Robert Heinlein - Assignment in Eternity

The Doctor raised his eyebrows. "No? Look around you."

The younger man glanced about him. "Where are the others?"

"Where? Anywhere," replied Frost, with a shrug, "and way when."

Jenkins jerked off his ear-phones and jumped to his feet. "Doctor, what have you done to Estelle?"

Frost gently disengaged a hand from his sleeve. "I haven't done anything, Howard. She's out on another time track."

"But I meant to go with her!"

"And I tried to send you with her."

"But why didn't I go?"

"I can't say probably the suggestion wasn't strong enough to overcome your skepticism. But don't be alarmed, son we expect her back in a couple of hours, you know."

"Don't be alarmed! that's easy to say. I didn't want her to try this damn fool stunt in the first place, but I knew I couldn't change her mind, so I wanted to go along to look out for her she's so impractical! But see here, Doc where are their bodies? I thought we would just stay here in the room in a trance."

"Apparently you didn't understand me. These other time tracks are real, as real as this one we are in. Their whole beings have gone off on other tracks, as if they had turned down a side street."

"But that's impossible it contradicts the law of the conservation of energy!"

"You must recognize a fact when you see one they are gone. Besides, it doesn't contradict the law; it simply extends it to include the total universe."

Jenkins rubbed a hand over his face. "I suppose so. But in that case, anything can happen to her she could even be killed out there. And I can't do a damn thing about it. Oh, I wish we had never seen this damned seminar!"

The professor placed an arm around his shoulders. "Since you can't help her, why not calm down? Besides, you have no reason to believe that she is in any danger. Why borrow trouble? Let's go out to the kitchen and open a bottle of beer while we wait for them." He gently urged him toward the door.

After a couple of beers and a few cigarettes, Jenkins was somewhat calmed down. The professor made conversation.

"How did you happen to sign up for this course, Howard?"

"It was the only course I could take with Estelle."

"I thought so. I let you take it for reasons of my own. I knew you weren't interested in speculative philosophy, but I thought that your hard-headed materialism would hold down some of the loose thinking that is likely to go on in such a class. You've been a help to me. Take Helen Fisher for example. She is prone to reason brilliantly from insufficient data. You help to keep her down to earth."

"To be frank. Doctor Frost, I could never see the need for all this high-falutin discussion. I like facts."

"But you engineers are as bad as metaphysicians you ignore any fact that you can't weigh in scales. If you can't bite it, it's not real. You believe in a mechanistic, deterministic universe, and ignore the facts of human consciousness, human will, and human freedom of choice facts that you have directly experienced."

'But those things can be explained in terms of reflexes."

The professor spread his Rands. "You sound just like Martha Ross she can explain anything in terms of Bible-belt fundamentalism. Why don't both of you admit that there a few things you don't understand?" He paused and cocked his head. "Did you hear something?"

"I think I did."

"Let's check. It's early, but perhaps one of them is back."

They hurried to the study, where they were confronted by an incredible and awe-inspiring sight.

Floating in the air near the fireplace was a figure robed in white and shining with a soft mother-ofpearl radiance. While they stood hesitant at the door, the figure turned its face to them and they saw that it had the face of Martha Ross, cleansed and purified to an unhuman majesty. Then it spoke. "Peace be unto you, my brothers." A wave of peace and lovingldndness flowed over them like a mother's blessing. The figure approached them, and they saw, curving from its shoulders, the long, white, sweeping wings of a classical angel. Frost cursed under his breath in a dispassionate monotone.

"Do not be afraid, I have come back, as you asked me to. To explain and to help you."

The Doctor found his voice. "Are you Martha Ross?"

"I answer to that name."

"What happened after you put on the ear-phones?"

"Nothing. I slept for a while. When I woke, I went home."

"Nothing else? How do you explain your appearance?"

"My appearance is what you earthly children expect of the Lord's Redeemed. In the course of time I served as a missionary in South America. There it was required of me that I give up my mortal me in the service of the Lord. And so I entered the Eternal City."

"You went to Heaven?"

"These many eons I have sat at the foot of the Golden Throne and sung hosannas to His name."

Jenkins interrupted them. "Tell me, Martha or Saint Martha Where is Estelle? Have you seen her?"

The figure turned slowly and faced him. "Fear not."

"But tell me where she is!"

"It is not needful."

"That's no help," he answered bitterly.

"I will help you. Listen to me; Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and Love thy neighbor as thyself. That is all you need to know."

Howard remained silent, at a loss for an answer, but unsatisfied. Presently the figure spoke again. "I must go. God's blessing on you." It flickered and was gone.

The professor touched the young man's arm. "Let's get some fresh air." He led Jenkins, mute and unresisting, out into the garden. They walked for some minutes in silence. Finally Howard asked a question,

"Did we see an angel in there?"

"I think so, Howard."

"But that's insane!"

*There are millions of people who wouldn't think so unusual certainly, but not insane."

"But it's contrary to all modem beliefs Heaven Hell a personal God Resurrection. Everything I've believed in must be wrong, or I've gone screwy."

"Not necessarily not even probably. I doubt very much if you will ever see Heaven or Hell. YouTI follow a time track in accordance with your nature."

"But she seemed real."

"She was real. I suspect that the conventional hereafter is real to any one who believes in it wholeheartedly, as Martha evidently did, but I expect you to follow a pattern in accordance with die beliefs of an agnostic except in one respect; when you die, you won't die all over, no matter how intensely you may claim to expect to. It is an emotional impossibility for any man to believe in his own death. That sort of self-annihilation can't be done. Youll have a hereafter, but it will be one appropriate to a materialist."

But Howard was not listening. He pulled at his under lip and frowned. "Say, doc, why wouldn't Martha tell me what happened to Estelle? That was a dirty trick."

"I doubt if she knew, my boy. Martha followed a time track only slightly different from that we are in; Estelle chose to explore one far in the past. or in the distant future. For all practical purposes, each is non-existent to the other."

They heard a call from the house, a clear contralto voice, "Doctor! Doctor Frost!"

Jenkins whirled around. "That's Estellel" They ran back into the house, the Doctor endeavoring manfully to keep up.

But it was not Estelle. Standing in the hallway was Helen Fisher, her sweater torn and dirty, her stockings missing, and a barely-healed scar puckering one cheek. Frost stopped and surveyed her. "Are you all right, child?" he demanded.

She grinned boyishly. "I'm okay. You should see the other guy."

Tell us about it."

"In a minute. How about a cup of coffee for the prodigal? And I wouldn't turn up my nose at scrambled eggs and some lots of toast. Meals are inclined to be irregular where I've been."

"Yes, indeed. Right away." answered Frost, "but where have you been?"