The End of Eternity (4 page)

Three months of raking through the 482nd had exhausted most of its worth while meat and when Harlan received a sudden call to Finge’s office, he was not surprised. He was expecting a change in assignment. His final summary had been
prepared days before. The 482nd was anxious to export more cellulose-base textiles to Centuries which were deforested, such as the 1174th, but were unwilling to accept smoked fish in return. A long list of such items was contained in due order and with due analysis.

He took the draft of the summary with him.

But no mention of the 482nd was made. Instead Finge introduced him to a withered and wrinkled little man, with sparse white hair and a gnomelike face that throughout the interview was stamped with a perpetual smile. It varied between extremes of anxiety and joviality but never quite disappeared. Between two of his yellow-stained fingers lay a burning cigarette.

It was the first cigarette Harlan had ever seen, otherwise he would have paid more attention to the man, less to the smoking cylinder, and been better prepared for Finge’s introduction.

Finge said, “Senior Computer Twissell, this is Observer Andrew Harlan.”

Harlan’s eyes shifted in shock from the little man’s cigarette to his face.

Senior Computer Twissell said in a high-pitched voice, “How do you do? So this is the young man who writes those excellent reports?”

Harlan found no voice. Laban Twissell was a legend, a living myth. Laban Twissell was a man he should have recognized at once. He was the outstanding Computer in Eternity, which was another way of saying he was the most eminent Eternal alive. He was the dean of the Allwhen Council. He had directed more Reality Changes than any man in the history of Eternity. He was—He had—

Harlan’s mind failed him altogether. He nodded his head with a doltish grin and said nothing.

Twissell put his cigarette to his lips, puffed quickly, and took it away. “Leave us, Finge. I want to talk to the boy.”

Finge rose, murmured something, and left.

Twissell said, “You seem nervous, boy. There is nothing to be nervous about.”

But meeting Twissell like that was a shock. It is always disconcerting to find that someone you have thought of as a giant is actually less than five and a half feet tall. Could the brain of a genius actually fit behind the retreating, bald-smooth forehead? Was it sharp intelligence or only good humor that beamed out of the little eyes that screwed up into a thousand wrinkles?

Harlan didn’t know what to think. The cigarette seemed to obscure what small scrabble of intelligence he could collect. He flinched visibly as a puff of smoke reached him.

Twissell’s eyes narrowed as though he were trying to peer through the smoke haze and he said in horribly accented tenth-millennial dialect, “Will you petter feel if I in your yourself dialect should speech, poy?”

Harlan, brought to the sudden brink of hysterical laughter, said carefully, “I speak Standard Intertemporal quite well, sir.” He said it in the Intertemporal he and all other Eternals in his presence had used ever since his first months in Eternity.

“Nonsense,” said Twissell imperiously. “I do not bother of Intertemporal. My speech of ten-millennial is over than perfect.”

Harlan guessed that it had been some forty years since Twissell had had to make use of localwhen dialects.

But having made his point to his own satisfaction, apparently, he shifted to Intertemporal and remained there. He said, “I would offer you a cigarette, but I am certain you don’t smoke. Smoking is approved of hardly anywhen in history. In fact, good cigarettes are made only in the 72nd and mine have to be specially imported from there. I give you that hint in case you ever become a smoker. It is all very sad. Last week, I was stuck in the 123rd for two days. No smoking. I mean,
even in the Section of Eternity devoted to the 123rd. The Eternals there have picked up the
mores.
If I lit a cigarette it would have been like the sky collapsing. Sometimes I think I should like to calculate one great Reality Change and wipe out all the no-smoking taboos in all the Centuries, except that any Reality Change like that would make for wars in the 58th or a slave society in the 1000th. Always something.”

Harlan was first confused, then anxious. Surely these rattling irrelevancies must be hiding something.

His throat felt a little constricted. He said, “May I ask why you’ve arranged to see me, sir?”

“I like your reports, boy.”

There was a veiled glimmer of joy in Harlan’s eyes, but he did not smile. “Thank you, sir.”

“It has a touch of the artist. You are intuitive. You feel strongly. I think I know your proper position in Eternity and I have come to offer it to you.”

Harlan thought: I can’t believe this.

He held all triumph out of his voice. “You do me great honor, sir,” he said.

Whereupon Senior Computer Twissell, having come to the end of his cigarette, produced another in his left hand by some unnoted feat of legerdemain and lit it. He said between puffs, “For Time’s sake, boy, you talk as though you rehearsed lines. Great honor, bah. Piffle. Trash. Say what you feel in plain language. You’re glad, hey?”

“Yes, sir,” said Harlan cautiously.

“All right. You should be. How would you like to be a Technician?”

“A Technician!” cried Harlan, leaping from his seat.

“Sit down. Sit down. You seem surprised.”

“I hadn’t expected to be a Technician, Computer Twissell.”

“No,” said Twissell dryly, “somehow no one ever does. They expect anything but that. Yet Technicians are hard to
find, and are always in demand. Not a Section in Eternity has what it considers enough.”

“I don’t think I’m suited.”

“You mean you’re not suited to take a job with trouble in it. By Time, if you are devoted to Eternity, as I believe you are, you won’t mind that. So the fools will avoid you and you will feel ostracized. You will grow used to that. And you will have the satisfaction of knowing you are needed, and needed badly. By
me.
”

“By you, sir? By you particularly?”

“Yes.” An element of shrewdness entered the old man’s smile. “You are not to be just a Technician. You will be my personal Technician. You will have special status. How does that sound now?”

Harlan said, “I don’t know, sir. I may not qualify.”

Twissell shook his head firmly. “I need you. I need just you. Your reports assure me you have what I need up here.” He tapped his forehead quickly with a ridge-nailed forefinger. “Your record as Cub is good; the Sections for which you have Observed reported favorably. Finally, Finge’s report was most suitable of all.”

Harlan was honestly startled. “Computer Finge’s report was favorable?”

“You didn’t expect that?”

“I—don’t know.”

“Well, boy, I didn’t say it was favorable. I said it was suitable. As a matter of fact, Finge’s report was
not
favorable. He recommended that you be removed from all duties connected with Reality Changes. He suggested it wasn’t safe to keep you anywhere but in Maintenance.”

Harlan reddened. “What were his reasons for saying so, sir?”

“It seems you have a hobby, boy. You are interested in Primitive history, eh?” He gestured expansively with his
cigarette and Harlan, forgetting in his anger to control his breathing, inhaled a cloud of smoke and coughed helplessly.

Twissell regarded the young Observer’s coughing spell benignly and said, “Isn’t that so?”

Harlan began, “Computer Finge had no right—”

“Now, now. I told you what was in the report because it hinges on the purpose I need you most for. Actually, the report was confidential and you are to forget I told you what was in it. Permanently, boy.”

“But what’s wrong with being interested in Primitive history?”

“Finge thinks your interest in it shows a strong Wish-to-Time. You understand me, boy?”

Harlan did. It was impossible to avoid picking up psychiatric lingo. That phrase above all. Every member of Eternity was supposed to have a strong drive, the stronger for being officially suppressed in all its manifestations, to return, not necessarily to his own Time, but at least to some one definite Time; to become part of a Century, rather than to remain a wanderer through them all. Of course in most Eternals the drive remained safely hidden in the unconscious.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” said Harlan.

“Nor I. In fact, I think your hobby is interesting and valuable. As I said, it’s why I want you. I want you to teach a Cub I shall bring to you all you know and all you can learn about Primitive history. In between, you will also be my personal Technician. You’ll start in a few days. Is that agreeable?”

Agreeable? To have official permission to learn all he could about the days before Eternity? To be personally associated with the greatest Eternal of them all? Even the nasty fact of Technician’s status seemed bearable under those conditions.

His caution, however, did not entirely fail him. He said, “If it’s necessary for the good of Eternity, sir—”

“For the
good
of Eternity?” cried the gnomish Computer in sudden excitement. He threw his cigarette butt from him with such energy that it hit the far wall and bounced off in a shower of sparks. “I need you for the
existence
of Eternity.”

Harlan had been in the 575th for weeks before he met Brinsley Sheridan Cooper. He had time to grow used to his new quarters and to the antisepsis of glass and porcelain. He learned to wear the Technician’s mark with only moderate shrinking and to refrain from making things worse by standing so that the insigne was hidden against a wall or was covered by the interposition of some object he was carrying.

Others smiled disdainfully when that was done and turned colder as though they suspected an attempt to invade their friendship on false pretenses.

Senior Computer Twissell brought him problems daily. Harlan studied them and wrote his analyses in drafts that were four times rewritten, the last version being handed in reluctantly even so.

Twissell would appraise them and nod and say, “Good, good.” Then his cold blue eyes would dart quickly at Harlan and his smile would narrow a bit as he said, “I’ll test this guess on the Computaplex.”

He always called the analysis a “guess.” He never told Harlan the result of the Computaplex check, and Harlan dared not ask. He was despondent over the fact that he was
never asked to put any of his own analyses into action. Did that mean that the Computaplex was
not
checking him, that he had been choosing the wrong item for the induction of a Reality Change, that he did not have the knack of seeing the Minimum Necessary Change in an indicated range? (It was not until later that he grew sufficiently sophisticated to have the phrase come rolling off his tongue as M.N.C.)

One day Twissell came in with an abashed individual who seemed scarcely to dare raise his eyes to meet Harlan’s.

Twissell said, “Technician Harlan, this is Cub B. S. Cooper.”

Automatically Harlan said, “Hello,” weighed the man’s appearance, and was unimpressed. The fellow was on the shortish side, with dark hair parted in the middle. His chin was narrow, his eyes an indefinite light brown, his ears a little large, and his fingernails bitten.

Twissell said, “This is the boy to whom you will be teaching Primitive history.”

“Great Time,” said Harlan with suddenly increased interest.
“Hello!”
He had almost forgotten.

Twissell said, “Arrange a schedule with him that will suit you, Harlan. If you can manage two afternoons a week, I think that would be fine. Use your own method of teaching him. I’ll leave that to you. If you should need book-films or old documents, tell me, and if they exist in Eternity or in any part of Time that can be reached, we’ll get them. Eh, boy?”

He plucked a lit cigarette out of nowhere (as it always seemed) and the air reeked with smoke. Harlan coughed and from the twisting of the Cub’s mouth it was quite obvious that the latter would have done the same had he dared.

After Twissell left, Harlan said, “Well, sit down”—he hesitated a moment, then added determinedly—“Son. Sit
down, son. My office isn’t much, but it’s yours whenever we’re together.”

Harlan was almost flooded with eagerness. This project was
his!
Primitive history was something that was all his own.

The Cub raised his eyes (for the first time, really) and said stumblingly, “You
are
a Technician.”

A considerable part of Harlan’s excitement and warmth died. “What of it?”

“Nothing,” said the Cub. “I just—”

“You heard Computer Twissell address me as Technician, didn’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did you think it was a slip of the tongue? Something too bad to be true?”

“No, sir.”

“What’s wrong with your speech?” Harlan asked brutally, and even as he did so, he felt shame nudge him.

Cooper blushed painfully. “I’m not very good at Standard Intertemporal.”

“Why not? How long have you been a Cub?”

“Less than one year, sir.”

“One year? How old are you, for Time’s sake?”

“Twenty-four physioyears, sir.”

Harlan stared. “Are you trying to tell me that they took you into Eternity at twenty-three?”

“Yes, sir.”

Harlan sat down and rubbed his hands together. That just wasn’t done. Fifteen to sixteen was the age of entrance into Eternity. What was this? A new kind of testing of himself on the part of Twissell?

He said, “Sit down and let’s get started. Your name in full and your homewhen.”

The Cub stammered, “Brinsley Sheridan Cooper of the 78th, sir.”

Harlan almost softened. That was close. It was only seventeen Centuries downwhen from his own homewhen. Almost a Temporal neighbor.

He said, “Are you interested in Primitive history?”

“Computer Twissell asked me to learn. I don’t know much about it.”

“What else are you learning?”

“Mathematics. Temporal engineering. I’m just getting the fundamentals so far. Back in the 78th, I was a Speedy-vac repairman.”