User:DoctorWho42/Mugwump Four

"Mugwump Four" or "Mugwump 4" is a short story by American author Robert Silverberg. It was first published in the August 1959 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction.

Background
In the 1970 collection The Cube Root of Uncertainty, Silverberg wrote in the Introduction: "Cheery tales include "Double Dare" and "Mugwump Four"."

Publication history
"Mugwump 4" was first published in the August 1959 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. It reappeared in (as "Mugwump Four") The Calibrated Alligator (1969), The Cube Root of Uncertainty (1970), and Other Dimensions.

Plot summary
Al Miller calls the Friendly Finance Corporation, who has Murray Hill phone number. He dials "MU-4." The voice tells him he dialed MUgwump four. Miller is frozen. Three short fat bald men enter. One hangs up the phone. Miller can move again. Another turns the phone inside out. Mordecai takes him to Headquarters. He is surrounded by short bald men. One asks if he is a spy. Miller admits his mistake. He is in the local headquarters of a secret mutant group that wants to overthrow humanity. Miller knows too much. Miller will be sent to the twenty-fifth century where mutants dominate. He finds himself under an invisible roadway. A crowd gathers. Miller introduces himself. The crowd screams and scatters. A black vehicle approaches. A spacesuited figure speaks an unfamiliar language. Another figure shoots a blue bubble around him. They pull it to the vehicle, arrive at a building, and take him to a small room. The blue bubble pops. A man with a spade-shaped beard speaks to Miller in old English. He tells Miller it is 2431. The mutant war is over. They were exterminated. Spadebeard tells him he carries diseases and bad genes. They'll exile him across space-time to another fourspace. Miller finds himself in a dilapidated city street. A short fat bald man tells him he is on Earth and escort him into a van. He learns it is 2431. The mutant police bring him to the throne room of a fat mutant, the Overlord. He tells Miller he is a Normal spy and banishes him. He meets another Normal, Darren Phelp. In this fourspace, Normals were exterminated. The mutants developed two-way time-travel and used it to eliminate the Normals. In Phelp's fourspace, two-way time-travel is impossible. In his timeline, the Normals exterminated the mutants. The rivalry between Normals and mutants persists across space-time. The Overlord decides they could experiment on him. Phelp leads a Normal invasion. He tells Miller to come with him. The Normals invented a way to prevent two-way time-travel. Phelp tells Miller to activate the transdimensional generator. He wakes up in his room on 23rd Street. He has a headache. He drinks some bourbon. Miller decides it was a bad dream. He pressed the button on the generator. He picks up the phone and dials the Friendly Finance Corporation. A voice interrupts. They repeat the same conversation. Miller wants to scream but cannot.

Reception
In 1971, SF Commentary's Barry Gillam lamented "a funny spoof on spy stories but it soon degenerates into farce and from there into a time-twisting ending." In 1972, Vector's John Bowles compared it to "Absolutely Inflexible" "almost exactly the same story" but "preferable in every way: a dash of Sheckley here, a touch of Tenn there; hardly earth-shaking, but moderately good fun."