Renfrew was smiling easily. ‘Think,’ he said, ‘of an old, crusty, human bachelor. He maintains a relationship with his fellows, but the association is as remote as that which exists between a bachelor sun and the stars in the galaxy of which it is a part.’

  He added, ‘Any second now, we’ll strike the first period of intolerance. It works in jumps like quanta, each period being four hundred and ninety-eight years, seven months and eight days plus a few hours.’ He grinned. ‘That’s what Cassellahat told me.’

  It sounded like gibberish. ‘But what’s going to happen?’ Caxton urged. ‘For heaven’s sake, man!’

  Renfrew gazed up at him blandly; and, looking down at him, Caxton had the sudden, wondering realisation that he was sane, the old, completely rational Jim Renfrew, made better somehow, stronger. Renfrew said quietly:

  ‘Why, it’ll just knock us out of its toleration area; and in doing so will put us back -’

  Jerk!

  The lurch was immensely violent. With a bang, Caxton struck the floor, skidded, and then a hand - Renfrew’s - caught him. And it was all over.

  He stood up, conscious that they were no longer falling. He looked at the instrument board. All the lights were dim, untroubled, the needles firmly at zero. Caxton turned and stared at Renfrew, and at Blake, who was ruefully picking himself up from the floor.

  Renfrew said persuasively. ‘Let me at the control board, Peter. Our ship is probably damaged by all that maneuvering you tried, but I’d like to get near Earth before we have to get into our lifeboat. You two get into your spacesuits, and bring me mine. Hurry. I don’t dare accelerate until we’re properly dressed.’

  For a long minute, Caxton looked at him; and then he nodded. Later, he stood by Blake as Renfrew set the controls and pulled the accelerator over. Renfrew looked up.

  ‘We’ll reach Earth in about eight hours,’ he said, ‘and it’ll be about a year and a half after we left five hundred years ago.’

  A tremendous understanding suddenly flowed in upon Caxton…. The bachelor sun, he thought dazedly. In easing them out of its field of toleration, it had simply precipitated them into a period of time beyond its field. Renfrew had said that it worked in jumps of four hundred ninety-eight years and some seven months and -

  As Caxton had these awarenesses, the terror of the crisis lifted even more. And the truth of his new situation moved in upon him. He stood there, gripped by an awful realisation: But this means… we’re back!

  Back in the twentieth century.

  And this time, he had only one faint possibility of ever finding the trail to the future again: That movie projector!

  XXVI

  Caxton glared down at the name in the book of records in the Kissling city hall: Magoelson, Daniel Magoelson. After a while, he unglued his gaze from the page, and he thought of how people were really stereotyped. Magoelson probably used that same name in all the time-periods he went to, presumably trusting that nobody would ever follow him, or trace him.

  Normally, who could follow him? The other dwellers in the Palace of Immortality! Yes, of course. But they were few in number. And the Possessors evidently considered that the use of one name was a simplification; it undoubtedly prevented confusion. If you were always Daniel Magoelson, then you wouldn’t suddenly wonder who you were now. Wherever now happened to be at any given moment.

  What bothered Caxton was that it looked as if this was the end of the trail. As he visualised it, a Possessor had temporarily operated a business in Kissling. While there, he had sold Quik-Photo the movie projector that, long ago now, had started this whole mad quest. And then he had gone out of that business, and pretended to move - where? The West Coast; so his earlier inquiries had established.

  Even then, Caxton recalled, the move had sounded vague. As he came out on to the street of the little town, Caxton was also recalling that he had actually heard the man’s name at the time of that inquiry; only it had seemed unimportant, and had slipped his mind; there were so many names, and so many people, that he had met when he was a salesman for Quik-Photo. Looking back, it seemed like one big blur of nobodies.

  Nevertheless, because he was stubborn and refused to make assumptions, he went to the post office and asked if there was a forwarding address for Magoelson. The man who had come to the counter went off somewhere from the little wicket, and presently came back with a card.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘we’ve kept it over the normal time for such things.’ He explained, ‘In a little place like this we’re simply more obliging, you know.’

  He was a bald-headed nobody to Caxton, and he would be in his grave one of these days with no choice of living forever; undoubtedly without even a thought about it. But when Caxton put his hand out to take the card, the man drew it back; and he said, ‘Sorry, I can’t show you this. Against the rules. What I can do is take a letter you write and forward it for you. If Mr Magoelson wants to correspond with you, that’s his business.’ He smiled apologetically.

  ‘Just a moment,’ said Caxton. ‘Don’t go away.’

  He walked over behind a pillar, took out his billfold, removed a hundred-dollar bill, which he palmed in such a way that the amount showed. Then he walked back to the wicket and showed the man the bill.

  The puffy eyes widened a little. Then the man said in a low voice, ‘Where can I meet you after four - after work?’

  ‘In the Kissling Hotel,’ said Caxton.

  His palm closed down on the bill. If any portion of the little byplay was witnessed by other clerks, or by the man who had taken up a position behind Caxton, it was not possible for anyone else to have actually seen the money.

  Caxton turned away, tense, but with suppressed excitement. It was only a few minutes after noon; so he had a long time to wait.

  The hundred-dollar bill price tag on the address meant nothing. After persuading Blake and Renfrew to drop him at his home city, he had gone to a bank where he had left money in a small account, and had written a counter-check. From there he had gone to where he had stored his effects, and from them secured a safety deposit box key. Back to another bank - where the box was under an assumed name - and what a relief when, in the privacy of a little booth, he had lifted the lid of the box and found himself gazing down at the hundred thousand dollars that Renfrew had given him before they departed for Centaurus.

  What a relief, yes, and what a validation of his own intent then. The money, of course, had been intended by Renfrew for distribution to creditors and heirs of Peter Caxton. But he, with his plan to return, had thought with passionate determination that he would be coming back. And, by God, he had.

  Thinking about that moment as he sat in the Kissling Hotel, looking out of the big window on to that drab twentieth century street, Caxton waited for the postal clerk, and thought: All right, so it was a disaster to be suddenly precipitated by the bachelor sun back to where I started from … that was for certain.

  But surely the money being there, waiting for him just as he had envisioned it, surely this was an omen that everything that had happened was not in vain.

  The feeling of coming victory grew stronger when, about eight minutes after four, the clerk walked into the hotel and the two men went outside and down a side street, where the money was exchanged for a little white card with an address on it.

  ‘I copied it,’ said the clerk, ‘from the one on file.’ He added, ‘You won’t tell him where you got it?’

  ‘No, of course not.’ Over his shoulder as he turned away, Caxton added, ‘Perfectly understood.’

  He had already glanced at the address. It was in Lakeside; not the West Coast at all. Pretty tricky.

  It was dark when he arrived at the small Kissling airport shortly after nine that night. He paid the taxi driver, and was only dimly aware at first of the man who walked up past the car and followed him closely.

  Too closely. Caxton turned.

  As he did so, a gloved hand grabbed his left elbow with a hard grip. Caxton had a fleeting glimpse of the face of Kameel Bustaman, and he thought he heard Bustaman say, ‘I’m sorry, Peter, but you’re too dangerous a man for me to have around….’

  XXVII

  The year was 2026 A.D., and though the computer-projector at Tichenor Collegiate was aware in an electronic sense that something was wrong, it continued functioning.

  Similarly, the film distribution machine that operated from the nearby big city was also aware of an error. But the disturbance was not the kind that triggered its decision-making mechanism into action. Not at first, anyway. Not in time.

  An order came through from Tichenor by the usual electronic channels. The order was of human origin. First, the number of the film was punched, then the assigned number of the school. Usually, when the film was in its place in the library, no other human agency was required. However, if the film and all its duplicates were out on loan, a red light flashed in the projection room at Tichenor, and then it was up to the would-be renter to order a substitute film.

  On this occasion a copy of the film was available. The electronic imprint of the number of the school was stamped on to the container’s sensitives, and on to a series of bookkeeping plates. The bookkeeping plates moved through a machine which took information from them, as a result of which money was collected from Tichenor in due time. The film flashed out of its shelf into a tube.

  Its speed at the beginning was not great. Instant by instant other film containers clicked into the tube in front of it or behind it, and constant automatic readjustments of speed were necessary to prevent collisions. The number of the film’s destination, Tichenor Collegiate, was 9-7-43-6-2 - Zone 9, Main Tube 7, Suburban Tube 43, Distribution 6 School 2.

  The cutoff at Zone 9 opened in its automatic fashion as the forces from the film container activated the mechanism. A moment later, the film was in main mail channel number 7. It was the channel of small packages, and they were strung out in an endless train, each in its electronically controlled container. The train never stopped, but it slowed and speeded as new containers were precipitated into the tube, or old ones darted away into cutoffs to their separate destinations.

  43-6-2. With a click, the film arrived in the receptor. Automatic devices slipped it into position on the projector and, at a set time - in this case about an hour later - the projector’s seeing eye attachment opened and surveyed the auditorium. Several students were still in the aisles. It clanged a warning alarm, waited a half minute, then locked the auditorium doors, and once more slid the cover from its eye. This time a single student remained in the aisle.

  The projector clanged its final alarm for the students. The next warning would be a light flash in the principal’s office, together with a television picture of the auditorium, which would clearly show the recalcitrant student. This final action proved unnecessary. The youth, an individual named Kameel Bustaman, ceased his capering and tumbled into a seat. The showing began.

  It was not within the capacity of the electronic devices of the projector to realise that young Bustaman was an unknowing Possessor who could have a time-changing influence on one or more objects around him. The effect - as Johns had discovered - was always random, but it usually fixed on one thing. In this instance, the proper film showed on the screen, but the film that was subsequently put into the container and returned to the film library was an obsolete creation called ‘Food Magic,’ lent to Tichenor Collegiate by the Arlay Film Library in 1979.

  All of the subsequent ‘work’ done in 1979 by Claudan Johns and Selanie operating out of the trailer on Piffer’s Road, and by the Possessor Daniel Magoelson, who sold a special movie projector to Quik-Photo (who sold it to Tichenor), was designed to take advantage of this accidental but unavoidable time influence so near the lower end of the backfold in time - only two years from 1977. Their hope was that the imbalance created (properly utilised) would enable them to locate the timefold when it again moved forward.

  On the other hand, Bustaman’s interference with their efforts was based on a suspicion that what they were doing was somehow aimed at him. No amount of reassurance from the Possessors could alleviate that abysmal suspicion.

  By pure chance, none of the containers which subsequently acquired a 1979 film went out on call until it was too late. When one finally clicked into position on another projector and began to roll, Caxton had dismantled the 1979 projector, and the sequential process of time connection had been broken.

  Bustaman brought Caxton, bound hand and foot, to November 14, 9812 A.D. - the last day of time. Twelve minutes and a few seconds remained of the known universe. It was 7:59 P.M., and the end was due at 8:11 p.m. plus thirty-one seconds.

  These facts Bustaman explained to his prisoner in an even voice, and finished, ‘In twelve minutes, Peter, you’re going over the edge.’

  Caxton stared dully up at his captor. He had been conscious long enough to sink into a hopeless state. And so he merely said, not sharply, not with any real interest, ‘Why would you consider me dangerous?’

  ‘You’ve got all that accumulation of time energy in your cells, that’s why.’

  The thought crossed Caxton’s mind that, if that was the real problem, why hadn’t Bustaman simply killed him? Why this bizarre fate? Since it was a possibility that must surely have occurred to the older man, he asked the question aloud.

  Bustaman was surprised. ‘I guess you don’t understand your situation, Peter. You’ve got more time energy accumulated in your cells than any other person who ever lived. Nobody knows what would happen to the surrounding environment if you were suddenly shot. And, of course, if the Possessors ever got hold of you now with all that energy, they might feel motivated to train your special ability. But even if they didn’t, sooner or later you would create an excessive disturbance in time - and that’s something which I, with my purposes, cannot allow. So that’s the picture. Believe me, I don’t know anywhere else to put that much time energy except over the edge.’ He broke off. ‘It’s like the problem they used to have with radioactive materials before they were able to shoot them off into the sun. I’m discharging you into the only equivalent of the sun that I know of.’

  As he gazed into those flinty eyes, and saw in them no mercy, Caxton shivered. And then he said in a trembling voice, ‘Claudan Johns didn’t seem to think back in the seventeenth century that I had any extra ability.’

  ‘That’s because the probabilities you had been put into in the Palace didn’t take. So there was nowhere for you to go. But now you’ve got more than twice as much energy.’

  ‘But why not help me? Maybe we could work together. You found me willing before.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Peter. In such a partnership, I’d soon be the lesser. I could never trust a paranoid.’

  The two paranoids gazed at each other, and then Bustaman glanced at his watch. ‘Five minutes to go,’ he said. ‘The timing on the world’s end was worked out by Claudan on a comparison basis from inside the Palace. I don’t care to trust it to the exact second, though he’s pretty good at such things. But I’m taking no chances. I’m leaving right now.’

  He hastily removed the timepiece from his wrist, and laid it on the floor beside Caxton. ‘Here. This will give you something to do.’

  With equal haste, he headed for an open door ten feet away and went through it.

  A moment later, he came charging back in. He was pale. ‘For God’s sake, what have you done to me? I can’t move through time any more. I’ve lost my Possessor ability.’

  He had a key in his hand. He knelt beside Caxton and, fingers shaking, unlocked something in the chains that bound Caxton. Hastily he got up, drawing the chain clear. He backed swiftly to the center of the room and stood there, mumbling, ‘Bringing you all the way up here… I was with you too long…. Oh, my God, we’re both doomed.’

  The man’s terror suddenly made the threat more real. Caxton stood up on watery legs. And yet, after a moment, he was stronger. The other man’s face, once so hard and determined, had taken on a pasty complexion; and somehow that braced him. He had a vagrant thought: Maybe the big, tough sales managers aren’t really so tough after all.

  The thought ended. For, just like that, Bustaman was beside him, clutching at his arm. ‘Peter, listen,’ he moaned, ‘after I took you from the hotel roof, I decided to use you two ways. One to take care of Johns. The other - I split off a probability of you and transported it into the Palace, where I have a hydrogen bomb. I was going to use your knowledge to help me blow up the Palace of Immortality and all those bastards.’ He gulped, then rushed on, ‘Look, there’s a way you can take me there - the way Johns was able to take along that trailer and the way I was able to bring you up here. Quick, here’s what you do -’

  Caxton said, ‘Am I tied up … back there?’ One look into that stricken, guilty face told him that he had guessed a grim truth. He muttered, ‘You were going to go from here to where that bomb is, and force me to explode it?’

  After a moment, the mere remark seemed like an inadequate reaction. With every ounce of his strength, he struck his fist into Bustaman’s face. The agony of the blow flashed all the way along his arm to his shoulder, surging into the first racing steps of a hundred-yard dash, he pushed at Bustaman. They both fell hard. Caxton’s breath was knocked out of him, and so he lay there on top of his enemy, breathing gaspingly; and he had a wondering thought:

  I’ll be damned. Peter Caxton turns out to be a good guy after all, for heaven’s sake!

  They had fallen beside Bustaman’s watch. And, as Caxton had that exhilarating, glorious realisation about himself, he glimpsed the face of the timepiece. The time was 8:11 plus - as he glared at it - thirty-one seconds….

  XXVIII

  Caxton had a dream then. A voice said, ‘All right, tune him through -’

  The next instant He was walking into the Kissling airport. It was as he pushed through the revolving door that his first fleeting memory came.