The End of Eternity Read Free

individual.”
    “I am not quite sure,” said the Sociologist slowly, “that I understand you. Surely you have the facilities for doing this in your own Section?”
    “I have. Nevertheless, what I am engaged in is a personal research which I don’t wish to appear in the records just yet. It would be difficult to have this carried out in my own Section without—” He gestured an uncertain conclusion to the unfinished sentence.
    Voy said, “Then you want this done
not
through official channels.”
    “I want it done confidentially. I want a confidential answer.”
    “Well, now, that’s very irregular. I can’t agree to it.”
    Harlan frowned. “No more irregular than my failure to report your error to the Allwhen Council. You raised no objection to that. If we’re going to be strictly regular in one case, we must be as strict and as regular in the other. You follow me, I think?”
    The look on Voy’s face was proof positive of that. He held out his hand. “May I see the documents?”
    Harlan relaxed a bit. The main hurdle had been passed. He watched eagerly as the Sociologist’s head bent over the foils he had brought.
    Only once did the Sociologist speak. “By Time, this is a small Reality Change.”
    Harlan seized his opportunity and improvised. “It is. Too small, I think. It’s what the argument is about. It’s below critical difference, and I’ve picked an individual as a test case.Naturally, it would be undiplomatic to use our own Section’s facilities until I was certain of being right.”
    Voy was unresponsive and Harlan stopped. No use running this past the point of safety.
    Voy stood up. “I’ll pass this along to one of my Life-Plotters. We’ll keep this private. You understand, though, that this is not to be taken as establishing a precedent.”
    “Of course not.”
    “And if you don’t mind, I’d like to watch the Reality Change take place. I trust you will honor us by conducting the M.N.C. personally.”
    Harlan nodded. “I will take full responsibility.”
     
    Two of the screens in the viewing chamber were in operation when they entered. The engineers had focused them already to the exact coordinates in Space and Time and then had left. Harlan and Voy were alone in the glittering room. (The molecular film arrangement was perceptible and even a bit more than perceptible, but Harlan was looking at the screens.)
    Both views were motionless. They might have been scenes of the dead, since they pictured mathematical instants of Time.
    One view was in sharp, natural color; the engine room of what Harlan knew to be an experimental spaceship. A door was closing, and a glistening shoe of a red, semi-transparent material was just visible through the space that remained. It did not move. Nothing moved. If the picture could have been made sharp enough to picture the dust motes in the air,
they
would not have moved.
    Voy said, “For two hours and thirty-six minutes after the viewed instant, that engine room will remain empty. In the current Reality, that is.”
    “I know,” murmured Harlan. He was putting on hisgloves and already his quick eyes were memorizing the position of the critical container on its shelf, measuring the steps to it, estimating the best position into which to transfer it. He cast one quick look at the other screen.
    If the engine room, being in the range described as “present” with respect to that Section of Eternity in which they now stood, was clear and in natural color, the other scene, being some twenty-five Centuries in the “future,” carried the blue luster all views of the “future” must.
    It was a spaceport. A deep blue sky, blue-tinged buildings of naked metal on blue-green ground. A blue cylinder of odd design, bulge-bottomed, stood in the foreground. Two others like it were in the background. All three pointed cleft noses upward, the cleavage biting deeply into the vitals of the ship.
    Harlan frowned. “They’re queer