And so he learned:

  The universe was as time-vast as it was space-vast. In the same way that it proliferated galaxies by the billion, so it … permitted … probabilities, everywhere. It had happened that the conditions for creating a probability Earth other than the one that existed first, was that something from another time … an object, a person, was needed to break the pattern of energy that held that particular probability rigid. Actually, one object, or one person was not enough. Critical energy mass was involved. The best such masses were certain metallic compounds, known only to Possessor Johns. It was considered somewhat dangerous for a human being to be utilised for the purpose, because there was some kind of interaction between the energies involved and the object or person that was forcing the transformation. Hence, though it was theorised that a dozen Possessors deliberately joining together in a particular era could change that era, this had never been done. Instead, the metals were used.

  Quite accidentally, there had been few, so far as could be determined, natural transfers from one era to another. Normally, the universe everywhere - or almost everywhere - moved forward through time at the slow, steady pace that, in the solar system, was measured in seconds, minutes, and hours. Presumably, there were other time foldbacks like the one in which the Palace of Immortality was hidden; but if Possessor Johns had a method for finding such foldbacks, he had not revealed that method to anyone. He claimed that he had stumbled on the foldback which now contained the Palace of Immortality as a result of an experiment he was conducting. But he had never explained what that experiment was.

  ‘Basically,’ said Price, ‘there’s very little to explain about the Palace of Immortality. It’s located in a time foldback that goes along for several thousand years. It was already there when Claudan found it, and no one was in it, and there was no record of who built it.’

  Listening to the brief story, Caxton was struck by the name: Claudan Johns. The first name, Claudan, though obviously a simple development of an earlier word, had a futuristic sound to it… . It doesn’t come from the twentieth century. Already, Caxton felt slightly ashamed at the thought, but the realisation excited him.

  Truth was the entire situation was fantastically impressive and exciting; and yet, after a few moments only, his mind focused on what Price had said about his rigid personality. ‘How should I have reacted?’ he asked.

  Price said, ‘Let me make our position very clear. Since you had tracked us down, and even had a run-in with our opposition - ‘

  ‘That old man, you mean?’ Caxton was instantly interested, ‘Opposition?’ he asked. His voice went up. ‘You mean to tell me that with a good thing like this… Palace there’s a schism?’

  ‘It’s very serious,’ was the reply. ‘Quite accidentally, a paranoid acquired Possessor ability. Which means that he can go through time without using the Palace as an entry or exit, the way I still have to do, and Selanie, and of course you -’

  ‘You’re not a Possessor?’ Caxton asked.

  ‘No. I told you. I have to use the Palace. However, it’s just one man, one mistake we made. Our hope is that the fantastic potential of endless probability - it seems infinite - will overwhelm it and him. What I was saying about you: we were willing for you to become associated with us. But - ‘ He broke off. ‘Tell me, when did you become so worldly wise? Another word for it would be cynical. How young were you?’

  ‘Oh’ - Caxton put his mind back - ‘I was pretty sharp by the time I was fourteen. Caught my parents in bed around there. Boy! There they were pretending that no such thing as sex existed, and they were going at it like veterans. I would guess it was a complete disillusionment.’ He stopped. Again he had the feeling that he had been diverted to an unimportance by someone else’s purpose. ‘Look,’ he protested, ‘this remarkable building! It’s unfair that you’re keeping it to yourself.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Price, ‘we’re not. We plan to pick up every human who ever lived before we’re through.’

  ‘But people are dying,’ Caxton argued.

  ‘They’re available somewhere in their lifetime,’ was the answer. ‘We’ll pick them up there, and they’ll go on in some other probability world. We already have a lot of people helping us, as you saw. But we can always use more. That’s why we gave you those two chances. But don’t worry! We’ll find you at an early age before you became disillusioned, and you’ll go on in that probability world. But I can tell you fourteen isn’t it. However, let’s get started here.’

  ‘But -’ Caxton frowned over the concept he had been offered. ‘What about me - now? What - ?’

  That was as far as he got. Price had stepped up beside him as if to assist him into the tube car. His gloved hand grasped Caxton firmly by the elbow. The shock that went through Caxton’s body was exactly the same as when the old man had gripped the same elbow at the hotel.

  There was a difference. That time, he had been caught by surprise. This time, he let out a yell and tried to jerk away. Or rather, he thought he yelled and thought he pulled back. The transition to vagueness and uncertainty was so swift that, after instants only, the only thing that was clear was that his elbow was held in a grip which seemed made of iron.

  As from an enormous distance, Caxton heard Price say, ‘I’m sorry. We did our best for you. We were willing. But you weren’t up to it. So what you get out of this is a ten-year rejuvenation treatment…’

  The voice faded suddenly. There was a moment of darkness. And then -

  Caxton blinked, and opened his eyes, and looked around at the street of a grubby little city that, with a growing sense of disaster, he recognised as Kissling. He was, he discovered, sitting on the curb directly in front of the hotel.

  I’m back. Oh, damn, damn, damn!

  X

  Three weeks went by.

  He was a salesman, who, since he needed the money, worked on commission (with advances) for the Quik-Photo Supply Corporation. And he had to cover his territory before returning to the home office.

  He was a man with a certain aggressiveness, always accompanied by an ingratiating smile, and these things made for the elements of personality necessary to a salesman. What was more, he understood the basic science underlying every aspect of what he sold. In his travels, he ran into the kind of practical experts who operated photo-supply and development shops, often in conjunction with radio and TV service, and these, also, Caxton understood on a more fundamental level than his customers. It really helped his sales; for most practical experts were not above picking up bits of additional information about what they did.

  But, finally, his sentence - his term on the road, as he regarded it - was served. Though his expense account allowed only for train fare, that was a delay he could not bear. He flew home, paying the difference out of his own pocket.

  Since it was only about noon Friday when he got back, he had a free day - in fact, a free weekend - before having to check in at Quik-Photo. As he sat in the airport bus, his attention was completely concentrated on the fantastic experience he had had. And his thought was: How could he get back into the Palace of Immortality?

  For three dribblingly slow weeks, he had been thinking of just that.

  Caxton arrived at his room, and simply dropped his bags on the floor. He noticed the pile of mail his landlady had put on the table of his little kitchenette, but he couldn’t even imagine anything there being of interest to him in his jumpy state of mind. Instead, he headed downstairs to his car, and drove straight to the storage company where he had hidden the stolen movie projector.

  He couldn’t find his deposit stub.

  Scowling, he stood there in the office searching his billfold. It was irritating to realise that he must have left it in a billfold in another suit; and, since he was not a man who was timid, he finally gave the date of his coming here, and suggested that the clerk release the item without the stub.

  The man was reluctant but not totally resistant. ‘If you can establish your identity…’ he said, as he searched through a record book. Caxton located his driver’s license, and then stood watching the seeking finger of the other probe through scores of pages. Finally, the old fellow paused. ‘Here we are,’ he said.

  A frown shadowed his face. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Caxton. These goods were picked up three weeks ago by someone who did have the stub.’

  The shock of that was with Caxton all the way home. The realisation that they had traced him down brought the scary feeling that he was a marked man. He kept looking in his rearview mirror to see if he was being followed, and he had the wild thought that maybe he could trace them by following his pursuer. But he saw no one.

  Back in his little apartment, he read his mail, conscious that he was not reassured. His cheeks felt colorless: gray with fear, he realised. One of the letters he opened was from his attorney, and it contained a check for the large sum of two thousand, four hundred and thirty-two dollars. It required a long twenty seconds before Caxton was capable of appreciating that this was his share of what he had paid into a teachers’ savings fund all these years. The rest, of course, had been forwarded to his divorcing wife as per the settlement.

  Staring at the check, Caxton was conscious of some of his courage seeping back. He had always felt braver on payday… . It’s not, he reasoned, that it’s such a great sum. Not these days.… It wouldn’t do, for example, to quit his job. But it gave him leeway. He had funds for extras in his search. Sitting there, he had another, more tremendous realisation.

  After all, they didn’t kill me!

  And they could have. No question, he had been totally at their mercy. Yet, it seemed now that all they wanted was to close the doors that he had opened, and to cut him off from what he had discovered. He surmised that they had found the stub in his pocketbook, and had somehow analysed - or gotten out of him while he slept - what it was for.

  Since they could have killed him, and hadn’t, he decided that his fear was not rational. That line of reasoning was actually calming him, when he had another thought: The films! Had they got to those, also?

  A minute later he was on the phone, shakily talking to Arlay, fighting once more to recover his self-control, and winning that fight as the voice at the other end assured him that, yes, the novelty films were still available. Though, of course, many of them were out on rental.

  Caxton didn’t waste any time. He rented a projector, and then drove to the Arlay Film Library and took all the films that Arlay had in stock. He spent the weekend endlessly replaying the incredible things: there were seven, including the one about how to repair a Fly-O and the one about how to repair a spaceship.

  By late Sunday afternoon, a bleary-eyed Caxton knew exactly how to repair both items, but he had already experienced a sickening disappointment. Some of the repair items were integrated circuits. The circuits were labeled with letters and numbers, and were obtainable, the voice said, in any supply shop.

  Available, thought Caxton grimly, from suppliers in the year 2083 A.D.

  Nevertheless, he returned the films on Monday, and was happy to learn that two more had come back in the morning mail. Caxton rented them at once. As Arlay wrote up the rental transaction, Caxton grew aware that there was a pretty woman sitting in the back of the shop. Arlay must have become aware that Caxton had noticed her, for he straightened and introduced the woman as his wife, Tania.

  Caxton’s gaze met the woman’s - and that was the beginning of his brief affair with Mrs Arlay. At the moment, after that one quick interchange, in which she permitted him to exchange glances with her, it occurred to him that it had been a long time between women. Afterward, he tried to tell himself halfheartedly that he had decided in that instant that she might be useful to him in his purpose of obtaining prints of the novelty films from her husband.

  They made love in his apartment within an hour of their meeting; there was no advance discussion. He had waited for her about half a block from the Arlay shop. She came there to the car within ten minutes. He asked her to follow him in her own auto, which she did. Such goodies had happened to him before. So he did not question the reason for them; simply accepted that some women - a few - were available on such terms. The fact that Tania Arlay was a very pretty woman with a well-made body was just his good luck this time. He hadn’t always been that fortunate.

  The act completed, they made arrangements to rendezvous again the next day whereupon she left hurriedly, and he sped down to the Quik-Photo head office, reporting in shortly after one o’clock.

  The sales manager greeted him eagerly. ‘Like I told you on the phone this morning,’ he said, ‘some of these new item negotiations went through faster than I originally expected. So you’re going to be around here for a couple of weeks, learning about them from manufacturers’ reps. I advise you to spend time this afternoon just looking some of the stuff over, and figuring out questions you’d like to ask.’

  It seemed like a good suggestion - if he could put his attention on the problem at all.

  All that first afternoon, while Caxton tried to concentrate, the chunky Bryson kept glancing in at him, or charging in from the front office to the back area, where Caxton worked, the indication being that he regarded as important what was going on there.

  Abruptly, something of the older man’s real purpose emerged. He burst out, ‘Caxton, you’ve got me puzzled. When I hired you, I thought of you as a man in his late thirties. But when you walked in here today, you looked like an overgrown kid. Damn it, you don’t even look thirty.’

  ‘I lost some weight on the road,’ said Caxton. It was an explanation that he had made up in advance. ‘I am thirty-eight!’

  ‘Boy!’ said the older man, ‘if losing weight can do that for somebody, I think I’ll give up Danish cakes, ice cream, and liquor.’

  Caxton remained discreetly silent. He saw from the way the other’s mind had been diverted that he had put over his point… . He thought smugly, Naturally, what else could Bryson do but believe me? The truth was totally incredible.

  Tania Arlay, as a mistress, visibly showed the greatest contempt for the man who had married her. Twice during that week, she actually phoned Arlay from Caxton’s bed. It seemed abnormal in a way that bothered Caxton - though he did not pretend to understand the rationale. He resolved within himself to make an end of the affair as soon as …

  He had no clear decision, but certainly by the time he had seen all the films… . What brought the matter to a head was that Arlay suddenly refused to make further rentals to him. The notice of refusal came in the Friday morning mail, exactly one week after Caxton’s return.

  Caxton was instantly, guiltily convinced that Tania’s husband had found out what was going on. Yet, as he anxiously reviewed the week and his relationship with her, he couldn’t see how or when it could have happened. Thus convinced, he boldly went down and confronted Arlay.

  The man was embarrassed, but presently he said frankly, sort of man to man, ‘I have to tell you this, Mr Caxton. It was unfortunate that my wife was here last Monday when you came in. She took a violent dislike to you, and to keep peace in my home I’ve discovered I have to refuse to do business with people she doesn’t like.’

  So that was her method of camouflaging her misbehavior. Caxton mentally groped for a way that he might obtain a few more of the films, and finally said, ‘Look, I’ve still got three at home. How about trading me three more, and pretending on your books that they’re the same ones? After that we can call off the transaction.’

  To this Arlay agreed reluctantly.

  Later, when Caxton taxed the woman with her perfidy, she laughed her tinkling laugh, and said carelessly, ‘That’s my way of handling my home situation. You can rent your films from someone else.’

  She took the attitude that the rental library had achieved its purpose in bringing them together.

  So there he was after seven days with no direct access to the most remarkable films available in the twentieth century.

  Cut off by his own impulse and false intuition…. It’s pretty bad, thought Caxton grimly, when you can’t blame anyone but yourself.

  What now?

  It had the look of the end of the trail. I suppose, he thought, I could track down the fellow who had that camera shop in Kissling, from whom Quik-Photo had taken the movie projector as a trade-in. The man had moved somewhere to the West Coast. Somewhere, vaguely.

  Caxton began to feel vague himself.

  He realised that reality consisted of accepting that it was all over, that life must go on in a drab way. Certain memories must be shunted into the realm of dim fantasies, to be considered occasionally, like interesting creations of an overstimulated imagination.

  He settled himself for sleep on Friday night, reaffirming to himself that if that was what he must do, that was what he would do.

  And woke up Saturday with a thought-feeling in his mind and body … such a thought as he had not had during the past month of turmoil; had never, in fact, had before in his practical life. Like a sharp, cutting instrument, it pierced to some deep and unsuspected yearning.

  It brought a hope, oh - such a hope, such a thought!

  The thought-feeling was that, since these people were immortal, through them - by forcing his way in - he could be immortal, also.

  Incredibly, that precise purpose had not previously been a conscious, accepted possibility.

  His logic now took him to the next step.

  To reach them, he would have to cease all this fear, and this skulking, and find them - by whatever means.

  Those nuts, he thought scornfully, thinking that some other version of me projected from an early age into another probability world, would be satisfactory.

  He had been having odd little dreams about it ever since. Images of himself, perhaps, having gone forward as a physicist and not as a teacher of physics. The picture was of a kind of simpler Caxton doing research earnestly, married to a strangely level-headed young woman - strange for him, he thought on those occasions when he visualised her, his own penchant being for a highly neurotic type of female.