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his Samson-smash, he might have saved one and kept the other.
15 Search through the Primitive
Twissell was shaking Harlan's shoulders. The old man's voice
urgently called his name.
"Harlan! Harlan! For Time's sake, man."
Harlan emerged only slowly from the slough. "What are we to
do?"
"Certainly not _this_. Not despair. To begin with, listen to me.
Forget your Technician's view of Eternity and look at it through a
Computer's eyes. The view is more sophisticated. When you alter
something in Time and create a Reality Change, the Change may take
place at once. Why should that be?"
Harlan said shakily, "Because your alteration has made the
Change inevitable?"
"Has it? You could go back and reverse your alteration, couldn't
you?"
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"I suppose so. I never did, though. Or anyone that I heard of."
"Right. There is no intention of reversing an alteration, so it
goes through as planned. But here we have something else. An
unintentional alteration. You sent Cooper into the wrong Century and
now I firmly intend to reverse that alteration and bring Cooper back
here."
"For Time's sake, how?"
"I'm not sure yet, but there _must_ be a way. If there were no
way, the alteration would be irreversible; Change would come at once.
But Change has not come. We are still in the Reality of the Mallansohn
memoir. That means the alteration is reversible and _will_ be
reversed."
"What?" Harlan's nightmare was expanding and swirling,
growing murkier and more engulfing.
"There must be some way of knitting the circle in Time together
again and our ability to find the way to do it must be a high-
probability affair. As long as our Reality exists, we can be certain that
the solution remains high-probability. If at any moment, you or I
make the wrong decision, if the probability of healing the circle falls
below some crucial magnitude, Eternity disappears. Do you
understand?"
Harlan was not sure that he did. He wasn't trying very hard.
Slowly he got to his feet and stumbled his way into a chair. "You mean
we can get Cooper back----"
"And send him to the right place, yes. Catch him at the moment
he leaves the kettle and he may end up in his proper place in the 24th
no more than a few physiohours older; physiodays, at the most. It
would be an alteration, of course, but undoubtedly not enough of one.
Reality would be rocked, boy, but not upset."
"But how do we get him?"
"We know there's a way, or Eternity wouldn't be existing this
moment. As to what that way is, that is why I need you, why I've
fought to get you back on my side. You're the expert on the Primitive.
Tell me."
"I can't," groaned Harlan.
"You can," insisted Twissell.
There was suddenly no trace of age or weariness in the old
man's voice. His eyes were ablaze with the light of combat and he
wielded his cigarette like a lance. Even to Harlan's regret-drugged
senses the man seemed to be enjoying himself, actually enjoying
himself, now that battle had been joined.
"We can reconstruct the event," said Twissell. "Here is the
thrust control. You're standing at it, waiting for the signal. It comes.
You make contact and at the same time squeeze the power thrust in
the downwhen direction. How far?"
"I don't know, I tell you. I don't know."
"_You_ don't know, but your muscles do. Stand there and take
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the controls in your hand. Get hold of yourself. Take them, boy.
You're waiting for the signal. You're hating me. You're hating the
Council. You're hating Eternity. You're wearying your heart out for
Noys. Put yourself back at that moment. Feel what you felt then. Now
I'll set the clock in motion again. I'll give you one minute, boy, to
remember your emotions and force them back into your thalamus.
Then, at the approach of zero, let your right hand jerk the control as it
had done before. Then take your hand away! Don't move it back again.
Are you ready?"
"I don't think I can do it."
"You don't think---- Father Time, you have no choice. Is there
another way you can get back your girl?"
There wasn't. Harlan forced himself back to the controls, and as
he did so emotion flooded back. He did not have to call on it.
Repeating the physical movements brought them back. The red
hairline on the clock started moving.
Detachedly he thought: The last minute of life?
Minus thirty seconds.
He thought: It will not hurt. It is not death.
He tried to think only of Noys.
Minus fifteen seconds.
Noys!
Harlan's left hand moved a switch down toward contact.
Minus twelve seconds.
Contact!
His right hand moved.
Minus five seconds.
Noys!
His right hand mo--ZERO--ved spasmodically.
He jumped away, panting.
Twissell came forward, peering at the dial. "Twentieth
Century," he said. "Nineteen point three eight, to be exact."
Harlan choked out, "I don't know. I tried to feel the same, but it
was different. I knew what I was doing and that made it different."
Twissell said, "I know, I know. Maybe it's all wrong. Call it a first
approximation." He paused a moment in mental calculation, took a
pocket computer half out of its container and thrust it back without
consulting it. "To Time with the decimal points. Say the probability is
0.99 that you sent him back to the second quarter of the 20th.
Somewhere between 19.25 and 19.50. All right?"
"I don't know."
"Well, now, look. If I make a firm decision to concentrate on
that part of the Primitive to the exclusion of all else and if I am wrong,
the chances are that I will have lost my chance to keep the circle in
time closed and Eternity will disappear. The decision itself will be the
crucial point, the Minimum Necessary Change, the M.N.C., to bring
about the Change. I now make the decision. I decide, definitely----"
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Harlan, looked about cautiously, as though Reality had grown
so fragile that a sudden head movement might shatter it.
Harlan said, "I'm thoroughly conscious of Eternity." (Twissell's
normality had infected him to the point where his voice sounded firm
in his own ears.)
"Then Eternity still exists," said Twissell in a blunt, matter-of-
fact manner, "and we have made the right decision. Now there's
nothing more to do here for the while. Let's get to my office and we
can let the subcommittee of the Council swarm over this place, if that
will make them any happier. As far as they are concerned, the project
has ended successfully. If it doesn't, they'll never know. Nor we."
Twissell studied his cigarette and said, "The question that now
confronts us is this: What will Cooper do when he finds himself in the
wrong Century?"
"I don't know."
"One thing is obvious. He's a bright lad, intelligent, imaginative,
wouldn't you say?"
"Well, he's Mallansohn."
"Exactly. And he wondered if he would end up wrong. One of his
last questions was: What if I don't end up in the right spot? Do you
remember?"
"Well?" Harlan had no idea where this was leading.
"So he is mentally prepared for being displaced in Time. He will
do something. Try to reach us. Try to leave traces for us. Remember,
for part of his life he was an Eternal. That's an important thing." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]