Time and Again

XXVI

Sutton stiffened in his chair and then relaxed. For this was bluff, he told himself. These men wouldn't kill him. They wanted the book and dead men do not write.

Case answered him, almost as if Sutton had spoken what he thought aloud.

"You must not count on us," he said, "as honorable men, for neither of us ourselves would lay a claim to that. Pringle, I think, will bear me out in that."

"Oh, most certainly," said Pringle, "I have no use for honor."

"It would have meant a great deal to us if we could have taken you back to Trevor and…"

"Wait a second," said Sutton. "Who is this Trevor? He's a new one."

"Oh, Trevor," said Pringle. "Just an oversight. Trevor is the head of the corporation."

"The corporation," said Case, "that wants to get your book."

"Trevor would have heaped us with honors," Pringle said, "and loaded us with wealth if we had pulled it off, but since you won't co-operate we'll have to cast around for some other way to make ourselves a profit."

"So we switch sides," said Case, "and we shoot you. Morgan will pay high for you, but he wants you dead. Your carcass will be worth a good deal to Morgan. Oh yes, indeed it will."

"And you will sell it to him," Sutton said.

"Most certainly," said Pringle. "We never miss a bet."

Case purred at Sutton, "You do not object, I hope?" Sutton shook his head. "What you do with my cadaver," he told them, "is no concern of mine."

"Well, then," said Case and he raised the gun.

"Just a second," Sutton said quietly.

Case lowered the gun. "Now what?" he asked.

"He wants a cigarette," said Pringle. "Men who are about to be executed always want a cigarette or a glass of wine or a chicken dinner or something of the sort."

"I want to ask a question," Sutton said.

Case nodded.

"I take it," Sutton said, "that in your time I've already written this book."

"That's right," Case told him. "And, if you will allow me, it is an honest and efficient job."

"Under your imprint or someone else's?"

Pringle cackled. "Under someone else's, of course. If you did it under ours, why do you think we'd be back here at all?"

Sutton wrinkled his brow. "I've already written it," he said, "without your help or counsel…and without your editing. Now, if I did it a second time, and wrote it the way you wanted, there would be complications."

"None," said Case, "we couldn't overcome. Nothing that could not be explained quite satisfactorily."

"And now that you're going to kill me, there'll be no book at all. How will you handle that?"

Case frowned. "It will be difficult," he said, "and unfortunate…unfortunate for many people. But we'll work it out somehow."

He raised the gun again.

"Sure you won't change your mind?" he asked.

Sutton shook his head.

They won't shoot, he told himself, It's a bluff. The deck is cold and…

Case pulled the trigger.

A mighty force, like a striking fist, slammed into Sutton's body and shoved him back so hard that the chair tilted and then slued around, yawing like a ship caught in magnetic stresses.

Fire flashed within his skull and he felt one swift shriek of agony that took him in its claws and lifted him and shook him, jangling every nerve, grating every bone.

There was one thought, one fleeting thought that he tried to grasp and hold, but it wriggled from his brain like an eel slipping free from bloody ringers.

Change, said the thought. Change. Change.

He felt the change…felt it start even as he died.

And death was a soft thing, soft and black, cool and sweet and gracious. He slipped into it as a swimmer slips into the surf and it closed over him and held him and he felt the pulse and beat of it and knew the vastness and the sureness of it.

Back on Earth, the psych-tracer faltered to a stop and Christopher Adams went home for the first time in his life before the day was done.