"I tell you I don't know."
Harlan's fist tightened on the whip; his voice was low. "Your leg first. This will hurt."
"For Time's sake, listen. Wait!"
"All right. What has happened to her?"
"No, listen. So far it's just a breach of discipline. Reality wasn't affected. I made checks on that. Loss of rating is all you'll get. If you kill me, though, or hurt me with intent to kill, you've attacked a superior. There's the death penalty for that."
Harlan smiled at the futility of the threat. In the face of what had already happened death would offer a way out that in finality and simplicity had no equal.
Finge obviously misunderstood the reasons for the smile. He said hurriedly, "Don't think there's no death penalty in Eternity because you've never come across one. We know of them; we Computers. What's more, executions have taken place, too. It's simple. In any Reality, there are numbers of fatal accidents in which bodies are not recovered. Rockets explode in mid-air, aeroliners sink in mid-ocean or crash to powder in mountains. A murderer can be put on one of those vessels minutes, or seconds, before the fatal results. Is this worth that to you?"
Harlan stirred and said, "If you're stalling for rescue, it won't work. Let me tell you this: I'm not afraid of punishment. Furthermore, I intend to have Noys. I want her now. She does not exist in the current Reality. She has no analogue. There is no reason why we cannot establish formal liaison."
"It is against regulations for a Technician--"
"We will let the Allwhen Council decide," said Harlan, and his pride broke through at last. "I am not afraid of an adverse decision, either, any more than I am afraid of killing you. I am no ordinary Technician."
"Because you are Twissell's Technician?" and there was a strange look on Finge's round, sweating face that might have been hatred or triumph or part of each.
Harlan said, "For reasons much more important than that. And now…"
With grim determination he touched finger to the weapon's activator.
Finge screamed, "Then go to the Council. The Allwhen Council; they know. If you are that important--" He ended, gasping.
For a moment Harlan's finger hovered irresolutely. "What?"
"Do you think I would take unilateral action in a case like this? I reported this whole incident to the Council, timing it with the Reality Change. Here! Here are the duplicates."
"Hold on, don't move."
But Finge disregarded that order. With a speed as from the spur of a possessing fiend Finge was at his files. The finger of one hand located the code combination of the record he wanted, the fingers of the other punched it into the file. A silvery tongue of tape slithered out of the desk, its pattern of dots just visible to the naked eye.
"Do you want it sounded?" asked Finge, and without waiting threaded it into the sounder.
Harlan listened, frozen. It was clear enough. Finge had reported in full. He had detailed every motion of Harlan's in the kettle shafts. He hadn't missed one that Harlan could remember up to the point of making the report.
Finge shouted when the report was done, "Now, then, go to the Council. I've put no block in Time. I wouldn't know how. And don't think they're unconcerned about the matter. You said I spoke to Twissell yesterday. You're right. But I didn't call him; he called me. So go; ask Twissell. Tell them what an important Technician you are. And if you want to shoot me first; shoot and to Time with you."
Harlan could not miss the actual exultation in the Computer's voice. At that moment he obviously felt enough the victor to believe that even a neuronic whipping would leave him on the profit side of the ledger.
Why? Was the breaking of Harlan so dear to his heart? Was his jealousy over Noys so all-consuming a passion?
Harlan did scarcely more than formulate the questions in his mind, and then the whole matter, Finge and all, seemed suddenly meaningless to him.
He pocketed his weapon, whirled out the door, and toward the nearest kettle shaft.
It was the Council, then, or Twissell, at the very least. He was afraid of none of them, nor of all put together.
With each passing day of the last unbelievable month he had grown more convinced of his own indispensability. The Council, even the Allwhen Council itself, would have no choice but to come to terms when it was a choice of bartering one girl for the existence of all of Eternity.
11. Full Circle
It was with a dull surprise that Technician Andrew Harlan, on bursting into the 575th, found himself in the night shift. The passing of the physiohours had gone unnoticed during his wild streaks along the kettle shafts. He stared hollowly at the dimmed corridors, the occasional evidence of the thinned-out night force at work.
But in the continued grip of his rage Harlan did not pause long to watch uselessly. He turned toward personal quarters. He would find Twissell's room on Computer Level as he had found Finge's and he had as little fear of being noticed or stopped.
The neuronic whip was still hard against his elbow as he stopped before Twissell's door (the name plate upon it advertising the fact in clear, inlaid lettering).
Harlan activated the door signal brashly on the buzzer level. He shorted the contact with a damp palm and let the sound become continuous. He could hear it dimly.
A step sounded lightly behind him and he ignored it in the sure knowledge that the man, whoever he was, would ignore him. (Oh, rose-red Technician's patch!)
But the sound of steps halted and a voice said, "Technician Harlan?"
Harlan whirled. It was a Junior Computer, relatively new to the Section. Harlan raged inwardly. This was not quite the 482nd. Here he was not merely a Technician, he was Twissell's Technician, and the younger Computers, in their anxiety to ingratiate themselves with the great Twissell, would extend a minimum civility to his Technician.
The Computer said, "Do you wish to see Senior Computer Twissell?"
Harlan fidgeted and said, "Yes, sir." (The fool! What did he think anyone would be standing signaling at a man's door for? To catch a kettle?)
"I'm afraid you can't," said the Computer.
"This is important enough to wake him," said Harlan.
"Maybe so," said the other, "but he's outwhen. He's not in the 575th."
"Exactly when is he, then?" asked Harlan impatiently.
The Computer's glance became a supercilious stare. "I wouldn't know."
Harlan said, "But I have an important appointment first thing in the morning."
"You have," said the Computer, and Harlan was at a loss to account for his obvious amusement at the thought.
The Computer went on, even smiling now, "You're a little early, aren't you?"
"But I must see him."
"I'm sure he'll be here in the morning." The smile broadened.
"But--"
The Computer passed by Harlan, carefully avoiding any contact, even of garments.
Harlan's fists clenched and unclenched. He stared helplessly after the Computer and then, simply because there was nothing else to do, he walked slowly, and without full consciousness of his surroundings, back to his own room.
Harlan slept fitfully. He told himself he needed sleep. He tried to relax by main force, and, of course, failed. His sleep period was a succession of futile thought.
First of all, there was Noys.
They would not dare harm her, he thought feverishly. They could not send her back to Time without first calculating the effect on Reality and that would take days, probably weeks. As an alternative, they might do to her what Finge had threatened for him; place her in the path of an untraceable accident.
He did not take that into serious consideration. There was no necessity for drastic action such as that. They would not risk Harlan's displeasure by doing it. (In the quiet of a darkened sleeping room, and in that phase of half sleep where things often grew queerly disproportionate in thought, Harlan found nothing grotesque in his sure opinion that the Allwhen Council would not dare risk a Technician's displeasure.)