Time and Again (20 page)

XLVI

E
VA
A
RMOUR
rose from the table on the patio and held out both her hands in greeting. Sutton pulled her close to him, planted a kiss on her upturned face.

"That," he said, "is for the million times I have thought of you."

She laughed at him, suddenly gay and happy.

"But, Ash, a million times!"

"Tangled time," said Herkimer. "He's been away ten years."

"Oh," said Eva. "Oh, Ash, how horrible!"

He grinned at her. "Not too horrible. I had ten years of rest. Ten years of peace and quiet. Working on a farm, you know. It was a little rough at first, but I was actually sorry when I had to leave."

He held a chair for her, took one for himself between her and Herkimer.

They ate…ham and eggs
,
toast and marmalade, strong, black coffee. It was pleasant on the patio. In the trees above them birds quarreled amiably. In the clover at the edge of the bricks and stones that formed the paving, bees hummed among the blossoms.

"How do you like my place, Ash?" asked Eva.

"It's wonderful," he said, and then, as if the two ideas might be connected in some way, he said, "I saw Trevor yesterday. He took me to the mountaintop and showed me the universe."

Eva drew in her breath sharply, and Sutton looked up quickly from his plate. Herkimer was waiting, with drawn face, with fork poised in midair, halfway to his mouth.

"What's the matter with you two?" he asked. "Don't you trust me?"

And even as he asked the question, he answered it for himself. Of course, they wouldn't trust him. For he was human and he could betray them. He could twist destiny so that it was a thing for the human race alone. And there was no way in which they could be sure that he would not do this.

"Ash," said Eva, "you refused to…"

"I left Trevor with an idea that I would be back to talk it over. Nothing that I said or did. He just believes I will. Told me to go out and beat my head against the wall some more."

"You have thought about it, sir?" asked Herkimer.

Sutton shook his head. "No. Not too much. I haven't sat down and mulled it over, if that is what you mean. It would have its points if you were merely human. Sometimes I frankly wonder how much of the human there may be left in me."

"How much of it do you know, Ash,?" Eva asked, speaking softly.

Sutton scrubbed a hand across his forehead. "Most of it, I think. I know about the war in time and how and why it's being fought. I know about myself. I have two bodies and two minds, or at least substitute bodies and minds. I know some of the things that I can do. There may be other abilities I do not know about. One grows into them. Each new thing comes hard."

"We couldn't tell you," Eva said. "It would have been so simple if we could have told you. But, to start with, you would not have believed the things we told you. And, when dealing with time, one interferes as little as possible. Just enough to turn an event in the right direction.

"I tried to warn you. Remember, Ash? As near as I could come to warning."

He nodded. "After I killed Benton in the Zag House. You told me you had studied me for twenty years."

"And remember, I was the little girl in the checkered apron. When you were fishing…"

He looked at her in surprise. "You knew about that? It wasn't just part of the Zag dream?"

"Identification," said Herkimer. "So that you could identify her as a friend, as someone you had known before and who was close to you. So that you would accept her as a friend."

"But it was a dream."

"A Zag dream," said Herkimer. "The Zag is one of us. His race will benefit if destiny can stand for everyone and not the human race alone."

Sutton said, "Trevor is too confident. Not just pretending to be confident, but really confident. I keep coming back to that crack he made. 'Go out,' he said, 'and butt your head some more.' "

"He's counting on you as a human being," Eva said.

Sutton shook his head. "I can't think that's it. He must have some scheme up his sleeve, some maneuver that we won't be able to check."

Herkimer spoke slowly. "I don't like that, sir. The war's not going too well as it is. If we had to win, we'd be lost right now."

"If we had to win? I don't understand…"

"We don't have to win, sir," said Herkimer. "All we have to do is fight a holding action, prevent the Revisionists from destroying the book as you will write it. From the very first we have not tried to change a thing. We've tried to keep them from being changed."

Sutton nodded. "On his part, Trevor has to win decisively. He must smash the original text, either prevent it from being written as I mean to write it or discredit it so thoroughly that not even an android will believe it."

"You're right, sir," Herkimer told him. "Unless he can do that the humans cannot claim destiny for their own, cannot make other life believe that destiny is reserved for the human race alone."

"And that is all he wants," said Eva. "Not the destiny itself, for no human can have the faith in destiny that, say, for example, an android can. To Trevor it is merely a matter of propaganda…to make the human race believe so completely that it is destined that it will not rest until it holds the universe."

"So long," said Herkimer, "as we can keep him from doing that we claim that we are winning. But the issue is so finely balanced that a new approach by either side would score heavily. A new weapon could be a factor that would mean victory or defeat."

"I have a weapon," Sutton said. "A made-to-order weapon that would beat them…but there's no way that it can be used."

Neither of them asked the question, but he saw it on their faces and he answered it.

"There's only one such weapon. Only one gun. You can't fight a war with just one gun."

Feet pounded around the corner of the house and when they turned they saw an android running toward them across the patio. Dust stained his clothing and his face was red from running. He came to a stop and faced them, clutching at the table's edge. "They tried to stop me," he panted, the words coming out in gushes. "The place is surrounded…"

"Andrew, you fool," snapped Herkimer. "What do you mean by coming running in like this? They will know…"

"They've found out about the Cradle," Andrew gasped. "They…"

Herkimer came erect in one swift motion. The chair on which he had been sitting tipped over with the violence of his rising and his face was suddenly so white that the identification tattoo on his forehead stood out with a startling clearness.

"They know where…"

Andrew shook his head. "Not where. They just found out about it. Just now. We still have time…"

"We'll call in all the ships," said Herkimer. "We'll have to pull all the guards off the crisis points…"

"But you can't," gasped Eva. "That's exactly what they would want you to do. That is all that is stopping them…"

"We have to," Herkimer said grimly. "There's no choice. If they destroy the Cradle…"

"Herkimer," said Eva, and there was a deadly calm in her unhurried words. "The mark!"

Andrew swung to face her, then took a backward step. Herkimer's hand flashed underneath his coat and Andrew turned to run, heading for the low wall that rimmed the patio.

The knife in Herkimer's hand flashed in the sun and was suddenly a spinning wheel that tracked the running android. It caught him before he reached the wall and he went down into a heap of huddled clothing.

The knife, Sutton saw, was neatly buried in his neck.

XLVII

"
H
AVE YOU
noticed, sir," said Herkimer, "how the little things, the inconsequential, trivial factors, come to play so big a part in any happening?"

He touched the huddled body with his foot.

"Perfect," he said. "Absolutely perfect. Except that before reporting to us he should have smeared some lacquer over his identification mark. Many androids do it, in an attempt to hide the mark, but it's seldom much of a success. After only a short time the mark shows through."

"But, lacquer?" asked Sutton.

"A little code we have," said Herkimer. "A very simple thing. It's the recognition sign for an agent reporting. A password, as it were. It takes a moment only. Some lacquer on your finger and a smear across your forehead."

"So simple a thing," said Eva, "that no one, absolutely no one, would ever notice it."

Sutton nodded. "One of Trevor's men," he said.

Herkimer nodded. "Impersonating one of our men. Sent to smoke us out. Sent to start us running, pell-mell, to save the Cradle."

"This Cradle…"

"But it means," said Eva, "that Trevor knows about it. He doesn't know where it is, but he knows about it. And he'll hunt until he finds it and then…"

Herkimer's gesture stopped her.

"What is wrong?" asked Sutton.

For there was something wrong, something that was terribly wrong. The whole atmosphere of the place was wrong. The friendliness was gone…the trust and friendliness and the oneness of their purpose. Shattered by an android who had run across the patio and talked about a thing that he called a Cradle and died, seconds later, with a knife blade through his throat.

Instinctively Sutton's mind reached out for Herkimer and then he drew it back. It was not an ability, he told himself, that one used upon a friend. It was an ability that one must keep in trust, not to be used curiously or idly, but only where the end result would justify its use.

"What's gone sour?" he asked. "What is the matter with…"

"Sir," said Herkimer, "you are a human being and this is an android matter."

For a moment Sutton stood stiff and straight, his mind absorbing the shock of the words that Herkimer had spoken, the black fury boiling ice-cold inside his body.

Then, deliberately, as if he had planned to do it, as if it were an action he had decided upon after long consideration, he balled his fist and swung his arm.

It was a vicious blow, with all his weight and all his strength and anger back of it, and Herkimer went down like an ox beneath a hammer.

"Ash!" cried Eva. "Ash!"

She clutched at his arm, but he shook her off.

Herkimer was sitting up, his hands covering his face, blood dripping down between his fingers.

Sutton spoke to him. "I have not sold destiny. Nor do I intend to sell it. Although God knows, if I did, it would be no more than the lot of you deserve."

"Ash," said Eva softly. "Ash, we must be sure."

"How can I make you sure?" he asked. "I can only tell you."

"They are your people, Ash," she said. "Your race. Their greatness is your greatness, too. You can't blame Herkimer for thinking…"

"They're your people, too," said Sutton. "The taint that applies to me applies to you as well."

She shook her head.

"I'm a special case," she said. "I was orphaned when I was only a few weeks old. The family androids took me over. They raised me. Herkimer was one of them. I'm much more an android, Ash, than I am a human being."

Herkimer was still sitting on the grass, beside the sprawled, dead body of Trevor's agent. He did not take his hands from his face. He made no sign that he was going to. The blood still dripped down between his fingers and trickled down his arms.

Sutton said to Eva, "It was very nice to see you again. And thank you for the breakfast."

He turned on his heel and walked away, across the patio and over the low wall and out into the path that led down to the road.

He heard Eva cry out for him to stop, but he pretended not to hear her.

"I was raised by androids," she had said. And he had been raised by Buster. By Buster, who had taught him how to fight when the kid down the road had given him a licking. Buster, who had whaled him good and proper for the eating of green apples. By Buster, who had gone out, five hundred years before, to homestead a planet.

He walked with the icy fury still running in his blood. They didn't trust me, he said. They thought I might sell out. After all the years of waiting, after all the years of planning and of thinking.

"What is it, Ash?"

"What's going on, Johnny? What about this?"

"You're a stinker, Ash."

"To hell with you," said Sutton. "You and all the rest of them."

Trevor's men, he knew, must be around the house, watching and waiting. He expected to be stopped. But he wasn't stopped. He didn't see a soul.

XLVIII

S
UTTON STEPPED
into the visor booth and closed the door behind him. From the rack along the wall, he took out the directory and hunted up the number. He dialed and snapped the toggle and there was a robot in the screen.

"Information," said the robot, his eyes seeking out the forehead of the man who called. Since it was an android, he dropped the customary "sir."

"Information. Records. What can I do for you?"

"Is there any possibility," asked Sutton, "that this call could be tapped?"

"None," said the robot. "Absolutely none. You see…"

"I want to see the homestead filings for the year 7990," said Sutton.

"Earth filings?"

Sutton nodded.

"Just a moment," said the robot.

Sutton waited, watching the robot select the proper spool and mount it on the viewer.

"They are arranged alphabetically," said the robot. "What name did you wish?"

"The name begins with S," said Sutton. "Let me see the S's."

The unwinding spool was a blur on the screen. It slowed momentarily at the M's, spun to the P's, then went more slowly.

The S list dragged by.

"Toward the end," said Sutton, and finally, "Hold it."

For there was the entry that he sought.

Sutton, Buster…

He read the planet description three times to make sure he had it firmly in his mind.

"That's all," he said. "Thank you very much."

The robot grumbled at him and shut off the screen.

Outside again, Sutton ambled easily across the foyer of the office building he had selected to place his call. On the road outside, he walked up the road, branched off onto a path and found a bench with a pleasant view.

He sat down on the bench and forced himself to relax.

For he was being watched, he knew. Kept under observation, for by this time, certainly, Trevor would know that the android who had walked out of Eva Armour's house could be none other than he. The psych-tracer, long ago, would have told the story, would have traced his movements and pinpointed him for Trevor's men to watch.

Take it easy, he told himself. Dawdle. Loaf. Act as if you didn't have a thing to do, as if you didn't have a thought in mind.

You can't fool them, but you can at least catch them unguarded when you have to move.

And there were many things to do, many things left to think about, although he was satisfied that the course of action he had planned was the course to take.

He took them up, step by step, checking them over for any chance of slip-up.

First, back to Eva's house to get the manuscript notes he had left on the hunting asteroid, notes that either Eva or Herkimer must have kept through all the years…or was it only weeks?

That would be ticklish and embarrassing business at the best. But they were his notes, he told himself. They were his to claim. He had no commitments in this business.

"I have come to get my notes. I suppose you still have them somewhere."

Or, "Remember the attaché case I had? I wonder if you took care of it for me."

Or, "I'm going on a trip. I'd appreciate my notes if you can lay your hands on them."

Or—

But it was no use. However he might say it, whatever he might do, the first step would be to reclaim the notes.

Dawdle up till then, he told himself. Work your way back toward the house until it's almost dark. Then get the notes and after that move fast—so fast that Trevor's gang can't catch up with you.

Second was the ship, the ship that he must steal.

He had spotted it earlier in the day while loafing at the area spaceport. Sleek and small, he knew that it would be a fast job, and the stiff, military bearing of the officer who had been directing the provisioning and refueling had been the final tip-off that it was the ship he wanted.

Loafing outside the barrier fence, playing the part of an idly curious, no-good android, he had carefully entered the officer's mind. Ten minutes later, he was on his way, with the information that he needed.

The ship did carry a time warp unit.

It was not taking off until the next morning.

It would be guarded during the night.

Without a doubt, Sutton told himself, one of Trevor's ships, one of the fighting fleetships of the Revisionists.

It would take nerve, he knew, to steal the ship. Nerve and fast footwork and a readiness and the ability to kill.

Saunter out onto the field, as if he were waiting for an incoming ship, mingling with the crowd. Slip out of the crowd and walk across the field, acting as if he had a right to be there. Not run…walk. Run only if someone challenged him and made the challenge stick. Run then. Fight. Kill, if necessary. But get the ship.

Get the ship and pile on the speed to the limit of endurance, heading in a direction away from his destination, driving the ship for everything that was in it.

Two years out, or sooner if necessary, he would throw in the time unit, roll himself and the ship a couple of centuries into the past.

Once in the past, he would have to ditch the motors, for undoubtedly they would have built-in recognition signals which could be traced. Unship them and let them travel in the direction he had been going.

Then take over the empty hull with his nonhuman body, swing around and head toward Buster's planet, still piling on the speed, building it up to that fantastic figure that was necessary to jump great interstellar spaces.

Vaguely he wondered how his body, how the drive of his energy-intake body, would compare with the actual motors in the long haul. Better, he decided. Better than the motors. Faster and stronger.

But it would take years, many years of time, for Buster was far out.

He checked. Unshipping the engines would throw off pursuit. The pursuers would follow the recognition signals in the motors, would spend long days in overhauling them before they discovered their mistake.

Check.

The time roll would unhook the contact of Trevor's psych-tracers, for they could not operate through time.

Check.

By the time other tracers could be set in other times to find him he would be so far out that the tracers would go insane trying to catch up on the time lag of his whereabouts—if, in fact, they could ever find it in the vastness of the outer reaches of the galaxy.

Check.

If it works, he thought. If it only works. If there isn't some sort of slip-up, some kind of unseen factor.

A squirrel skipped across the grass, sat up on its haunches and took a long look at him. Then, deciding that he was not dangerous, it started a busy search in the grass for imaginary buried treasure.

Cut loose, thought Sutton. Cut loose from everything that holds me. Cut loose and get the job done. Forget Trevor and his Revisionists, forget Herkimer and the androids. Get the book written.

Trevor wants to buy me. And the androids do not trust me. And Morgan, if he had the chance, would kill me.

The androids do not trust me.

That's foolish, he told himself.

Childish.

And yet, they did not trust him. You are human, Eva had told him. The humans are your people. You are a member of the race.

He shook his head, bewildered by the situation.

There was one thing that stood out clearly. One thing he had to do. One obligation that was his and one that must be fulfilled or all else would be with utterly no meaning.

There is a thing called destiny.

The knowledge of that destiny has been granted me. Not as a human being, not as a member of the human race, but as an instrument to transmit that knowledge to all other thinking life.

I must write a book to do it.

I must make that book as clear and forceful and as honest as I can.

Having done that, I have discharged my responsibility.

Having done that, there is no further claim upon me.

A footstep sounded on the path back of the bench and Sutton turned around.

"Mr. Sutton, isn't it?" said the man.

Sutton nodded.

"Sit down, Trevor," he said. "I've been expecting you."