The End of Eternity - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,67

didn't. And even if I did, it's done ."

"But it is not done. Listen just a little while longer." Twissell was wheedling, almost crooning with an agonized gentleness. "You will have your girl. I promised that. I still promise it. She will not be harmed. You will not be harmed. I promise you this. It is my personal guarantee."

Harlan stared at him wide-eyed. "But it's too late. What's the use?"

"It is not too late. Things are not irreparable. With your help, we can succeed yet. I must have your help. You must realize that you did wrong. I am trying to explain this to you. You must want to undo what you have done."

Harlan licked his dry lips with a dry tongue and thought: He is mad. His mind can't accept the truth. -or, does the Council know more?

Did it? Did it? Could it reverse the verdict of the Changes? Could they halt Time or reverse it?

He said, "You locked me in the control room, kept me helpless, you thought, till it was all over."

"You said you were afraid something might go wrong with you; that you might not be able to carry on with your part."

"That was meant to be a threat."

"I took it literally. Forgive me. I must have your help."

It came to that. Harlan's help must be had. Was he mad? Was Harlan mad? Did madness have meaning? Or anything at all, for that matter?

The Council needed his help. For that help they would promise him anything. Noys. Computership. What would they not promise him? And when his help was done with, what would he get? He would not be fooled a second time.

"No!" he said.

"You'll have Noys."

"You mean the Council will be willing to break the laws of Eternity once the danger is safely gone? I don't believe it." How could the danger safely be passed, a sane scrap of his mind demanded. What was this all about?

"The Council will never know."

"Would you be willing to break the laws? You're the ideal Eternal. With the danger gone, you would obey the law. You couldn't act otherwise."

Twissell reddened blotchily, high on each cheekbone. From the old face all shrewdness and strength drained away. There was left only a strange sorrow.

"I will keep my word to you and break the law," said Twissell, "for a reason you don't imagine. I don't know how much time is left us before Eternity disappears. It could be hours; it could be months. But I have spent so much time in the hope of bringing you to reason that I will spend a little more. Will you listen to me? Please?"

Harlan hesitated. Then, out of a conviction of the uselessness of all things as much as out of anything else said wearily, "Go on."

I have heard (began Twissell) that I was born old, that I cut my teeth on a Micro-Computaplex, that I keep my hand computer in a special pocket of my pajamas when I sleep, that my brain is made up of little force-relays in endless parallel hookups and that each corpuscle of my blood is a microscopic spatio-temporal chart floating in computer oil.

All these stories come to me eventually, and I think I must be a little proud of them. Maybe I go around believing them a bit. It's a foolish thing for an old man to do, but it makes life a little easier.

Does that surprise you? That I must find a way to make life easier? I, Senior Computer Twissell, senior member of the Allwhen Council?

Maybe that's why I smoke. Ever think of that? I have to have a reason, you know. Eternity is essentially an unsmoking society, and most of Time is, too. I've thought of that often. I sometimes think it's a rebellion against Eternity. Something to take the place of a greater rebellion that failed...

No, it's all right. A tear or two won't hurt me, and it isn't pretense, believe me. It's just that I haven't thought about this for a long time. It isn't pleasant.

It involved a woman, of course, as your affair did. That's not coincidence. It's almost inevitable, if you stop to think of it. An Eternal, who must sell the normal satisfactions of family life for a handful of perforations on foil, is ripe for infection. That's one of the reasons Eternity must take the precautions it does. And, apparently, that's also why Eternals are so ingenious in evading the precautions once in a while.

I remember my woman. It's foolish