Part 17 (1/2)
Harlan thought: He's not as calm as he's trying to sound. He can't be. But why does he talk all this nonsense _now?_ With Eternity ending?
Then in agony: But why doesn't it _end_ then? Now!
Twissell said, ”When I allowed you to go to Finge just recently, I more than half suspected danger. But Mallansohn's memoir _said_ you were away the last month and no other natural reason for your absence offered itself. Fortunately, Finge underplayed his hand.”
”In what way?” asked Harlan wearily. He didn't really care, but Twissell talked and talked and it was easier to take part than to try to shut the sound out of his ears.
Twissell said, ”Finge labeled his report: '_In re_ unprofessional conduct of Technician Andrew Harlan.' He was being the faithful Eternal, you see, being cool, impartial, unexcited. He was leaving it to the Council to rage and throw itself at me. Unfortunately for himself, he did not know of your real importance. He did not realize that any report concerning you would be instantly referred to me, unless its supreme importance were made perfectly clear on the very face of things.”
”You never spoke to me of this?”
”How could I? I was afraid to do anything that would disturb you with the crisis of the project at hand. I gave you every opportunity to bring your problem to me.”
Every opportunity? Harlan's mouth twisted in disbelief, but then he thought of Twissell's weary face on the Communiplate asking him if he had nothing to say to him. That was yesterday. Only yesterday.
Harlan shook his head, but turned his face away now.
Twissell said softly, ”I realized at once that he had deliberately goaded you into your--rash action.”
Harlan looked up. ”You know that?”
”Does that surprise you? I knew Finge was after my neck. I've known it for a long time. I am an old man, boy. I know these things. But there are ways in which doubtful Computers can be checked upon. There are some protective devices, culled out of Time, that are not placed in the museums. There are some that are known to the Council alone.”
Harlan thought bitterly of the time-block at the 100,000th.
”From the report and from what I knew independently, it was easy to deduce what must have happened.”
Harlan asked suddenly, ”I suppose Finge suspected you of spying?”
”He might have. I wouldn't be surprised.”
Harlan thought back to his first days with Finge when Twissell first showed his abnormal interest in the young Observer. Finge had known nothing of the Mallansohn project, and he had been interested in Twissell's interference. ”Have you ever met Senior Computer Twissell?” he had once asked and, thinking back, Harlan could recall the exact tone of sharp uneasiness in the man's voice. As early as that Finge must have suspected Harlan of being Twissell's finger-man. His enmity and hate must have begun that early.
Twissell was speaking, ”So if you had come to me----”
”Come to _you?_” cried Harlan. ”What of the Council?”
”Of the entire Council, only I know.”
”You never told them?” Harlan tried to be mocking.
”I never did.”
Harlan felt feverish. His clothes were choking him. Was this nightmare to go on forever. Foolish, irrelevant chatter! _For what? Why?_ Why didn't Eternity end? Why didn't the clean peace of non-Reality reach out for them? _Great Time, what was wrong?_ Twissell said, ”Don't you believe me?”
Harlan shouted, ”Why should I? They came to look at me, didn't they? At that breakfast? Why should they have done that if they didn't know of the report? They came to look at the queer phenomenon who had broken the laws of Eternity but who couldn't be touched for one more day. One more day and then the project would be over. They came to gloat for the tomorrow they were expecting.”
”My boy, there was nothing of that. They wanted to see you only because they were human. Councilmen are human too. They could not witness the final kettle drive because the Mallansohn memoir did not place them at the scene. They could not interview Cooper since the memoir made no mention of that either. Yet they wanted something. Father Time, boy, don't you see they would want something? You were as close as they could get, so they brought you close and stared at you.”
”I don't believe you.”
”It's the truth.”
Harlan said, ”Is it? And while we ate, Councilman Sennor talked of a man meeting himself. He obviously knew about my illegal trips into the 482nd and my nearly meeting myself. It was his way of poking at me, enjoying himself cutely at my expense.”
Twissell said, ”Sennor? You worried about Sennor? Do you know the pathetic figure he is? His homewhen is the 803rd, one of the few cultures in which the human body is deliberately disfigured to meet the aesthetic requirements of the time. It is rendered hairless at adolescence.
”Do you know what that means in the continuity of man? Surely you do. A disfigurement sets men apart from their ancestors and descendants. Men of the 803rd are poor risks as Eternals; they are too different from the rest of us. Few are chosen. Sennor is the only one of his Century ever to sit on the Council.
”Don't you see how that affects him? Surely you understand what insecurity means. Did it ever occur to you that a Councilman could be insecure? Sennor has to listen to discussions involving the eradication of his Reality for the very characteristic that makes him so conspicuous among us. And eradicating it would leave him one of a very few in all the generation to be disfigured as he is. Someday it will happen.
”He finds refuge in philosophy. He overcompensates by taking the lead in conversation, by deliberately airing unpopular or unaccepted viewpoints. His man-meeting-himself paradox is a case in point. I told you that he used it to predict disaster for the project and it was we, the Councilmen, that he was attempting to annoy, not you. It had nothing to do with you. Nothing!”
Twissell had grown heated. In the long emotion of his words he seemed to forget where he was and the crisis that faced them, for he slipped back into the quick-gestured, uneasily motioned gnome that Harlan knew so well. He even slipped a cigarette from his sleeve pouch and had all but frictioned it into combustion.
But then he stopped, wheeled, and looked at Harlan again, reaching back through all his own words to what Harlan had last said, as though until that moment, he had not heard them properly.
He said, ”What do you mean, you almost met yourself?”
Harlan told him briefly and went on, ”You didn't know that?”
”No.”
There were a few moments of silence that were as welcome to the feverish Harlan as water would have been.
Twissell said, ”Is that it? What if you _had_ met yourself?”
”I didn't.”
Twissell ignored that. ”There is always room for random variation. With an infinite number of Realities there can be no such thing as determinism. Suppose that in the Mallansohn Reality, in the previous turn of the cycle----”
”The circle goes on forever?” asked Harlan with what wonder he could still find in himself.
”Do you think only twice? Do you think two is a magic number? It's a matter of infinite turns of the circle in finite physiotime. Just as you can draw a pencil round and round the circ.u.mference of a circle infinitely yet enclose a finite area. In previous turns of the cycle, you had not met yourself. This one time, the statistical uncertainty of things made it possible for you to meet yourself. Reality had to change to prevent the meeting and in the new Reality, you did not send Cooper back to the 24th but----”
Harlan cried, ”What's all this talk about? What are you getting at? It's all done. Everything. Let me alone now! _Let me alone!_”
”I want you to know you've done wrong. I want you to realize you did the wrong thing.”
”I didn't. And even if I did, _it's done_.”
”But it is _not_ done. Listen just a little while longer.” Twissell was wheedling, almost crooning with an agonized gentleness. ”You will have your girl. I promised that. I still promise it. She will not be harmed. You will not be harmed. I promise you this. It is my personal guarantee.”
Harlan stared at him wide-eyed. ”But it's too late. What's the use?”
”It is _not_ too late. Things are _not_ irreparable. With your help, we can succeed yet. I must have your help. You must realize that you did wrong. I am trying to explain this to you. You must want to undo what you have done.”
Harlan licked his dry lips with a dry tongue and thought: He is mad. His mind can't accept the truth. --or, does the Council know more?
Did it? Did it? Could it reverse the verdict of the Changes? Could they halt Time or reverse it?