Time and Again

by Clifford D. Simak

  "Powder!" he thought.

  And ever as he thought it, he knew no more of dark figures in the woods, nor the cheeping frogs nor the snarling of the guns.

  XLIV

  SUTTON OPENED his eyes to strangeness and lay quietly on the bed. A breeze came through an open window and the room, decorated with fantastic life-murals, was splashed with brilliant sunlight. The breeze brought in the scent of blooming flowers and in a tree outside a bird was chirping contentedly.

  Slowly Sutton let his senses reach out and gather in the facts of the room, the facts of strangeness…the unfamiliar furniture, the contour of the room itself, the green and purple monkeys that chased one another along the wavy vine that ran around the border of the walls.

  Quietly his mind moved back along the track of time to his final conscious moment. There had been guns flickering in the night and there had been a hand that reached out and cupped his nose.

  Drugged, Sutton told himself. Drugged and dragged away.

  Before that there had been a cricket and the frogs singing in the marsh and the talking brook that babbled down the hill, hurrying to get wherever it was going.

  And before that a man who had sat across a desk from him and told him about a corporation and a dream and plan the corporation held.

  Fantastic, Sutton thought. And in the bright light of the room, the very idea was one of utter fantasy…that Man should go out, not only to the stars, but to the galaxies.

  But there was greatness in it, a very human greatness. There had been a time when it had been fantasy to think that Man could ever lift himself from the bosom of the planet of his birth. And another time when it had been fantasy to think that Man would go beyond the Solar system, out into the dread reaches of nothingness that stretched between the stars.

  But there had been strength in Trevor, and conviction as well as strength. A man who knew where he was going and why he was going and what it took to get there.

  Manifest destiny, Trevor had said. That is what it takes. That is what it needs.

  Man would be great and he'd be a god. The concepts of life and thought that had been born on the Earth would be the basic concepts of the entire universe, of the fragile bubble of space and time that bobbed along on a sea of mystery beyond which no mind could penetrate. And yet, by the time that Man got where he was headed for, he might well be able to penetrate that, too.

  A mirror stood in one corner of the room and in it he saw the reflection of the lower half of his body, lying on the bed, naked except for a pair of shorts. He wiggled his toes and watched them in the glass.

  And you're the only one who is stopping us, Trevor had told him. You're the one man standing in the way of Man. You're the stumbling block. You are keeping men from being gods.

  But all men did not think as Trevor did. All men were not tangled in the blind chauvinism of the human race.

  The delegates from the Android Equality League had talked to him one noon, had caught him as he stepped off the elevator on his way to lunch, and had stood ranged before him as if they expected him to attempt escape and were set to cut him off.

  One of them had twisted a threadbare cap in his dirty fingers and the woman's hair had dangled and she had folded her hands across her stomach, as determined, stolid women do.

  They had been crackpots, certainly. They were fervent crusaders in a cause that held them up to a quiet and devastating scorn. Even the androids were not sympathetic to them, even the androids for whom they were working saw through the human ineffectiveness and the gaudy exhibitionism of their efforts.

  For the human race, thought Sutton, cannot even for a moment forget that it is human, cannot achieve the greatness of humility that will unquestioningly accord equality. Even while the League fought for the equality of androids, they could not help but patronize the very ones that they would make equal.

  What was it Herkimer had said? Equality not by special dispensation, not by human tolerance. But that was the only way the human race would ever accord equality…by dispensation or by overweening tolerance.

  And yet that pitiful handful of patronizers had been the only humans he might have turned to for help.

  A man who twisted his cap in grimy fingers, an old, officious woman and another man with time heavy on his hands and nothing else to do.

  And yet, thought Sutton…and yet, there is Eva Armour.

  There may be others like her. Somewhere, working with the androids even now, there may be others like her.

  He swung his feet out of bed and sat on the bed's edge. A pair of slippers stood on the floor and he worked his feet into them, stood up and walked to the mirror.

  A strange face stared back at him, a face he'd never seen before, and for a moment muddy panic surged within his brain.

  Then, sudden suspicion blossoming, his hand went up to his forehead and rubbed at the smudge that was there, set obliquely across his brow.

  Bending low, with his face close to the mirror, he verified the thought.

  The smudge upon his brow was an android identification mark! An identification key and a serial number!

  With his fingers he carefully explored his face, located the plastic overcoats that had changed its contours until he was unrecognizable.

  He turned around, made his way back to the bed, sat down upon it cautiously and gripped the edge of the mattress with his hands.

  Disguised, he told himself. Made into an android. Kidnapped a human, and an android when he woke.

  The door clicked and Herkimer said, "Good morning, sir. I trust that you are comfortable."

  Sutton jerked erect. "So it was you," he said.

  Herkimer nodded happily. "At your service, sir. Is there anything you wish?"

  "You didn't have to knock me out," said Sutton.

  "We had to work fast, sir," said Herkimer. "We couldn't have you messing up things, stumbling around and asking questions and wanting to know what it was all about. We just drugged you and hauled you off. It was, believe me, sir, much simpler that way."

  "There was some shooting," Sutton said. "I heard the guns."

  "It seems," Herkimer told him, "that there were a few Revisionists lurking about, and it gets a little complicated, sir, when one tries to tell about it."

  "You tangle with those Revisionists?"

  "Well, to tell the truth," said Herkimer, "some of them were so rash as to draw their guns. It was most unwise of them, sir. They got the worst of it."

  "It won't do us a bit of good," said Sutton, "if the idea was to get me out of the clutches of Trevor's mob. Trevor will have a psych-tracer on me. He knows where I am and this place will be watched three deep."

  Herkimer grinned. "It is, sir. His men are practically falling over one another all around the place."

  "Then why this get-up?" Sutton demanded angrily. "Why disguise me?"

  "Well, sir," explained Herkimer, "it's like this. We figured no human in his right mind ever would want to be taken for an android. So we turned you into one. They'll be looking for a human. It would never occur to them to take a second look at an android when they were looking for a human."

  Sutton grunted. "Smart," he said. "I hope it doesn't…"

  "Oh, they'll get on to it after a while, sir," Herkimer admitted, cheerfully. "But it will give us some time. Time to work out some plans."

  He moved swiftly around the room, opening chest drawers and taking out clothing.

  "It's very nice, sir," he said, "to have you back again. We tried to find you, but it was no dice. We figured the Revisionists had you cooped up somewhere, so we redoubled our security here and kept a close watch on everything that happened. For the past five weeks we've known every move that Trevor and his gang have made."

  "Five weeks!" gasped Sutton. "Did you say five weeks?"

  "Certainly, sir. Five weeks. You disappeared just seven weeks ago."

  "By my calendar," said Sutton, "it was ten years."

  Herkimer wagged his head sagely, unstartled. "Time is the fun
niest thing, sir. It ties a man in knots."

  He laid clothing on the bed. "If you'll get into these, sir, we'll go down for breakfast. Eva is waiting for us. She'll be glad to see you, sir."

  XLV

  TREVOR MISSED with three clips in a row. He shook his head sadly.

  "You're sure of this?" he asked the man across the desk.

  The man nodded, tight-lipped.

  "It might be android propaganda, you know," said Trevor. "They're clever. That's a thing you never must forget. An android, for all his bowing and his scraping, is just as smart as we are."

  "Do you realize what it means?" the man demanded. "It means…"

  "I can tell you what it means," said Trevor. "From now on we can't be sure which of us are human. There'll be no sure way of knowing who's human and who's an android. You could be an android. I could be…"

  "Exactly," said the man.

  "That's why Sutton was so smug yesterday afternoon," said Trevor. "He sat there, where you are sitting, and I had the impression that he was laughing at me all the time…"

  "I don't think Sutton knows," said the man. "It's an android secret. Only a few of them know it. They certainly wouldn't take a chance on any human knowing it."

  "Not even Sutton?"

  "Not even Sutton," said the man.

  "Cradle," said Trevor. "Nice sense of fitness that they have."

  "You're going to do something about it, certainly," said the man impatiently.

  Trevor put his elbows on the desk and matched careful fingertips.

  "Of course I am," he said. "Now listen carefully. This is what we'll do…"

  XLVI

  EVA ARMOUR rose from the table on the patio and held out both her hands in greeting. Sutton pulled her close to him, planted a kiss on her upturned face.

  "That," he said, "is for the million times I have thought of you."

  She laughed at him, suddenly gay and happy.

  "But, Ash, a million times!"

  "Tangled time," said Herkimer. "He's been away ten years."

  "Oh," said Eva. "Oh, Ash, how horrible!"

  He grinned at her. "Not too horrible. I had ten years of rest. Ten years of peace and quiet. Working on a farm, you know. It was a little rough at first, but I was actually sorry when I had to leave."

  He held a chair for her, took one for himself between her and Herkimer.

  They ate…ham and eggs, toast and marmalade, strong, black coffee. It was pleasant on the patio. In the trees above them birds quarreled amiably. In the clover at the edge of the bricks and stones that formed the paving, bees hummed among the blossoms.

  "How do you like my place, Ash?" asked Eva.

  "It's wonderful," he said, and then, as if the two ideas might be connected in some way, he said, "I saw Trevor yesterday. He took me to the mountaintop and showed me the universe."

  Eva drew in her breath sharply, and Sutton looked up quickly from his plate. Herkimer was waiting, with drawn face, with fork poised in midair, halfway to his mouth.

  "What's the matter with you two?" he asked. "Don't you trust me?"

  And even as he asked the question, he answered it for himself. Of course, they wouldn't trust him. For he was human and he could betray them. He could twist destiny so that it was a thing for the human race alone. And there was no way in which they could be sure that he would not do this.

  "Ash," said Eva, "you refused to…"

  "I left Trevor with an idea that I would be back to talk it over. Nothing that I said or did. He just believes I will. Told me to go out and beat my head against the wall some more."

  "You have thought about it, sir?" asked Herkimer.

  Sutton shook his head. "No. Not too much. I haven't sat down and mulled it over, if that is what you mean. It would have its points if you were merely human. Sometimes I frankly wonder how much of the human there may be left in me."

  "How much of it do you know, Ash,?" Eva asked, speaking softly.

  Sutton scrubbed a hand across his forehead. "Most of it, I think. I know about the war in time and how and why it's being fought. I know about myself. I have two bodies and two minds, or at least substitute bodies and minds. I know some of the things that I can do. There may be other abilities I do not know about. One grows into them. Each new thing comes hard."

  "We couldn't tell you," Eva said. "It would have been so simple if we could have told you. But, to start with, you would not have believed the things we told you. And, when dealing with time, one interferes as little as possible. Just enough to turn an event in the right direction.

  "I tried to warn you. Remember, Ash? As near as I could come to warning."

  He nodded. "After I killed Benton in the Zag House. You told me you had studied me for twenty years."

  "And remember, I was the little girl in the checkered apron. When you were fishing…"

  He looked at her in surprise. "You knew about that? It wasn't just part of the Zag dream?"

  "Identification," said Herkimer. "So that you could identify her as a friend, as someone you had known before and who was close to you. So that you would accept her as a friend."

  "But it was a dream."

  "A Zag dream," said Herkimer. "The Zag is one of us. His race will benefit if destiny can stand for everyone and not the human race alone."

  Sutton said, "Trevor is too confident. Not just pretending to be confident, but really confident. I keep coming back to that crack he made. 'Go out,' he said, 'and butt your head some more.' "

  "He's counting on you as a human being," Eva said.

  Sutton shook his head. "I can't think that's it. He must have some scheme up his sleeve, some maneuver that we won't be able to check."

  Herkimer spoke slowly. "I don't like that, sir. The war's not going too well as it is. If we had to win, we'd be lost right now."

  "If we had to win? I don't understand…"

  "We don't have to win, sir," said Herkimer. "All we have to do is fight a holding action, prevent the Revisionists from destroying the book as you will write it. From the very first we have not tried to change a thing. We've tried to keep them from being changed."

  Sutton nodded. "On his part, Trevor has to win decisively. He must smash the original text, either prevent it from being written as I mean to write it or discredit it so thoroughly that not even an android will believe it."

  "You're right, sir," Herkimer told him. "Unless he can do that the humans cannot claim destiny for their own, cannot make other life believe that destiny is reserved for the human race alone."

  "And that is all he wants," said Eva. "Not the destiny itself, for no human can have the faith in destiny that, say, for example, an android can. To Trevor it is merely a matter of propaganda…to make the human race believe so completely that it is destined that it will not rest until it holds the universe."

  "So long," said Herkimer, "as we can keep him from doing that we claim that we are winning. But the issue is so finely balanced that a new approach by either side would score heavily. A new weapon could be a factor that would mean victory or defeat."

  "I have a weapon," Sutton said. "A made-to-order weapon that would beat them…but there's no way that it can be used."

  Neither of them asked the question, but he saw it on their faces and he answered it.

  "There's only one such weapon. Only one gun. You can't fight a war with just one gun."

  Feet pounded around the corner of the house and when they turned they saw an android running toward them across the patio. Dust stained his clothing and his face was red from running. He came to a stop and faced them, clutching at the table's edge. "They tried to stop me," he panted, the words coming out in gushes. "The place is surrounded…"

  "Andrew, you fool," snapped Herkimer. "What do you mean by coming running in like this? They will know…"

  "They've found out about the Cradle," Andrew gasped. "They…"

  Herkimer came erect in one swift motion. The chair on which he had been sitting tipped over with the violence of h
is rising and his face was suddenly so white that the identification tattoo on his forehead stood out with a startling clearness.

  "They know where…"

  Andrew shook his head. "Not where. They just found out about it. Just now. We still have time…"

  "We'll call in all the ships," said Herkimer. "We'll have to pull all the guards off the crisis points…"

  "But you can't," gasped Eva. "That's exactly what they would want you to do. That is all that is stopping them…"

  "We have to," Herkimer said grimly. "There's no choice. If they destroy the Cradle…"

  "Herkimer," said Eva, and there was a deadly calm in her unhurried words. "The mark!"

  Andrew swung to face her, then took a backward step. Herkimer's hand flashed underneath his coat and Andrew turned to run, heading for the low wall that rimmed the patio.

  The knife in Herkimer's hand flashed in the sun and was suddenly a spinning wheel that tracked the running android. It caught him before he reached the wall and he went down into a heap of huddled clothing.

  The knife, Sutton saw, was neatly buried in his neck.

  XLVII

  "HAVE YOU noticed, sir," said Herkimer, "how the little things, the inconsequential, trivial factors, come to play so big a part in any happening?"

  He touched the huddled body with his foot.

  "Perfect," he said. "Absolutely perfect. Except that before reporting to us he should have smeared some lacquer over his identification mark. Many androids do it, in an attempt to hide the mark, but it's seldom much of a success. After only a short time the mark shows through."

  "But, lacquer?" asked Sutton.

  "A little code we have," said Herkimer. "A very simple thing. It's the recognition sign for an agent reporting. A password, as it were. It takes a moment only. Some lacquer on your finger and a smear across your forehead."

  "So simple a thing," said Eva, "that no one, absolutely no one, would ever notice it."

  Sutton nodded. "One of Trevor's men," he said.

  Herkimer nodded. "Impersonating one of our men. Sent to smoke us out. Sent to start us running, pell-mell, to save the Cradle."