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Now he wandered curiously among the other film-racks. For the first time he Observed (in the capital-O sense) the racks devoted to the 575th itself; its geographies, which varied little from Reality to Reality, its histories, which varied more, and its sociologies, which varied still more. These were not the books or reports written about the Century by Observing and Computing Eternals (with those he was familiar), but by the Timers themselves.
There were the works of literature of the 575th and these stirred memories of tremendous arguments he had heard of concerning the values of alternate Changes. Would this masterpiece be altered or not? If so, how? How did past Changes affect works of art?
For that matter, could there ever be general agreement about art? Could it ever be reduced to quantitative terms amenable to mechanical evaluation by the Computing machines?
A Computer named August Se
Se
But Twissell would have none of the last. "If the values of art can't be computed," he would shout at Harlan, "then what's the use of arguing about it?"
And Twissell's views, Harlan knew, were shared by the large majority of the Allwhen Council.
Yet now Harlan stood at the shelves devoted to the novels of Eric Linkollew, usually described as the outstanding writer of the 575th, and wondered. He counted fifteen different "Complete Works" collections, each, undoubtedly, taken out of a different Reality. Each was somewhat different, he was sure. One set was noticeably smaller than all the others, for instance. A hundred Sociologists, he imagined, must have written analyses of the differences between the sets in terms of the sociological background of each Reality, and earned status thereby.
Harlan passed on to the wing of the library which was devoted to the devices and instrumentation of the various 575th's. Many of these last, Harlan knew, had been eliminated in Time and remained intact, as a product of human ingenuity, only in Eternity. Man had to be protected from his own too flourishing technical mind. That more than anything else. Not a physioyear passed but that somewhere in Time nuclear technology veered too close to the dangerous and had to be steered away.
He returned to the library proper and to the shelves on mathematics and mathematical histories. His fingers skimmed across individual titles, and after some thought he took half a dozen from the shelves and signed them out.
Item Five: Noys.
That was the really important part of the interlude, and all the idyllic part.
In his off-hours, when Cooper was gone, when he might ordinarily have been eating in solitude, reading in solitude, sleeping in solitude, waiting in solitude for the next day-he took to the kettles.
With all his heart he was grateful for the Technician's position in society. He was thankful, as he had never dreamed he could be, for the ma
No one questioned his right to be in a kettle, nor cared whether he aimed it upwhen or down. No curious eyes followed him, no willing hands offered to help him, no chattering mouths discussed it with him.
He could go where and when he pleased.
Noys said, "You've changed, Andrew. Heavens, you've changed."
He looked at her and smiled. "In what way, Noys?"
"You're smiling, aren't you? That's one of the ways. Don't you ever look in a mirror and see yourself smiling?"
"I'm afraid to. I'd say: 'I can't be that happy. I'm sick. I'm delirious. I'm confined in an asylum, living in daydreams, and unaware of it.'"
Noys leaned close to pinch him. "Feel anything?"
He drew her head toward him, felt bathed in her soft, black hair.
When they separated, she said breathlessly, "You've changed there, too. You've become very good at it."
"I've got a good teacher," began Harlan, and stopped abruptly, fearing that would imply displeasure at the thought of the many who might have had the making of such a good teacher.
But her laugh seemed untroubled by such a thought. They had eaten and she looked silky-smooth and warmly soft in the clothing he had brought her.
She followed his eyes and fingered the skirt gently, lifting it loose from its soft embrace of her thigh. She said, "I wish you wouldn't, Andrew. I really wish you wouldn't."
"There's no danger," he said carelessly.
"There is danger. Now don't be foolish. I can get along with what's here, until-until you make arrangements."
"Why shouldn't you have your own clothes and doodads?"
"Because they're not worth your going to my house in Time and being caught. And what if they make the Change while you're there?"
He evaded that uneasily. "It won't catch me." Then, brightening, "Besides my wrist generator keeps me in physiotime so that a Change can't affect me, you see."
Noys sighed. "I don't see. I don't think I'll ever understand it all."
"There's nothing to it." And Harlan explained and explained with great animation and Noys listened with sparkling eyes that never quite revealed whether she was entirely interested, or amused, or, perhaps, a little of both.
It was a great addition to Harlan's life. There was someone to talk to, someone with whom to discuss his life, his deeds, and thoughts. It was as though she were a portion of himself, but a portion sufficiently separate to require speech in communication rather than thought. She was a portion sufficiently separate to be able to answer unpredictably out of independent thought processes. Strange, Harlan thought, how one might Observe a social phenomenon such as matrimony and yet miss so vital a truth about it. Could he have predicted in advance, for instance, that it would be the passionate interludes that he would later least often associate with the idyl?
She snuggled into the crook of his arm and said, "How is your mathematics coming along?"
Harlan said, "Want to look at a piece of it?"
"Don't tell me you carry it around with you?"
"Why not? The kettle trip takes time. No use wasting it, you know."
He disengaged himself, took a small viewer from his pocket, inserted the film, and smiled fondly as she put it to her eyes.
She returned the viewer to him with a shake of her head. "I never saw so many squiggles. I wish I could read your Standard Intertemporal."
"Actually," said Harlan, "most of the squiggles you mention aren't Intertemporal really, just mathematical notation."
"You understand it, though, don't you?"
Harlan hated to do anything to disillusion the frank admiration in her eyes, but he was forced to say, "Not as much as I'd like to. Still, I have been picking up enough math to get what I want. I don't have to understand everything to be able to see a hole in a wall big enough to push a freight kettle through."
He tossed the viewer into the air, caught it with a flick of his hand, and put it on a small end-table.
Noys's eyes followed it hungrily and sudden insight flashed on Harlan.
He said, "Father Time! You can't read Intertemporal, at that."