The End of Eternity - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,11

(for the first time, really) and said stumblingly, "You are a Technician."

A considerable part of Harlan's excitement and warmth died. "What of it?"

"Nothing," said the Cub. "I just--"

"You heard Computer Twissell address me as Technician, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Did you think it was a slip of the tongue? Something too bad to be true?"

"No, sir."

"What's wrong with your speech?" Harlan asked brutally, and even as he did so, he felt shame nudge him.

Cooper blushed painfully. "I'm not very good at Standard Intertemporal."

"Why not? How long have you been a Cub?"

"Less than one year, sir."

"One year? How old are you, for Time's sake?"

"Twenty-four physioyears, sir."

Harlan stared. "Are you trying to tell me that they took you into Eternity at twenty-three?"

"Yes, sir."

Harlan sat down and rubbed his hands together. That just wasn't done. Fifteen to sixteen was the age of entrance into Eternity. What was this? A new kind of testing of himself on the part of Twissell?

He said, "Sit down and let's get started. Your name in full and your homewhen."

The Cub stammered, "Brinsley Sheridan Cooper of the 78th, sir."

Harlan almost softened. That was close. It was only seventeen Centuries downwhen from his own homewhen. Almost a Temporal neighbor.

He said, "Are you interested in Primitive history?"

"Computer Twissell asked me to learn. I don't know much about it."

"What else are you learning?"

"Mathematics. Temporal engineering. I'm just getting the fundamentals so far. Back in the 78th, I was a Speedy-vac repairman."

There was no point in asking the nature of a Speedy-vac. It might be a suction cleaner, a computing machine, a type of spray painter. Anything. Harlan wasn't particularly interested.

He said, "Do you know anything about history? Any kind of history?"

"I studied European history."

"Your particular political unit, I take it."

"I was born in Europe. Yes. Mostly, of course, they taught us modern history. After the revolutions of '54; 7554, that is."

"All right. First thing you do is to forget it. It doesn't mean anything. The history they try to teach Timers changes with every Reality Change. Not that they realize that. In each Reality, their history is the only history. That's what's so different about Primitive history. That's the beauty of it. No matter what any of us does, it exists precisely as it has always existed. Columbus and Washington, Mussolini and Hereford, they all exist."

Cooper smiled feebly. He brushed his little finger across his upper lip and for the first time Harlan noticed a trace of bristle there as though the Cub were cultivating a mustache.

Cooper said, "I can't quite-get used to it, all the time I've been here."

"Get used to what?"

"Being five hundred Centuries away from homewhen."

"I'm nearly that myself. I'm 95th."

"That's another thing. You're older than I am and yet I'm seventeen Centuries older than you in another way. I can be your great-great-great-and-so-on-grandfather."

"What's the difference? Suppose you are?"

"Well, it takes getting used to." There was a trace of rebellion in the Cub's voice.

"It does for all of us," said Harlan callously, and began talking about the Primitives. By the time three hours had passed, he was deep in an explanation concerning the reasons why there were Centuries before the ist Century.

("But isn't the 1st Century first?" Cooper had asked plaintively.)

Harlan ended by giving the Cub a book, not a good one, really, but one that would serve as a beginning. "I'll get you better stuff as we go along," he said.

By the end of a week Cooper's mustache had become a pronounced dark bristle that made him look ten years older and accentuated the narrowness of his chin. On the whole, Harlan decided, it would not be an improvement, that mustache.

Cooper said, "I've finished your book."

"What did you think of it?"

"In a way--" There was a long pause. Cooper began over again. "Parts of the later Primitive was something like the 78th. It made me think of home, you know. Twice, I dreamed about my wife."

Harlan exploded. "Your wife?"

"I was married before I came here."

"Great Time! Did they bring your wife across too?"

Cooper shook his head. "I don't even know if she's been Changed in the last year. If she has, I suppose she's not really my wife now."

Harlan recovered. Of course, if the Cub were twenty-three years old when he was taken into Eternity, it was quite possible that he might have been married. One thing unprecedented led to another.

What was going on? Once modifications were introduced into the rules, it wouldn't be a long step to the point where everything would decline into a mass of incoherency. Eternity