Isaac Asimov - The End of Eternity

Finge spoke for the first time. “What are you holding?”

“A weapon,” said Harlan, and brought it out. “Do you recognize it?” Its muzzle flared slightly and ended in a smooth metallic bulge.

“If you kill me. . .” began Finge.

“I won’t kill you,” said Harlan. “At a recent meeting you had a blaster. This is not a blaster. It is an invention of one of the past Realities of the 575th. Perhaps you are not acquainted with it. It was bred out of Reality. Too nasty. It can kill, but at low power it activates the pain centers of the nerve system and paralyzes as well. It is called, or was called, a neuronic whip. It works. This one is fully charged. I tested it on a finger.” He held up his left hand with its stiffened little finger. “It was very unpleasant.”

Finge stirred restlessly. “What is all this about, for Time’s sake?”

“There is some sort of a block across the kettle shafts at the 100,000th. I want it removed.”

“A block across the shafts?”

“Let’s not work away at being surprised. Yesterday you spoke to Twissell. Today there is the block. I want to know what you said to Twissell. I want to know what’s been done and what will be done. By Time, Computer, if you don’t tell me, I’ll use the whip. Try me, if you doubt my word.”

“Now listen”—Finge’s words slurred a bit and the first edge of fear made its appearance, and also a kind of desperate anger—“if you want the truth, it’s this. We know about you and Noÿs.”

Harlan’s eyes flickered. “What about myself and Noÿs?”

Finge said, “Did you think you were getting away with anything?” The Computer kept his eyes fixed on the neuronic whip and his forehead was beginning to glisten. “By Time, with the emotion you showed after your period of Observation, with what you did during the period of Observation, did you think we wouldn’t observe you? I would deserve to be broken as Computer if I had missed that. We know you brought Noÿs into Eternity. We knew it from the first. You wanted the truth. There it is.”

At that moment Harlan despised his own stupidity. “You knew?”

“Yes. We knew you had brought her to the Hidden Centuries. We knew every time you entered the 482nd to supply her with appropriate luxuries; playing the fool, with your Eternal’s Oath completely forgotten.”

“Then why didn’t you stop me?” Harlan was tasting the very dregs of his own humiliation.

“Do you still want the truth?” Finge flashed back, and seemed to gain courage in proportion as Harlan sank into frustration.

“Go on.”

“Then let me tell you that I didn’t consider you a proper Eternal from the start. A flashy Observer, perhaps, and a Technician who went through the motions. But no Eternal. When I brought you here on this last job, it was to prove as much to Twissell, who values you for some obscure reason. I wasn’t just testing the society in the person of the girl, Noÿs. I was testing you, too, and you failed as I thought you would fail. Now put away that weapon, that whip, whatever it is, and get out of here.”

“And you came to my personal quarters once,” said Harlan breathlessly, working hard to keep his dignity and feeling it slip from him as though his mind and spirit were as stiff and unfeeling as the whiplashed little finger on his left hand, “to goad me into doing what I did.”

“Yes, of course. If you want the phrase exactly, I tempted you. I told you the exact truth, that you could keep Noÿs only in the thenpresent Reality. You chose to act, not as an Eternal, but as a sniveler. I expected you to.”

“I would do it again now,” said Harlan gruffly, “and since it’s all known, you can see I have nothing to lose.” He thrust his whip outward toward Finge’s plump waistline and spoke through pale lips and clenched teeth. “What has happened to Noÿs?”

“I have no idea.”

“Don’t tell me that. What has happened to Noÿs?”

“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 Noÿs. 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.