Isaac Asimov: The End of Eternity

Harlan’s mind failed him altogether. He nodded his head with a doltish grin and said nothing.

Twissell put his cigarette to his lips, puffed quickly, and took it away. “Leave us, Finge. I want to talk to the boy.”

Finge rose, murmured something, and left.

Twissell said, “You seem nervous, boy. There is nothing to be nervous about.”

But meeting Twissell like that was a shock. It is always disconcerting to find that someone you have thought of as a giant is actually less than five and a half feet tall. Could the brain of a genius actually fit behind the retreating, bald-smooth forehead? Was it sharp intelligence or only good humor that beamed out of the little eyes that screwed up into a thousand wrinkles.

Harlan didn’t know what to think. The cigarette seemed to obscure what small scrabble of intelligence he could collect. He flinched visibly as a puff of smoke reached him.

Twissell’s eyes narrowed as though he were trying to peer through the smoke haze and he said in horribly accented tenth-millennial dialect, “Will you petter feel if I in your yourself dialect should speech, poy?”

Harlan, brought to the sudden brink of hysterical laughter, said carefully, “I speak Standard Intertemporal quite well, sir.” He said it in the Intertemporal he and all other Eternals in his presence had used ever since his first months in Eternity.

“Nonsense,” said Twissell imperiously. “I do not bother of Intertemporal. My speech of ten-millennial is over than perfect.”

Harlan guessed that it had been some forty years since Twissell had had to make use of localwhen dialects.

But having made his point to his own satisfaction, apparently, he shifted to Intertemporal and remained there. He said, “I would offer you a cigarette, but I am certain you don’t smoke. Smoking is approved of hardly anywhen in history. In fact, good cigarettes are made only in the 72nd and mine have to be specially imported from there. I give you that hint in case you ever become a smoker. It is all very sad. Last week, I was stuck in the 123rd for two days. No smoking. I mean, even in the Section of Eternity devoted to the 123rd. The Eternals there have picked up the mores . If I had lit a cigarette it would have been like the sky collapsing. Sometimes I think I should like to calculate one great Reality Change and wipe out all the no-smoking taboos in all the Centuries, except that any Reality Change like that would make for wars in the 58th or a slave society in the 1000th. Always something.”

Harlan was first confused, then anxious. Surely these rattling irrelevancies must be hiding something.

His throat felt a little constricted. He said, “May I ask why you’ve arranged to see me, sir?”

“I like your reports, boy.”

There was a veiled glimmer of joy in Harlan’s eyes, but he did not smile. “Thank you, sir.”

“It has a touch of the artist. You are intuitive. You feel strongly. I think I know your proper position in Eternity and I have come to offer it to you.”

Harlan thought: I can’t believe this.

He held all triumph out of his voice. “You do me great honor, sir,” he said.

Whereupon Senior Computer Twissell, having come to the end of his cigarette, produced another in his left hand by some unnoted feat of legerdemain and lit it. He said between puffs, “For Time’s sake, boy, you talk as though you rehearsed lines. Great honor, bah. Piffle. Trash. Say what you feel in plain language. You’re glad, hey?”

“Yes, sir,” said Harlan cautiously.

“All right. You should be. How would you like to be a Technician?”

“A Technician!” cried Harlan, leaping from his seat.

“Sit down. Sit down. You seem surprised.”

“I hadn’t expected to be a Technician, Computer Twissell.”

“No,” said Twissell dryly, “somehow no one ever does. They expect anything but that. Yet Technicians are hard to find, and are always in demand. Not a Section in Eternity has what it considers enough.”

“I don’t think I’m suited.”

“You mean you’re not suited to take a job with trouble in it. By Time, if you are devoted to Eternity, as I believe you are, you won’t mind that. So the fools will avoid you and you will feel ostracized. You will grow used to that. And you will have the satisfaction of knowing you are needed, and needed badly. By me .”

“By you, sir? By you particularly?”

“Yes.” An element of shrewdness entered the old man’s smile. “You are not to be just a Technician. You will be my personal Technician. You will have special status. How does that sound now?”

Harlan said, “I don’t know, sir. I may not qualify.”

Twissell shook his head firmly. “I need you. I need just you. Your reports assure me you have what I need up here.” He tapped his forehead quickly with a ridge-nailed forefinger. “Your record as Cub is good; the Sections for which you have Observed reported favorably. Finally, Finge’s report was most suitable of all.”

Harlan was honestly startled. “Computer Finge’s report was favorable?”

“You didn’t expect that?”

“I—don’t know.”

“Well, boy, I didn’t say it was favorable. I said it was suitable. As a matter of fact, Finge’s report was not favorable. He recommended that you be removed from all duties connected with Reality Changes. He suggested it wasn’t safe to keep you anywhere but in Maintenance.”

Harlan reddened. “What were his reasons for saying so, sir?”

“It seems you have a hobby, boy. You are interested in Primitive history, eh?” He gestured expansively with his cigarette and Harlan, forgetting in his anger to control his breathing, inhaled a cloud of smoke and coughed helplessly.

Twissell regarded the young Observer’s coughing spell benignly and said, “Isn’t that so?”

Harlan began, “Computer Finge had no right—”

“Now, now. I told you what was in the report because it hinges on the purpose I need you most for. Actually, the report was confidential and you are to forget I told you what was in it. Permanently, boy.”

“But what’s wrong with being interested in Primitive history?”

“Finge thinks your interest in it shows a strong Wish-to-Time. You understand me, boy?”

Harlan did. It was impossible to avoid picking up psychiatric lingo. That phrase above all. Every member of Eternity was supposed to have a strong drive, the stronger for being officially suppressed in all its manifestations, to return, not necessarily to his own Time, but at least to some one definite Time; to become part of a Century, rather than to remain a wanderer through them all. Of course in most Eternals the drive remained safely hidden in the unconscious.

“I don’t think that’s the case,” said Harlan.

“Nor I. In fact, I think your hobby is interesting and valuable. As I said, it’s why I want you. I want you to teach a Cub I shall bring to you all you know and all you can learn about Primitive history. In between, you will also be my personal Technician. You’ll start in a few days. Is that agreeable?”

Agreeable? To have official permission to learn all he could about the days before Eternity? To be personally associated with the greatest Eternal of them all? Even the nasty fact of Technician’s status seemed bearable under those conditions.

His caution, however, did not entirely fail him. He said, “If it’s necessary for the good of Eternity, sir—“

“For the good of Eternity?” cried the gnomish Computer in sudden excitement. He threw his cigarette butt from him with such energy that it hit the far wall and bounced off in a shower of sparks. “I need you for the existence of Eternity.”