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Harlan stared helplessly out the window.
Twissell went on, "Cooper will be here in moments and his trip to the Primitive will take place within two physiohours. After that, boy, the project will be over and you and I will be free."
Harlan was plunging chokingly through the vortex of a waking nightmare. Had Twissell tricked him? Had everything he had done been designed only to get Harlan quietly into a locked control room? Having learned that Harlan knew his own importance, had he improvised with diabolical cleverness, keeping him engaged in conversation, drugging his emotions with words, leading him here, leading him there, until the time was ripe for locking him in?
That quick and easy surrender over Noys. She won't be hurt, Twissell had said. All will be well.
How could he have believed that! If they were not going to harm her, or touch her, why the temporal barrier across the kettleways at the 100,000th? That alone should have given Twissell completely away.
But because he (fool!) wanted to believe, he allowed himself to be led through those last physiohours blindly, placed inside a locked room where he was no longer needed, even to close the final contact.
In one stroke he had been robbed of his essentiality. The trumps in his hand had been neatly maneuvered into deuces and Noys was out of his reach forever. What punishment might lie in wait for him did not concern him. Noys was out of his reach forever.
It had never occurred to him that the project would be so close to its end. That, of course, was what had really made his defeat possible.
Twissell's voice sounded dimly. "You'll be cut off now, boy."
Harlan was alone, helpless, useless…
13. Beyond the Downwhen Terminus
Brinsley Cooper entered. Excitement flushed his thin face and made it almost youthful, despite the heavy Mallansohn mustache that draped its upper lip.
(Harlan could see him through the window, hear him clearly over the room's radio. He thought bitterly: A Mallansohn mustache! Of course!)
Cooper strode toward Twissell. "They wouldn't let me in till now, Computer."
"Very right," said Twissell. "They had their instructions."
"Now's the time, though? I'll beheading out?"
"Almost the time."
"And I'll be coming back? I'll be seeing Eternity again?" Despite the straightness Cooper gave his back, there was an edge of uncertainty in his voice.
(Within the control room Harlan brought his clenched hands bitterly to the reinforced glass of the window, longing to break through somehow, to shout: "Stop it! Meet my terms, or I'll-" What was the use?)
Cooper looked about the room, apparently unaware that Twissell had refrained from answering his question. His glance fell on Harlan at the control-room window.
He waved his hand excitedly. "Technician Harlan! Come on out. I want to shake your hand before I go."
Twissell interposed. "Not now, boy, not now. He's at the controls."
Cooper said, "Oh? You know, he doesn't look well."
Twissell said, "I've been telling him the true nature of the project. I'm afraid that's enough to make anyone nervous."
Cooper said, "Great Time, yes! I've known about it for weeks now and I'm not used to it yet." There was a trace of near-hysteria in his laugh. "I still haven't got it through my thick head that it is really my show. I-I'm a little scared."
"I scarcely blame you for that."
"It's my stomach, mostly, you know. It's the least happy part of me."
Twissell said, "Well, it's very natural and it will pass. Meanwhile, your time of departure on Standard Intertemporal has been set and there is still a certain amount of orientation to be gone through. For instance, you haven't actually seen the kettle you will use."
In the two hours that passed Harlan heard it all, whether they were in sight or not. Twissell lectured Cooper in an oddly stilted ma
(Full circle. Full circle. And no way for Harlan to break that circle in one, last defiant Samson-smash of the temple. Round and round the circle goes; round and round it goes.)
"Ordinary kettles," he heard Twissell say, "are both pushed and pulled, if we can use such terms in the case of Intertemporal forces. In traveling from Century X to Century Y within Eternity there is a fully powered initial point and a fully powered final point.
"What we have here is a kettle with a powered initial point but an unpowered destination point. It can only be pushed, not pulled. For that reason, it must utilize energies at a level whole orders of magnitude higher than those used by ordinary kettles. Special power-transfer units have had to be laid down along the kettleways to siphon in sufficient concentrations of energy from Nova Sol.
"This special kettle, its controls and power supply, are a composite structure. For physiodecades, the passing Realities have been combed for special alloys and special techniques. The 13th Reality of the 222nd was the key. It developed the Temporal Pressor and without that, this kettle could not have been built. The 13th Reality of the 222nd."
He pronounced that with elaborate distinctness.
(Harlan thought: Remember that, Cooper! Remember the 13th Reality of the 222nd so you can put it into the Mallansohn memoir so that the Etemals will know where to look so they will know what to tell you so you can put it… Round and round the circle goes…)
Twissell said, "The kettle has not been tested past the downwhen terminus, of course, but it has taken numerous trips within Eternity. We are convinced there will be no bad effects."
"There can't be, can there?" said Cooper. "I mean I did get there or Mallansohn could not have succeeded in building the field and he did succeed."
Twissell said, "Exactly. You will find yourself in a protected and isolated spot in the sparsely populated southwestern area of the United States of Amellika…"
"America," corrected Cooper.
"America, then. The Century will be the 24th; or, to put it to nearest hundredth, the 23.17th. I suppose we can even call it the year 2317, if we wish. The kettle, as you saw, is large, much larger than necessary for you. It is being filled now with food, water, and the means of shelter and defense. You will have detailed instructions that will, of course, be meaningless to anyone but you. I must impress upon you now that your first task will be to make certain that none of the indigenous inhabitants discovers you before you are ready for them. You will have force-diggers with which you will be able to burrow well into a mountain to form a cache. You will have to remove the contents of the kettle rapidly. They will be stacked so as to facilitate that."
(Harlan thought: Repeat! Repeat! He must have been told all this before, but repeat what must go into the memoir. Round and round…)
Twissell said, "You will have to unload in fifteen minutes. After that, the kettle will return automatically to starting point, carrying with it all tools that are too advanced for the Century. You will have a list of those. After the kettle returns, you will be on your own."
Cooper said, "Must the kettle return so quickly?"
Twissell said, "A quick return increases the probabilities of success."
(Harlan thought: The kettle must return in fifteen minutes because it did return in fifteen minutes. Round and…)
Twissell hurried on. "We ca