«Independent spirit,» said the man behind the desk. «I like that. So many of them come cringing in, as if they’d be grateful for a kick. Of course, with your background you aren’t desperate yet. You can still get work, even in… ah, I believe the current term is a rolling readjustment.»
«I was interested,» said Everard. «I’ve worked abroad, as you can see, and would like to travel again. But frankly, I still don’t have the faintest idea what your outfit does.»
«We do a good many things,» said Mr. Gordon. «Let me see… you’ve been in combat. France and Germany.» Everard blinked; his papers had included a record of medals, but he’d have sworn the man hadn’t had time to read them. «Um… would you mind grasping those knobs on the arms of your chair? Thank you. Now, how do you react to physical danger?»
Everard bristled. «Look here—»
Mr. Gordon’s eyes flicked to an instrument on his desk: it was merely a box with an indicator needle and a couple of dials. «Never mind. What are your views on internationalism?»
«Say, now—»
«Communism? Fascism? Women? Your personal ambitions?… That’s all. You don’t have to answer.»
«What the devil is this, anyway?» snapped Everard.
«A bit of psychological testing. Forget it. I’ve no interest in your opinions except as they reflect basic emotional orientation.» Mr. Gordon leaned back, making a bridge of his fingers. «Very promising so far. Now, here’s the setup. We’re doing work which is, as I’ve told you, highly confidential. We… ah… we’re planning to spring a surprise on our competitors.» He chuckled. «Go ahead and report me to the FBI if you wish. We’ve already been investigated and have a clean bill of health. You’ll find that we really do carry on worldwide financial and engineering operations. But there’s another aspect of the job, and that’s the one we want men for. I’ll pay you one hundred dollars to go in the back room and take a set of tests. It’ll last about three hours. If you don’t pass, that’s the end of it. If you do, we’ll sign you on, tell you the facts, and start you training. Are you game?»
Everard hesitated. He had a feeling of being rushed. There was more to this enterprise than an office and one bland stranger. Still…
Decision. «I’ll sign on after you’ve told me what it’s all about.»
«As you wish,» shrugged Mr. Gordon. «Suit yourself. The tests will say whether you’re going to or not, you know. We use some very advanced techniques.»
That, at least, was entirely true. Everard knew a little something about modern psychology: encephalographs, association tests, the Minnesota profile. He did not recognize any of the hooded machines that hummed and blinked around him. The questions which the assistant—a white-skinned, completely hairless man of indeterminate age, with a heavy accent and no facial expression—fired at him seemed irrelevant to anything. And what was the metal cap he was supposed to wear on his head? Into what did the wires from it lead?
He stole glances at the meter faces, but the letters and numerals were like nothing he had seen before. Not English, French, Russian, Greek, Chinese, anything belonging to A.D. 1954. Perhaps he was already beginning to realize the truth, even then.
A curious self-knowledge grew in him as the tests proceeded. Manson Emmert Everard, age thirty, onetime lieutenant in the U.S. Army Engineers; design and production experience in America, Sweden, Arabia; still a bachelor, though with increasingly wistful thoughts about his married friends; no current girl, no close ties of any kind; a bit of a bibliophile; a dogged poker player; fondness for sailboats and horses and rifles; a camper and fisherman on his vacations. He had known it all, of course, but only as isolated shards of fact. It was peculiar, this sudden sensing of himself as an integrated organism, this realization that each characteristic was a single inevitable facet of an overall pattern.
He came out exhausted and wringing wet. Mr. Gordon offered him a cigarette and swept eyes rapidly over a series of coded sheets which the assistant gave him. Now and then he muttered a phrase: «…Zeth-20 cortical… undifferentiated evaluation here… psychic reaction to antitoxin… weakness in central coordination…» He had slipped into an accent, a lilt and a treatment of vowels which were like nothing Everard had heard in a long experience of the ways in which the English language can be mangled.
It was half an hour before he looked up again. Everard was getting restless, a faint anger stirring at this cavalier treatment, but interest kept him sitting quietly. Mr. Gordon flashed improbably white teeth in a broad, satisfied grin. «Ah. At last. Do you know, I’ve had to reject twenty-four candidates already? But you’ll do. You’ll definitely do.»
«Do for what?» Everard leaned forward, conscious of his pulse picking up.
«The Patroclass="underline" You’re going to be a kind of policeman.»
«Yeah? Where?»
«Everywhere. And everywhen. Brace yourself, this is going to be a shock.
«You see, our company, while legitimate enough, is only a front and a source of funds. Our real business is patrolling time.»
The Academy was in the American West. It was also in the Oligocene period, a warm age of forests and grasslands when man’s ratty ancestors scuttled away from the tread of giant mammals. It had been built a thousand years ago; it would be maintained for half a million—long enough to graduate as many as the Time Patrol would require—and then be carefully demolished so that no trace would remain. Later the glaciers would come, and there would be men, and in the year 19352 A.D. (the 7841st year of the Morennian Triumph), these men would find a way to travel through time and return to the Oligocene to establish the Academy.
It was a complex of long, low buildings, smooth curves and shifting colors, spreading over a greensward between enormous ancient trees. Beyond it, hills and woods rolled off to a great brown river, and at night you could sometimes hear the bellowing of titanotheres or the distant squall of a sabertooth.
Everard stepped out of the time shuttle—a big, featureless metal box—with a dryness in his throat. It felt like his first day in the Army, twelve years ago—or fifteen to twenty million years in the future, if you preferred—lonely and helpless, and wishing desperately for some honorable way to go home. It was a small comfort to see the other shuttles, discharging a total of fifty-odd young men and women. The recruits moved slowly together, forming an awkward clump. They didn’t speak at first, but stood staring at each other. Everard recognized a Hoover collar and a bowler; the styles of dress and hairdo moved up through 1954 and on. Where was she from, the girl with the iridescent, close-fitting culottes and the green lipstick and the fantastically waved yellow hair? No—when?
A man of about twenty-five happened to stand beside him: obviously British, from the threadbare tweeds and the long, thin face. He seemed to be hiding a truculent bitterness under his mannered exterior. «Hello,» said Everard. «Might as well get acquainted.» He gave his name and origin.
«Charles Whitcomb, London, 1947,» said the other shyly. «I was just demobbed—R.A.F.—and this looked like a good chance. Now I wonder.»
«It may be,» said Everard, thinking of the salary. Fifteen thousand a year to start with! How did they figure years, though? Must be in terms of one’s actual duration-sense.
A man strolled in their direction. He was a slender young fellow in a skintight gray uniform with a deep-blue cloak which seemed to twinkle, as if it had stars sewn in. His face was pleasant, smiling, and he spoke genially with a neutral accent: «Hello, there! Welcome to the Academy. I take it you all know English?» Everard noticed a man in the shabby remnants of a German uniform, and a Hindu, and others who were probably from several foreign countries.