started approximately as ours did, they wouldn’t exist, and the world would be altered by that much.”

“It seems to me,” said McCall, “that once you accept the idea of worlds starting from approximately the same point—that is, another planet having the same size and chemical makeup, and about the same distance from its sun—”

“That’s what I find hard to accept,” said Hodge.

“Grant us our folly for a moment,” said McCall. “It leads to something more interesting than chasing our tails.” He snapped his lighter. “What I was saying is that if you grant approximately the same start, you’re going to arrive at approximately the same end, in spite of what Penfield thinks. We have evidence of that right on this earth. I mean what they call convergent evolution. When the reptiles were dominant, they produced vegetable-eaters and carnivores that fed on them. And among the early mammals there were animals that looked so much like cats and wolves that the only way to tell them apart is by the skeleton. Why couldn’t that apply to human evolution, too?”

“You mean,” said Penfield, “that Beethoven and George Washington would be inevitable?”

“Not that, exactly,” said McCall. “But some kind of musical inventor, and some sort of high-principled military and political leader. There might be differences.”

Hodge said: “Wait a minute. If we are the product of human history, so were Beethoven and Washington. All you’ve got is a determinism, with nothing really alterable, once the sun decided to cast off its planets.”

“The doctrine of free will—” began McCall.

“I know that one,” said Penfield. “But if you deny free will completely, you’ll end up with a universe in which every world like ours is identical—which is as absurd as Hodge’s picture of us is unique, and rather more repulsive.”

“Well, then,” said Hodge, “What kind of cosmology are you putting out? If you won’t have either of our pictures, give us yours.”

Penfield sipped port. “I can only suggest a sample,” he said. “Let’s suppose this world—or one very like it—with one of those improbable boiling-port accidents left out somewhere along the line. I mentioned the wheel a moment ago. What would life be like now if it hadn’t been invented?”

“Ask McCall,” said Hodge. “He’s the 

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