MUgwump Four

by Robert Silverberg

Release: August 1959
Format: Novelette
Genres: Science Fiction, Comedy
Audience: Adults
Content: Definite Time Travel
Original Language: English

Oh, dear! Albert Miller has dialed a wrong number on the Mugwump-4 exchange, and the mutants who answered have decided that the only solution is to catapult him into the future where he won’t be able to upset their plans for World Domination.

— Michael Main

At this stage in our campaign, we can take no risks. You’ll have to go. Prepare the temporal centrifuge, Mordecai.

DEBUT

“Mugwump Four,” Galaxy Magazine, August 1959.

VARIANTS

2 English variants

TRANSLATIONS

Translations to French, Italian, Japanese

TAGS(SPOILERS!)

Time Periods

Circa AD 1950 to 1959: 10 October 1959
Near Future, AD 2300 and Beyond: AD 2431

Timeline Models

Time Barrier: “The victory was due to the recent invention of a kind of time-barrier projector.”

Time Travel Methods

Time Catapults: “This machine will hurl you forward in time.”

Themes

Language Difficulties: “Albert grinned. No doubt they had fetched an expert in dead languages to talk to him.”

Fictional Tags

Parallel Universes or Dimensions: “In our fourspace, the mutants are eradicated—but they lurk elsewhere, waiting for their chance to enter and spread destruction.”

Groupings

TIME TRAVEL ITINERARY (SPOILERS!)

From the basement of a two-family house on a residential street in Brooklyn or Queens (or Cincinnati or Detroit, he thought morbidly), shortly after 3:30 p.m. on 10 October 1959 ⋙ to an impeccably clean roadway in the human-ruled timeline, AD 2431. Note: Albert is first hurled into the future.
From the human-ruled timeline, AD 2431 ⋙ to the mutant-ruled timeline, AD 2431.
From the mutant-ruled timeline, AD 2431 ⋙ to the timeline that will eventually become mutant-ruled, 3:30 p.m. on 10 October 1959.
From the timeline that will eventually become mutant-ruled, 3:30 p.m. on 10 October 1959 ⋙ to the timeline in which the humans will win the war, 3:30 p.m. on 10 October 1959. Note: Albert returns, more or less, to his very own fourspace, though perhaps a bit too early for his own good.