The End of Eternity - By Isaac Asimov Page 0,83

nothing, not consciously, but I remember your delicate voice whispering. About what? The downwhen journey of Cooper; the Samson-smash of Eternity. Am I right?"

Noys said, "I don't even know what Samson-smash means."

"You can guess very accurately, Noys. Tell me, when did you enter the 482nd? Whom did you replace? Or did you just-squeeze in. I had your Life-Plot worked out by an expert in the 2456th. In the new Reality, you had no existence at all. No analogue. Strange for such a small Change, but not impossible. And then the Life-Plotter said one thing which I heard with my ears but not with my mind. Strange that I should remember it. Perhaps even then, something clanged in my mind, but I was too full of-you to listen. He said: ' with the combination of factors you handed me, I don't quite see how she fit in the old Reality .'

"He was right. You didn't fit in. You were an invader from the far upwhen, manipulating me and Finge, too, to suit yourself."

Noys said urgently, "Andrew--"

"It all fit in, if I had the eyes to look. A book-film in your house entitled Social and Economic History . It surprised me when first I saw it. You needed it, didn't you, to teach you how best to be a woman of the Century. Another item. Our first trip into the Hidden Centuries, remember? You stopped the kettle at the 111,394th. You stopped it with finesse, without fumbling. Where did you learn to control a kettle? If you were what you seemed to be, that would have been your first trip in a kettle. Why the 111,394th, anyway? Was it your homewhen?"

She said softly, "Why did you bring me to the Primitive, Andrew?"

He shouted suddenly, "To protect Eternity. I could not tell what damage you might do there. Here, you are helpless, because I know you. Admit that all I say is true! Admit it!"

He rose in a paroxysm of wrath, arm upraised. She did not flinch. She was utterly calm. She might have been modeled out of warm, beautiful wax. Harlan did not complete his motion.

He said, "Admit it!"

She said, "Are you so uncertain, after all your deductions? What will it matter to you whether I admit it or not."

Harlan felt the wildness mount. "Admit it, anyway, so that I need feel no pain at all. None at all."

"Pain?"

"Because I have a blaster, Noys, and it is my intention to kill you."
18. The Beginning of Infinity
There was a crawling uncertainty inside Harlan, an irresolution that was consuming him. He had the blaster in his hand. It was aimed at Noys.

But why did she say nothing? Why did she persist in this impassive attitude?

How could he kill her?

How could he not kill her?

He said hoarsely, "Well?"

She moved, but it was only to clasp her hands loosely in her lap, to look more relaxed, more aloof. When she spoke her voice seemed scarcely that of a human being. Facing the muzzle of a blaster, it yet gained assurance and took on an almost mystic quality of impersonal strength.

She said, "You cannot wish to kill me only in order to protect Eternity. If that were your desire, you could stun me, tie me firmly, pin me within this cave and then take to your travels in the dawn. Or you might have asked Computer Twissell to keep me in solitary confinement during your absence in the Primitive. Or you might take me with you at dawn, lose me in the wastes. If it is only killing that will satisfy you, it is only because you think that I have betrayed you, that I have tricked you into love first in order that I might trick you into treason later. This is murder out of wounded pride and not at all the just retribution you tell yourself it is."

Harlan squirmed. "Are you from the Hidden Centuries? Tell me."

Noys said, "I am. Will you now blast?"

Harlan's finger trembled on the blaster's contact point. Yet he hesitated. Something irrational within him could still plead her case and point up the remnants of his own futile love and longing. Was she desperate at his rejection of her? Was she deliberately courting death by lying? Was she indulging in foolish heroics born of despair at his doubts of her?

No!

The book-films of the sickly-sweet literary traditions of the 289th might have it so, but not a girl like Noys. She was not one to meet her death at the hands of