'But it is unjust!'
'Unjust, is it? Watch your tongue or I will extend the sentence!'
Depressed and without hope, the Brooder allowed the guards to take him back to his cell.
The night passed and morning came and then the guards arrived. ' Get up,' said the leader,' the judge wishes to see you again!'
'Does he intend to increase my sentence, after all?'
'Ask him.'
The judge was tapping his desk nervously as the Brooder and his guards entered.
'You know of machines in Lanjis Liho, do you not? You have some strange ones I've heard. Do you wish to be released?'
'I wish to be released, of course. Yes, we know something of machines, but… '
'Our Great Regulator is out of control. I would not be surprised if your crime did not provide the shock which caused it to behave erratically. Something has gone wrong with its life core and we may have to evacuate Barbart if it cannot be adjusted. We have forgotten our old knowledge of machines.
If you adjust the Great Regulator, we shall let you go. Without it, we do not know when to sleep, eat or perform any of our other functions. We shall go mad if we lose its guidance!'
Scarcely understanding the rest of the judge's statement, the Brooder heard only the fact that he was to be released if he mended their machine. On the other hand, he had left Lanjis Liho for the very reason that the Chronarch would not give him trust of any instruments. He had little experience, yet, if it meant his release, he would try.
When he arrived again in the central plaza, he noted that the machine of burnished bronze - the Great Regulator, they called it - was making a peculiar grumbling noise and shaking mightily.
Around it, trembling in unison, stood a dozen old men, waving their hands.
'Here is the man from Lanjis Liho!' called the guard. They looked anxiously at the Scar-faced Brooder.
'The life-core. It must certainly be the life-core,' said an ancient, tugging at his jerkin.
'Let me see,' said the Scar-faced Brooder, not at all sure that he could be of help, They wound off several of the machine's outer plates and he stared through thick glass and looked at the luminous life-core.
He had seen them before and knew a little about them. He knew enough, certainly/to understand that this should not be glowing bright purple and showering particles with such constancy.
He knew, suddenly, that in an exceedingly short space of time - one of these people's ' minutes', perhaps - the life-core would reach a critical state, it would swell and burst from its confines and its radiation would destroy everything living. But, he ignored their shouts as he became lost in the problem, he would need considerably longer than that if he was to deal with it.
Soon, he realized helplessly, they would all be dead.
He turned to tell them this, and then it struck him. Why could not he, as he had guessed these citizens capable of, recycle that moment, personally? Since the previous day, his mind had been trying to see the logic in what Mokof had told him and, using parts of things the Chronarch had told him, he had constructed an idea of what the process must be like.
Experimentally, he eased himself backwards in time. Yes, it worked. The core was now as he had first seen it.
He had never thought of doing this before, but now he saw that it was easy, requiring merely a degree of concentration.
He was grateful for the Barbartians, with their weird time device, for giving him the idea.
All he had to do was to remember what the Chronarch had taught him about the nature of time-how it constantly and imperceptibly to ordinary beings re-formed its constituents to give it the apparently forward movement which affected, so broadly, the organization of matter.
Shifting himself into the time-area he had occupied a short while before, he began to study the temporal co-ordinates of the life-core. He could think of no physical means of stopping it, but if he could, in some manner, lock it in time, it would then cease to be a danger. But he would still have to work speedily, since, sooner or later, the temporal structure would fail to hold and he would sweep onwards, losing time continuously., until he was brought to the moment when the life-core began to spread its radiation.
Again and again he let himself drift up almost to the ultimate moment, shifting himself backwards, losing a few grains of time with every shift.
Then, at last, he understood the temporal construction of the core, With an effort of will he reduced the temporal co-ordinates to zero. It could not progress through time. It Was frozen and no longer a danger.
He fell back into his normal, time-stream, his body wet with sweat. They crowded about him, questioning in shrill, excited voices.
'What have you done? What have you done? Are we safe?'
'You are safe,' he said.
They seized him, thanking him with generous words, his earlier crime forgotten.' You must be rewarded.'
But he scarcely heard them, as they bore him back to the judge, for he was brooding on what he had just accomplished.
As a man might step backwards to regain lost ground, he had stepped backwards to regain lost time. He had his reward.
He was most grateful to these people now, for with their weird ideas about time, they had shown him that it was possible to exist at will in a point in time-just as it was possible to exist in a point in space. It was, he realized, merely a matter of knowing such a thing was possible. Then it became easy.
The judge had doffed his mask and smiled his gratitude.
'The wise men tell me that you worked a miracle. They saw your body flickering like a candle flame, disappearing and appearing constantly. How did you achieve this?'
He spread his hands: ' It was extraordinarily simple. Until I came to Barbart and saw the thing you call clock, I did not realize the possibilities of moving through time as I could move through space. It seemed to me that since you appeared capable of recycling the same period of time, I could do likewise. This I did. Then I studied the life-core and saw that, by manipulation of its time structure, I could fix it in a certain point, thus arresting its progress. So simple-and yet it might never have occurred to me if I had not come here.'
The judge passed a hand over his puzzled eyes. 'Ah… ' he said.
'And now,' the Brooder said cheerfully, ' I thank you for your hospitality. I intend to leave Barbart immediately, since I shall obviously never understand your customs. I return to Lanjis Liho to tell the Chronarch of my discoveries. Farewell.'
He left the court-room, crossed the plaza through crowds of grateful citizens, and was soon saddling Urge and riding away from Barbart in the land of fronds.
Two days later he came upon the Hooknosed Wanderer grubbing in a ditch he had just dug.
'Greetings, Wanderer,' he called from the saddle.
The Wanderer looked up, wiping salty earth from his face.
'Oh, 'tis you, Brooder. I thought you had decided to journey to the land of fronds.'
'I did. I went to Barbart and there - ' briefly the Brooder explained what had happened.
'Aha,' nodded the Wanderer. ' So the Chronarch is educating his people well, after all. I frankly considered what he was doing impossible. But you have proved me wrong.'
'What do you mean?'
'I think I can tell you. Come into my tent and drink some wine.'
'Willingly,' the Brooder said, dismounting.
From a plastic flask, the Wanderer poured wine into two cut-glass goblets.
'Lanjis Liho,' he said, ' was founded in ancient times as an experimental village where new-born children were taken and educated according to the teachings of a certain philosopher called Rashin. Rashin regarded people's attitude towards Time as being imposed on their consciousness by their method of recording and measuring it-by the state of mind which said "the past is the past and cannot be changed," " we cannot know what the future holds" and so forth; Our minds, he decided, were biased and while we continued to think in this way we should never be free of the shackles of time. It was, he felt, the most necessary shackle to cast off. He said, for instance that when the temperature becomes too hot, a man devises a means of keeping himself cool. When it rains he enters a shelter or devises a shelter he can transport with him. If he comes to a river, he builds a bridge, or if to the sea-a boat. Physical difficulties of a certain intensity can be overcome in a physical way. But what if the difficulties intensify to the degree where physical means can no longer work against them?'