The End of Eternity

Twissell said, "The woman you took into Eternity?"

Harlan smiled bitterly, said nothing.

Twissell said, "What has she to do with this? Great Time, I don't understand, boy."

"What is there to understand?" Harlan burned with sorrow. "Why do you pretend ignorance? I had a woman. I was happy and so was she. We harmed no one. She did not exist in the new Reality. What differ. ence would it have made to anyone?"

Twissell tried vainly to interrupt.

Harlan shouted. "But there are rules in Eternity, aren't there? I know them all. Liaisons require permission; liaisons require computations; liaisons require status; liaisons are tricky things. What were you planning for Noys when all this was over? A seat in a crashing rocket? Or a more comfortable position as community mistress for worthy Computers? You won't make any plans now, I think."

He ended in a kind of despair and Twissell moved quickly to the Communiplate. Its function as a transmitter had obviously been restored.

The Computer shouted into it till he aroused an answer. Then he said, "This is Twissell. No one is to be allowed in here. No one. No one. Do you understand?… Then see to it. It goes for members of the Allwhen Council. It goes for them particularly."

He turned back to Harlan, saying abstractedly, "They'll do it because I'm old and senior member of the Council and because they think I'm cranky and queer. They give in to me because I'm cranky and queer." For a moment he fell into a ruminative silence. Then he said, "Do you think I'm queer?" and his face turned swiftly up to Harlan's like that of a seamed monkey.

Harlan thought: Great Time, the man's mad. The shock has driven him mad.

He took a step backward, automatically aghast at being trapped with a madman. Then he steadied. The man, be he ever so mad, was feeble, and even madness would end soon.

Soon? Why not at once? What delayed the end of Eternity?

Twissell said (he had no cigarette in his fingers; his hand made no move to take one) in a quiet insinuating voice, "You haven't answered me. Do you think I'm queer? I suppose you do. Too queer to talk to. If you had thought of me as a friend instead of as a crotchety old man, whimsical and unpredictable, you would have spoken openly to me of your doubts. You would have taken no such action as you did."

Harlan frowned. The man thought Harlan was mad. That was it!

He said angrily, "My action was the right one. I'm quite sane."

Twissell said, "I told you the girl was in no danger, you know."

"I was a fool to believe that even for a while. I was a fool to believe the Council would be just to a Technician."

"Who told you the Council knew of any of this?"

"Finge knew of it and sent in a report concerning it to the Council."

"And how do you know that?"

"I got it out of Finge at the point of a neuronic whip. The business end of a whip abolishes comparative status."

"The same whip that did this?" Twissell pointed to the gauge with its blob of molten metal perched wryly above the face of the dial.

"Yes."

"A busy whip." Then, sharply, "Do you know why Finge took it to the Council instead of handling the matter himself?"

"Because he hated me and wanted to make certain I lost all status. He wanted Noys."

Twissell said, "You're naпve! If he had wanted the girl, he could easily have arranged liaison. A Technician would not have been in his way. The man hated me, boy." (Still no cigarette. He looked odd without one and the stained finger he lay on his chest as he spoke the last pronoun looked almost indecently bare.)

"You?"

"There's such a thing, boy, as Council politics. Not every Computer is appointed to the Council. Finge wanted an appointment. Finge is ambitious and wanted it badly. I blocked it because I thought him emotionally unstable. Time, I never fully appreciated how right I was… Look, boy. He knew you were a protйgй of mine. He had seen me take you out of a job as an Observer and make you a master Technician. He saw you working for me steadily. How better could he get back at me and destroy my influence? If he could prove my pet Technician guilty of a terrible crime against Eternity, it would reflect on me. It might force my resignation from the Allwhen Council, and who do you suppose would then be a logical successor?"

His empty hands moved to his lips and when nothing happened, he looked at the space between finger and thumb blankly.

Harlan thought: He's not as calm as he's trying to sound. He can't be. But why does he talk all this nonsense now? With Eternity ending?

Then in agony: But why doesn't it end then? Now!

Twissell said, "When I allowed you to go to Finge just recently, I more than half suspected danger. But Mallansohn's memoir said you were away the last month and no other natural reason for your absence offered itself. Fortunately, Finge underplayed his hand."

"In what way?" asked Harlan wearily. He didn't really care, but Twissell talked and talked and it was easier to take part than to try to shut the sound out of his ears.

Twissell said, "Finge labeled his report: '_In re_ unprofessional conduct of Technician Andrew Harlan.' He was being the faithful Eternal, you see, being cool, impartial, unexcited. He was leaving it to the Council to rage and throw itself at me. Unfortunately for himself, he did not know of your real importance. He did not realize that any report concerning you would be instantly referred to me, unless its supreme importance were made perfectly clear on the very face of things."

"You never spoke to me of this?"

"How could I? I was afraid to do anything that would disturb you with the crisis of the project at hand. I gave you every opportunity to bring your problem to me."

Every opportunity? Harlan's mouth twisted in disbelief, but then he thought of Twissell's weary face on the Communiplate asking him if he had nothing to say to him. That was yesterday. Only yesterday.

Harlan shook his head, but turned his face away now.

Twissell said softly, "I realized at once that he had deliberately goaded you into your-rash action."

Harlan looked up. "You know that?"

"Does that surprise you? I knew Finge was after my neck. I've known it for a long time. I am an old man, boy. I know these things. But there are ways in which doubtful Computers can be checked upon. There are some protective devices, culled out of Time, that are not placed in the museums. There are some that are known to the Council alone."

Harlan thought bitterly of the time-block at the 100,000th.

"From the report and from what I knew independently, it was easy to deduce what must have happened."

Harlan asked suddenly, "I suppose Finge suspected you of spying?"

"He might have. I wouldn't be surprised."

Harlan thought back to his first days with Finge when Twissell first showed his abnormal interest in the young Observer. Finge had known nothing of the Mallansohn project, and he had been interested in Twissell's interference. "Have you ever met Senior Computer Twissell?" he had once asked and, thinking back, Harlan could recall the exact tone of sharp uneasiness in the man's voice. As early as that Finge must have suspected Harlan of being Twissell's finger-man. His enmity and hate must have begun that early.

Twissell was speaking, "So if you had come to me--"

"Come to you?" cried Harlan. "What of the Council?"

"Of the entire Council, only I know."

"You never told them?" Harlan tried to be mocking.

"I never did."

Harlan felt feverish. His clothes were choking him. Was this nightmare to go on forever. Foolish, irrelevant chatter! _For what? Why?_