The End of Eternity Read Free Page B

ideals, or at least catchwords, to live by and for. Every stage of an Eternal’s life had a reason. How did “Basic Principles” start?
    “The life of an Eternal may be divided into four parts . . .”
    It all worked out neatly, yet it had all changed for him, and what was broken could not be made whole again.
    Yet he had gone faithfully through each of the four parts of an Eternal’s life. First, there was the period of fifteen years in which he was not an Eternal at all, but only an inhabitant of Time. Only a human being out of Time, a Timer, could become an Eternal; no one could be born into the position.
    At the age of fifteen he was chosen by a careful process of elimination and winnowing, the nature of which he had no conception of at the time. He was taken beyond the veil of Eternity after a last agonized farewell to his family. (Even then it was made clear to him that whatever else happened he would never return. The true reason for that he was not to learn till long afterward.)
    Once within Eternity, he spent ten years in school as a Cub, and then graduated to enter his third period as Observer. It was only after that that he became a Specialist and a true Eternal. The fourth and last part of the Eternal’s life: Timer, Cub, Observer and Specialist.
    He, Harlan, had gone through it all so neatly. He might say, successfully.
    He could remember, so clearly, the moment that Cubhood was done, the moment they became independent members of Eternity, the moment when, even though un-Specialized, they still rated the legal title of “Eternal.”
    He could remember it. School done, Cubhood over, he was standing with the five who completed training with him, hands clasped in the small of his back, legs a trifle apart, eyes front, listening.
    Educator Yarrow was at a desk talking to them. Harlan could remember Yarrow well: a small, intense man, with ruddy hair in disarray, freckled forearms, and a look of loss in his eyes. (It wasn’t uncommon, this look of loss in the eyes of an Eternal—the loss of home and roots, the unadmitted and unadmittable longing for the one Century he could never see.)
    Harlan could not remember Yarrow’s exact words, of course, but the substance of it remained sharp.
    Yarrow said, in substance, “You will be Observers now. It isn’t a highly regarded position. Specialists look upon it as a boy’s job. Maybe you Eternals” (he deliberately paused after that word to give each man a chance to straighten his back and brighten at the glory of it) “think so too. If so, you are fools who don’t deserve to be Observers.
    “The Computers would have no Computing to do, Life-Plotters no lives to Plot, Sociologists no societies to profile; none of the Specialists would have anything to do, if it weren’t for the Observer. I know you’ve heard this said before, but I want you to be very firm and clear in your mind about it.
    “It will be you youngsters who will go out into Time, under the most strenuous conditions, to bring back facts. Cold, objective facts uncolored by your own opinions and likings, you understand. Facts accurate enough to be fed into Computing machines. Facts definite enough to make the social equations stand up. Facts honest enough to form a basis for Reality Changes.
    “And remember this, too. Your period as Observer is not something to get through with as quickly and as unobtrusively as possible. It is as an Observer that you will make your mark. Not what you did in school, but what you will do as an Observer will determine your Specialty and how high you will rise in it. This will be your post-graduate course, Eternals, and failure in it, even small failure, will put you into Maintenance no matter how brilliant your potentialities now seem. That is all.”
    He shook hands with each of them, and Harlan, grave, dedicated, proud in his belief that the privileges of being an Eternal contained its greatest privilege in the assumption of responsibility for the happiness of