The End of Eternity Part 9

But now Harlan's mind snapped back to his present situation and he was back in the present, staring at the loudmouthed, bra.s.sy advertis.e.m.e.nts in the news magazine. He asked himself in sudden excitement: Were the thoughts he had just experienced really irrelevant? Or was he tortuously finding a way out of the blackness and back to Noys?

Advertis.e.m.e.nt! A device for forcing the unwilling into line. Did it matter to a ground-vehicle manufacturer whether a given individual felt an original or spontaneous desire for his product? If the prospect (that was the word) could be artificially persuaded or cajoled into feeling that desire and acting upon it, would that not be just as well?

Then what did it matter if Noys loved him out of pa.s.sion or out of calculation? Let them but be together long enough and she would grow to love him. He would _make_ her love him and, in the end, love and not its motivation was what counted. He wished now he had read some of the novels out of Time that Finge had mentioned scornfully.

Harlan's fists clenched at a sudden thought. If Noys had come to _him_, to _Harlan_, for immortality, it could only mean that she had not yet fulfilled the requirement for that gift. She could have made love to no Eternal previously. That meant that her relationship to Finge had been nothing more than that of secretary and employer. Otherwise what need would she have had for Harlan?

Yet Finge surely must have tried--must have attempted. . . (Harlan could not complete the thought even in the secrecy of his own mind.) Finge could have proved the superst.i.tion's existence on his own person. Surely he could not have missed the thought with Noys an everpresent temptation. Then she must have refused him.

He had had to use Harlan and Harlan had succeeded. It was for that reason that Finge had been driven into the jealous revenge of torturing Harlan with the knowledge that Noys's motivation had been a practical one, and that he could never have her.

Yet Noys had refused Finge even with eternal life at stake and _had_ accepted Harlan. She had that much of a choice and she had made it in Harlan's favor. 'So it wasn't calculation entirely. Emotion played a part.

Harlan's thoughts were wild and jumbled, and grew more heated with every moment.

He _must_ have her, and _now_. Before any Reality Change. What was it Finge had said to him, jeering: _The now does not last, even in Eternity_.

Doesn't it, though? Doesn't it?

Harlan had known exactly what he must do. Finge's angry taunting had goaded him into a frame of mind where he was ready for crime and Finge's final sneer had, at least, inspired him with the nature of the deed he must commit.

He had not wasted a moment after that. It was with excitement and even joy that he left his quarters, at all but a run, to commit a major crime against Eternity.

8 Crime

No one had questioned him. No one had stopped him. There was that advantage, anyway, in the social isolation of a Technician. He went via the kettle channels to a door to Time and set its controls. There was the chance, of course, that someone would happen along on a legitimate errand and wonder why the door was in use. He hesitated, and then decided to stamp his seal on the marker. A sealed door would draw little attention. An unsealed door in active use would be a nine-day wonder.

Of course, it might be Finge who stumbled upon the door. He would have to chance that.

Noys was still standing as he had left her. Wretched hours (physiohours) had pa.s.sed since Harlan had left the 482nd for a lonely Eternity, but he returned now to the same Time, within a matter of seconds, that he had left. Not a hair on Noys's head had stirred.

She looked startled. "Did you forget something, Andrew?"

Harlan stared at her hungrily, but made no move to touch her. He remembered Finge's words, and he dared not risk a repulse. He said stiffly, "You've got to do as I say."

She said, "But is something wrong, then? You just left. You just this minute left."

"Don't worry," said Harlan. It was all he could do to keep from taking her hand, from trying to soothe her. Instead he spoke harshly. It was as though some demon were forcing him to do all the wrong things. Why had he come back at the first available moment? He was only disturbing her by his almost instantaneous return after leaving.

(He knew the answer to that, really. He had a two-day margin of grace allowed by the spatio-temporal chart. The earlier portions of that period of grace were safer and yielded least chance of discovery. It was a natural tendency to crowd it as far downwhen as he could. A foolish risk, too, though. He might easily have miscalculated and entered Time before he had left it physiohours earlier. What then? It was one of the first rules he had learned as an Observer: One person occupying two points in the same Time of the same Reality runs a risk of meeting himself.

Somehow that was something to be avoided. Why? Harlan knew he didn't want to meet himself. He didn't want to be staring into the eyes of another and earlier (or later) Harlan. Beyond that it would be a paradox, and what was it Twissell was fond of saying? "There are no paradoxes in Time, but only because Time deliberately avoids paradoxes.") All the time Harlan thought dizzily of all this Noys stared at him with large, luminous eyes.

Then she came to him and put cool hands on either burning cheek and said softly, "You're in trouble."

To Harlan her glance seemed kindly, loving. Yet how could that be? She had what she wanted. What else was there? He seized her wrists and said huskily, "Will you come with me? Now? Without asking any questions? Doing exactly as I say?"

"Must I?" she asked.

"You must, Noys. It's very important."

"Then I'll come." She said it matter-of-factly, as though such a request came to her each day and was always accepted.

At the lip of the kettle Noys hesitated a moment, then stepped in.

Harlan said, "We're going upwhen, Noys."

"That means the future, doesn't it?"

The kettle was already faintly humming as she entered it and she was scarcely seated when Harlan un.o.btrusively moved the contact at his elbow.

She showed no signs of nausea at the beginnings of that indescribable sensation of "motion" through Time. He was afraid she might.

She sat there quietly, so beautiful and so at ease that he ached, looking at her, and gave not the particle of a d.a.m.n that, by bringing a Timer, unauthorized, into Eternity, he had committed a felony.

She said, "Does that dial show the numbers of the years, Andrew?"

"The Centuries."

"You mean we're a thousand years in the future? Already?"

"That's right."

"It doesn't feel like it."

"I know."

She looked about. "But how are we moving?"

"I don't know, Noys."

"You _don't?_"

"There are many things about Eternity that are hard to understand."

The numbers on the temporometer _marched_. Faster and faster they moved till they were a blur. With his elbow Harlan had nudged the speed stick to high. The power drain might cause some surprise in the power plants, but he doubted it. No one had been waiting for him in Eternity when he returned with Noys, and that was nine tenths the battle. Now it was only necessary to get her to a safe place.

Again Harlan looked at her. "Eternals don't know everything."

"And I'm not an Eternal," she murmured. "I know so little."

Harlan's pulse quickened. _Still_ not an Eternal? But Finge said . . .

Leave it at that, he pleaded with himself. Leave it at that. She's coming with you. She smiles at you. What more do you want?

But he spoke anyway. He said, "You think an Eternal lives forever, don't you?"

"Well, they call them Etemals, you know, and everyone says they do." She smiled at him brightly. "But they don't, do they?"

"You don't think so, then?"

"After I was in Eternity a while, I didn't. People didn't talk as though they lived forever, and there were old men there."

"Yet you told me I lived forever--that night."

She moved closer to him along the seat, still smiling. "I thought: who knows?"

He said, without being quite able to keep the strain out of his voice, "How does a Timer go about becoming an Eternal?"

Her smile vanished and was it his imagination or was there a trace of heightened color in her cheek. She said, "Why do you ask that?"

"To find out."

"It's silly," she said. "I'd rather not talk about it." She stared down at her graceful fingers, edged with nails that glittered colorlessly in the muted light of the kettle shaft. Harlan thought abstractedly and quite apropos of nothing that at an evening gathering, with a touch of mild ultraviolet in the wall illumination, those nails would glow a soft apple-green or a brooding crimson, depending on the angle she held her hands. A clever girl, one like Noys, could produce half a dozen shades out of them, and make it seem as though the colors were reflecting her moods. Blue for innocence, bright yellow for laughter, violet for sorrow, and scarlet for pa.s.sion.

He said, "Why did you make love to me?"

She shook her hair back and looked at him out of a pale, grave face. She said, "If you must know, part of the reason was the theory that a girl can become an Eternal that way. I wouldn't mind living forever."

"I thought you said you didn't believe that."

"I didn't, but it couldn't hurt a girl to take the chance. Especially----"

He was staring at her sternly, finding refuge from hurt and disappointment in a frozen look of disapproval from the heights of the morality of his homewhen. "Well?"

"Especially since I wanted to, anyway."

"Wanted to make love to me?"

"Yes."

"Why me?"

"Because I liked you. Because I thought you were funny."

"_Funny!_"

"Well, odd, if you like that better. You always worked so hard not to look at me, but you always looked at me anyway. You tried to hate me and I could see you wanted me. I was sorry for you a little, I think."

"What were you sorry about?" Ue felt his cheeks burning.

"That you should have such trouble about wanting me. It's such a simple thing. You just ask a girl. It's so easy to be friendly. Why suffer?"

Harlan nodded. The morality of the 482nd! "Just ask a girl," he muttered. "So simple. Nothing more necessary."

"The girl has to be willing, of course. Mostly she is, if she's not otherwise engaged. Why not? It's simple enough."

It was Harlan's turn to drop his eyes. Of course, it was simple enough. And nothing wrong with it, either. Not in the 482nd. Who in Eternity should know this better? He would be a fool, an utter and unspeakable fool, to ask her now about earlier affairs. He might as well ask a girl of his own homewhen if she had ever eaten in the presence of a man and how dared she?

Instead he said humbly, "And what do you think of me now?"

"That you are very nice," she said softly, "and that if you ever relaxed-- Won't you smile?"

"There's nothing to smile about, Noys."

"_Please_. I want to see if your cheeks can crease right. Let's see." She put her fingers to the corners of his mouth and pressed them backward. He jerked his head back in surprise and couldn't avoid smiling.

"See. Your cheeks didn't even crack. You're almost handsome. With enough practice--standing in front of a mirror and smiling and getting a twinkle in your eye--I'll bet you could be really handsome."

But the smile, fragile enough to begin with, vanished.

Noys said, "We _are_ in trouble, aren't we?"

"Yes, we are, Noys. Great trouble."

"Because of what we did? You and I? That evening?"

"Not really."

"That was my fault, you know. I'll tell them so, if you wish."

"Never,", said Harlan with energy. "Don't take on any fault in this. You've done nothing, _nothing_, to be guilty for. It's something else."

Noys looked uneasily at the temporometer. "Where are we? I can't even see the numbers."

"_When_ are we?" Harlan corrected her automatically. He slowed the velocity and the Centuries came into view.

Her beautiful eyes widened and the lashes stood out against the whiteness of her skin. "Is that _right?_"

Harlan looked at the indicator casually. It was in the 72,000's. "I'm sure it is."

"But where are we going?"

"To _when_ are we going. To the far upwhen," he said, grimly. "Good and far. Where they won't find you."

And in silence they watched the numbers mount. In silence Harlan told himself over and over that the girl was innocent of Finge's charge. She had owned up frankly to its partial truth and she had admitted, just as frankly, the presence of a more personal attraction.

He looked up, then, as Noys shifted position. She had moved to his side of the kettle and, with a resolute gesture, brought the kettle to a halt at a most uncomfortable temporal deceleration.

Harlan gulped and closed his eyes to let the nausea pa.s.s. He said, "What's the matter?"

She looked ashen and for a moment made no reply. Then she said, "I don't want to go any further. The numbers are so high."