Isaac Asimov - The End of Eternity

He said, “What do you mean, you almost met yourself?”

Harlan told him briefly and went on, “You didn’t know that?”

“No.”

There were a few moments of silence that were as welcome to the feverish Harlan as water would have been.

Twissell said, “Is that it? What if you had met yourself?”

“I didn’t.”

Twissell ignored that. “There is always room for random variation. With an infinite number of Realities there can be no such thing as determinism. Suppose that in the Mallansohn Reality, in the previous turn of the cycle—“

“The circle goes on forever?” asked Harlan with what wonder he could still find in himself.

“Do you think only twice? Do you think two is a magic number? It’s a matter of infinite turns of the circle in finite physiotime. Just as you can draw a pencil round and round the circumference of a circle infinitely yet enclose a finite area. In previous turns of the cycle, you had not met yourself. This one time, the statistical uncertainty of things made it possible for you to meet yourself. Reality had to change to prevent the meeting and in the new Reality, you did not send Cooper back to the 24th but—“

Harlan cried, “What’s all this talk about? What are you getting at? It’s all done. Everything. Let me alone now! Let me alone! ”

“I want you to know you’ve done wrong. I want you to realize you did the wrong thing.”

“I didn’t. And even if I did, it’s done .”

“But it is not done. Listen just a little while longer.” Twissell was wheedling, almost crooning with an agonized gentleness. “You will have your girl. I promised that. I still promise it. She will not be harmed. You will not be harmed. I promise you this. It is my personal guarantee.”

Harlan stared at him wide-eyed. “But it’s too late. What’s the use?”

“It is not too late. Things are not irreparable. With your help, we can succeed yet. I must have your help. You must realize that you did wrong. I am trying to explain this to you. You must want to undo what you have done.”

Harlan licked his dry lips with a dry tongue and thought: He is mad. His mind can’t accept the truth. —or, does the Council know more?

Did it? Did it? Could it reverse the verdict of the Changes? Could they halt Time or reverse it?

He said, “You locked me in the control room, kept me helpless, you thought, till it was all over.”

“You said you were afraid something might go wrong with you; that you might not be able to carry on with your part.”

“That was meant to be a threat.”

“I took it literally. Forgive me. I must have your help.”

It came to that. Harlan’s help must be had. Was he mad? Was Harlan mad? Did madness have meaning? Or anything at all, for that matter?

The Council needed his help. For that help they would promise him anything. Noÿs. Computership. What would they not promise him? And when his help was done with, what would he get? He would not be fooled a second time.

“No!” he said.

“You’ll have Noÿs.”

“You mean the Council will be willing to break the laws of Eternity once the danger is safely gone? I don’t believe it.” How could the danger safely be passed, a sane scrap of his mind demanded. What was this all about?

“The Council will never know.”

“Would you be willing to break the laws? You’re the ideal Eternal. With the danger gone, you would obey the law. You couldn’t act otherwise.”

Twissell reddened blotchily, high on each cheekbone. From the old face all shrewdness and strength drained away. There was left only a strange sorrow.

“I will keep my word to you and break the law,” said Twissell, “for a reason you don’t imagine. I don’t know how much time is left us before Eternity disappears. It could be hours; it could be months. But I have spent so much time in the hope of bringing you to reason that I will spend a little more. Will you listen to me? Please?”

Harlan hesitated. Then, out of a conviction of the uselessness of all things as much as out of anything else said wearily, “Go on.”

I have heard (began Twissell) that I was born old, that I cut my teeth on a Micro-Computaplex, that I keep my hand computer in a special pocket of my pajamas when I sleep, that my brain is made up of little force-relays in endless parallel hookups and that each corpuscle of my blood is a microscopic spatio-temporal chart floating in computer oil.

All these stories come to me eventually, and I think I must be a little proud of them. Maybe I go around believing them a bit. It’s a foolish thing for an old man to do, but it makes life a little easier.

Does that surprise you? That I must find a way to make life easier? I, Senior Computer Twissell, senior member of the Allwhen Council?

Maybe that’s why I smoke. Ever think of that? I have to have a reason, you know. Eternity is essentially an unsmoking society, and most of Time is, too. I’ve thought of that often. I sometimes think it’s a rebellion against Eternity. Something to take the place of a greater rebellion that failed . . .

No, it’s all right. A tear or two won’t hurt me, and it isn’t pretense, believe me. It’s just that I haven’t thought about this for a long time. It isn’t pleasant.

It involved a woman, of course, as your affair did. That’s not coincidence. It’s almost inevitable, if you stop to think of it. An Eternal, who must sell the normal satisfactions of family life for a handful of perforations on foil, is ripe for infection. That’s one of the reasons Eternity must take the precautions it does. And, apparently, that’s also why Eternals are so ingenious in evading the precautions once in a while.

I remember my woman. It’s foolish of me to do so, perhaps. I can’t remember anything else about that physiotime. My old colleagues are only names in the record books; the Changes I supervised—all but one—are only items in the Computaplex memory pools. I remember her, though, very well. Perhaps you can understand that.

I had had a long-standing request for liaison in the books; and after I achieved status as a Junior Computer, she was assigned to me. She was a girl of this very Century, the 575th. I didn’t see her until after the assignment, of course. She was intelligent and kind. Not beautiful or even pretty, but then, even when young (yes, I was young, never mind the myths) I was not noted for my own looks. We were well suited to one another by temperament, she and I, and if I were a Timed man, I would have been proud to have her as my wife. I told her that many times. I believe it pleased her. I know it was the truth. Not all Eternals, who must take their women as and how Computing permits, are that fortunate.

In that particular Reality, she was to die young, of course, and none of her analogues was available for liaison. At first, I took that philosophically. After all, it was her short lifetime which made it possible for her to live with me without deleteriously affecting Reality.

I am ashamed of that now, of the fact that I was glad she had a short time to live. Just at first, that is. Just at first.

I visited her as often as spatio-temporal charting allowed. I squeezed every minute out of it, giving up meals and sleep when necessary, shifting my labor load shamelessly whenever I could. Her amiability passed the heights of my expectations, and I was in love. I put it bluntly. My experience of love is very small, and understanding it through Observation in Time is a shaky matter. As far as my understanding went, however, I was in love.

What began as the satisfaction of an emotional and physical need became a great deal more. Her imminent death stopped being a convenience and became a calamity. I Life-Plotted her. I didn’t go to the Life-Plotting departments, either. I did it myself. That surprises you, I imagine. It was a misdemeanor, but it was nothing compared to the crimes I committed later.