By His Bootstraps

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"By His Bootstraps" is a science fiction short story by Robert A. Heinlein that plays with some of the inherent paradoxes that would be caused by time travel. It was originally published in the October 1941 issue of Astounding Science Fiction under the pen name Anson MacDonald. It was reprinted in Heinlein's 1959 collection, The Menace From Earth.

[edit] Plot Summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Bob Wilson is desperately trying to finish his doctoral thesis and has locked himself in his room in a marathon attempt to do so. His typewriter jams, and as he unjams it he hears someone say "Don't bother, it's hogwash anyway." The thesis, in fact, deals with time travel. The interloper is a man who seems strangely familiar, and might be recognizable without the two-day growth of beard and the black eye.

The visitor calls himself "Joe" and explains that he has come from the future through a Time Gate. This is a circle about 6 feet in diameter hanging in the air behind Joe. Joe explains that Bob has to go through the Gate, where great opportunities await him, thousands of years in his future. By way of demonstration Joe fetches Bob's hat, seeming to know exactly where Bob keeps it, and tosses it into the Gate. It disappears.

Bob is still not convinced, and Joe, declaring himself in need of a drink, gets Bob's secret stash of gin from its hiding place. He pours them both a stiff one. The explanations continue as Bob gets more and more intoxicated. Finally Joe is about to manhandle Bob to the Gate when another man appears. To Bob this is Joe's brother, or maybe a cousin, they look so much alike. The newcomer does not want Bob to go into the Gate. Bob deals with some odd phone calls, one from an apparent prankster, the other from his girlfriend Genevieve, who claims to have spent a rather nice afternoon with him at her apartment. Mystified, Bob hangs up, and not willing to let some stranger boss him around, announces he's going through the gate and the stranger had better get out of the way. A fight ensues and the stranger lands a good solid blow on Bob, knocking him through the Gate.

Bob recovers his senses in a strange place. A white haired, bearded man explains that he is thirty thousand years in the future, in the Hall of the Gate inside the High Palace of Norkaal. The man, who calls himself Diktor, treats Bob's bruises and gives him a drink, which puts him to sleep.

When Bob awakes much later, Diktor treats him to a sumptuous breakfast. The two of them are waited on by beautiful women. Diktor explains that these future humans are handsome, cultured in a primitive fashion, and have none of the spunk of their ancestors. An alien race, who built the Hall and the Gate, refashioned humanity as compliant slaves. The aliens are gone leaving a world where a 20th century go-getter can make himself King!

Bob doesn't take all of this in, being distracted by the servants. However he absorbs enough that Diktor is willing to send him back through the Gate on a mission - to bring back the man he finds on the other side.

Stepping through, he finds himself back in his own room, watching himself typing his thesis. Taking some time to recover from the shock, while his earlier self types, drinks coffee and chain-smokes cigarettes, he decides to do as Diktor asked. Unable to remember much of the events from the previous time, he goes through the same actions and conversation, from the other point of view. Along the way, he realizes that his earlier self is a drunk and an idiot, but just as he is ready to shove him through the Gate, another copy of himself appears to stop him. The fight happens as before, "Bob" goes through the gate and he is left alone with himself.

Announcing his intention to go through the Gate, he has to argue with his future self, who claims that Diktor is just trying to tangle them up so badly they will never get untangled. Nevertheless, he passes through and encounters Diktor, who has just finished putting his earlier self down for a long nap. Diktor gives him a list of things to buy in his own time, to bring back through the Gate. A little annoyed by Diktor's manner, Bob argues with him and eventually slips back through the Gate. Whereupon he finds himself looking at himself trying to get himself to enter the Gate the first time.

Even though Bob knows the consequences of his every word, events play out as before as first his drunk, then his sober earlier selves go back to the future. He suddenly realizes that he is finished with the paradox. He could just go on with his life, at least after he cleans up a little. The thesis is obviously going to have to be rewritten. He gets another call from Genevieve, who is convinced he has asked her to marry him. All this time, the Gate is still there.

On an impulse, he goes back through the Gate. Perhaps he can use it to get the upper hand on Diktor, maybe take his place. The controls are simple, and he moves the Gate out of his room to a blind alley. Emerging, he proceeds to collect the items on Diktor's list, which seem to be things a 20th century man could use to make himself King in the future. One is a copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Other items include books on politics, a mechanical gramophone, and gramophone records of popular music.

Unfortunately the Gate is gone when he returns from his shopping trip. However he is in a time a few hours earlier than the events that took him to meet Diktor, so he realizes that the Gate will be available once his room is empty. That leaves him with time to kill, and he does this most gratifyingly with Genevieve. He also finds time to make a prank phone call to himself.

Finally, returning to his empty room he slips back to Diktor's time with his cargo. He then adjusts the Gate to deposit him in the Hall, ten years in the past, and steps through. He thinks that by the time Diktor shows up he'll have taken over the place, and Diktor will be out of the picture. As he sets up the Gate, he finds two things by the controls. His old hat, and a notebook which translates between English and the language of Diktor's slaves.

With the aid of Madison Avenue and Tin Pan Alley, he sets himself up as Chief of the innocent humans he finds. He plays with the Time Gate hoping to see its makers, but the one time he catches a glimpse of these creatures he is so shocked by the emotions he feels that he stays away from the Gate for a long time.

One day, idly playing with the Gate, looking for 20th century scenes, he hears a noise and sees an old hat lying on the floor by the Gate. Shortly afterwards an intoxicated individual in 20th century clothing comes through. The circle closes. He is Diktor, which is nothing more than the word for "Chief". Now he has to orchestrate events to ensure his own future by entangling the past. But it will be a great future!

Note: the etymology of the word "Diktor" is never precisely exlained; it might be derived from "Doctor", "Director" or "Dictator", or from all three - since the job in fact involves aspects of all three.