FEBRUARY STRAWBERRIES

By JIM HARMON

How much is the impossible worth?

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Linton lay down his steel fork beside the massively solid transparency of the restaurant water glass.

"Isn't that Rogers Snead at that table?" he heard himself say stupidly.

Howell, the man across the table from him, looked embarrassed without looking. "Not at all. Somebody who looks like him. Twin brother. You know how it is. Snead's dead, don't you remember?"

Linton remembered. Howell had to know that he would remember. What were they trying to pull on him? "The man who isn't Snead is leaving," Linton said, describing the scene over Howell's shoulder. "If that's Snead's brother, I might catch him to pay my respects."

"No," Howell said, "I wouldn't do that."

"Snead came to Greta's funeral. It's the least I could do."

"I wouldn't. Probably no relation to Snead at all. Somebody who looks like him."

"He's practically running," Linton said. "He almost ran out of the restaurant."

"Who? Oh, the man who looked like Snead, you mean."

"Yes," Linton said.

A thick-bodied man at the next table leaned his groaning chair back intimately against Linton's own chair.

"That fellow who just left looked like a friend of yours, huh?" the thick man said.

"Couldn't have been him, though," Linton answered automatically. "My friend's dead."

The thick man rocked forward and came down on all six feet. He threw paper money on the table as if he were disgusted with it. He plodded out of the place quickly.

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