Time and Again

by Clifford D. Simak

  He scrambled up the steps into the ship. "Get going," he told the other man tersely. "We're getting out of here."

  He turned to close the port, but Sutton already had it closed.

  Gus took two steps backward, brought up against an anchored chair and stood there, grinning.

  "Look at what we got," he said. "Hey, Pinky, look at what followed me back home."

  Sutton smiled at them grimly. "If you gentlemen have no objection, I'll hitch a ride with you."

  "And if we have objections?" Pinky asked.

  "I'm riding this ship," Sutton told him. "With you or without you. Take your choice."

  "This is Sutton," Gus told Pinky. "The Mr. Sutton. Trevor will be glad to see you, Sutton."

  Trevor…Trevor. That was three times he had heard the name, and somewhere else he had heard it once before. He stood with his back against the closed port and his mind went back to another ship and another two men.

  "Trevor," Case had said, or had it been Pringle who had said it? "Trevor? Why, Trevor is the head of the corporation."

  "I've been looking forward, all these years," Sutton told him, "to meeting Mr. Trevor. He and I will have a lot to talk about."

  "Get her going, Pinky," Gus said. "And send ahead a message. Trevor will want to break out the guard of honor for us. We're bringing Sutton back."

  XLII

  TREVOR PICKED up a paper clip and flipped it at an inkwell on the desk. The clip landed in the ink.

  "Getting pretty good," said Trevor. "Hit it seven times out of every ten. Used to be I missed it seven times out of every ten."

  He looked at Sutton, studying him.

  "You look like an ordinary man," he said. "I should be able to talk with you and make you understand."

  "I haven't any horns," said Sutton, "if that is what you mean."

  "Nor," said Trevor, "any halo, either, so far as I'm concerned."

  He flipped another paper clip and it missed the inkwell.

  "Seven out of ten," said Trevor.

  He flipped another one and it was a hit. Ink spouted up and spattered on the desk.

  "Sutton," said Trevor, "you know a great deal about destiny. Have you ever thought of it in terms of manifest destiny?"

  Sutton shrugged. "You're using an antiquated term. Pure and simple propaganda of the nineteenth century. There was a certain nation that wore that one threadbare."

  "Propaganda," Trevor said. "Let's call it psychology. You say a thing so often and so well that after a time everyone believes it. Even, finally, yourself."

  "This manifest destiny," said Sutton. "For the human race, I presume?"

  "Naturally," said Trevor. "After all, we're the animals that would know how to use it to the best advantage."

  "You pass up a point," declared Sutton. "The humans don't need it. Already they think they are great and right and holy. Certainly, you don't need to propagandize them."

  "In the short view, you are right," said Trevor. "But in the short view only."

  He stabbed a sudden finger at Sutton. "Once we have the galaxy in hand, what do we do then?"

  "Why," said Sutton. "Why, I suppose…"

  "That's exactly it," said Trevor. "You don't know where you're going. Nor does the human race."

  "And manifest destiny?" asked Sutton. "If we had manifest destiny, it would be different?"

  Trevor's words were scarcely more than a whisper. "There are other galaxies, Sutton. Greater even than this one. Many other galaxies."

  Good Lord! thought Sutton.

  He started to speak and then closed his mouth and sat stiffly in his chair.

  Trevor's whisper speared at him from across the desk.

  "Staggers you, doesn't it?" he said.

  Sutton tried to speak aloud, but his voice came out a whisper, too.

  "You're mad, Trevor. Absolutely mad."

  "The long-range view," said Trevor. "That is what we need. The absolutely unshakable belief in human destiny, the positive and all-inclusive conviction that Man is meant not only to take over this galaxy alone but all the galaxies, the entire universe."

  "You should live long enough," said Sutton, sudden mockery rising to his tongue.

  "I won't see it, of course," said Trevor. "And neither will you. Nor will our children's children or their children for many generations."

  "It will take a million years," Sutton told him.

  "More than a million years," Trevor told him calmly. "You have no idea, no conception of the scope of the universe. In a million years we'll be getting a good start…"

  "Then, why, for the love of heaven, do you and I sit here and quibble about it?"

  "Logic," said Trevor.

  "There is no real logic," Sutton declared, "in planning a million years ahead. A man can plan his own lifetime, if he wishes, and there is some logic in that. Or the life of his children, and there still would be some logic in it…and maybe in the life of his grandchildren. But beyond that there can be no logic."

  "Sutton," asked Trevor, "did you ever hear of a corporation?"

  "Why, yes, of course, but…"

  "A corporation could plan for a million years," said Trevor. "It could plan very logically."

  "A corporation is not a man," said Sutton. "It is not an entity."

  "But it is," insisted Trevor. "An entity composed of men and created by men to carry out their wishes. It is a living, operative concept that is handed down from one generation to another to carry out a plan too vast to be accomplished in the lifetime of one man alone."

  "Your corporation publishes books, too, doesn't it?" asked Sutton.

  Trevor stared at him. "Who told you that?" he snapped.

  "A couple of men by the name of Case and Pringle," Sutton said. "They tried to buy my book for your corporation."

  "Case and Pringle are out on a mission," Trevor said. "I had expected them back…"

  "They won't be coming back," said Sutton.

  "You killed them," Trevor said, flatly.

  "They tried to kill me first," said Sutton. "I'm awfully hard to kill."

  "That would have been against my orders, Sutton. I do not want you killed."

  "They were on their own," said Sutton. "They were going to sell my carcass to Morgan."

  There was no way of telling, Sutton thought, how you hit this man. There was no difference of expression in his eyes, no faintest flicker of change across his face.

  "I appreciate your killing them," said Trevor. "It saves me the bother."

  He flicked a clip at the inkwell and it was a hit.

  "It's logical," he said, "that a corporation should plan a million years ahead. It provides a framework within which a certain project may be carried forward without interruption although the personnel in charge should change from time to time."

  "Wait a minute," Sutton told him. "Is there a corporation or are you just posing fables?"

  "There is a corporation," Trevor told him, "and I am the man who heads it. Varied interests pooling their resources…and there will be more and more of them as time goes on. As soon as we can show something tangible."

  "By tangible, you mean destiny for the human race, for the human race alone?"

  Trevor nodded. "Then we'll have something to talk about. A commodity to sell. Something to back up our sales talk."

  Sutton shook his head. "I can't see what you expect to gain."

  "Three things," Trevor told him. "Wealth and power and knowledge. The wealth and power and knowledge of the universe. For Man alone, you understand. For a single race. For people like you and me. And of the three, knowledge perhaps would be the greatest prize of all, for knowledge, added to and compounded, correlated and co-ordinated, would lead to even greater wealth and power…and to greater knowledge."

  "It is madness," said Sutton. "You and I, Trevor, will be drifting dust, and not only ourselves, but the very era in which we live out this moment will be forgotten before the job is done."

  "Remember the corporation."

 
"I'm remembering the corporation," Sutton said, "but I can't help but think in terms of people. You and I and the other people like us."

  "Let's think in terms of people, then," said Trevor, smoothly. "One day the life that runs in you will run in the brain and blood and muscle of a man who shall be part owner of the universe. There will be trillions upon trillions of life forms to serve him, there will be wealth that he cannot count, there will be knowledge of which you and I cannot even dream."

  Sutton sat quietly, slumped in his chair.

  "You're the only man," said Trevor, "who is standing in the way. You're the man who is blocking the project for a million years."

  "You need destiny," said Sutton, "and destiny is not mine to give away."

  "You are a human being, Sutton," Trevor told him, talking evenly. "You are a man. It is the people of your own race that I'm talking to you about."

  "Destiny," said Sutton, "belongs to everything that lives. Not to Man alone, but to every form of life."

  "It needn't," Trevor told him. "You are the only man who knows. You are the man who can tell the facts. You can make it a manifest destiny for the human race instead of a personal destiny for every crawling, cackling, sniveling thing that has the gift of life."

  Sutton didn't answer.

  "One word from you," said Trevor, "and the thing is done."

  "It can't be done," said Sutton, "this scheme of yours. Think of the sheer time, the thousands of years, even at the rate of speed of the starships of today, to cross intergalactic space. Only from this galaxy to the next…not from this galaxy to the ultimate galaxy."

  Trevor sighed. "You forget what I said about the compounding of knowledge. Two and two won't make four, my friend. It will make much more than four. In some instances thousands of times more than four."

  Sutton shook his head, wearily.

  But Trevor was right, he knew. Knowledge and technique would pyramid exactly as he said. Even, once Man had the time to do it, the knowledge in one galaxy alone…

  "One word from you," Trevor said, "and the time war is at an end. One word and the security of the human race is guaranteed forever. For all the race will need is the knowledge that you can give it."

  "It wouldn't be the truth," said Sutton.

  "That," said Trevor, "doesn't have a thing to do with it."

  "You don't need manifest destiny," said Sutton, "to carry out your project."

  "We have to have the human race behind us," Trevor said. "We have to have something that is big enough to capture their imagination. Something important enough to make them pay attention. And manifest destiny, manifest destiny as it applies to the universe, is the thing to turn the trick."

  "Twenty years ago," said Sutton, "I would have thrown in with you."

  "And now?" asked Trevor.

  Sutton shook his head. "Not now. I know more than I did twenty years ago. Twenty years ago I was a human, Trevor. I'm not too sure I'm entirely human any longer."

  "I hadn't mentioned the matter of reward," said Trevor. "That goes without saying."

  "No, thanks," said Sutton. "I'd like to keep on living."

  Trevor flipped a clip at the inkwell and it missed.

  "You're slipping," Sutton said. "Your percentage is way off."

  Trevor picked up another clip.

  "All right," he said. "Go ahead and have your fun. There's a war on and we'll win that war. It's a hellish way to fight, but we're doing it the best we can. No war anywhere, no surface indication of war, for you understand the galaxy is in utter and absolute peace under the rule of benevolent Earthmen. We can win without you, Sutton, but it would be easier with you."

  "You're going to turn me loose?" Sutton asked, in mock surprise.

  "Why, sure," Trevor told him. "Go on out and beat your head against a stone wall a little longer. In the end, you'll get tired of it. Eventually you'll give up out of sheer exhaustion. You'll come back then and give us the thing we want."

  Sutton rose to his feet.

  He stood for a moment, indecisive.

  "What are you waiting for?" asked Trevor.

  "One thing has me puzzled," Sutton told him. "The book, somehow, somewhere, already has been written. It has been a fact for almost five hundred years. How are you going to change that? If I write it now the way you want it written, it will change the human setup…"

  Trevor laughed. "We got that one figured out. Let us say that finally, after all of these years, the original of your manuscript is discovered. It can be readily and indisputably identified by certain characteristcs which you will very carefully incorporate into it when you write it.. It will be found and proclaimed, and what is more, proved…and the human race will have its destiny.

  "We'll explain the past unpleasantness by very convincing historic evidence of earlier tampering with the manuscript. Even your friends, the androids, will have to believe what we say once we get through with it."

  "Clever," Sutton said.

  "I think so, too," said Trevor.

  XLIII

  AT THE BUILDING'S entrance a man was waiting for him. He raised his hand in what might have been a brief salute.

  "Just a minute, Mr. Sutton."

  "Yes, what is it?"

  "There'll be a few of us following you, sir. Orders, you know."

  "But…"

  "Nothing personal, sir. We won't interfere with anything you want to do. Just guarding you, sir."

  "Guarding me?"

  "Certainly, sir. Morgan's crowd, you know. Can't let them pop you off."

  "You can't know," Sutton told him, "how deeply I appreciate your interest."

  "It's nothing sir," the man told him. "Just part of the day's work. Glad to do it. Don't mention it at all."

  He stepped back again and Sutton wheeled and walked down the steps and followed the cinder walk that flanked the avenue.

  The sun was near to setting and looking back over his shoulder he saw the tall, straight lines of the gigantic office building in which he had talked to Trevor outlined against the brightness of the western sky. But of anyone who might be following him he did not see a sign.

  He had no place to go. He had no idea where to go. But he realized that he couldn't stand around wringing his hands. He'd walk, he told himself, and think, and wait for whatever was going to happen next to happen.

  He met other walkers and a few of them stared at him curiously, and now, for the first time, Sutton realized that he still wore the clothing of the twentieth-century farm hand…blue denim overalls and cotton shirt, with heavy, serviceable farm shoes on his feet.

  But here, he knew, even such an outlandish costume would not arouse undue suspicion. For on Earth, with its visiting dignitaries from far Solar systems, with its Babel of races employed in the different governmental departments, with its exchange students, its diplomats and legislators representing backwoods planets, how a man dressed would arouse but slight curiosity.

  By morning, he told himself, he'd have to find some hiding place, some retreat where he could relax and figure out some of the angles in this world of five hundred years ahead.

  Either that or locate an android he could trust to put him in touch with the android organization…for although he had never been told so, he had no doubt there was android organization. There would have to be to fight a war in time.

  He turned off the path that flanked the roadway and took another one, a faint footpath that led out across marshy land toward a range of low hills to the north.

  Suddenly now he realized that he was hungry and that he should have dropped into one of the shops in the office building for a bite of food. And then he remembered that he had no money with which to pay for food. A few twentieth-century dollars were in his pockets, but they would be worthless here as a medium of exchange, although quite possibly they might have some value as collectors' items.

  Dusk came over the land and the frogs began their chorus, first from far away and then, with others joining in, the marsh resounded with their throa
ty pipings. Sutton walked through a world of faerie sound, and as he walked it almost seemed as if his feet did not touch the ground, but floated along, driven by the breath of sound that rose to meet the first faint stars of evening shining above the dark heights that lay ahead.

  Short hours ago, he thought, he had walked a dusty hilltop road in the twentieth century, scuffing the white dust with his shoes…and some of the white dust, he saw, still clung to his shoes. Even as the memory of that hilltop road clung to his memory. Memory and dust, he thought, link us to the past.

  He reached the hills and began to climb them and the night was sweet with the smell of pine and the scent of forest flowers.

  He came to the top of a slight rise and stood there for a moment, looking out across the velvety softness of the night. Somewhere, near at hand, a cricket was tentatively tuning up his fiddle, and from the marsh came the muted sound of frogs. In the darkness just ahead of him a stream was splashing along its rocky bed and it talked as it went along, talked to the trees and its grassy banks and the nodding flowers that hung their sleepy heads above it.

  "I would like to stop," it said. "I would like to stop and talk with you. But I can't, you see. I must hurry on. I have some place I must go. I can't waste a minute. I must hurry on."

  Like Man, thought Sutton. For Man is driven like the stream. Man is driven by circumstance and necessity and the bright-eyed ambition of other restless men who will not let him be.

  He did not hear a sound, but he felt the great hand close upon his arm and jerk him off the path. Twisting, he sought to free himself of the grasp, and saw the dark blur of the man who had grabbed him. He balled his fist and swung it and it was a sledge-hammer slamming at the dark head, but it never reached its mark. A charging body slammed into his knees and bent them under him, arms wrapped themselves around his legs and he staggered, falling on his face.

  He sat up and somewhere off to the right he heard the soft snickering of rapidly firing guns and caught, out of the tail of his eyes, their bright flicker in the night.

  Then a hand came out of nowhere and cupped itself around his mouth and nose.