grain of dust
misplaced--will transform the whole future. It is a long while before we
accept with our minds as well as our intellects the law of the
Conservation of Reality: that when the past is changed, the future
changes barely enough to adjust, barely enough to admit the new data.
The Change Winds meet maximum resistance always. Otherwise the first
operation in Babylonia would have wiped out New Orleans, Sheffield,
Stuttgart, and Maud Davies' birthplace on Ganymede!

"Note how the gap left by Rome's collapse was filled by the
imperialistic and Christianized Germans. Only an expert Demon historian
can tell the difference in most ages between the former Latin and the
present Gothic Catholic Church. As you yourself, sir, said of Greece, it
is as if an old melody were shifted into a slightly different key. In
the wake of a Big Change, cultures and individuals are transposed, it's
true, yet in the main they continue much as they were, except for the
usual scattering of unfortunate but statistically meaningless
accidents."

"All right, you bloody savants--maybe I pushed my point too far," Bruce
growled. "But if you want variety, give a thought to the rotten methods
we use in our wonderful Change War. Poisoning Churchill and Cleopatra.
Kidnapping Einstein when he's a baby."

"The Snakes did it first," I reminded him.

"Yes, and we copied them. How resourceful does that make us?" he
retorted, arguing like a woman. "If we need Einstein, why don't we
Resurrect him, deal with him as a man?"

* * * * *

Beau said, serving his culture in slightly thicker slices,
"_Pardonnez-moi_, but when you have enjoyed your status as Doubleganger
a _soupcon_ longer, you will understand that great men can rarely be
Resurrected. Their beings are too crystallized, sir, their lifelines too
tough."

"Pardon me, but I think that's rot. I believe that most great men refuse
to make the bargain with the Snakes, or with us Spiders either. They
scorn Resurrection at the price demanded."

"Brother, they ain't that great," I whispered, while Beau glided on
with, "However that may be, you have accepted Resurrection, sir, and so
incurred an obligation which you as a gentleman must honor."

"I accepted Resurrection all right," Bruce said, a glare coming into his
eyes. "When they pulled me out of my line at Passchendaele in '17 ten
minutes before I died, I grabbed at the offer of life like a drunkard
grabs at a drin