August 29, 2025 • 13 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Back to Julie by Richard Wilson. The side shuffle is
no dance step. It's the choice between making time and
doing time. You can't go shooting off to that dimension
for peanuts. I don't want to give you the impression
that peanuts are in short supply here, or that our
economy is in the fix of having to import them. Sidewise,
(00:22):
what I'm trying to convey is that if you're one
of the rare ones functionally equipped to do the side shuffle,
you ought to be well paid for it in any coin.
That's what I told Krasnow, and he wasn't after peanuts.
I'll do it, I said, if he'll make it worth
my while. I'd hardly expect you to do it for nothing,
he replied, reproachfully. How much do you want? I told
(00:46):
him the amount shook him up, but only briefly. O
k he said, grudgingly. I suppose I'll have to give
it to you, but the stuff had better be good.
Oh it is, I assured him. And you don't have
to be afraid because I couldn't possibly skip with the loute.
I'll have to travel naked. I can't get there with
so much as a sandal on one foot, or a
(01:08):
filling in a single tooth. Fortunately, my teeth are perfect.
Sweat poured off Krasnow's floored face as he worked the
combination of his office safe. His fat jowls quivered unhappily
around his cigar while he counted out the bills. Ten
percent was cash and advance, and the rest went into
(01:29):
a bank account in my name. I paid off a
batch of bills, then stripped and did my off to Buffalo.
Honest John Krasnow was a crooked district attorney who wanted
to be governor and then president. He had the machine,
but he didn't have the people. And because he needed
the people, he needed me. I had been to this
(01:49):
other dimension, the one on the farthest branch of the
thyme tree, and I could give him what he wanted.
Krasnow found out about it after I was hauled up
in front of him on a check kiting charge. I'd
had something of a reputation before I got into difficulties,
and in trying to live up to the reputation, I
had done some plain and fancy financing, nothing that fifteen
(02:12):
to twenty grand wouldn't have fixed. But while I scrounged
around trying to get cash. I kited a few checks.
They pyramided me right into the d a's office, where
Krasnow was properly sympathetic. How he asked, could a man
of your standing in the scientific world stoop so low?
(02:34):
It developed into quite a lecture, and even coming from Krasnow,
it made me feel pretty low. So I began explaining.
I told him where I was born and where I
went to school, and where I had taken my sabbaticals,
including this other dimension, and Krasnow believed me. I can't
account for it, except possibly because he knew he was
(02:56):
a crook and knew I was in one exactly. Anyway,
he believed me, and we made the deal, and I
did the side shuffle as agreed. The journey to that
other dimension is not a pleasant one. It does disturbing
things to the stomach, and you see everything thin and elongated,
as if you're sitting too far to the side in
a movie theater. I got there, however, and waited for
(03:19):
the hiccups to subside. Hiccupy. Laterally, I had called them
when I considered writing an article for the Medical Journal
after my first trip with the hiccuppy gone. I stole
some clothing, which was one of the riskiest parts of
the program, and waited for morning. I didn't have any money,
of course, so I had hitchhike into town. I could
(03:42):
have stolen myself a better fit, but people aren't clothes
conscious in that dimension. They're more interested in what you
are and what you can do. The driver of the
car that gave me a lift asked, and what is
your field of endeavor? I told him I am able
to eliminate the long wait in ivory production by accelerating
(04:04):
the growth cycle of elephants. He was deeply impressed and
tipped me handsomely. I was less impressed with his talent
for growing cobbless corn, and therefore had to return only
a small part of the sum he gave me. The
world of this dimension had developed some remarkable parallels to Earth.
I mean our Earth, which falls into what I have
(04:27):
designated time line one point one. Since it is the
Earth with which I am most familiar. Every other world
that has a language calls itself Earth two. I had
to visit briefly hundreds of the lateral worlds, hovering over
primorial swamps, limitless oceans, insect kingdoms and radioactive planetoids before
(04:50):
I found the one that was truly parallel. It existed
in time line seventeen point zero eight, and it had refrigerators,
platinum blonds, automobiles, airplanes, apple pie, tabloids, television, scotch, and soda,
just about everything we think makes life worth while. But
it had its little differences, which was only to be
(05:13):
expected in a timeline where the bionomics could create a
new world each time someone changed his mind. Thus the
cobbless corn Man was driving what looked to me like
a Chevrolet, but which was a Morton in his world.
He let me off near a downtown restaurant, where, thanks
to our little exchange of talent talk, I had enough
(05:35):
money for breakfast. It was considered unethical to swap talent
talk outside the limits of certain rigidly defined groups, so
I didn't try to out impress the waitress. Fed and
filling my stolen clothes a bit better, I walked to
the recorder's office and spent the rest of the morning
looking up old documents. There was nothing there for crossnow,
(05:57):
as I had expected, but for me there it was
a very pretty file clerk talking to her. I verified
my impression that human instincts and relationships were much the
same in this dimension as in my own, except in
the one basic respect that interested Crasstow. Of course, the
file clerk and I lunched together, and then I spent
(06:20):
the afternoon in the library, but I didn't find anything
there either. And then I had dinner with her. She
said her name was Julie. I told her mine was
Heck for Hactor, which it is. She thought this was
awfully cute, and we got along fine. Julie had a
delightful apartment and a matching sense of hospitality. The following day,
(06:42):
when she went to work, I stayed home and washed
the dishes and made the bed and used the telephone.
I ran up quite a bill with my long distance calls,
but I found out what I needed to know. I
impressed a lot of people with my elephant's story, and
pretended to be impressed hardly at all with what they
told me they did, although often I was very much.
(07:04):
The trouble with these people is that they no longer
know how to lie. If that can be listed as trouble,
I don't think it can. Neither did Krasnow. Obviously, he'd
never have sent me off on my expensive side trip
if he had. Of course, Krasnow looked at it objectively.
What he wanted from time line seventeen point zero eight
(07:27):
was not for himself. It was for everybody else. He
wanted the formula for the truth gas. These people had
developed long ago and loosed upon their world to put
a stop to the wars. They had been in a
bad way, although no worse than this sort of problem
we were up against. Their transocean squabbles and power politics
(07:49):
seemed to have settled into a pattern of a war
or two per generation, just like us. Hence, the man
who invented the truth gas became a global hero. After
a certain amount of cynicism and skepticism, all the doubts
vanished naturally once the gas got to working, and so
did war. You can't do much plotting and scheming if
(08:12):
every time you open your mouth to tell a lie,
you stammer, sweat, turn red, and gasp for breath. It's
a dead giveaway. Nobody tries it. More than once. One
or two men had tried to nullify the gas or
work out a local antidote, either as a pure research
project or through power madness, But because they had had
(08:32):
to state their purposes. As soon as they thought of them,
they were put away, neat, very neat. What I wanted
was the formula for the truth gas. Its location wasn't
exactly a secret in this land of complete candor, but
it wasn't writ large on any wall for all to
see either. They kept it in their capital, located about
(08:54):
where our Omaha is on file among the vital statistics.
Took a super jet out there. I had no trouble
posing as a historian entitled to the facts. The gas
didn't work on me, you see, because it was adjusted
to the physiology of that timeline. There was just enough
difference between us for it not to make me stick
(09:17):
to the truth. We'll write out the formula for you,
I was told, obligingly. But you'll have to sign the
usual statement, of course, I said, Which one is that?
The one that says you won't publish it and will
destroy your copy when it has served your research purpose
without letting any one else see it. Oh that statement,
(09:40):
I said, I signed, freely, told my elephant's story and
departed in an aura of good will. The jet got
me back that same evening. Julie fixed me up a
snack and we discussed how pretty she was and how
nice I was. I had everything Cross now wanted. Now,
I've felt pretty good about it because there was nobody
(10:01):
else who could have done the job for him, and
because it wasn't spying really Earth one point one on
the timeline is world enough for crossnow, I'm sure. Besides,
dimensions don't have wars with one another. Too many things
can go wrong. Julie was lovely and I hated to
leave the next morning, but it was my job. I
(10:23):
told her, I'm afraid I have to leave town for
a bit, dear, but i'll be back very soon business,
you know. Being a seventeen point zero eight girl, Julie
had no reason to doubt me. Make it very soon.
She whispered, her lips close to my ear. So I
came back, and now crossnow has what he wants. He's delighted,
(10:47):
as he should be. I've made up the gas for
him and adjusted the formula so that it will work
on people of our timeline. It's high power stuff, and
a little will go a long way. I also made
it an antidote for him. This was easy since I
could work on it without feeling any compulsion to tell
everybody what I was doing and why. Krasnow plans to
(11:09):
release the truth gas just before the state convention. He'll
be nominated, of course, and after November he'll be governor.
With every one else compelled to tell the truth, it
should be a cent for him. He's a patient man,
honest John Crossnow is, and he's willing to wait four
years for the presidency. I ought to be happy too
(11:30):
with the money Krosnow gave me. I've been living in
the style to which I've always wanted to be accustomed.
He has offered me a place on his staff, and
somewhat superfluously, the use of his antidote. Naturally, the reason
he was so magnanimous was that he doesn't want any
one else around who knows his gimmick and might have
(11:51):
to tell the truth about it. But I have had
enough of this dimension now. Now that Krassnow has what
I promised him, he's going to use it tomorrow, and
if I know honest John, and I do, not even
the presidency will be big enough for him. So I'm
going back to Julie. There are some obvious questions in
(12:14):
your mind, I know, such as why did I get
the formula for Krasnow, knowing there was no way for
him to prosecute me while it was Julie's dimension, and
what made me come back. In short, what was in
it for me? Let's call it research. Krasnow is a
big time operator. I've always been, you might say. In
(12:36):
the peanut end of the game. He had a great
deal to teach me, and I, I'm happy to say,
was an apt pupil. You might speculate on what's in
it for you, because, if you ask me, anybody who
can do the side shuffle should do it before Krasnow
becomes president. However, don't go to seventeen point zero eight
(12:57):
unless you want to swap one Krosnow for another. The
fact is I've learned that I can be one in
Julie's dimension. After all, their formula doesn't work on me,
but I can assure you that it will work on you.
And that elephant story I told on my last visit is,
as I've indicated in the peanut category. All cress Now
has is a country. I'll have a whole world. There's
(13:21):
nothing like study under a master, is there. I should
be back to Julie by midnight if I start now
end of Back to Julie by Richard Wilson,
Back to Julie by Richard Wilson. The side shuffle is
no dance step. It's the choice between making time and
doing time. You can't go shooting off to that dimension
for peanuts. I don't want to give you the impression
that peanuts are in short supply here, or that our
economy is in the fix of having to import them. Sidewise,
(00:22):
what I'm trying to convey is that if you're one
of the rare ones functionally equipped to do the side shuffle,
you ought to be well paid for it in any coin.
That's what I told Krasnow, and he wasn't after peanuts.
I'll do it, I said, if he'll make it worth
my while. I'd hardly expect you to do it for nothing,
he replied, reproachfully. How much do you want? I told
(00:46):
him the amount shook him up, but only briefly. O
k he said, grudgingly. I suppose I'll have to give
it to you, but the stuff had better be good.
Oh it is, I assured him. And you don't have
to be afraid because I couldn't possibly skip with the loute.
I'll have to travel naked. I can't get there with
so much as a sandal on one foot, or a
(01:08):
filling in a single tooth. Fortunately, my teeth are perfect.
Sweat poured off Krasnow's floored face as he worked the
combination of his office safe. His fat jowls quivered unhappily
around his cigar while he counted out the bills. Ten
percent was cash and advance, and the rest went into
(01:29):
a bank account in my name. I paid off a
batch of bills, then stripped and did my off to Buffalo.
Honest John Krasnow was a crooked district attorney who wanted
to be governor and then president. He had the machine,
but he didn't have the people. And because he needed
the people, he needed me. I had been to this
(01:49):
other dimension, the one on the farthest branch of the
thyme tree, and I could give him what he wanted.
Krasnow found out about it after I was hauled up
in front of him on a check kiting charge. I'd
had something of a reputation before I got into difficulties,
and in trying to live up to the reputation, I
had done some plain and fancy financing, nothing that fifteen
(02:12):
to twenty grand wouldn't have fixed. But while I scrounged
around trying to get cash. I kited a few checks.
They pyramided me right into the d a's office, where
Krasnow was properly sympathetic. How he asked, could a man
of your standing in the scientific world stoop so low?
(02:34):
It developed into quite a lecture, and even coming from Krasnow,
it made me feel pretty low. So I began explaining.
I told him where I was born and where I
went to school, and where I had taken my sabbaticals,
including this other dimension, and Krasnow believed me. I can't
account for it, except possibly because he knew he was
(02:56):
a crook and knew I was in one exactly. Anyway,
he believed me, and we made the deal, and I
did the side shuffle as agreed. The journey to that
other dimension is not a pleasant one. It does disturbing
things to the stomach, and you see everything thin and elongated,
as if you're sitting too far to the side in
a movie theater. I got there, however, and waited for
(03:19):
the hiccups to subside. Hiccupy. Laterally, I had called them
when I considered writing an article for the Medical Journal
after my first trip with the hiccuppy gone. I stole
some clothing, which was one of the riskiest parts of
the program, and waited for morning. I didn't have any money,
of course, so I had hitchhike into town. I could
(03:42):
have stolen myself a better fit, but people aren't clothes
conscious in that dimension. They're more interested in what you
are and what you can do. The driver of the
car that gave me a lift asked, and what is
your field of endeavor? I told him I am able
to eliminate the long wait in ivory production by accelerating
(04:04):
the growth cycle of elephants. He was deeply impressed and
tipped me handsomely. I was less impressed with his talent
for growing cobbless corn, and therefore had to return only
a small part of the sum he gave me. The
world of this dimension had developed some remarkable parallels to Earth.
I mean our Earth, which falls into what I have
(04:27):
designated time line one point one. Since it is the
Earth with which I am most familiar. Every other world
that has a language calls itself Earth two. I had
to visit briefly hundreds of the lateral worlds, hovering over
primorial swamps, limitless oceans, insect kingdoms and radioactive planetoids before
(04:50):
I found the one that was truly parallel. It existed
in time line seventeen point zero eight, and it had refrigerators,
platinum blonds, automobiles, airplanes, apple pie, tabloids, television, scotch, and soda,
just about everything we think makes life worth while. But
it had its little differences, which was only to be
(05:13):
expected in a timeline where the bionomics could create a
new world each time someone changed his mind. Thus the
cobbless corn Man was driving what looked to me like
a Chevrolet, but which was a Morton in his world.
He let me off near a downtown restaurant, where, thanks
to our little exchange of talent talk, I had enough
(05:35):
money for breakfast. It was considered unethical to swap talent
talk outside the limits of certain rigidly defined groups, so
I didn't try to out impress the waitress. Fed and
filling my stolen clothes a bit better, I walked to
the recorder's office and spent the rest of the morning
looking up old documents. There was nothing there for crossnow,
(05:57):
as I had expected, but for me there it was
a very pretty file clerk talking to her. I verified
my impression that human instincts and relationships were much the
same in this dimension as in my own, except in
the one basic respect that interested Crasstow. Of course, the
file clerk and I lunched together, and then I spent
(06:20):
the afternoon in the library, but I didn't find anything
there either. And then I had dinner with her. She
said her name was Julie. I told her mine was
Heck for Hactor, which it is. She thought this was
awfully cute, and we got along fine. Julie had a
delightful apartment and a matching sense of hospitality. The following day,
(06:42):
when she went to work, I stayed home and washed
the dishes and made the bed and used the telephone.
I ran up quite a bill with my long distance calls,
but I found out what I needed to know. I
impressed a lot of people with my elephant's story, and
pretended to be impressed hardly at all with what they
told me they did, although often I was very much.
(07:04):
The trouble with these people is that they no longer
know how to lie. If that can be listed as trouble,
I don't think it can. Neither did Krasnow. Obviously, he'd
never have sent me off on my expensive side trip
if he had. Of course, Krasnow looked at it objectively.
What he wanted from time line seventeen point zero eight
(07:27):
was not for himself. It was for everybody else. He
wanted the formula for the truth gas. These people had
developed long ago and loosed upon their world to put
a stop to the wars. They had been in a
bad way, although no worse than this sort of problem
we were up against. Their transocean squabbles and power politics
(07:49):
seemed to have settled into a pattern of a war
or two per generation, just like us. Hence, the man
who invented the truth gas became a global hero. After
a certain amount of cynicism and skepticism, all the doubts
vanished naturally once the gas got to working, and so
did war. You can't do much plotting and scheming if
(08:12):
every time you open your mouth to tell a lie,
you stammer, sweat, turn red, and gasp for breath. It's
a dead giveaway. Nobody tries it. More than once. One
or two men had tried to nullify the gas or
work out a local antidote, either as a pure research
project or through power madness, But because they had had
(08:32):
to state their purposes. As soon as they thought of them,
they were put away, neat, very neat. What I wanted
was the formula for the truth gas. Its location wasn't
exactly a secret in this land of complete candor, but
it wasn't writ large on any wall for all to
see either. They kept it in their capital, located about
(08:54):
where our Omaha is on file among the vital statistics.
Took a super jet out there. I had no trouble
posing as a historian entitled to the facts. The gas
didn't work on me, you see, because it was adjusted
to the physiology of that timeline. There was just enough
difference between us for it not to make me stick
(09:17):
to the truth. We'll write out the formula for you,
I was told, obligingly. But you'll have to sign the
usual statement, of course, I said, Which one is that?
The one that says you won't publish it and will
destroy your copy when it has served your research purpose
without letting any one else see it. Oh that statement,
(09:40):
I said, I signed, freely, told my elephant's story and
departed in an aura of good will. The jet got
me back that same evening. Julie fixed me up a
snack and we discussed how pretty she was and how
nice I was. I had everything Cross now wanted. Now,
I've felt pretty good about it because there was nobody
(10:01):
else who could have done the job for him, and
because it wasn't spying really Earth one point one on
the timeline is world enough for crossnow, I'm sure. Besides,
dimensions don't have wars with one another. Too many things
can go wrong. Julie was lovely and I hated to
leave the next morning, but it was my job. I
(10:23):
told her, I'm afraid I have to leave town for
a bit, dear, but i'll be back very soon business,
you know. Being a seventeen point zero eight girl, Julie
had no reason to doubt me. Make it very soon.
She whispered, her lips close to my ear. So I
came back, and now crossnow has what he wants. He's delighted,
(10:47):
as he should be. I've made up the gas for
him and adjusted the formula so that it will work
on people of our timeline. It's high power stuff, and
a little will go a long way. I also made
it an antidote for him. This was easy since I
could work on it without feeling any compulsion to tell
everybody what I was doing and why. Krasnow plans to
(11:09):
release the truth gas just before the state convention. He'll
be nominated, of course, and after November he'll be governor.
With every one else compelled to tell the truth, it
should be a cent for him. He's a patient man,
honest John Crossnow is, and he's willing to wait four
years for the presidency. I ought to be happy too
(11:30):
with the money Krosnow gave me. I've been living in
the style to which I've always wanted to be accustomed.
He has offered me a place on his staff, and
somewhat superfluously, the use of his antidote. Naturally, the reason
he was so magnanimous was that he doesn't want any
one else around who knows his gimmick and might have
(11:51):
to tell the truth about it. But I have had
enough of this dimension now. Now that Krassnow has what
I promised him, he's going to use it tomorrow, and
if I know honest John, and I do, not even
the presidency will be big enough for him. So I'm
going back to Julie. There are some obvious questions in
(12:14):
your mind, I know, such as why did I get
the formula for Krasnow, knowing there was no way for
him to prosecute me while it was Julie's dimension, and
what made me come back. In short, what was in
it for me? Let's call it research. Krasnow is a
big time operator. I've always been, you might say. In
(12:36):
the peanut end of the game. He had a great
deal to teach me, and I, I'm happy to say,
was an apt pupil. You might speculate on what's in
it for you, because, if you ask me, anybody who
can do the side shuffle should do it before Krasnow
becomes president. However, don't go to seventeen point zero eight
(12:57):
unless you want to swap one Krosnow for another. The
fact is I've learned that I can be one in
Julie's dimension. After all, their formula doesn't work on me,
but I can assure you that it will work on you.
And that elephant story I told on my last visit is,
as I've indicated in the peanut category. All cress Now
has is a country. I'll have a whole world. There's
(13:21):
nothing like study under a master, is there. I should
be back to Julie by midnight if I start now
end of Back to Julie by Richard Wilson,
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