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[H 22] and still recalling his earlier experience, recalls his temporary assignment to Finge at the 482nd [H 4]. Finge is from an energy-centered culture in the 600s [F 1]. Harlan meets Nos [N 3] and is assigned an Observer task in the 482nd where he is to live in Nos's house [H 5]. |
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Chapter 5. Harlan, still standing at the gateway to Time in the 2456th [H 23] and still recalling his earlier experience, recalls his first sexual experience with Nos. She mentions a discrepancy in time in which she went into Eternity [N 2] and came out [N 4]. She has lost three months of Time but not three months of physiotime [H 6]. |
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Chapter 6. Harlan, still standing at the gateway to Time in the 2456th, recalls that a month has passed since the night he made love to Nos [H 6]. Now he enters the 2456th from Eternity, moves a small container, and returns [H 24]. Sociologist Voy is studying the 2481st, where a rusty spaceship sits at a deserted spaceport [2481st 1]. During his talk with the Life-Plotter, Harlan thinks of Nos and the morning after their lovemaking [H 7]. Then the Life-Plotter tells him that Nos does not exist in the new Reality planned for the 482nd [H 25]. |
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Chapter 7. Harlan leaves the 2456th [H 26] and recalls sending his report to Finge [H 8] on his observations in the 482nd and going back to his room [H 9]. There Finge contacts him by vision plate and then comes to see him in person [H 10]. |
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Chapter 8. Harlan goes back to the 482nd to take Nos up when to the 111,394th [H 11]. While there, Harlan remembers his early Cubhood when he learned that his Hometime and even his family might not exist as he remembered them [H 2]. Then he tells Nos about Reality [H 12]. |
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Chapter 9. Harlan moves his effects from the 482nd to the 575th where he picks up his duties with Cooper and Twissell. He shuttles back and forth to spend time with Nos in the 111,394th [H 13]. He goes back to Nos's house in the 482nd to pick up some books [H 14] and recalls [H 16] having been there before [H 15] to get some clothing and feeling that someone else was in the house, hearing a loud noise, and feeling that a door had closed behind him. Now [H 16] he hears someone laugh and drops his knapsack. |
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Chapter 10. Harlan opens a door, sees a man's back and the man starting to turn. As Harlan closes the door, he realizes that the man is himself. He had accidentally misadjusted the controls into the 482nd [H 14] to almost the previous time [H 15] . (This experience then can be identified as just after H 11 in the 482nd, but in Harlan's physiotime as H 14, H 15, and H 16; or, since H 15 and H 16 are identical times, they could be identified as H 15 and H 15.) Harlan returns to Eternity and |
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