The End of Eternity - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,31

succeed.

Harlan said flatly, "I think you've come to see me about my report."

"Yes, I have." The Computer looked about, selected a chair, and sat down gingerly. "It is not complete, as I said over the communicator."

"In what way, sir?" (Calm! Calm!)

Finge broke into a nervous twitch of a smile. "What happened that you didn't mention, Harlan?"

"Nothing, sir." And though he said it firmly, he stood there, hangdog.

"Come, Technician. You spent several periods of time in the society of the young lady. Or you did if you followed the spatio-temporal chart. You did follow it, I suppose?"

Harlan's guilt riddled him to the point where he could not even rise to the bait of this open assault upon his professional competence.

He could only say, "I followed it."

"And what happened? You include nothing of the private interludes with the woman."

"Nothing of importance happened," said Harlan, dry-lipped.

"That is ridiculous. At your time of life and with your experience, I don't have to tell you that it is not for an Observer to judge what is important and what is not."

Finge's eyes were keenly upon Harlan. They were harder and more eager than quite befitted his soft line of questioning.

Harlan noted that well and was not fooled by Finge's gentle voice, yet the habit of duty tugged at him. An Observer must report everything. An Observer was merely a sense-perceptive pseudopod thrust out by Eternity into Time. It tested its surroundings and was drawn back. In the fulfillment of his function an Observer had no individuality of his own; he was not really a man.

Almost automatically Harlan began his narration of the events he had left out of his report. He did it with the trained memory of the Observer, reciting the conversations with word-for-word accuracy, re constructing the tone of voice and cast of countenance. He did it lovingly, for in the telling he lived it again, and almost forgot, in the process, that a combination of Finge's probing and his own healing sense of duty was driving him into an admission of guilt.

It was only as he approached the end result of that first long conversation that he faltered and the shell of his Observer's objectivity showed cracks.

He was saved from further details by the hand that Finge suddenly raised and by the Computer's sharp, edgy voice. "Thank you. It is enough. You were about to say that you made love to the woman."

Harlan grew angry. What Finge said was the literal truth, but Finge's tone of voice made it sound lewd, coarse, and, worse than that, commonplace. Whatever else it was, or might be, it was not commonplace.

Harlan had an explanation for Finge's attitude, for his anxious cross-examination, for his breaking off the verbal report at the moment he did. Finge was jealous! That much Harlan would have sworn was obvious. Harlan had succeeded in taking away a girl that Finge had meant to have.

Harlan felt the triumph in that and found it sweet. For the first time in his life he knew an aim that meant more to him than the frigid fulfillment of Eternity. He was going to keep Finge jealous, because Noys Lambent was to be permanently his.

In this mood of sudden exaltation he plunged into the request that originally he had planned to present only after a wait of a discreet four or five days.

He said, "It is my intention to apply for permission to form a liaison with a Timed individual."

Finge seemed to snap out of a reverie. "With Noys Lambent, I presume."

"Yes, sir. As Computer in charge of the Section, it will have to go through you..."

Harlan wanted it to go through Finge. Make him suffer. If he wanted the girl himself, let him say so and Harlan could insist on allowing Noys to make her choice. He almost smiled at that. He hoped it would come to that. It would be the final triumph.

Ordinarily, of course, a Technician could not hope to push through such a matter in the face of a Computer's desires, but Harlan was sure he could count on Twissell's backing, and Finge had a long way to go before he could buck Twissell.

Finge, however, seemed tranquil. "It would seem," he said, "that you have already taken illegal possession of the girl."

Harlan flushed and was moved to a feeble defense. "The spatio-temporal chart insisted on our remaining alone together. Since nothing of what happened was specifically forbidden, I feel no guilt."

Which was a lie, and from Finge's half-amused expression one could feel