The End of Eternity Part 18

How I longed to visit my wife one last time, too, during that portion of Time in which she lived, but I had used every second that had been available to me. I dared not even enter Time to see her, unseen.

I returned to Eternity and spent one last horrible night wrestling futilely against what must be. The next morning I handed in my computations together with my recommendations for Change.

Twissell's voice had lowered to a whisper and now it stopped. He sat there with his shoulders bent, his eyes fixed on the floor between his knees, and his fingers twisting slowly into and out of a knotted clasp.

Harlan, waiting vainly for another sentence out of the old man, cleared his throat. He found himself pitying the man, pitying him despite the many crimes he had committed. He said, "And that's all?"

Twissell whispered, "No, the worst--the worst---- An a.n.a.logue of my son did exist. In the new Reality, he existed--as a paraplegic from the age of four. Forty-two years in bed, under circ.u.mstances that barred me from arranging to have the nerve-regenerating techniques of the 900's applied to his case, or even for arranging to have his life ended painlessly.

"That new Reality still exists. My son is still out there in the appropriate portion of the Century. _I_ did that to him. It was my mind and my Computaplex that discovered this new life for him, and my word that ordered the Change. I had committed a number of crimes for his sake and for his mother's, but that one last deed, though strictly in accordance with my oath as an Eternal, has always seemed to me to be my great crime, _the_ crime."

There was nothing to say, and Harlan said nothing.

Twissell said, "But you see now why I understand your case, why I will be willing to let you have your girl. It would not harm Eternity and, in a way, it would be expiation for my crime."

And Harlan believed. All in one change of mind, he believed!

Harlan sank to his knees and lifted his clenched fists to his temples. He bent his head and rocked slowly as savage despair beat through him.

He had thrown Eternity away, and lost Noys--when, except for his Samson-smash, he might have saved one and kept the other.

15 Search through the Primitive

Twissell was shaking Harlan's shoulders. The old man's voice urgently called his name.

"Harlan! Harlan! For Time's sake, man."

Harlan emerged only slowly from the slough. "What are we to do?"

"Certainly not _this_. Not despair. To begin with, listen to me. Forget your Technician's view of Eternity and look at it through a Computer's eyes. The view is more sophisticated. When you alter something in Time and create a Reality Change, the Change may take place at once. Why should that be?"

Harlan said shakily, "Because your alteration has made the Change inevitable?"

"Has it? You could go back and reverse your alteration, couldn't you?"

"I suppose so. I never did, though. Or anyone that I heard of."

"Right. There is no intention of reversing an alteration, so it goes through as planned. But here we have something else. An unintentional alteration. You sent Cooper into the wrong Century and now I firmly intend to reverse that alteration and bring Cooper back here."

"For Time's sake, how?"

"I'm not sure yet, but there _must_ be a way. If there were no way, the alteration would be irreversible; Change would come at once. But Change has not come. We are still in the Reality of the Mallansohn memoir. That means the alteration is reversible and _will_ be reversed."

"What?" Harlan's nightmare was expanding and swirling, growing murkier and more engulfing.

"There must be some way of knitting the circle in Time together again and our ability to find the way to do it must be a high-probability affair. As long as our Reality exists, we can be certain that the solution remains high-probability. If at any moment, you or I make the wrong decision, if the probability of healing the circle falls below some crucial magnitude, Eternity disappears. Do you understand?"

Harlan was not sure that he did. He wasn't trying very hard. Slowly he got to his feet and stumbled his way into a chair. "You mean we can get Cooper back----"

"And send him to the right place, yes. Catch him at the moment he leaves the kettle and he may end up in his proper place in the 24th no more than a few physiohours older; physiodays, at the most. It would be an alteration, of course, but undoubtedly not enough of one. Reality would be rocked, boy, but not upset."

"But how do we get him?"

"We know there's a way, or Eternity wouldn't be existing this moment. As to what that way is, that is why I need you, why I've fought to get you back on my side. You're the expert on the Primitive. Tell me."

"I can't," groaned Harlan.

"You can," insisted Twissell.

There was suddenly no trace of age or weariness in the old man's voice. His eyes were ablaze with the light of combat and he wielded his cigarette like a lance. Even to Harlan's regret-drugged senses the man seemed to be enjoying himself, actually enjoying himself, now that battle had been joined.

"We can reconstruct the event," said Twissell. "Here is the thrust control. You're standing at it, waiting for the signal. It comes. You make contact and at the same time squeeze the power thrust in the downwhen direction. How far?"

"I don't know, I tell you. I don't know."

"_You_ don't know, but your muscles do. Stand there and take the controls in your hand. Get hold of yourself. Take them, boy. You're waiting for the signal. You're hating me. You're hating the Council. You're hating Eternity. You're wearying your heart out for Noys. Put yourself back at that moment. Feel what you felt then. Now I'll set the clock in motion again. I'll give you one minute, boy, to remember your emotions and force them back into your thalamus. Then, at the approach of zero, let your right hand jerk the control as it had done before. Then take your hand away! Don't move it back again. Are you ready?"

"I don't think I can do it."

"You don't think---- Father Time, you have no choice. Is there another way you can get back your girl?"

There wasn't. Harlan forced himself back to the controls, and as he did so emotion flooded back. He did not have to call on it. Repeating the physical movements brought them back. The red hairline on the clock started moving.

Detachedly he thought: The last minute of life?

Minus thirty seconds.

He thought: It will not hurt. It is not death.

He tried to think only of Noys.

Minus fifteen seconds.

Noys!

Harlan's left hand moved a switch down toward contact.

Minus twelve seconds.

Contact!

His right hand moved.

Minus five seconds.

Noys!

His right hand mo--ZERO--ved spasmodically.

He jumped away, panting.

Twissell came forward, peering at the dial. "Twentieth Century," he said. "Nineteen point three eight, to be exact."

Harlan choked out, "I don't know. I tried to feel the same, but it was different. I knew what I was doing and that made it different."

Twissell said, "I know, I know. Maybe it's all wrong. Call it a first approximation." He paused a moment in mental calculation, took a pocket computer half out of its container and thrust it back without consulting it. "To Time with the decimal points. Say the probability is 0.99 that you sent him back to the second quarter of the 20th. Somewhere between 19.25 and 19.50. All right?"

"I don't know."

"Well, now, look. If I make a firm decision to concentrate on that part of the Primitive to the exclusion of all else and if I am wrong, the chances are that I will have lost my chance to keep the circle in time closed and Eternity will disappear. The decision itself will be the crucial point, the Minimum Necessary Change, the M.N.C., to bring about the Change. I now make the decision. I decide, definitely----"

Harlan, looked about cautiously, as though Reality had grown so fragile that a sudden head movement might shatter it.

Harlan said, "I'm thoroughly conscious of Eternity." (Twissell's normality had infected him to the point where his voice sounded firm in his own ears.) "Then Eternity still exists," said Twissell in a blunt, matter-of-fact manner, "and we have made the right decision. Now there's nothing more to do here for the while. Let's get to my office and we can let the subcommittee of the Council swarm over this place, if that will make them any happier. As far as they are concerned, the project has ended successfully. If it doesn't, they'll never know. Nor we."

Twissell studied his cigarette and said, "The question that now confronts us is this: What will Cooper do when he finds himself in the wrong Century?"

"I don't know."

"One thing is obvious. He's a bright lad, intelligent, imaginative, wouldn't you say?"

"Well, he's Mallansohn."

"Exactly. And he wondered if he would end up wrong. One of his last questions was: What if I don't end up in the right spot? Do you remember?"

"Well?" Harlan had no idea where this was leading.

"So he is mentally prepared for being displaced in Time. He will do something. Try to reach us. Try to leave traces for us. Remember, for part of his life he was an Eternal. That's an important thing." Twissell blew a smoke ring, hooked it with a finger, and watched it curl about and break up. "He's used to the notion of communication across Time. He is not likely to surrender to the thought of being marooned in Time. He'll know that we're looking for him."

Harlan said, "Without kettles and with no Eternity in the 20th, how would he go about communicating with us?"

"With _you_, Technician, with you. Use the singular. You're our expert on the Primitive. You taught Cooper about the Primitive. You're the one he would expect to be capable of finding his traces."

"_What_ traces, Computer?"

Twissell's shrewd old face stared up at Harlan, its lines crinkling. "It was intended to leave Cooper in the Primitive. He is without the protection of an enclosing shield of physiotime. His entire life is woven into the fabric of Time and will remain so until you and I reverse the alteration. Likewise woven into the fabric of Time is any artifact, sign, or message he may have left for us. Surely there must be particular sources you used in studying the 20th Century. Doc.u.ments, archives, films, artifacts, reference works. I mean primary sources, dating from the Time itself."

"Yes."

"And he studied them with you?"

"Yes."

"And is there any particular reference that was your favorite, one that he knew you were intimately acquainted with, so that you would recognize in it some reference to himself?"

"I see what you're driving at, of course," said Harlan. He grew thoughtful.

"Well?" asked Twissell with an edge of impatience.

Harlan said, "My news magazines, almost surely. News magazines were a phenomenon of the early 20's. The one of which I have nearly a complete set dates from early in the 20th and continues well into the 22nd."

"Good. Now is there any way, do you suppose, in which Cooper could make use of that news magazine to carry a message? Remember, he'd know you'd be reading the periodical, that you'd be acquainted with it, that you'd know your way about in it."

"I don't know." Harlan shook his head. "The magazine affected an artificial style. It was selective rather than inclusive and quite unpredictable. It would be difficult or even impossible to rely on its printing something you would plan to have it print. Cooper couldn't very well create news and be sure of its appearance. Even if Cooper managed to get a position on its editorial staff, which is very unlikely, he couldn't be certain that his exact wording would pa.s.s the various editors. I don't see it, Computer."

Twissell said, "For Time's sake, think! Concentrate on that news magazine. You're in the 20th and you're Cooper with his education and background. You taught the boy, Harlan. You molded his thinking. Now what would he do? How would he go about placing something in the magazine; something with the exact wording he wants?"

Harlan's eyes widened. "An advertis.e.m.e.nt!"

"What?"

"An advertis.e.m.e.nt. A paid notice which they would be compelled to print exactly as requested. Cooper and I discussed them occasionally."

"Ah, yes. They have that sort of thing in the 186th," said Twissell.

"Not like the 20th. The 20th is peak in that respect. The cultural milieu----"

"Considering the advertis.e.m.e.nt now," interposed Twissell hastily, "what kind would it be?"

"I wish I knew."

Twissell stared at the lighted end of his cigarette as though seeking inspiration. "He can't say anything directly. He can't say: 'Cooper of the 78th, stranded in the 20th and calling Eternity----'"

"How can you be sure?"

"Impossible! To give the 20th information we know they did not have would be as damaging to the Mallansohn circle as would wrong action on our part. We're still here, so in his whole lifetime in the current Reality of the Primitive he's done no harm of that sort."

"Besides which," said Harlan, retreating from the contemplation of the circular reasoning which seemed to bother Twissell so little, "the news magazine is not likely to agree to publish anything which seems mad to it or which it cannot understand. It would suspect fraud or some form of illegality and would not wish to be implicated. So Cooper couldn't use Standard Intertemporal for his message."

"It would have to be something subtle," said Twissell. "He would have to use indirection. He would have to place an advertis.e.m.e.nt that would seem perfectly normal to the men of the Primitive. Perfectly normal! And yet something that is obvious to us, once we knew what we were searching for. Very obvious. Obvious at a glance because it would have to be found among uncounted individual items. How big do you suppose it would be, Harlan? Are those advertis.e.m.e.nts expensive?"

"Quite expensive, I believe."

"And Cooper would have to h.o.a.rd his money. Besides which, to avoid the wrong kind of attention, it would have to be small, anyway. Guess, Harlan. How large?"

Harlan spread his hands. "Half a column?"

"Column?"

"They were printed magazines, you know. On paper. With print arranged in columns."

"Oh yes. I can't seem to separate literature and film somehow . . . Well, we have a first approximation of another sort now. We must look for a half-column advertis.e.m.e.nt which will, practically at a glance, give evidence that the man who placed it came from another Century (in the upwhen direction, of course) and yet which is so normal an advertis.e.m.e.nt that no man of that Century would see anything suspicious in it."