Scent Makes a Difference — Story, Setting & Ideas

Probable Selves and Bureaucratic Absurdity

The story's central conceit is that Harry Jones's sleep disturbances are not mere dreams but visitations from alternate-probability selves. These include Dr. Harold K. Jones, Captain Jones of the Third Vector Spacefleet, and a felon from Arcetus. Each appears while sleepwalking and demands attention, often with threats. The narrative voice is dry and self-deprecating, as when Harry notes, "I must have been very soft in the discrimination to have allowed that revolting nickname." The medical establishment is portrayed as comically inept: Dr. Doogle dismisses the breakfast hallucination as "wish fulfillment" and "poltergeists." The story uses this bureaucratic absurdity to frame its speculative premise.

Scent as a Memory Trigger and Plot Device

The title "Scent Makes a Difference" is literal: Harry's memory of Kate's scent helps him fall asleep and later summons her from another probability. When he wakes, Kate is in his room, dressed, and she begins discarding papers from his desk—papers that contain the equation for ultra-uranium he needs. The scent acts as a bridge between probabilities, allowing Harry to access knowledge from a version of himself who died in a bomb explosion. The story does not explain the mechanism, but the recurring motif of scent—from the egg on his shoe to Kate's perfume—anchors the speculative elements in sensory detail.

Probability and the Limits of Inference

The excerpts show Harry using the equation from Kate's probability to solve a problem with "elements heavier than uranium." However, the story's ending is not included in the excerpts, so the resolution of the multiple-selves conflict remains unknown. The catalog subjects list "Dreams -- Fiction" and "Identity -- Fiction," which align with the sleepwalking alternates, but "Drugs -- Fiction" is not evident in the provided text. The story's voice is consistent: a blend of scientific jargon and wry humor, as when Harry reflects, "It was so improbable that I was the only me who had worked on these lines." The excerpts suggest a closed-loop logic where each self contributes a piece of the puzzle.

Readers should pay attention to the story's use of recurring details—the egg, the scent, the nickname "Haroldkin"—as they accumulate meaning across the sleepwalking episodes. The narrative does not explain its own rules, so the pleasure lies in tracking how each alternate self adds a new constraint or clue. The ending, not included here, may or may not resolve the central tension, but the journey through probable selves is the story's real subject.

I remember nights spent with Harry Jones, his sleepwalking selves crowding the dark like misremembered scents. That story lingers, the way certain ideas do, quietly insisting. Years later, I found a companion in The Non-Electronic Bug — Reading Companion. They share a patient, unhurried wonder, two old friends nodding to each other across my shelf, each promising company without ever demanding attention.