By His Bootstraps
| "By His Bootstraps" | |
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| Author | Robert A. Heinlein as Anson MacDonald |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Published in | Astounding Science Fiction |
| Media type | Magazine |
| Publication date | October 1941 |
"By His Bootstraps" is a science fiction novella by American writer Robert A. Heinlein. It plays with some of the inherent paradoxes that would be caused by time travel.
The story 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, and in several subsequent anthologies, and is now available in at least two audio editions. Under the title "The Time Gate", it was also included in a 1958 Crest paperback anthology, Race to the Stars.
Bob Wilson locks himself in his room to finish his graduate thesis on a mathematical aspect of metaphysics, using the concept of time travel as a case in point. Someone says, "Don't bother with it. It's a lot of utter anyhow." The interloper, who looks strangely familiar, calls himself "Joe" and explains that he has come from the future through a Time Gate, a circle about 6 ft (1.8 m) in diameter in the air behind Joe. Joe tells Bob that great opportunities await him through the Gate and thousands of years in his future. By way of demonstration, Joe tosses Bob's hat into the Gate. It disappears.
Bob is reluctant. Joe plies him with drink, which Joe (a stranger, from Bob's point of view) inexplicably retrieves from its hiding place in Bob's apartment, and Bob becomes intoxicated. Finally, Joe is about to manhandle Bob through the Gate when another man appears, one who looks very much like Joe. The newcomer does not want Bob to go. During the ensuing fight, Bob gets punched, sending him through the Gate.
He recovers his senses in a strange place. A somewhat older-looking, bearded man explains that he is 30,000 years in the future. The man, calling himself Diktor, treats Bob to a sumptuous breakfast served by beautiful women. Diktor explains that humans in the future are handsome, cultured in a primitive fashion, but have none of the spunk of their ancestors. An alien race built the Gate and refashioned humanity into compliant slaves, but the aliens are gone now, leaving a world where a 20th-century go-getter can make himself king.
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