dishes. Critias, a Negro slave, brought ale. Franklin sadly shook his head. "Friends, I propose to abandon this research and concentrate on Lightning instead. I fear I have wasted my time and yours." He addressed both Arthur Brennan and George Washington, respectively the new nation's Minister of Agriculture and its Minister of Scientifick Affairs.
In walked Tom Jefferson, Ben's indentured servant. "Mr. Franklin, I done brought your carriage about, Sir!"
"Well done, boy," Franklin said. "George, suppose that this device had worked somehow, subtly, without our knowing it."
George, a practical man, smiled. "I hardly follow, my good fellow."
Franklin grew animated. "The device is supposed to enable us to change from one Universe to another. Suppose it has in fact done so, without our knowing it. Suppose for one thing that there are infinitely many parallelocator boxes at work in infinitely many Universes. Suppose further that each time I press the Switch, something in fact changes, but we change along with it, only we are not aware of it."
"What an imagination," George said. Tom, overhearing the conversation, humbly pressed close behind his master.
Ben said: "Suppose we were to destroy this thing. Suppose, then, that all the changes we have unknowingly made each time we pressed the switch are then undone, returning everything to normal. Suppose in fact, a ripple goes through time, destroying all the parallelocation devices, returning everything to normal."
Washington laughed loudly, rose, and pulled out his heavy cavalry saber. "My dear Ben." He had had quite a few pots of ale this evening. "My dear little Benjamin."
"Suppose," Ben Franklin was saying, not noticing the saber, "that all the changes pile up inside the machine like, like, electrical charges on a cloud, to be discharged as lightning." He saw Washington swing the saber up for a slashing stroke. "No, stop!" But it was too late.
"Let me help you," George said, swung his sword in a big arc, and brought it down on the Parallelocator. The wooden box, with a loud Thonk, split in half, spilling hundreds of tiny brass cog wheels amid a cloud of smoke and a crack of lightning that cracked like a gunshot.
Thomas Jefferson, the master of Monticello, rose and lifted his ale. "I propose a toast."
Ben Franklin and President George Washington rose and lifted their pots. "To the United States of America," they all said in one voice.
The wooden box lay in ruins before them. Thomas Jefferson said with a wan little smile: "We will never know, will we?"
Ben Franklin shook his head. "No, we will never know if anything happened. It was probably just a mistake. A wooden box, a lot of Complecks Levers, and some Elecktrick Current, and nothing much more."
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