Renfrew was continuing; ‘I’m delighted to tell you that it has worked out.’ He grinned at Caxton affectionately. ‘These last few weeks while you’ve been charging around looking over this town, Ned and I have been pricing super-spaceships. Well, my friend’ - he put out his hand and, with that magnetic touch, lightly grasped Caxton’s wrist - ‘we can get one for five and a half million credits. So I thought - ‘

  Renfrew had turned away from Blake in his jubilance; and so, as Caxton looked, he caught Blake’s eyes on him from beyond Renfrew. Blake made a nodding gesture with his head, and his eyes appealed to Caxton to go along with the idea whatever it was.

  Renfrew was finishing his proposition, ‘Why don’t we all put up equal sums, and jointly purchase the ship that Ned and I have chosen?’

  Caxton had been making a rapid calculation, dividing five and a half by three; and since one third was less than what he had by more than half a million credits, it meant nothing; it was as unreal a sum as the original amount, which he had never possessed anyway in his own mind.

  There was enough left for his private purposes. So the request was a nothing to him, to be acceded to without a single, further thought.

  In fact, he had no thought - and no suspicion.

  ‘Great!’ he said loudly; too loudly. ‘Consider it done. In fact - ‘

  He drew out his checkbook and wrote a check to James Renfrew for the entire one and five-sixths million credits. He presented it with a flourish, and realised as he did so that Blake had been telling him their plans.

  Caxton was vaguely aware of Renfrew accepting the check. But inside him there was an awful pause. … What did he say? What trip?

  Blake was speaking glowingly. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll check out the ship. But it’s automatic. No problems. Then the next day, we leave.’

  Caxton stared at him blankly. And then - he couldn’t help himself - he said, ‘For God’s sake, where are we going?’

  Blake said with shining eyes, ‘Peter, this is one of the ships that can go to Centaurus in three hours, to Sirius in about ten, and so on.’ It was he now who reached across to Caxton, gripped his arm. His gaze sought Caxton’s eyes. ‘Look, boy, we’ve gone along with your little game here. Now, you go along with Jim’s for a couple of months of space exploration. Okay?’

  ‘We’ll cruise for a while,’ said Renfrew. ‘What do you say, pal?’

  He didn’t resist. He couldn’t resist. Not yet. Strange, but he still felt bound to the other two men; could not bring himself to oppose their plans. Many times, he thought: It’s because they like me, and I haven’t had that before from anyone… . But there was also the factor that if - if - he had to stay in the twenty-fifth century, then it could be that he would need their companionship more, even, than they needed his. After all, they always had each other. In that department, he was definitely second. Blake would always put Renfrew first, and Renfrew would always, well, expect Blake to put him first. But it seemed to be true that they both gave some of their affection to a jittery, nervous, tense, jumpy, absentminded potential-betrayer-of-their-trust, a peculiar mixed-up individual named Peter Caxton, who had a twentieth century M.A. degree in physics and an all-across-the-board idiot’s degree in yearning for immortality. And because he needed the good feeling that they offered him, he couldn’t help it - he had to hold still for what they wanted. And so there was no avoiding this exploratory trip into space.

  Caxton stayed in the lobby of the hotel, trying to think how he might speed up the search for the present address of Dan Magoelson. Because if he could go there…

  What then? He realised that he visualised an entrance into the Palace of Immortality through Magoelson’s home. And if it was there, he would sneak into the Palace and hide. Once inside … His plans were vague, but to hell with that. He’d face that situation when he got to it, but in the back of his mind he was aware of the shadowy hope that he could make a delaying agreement with the Possessors, whereby they allowed him to remain while he made the effort to fit his personality to their requirements.

  Surely Caxton thought as he paced from one end of the lobby to the other, with the coffin staring him in the face as the only alternative, he could become - he laughed curtly - a softer, gentler, more appealing Peter Caxton. It was difficult to imagine such a change, but other people were like that; so why not he? Still, the problem had never really been with him. His own personality had taken its present form as he gradually, and rather unwillingly, became aware of the madness of other people. One out of every two gave him a hard time.

  Maybe they can change me, but how in God’s name are they ever going to change those millions of SOB’s out there that I have to deal with? It seemed to his restless mind that his perception of the environment would have to be dimmed before he dared let down his guard.

  Toward ten o’clock in the evening, his feverish excitement diminished suddenly. Caxton knew the sign. He had exhausted himself with his overstimulated thoughts. Now would come the period of apathy and resignation.

  He was actually turning to go wearily up to his room when for the first time he remembered Bustaman. Instantly the excitement surged again, more tiredly, but it was enough to send him to a communicator cubby-hole, and from its silent interior to contact the man who was the enemy of the principal group of Possessors. By the time the now-familiar, remembered, stern face appeared on the plate, Caxton had his cool back and his story ready.

  Which was a sort of thank-you-for-everything-hope-we-see-each-other-again-when-we-get-back-from-our-journey. Unspoken was: Now, do something!

  What happened then was like an almost invisible hope far in the back of his mind, being brought into focus. Bustaman seemed momentarily taken aback. But he recovered swiftly and spoke the magic words. ‘Uh, Peter, why don’t I come over in my Air Special and pick you up at the hotel, and we go somewhere for a little chat? Is that okay with you?’

  It was A-okay.

  Caxton rushed first to his room. Into various little pockets of his keep-the-odor-in suit, he slipped his Browning .25 automatic, a couple of extra clips of ammunition, a laser cutting device that he had picked up in a store, a tiny tube of food capsules, a gas gun from the twenty-fifth century and half a dozen stimulants designed to keep the waking center of the brain alert even though the sleep center was at ‘on.’ One of these he swallowed.

  There were several other devices that, it seemed to him in a sudden onslaught of anxiety, he would like to take with him. But he fought the fear and restrained his defensive instincts. … He arrived on the hotel roof less than a minute before Bustaman’s machine settled down on its silent adeledicnander power in one of the landing spaces.

  The door of the craft opened. The ramp folded silently down. Caxton, intent and feeling accepted, was about to start up it, when he saw that Bustaman had come to the entrance and was blocking it.

  Bustaman said in a deliberate tone, ‘Well, Peter, the hour of reckoning has come, eh?’

  Those words were quietly spoken by a man who was perfectly aware that Caxton had recognised him…during the moment of introduction by Blake. He wanted Caxton to be aware of that also, and to realise that what was now about to happen would have to be undertaken by decision.

  Bustaman had pride. It was, perhaps, the one quality that had distinguished him from the other Possessors. Being proud, he looked at the others from a slightly-apart stance. What saved him from discovery in his own first days in the Palace was his smile. Later he would lose it, but in the beginning he always smiled as if he was with them.

  He wasn’t. And so it was he who observed that Claudan Johns also was a person apart. That, just as there were no probability duplicates of Kameel Bustaman, so there were none of Claudan Johns.

  Johns, observing Bustaman, noticed the absence of Bustaman probabilities, being gentle in nature, it never occurred to him to regard the absence as a Bustaman vulnerability. But Bustaman, observing Johns, realised with a developing glee that right there was the weakness of all of them; that he could stop the entire probability madness by striking at one key figure.

  Peter Caxton was the man he had selected to do the striking. He anticipated no problems from Caxton. Because, of course, he intended to say the magic words, ‘Peter this is your route into the Palace of Immortality.’

  He also planned to say, ‘I had to let these weeks go by, so that you’d realise that they weren’t going to come to your rescue, and that in fact they haven’t given you another thought since they kicked you out.’

  His additional instructions would include the requirement that Caxton must change his clothes to fit the twentieth century. ‘Because that’s where you’re going, Peter–-’

  As he had anticipated, Caxton, when offered the choice, almost fell over himself in his eagerness to accept.

  XX

  Dust. He sat in the dust beside a dirt road.

  Caxton looked around him with eyes that presently recognised Piffer’s Road in its drab twentieth century condition. Somewhere off to his left - he caught a glimpse in the distance to the east - was little Jimmy’s white house. A man’s equally distant figure was walking rapidly toward the railroad farther east…. Is that me, then? Caxton wondered. He had no impulse to check. Across from where he sat was a fence, and, beyond, the wilderness of a scantily inhabited countryside.

  He turned to stare up the road. He could see trees not too far away, and, partially visible though the leaves and branches, a large rust-colored trailer.

  That brought him to his feet with a gasp. It had to be this trailer.

  He began to run, past another house, past some old tin cans, a bunch of willows in the ditch, a gleam of stagnant water; and then, as he turned into the treelined open space where the trailer was parked, he slowed, gasping, and walked rapidly to the door of the trailer.

  It was as he was entering that he remembered that Jimmy would later report this event, and that meant Jimmy was hiding somewhere nearby. Caxton didn’t let it slow him down. Because, as he also recalled, in Jimmy’s story he had barely gotten inside and barely hidden himself when the owners returned.

  And so into the trailer he went headlong, trusting that it was all true. He stumbled back along a tiny corridor and so on into the rear storage room - and crouched as out of sight as he could manage in one corner.

  Suddenly, voices. A man’s and a woman’s.

  Hiding there, Caxton wondered what might happen even now if he should be caught red-handed before he could act. He heard the man say. ‘We’ll head for the fourteenth century.’

  The male voice went on, grimly, ‘You’ll notice that it’s still just one man we have to deal with. So he has had to go out and spend thirty or forty years growing old, because old men have so much less influence on an environment than young. Didn’t want to affect the twentieth century more than he already had. But now - transformer points, and go into the cab and start the motors.’

  It was the moment Caxton had been waiting for. He stepped out softly, flexing his gloved right hand. He saw the man standing facing in the direction of the door that led to the front room and the engine cab beyond it. From the back, the man looked of stocky build, and about forty-five years of age. In his hands, clutched tight, he held two transparent cones that glowed with a dull light.

  ‘All right,’ he called gruffly, as Caxton stepped up behind him. ‘We’re moving. And hereafter, Selanie, don’t be so frightened of one guy, however vicious. The one thing I’ve managed to do is make sure that none of that crowd of one can ever get near us without -’

  His voice collapsed into a startled grunt as Caxton grabbed his shoulder and pressed hard below the collarbone.

  The stocky man stood utterly still, like a man who has been stunned by an intolerable blow. And then, as Caxton let go of his shoulder, he turned slowly, and his gaze fastened sickishly, not on Caxton’s face, but on the glove he wore.

  ‘A Destroyer glove!’ he whispered; and then more wildly, ‘But how? The repellers are on, my special invention that prevents a trained Possessor from coming near me!’ He looked for the first time at Caxton’s face. ‘How did you do it? I -’

  ‘Father!’ It was the girl’s voice, clear and startled, from the engine cab. Her voice came nearer. ‘Father, we’ve stopped at about A.D. 1650. What’s happened? I thought -’

  She paused in the doorway like a startled bird, a tall, slim girl of around nineteen years, looking suddenly older, grayer, as she saw Caxton. Her gaze fluttered to her father. She gasped. ‘Dad he hasn’t - ‘

  The stocky man nodded hopelessly. ‘Wherever we are in time and space, we’re there. Not that that matters. The thing is, we’ve failed. Bustaman has won.’

  The girl turned toward Caxton again. ‘Why, you’re that man -’ She stopped; then: ‘Didn’t I see you on that train just now?’ Once again she stopped, shaking her head. ‘There were so many people, but you look familiar.’

  Caxton was having his own problem of orientation to her, and to the realisation that to these people he was a stranger. He recognised Selanie herself, but not vividly. In fact, it was difficult to take his mind back to that journey on the train, and to what the salesman, Kellie, had told him about her. Except for the train incident and the brief personal encounter with a much older Selanie in the Palace of Immortality, that was all he remembered of the girl.

  The sudden realisation disturbed Caxton, I’ve done this thing, he thought, to two people I don’t know and who don’t know me.

  He recognised now where his feeling of false familiarity had started: that statement about the older Selanie being his wife in a particular probability world had impressed her identity on his mind. All the rest he had been told by other people, and he recalled none of it, really, in terms of personal experience.

  These various truths came flashingly to his attention as he stood there inside the trailer, his gaze intent on the girl and her father. Finally, he answered her question. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I followed you because this is my way into the Palace of Immortality.’

  The girl was staring at him. ‘Oh, you fool!’ she whispered. ‘You’ve been tricked. You’re doomed with us.’

  Caxton, returning her stare, felt a sinking inside him. He was remembering that Bustaman had made no statement about how he would be rescued. The old man’s other reassurances seemed suddenly less meaningful, for Caxton had somehow assumed that this trailer utilised the Palace for its time travel. And that was visibly not so.

  Before he could part his dry lips to say anything, the girl said, ‘He can’t rescue you below 1977, because no one but my father knows how to go earlier than that, and you’ve just ruined his ability to travel in time. We’re somewhere in the middle sixteen hundreds - and there’s nothing in this period of time that is useful for time travel.’

  With each word that she spoke, Caxton’s sense of disaster took another downward leap. And when she finally finished, there he was, at the bottom of his hope.

  1650 A.D., about, in America. Why, that was before - he couldn’t remember the timing of it exactly, but beyond all question, no white man had penetrated at that time this far into the interior.

  With that realisation, his mind went blank.

  XXI

  Caxton’s first awareness after that came when he saw the girl turning away. There were tears in her eyes as she opened the outer door and jumped to the green grass below.

  His impulse was to follow her, to apologise, to make amends, somehow. But he was not a man who had ever trusted a woman’s reality. And so he hesitated, and then said to her father, ‘Is it true? We’re stuck here?’

  The older man’s lean head did not face him directly. Instead, his grey eyes turned in their sockets, slightly, and studied him. ‘The problem,’ Johns said finally, ‘is because as the experimenter I did not participate in the experiment. Also, I requested my daughter to refrain from participating so that she might assist me in the eventual evaluation. She did go into a few probability worlds, but each time - at my request - she terminated them, and merged again into one person. Thus, whoever-you-are, I am today a guilty man. For, because of my insistence and her loyalty - and because the time foldback in which the Palace of Immortality functions operates only from 9812 A.D. back to 1977, but not to the seventeenth century - neither Selanie nor I have any place we can go. And so, yes, here we are. I can see no way out.’

  There were too many meanings for Caxton to grasp all the details. But the conclusion was clear. Trembling, he walked to the open door and, stepping down to the ground, ventured forth upon a green wilderness world.

  He saw that the girl had climbed what in the twentieth century had been a small wooded hill. Here, the hill had no trees on it; and, though he had no clear purpose in connection with her or the situation, he strode up also, and presently was standing near her.

  Remembering Indians, he glanced at the girl fleetingly only; gazed instead at the vista of land around them. He had a surprisingly hard time seeing it, for images of Piffer’s Road from other times kept associatively intruding.

  But a wind was blowing, that was real upon his face and not a memory. And the air was crystal-clear, except for a faint blue mist that half sheathed a distant hill. In all the miles between that hill and this one, there was not a ground movement - not an animal, not a human. A few birds were flying in the distance, but they were too far away to identify.

  Clouds were up there, also, and the wind in those higher reaches must have been of spanking proportions; for the clouds moved with visible speed across the sky.

  ‘Well,’ Caxton said, relieved, ‘We won’t be having to defend ourselves today.’

  The girl’s back was to him. Without turning, she said, ‘Mr whoever-you-are, the first Indians who saw white men were friendly. So we mustn’t assume threat where it may not exist.’

  It was true enough. Yet the remark brought Caxton mentally as well as visually all the way down from the sky. He was suspicious of the ideals of the young because there were so many that conflicted. And her remark had the particular implication of the anti-violence school that pretended that they themselves were not violent, and therefore had the right to judge human history.