The Enigma of Ambrose Harmon

"Senseless suicides, senseless crimes. A citywide epidemic. It had hit other cities too. Trimble suspected that it was worldwide, that other nations were simply keeping it quiet." The mystery of these inexplicable events lands squarely on the shoulders of Detective-Lieutenant Gene Trimble. He ponders the puzzling demise of Ambrose Harmon, a man who, with no apparent reason, chose to leap from a building. Trimble is already deep into his inquiries about a spate of suicides, but Harmon’s death strikes him as the most unfathomable.

Harmon was a man of considerable wealth, living life unburdened by the constraints of financial worry. Though his investments were often whimsical, flirting with the edge of financial ruin, fortune smiled upon him. He stumbled upon a groundbreaking invention—a device capable of traversing alternate timelines to harvest advanced technologies from parallel universes. This remarkable discovery gave birth to the Crosstime Corporation, a powerhouse of innovation. "The Crosstime Corporation already held a score of patents on inventions imported from alternate time tracks." The array of treasures—lasers, oxygen-hydrogen rocket meters, computers, exotic plastics—was ever-expanding. With such prosperity, coupled with a recent $500 poker win, Harmon's end seemed devoid of purpose.

The Enigma of Motiveless Death

At the heart of this perplexing narrative lies the "no reason" behind Harmon's suicide. "None of the methods showed previous planning," Trimble notes of the numerous suicides plaguing his city. A detective by trade, Trimble is accustomed to delving into the motives and catalysts of human behavior. Thus, when Bentley proposes, "I think one of the Crosstime ships brought back a new bug from some alternate timeline," it piques Trimble’s interest. "A suicide bug?" he muses. The notion is alluring; after all, diseases have discernible origins, and once uncovered, perhaps even remedied. Could it be that this affliction also explains the surge of murders and other crimes?

The Themes of "All the Myriad Ways"

The intellectual depth of "All the Myriad Ways" far surpasses the breadth of its characters, who serve primarily to propel the plot. Bentley, for instance, presents his hypothesis but remains an enigma himself. Trimble, however, defies this mold, evolving as the narrative's themes unfold. As a sleuth, he meticulously pieces together clues, reshuffling them until they coalesce into clarity. Representing the archetype of linear thinking, he symbolizes the struggle to transcend traditional cause-and-effect reasoning, grappling with a paradigm that defies such logic.

He thoughtfully assembles his clues:
The incredible suicide rate among Crosstime pilots could not be coincidence.
Two Gary Wilcoxes, two vehicles.
Casual murder, casual suicide, casual crime.

To Trimble, the concept of impulsively ending one's life is unfathomable. Yet, through his perspective, the absurdity of alternate timelines becomes apparent. Even as Trimble stretches his mind to entertain the notion that decisions might bear no consequence, the idea remains laughable. "If every choice was cancelled elsewhere, why make a decision at all?" Yet, Trimble discovers his drive amidst the madness of the suicide and crime epidemic: "If alternate universes are a reality, then cause and effect are an illusion. The law of averages is a fraud. You can do anything, and one of you will, or did." The story concludes with Trimble engaging in multiple actions simultaneously, a metaphor crafted by Niven to weave together the themes of "All the Myriad Ways": the absurdity of alternate timelines and the essential necessity for human beings to exist within a cause-and-effect universe. Without it, their lives are inherently meaningless—dead from the outset.