Harlan whirled.
It was only Twissell, panting.
Noys must have gained confidence from Harlan's expression. She said more quietly, "Do you know him, Andrew? Is it all right?"
Harlan said, "It's all right. This is my superior, Senior Computer Laban Twissell. He knows of you."
"A Senior Computer?" Noys shrank away.
Twissell advanced slowly. "I will help you, my child. I will help you both. The Technician has my promise, if he would only believe it."
"My apologies, Computer," said Harlan stiffly, and not yet entirely repentant.
"Forgiven," said Twissell. He held out his hand, took the girl's reluctant one. "Tell me, girl, has it been well with you here?"
"I've been worried."
"There's been no one here, since Harlan last left you."
"N-no, sir."
"No one at all? Nothing?"
She shook her head. Her dark eyes sought Harlan's. "Why do you ask?"
"Nothing, girl. A foolish nightmare. Come, we will take you back to the 575th."
On the kettle back Andrew Harlan sank, by degrees, into a troubled and deepening silence. He did not look up when the 100,000th was passed in the downwhen direction and Twissell had snorted an obvious sigh of relief as though he had half expected to be trapped on the upwhen side.
He scarcely moved when Noys's hand stole into his, and the manner in which he returned the pressure of her fingers was almost mechanical.
Noys slept in another room and now Twissell's restlessness reached a peak of devouring intensity.
"The advertisement, boy! You have your woman. My part of the agreement is done."
Silently, still abstracted, Harlan turned the pages of the volume on the desk. He found his page.
"It's simple enough," he said, "but it's in English. I'll read it to you and then translate it."
It was a small advertisement in the upper left-hand corner of a page numbered 30. Against an irregular line drawing as background were the unadorned words, in block letters:
Underneath, in smaller letters, it said; "Investments News-Letter, P.O. Box 14, Denver, Colorado."
Twissell listened painstakingly to Harlan's translation and was obviously disappointed. He said, "What is the market? What do they mean by that?"
"The stock market," said Harlan impatiently. "A system by which private capital was invested in business. But that's not the point at all. Don't you see the line drawing against which the advertisement is set?"
"Yes. The mushroom cloud of an A-bomb blast. An attention getter. What about it?"
Harlan exploded. "Great Time, Computer, what's wrong with you? Look at the date of the magazine issue."
He pointed to the top heading, just to the left of the page number. It read March 28, 1932.
Harlan said, "That scarcely needs translation. The numbers are about those of Standard Intertemporal and you see it's the 19.32nd Century. Don't you know that at that time no human being who had ever lived had seen the mushroom cloud? No one could possibly reproduce it so accurately, except--"
"Now, wait. It's just a line pattern," said Twissell, trying to retain his equilibrium. "It might resemble the mushroom cloud only coincidentally."
"Might it? Will you look at the wording again?" Harlan's fingers punched out the short lines: "All the-Talk-Of the-Market. The initials spell out ATOM, which is English for atom. Is that coincidence, too? Not a chance.
"Don't you see, Computer, how this advertisement fits the conditions you yourself set up? It caught my eye instantly. Cooper knew it would out of sheer anachronism. At the same time, it has no meaning other than its face value, no meaning at all, for any man of the 19.32nd.
"So it must be Cooper. That's his message. We have the date to the nearest week of a Centicentury. We have his mailing address. It is only necessary to go after him and I'm the only one with enough knowledge of the Primitive to manage that."
"And you'll go?" Twissell's face was ablaze with relief and happiness.
"I'll go-on one condition."
Twissell frowned in a sudden reversal of emotion. "Again conditions?"
"The same condition. I'm not adding new ones. Noys must be safe. She must come with me. I will not leave her behind."
"You still don't trust me? In what way have I failed you? What can there be that still disturbs you?"
"One thing, Computer," said Harlan solemnly. "One thing still. There was a barrier across the 100,000th. Why? That is what still disturbs me."
17. The Closing Circle
It did not stop disturbing him. It was a matter that grew in his mind as the days of preparation sped by. It interposed itself between him and Twissell; then between him and Noys. When the day of departure came, he was only distantly aware of the fact.
It was all he could do to rouse a shadow of interest when Twissell returned from a session with the Council subcommittee. He said, "How did it go?"
Twissell said wearily, "It wasn't exactly the most pleasant conversation I've ever had."
Harlan was almost willing to let it go at that, but he broke his moment's silence with a muttered "I suppose you said nothing about--"
"No, no," was the testy response. "I said nothing about the girl or about your part in the misdirection of Cooper. It was an unfortunate error, a mechanical failure. I took full responsibility."
Harlan's conscience, burdened as it was, could find room for a twinge. He said, "That won't affect you well."
"What can they do? They must wait for the correction to be made before they can touch me. If we fail, we're all beyond help or harm. If we succeed, success itself will probably protect me. And if it doesn't--" The old man shrugged. "I plan to retire from active participation in Eternity's affairs thereafter anyway." But he fumbled his cigarette and disposed of it before it was half burned away.
He sighed. "I would rather not have brought them into this at all, but there would have been no way, otherwise, of using the special kettle for further trips past the downwhen terminus."
Harlan turned away. His thoughts moved around and about the same channels that had been occupied to the increasing exclusion of all else for days. He heard Twissell's further remark dimly, but it was only at its repetition that he said with a start, "Pardon me?"
"I say, is your woman ready, boy? Does she understand what she's to do?"
"She's ready. I've told her everything."
"How did she take it?"
"What?… Oh, yes, uh, as I expected her to. She's not afraid."
"It's less than three physiohours now."
"I know."
That was all for the moment, and Harlan was left alone with his thoughts and a sickening realization of what he must do.
With the kettle loading done and the controls adjusted Harlan and Noys appeared in a final change of costume, approximating that of an unurbanized area of the early 20th.
Noyshad modified Harlan's suggestion for her wardrobe, according to some instinctive feeling she claimed women had when it came to matters of clothing and aesthetics. She chose thoughtfully from pictures in the advertisements of the appropriated volumes of the news magazine and had minutely scrutinized items imported from a dozen different Centuries.
Occasionally she would say to Harlan, "What do you think?"
He would shrug. "If it's instinctive knowledge, I'll leave it to you."
"That's a bad sign, Andrew," she said, with a lightness that did not quite ring true. "You're too pliable. What's the matter, anyway? You're just not yourself. You haven't been for days."