His brass-knuckled fist was ready.
The unknown sprang lightly away, swinging his cane. Dried blood stained his chin.
“I’ve locked the safe,” he said. “Better get out of here before the fire catches you, Denny.”
Holt mouthed a curse. He tried to reach the man but could not. Before he had covered more than two halting steps, the tall figure was gone, springing lightly out through the window and racing away into the rain.
Holt turned to the safe. He could hear the crackling of flames. Smoke was pouring through a doorway on his left.
He tested the safe; it was locked. He didn’t know the combination-so he couldn’t open it.
But Holt tried. He searched the desk, hoping Keaton might have scribbled the key on a paper somewhere. He fought his way to the laboratory steps and stood looking down into the inferno of the cellar, where Keaton’s burning, motionless body lay. Yes, Holt tried. And he failed.
Finally the heat drove him from the house. Fire trucks were screaming closer. There was no sign of Smith or anyone else.
Holt stayed, amid the crowds, to search, but Smith and his trackers had disappeared as though they had vanished into thin air.
“We caught him, Administrator,” said the tall man with the dried blood on his chin. “I came here directly on our return to inform you.”
The administrator blew out his breath in a sigh of deep relief.
“Any trouble, Jorus?”
“Not to speak of.”
“Well, bring him in,” the administrator said. “I suppose we’d better get this over with.”
Smith entered the office. His heavy overcoat looked incongruous against the celoflex garments of the others.
He kept his eyes cast down.
The administrator picked up a memo roll and read: “Sol 25, in the year of our Lord 2016. Subject: interference with probability factors. The accused has been detected in the act of attempting to tamper with the current probability-present by altering the past, thus creating a variable alternative present. Use of time machines is forbidden except by authorized officials. Accused will answer.”
Smith mumbled, “I wasn’t trying to change things, Administrator—” Jorus looked up and said, “Objection. Certain key time-place periods are forbidden. Brooklyn, especially the area about Keaton’s house, in the time near is P.M., January 10, 1943, is absolutely forbidden to time travellers. The prisoner knows why.”
“I knew nothing about it, Ser Jorus. You must believe me.”
Jorus went on relentlessly, “Administrator, here are the facts. The accused, having stolen a time traveller, set the controls manually for a forbidden space-time sector. Such sectors are restricted, as you know, because they are keys to the future; interference with such key spots will automatically alter the future and create a different line of probability. Keaton, in 5943, in his cellar laboratory, succeeded in working out the formula for what we know now as M-Power. He hurried upstairs, opened his safe, and noted down the formula in his book, in such a form that it could very easily have been deciphered and applied even by a layman. At that time there was an explosion in Keaton’s laboratory and he replaced the notebook in the safe and went downstairs, neglecting, however, to relock the safe. Keaton was killed; he had not known the necessity of keeping M-Power away from radium, and the atomic synthesis caused the explosion. The subsequent fire destroyed Keaton’s notebook, even though it had been within the safe. It was charred into illegibility, nor was its value suspected. Not until the first year of the twenty-first century was M-Power rediscovered.”
Smith said, “I didn’t know all that, Ser Jorus.”
“You are lying. Our organization does not make mistakes. You found a key spot in the past and decided to change it, thus altering our present. Had you succeeded, Dennis Holt of 1943 would have taken Keaton’s notebook out of the burning house and read it. His curiosity would have made him open the notebook. He would have found the key to M-Power. And, because of the very nature of M-Power, Dennis Holt would have become the most powerful man in his world ‘time. According to the variant probability line you were aiming at, Dennis Holt, had he got that notebook, would have been dictator of the world now. This world, as we know it, would not exist, though its equivalent would-a brutal, ruthless civilization ruled by an autocratic Dennis Holt, the sole possessor of M-Power. In striving for that end, the prisoner has committed a serious crime.”
Smith lifted his head. “I demand euthanasia,” he said. “If you want to blame me for trying to get out of this damned routine life of mine, very well. I never had a chance, that’s all.”
The administrator raised his eyebrows. “Your record shows you have had many chances. You are incapable of succeeding through your own abilities; you are in the only job you can do well. But your crime is, as Jorus says, serious. You have tried to create a new probability-present, destroying this one by tampering with a key spot in the past. And, had you succeeded, Dennis Holt would now be dictator of a race of slaves. Euthanasia is no longer your privilege; your crime is too serious. You must continue to live, at your appointed task, until the day of your natural death.”
Smith choked. “It was his fault-if he’d got that notebook in time—” Jorus looked quizzical. “His?
Dennis Holt, at the age of twenty, in 1943… his fault? No, it is yours, I think-for trying to change your past and your present.”
The administrator said, “Sentence has been passed. It is ended.”
And Dennis Holt, at the age of ninety-three, in the year of our Lord 2056, turned obediently and went slowly back to his job, the same one he would fill now until he died.
And Dennis Holt, at the age of twenty, in the year of our Lord 5943, drove his taxi home from Brooklyn, wondering what it had all been about. The veils of rain swept slanting across the windshield.
Denny took another drink out of the bottle and felt the rye steal comfortingly through his body.
What had it all been about?
Banknotes rustled crisply in his pocket. Denny grinned. A thousand smackeroos! His stake. His capital. With that, now, he could do plenty-and he would, too. All a guy needed was a little ready money, and he could go places.
“You bet!” Dennis Holt said emphatically. “I’m not going to hold down the same dull job all my life.
Not with a thousand bucks-not me!”
HOUSING PROBLEM
Jacqueline said it was a canary, but I contended that there were a couple of lovebirds in the covered cage. One canary could never make that much fuss. Besides, I liked to think of crusty old Mr. Henchard keeping lovebirds; it was so completely inappropriate. But whatever ouz roomer kept in that cage by his window, he shielded it-or them-jealously from prying eyes. All we had to go by were the noises.
And they weren’t too simple to figure out. From under the cretonne cloth came shufflings, rustlings, occasional faint and inexplicable pops, and once or twice a tiny thump that made the whole hidden cage shake on its redwood pedestal-stand. Mr. Henchard must have known that we were curious. But all he said when Jackie remarked that birds were nice to have around, was “Claptrap! Leave that cage alone, d’ya hear?”
That made us a little mad. We’re not snoopers, and after that brush-off, we coldly refused to even look at the shrouded cretonne shape. We didn’t want to lose Mr. Henchard, either. Roomers were surprisingly hard to get. Our little house was on the coast highway; ‘the town was a couple of dozen homes, a grocery, a liquor store, the post office and Terry’s restaurant. That was about all. Every morning Jackie and I hopped the bus and rode in to the factory, an hour away. By the time we got home, we were pretty tired. We couldn’t get any household help — war jobs paid a lot better — so we both pitched in and cleaned. As for cooking, we were Terry’s best customers.