Time and Again

I didn't know who he was till he spoke, or rather cleared his throat preparatorily. He was about fifty years old, pretty bald, though with a skein of gray-brown hair combed straight over the top of his head from the side, concealing the baldness from himself, at least. His face was pretty full below the cheekbones, and he wore glasses with metal rims so thin they almost looked rimless. If I'd ever seen him before, he'd made no impression on my memory. He said, "I'd want to consider my vote, if it ever came to that. At length. Sleep on it. But in fairness, I ought to say that I feel I would join with you."

Esterhazy opened his mouth to say something, but Danziger spoke first. "That's it, then? That's the decision?"

Esterhazy began, "I don't think there's any formal — " but Danziger cut him off, brusquely, rudely. "Quit fooling around; that's the decision!" He waited a moment, then barked out the word. "Well?"

Esterhazy pressed his lips together and shook his head; a painful moment. "It has to be, Doctor. It simply has —»

"I resign." Danziger stood up, turning to shove his chair back so he could get away from the table.

"Wait!" Esterhazy stood up. "We simply can't let this happen this way. I want to talk to you. Alone. In just a few minutes."

I had to give the old man credit: I hadn't ever seen him in an undignified moment, and I didn't now. No stalking out, no violent refusal; that kind of drama was distasteful to him. He did hesitate for a moment, then he said, "Of course. But it has already happened: No one will change or go back. I'll wait for you in my office, Colonel." Then in a complete silence he walked to the door and was gone.

"I don't like it," said a voice down the table, and we all turned to look at him. It was a young but plump and bald man, from one of the California universities, I thought I remembered. He looked intelligent, and he looked mad. He said, "I don't have a vote, much of a voice, or even much of a stake in this; I'm a meteorologist, here mainly to report to my own university. But I'm not going to leave without asking how we have the nerve to do anything but accept Dr. Danziger's opinion and decision."

"Hear, hear! As the British say," someone else called out, his voice sounding pleased, the kind of guy who really enjoys a fight as long as it's between two other guys.

I'd thought Colonel Esterhazy would reply but Rube stood up; slowly, entirely at ease and taking his time, and completely — this popped up in my mind — in command. He said, "How? Because you don't turn back. Not ever. You don't spend billions preparing to send a man to the moon, and then decide not to. Or invent the airplane, look it over, and decide to uninvent it because someday someone might use it to drop a bomb. You just don't stop something as enormous as this; the human race never has. Risk? Yes, maybe. Yes, certainly. But who did that ever stop? Anyone whose birthday has become a national holiday? We are going ahead. We —»

"Who's 'we'?" an angry voice called out; I never did know who.

"All of us," Rube said quietly, leaning forward over the table, supporting his weight on his knuckles, "who have put in endless time and enormous effort on this: an important part of our lives. Think, goddammit! Can you actually imagine this being stopped? Dropped? Forgotten? It just ain't go

That ended it, really, though the talking went on for a while. Copies of my report and test result arrived, and were passed out; each one was numbered, and had to be read and returned before the board left the room. A fair number of people glanced up from their copies to look at me, smile, and shake their heads in amazement, and I managed to grin back at them. The discussion continued through this, some agreeing that the project should be cautiously continued, some questioning or at least wondering aloud about it. I think more than one man there hadn't previously understood how little his presence on the board had to do with making its policies. The meeting ended with Esterhazy reminding the members, most tactfully, that everything they knew about the project was very strictly classified information. They'd be notified, he said, when the next meeting was to take place; meanwhile he thanked them for coming.

Rube knew I had a decision to make, and he was right at my elbow when I left the conference room. In the corridor he invited me to come out to a bar on Sixth Avenue we'd been in once or twice, and where we could get some lunch. I said I wanted to see Dr. Danziger first, and we walked along together to his office. But Danziger's girl said Colonel Esterhazy was in with him, which I don't think surprised Rube, and that it looked as though he'd be there for quite a while. I was starved, so I went out with Rube, and we had lunch: a big bowl of vegetable soup and a pastrami sandwich each, with a couple of steins of beer. We sat in the last booth in the back corner, a brick wall beside and behind us, no one near enough to overhear.

I won't detail every word we said. We gave our orders, and then Rube pointed out very factually and low-key that while they hoped I'd continue with the project — new candidates weren't easy to come by, and training them was a long slow job — I was nevertheless not essential to the project. If I didn't continue, it would distress them but I could eventually be replaced. I knew that, of course. At least I knew it was a real possibility, if not quite the certainty Rube was trying to make it sound. And it gave me a little chill to hear it said, because there was no way I could deny to myself that the thought of never going back would be hard to accept. But all I did was nod and say, Sure, but that continuing with the project wouldn't help my conscience if I decided it was wrong.

Our sandwiches came, we began to eat, and Rube was halfway through his and enjoying it, before he put it down on the cardboard plate, and leaned over the table to answer me. His voice inaudible a yard away, he said, "Si, Dr. Danziger is an old man. Recognize that. And what's happened so far on the project is enough — for him. For him it's a culmination; he achieved what he set out to do. And if that should be all there is, he could be content. I love him; I really do. But he's an old man obsessed with risk. Listen to him long enough, and you'll think that if you sneezed too loud back in January 1882, you might somehow set off a chain of events that could blow up the world. But it wouldn't; it would have no more effect than it would right here and now. Try it, Si!" He gri

I said no, and Rube ordered apple pie and another stein of beer. I didn't say much or argue with him. I sat looking doubtful, and probably confused, because that's how I felt. Rube ate quickly, a quarter of his slice of pie at a bite, followed by a fourth of his stein of beer. Suddenly, impulsively, he gri