hundred thousand Centuries before he did in this current Reality. The stars would then have been untenanted and mankind would have established itself throughout the Galaxy. We would have been first."
"And what would have been gained?" asked Harlan doggedly. "Would we be happier?"
"Whom do you mean by 'we'? Man would not be a world but a million worlds, a billion worlds. We would have the infinite in our grasp. Each world would have its own stretch of the Centuries, each its own values, a chance to seek happiness after ways of its own in an environment of its own. There are many happinesses, many goods, infinite variety... That is the Basic State of mankind."
"You're guessing," said Harlan, and he was angry at himself for feeling attraction for the picture she had conjured. "How can you tell what would have happened?"
Noys said, "You smile at the ignorance of the Timers who know only one Reality. We smile at the ignorance of the Eternals who think there are many Realities but that only one exists at a time."
"What does that gibberish mean?"
"We don't calculate alternate Realities. We view them. We see them in their state of non-Reality."
"A kind of ghostly never-never land where the might-have-beens play with the ifs."
"Without the sarcasm, yes."
"And how do you do that?"
Noys paused, then said, "How can I explain that, Andrew? I have been educated to know certain things without really understanding all about them, just as you have. Can you explain the workings of a Computaplex? Yet you know it exists and works."
Harlan flushed. "Well, then?"
Noys said, "We learned to view Realities and we found Basic State to be as I have described. We found, too, the Change that had destroyed Basic State. It was not any Change that Eternity had initiated; it was the establishment of Eternity itself-the mere fact of its existence. Any system like Eternity, which allows men to choose their own future, will end by choosing safety and mediocrity, and in such a Reality the stars are out of reach. The mere existence of Eternity at once wiped out the Galactic Empire. To restore it, Eternity must be done away with.
"The number of Realities is infinite. The number of any subclass of Realities is also infinite. For instance, the number of Realities containing Eternity is infinite; the number in which Eternity does not exist is infinite; the number in which Eternity does exist but is abolished is also infinite. But my people chose from among the infinite a group that involved me.
"I had nothing to do with that. They educated me for my job as Twissell and yourself educated Cooper for his job. But the number of Realities in which I was the agent in destroying Eternity was also infinite. I was offered a choice among five Realities that seemed least complex. I chose this one, the one involving you, the only Reality system involving you."
Harlan said, "Why did you choose it?"
Noys looked away. "Because I loved you, you see. I loved you long before I met you."
Harlan was shaken. She said it with such depths of sincerity. He thought, sickly: She's an actress- He said, "That's rather ridiculous."
"Is it? I studied the Realities at my disposal. I studied the Reality in which I went back to the 482nd, met first Finge, then you. The one in which you came to me and loved me, in which you took me into Eternity and the far upwhen of my own Century, in which you misdirected Cooper, and in which you and I, together, returned to the Primitive. We lived in the Primitive for the rest of our days. I saw our lives together and they were happy and I loved you. So it's not ridiculous at all. I chose this alternative so that our love might be true."
Harlan said, "All this is false. It's false. How can you expect me to believe you?" He stopped, then said suddenly, "Wait! You say you knew all this in advance? All that would happen?"
"Yes."
"Then you're obviously lying. You would have known that I would have you here at blaster point. You would have known you would fail. What is your answer to that?"
She sighed lightly, "I told you there are an infinite number of any subclass of Realities. No matter how finely we focus on a given Reality it always represents an infinite number of very similar Realities. There are fuzzy spots. The finer we focus, the less fuzzy, but perfect sharpness cannot be obtained. The