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"It is, but let's hit it in the 21st, then. It was at its peak in the
21st."
"Oh, let's try the 23rd."
Harlan said, "Well, why not?"
His face was impassive, but if the impassiveness could have
been peeled off, there would have been a grimness about him. His
grand, intuitional guess was more than a guess. Everything was
checking neatly.
Item Four: research. Twofold research.
For himself, first. Each day, with ferreting eyes, he went
through the reports on Twissell's desk. The reports concerned the
various Reality Changes being scheduled or suggested. Copies went to
Twissell routinely since he was a member of the Allwhen Council, and
Harlan knew he would not miss one. He looked first for the coming
Change in the 482nd. Secondly he looked for other Changes, any
other Changes, that might have a flaw, an imperfection, some
deviation from maximum excellence that might be visible to his own
trained and talented Technician's eyes.
In the strictest sense of the word the reports were not for his
study, but Twissell was rarely in his office these days, and no one else
saw fit to interfere with Twissell's personal Technician.
That was one part of his research. The other took place in the
575th Section branch of the library.
For the first time he ventured out of those portions of the
library which, ordinarily, monopolized his attention. In the past he
had haunted the section on Primitive history (very poor indeed, so
that most of his references and source materials had to be derived
from the far downwhen of the 3rd millennium, as was only natural, of
course). To an even greater extent he had ransacked the shelves
devoted to Reality Change, its theory, technique, and history; an
excellent collection (best in Eternity outside the Central branch itself,
thanks to Twissell) of which he had made himself full master.
Now he wandered curiously among the other film-racks. For the
first time he Observed (in the capital-O sense) the racks devoted to the
575th itself; its geographies, which varied little from Reality to
Reality, its histories, which varied more, and its sociologies, which
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varied still more. These were not the books or reports written about
the Century by Observing and Computing Eternals (with those he was
familiar), but by the Timers themselves.
There were the works of literature of the 575th and these stirred
memories of tremendous arguments he had heard of concerning the
values of alternate Changes. Would this masterpiece be altered or
not? If so, how? How did past Changes affect works of art?
For that matter, could there ever be general agreement about
art? Could it ever be reduced to quantitative terms amenable to
mechanical evaluation by the Computing machines?
A Computer named August Sennor was Twissell's chief
opponent in these matters. Harlan, stirred by Twissell's feverish
denunciations of the man and his views, had read some of Sennor's
papers and found them startling.
Sennor asked publicly and, to Harlan, disconcertingly, whether
a new Reality might not contain a personality within itself analogous
to that of a man who had been withdrawn into Eternity in a previous
Reality. He analyzed then the possibility of an Eternal meeting his
analogue in Time, either with or without knowing it, and speculated
on the results in each case. (That came fairly close to one of Eternity's
most potent fears, and Harlan shivered and hastened uneasily
through the discussion.) And, of course, he discussed at length the
fate of literature and art in various types and classifications of Reality
Changes.
But Twissell would have none of the last. "If the values of art
can't be computed," he would shout at Harlan, "then what's the use of
arguing about it?"
And Twissell's views, Harlan knew, were shared by the large
majority of the Allwhen Council.
Yet now Harlan stood at the shelves devoted to the novels of
Eric Linkollew, usually described as the outstanding writer of the
575th, and wondered. He counted fifteen different "Complete Works"
collections, each, undoubtedly, taken out of a different Reality. Each
was somewhat different, he was sure. One set was noticeably smaller
than all the others, for instance. A hundred Sociologists, he imagined,
must have written analyses of the differences between the sets in
terms of the sociological background of each Reality, and earned
status thereby.
Harlan passed on to the wing of the library which was devoted
to the devices and instrumentation of the various 575th's. Many of
these last, Harlan knew, had been eliminated in Time and remained
intact, as a product of human ingenuity, only in Eternity. Man had to
be protected from his own too flourishing technical mind. That more
than anything else. Not a physioyear passed but that somewhere in
Time nuclear technology veered too close to the dangerous and had to
be steered away.
He returned to the library proper and to the shelves on
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mathematics and mathematical histories. His fingers skimmed across
individual titles, and after some thought he took half a dozen from the
shelves and signed them out.
Item Five: Noys.
That was the really important part of the interlude, and all the
idyllic part.
In his off-hours, when Cooper was gone, when he might
ordinarily have been eating in solitude, reading in solitude, sleeping
in solitude, waiting in solitude for the next day--he took to the kettles.
With all his heart he was grateful for the Technician's position
in society. He was thankful, as he had never dreamed he could be, for
the manner in which he was avoided.
No one questioned his right to be in a kettle, nor cared whether
he aimed it upwhen or down. No curious eyes followed him, no
willing hands offered to help him, no chattering mouths discussed it
with him.
He could go where and when he pleased.
Noys said, "You've changed, Andrew. Heavens, you've changed."
He looked at her and smiled. "In what way, Noys?"
"You're smiling, aren't you? That's one of the ways. Don't you
ever look in a mirror and see yourself smiling?"
"I'm afraid to. I'd say: 'I can't be that happy. I'm sick. I'm
delirious. I'm confined in an asylum, living in daydreams, and
unaware of it.'"
Noys leaned close to pinch him. "Feel anything?"
He drew her head toward him, felt bathed in her soft, black
hair.
When they separated, she said breathlessly, "You've changed
there, too. You've become very good at it."
"I've got a good teacher," began Harlan, and stopped abruptly,
fearing that would imply displeasure at the thought of the many who
might have had the making of such a good teacher.
But her laugh seemed untroubled by such a thought. They had
eaten and she looked silky-smooth and warmly soft in the clothing he
had brought her.
She followed his eyes and fingered the skirt gently, lifting it
loose from its soft embrace of her thigh. She said, "I wish you
wouldn't, Andrew. I really wish you wouldn't."
"There's no danger," he said carelessly.
"There _is_ danger. Now don't be foolish. I can get along with
what's here, until--until you make arrangements."
"Why shouldn't you have your own clothes and doodads?"
"Because they're not worth your going to my house in Time and [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]