man hated me, boy." (Still no cigarette. He looked odd without one and the stained finger he lay on his chest as he spoke the last pronoun looked almost indecently bare.)
"You?"
"There's such a thing, boy, as Council politics. Not every Computer is appointed to the Council. Finge wanted an appointment. Finge is ambitious and wanted it badly. I blocked it because I thought him emotionally unstable. Time, I never fully appreciated how right I was... Look, boy. He knew you were a protйgй of mine. He had seen me take you out of a job as an Observer and make you a master Technician. He saw you working for me steadily. How better could he get back at me and destroy my influence? If he could prove my pet Technician guilty of a terrible crime against Eternity, it would reflect on me. It might force my resignation from the Allwhen Council, and who do you suppose would then be a logical successor?"
His empty hands moved to his lips and when nothing happened, he looked at the space between finger and thumb blankly.
Harlan thought: He's not as calm as he's trying to sound. He can't be. But why does he talk all this nonsense now? With Eternity ending?
Then in agony: But why doesn't it end then? Now!
Twissell said, "When I allowed you to go to Finge just recently, I more than half suspected danger. But Mallansohn's memoir said you were away the last month and no other natural reason for your absence offered itself. Fortunately, Finge underplayed his hand."
"In what way?" asked Harlan wearily. He didn't really care, but Twissell talked and talked and it was easier to take part than to try to shut the sound out of his ears.
Twissell said, "Finge labeled his report: ' In re unprofessional conduct of Technician Andrew Harlan.' He was being the faithful Eternal, you see, being cool, impartial, unexcited. He was leaving it to the Council to rage and throw itself at me. Unfortunately for himself, he did not know of your real importance. He did not realize that any report concerning you would be instantly referred to me, unless its supreme importance were made perfectly clear on the very face of things."
"You never spoke to me of this?"
"How could I? I was afraid to do anything that would disturb you with the crisis of the project at hand. I gave you every opportunity to bring your problem to me."
Every opportunity? Harlan's mouth twisted in disbelief, but then he thought of Twissell's weary face on the Communiplate asking him if he had nothing to say to him. That was yesterday. Only yesterday.
Harlan shook his head, but turned his face away now.
Twissell said softly, "I realized at once that he had deliberately goaded you into your-rash action."
Harlan looked up. "You know that?"
"Does that surprise you? I knew Finge was after my neck. I've known it for a long time. I am an old man, boy. I know these things. But there are ways in which doubtful Computers can be checked upon. There are some protective devices, culled out of Time, that are not placed in the museums. There are some that are known to the Council alone."
Harlan thought bitterly of the time-block at the 100,000th.
"From the report and from what I knew independently, it was easy to deduce what must have happened."
Harlan asked suddenly, "I suppose Finge suspected you of spying?"
"He might have. I wouldn't be surprised."
Harlan thought back to his first days with Finge when Twissell first showed his abnormal interest in the young Observer. Finge had known nothing of the Mallansohn project, and he had been interested in Twissell's interference. "Have you ever met Senior Computer Twissell?" he had once asked and, thinking back, Harlan could recall the exact tone of sharp uneasiness in the man's voice. As early as that Finge must have suspected Harlan of being Twissell's finger-man. His enmity and hate must have begun that early.
Twissell was speaking, "So if you had come to me--"
"Come to you?" cried Harlan. "What of the Council?"
"Of the entire Council, only I know."
"You never told them?" Harlan tried to be mocking.
"I never did."
Harlan felt feverish. His clothes were choking him. Was this nightmare to go on forever. Foolish, irrelevant chatter! For what? Why?
Why didn't Eternity end? Why didn't the clean peace of non-Reality reach out for them? Great Time, what was wrong?
Twissell said, "Don't you believe me?"
Harlan shouted, "Why should I? They came to look at me, didn't they? At that breakfast? Why