Isaac Asimov - The End of Eternity

“Harlan, are you ill? Cooper tells me you’ve skipped several discussion periods.”

Harlan tried to smooth the trouble out of his face. “No, Computer Twissell. I’m a little tired.”

“Well, that’s forgivable, at any rate, boy.” And then the smile on his face came about as close as it ever did to vanishing entirely. “Have you heard that the 482nd has been Changed?”

“Yes,” said Harlan shortly.

“Finge called me,” said Twissell, “and asked that you be told that the Change was entirely successful.”

Harlan shrugged, then grew aware of Twissell’s eyes staring out of the Communiplate and hard upon him. He grew uneasy and said, “Yes, Computer?”

“Nothing,” said Twissell, and perhaps it was the cloak of age weighing down upon his shoulders, but his voice was unaccountably sad. “I thought you were about to speak.”

“No,” said Harlan. “I had nothing to say.”

“Well, then, I’ll see you tomorrow at opening in the Computing Room, boy. I have a great deal to say.”

“Yes, sir,” said Harlan. He stared for long minutes at the plate after it went dark.

That had almost sounded like a threat. Finge had called Twissell, had he? What had he said that Twissell did not report.

But an outside threat was what he needed. Battling a sickness of the spirit was like standing in a quicksand and beating it with a stick. Battling Finge was another thing altogether. Harlan had remembered the weapon at his disposal and for the first time in days felt a fraction of self-confidence return.

It was as though a door had closed and another had opened. Harlan grew as feverishly active as previously he had been catatonic. He traveled to the 2456th and bludgeoned Sociologist Voy to his own exact will.

He did it perfectly. He got the information he sought.

And more than he sought. Much more.

Confidence is rewarded, apparently. There was a homewhen proverb that went: “Grip the nettle firmly and it will become a stick with which to beat your enemy.”

In short, Noÿs had no analogue in the new Reality. No analogue at all. She could take her position in the new society in the most inconspicuous and convenient manner possible, or she could stay in Eternity. There could be no reason to deny him liaison except for the highly theoretical fact that he had broken the law—and he knew very well how to counter that argument.

So he went racing upwhen to tell Noÿs the great news, to bathe in undreamed-of success after a few days horrible with apparent failure.

And at this moment the kettle came to a halt.

It did not slow; it simply halted. If the motion had been one along any of the three dimensions of space, a halt that sudden would have smashed the kettle, brought its metal to a dull red heat, turned Harlan into a thing of broken bone and wet, crushed flesh.

As it was, it merely doubled him with nausea and cracked him with inner pain.

When he could see, he fumbled to the temporometer and stared at it with fuzzy vision. It read 100,000.

Somehow that frightened him. It was too round a number.

He turned feverishly to the controls. What had gone wrong?

That frightened him too, for he could see nothing wrong. Nothing had tripped the drive-lever. It remained firmly geared into the upwhen drive. There was no short circuit. All the indicator dials were in the black safety range. There was no power failure. The tiny needle that marked the steady consumption of meg-megcoulombs of power calmly insisted that power was being consumed at the usual rate.

What, then, had stopped the kettle?

Slowly, and with considerable reluctance, Harlan touched the drivelever, curled his hand about it. He pushed it to neutral, and the needle on the power gauge declined to zero.

He twisted the drive-lever back in the other direction. Up went the power gauge again, and this time the temporometer flicked downwhen along the line of Centuries.

Downwhen—downwhen—99,983—99,972—99,959—

Again Harlan shifted the lever. Upwhen again. Slowly. Very slowly.

Then 99,985—99,993—99,997—99,998—99,999—100,000—

Smash! Nothing past 100,000. The power of Nova Sol was silently being consumed, at an incredible rate, to no purpose.

He went downwhen again, farther. He roared upwhen. Smash!

His teeth were clenched, his lips drawn back, his breath rasping. He felt like a prisoner hurling himself bloodily against the bars of a prison.

When he stopped, a dozen smashes later, the kettle rested firmly at 100,000. Thus far, and no farther.

He would change kettles! (But there was not much hope in that thought.)

In the empty silence of the 100,000th Century, Andrew Harlan stepped out of one kettle and chose another kettle shaft at random.

A minute later, with the drive-lever in his hand, he stared at the marking of 100,000 and knew that here, too, he could not pass.

He raged! Now! At this time! When things so unexpectedly had broken in his favor, to come to so sudden a disaster. The curse of that moment of misjudgment in entering the 482nd was still on him.

Savagely he spun the lever downwhen, pressing it hard at maximum and keeping it there. At least in one way he was free now, free to do anything he wanted. With Noÿs cut off behind a barrier and out of his reach, what more could they do to him? What more had he to fear?

He carried himself to the 575th and sprang from the kettle with a reckless disregard for his surroundings that he had never felt before. He made his way to the Section library, speaking to no one, regarding no one. He took what he wanted without glancing about to see if he were observed. What did he care?

Back to the kettle and downwhen again. He knew exactly what he would do. He looked at the large clock as he passed, measuring off Standard Physiotime, numbering the days and marking off the three coequal work shifts of the physioday. Finge would be at his private quarters now, and that was so much the better.

Harlan felt as though he were running a temperature when he arrived at the 482nd. His mouth was dry and cottony. His chest hurt. But he felt the hard shape of the weapon under his shirt as he held it firmly against his side with one elbow and that was the only sensation that counted.

Assistant Computer Hobbe Finge looked up at Harlan, and the surprise in his eyes slowly gave way to concern.

Harlan watched him silently for a while, letting the concern grow and waiting for it to change to fear. He circled slowly, getting between Finge and the Communiplate.

Finge was partly undressed, bare to the waist. His chest was sparsely haired, his breasts puffy and almost womanish. His tubby abdomen lapped over his waistband.

He looks undignified, thought Harlan with satisfaction, undignified and unsavory. So much the better.

He put his right hand inside his shirt and closed it firmly on the grip of his weapon.

Harlan said, “No one saw me, Finge, so don’t look toward the door. No one’s coming here. You’ve got to realize, Finge, that you’re dealing with a Technician. Do you know what that means?”

His voice was hollow. He felt angry that fear wasn’t entering Finge’s eyes, only concern. Finge even reached for his shirt and, without a word, began to put it on.

Harlan went on, “Do you know the privilege of being a Technician, Finge? You’ve never been one, so you can’t appreciate it. It means no one watches where you go or what you do. They all look the other way and work so hard at not seeing you that they really succeed at it. I could, for instance, go to the Section library, Finge, and help myself to any curious thing while the librarian busily concerns himself with his records and sees nothing. I can walk down the residential corridors of the 482nd and anyone passing turns out of my way and will swear later on he saw no one. It’s that automatic. So you see, I can do what I want to do, go where I want to go. I can walk into the private apartments of the Assistant Computer of a Section and force him to tell the truth at weapon point and there’ll be no one to stop me.”