waltt@tekecs.UUCP (Walt Tucker) (06/13/85)
I just finished a short (20 page) RAH story called "All You Zombies...."
This story deals with a time paradox, presented in Heinlein style. I won't
comment on the physical probability of the story happening, but the paradox
is interesting. The paradox is very similar to that presented in another
one of his short stories called "By His Bootstraps." Anyway, I thought the
paradox presented in this story was unusual enough to summarize to this
newsgroup. So...
A time traveller, an older gentleman in his fifties, has set himself up
as a barkeep in 1970 so as to meet a certain person. A 25-year old man
comes into the bar. The time traveller engages in conversation with the
man, who then tells his strange story.
It seems the man was born a girl, and brought up in orphanage, never having
any clues as to parentage. When the girl (man telling the story) is
about 18, she meets a man. They have a short fling and she winds up pregnant
and he winds up gone. Nine months later she goes in to have the baby. She
wakes up in the hospital. The doctor tells her a tale of how (s)he had two
set of sex organs (each not fully developed). The baby (a female) is fine,
but having a baby did irrepairable harm to the female set of sex organs.
All the doctors can do is perform subsequent operations and let her develop
as a man. Well, at least she figures she can raise the baby as the father.
No orphanage for the little baby girl. Three days later, the baby is
snatched out of the hospital and is never seen again. Now it is seven years
later. The man tells the time traveller that he would give about anything
to get ahold of the man who ruined his life (got him (her?) pregnant).
The time traveller, of course, offers the man this opportunity. They go
back to 1963. The time traveller drops the man off to find the man that got
him (her?) pregnant these seven years past. The time traveller says he will
pick him up in a little while. The time traveller jumps ahead 11 months to
1964, locates the baby in the hospital and takes it. The time traveller
takes the baby back to 1945 and drops it off at an orphanage, making sure
that the baby gets taken in before leaving. The time traveller then goes back
to 1963 to pick up the man, who is badly shaken. It seems the man met himself
as a woman and seduced his younger self. The time traveller then offers
the man a job as a fellow time traveller, who accepts the job.
It is now 30 years later, and the 25-year old man is now the time traveller
in the bar in 1970, waiting for his younger self to appear.
Strange. But, it is a rather interesting paradox (the baby grows up to
be the man who seduces himself as a woman who has a baby that is really
himself, etc.)
-- Walt Tucker
Tektronix, Inc.