|
|
|
|
|
|
without notice). The Life-Plotter doesn't quite see how she fit in the old one. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Harlan smuggles Nos into Eternity and hides her far upwhen in the untenanted 111,394th. He does mathematical research on an aspect of Eternity that came to him during his sexual experience with Nos. In going back several times to her estate in the 482nd to obtain clothes and books (films) for her, he is shaken to hear someone in the same house with him and then, on a second occasion, to see himself. It is the kind of paradox that some Eternals believe Time cannot endure. On his return to his room, Twissell relays a message from Finge that the 482nd Reality Change has been completed, and then Twissell tells Harlan that he has something to tell him the next day. Harlan tries to rejoin Nos but finds a block at the 100,000th that he cannot go beyond. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Harlan obtains a neuronic whip and makes Finge confess that he has known about Harlan and Nos's activities and has sent a report about them to the Allwhen Council. Harlan is willing to bargain with Eternity for Nos and thinks he has secret knowledge that will protect them. The next day he meets at lunch with a subcommittee of the Allwhen Council and believes he is being taunted by one member. Afterward he faces Twissell with his supposition about what has been happening: Vikkor Mallansohn, he says, could not have built a Temporal Field without equations that were not invented until the 27th. Cooper, he thinks, had been educated to go back to the 24th and teach Mallansohn the equations so that Eternity can be invented. Twissell says that he knows about Harlan and the girl and that everything will work out all right. Twissell has more important matters on his mind. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Harlan is partly right, Twissell says. Mallansohn left a record of his life in a Time-stasis. It was opened by the first of the great Eternals and passed along in strictest security until it reached Twissell. The memoir reveals that Cooper did go back to teach Mallansohn the equations, but Mallansohn died; Cooper took his place. At the end of his life, Cooper realized that he was the Mallansohn who invented the Temporal Field. All the preparations described in the memoir have been carried out so that Cooper can go back, do what Mallansohn was said to have done, and write his memoir so that it can be found and the cycle renewed. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Twissell takes Harlan to a room in which a time-travel machine stands. It is like the kettles used by all Eternals but enclosed and double-walled to contain its own Temporal Field. It must take Cooper back to the 24th, to Primitive history before Eternity. While Harlan is inspecting the control room, Twissell locks him in because Cooper's memoirs mention |
|
|
|
|
|