All at once it had seemed inevitable. It was the rawest dramatic irony. He had entered Time one last time, tweaked Finge's nose one last time, brought the pitcher to the well one last time. It had to be then that he was caught.
Was it Finge who laughed?
Who else would track him down, lie in wait, stay a room away, and burst into mirth?
Well, then, was all lost? And because in that sickening moment he was sure all was lost it did not occur to him to run again or to attempt flight into Eternity once more. He would face Finge.
He would kill him, if necessary.
Harlan stepped to the door from behind which the laugh had sounded, stepped to it with the soft, firm step of the premeditated murderer. He flicked loose the automatic door signal and opened it by hand. Two inches. Three. It moved without sound.
The man in the next room had his back turned. The figure seemed too tall to be Finge and that fact penetrated Harlan's simmering mind and kept him from advancing further.
Then, as though the paralysis that seemed to hold both men in rigor was slowly lifting, the other turned, inch by inch.
Harlan never witnessed the completion of that turn. The other's profile had not yet come into view when Harlan, holding back a sudden gust of terror with a last fragment of moral strength, flung himself back out the door. Its mechanism, not Harlan, closed it soundlessly.
Harlan fell back blindly. He could breathe only by struggling violently with the atmosphere, fighting air in and pushing it out, while his heart beat madly as though in an effort to escape his body.
Finge, Twissell, all the Council together could not have disconcerted him so much. It was the fear of nothing physical that had unmanned him. Rather it was an almost instinctive loathing for the nature of the accident that had befallen him.
He gathered the stack of book-films to himself in a formless lump and managed, after two futile tries, to re-establish the door to Eternity. He stepped through, his legs operating mechanically. Somehow he made his way to the 575th, and then to personal quarters. His Technicianhood, newly valued, newly appreciated, saved him once again. The few Eternals he met turned automatically to one side and looked steadfastly over his head as they did so.
That was fortunate, for he lacked any ability to smooth his face out of the death's-head grimace he felt he was wearing, or any power to put the blood back into it. But they didn't look, and he thanked Time and Eternity and whatever blind thing wove Destiny for that.
He had not truly recognized the other man in Noys's house by his appearance, yet he knew his identity with a dreadful certainty.
The first time Harlan had heard a noise in the house he, Harlan, had been laughing and the sound that interrupted his laugh was of something weighty dropping in the next room. The second time someone had laughed in the next room and he, Harlan, had dropped a knapsack of book-films. The first time he, Harlan, had turned and caught sight of a door closing. The second time he, Harlan, closed a door as a stranger turned.
He had met himself!
In the same Time and nearly in the same place he and his earlier self by several physiodays had nearly stood face to face. He had misadjusted the controls, set if for an instant in Time which he had already used and he, Harlan, had seen him, Harlan.
He had gone about his work with the shadow of horror upon him for days thereafter. He cursed himself for a coward, but that did not help.
Indeed from that moment matters took a downward trend. He could put his finger on the Great Divide. The key moment was the instant in which he had adjusted the door controls for his entry into the 482nd for one last time and somehow had adjusted it wrongly. Since then things went badly, badly.
The Reality Change in the 482nd went through during that period of despondency and accentuated it. In the past two weeks he had picked up three proposed Reality Changes which contained minor flaws, and now he chose among them, yet could do nothing to move himself to action.
He chose Reality Change 2456-2781, V-5 for a number of reasons. Of the three, it was farthest upwhen, the most distant. The error was minute, but was significant in terms of human life. It needed, then, only a quick trip to the 2456th to find out the nature of Noys's analogue in the new Reality, by use of a little blackmailing pressure.
But the unmanning of his recent experience betrayed him. It seemed to him no longer a simple thing, this gentle application of threatened exposure. And once he found the nature of Noys's analogue, what then? Put Noys in her place as charwoman, seamstress, laborer, or whatever. Certainly. But what, then, was to be done with the analogue herself? With any husband the analogue might have? Family? Children?
He had thought of none of this earlier. He had avoided the thought. "Sufficient unto the day..."
But now he could think of nothing else.
So he lay skulking in his room, hating himself, when Twissell called him, his tired voice questioning and a little puzzled.
"Harlan, are you ill? Cooper tells me you've skipped several discussion periods."
Harlan tried to smooth the trouble out of his face. "No, Computer Twissell. I'm a little tired."
"Well, that's forgivable, at any rate, boy." And then the smile on his face came about as close as it ever did to vanishing entirely. "Have you heard that the 482nd has been Changed?"
"Yes," said Harlan shortly.
"Finge called me," said Twissell, "and asked that you be told that the Change was entirely successful."
Harlan shrugged, then grew aware of Twissell's eyes staring out of the Communiplate and hard upon him. He grew uneasy and said, "Yes, Computer?"
"Nothing," said Twissell, and perhaps it was the cloak of age weighing down upon his shoulders, but his voice was unaccountably sad. "I thought you were about to speak."
"No," said Harlan. "I had nothing to say."
"Well, then, I'll see you tomorrow at opening in the Computing Room, boy. I have a great deal to say."
"Yes, sir," said Harlan. He stared for long minutes at the plate after it went dark.
That had almost sounded like a threat. Finge had called Twissell, had he? What had he said that Twissell did not report.
But an outside threat was what he needed. Battling a sickness of the spirit was like standing in a quicksand and beating it with a stick. Battling Finge was another thing altogether. Harlan had remembered the weapon at his disposal and for the first time in days felt a fraction of self-confidence return.
It was as though a door had closed and another had opened. Harlan grew as feverishly active as previously he had been catatonic. He traveled to the 2456th and bludgeoned Sociologist Voy to his own exact will.
He did it perfectly. He got the information he sought.
And more than he sought. Much more.
Confidence is rewarded, apparently. There was a homewhen proverb that went: "Grip the nettle firmly and it will become a stick with which to beat your enemy."
In short, Noys had no analogue in the new Reality. No analogue at all. She could take her position in the new society in the most inconspicuous and convenient manner possible, or she could stay in Eternity. There could be no reason to deny him liaison except for the highly theoretical fact that he had broken the law-and he knew very well how to counter that argument.
So he went racing upwhen to tell Noys the great news, to bathe in undreamed-of success after a few days horrible with apparent failure.
And at this moment the kettle came to a halt.
It did not slow; it simply halted. If the motion had been one along any of the three dimensions of space, a halt that sudden would have smashed the kettle, brought its metal to a dull red heat, turned Harlan into a thing of broken bone and wet, crushed flesh.
As it was, it merely doubled him with nausea and cracked him with inner pain.
When he could see, he fumbled to the temporometer and stared at it with fuzzy vision. It read 100,000.
Somehow that frightened him. It was too round a number.
He turned feverishly to the controls. What had gone wrong?
That frightened him too, for he could see nothing wrong. Nothing had tripped the drive-lever. It remained firmly geared into the upwhen drive. There was no short circuit. All the indicator dials were in the black safety range. There was no power failure. The tiny needle that marked the steady consumption of meg-megcoulombs of power calmly insisted that power was being consumed at the usual rate.
What, then, had stopped the kettle?
Slowly, and with considerable reluctance, Harlan touched the drivelever, curled his hand about it. He pushed it to neutral, and the needle on the power gauge declined to zero.
He twisted the drive-lever back in the other direction. Up went the power gauge again, and this time the temporometer flicked downwhen along the line of Centuries.
Downwhen-downwhen-99,983-99,972-99,959- Again Harlan shifted the lever. Upwhen again. Slowly. Very slowly.
Then 99,985-99,993-99,997-99,998-99,999-100,000- Smash! Nothing past 100,000. The power of Nova Sol was silently being consumed, at an incredible rate, to no purpose.
He went downwhen again, farther. He roared upwhen. Smash!
His teeth were clenched, his lips drawn back, his breath rasping. He felt like a prisoner hurling himself bloodily against the bars of a prison.
When he stopped, a dozen smashes later, the kettle rested firmly at 100,000. Thus far, and no farther.
He would change kettles! (But there was not much hope in that thought.)
In the empty silence of the 100,000th Century, Andrew Harlan stepped out of one kettle and chose another kettle shaft at random.
A minute later, with the drive-lever in his hand, he stared at the marking of 100,000 and knew that here, too, he could not pass.
He raged! Now! At this time! When things so unexpectedly had broken in his favor, to come to so sudden a disaster. The curse of that moment of misjudgment in entering the 482nd was still on him.
Savagely he spun the lever downwhen, pressing it hard at maximum and keeping it there. At least in one way he was free now, free to do anything he wanted. With Noys cut off behind a barrier and out of his reach, what more could they do to him? What more had he to fear?
He carried himself to the 575th and sprang from the kettle with a reckless disregard for his surroundings that he had never felt before. He made his way to the Section library, speaking to no one, regarding no one. He took what he wanted without glancing about to see if he were observed. What did he care?
Back to the kettle and downwhen again. He knew exactly what he would do. He looked at the large clock as he passed, measuring off Standard Physiotime, numbering the days and marking off the three coequal work shifts of the physioday. Finge would be at his private quarters now, and that was so much the better.
Harlan felt as though he were running a temperature when he arrived at the 482nd. His mouth was dry and cottony. His chest hurt. But he felt the hard shape of the weapon under his shirt as he held it firmly against his side with one elbow and that was the only sensation that counted.
Assistant Computer Hobbe Finge looked up at Harlan, and the surprise in his eyes slowly gave way to concern.
Harlan watched him silently for a while, letting the concern grow and waiting for it to change to fear. He circled slowly, getting between Finge and the Communiplate.
Finge was partly undressed, bare to the waist. His chest was sparsely haired, his breasts puffy and almost womanish. His tubby abdomen lapped over his waistband.
He looks undignified, thought Harlan with satisfaction, undignified and unsavory. So much the better.
He put his right hand inside his shirt and closed it firmly on the grip of his weapon.
Harlan said, "No one saw me, Finge, so don't look toward the door. No one's coming here. You've got to realize, Finge, that you're dealing with a Technician. Do you know what that means?"
His voice was hollow. He felt angry that fear wasn't entering Finge's eyes, only concern. Finge even reached for his shirt and, without a word, began to put it on.
Harlan went on, "Do you know the privilege of being a Technician, Finge? You've never been one, so you can't appreciate it. It means no one watches where you go or what you do. They all look the other way and work so hard at not seeing you that they really succeed at it. I could, for instance, go to the Section library, Finge, and help myself to any curious thing while the librarian busily concerns himself with his records and sees nothing. I can walk down the residential corridors of the 482nd and anyone passing turns out of my way and will swear later on he saw no one. It's that automatic. So you see, I can do what I want to do, go where I want to go. I can walk into the private apartments of the Assistant Computer of a Section and force him to tell the truth at weapon point and there'll be no one to stop me."
Finge spoke for the first time. "What are you holding?"
"A weapon," said Harlan, and brought it out. "Do you recognize it?" Its muzzle flared slightly and ended in a smooth metallic bulge.
"If you kill me..." began Finge.
"I won't kill you," said Harlan. "At a recent meeting you had a blaster. This is not a blaster. It is an invention of one of the past Realities of the 575th. Perhaps you are not acquainted with it. It was bred out of Reality. Too nasty. It can kill, but at low power it activates the pain centers of the nerve system and paralyzes as well. It is called, or was called, a neuronic whip. It works. This one is fully charged. I tested it on a finger." He held up his left hand with its stiffened little finger. "It was very unpleasant."
Finge stirred restlessly. "What is all this about, for Time's sake?"
"There is some sort of a block across the kettle shafts at the 100,000th. I want it removed."
"A block across the shafts?"
"Let's not work away at being surprised. Yesterday you spoke to Twissell. Today there is the block. I want to know what you said to Twissell. I want to know what's been done and what will be done. By Time, Computer, if you don't tell me, I'll use the whip. Try me, if you doubt my word."
"Now listen"-Finge's words slurred a bit and the first edge of fear made its appearance, and also a kind of desperate anger-"if you want the truth, it's this. We know about you and Noys."
Harlan's eyes flickered. "What about myself and Noys?"
Finge said, "Did you think you were getting away with anything?" The Computer kept his eyes fixed on the neuronic whip and his forehead was beginning to glisten. "By Time, with the emotion you showed after your period of Observation, with what you did during the period of Observation, did you think we wouldn't observe you? I would deserve to be broken as Computer if I had missed that. We know you brought Noys into Eternity. We knew it from the first. You wanted the truth. There it is."
At that moment Harlan despised his own stupidity. "You knew?"
"Yes. We knew you had brought her to the Hidden Centuries. We knew every time you entered the 482nd to supply her with appropriate luxuries; playing the fool, with your Eternal's Oath completely forgotten."
"Then why didn't you stop me?" Harlan was tasting the very dregs of his own humiliation.
"Do you still want the truth?" Finge flashed back, and seemed to gain courage in proportion as Harlan sank into frustration.
"Go on."
"Then let me tell you that I didn't consider you a proper Eternal from the start. A flashy Observer, perhaps, and a Technician who went through the motions. But no Eternal. When I brought you here on this last job, it was to prove as much to Twissell, who values you for some obscure reason. I wasn't just testing the society in the person of the girl, Noys. I was testing you, too, and you failed as I thought you would fail. Now put away that weapon, that whip, whatever it is, and get out of here."
"And you came to my personal quarters once," said Harlan breathlessly, working hard to keep his dignity and feeling it slip from him as though his mind and spirit were as stiff and unfeeling as the whiplashed little finger on his left hand, "to goad me into doing what I did."
"Yes, of course. If you want the phrase exactly, I tempted you. I told you the exact truth, that you could keep Noys only in the thenpresent Reality. You chose to act, not as an Eternal, but as a sniveler. I expected you to."
"I would do it again now," said Harlan gruffly, "and since it's all known, you can see I have nothing to lose." He thrust his whip outward toward Finge's plump waistline and spoke through pale lips and clenched teeth. "What has happened to Noys?"
"I have no idea."
"Don't tell me that. What has happened to Noys?"
"I tell you I don't know."
Harlan's fist tightened on the whip; his voice was low. "Your leg first. This will hurt."
"For Time's sake, listen. Wait!"
"All right. What has happened to her?"
"No, listen. So far it's just a breach of discipline. Reality wasn't affected. I made checks on that. Loss of rating is all you'll get. If you kill me, though, or hurt me with intent to kill, you've attacked a superior. There's the death penalty for that."
Harlan smiled at the futility of the threat. In the face of what had already happened death would offer a way out that in finality and simplicity had no equal.
Finge obviously misunderstood the reasons for the smile. He said hurriedly, "Don't think there's no death penalty in Eternity because you've never come across one. We know of them; we Computers. What's more, executions have taken place, too. It's simple. In any Reality, there are numbers of fatal accidents in which bodies are not recovered. Rockets explode in mid-air, aeroliners sink in mid-ocean or crash to powder in mountains. A murderer can be put on one of those vessels minutes, or seconds, before the fatal results. Is this worth that to you?"
Harlan stirred and said, "If you're stalling for rescue, it won't work. Let me tell you this: I'm not afraid of punishment. Furthermore, I intend to have Noys. I want her now. She does not exist in the current Reality. She has no analogue. There is no reason why we cannot establish formal liaison."
"It is against regulations for a Technician--"
"We will let the Allwhen Council decide," said Harlan, and his pride broke through at last. "I am not afraid of an adverse decision, either, any more than I am afraid of killing you. I am no ordinary Technician."
"Because you are Twissell's Technician?" and there was a strange look on Finge's round, sweating face that might have been hatred or triumph or part of each.
Harlan said, "For reasons much more important than that. And now..."
With grim determination he touched finger to the weapon's activator.
Finge screamed, "Then go to the Council. The Allwhen Council; they know. If you are that important--" He ended, gasping.
For a moment Harlan's finger hovered irresolutely. "What?"
"Do you think I would take unilateral action in a case like this? I reported this whole incident to the Council, timing it with the Reality Change. Here! Here are the duplicates."
"Hold on, don't move."
But Finge disregarded that order. With a speed as from the spur of a possessing fiend Finge was at his files. The finger of one hand located the code combination of the record he wanted, the fingers of the other punched it into the file. A silvery tongue of tape slithered out of the desk, its pattern of dots just visible to the naked eye.
"Do you want it sounded?" asked Finge, and without waiting threaded it into the sounder.
Harlan listened, frozen. It was clear enough. Finge had reported in full. He had detailed every motion of Harlan's in the kettle shafts. He hadn't missed one that Harlan could remember up to the point of making the report.
Finge shouted when the report was done, "Now, then, go to the Council. I've put no block in Time. I wouldn't know how. And don't think they're unconcerned about the matter. You said I spoke to Twissell yesterday. You're right. But I didn't call him; he called me. So go; ask Twissell. Tell them what an important Technician you are. And if you want to shoot me first; shoot and to Time with you."
Harlan could not miss the actual exultation in the Computer's voice. At that moment he obviously felt enough the victor to believe that even a neuronic whipping would leave him on the profit side of the ledger.
Why? Was the breaking of Harlan so dear to his heart? Was his jealousy over Noys so all-consuming a passion?
Harlan did scarcely more than formulate the questions in his mind, and then the whole matter, Finge and all, seemed suddenly meaningless to him.
He pocketed his weapon, whirled out the door, and toward the nearest kettle shaft.
It was the Council, then, or Twissell, at the very least. He was afraid of none of them, nor of all put together.
With each passing day of the last unbelievable month he had grown more convinced of his own indispensability. The Council, even the Allwhen Council itself, would have no choice but to come to terms when it was a choice of bartering one girl for the existence of all of Eternity.
