Time and Again

XL

The android investigator said, "We checked Bridgeport back to the year 2000 and we are convinced nothing ever happened there. It was a small village and it lay off the main trunk of world happenings."

"It wouldn't have to be a big thing," Eva Armour told him. "It could have been a little thing. Just some slight clue. A word out of the context of the future, perhaps. A word that Sutton might have dropped in some unguarded moment and someone else picked up and used. Within a few years a word like that would become a part of the dialect of that community."

"We checked for the little things, miss," the investigator said. "We checked for any aberration, any hint that might point to Sutton's having been in that community. We used approved methods and we covered the field. But we found nothing, absolutely nothing. The place is barren of any leads at all."

"He must have gone there," said Eva. "The robot at the information center talked to him. He asked about Bridgeport. It indicated that he had some interest in the place."

"But it didn't necessarily indicate that he was going there," Herkimer pointed out.

"He went someplace," said Eva. "Where did he go?"

"We threw in as large a force of investigators as was possible without arousing suspicion, both locally and in the future," the investigator told them. "Our men practically fell over one another. We sent them out as book salesmen and scissors grinders and unemployed men looking for work. We canvassed every home for twenty miles around, first at twenty-year intervals, then, when we found nothing, at ten, and finally at five. If there had been any word or any rumor we would have run across it."

"Back to the year 2000, you say," said Herkimer. "Why not to 1999 or 1950?"

"We had to set an arbitrary date somewhere," the investigator told him.

"The Sutton family lived in that locality," said Eva. "I suppose you investigated them just a bit more closely."

"We had men working on the Sutton farm off and on," said the investigator. "As often as the family was in need of any help on the farm one of our men showed up to get himself the job. When the family needed no help, we had men on other farms near by. One of our men bought a tract of timber in that locality and spent ten years at woodcutting…he could have stretched it out much longer but we were afraid someone would get suspicious.

"We did this from the year 2000 up to 3150, when the last of the family moved from the area."

Eva looked at Herkimer. "The family has been checked all the way?" she asked.

Herkimer nodded. "Right to the day that Asher left for Cygni. There's nothing that would help us."

Eva said, "It seems so hopeless. He is somewhere. Something happened to him. The future, perhaps."

"That's what I am thinking," Herkimer told her. "The Revisionists may have intercepted him. They may be holding him."

"They couldn't hold him…not Asher Sutton," Eva said. "They couldn't hold him if he knew all his powers."

"But he doesn't know them," Herkimer reminded her. "And we couldn't tell him about them or draw them to his attention. He had to find them for himself. He had to be put under pressure and suddenly discover them by natural reaction. He couldn't be taught them, he had to evolve into them."

"We did so well," said Eva. "We were doing so well. We forced Morgan into ill-considered action by conditioning Benton into challenging Sutton, the one quick way to get rid of Asher when Adams failed to fall in with the plan to kill him. And that Benton incident put Asher on his guard without our having to tell him that he should be careful. And now," she said. "And now…"

"The book was written," Herkimer told her.

"But it doesn't have to be," said Eva. "You and I may be no more than puppets in some probability world that will pinch out tomorrow."

"We'll cover all key points in the future," Herkimer told her. "We'll redouble our espionage of the Revisionists, check back on every task force of the past. Maybe we'll learn something."

"It's the random factors," Eva said. "You can't be sure, ever. All of time and space for them to happen in. How can we know where to look or turn? Do we have to fight our way through every possible happening to get the thing we want?"

"You forgot one factor," Herkimer said calmly.

"One factor?"

"Yes, Sutton himself. Sutton is somewhere and I have a great faith in him. In him and his destiny. For, you see, he pays attention to his destiny and that will pay off in the end."