Free The Menace From Earth ssc by Robert A. Heinlein Page B

... Huh? Oh, it's you, Genevieve. Look — I'm sorry. I apologize — ... You don't understand, honey. A guy has been pestering me over the phone and I thought it was him. You know I wouldn't talk to you that way, babe ... Huh? This afternoon? Did you say   this   afternoon? Sure. Fine. Look, babe, I'm a little mixed up about this. Trouble I've had all day long and more trouble now. I'll look you up tonight and straighten it out. But I   know   I didn't leave your hat in my apartment — ... Huh? Oh, sure! Anyhow, I'll see you tonight. 'By."
    It almost nauseated Wilson to hear his earlier self catering to the demands of that clinging female. Why didn't he just hang up on her? The contrast with Arma — there was a dish! — was acute; it made him more determined than ever to go ahead with the plan, despite the warning of the latest arrival.
    After hanging up the phone his earlier self faced him, pointedly ignoring the presence of the third copy. "Very well, Joe," he announced. "I'm ready to go if you are."
    "Fine!" Wilson agreed with relief. "Just step through. That's all there is to it."
    "No, you don't!" Number Three barred the way.
    Wilson started to argue, but his erratic comrade was ahead of him. "Listen, you! You come butting in here like you think I was a bum. If you don't like it, go jump in the lake — and I'm just the kind of a guy who can do it! You and who else?"
    They started trading punches almost at once. Wilson stepped in warily, looking for an opening that would enable him to put the slug on Number Three with one decisive blow.
    He should have watched his drunken ally as well. A wild swing from that quarter glanced off his already damaged features and caused him excruciating pain. His upper lip, cut, puffy and tender from his other encounter, took the blow and became an area of pure agony. He flinched and jumped back.
    A sound cut through his fog of pain, a dull   smack!   He forced his eyes to track and saw the feet of a man disappear through the Gate. Number Three was still standing by the Gate. "Now you've done it!" he said bitterly to Wilson, and nursed the knuckles of his left hand.
    The obviously unfair allegation reached Wilson at just the wrong moment. His face still felt like an experiment in sadism. "Me?" he said angrily.   "You   knocked him through. I never laid a finger on him."
    "Yes, but it's your fault. If you hadn't interfered, I wouldn't have had to do it."
    " Me   interfere? Why, you bald faced hypocrite — you butted in and tried to queer the pitch. Which reminds me — you owe me some explanations and I damn well mean to have 'em. What's the idea of —"
    But his opposite number cut in on him. "Stow it," he said gloomily. "It's too late now. He's gone through."
    "Too late for what?" Wilson wanted to know.
    "Too late to put a stop to this chain of events."
    "Why should we?"
    "Because," Number Three said bitterly, "Diktor has played me — I mean has played you ... us — for a dope, for a couple of dopes. Look, he told you that he was going to set you up as a big shot over   there" — he   indicated the Gate — "didn't he?"
    "Yes," Wilson admitted.
    "Well, that's a lot of malarkey. All he means to do is to get us so incredibly tangled up in this Time Gate thing that we'll never get straightened out again."
    Wilson felt a sudden doubt nibbling at his mind. It   could   be true. Certainly there had not been much sense to what had happened so far. After all, why should Diktor want his help, want it bad enough to offer to split with him, even-steven, what was obviously a cushy spot? "How do you know?" he demanded.
    "Why go into it?" the other answered wearily. "Why don't you just take my word for it?"
    "Why should I?"
    His companion turned a look of complete exasperation on him. "If you can't take my word, whose word can you take?"
    The inescapable logic of the question simply annoyed Wilson. He resented this interloping duplicate of himself anyhow; to be asked to follow his