“Ever heard of parallel universes?” Two Hawks said. “I know you have because I’ve seen you read comic books that had just such a concept.”

O’Brien looked relieved. “Yeah, I did. Only... hell, you telling me we’re in a parallel universe? A universe that’s at right angles to ours?”

Two Hawks nodded and smiled at O’Brien’s “right angles”. This term was no explanation, only a method of description to make the reader better comprehend. Rather, make him think he was comprehending the incomprehensible. But if the term helped O’Brien get an anchor on reality, allayed his panic, he could keep it. Any anchor was better than none.

O’Brien said, “Then that funny feeling we got back in the Hiawatha...? That was because we were going through a... kind of a... gate?”

“You can call it a gate. The point is, the science-fiction fantasy has become for us a reality. There are parallel universes. I’d like to deny it just as much as you. But there’s no denying this. Somehow, we’ve passed into another universe. We’re on Earth, but not the one we knew.”

O’Brien turned the globe to the western hemisphere. “And this Earth is one where North and South America are under water?”

He shivered and then crossed himself.

Two Hawks said, “I’ve known for some time that things that couldn’t be nevertheless were. Those people”—he indicated the others in the room—“speak a language that is definitely Iroquoian.”

He pointed at the blonde, Ilmika. “And her speech, believe it or not, is English. A species of English, anyway. She calls it Ingwinetalu or Blodland spraech.”

“You must be kidding? I thought she was a Swede or maybe a Dutchman. English?”

Two Hawks spun the globe back to the eastern hemisphere.

“On our Earth, the ancestors of the Amerind, the so-called American Indian, migrated in prehistoric times from Siberia to North America and on to South America. Group after group came over and may have taken over ten thousand years to do it. The Eskimo, the most Mongolian of what was essentially a Caucasian-Mongolian mixture, was the last to arrive.

“But on this Earth, the Amerind had no Americas to migrate to. So he turned inwards and became a force to reckon with in the Old World. That is, Asia and Europe.”

He ran his finger over the map of Europe and stopped at the peninsula of Italy. The mauve color which overlay it extended through part of northern Yugoslavia and also covered Sicily. He read aloud the large title which evidently applied to the whole area.

“Akhaivia! Achaea? If Achaea, then the ancient Greeks may have come down, for some reason, into the peninsula of what we call Italy in our world, instead of into the Hellenic peninsula!”

He looked at Greece. It was titled Hatti.

“Hittites?” he said aloud. “On our Earth, they conquered a part of Asia Minor, nourished for a while, contemporary with the Mycenaean Greeks, and then disappeared. What happened here? They invaded a country which the Greeks had bypassed, being shunted for some reason to the west. And the Hittites conquered the Pelasgians and gave their name to our Hellas?”

He continued talking aloud, partly to help O’Brien understand what had happened.

“I don’t know the details and will have to guess at part of the outline. But I’ll bet that the Iroquoians, and maybe other Amerind tribes, invaded eastern Europe and settled down. If they did so at an early date, they may have altered the course of the Indo-European migrations from the Motherland somewhere in Germany or Poland. The invasions resulted in bumping the various people—the Hittites, Hellenes, Italics, Germanics, and so forth—one country westward. Or something like that.

“Hmm! Wonder what happened to the Italics: the Sabines, Voluscans, Samnites, and the Latins? Were they bumped westwards? Or had they settled Italy before the Achaeans, only to be conquered and eventually absorbed by them?”

He placed his finger on a light green area covering approximately the area of Rumania and southern Russia. Hotinohsonih? House builders? Iroquoia? Sure! And that big cross there, ‘Estokwa, would be our Earth’s Odessa. Probably the capital of Hotinohsonih. ‘Estokwa? Paddle? It could be, though I don’t know why a place would be named after a spatula or ladle. But then I don’t know its history.

“I think we’re headed for ‘Estokwa, probably because the blonde, Ilmika Thorrsstein, is an important person. I’ve gathered from their conversation that her father was the Blodland ambassador to the nation of Dakota, our Hungary. Dakota? Could it be that Dakota is Siouian-speaking?”

He grinned and laughed and said to O’Brien, “Doesn’t that make you feel a little more at home to know there’s a state of Dakota here?”

He pointed at a river which ran from the north southward towards ‘Estokwa and into the Black Sea. “This’ll make you feel even more like home. Our Dnester is their ‘Ohiyo’, that is, ‘a beautiful river’. And if I remember correctly, our Ohio River comes from an Iroquois word meaning beautiful. How’s that strike you, O’Brien? Dakota and Ohio! Maybe things aren’t so bad after all.”

O’Brien smiled faintly and said, “Thanks for trying to cheer me up, Lieutenant. But it’s going to take more than a couple of familiar names to get me over this shock. I still don’t believe it.”

Two Hawks said, “You might as well get with it.” He pointed at a pale red area which covered approximately the Holland, Germany, Denmark, Poland, and Czechoslovakia of his world.

“Perkunisha. Sounds as if the word came from the Lithuanian Perkunis, the chief god of the ancient Lithuanians. And I’ve heard Dzikohses refer to the enemy as Pozosha. It could be his pronunciation.of Borussia, another name for the Old Prussians who spoke a language related to Lithuanian.”

He looked over the rest of the map of Europe (Eozope in Iroquoian). The northern half of the Scandinavian peninsula was in white—snow? -- and a phantom polar bear was placed just above the lower border of the snowfield. He whistled and gave the globe a half-turn.

It was as he had suspected. The Gulf Stream was indicated. But, undiverted by the North American continent, which was sunk under the Atlantic, the Gulf Stream swung widely westward. It turned towards the west until it struck the cordillera of large and small islands formed by the unsubmerged parts of the Rockies. It traveled parallel with the string of islands and then met the Japanese current.

He whistled again. Here was a factor far more significant in the history of this world’s Europe than the presence of the Amerindian.

He said, “It’s hot here now. But I bet it doesn’t last long, and it’ll be a hell of a long cold winter.”

Two Hawks went to the shelves and looked through several books. He found an atlas with more detailed maps than the globe. Moreover, the accompanying text and the titles on the maps were bilingual, Greek and Iroquoian. The Greek was difficult for him, since it varied from the Homeric and Attic and also seemed to have loanwords from languages totally alien to him. But he could read it easier than he could the Iroquoian.

He spoke to O’Brien, who was looking over his shoulder. “I wondered why I saw no horses. What’s more, we’re not going to find any camels in this world. Nor tobacco, tomatoes, turkeys, and I could go on and on.”

“How come?”

“Horses, the horses we knew on our Earth, originated on the North American continent. Then they spread to the Old World, only to become extinct later on in the Americas. They were reintroduced there by the Spaniards. The camel family had its genesis in America, too. It traveled to Asia, and in America most of the species died out, except for the llama, alpaca, and guanaco. And now you know why nobody knew what you wanted when you tried to borrow a cigarette.”

“Hey!” O’Brien said. “Rubber! That’s why those armored cars were traveling on wood-and-iron wheels. No rubber!”