Time and Again

XXXII

Sutton breasted the river, swimming with slow, sure strokes. The water was warm against his body and it talked to him with a deep, important voice and Sutton thought, It is trying to tell me something, as it has tried to tell the people something all down through the ages. A mighty tongue talking down the land, gossiping to itself when there is no one else to hear, but trying, always trying to tell its people the news it has to tell. Some of them, perhaps, have grasped a certain truth and a certain philosophy from the river, but none of them have ever reached the meaning of the river's language, for it is an unknown language.

Like the language, Sutton thought, I used to make my notes. For they had to be in a language which no one else could read, a language that had been forgotten in the galaxy aeons before any tongue now living lisped its baby talk. Either a language that had been forgotten or one that never could be known.

I do not know that language, Sutton told himself, the language of my notes. I do not know whence it came or when or how. I asked, but they would not tell me. Johnny tried to tell me once, but I could not grasp it, for it was a thing that the brain of Man could not accept.

I know its symbols and the things they stand for, but I do not know the sounds that make it. My tongue might not be able to form the sounds that make the spoken language. For all I know it might be the language that this river talks…or the language of some race that went to disaster and to dust a million years ago.

The black of night came down to nestle against the black of flowing river and the moon had not risen, would not rise for many hours to come. The starlight made little diamond points on the rippling waves of the pulsing river, and on the shore ahead the lights of homes made jagged patterns up and down the land.

Herkimer has the notes, Sutton told himself, and I hope he has sense enough to hide them. For I will need them later, but not now. I would like to see Herkimer, but I can't take the chance, for they'll be watching him. And there's no doubt they have a tracer on me, but if I move fast enough, I can keep out of their way.

His feet struck gravel bottom and he let himself down, waded up the shelving shore. The night wind struck him and he shivered, for the river had been warm from a day of sun and the wind had a touch of chill.

Herkimer, of course, would be one of those who had come back to see that he wrote the book as he would have written it if there had been no interference. Herkimer and Eva…and of the two, Sutton told himself, he could trust Herkimer the most. For an android would fight, would fight and die for the thing that the book would say. The android and the dog and horse and honeybee and ant. But the dog and horse and honeybee and ant would never know, for they could not read.

He found a grassy bank and sat down and took off his clothes to wring them dry, then put them on again. Then he struck out across the meadow toward the highway that arrowed up the valley.

No one would find the ship at the bottom of the river…not for a while, at least. And a few hours was all he needed. A few hours to ask a thing that he must know, a few hours to get back to the ship again.

But he couldn't waste any time. He had to get the information the quickest way he could. For if Adams had a tracer on him, and Adams would have a tracer on him, they would already know that he had returned to Earth.

Once again came the old nagging wonder about Adams. How had Adams known that he was coming back and why had he set a mousetrap for him when he did arrive? What information had he gotten that would make him give the order that Sutton must be shot on sight?

Someone had gotten to him…someone who had evidence to show him. For Adams would not go on anything less than evidence. And the only person who could have given him any information would have been someone from the future. One of those, perhaps, who contended that the book must not be written, that it must not exist, that the knowledge that it held be blotted out forever. And if the man who was to write should die, what could be more simple?

Except that the book had been written. That the book already did exist. That the knowledge apparently was spread across the galaxy.

That would be catastrophe…for if the book were not written, then it never had existed and the whole segment of the future that had been touched by the book in any wise would be blotted out along with the book that had not been.

And that could not be, Sutton told himself.

That meant that Asher Sutton could not, would not, be allowed to die before the book was written.

However it were written, the book must be written or the future was a lie.

Sutton shrugged. The tangled thread of logic was too much for him. There was no precept, no precedent upon which one might develop the pattern of cause and result.

Alternate futures? Maybe, but it didn't seem likely. Alternate futures were a fantasy that employed semantics twisting to prove a point, a clever use of words that covered up and masked the fallacies.

He crossed the road and took a foot path that led to a house standing on a knoll.

In the marsh down near the river, the frogs had struck up their piping and somewhere far away a wild duck called in the darkness. In the hills the whipporwills began the evening forum. The scent of new-cut grass lay heavy in the air and the smell of river night fog was crawling up the hills.

The path came out on a patio and Sutton moved across it.

A man's voice came to him.

"Good evening, sir," it said, and Sutton wheeled around.

He saw the man, then, for the first time. A man who sat in his chair and smoked his pipe beneath the evening stars.

"I hate to bother you," said Sutton, "but I wonder if I might use your visor."

"Certainly, Ash," said Adams. "Certainly. Anything you wish."

Sutton started and then felt himself freeze into a man of steel and ice.

Adams!

Of all the homes along the river, he would walk in on Adams!

Adams chuckled at him. "Destiny works against you, Ash."

Sutton moved forward, found a chair in the darkness and sat down.

"You have a pleasant place," he said.

"A very pleasant place," said Adams.

Adams tapped out his pipe and put it in his pocket.

"So you died again," he said.

"I was killed," said Sutton. "I got unkilled almost immediately."

"Some of my boys?" asked Adams. "They are hunting for you."

"A couple of strangers," said Sutton. "Some of Morgan's gang."

Adams shook his head. "I don't know the name," he said.

"He probably didn't tell his name," said Sutton. "He told you I was coming back."

"So that was it," said Adams. "The man out of the future. You have him worried, Ash."

"I need to make a visor call," said Sutton.

"You can use the visor," said Adams.

"And I need an hour."

Adams shook his head.

"I can't give you an hour."

"A half hour, then. I may have a chance to make it. A half hour after I finish my call."

"Nor a half hour, either."

"You never gamble, do you, Adams?"

"Never," said Adams.

"I do," said Sutton. He rose. "Where is that visor? I'm going to gamble on you."

"Sit down, Ash," said Adams, almost kindly. "Sit down and tell me something."

Stubbornly, Sutton remained standing.

"If you could give me your word," said Adams, "that this destiny business won't harm Man. If you could tell me it won't give aid and comfort to our enemies."

"Man hasn't any enemies," said Ash, "except the ones he's made."

"The galaxy is waiting for us to crack," said Adams. "Waiting to close in at the first faint sign of weakness."

"That's because we taught them it," said Sutton. "They watched us use their own weaknesses to push them off their feet."

"What will this destiny do?" asked Adams.

"It will teach Man humility," said Sutton. "Humility and responsibility."

"It's not a religion," said Adams. "That's what Raven told me. But it sounds like a religion…with all that humility pother."

"Dr. Raven was right," Sutton told him. "It's not a religion. Destiny and religions could flourish side by side and exist in perfect peace. They do not encroach upon one another. Rather, they would complement one another. Destiny stands for the same things most religions stand for and it holds out no promise of an afterlife. It leaves that to religion."

"Ash," said Adams quietly, "you have read your history."

Sutton nodded.

"Think back," said Adams. "Remember the crusades. Remember the rise of Mohammedanism. Remember Cromwell in England. Remember Germany and America. And Russia and America. Religion and ideas, Ash. Religion and ideas. Man will fight for an idea when he wouldn't lift a hand for land or life or honor. But an idea…that's a different thing."

"And you're afraid of an idea,"

"We can't afford an idea, Ash. Not right now, at least."

"And still," Sutton told him, "it has been the ideas that have made men grow. We wouldn't have a culture or a civilization if it weren't for ideas."

"Right now," said Adams, bitterly, "men are fighting in the future over this destiny of yours."

"That's why I have to make a call," said Sutton. "That's why I need an hour."

Adams rose heavily to his feet.

"I may be making a mistake," he said. "It's something I have never done in all my life. But for once I'll gamble."

He led the way across the patio and into a dimly lighted room, furnished with old-fashioned furniture.

"Jonathon," he called.

Feet pattered in the hall and the android came into the room.

"A pair of dice," said Adams, heavily. "Mr. Sutton and I are about to gamble."

''Dice, sir?"

"Yes, that pair you and the cook are using."

"Yes, sir," said Jonathon.

He turned and disappeared and Sutton listened to his feet going through the house, fainter and fainter.

Adams turned to face him.

"One throw each," he said. "High man wins."

Sutton nodded, tense.

"If you win you get the hour," said Adams. "If I win you take my orders."

"I'll throw with you," said Sutton. "On terms like that, I'm willing to gamble."

And he was thinking:

I lifted the battered ship on Gygni VII and maneuvered it through space. I was the engine and the pilot, the tubes and navigator. Energy garnered by my body took the ship and lifted it and drove it through space…eleven years through space. I brought the ship tonight down through atmosphere with the engines dead so it could not be spotted and I landed in the river. I could pick a book out of that case and carry it to the table without laying hands on it and I could turn the pages without the use of fingertips.

But dice.

Dice are different.

They roll so fast and topple so.

"Win or lose," said Adams, "you can use the visor."

"If I lose," said Sutton, "I won't need it."

Jonathon came back and laid the dice upon a tabletop. He hesitated for a moment and when he saw that the two humans were waiting for him to go, he went.

Sutton nodded at the dice carelessly.

"You first," he said.

Adams picked them up, held them in his fist and shook them, and their clicking was like the porcelain chatter of badly frightened teeth.

His fist came down above the table and his fingers opened and the little white cubes spun and whirled on the polished top. They came to rest and one was a five and the other one a six.

Adams raised his eyes to Sutton and there was nothing in them. No triumph. Absolutely nothing.

"Your turn," said Adams.

Perfect, thought Sutton. Nothing less than perfect. Two sixes. It has to be two sixes.

He stretched out his hand and picked up the dice, shook them in his fist, felt the shape and size of them rolling in his palm.

Now take them in your mind, he told himself…take them in your mind as well as in your fist. Hold them in your mind, make them a part of you, as you made the two ships you drove through space, as you could make a book or chair or a flower you wished to pick.

He changed for a moment and his heart faltered to a stop and the blood slowed to a trickle in his arteries and veins and he was not breathing. He felt the energy system take over, the other body that drew raw energy from anything that might have energy.

His mind reached out and took the dice and shook them inside the prison of his fist and he brought his hand down with a swooping gesture and let his fingers loose and the dice came dancing out.

They were dancing in his brain, too, as well as on the tabletop and he saw them, or sensed them, or was aware of them, as if they were a part of him. Aware of the sides that had the six black dots and the sides with one and all the other sides.

But they were slippery to handle, hard to make go the way he wanted them to go and for a fearful, agonizing second it seemed almost as if the spinning cubes had minds and personalities that were their very own.

One of them was a six and the other still was rolling. The six was coming up and it toppled for a moment, threatening to fall back.

A push, thought Sutton. Just a little push. But with brain power instead of finger power.

The six came up and the two dice lay there, both of them showing sixes.

Sutton drew in a sobbing breath and his heart beat once again and the blood pumped through the veins.

They stood in silence for a moment, staring at one another across the tabletop.

Adams spoke and his voice was quiet and one could not have guessed from any tone he used what he might have felt.

"The visor is over there," he said.

Sutton bowed, ever so slightly, and he felt foolish doing it, like a character out of some incredibly old and bad piece of romantic fiction.

"Destiny," he said, "still is working for me. When it comes to the pinch, destiny is there."

"Your hour will start," said Adams, "as soon as you finish talking."

He turned smartly and walked back to the patio, very stiff and straight.

Now that he had won, Sutton suddenly was weak, and he walked to the visor on legs that seemed to have turned to rubber.

He sat down before the visor and took out the directory that he needed.

INFormation. And the subheading.

Geography, historic, North America.

He found the number and dialed it and the glass lit up.

The robot said: "Can I be of service, sir?"

"Yes," said Sutton, "I would like to know where Wisconsin was."

"Where are you now, sir?"

"I am at the residence of Mr. Christopher Adams."

"The Mr. Adams who is with the Department of Galactic Investigation?"

"The same," said Sutton.

"Then," the robot said, "you are in Wisconsin."

"Bridgeport?" asked Sutton.

"It was on the Wisconsin River, on the north bank, a matter of seven miles above the junction with the Mississippi."

"But those rivers? I've never heard of them."

"You are near them now, sir. The Wisconsin flows into the Mississippi just below the point where you are now."

Sutton rose shakily and crossed the room, went out on the patio.

Adams was lighting up his pipe.

"You got what you wanted?" he asked.

Sutton nodded.

"Get going, then," said Adams. "Your hour's already started."

Sutton hesitated.

"What is it, Ash?"

"I wonder," said Sutton, "I wonder if you would shake my hand."

"Why, sure," said Adams.

He rose ponderously to his feet and held out his hand.

"I don't know which," said Adams, "but you are either the greatest man or the biggest damn fool that I have ever known."