Time and Again (18 page)

They hadn't waited to soften him up…they had waited for old John H. to write the letter. For they knew about the letter. They had studied old John H. and they knew he'd write a letter. They had him down on tape and they knew him inside out and they had figured to an eyelash the way his mind would work.

The letter was the key to the whole thing. The letter was the lure that had been used to suck Asher Sutton back into this time. They had lured him, then sealed him off and kept him, kept him as surely as if they'd had him in a cage. They had studied him and they knew him and they had him figured out. They knew what he would do as surely as they had known what old John H. would do.

His mind flicked out and probed cautiously at the brain of the man striding down the hill.

Chickens and cats and dogs and meadow mice—and not one of them suspected, not one of them had known, that another mind than theirs had occupied their brain.

But the brain of a man might be a different matter. Highly trained and sensitive, it might detect outside interference, might sense if it did not actually know the invasion of itself.

The girl won't wait. I've been away too long. Her affections are less than skin-deep and she has no morals, absolutely none, and I'm the one to know. I've been on this damn patrol too long. She will be tired of waiting…she was tired of waiting when I was gone three hours. To hell with her…I
can get another one. But not like her…not exactly like her. There isn't another one anywhere quite like her.

Whoever said this Sutton guy would be an easy one to crack was crazy as a loon. God, after ten years in a dump like this, I'd fall on someone's neck and kiss 'em if they came back from my own time. Anyone at all…friend or foe, it would make no difference. But what does Sutton do? Not a God-damn word. Not a single syllable of surprise in any word he spoke. When I first spoke to him he didn't even break his stride, kept right on walking as if he knew I'd been there all the time. Cripes, I could use a drink. Nerve-racking work.

Wish I could forget that girl. Wish she would be waiting for me but I know she won't. Wish…

Sutton snapped back his mind, stood quietly in the road.

And inside himself he felt the shiver of triumph, the swift backwash of relief and triumph. They didn't know. In all their ten years of watching they had seen no more than the superficial things. They had him down on tape, but they didn't know all that went on within his mind.

A human mind, perhaps. But not his mind. A human mind they might be able to strip as bare as a sickled field, might dissect it and analyze it and read the story in it. But his mind told them only what it wished to tell them, only enough so that there would be no suspicion that he was holding back. Ten years ago Adams' gang had tried to tap his mind and had not even dented it.

The Revisionists had watched ten years and they knew each motion that he made, many of the things that he had thought.

But they did not know that he could go to live within the mind of a mouse or a catfish or a man.

For if they had known they would have set up certain safeguards, would have been on the alert against him.

And they weren't. No more alert than the mouse had been.

He glanced back to the road to where the Sutton farmhouse stood upon the hill. For a moment he thought that he could see it, a darker mass against the darkness of the sky, but that, he knew, was no more than pure imagination. He knew that it was there and he had formed a mental image.

One by one, he checked the items in his room. The books, the few scribbled sheets of paper, the razor.

There was nothing there, he knew, that he could not leave behind. Not a thing that would arouse suspicion. Nothing that could be fastened on in some later day and turned into a weapon to be used against him.

He had been prepared against this day, knowing that someday it would come—that someday Herkimer or the Revisionists or an agent from the government would step from behind a tree and walk along beside him.

Knowing? Well, not exactly. Hoping. And ready for the hope.

Long years ago his futile attempt to write the book of destiny without his notes had gone up in smoke. All that remained was a heap of paper ash, mixed these many years with the soil, leached away by the rains, gone as chemical elements into a head of wheat or an ear of corn.

He was ready. Packed and ready. His mind had been packed and ready, he knew now, for these many years.

Softly he stepped off the road and went down across the pasture, following the man who walked toward the river bluffs. His mind flicked out and tracked him through the darkness, using his mind to track him as a hound would use his nose to track a coon.

He overhauled him scant minutes after he had entered the fringe of trees and after that kept a few paces behind him, walking carefully to guard against the suddenly snapping twig, the swish of swaying bushes that could have warned his quarry.

The ship lay within a deep ravine and at a hail it lighted up and a port swung open. Another man stood in the lighted port and stared into the night.

"That you, Gus?" he called.

The other swore at him. "Sure. Who else do you think would be floundering around in these woods at the dead of night?"

"I got to worrying," said the man in the port. "You were gone longer than I thought you would be. Just getting ready to set out and hunt for you."

"You're always worrying," Gus growled at him. "Between you and this outlandish world, I'm fed up. Trevor can find someone else to do this kind of work from here on out."

He scrambled up the steps into the ship. "Get going," he told the other man tersely. "We're getting out of here."

He turned to close the port, but Sutton already had it closed.

Gus took two steps backward, brought up against an anchored chair and stood there, grinning.

"Look at what we got," he said. "Hey, Pinky, look at what followed me back home."

Sutton smiled at them grimly. "If you gentlemen have no objection, I'll hitch a ride with you."

"And if we have objections?" Pinky asked.

"I'm riding this ship," Sutton told him. "With you or without you. Take your choice."

"This is Sutton," Gus told Pinky. "The Mr. Sutton. Trevor will be glad to see you, Sutton."

Trevor…Trevor. That was three times he had heard the name, and somewhere else he had heard it once before. He stood with his back against the closed port and his mind went back to another ship and another two men.

"Trevor," Case had said, or had it been Pringle who had said it? "Trevor? Why, Trevor is the head of the corporation."

"I've been looking forward, all these years," Sutton told him, "to meeting Mr. Trevor. He and I will have a lot to talk about."

"Get her going, Pinky," Gus said. "And send ahead a message. Trevor will want to break out the guard of honor for us. We're bringing Sutton back."

XLII

T
REVOR PICKED
up a paper clip and flipped it at an inkwell on the desk. The clip landed in the ink.

"Getting pretty good," said Trevor. "Hit it seven times out of every ten. Used to be I missed it seven times out of every ten."

He looked at Sutton, studying him.

"You look like an ordinary man," he said. "I should be able to talk with you and make you understand."

"I haven't any horns," said Sutton, "if that is what you mean."

"Nor," said Trevor, "any halo, either, so far as I'm concerned."

He flipped another paper clip and it missed the inkwell.

"Seven out of ten," said Trevor.

He flipped another one and it was a hit. Ink spouted up and spattered on the desk.

"Sutton," said Trevor, "you know a great deal about destiny. Have you ever thought of it in terms of manifest destiny?"

Sutton shrugged. "You're using an antiquated term. Pure and simple propaganda of the nineteenth century. There was a certain nation that wore that one threadbare."

"Propaganda," Trevor said. "Let's call it psychology. You say a thing so often and so well that after a time everyone believes it. Even, finally, yourself."

"This manifest destiny," said Sutton. "For the human race, I presume?"

"Naturally," said Trevor. "After all, we're the animals that would know how to use it to the best advantage."

"You pass up a point," declared Sutton. "The humans don't need it. Already they think they are great and right and holy. Certainly, you don't need to propagandize them."

"In the short view, you are right," said Trevor. "But in the short view only."

He stabbed a sudden finger at Sutton. "Once we have the galaxy in hand, what do we do then?"

"Why," said Sutton. "Why, I suppose…"

"That's exactly it," said Trevor. "You don't know where you're going. Nor does the human race."

"And manifest destiny?" asked Sutton. "If we had manifest destiny, it would be different?"

Trevor's words were scarcely more than a whisper. "There are other galaxies, Sutton. Greater even than this one. Many other galaxies."

Good Lord! thought Sutton.

He started to speak and then closed his mouth and sat stiffly in his chair.

Trevor's whisper speared at him from across the desk.

"Staggers you, doesn't it?" he said.

Sutton tried to speak aloud, but his voice came out a whisper, too.

"You're mad, Trevor. Absolutely mad."

"The long-range view," said Trevor. "That is what we need. The absolutely unshakable belief in human destiny, the positive and all-inclusive conviction that Man is meant not only to take over this galaxy alone but all the galaxies, the entire universe."

"You should live long enough," said Sutton, sudden mockery rising to his tongue.

"I won't see it, of course," said Trevor. "And neither will you. Nor will our children's children or their children for many generations."

"It will take a million years," Sutton told him.

"More than a million years," Trevor told him calmly. "You have no idea, no conception of the scope of the universe. In a million years we'll be getting a good start…"

"Then, why, for the love of heaven, do you and I sit here and quibble about it?"

"Logic," said Trevor.

"There is no real logic," Sutton declared, "in planning a million years ahead. A man can plan his own lifetime, if he wishes, and there is some logic in that. Or the life of his children, and there still would be some logic in it…and maybe in the life of his grandchildren. But beyond that there can be no logic."

"Sutton," asked Trevor, "did you ever hear of a corporation?"

"Why, yes, of course, but…"

"A corporation could plan for a million years," said Trevor. "It could plan very logically."

"A corporation is not a man," said Sutton. "It is not an entity."

"But it is," insisted Trevor. "An entity composed of men and created by men to carry out their wishes. It is a living, operative concept that is handed down from one generation to another to carry out a plan too vast to be accomplished in the lifetime of one man alone."

"Your corporation publishes books, too, doesn't it?" asked Sutton.

Trevor stared at him. "Who told you that?" he snapped.

"A couple of men by the name of Case and Pringle," Sutton said. "They tried to buy my book for your corporation."

"Case and Pringle are out on a mission," Trevor said. "I had expected them back…"

"They won't be coming back," said Sutton.

"You killed them," Trevor said, flatly.

"They tried to kill me first," said Sutton. "I'm awfully hard to kill."

"That would have been against my orders, Sutton. I do not want you killed."

"They were on their own," said Sutton. "They were going to sell my carcass to Morgan."

There was no way of telling, Sutton thought, how you hit this man. There was no difference of expression in his eyes, no faintest flicker of change across his face.

"I appreciate your killing them," said Trevor. "It saves me the bother."

He flicked a clip at the inkwell and it was a hit.

"It's logical," he said, "that a corporation should plan a million years ahead. It provides a framework within which a certain project may be carried forward without interruption although the personnel in charge should change from time to time."

"Wait a minute," Sutton told him. "Is there a corporation or are you just posing fables?"

"There is a corporation," Trevor told him, "and I am the man who heads it. Varied interests pooling their resources…and there will be more and more of them as time goes on. As soon as we can show something tangible."

"By tangible, you mean destiny for the human race, for the human race alone?"

Trevor nodded. "Then we'll have something to talk about. A commodity to sell. Something to back up our sales talk."

Sutton shook his head. "I can't see what you expect to gain."

"Three things," Trevor told him. "Wealth and power and knowledge. The wealth and power and knowledge of the universe. For Man alone, you understand. For a single race. For people like you and me. And of the three, knowledge perhaps would be the greatest prize of all, for knowledge, added to and compounded, correlated and co-ordinated, would lead to even greater wealth and power…and to greater knowledge."

"It is madness," said Sutton. "You and I, Trevor, will be drifting dust, and not only ourselves, but the very era in which we live out this moment will be forgotten before the job is done."

"Remember the corporation."

"I'm remembering the corporation," Sutton said, "but I can't help but think in terms of people. You and I and the other people like us."

"Let's think in terms of people, then," said Trevor, smoothly. "One day the life that runs in you will run in the brain and blood and muscle of a man who shall be part owner of the universe. There will be trillions upon trillions of life forms to serve him, there will be wealth that he cannot count, there will be knowledge of which you and I cannot even dream."

Sutton sat quietly, slumped in his chair.

"You're the only man," said Trevor, "who is standing in the way. You're the man who is blocking the project for a million years."

"You need destiny," said Sutton, "and destiny is not mine to give away."

"You are a human being, Sutton," Trevor told him, talking evenly. "You are a man. It is the people of your own race that I'm talking to you about."

"Destiny," said Sutton, "belongs to everything that lives. Not to Man alone, but to every form of life."

"It needn't," Trevor told him. "You are the only man who knows. You are the man who can tell the facts. You can make it a manifest destiny for the human race instead of a personal destiny for every crawling, cackling, sniveling thing that has the gift of life."

Sutton didn't answer.

"One word from you," said Trevor, "and the thing is done."

"It can't be done," said Sutton, "this scheme of yours. Think of the sheer time, the thousands of years, even at the rate of speed of the starships of today, to cross intergalactic space. Only from this galaxy to the next…not from this galaxy to the ultimate galaxy."

Trevor sighed. "You forget what I said about the compounding of knowledge. Two and two won't make four, my friend. It will make much more than four. In some instances thousands of times more than four."

Sutton shook his head, wearily.

But Trevor was right, he knew. Knowledge and technique would pyramid exactly as he said. Even, once Man had the time to do it, the knowledge in one galaxy alone…

"One word from you," Trevor said, "and the time war is at an end. One word and the security of the human race is guaranteed forever. For all the race will need is the knowledge that you can give it."

"It wouldn't be the truth," said Sutton.

"That," said Trevor, "doesn't have a thing to do with it."

"You don't need manifest destiny," said Sutton, "to carry out your project."

"We have to have the human race behind us," Trevor said. "We have to have something that is big enough to capture their imagination. Something important enough to make them pay attention. And manifest destiny, manifest destiny as it applies to the universe, is the thing to turn the trick."

"Twenty years ago," said Sutton, "I would have thrown in with you."

"And now?" asked Trevor.

Sutton shook his head. "Not now. I know more than I did twenty years ago. Twenty years ago I was a human, Trevor. I'm not too sure I'm entirely human any longer."

"I hadn't mentioned the matter of reward," said Trevor. "That goes without saying."

"No, thanks," said Sutton. "I'd like to keep on living."

Trevor flipped a clip at the inkwell and it missed.

"You're slipping," Sutton said. "Your percentage is way off."

Trevor picked up another clip.

"All right," he said. "Go ahead and have your fun. There's a war on and we'll win that war. It's a hellish way to fight, but we're doing it the best we can. No war anywhere, no surface indication of war, for you understand the galaxy is in utter and absolute peace under the rule of benevolent Earthmen. We can win without you, Sutton, but it would be easier with you."

"You're going to turn me loose?" Sutton asked, in mock surprise.

"Why, sure," Trevor told him. "Go on out and beat your head against a stone wall a little longer. In the end, you'll get tired of it. Eventually you'll give up out of sheer exhaustion. You'll come back then and give us the thing we want."

Sutton rose to his feet.

He stood for a moment, indecisive.

"What are you waiting for?" asked Trevor.

"One thing has me puzzled," Sutton told him. "The book, somehow, somewhere, already has been written. It has been a fact for almost five hundred years. How are you going to change that? If I write it now the way you want it written, it will change the human setup…"

Trevor laughed. "We got that one figured out. Let us say that finally, after all of these years, the original of your manuscript is discovered. It can be readily and indisputably identified by certain characteristcs which you will very carefully incorporate into it when you write it.. It will be found and proclaimed, and what is more, proved…and the human race will have its destiny.

"We'll explain the past unpleasantness by very convincing historic evidence of earlier tampering with the manuscript. Even your friends, the androids, will have to believe what we say once we get through with it."

"Clever," Sutton said.

"I think so, too," said Trevor.