Eddy started to move on to the equal rights movement of the ’60s, and how that played out here—the failed marches, and the rousing speeches that fell on deaf ears—but before he could paint the whole miserable picture, I took the controller from him and hit the Home button, pausing the display. For once I wished the Home button would actually take me home. It was like someone had set off a hydrogen bomb in my brain, and this one worked. To think that so much of history—the good, and the bad—is influenced by hidden factors that no one even thinks about. Could the fall of the Roman Empire be traced back to the moment some Caesar gave a thumbs-down in the circus, condemning a fallen gladiator to death, instead of a thumbs-up saving his life? And what about now? What about today? What choices are being made, what things are being said by people in high places that might seem so unimportant now, but are laying the groundwork for truly horrible things tomorrow?

“How could I have known any of this?” I blurted out.

“You couldn’t have; you were flying blind,” said Ed.

“But look,” said Eddy, changing the display on the QuIRT to some sort of multidimensional graph, “each of your incursions into Elsewhere was deeper than the ones before.”

“Which means he’s more dangerous!” said Edd.

“No,” said Ed, always the more optimistic one, “it just means he’s getting better at it. Now he needs to control it.”

That just frustrated Edd even more. “Look at him! Does he look like he can control anything? He’s nothing but a weapon!”

“A knife can be a weapon,” said Ed, “but it can also be a surgical instrument.”

“Maybe,” said Edd, “but a bullet has only one purpose.”

“Hey!” I shouted, getting between them. “I’m not a scalpel, and I’m not a bullet. I’m a tackle. I’ve got a mind of my own, which means I can bring things back around to how they were, if you show me how.”

The three looked at me, looked at one another, then Edd backed down, striding away. “Fine. If you think you can turn a bludgeon into a boomerang, be my guest.”

I took a deep breath. “I can do this,” I said, dredging up all the confidence I had.

Ed smiled. “I believe you might be able to.”

“He might die in the process . . . ,” Eddy warned.

“A risk I’m sure he’s willing to take,” Ed said, looking to me as if I was going to give him a big Hell, yeah!

“About how many sub-locs died trying?” I asked.

“On Earth? About twenty,” Ed said.

“Yes,” said Eddy, “but half of those were dolphins.”