Plenty of time to go a hundred miles.
If he just watched everything he did and said in the meantime and made no move or remark which a psychiatrist could interpret—
He loafed and rested.
And at five o’clock Friday afternoon it was all right, and he shook hands all the way round, and was a free man again. He’d promised to report to Doc Palmer regularly for a few weeks.
But he was free.
RAIN AND darkness.
A cold, unpleasant drizzle that started to find its way through his clothes and down the hack of his neck and into his shoes even as he stepped off the train onto the small wooden platform.
But the station was there, and on the side of it was the sign that told him the name of the town. Charlie looked at it and grinned, and went into the station. There was a cheerful little coal stove in the middle of the room. He had time to get warmed up before he started. He held out his hands to the stove.
Over at one side of the room, a grizzled head regarded him curiously through the ticket window. Charlie nodded at the head and the head nodded back.
“Stavin’ here a while, stranger?” the head asked.
“Not exactly,” said Charlie. “Anyway, I hope not. I mean—” Heck, after that whopper he’d told the psychiatrists back at the hospital, he shouldn’t have any trouble lying to a ticket agent in a little country town. “I mean, I don’t think so:”
“Ain’t no more trains out tonight, mister. Got a place to stay? If not, my wife sometimes takes in boarders for short spells.”
“Thanks,” said Charlie. “I’ve made arrangements.” He starred to add “I hope” and then realized that it would lead him further into discussion.
He glanced at the clock and at his wrist watch and saw that both agreed that it was a quarter to twelve.
“How big is this town?” he asked. “I don’t mean population. I mean, how far out the turnpike is it to the township line? The border of town.”
“‘Tain’t big. Half a mile maybe, or a little better. You goin’ out to th’ Tollivers, maybe? They live just past and I heard tell he was sendin’ to th’ city for a… nope, you don’t look like a hired man.”
“Nope,” said Charlie. “I’m not.” He glanced at the clock again and started for the door. He said, “Well, be seeing you.”
“You gain’ to—”
But Charlie had already gone out the door and was starting down the street behind the railroad station. Into the darkness and the unknown and—Well, he could hardly tell the agent about his real destination, could he?
There was the turnpike. After a block, the sidewalk ended and he had to walk along the edge of the road, sometimes ankle deep in mud. He was soaked through by now, but that didn’t matter.
It proved to be more than half a mile to the township line. A big sign there—an oddly big sign considering the size of the town—read:
You Are Now Entering Haveen
Charlie crossed the line and faced back. And waited, an eye on his wrist watch.
At twelve-fifteen he’d have to step across. It was ten minutes after already. Two days, three hours, ten minutes after the box of lye had held a copper coin, which was two days, three hours, ten minutes after he’d walked into anesthesia in the door of a jewelry store, which was two days, three hours, ten minutes after—
He watched the hands of his accurately set wrist watch, first the minute hand until twelve-fourteen. Then the second hand.
And when it lacked a second of twelve-fifteen he put forth his foot and at the fatal moment he was stepping slowly across the line.
Entering Haveen.
AND WITH each of the others, there was no warning. But suddenly:
It wasn’t raining any more. There was bright light, although it didn’t seem to come from a visible source. And the road beneath his feet wasn’t muddy; it was smooth as glass and alabaster-white. The white-robed entity at the gate ahead stared at Charlie in astonishment.
He said, “How did you get here? You aren’t even—”
“No,” said Charlie. “I’m not even dead. But listen, I’ve got to see the…uh—Who’s in charge of the printing?”
“The Head Compositor, of course. But you can’t—”
“I’ve got to see him, then,” said Charlie.
“But the rules forbid—”
“Look, it’s important. Some typographical errors are going through. It’s to your interests up here as well as to mine, that they be corrected, isn’t it? Otherwise things can get into an awful mess.”
“Errors? Impossible. You’re joking.”
“Then how,” asked Charlie, reasonably, “did I get to Heaven without dying?”
“But—”
“You see I was supposed to be entering Haveen. There is an e-matrix that-“
“Come.”
IT WAS quite pleasant and familiar, that office. Not a lot different from Charlie’s own office at the Hayworth Printing Co. There was a rickety wooden desk, littered with papers, and behind it sat a small bald-headed Chief Compositor with printer’s ink on his hands and a smear of it on his forehead. Past the closed door was a monster roar and clatter of typesetting machines and presses.
“Sure,” said Charlie. “They’re supposed to be perfect, so perfect that you don’t even need proofreaders. But maybe once out of infinity something can happen to perfection, can’t it? Mathematically, once out of infinity anything can happen. Now look; there is a separate typesetting machine and operator for the records covering each person, isn’t there?”
The Head Compositor nodded. “Correct, although in a manner of, speaking the operator and the machine are one, in that the operator is a function of the machine and the machine a manifestation of the operator and both are extensions of the ego of the…but I guess that is a little too complicated for you to understand.”
“Yes, I—well, anyway, the channels that the matrices run in must be tremendous. On our Linotypes at the Hapworth Printing Co., an e-mat would make the circuit every sixty seconds or so, and if one was defective it would cause one mistake a minute, but up here-Well, is my calculation of fifty hours and ten minutes correct?”
“It is,” agreed the Head Compositor. “And since there is no way you could have found out that fact except—”
“Exactly. And once every that often the defective e-matrix comes round and falls when the operator hits the e-key. Probably the ears of the mat are worn; anyway it falls through a long distributor front and falls too fast and lands ahead of its right place in the word, and a typographical error goes through. Like a week ago Sunday, I was supposed to pick up an angleworm, and—”
“Wait.”
The Head Compositor pressed a buzzer and issued an order. A moment later, a heavy book was brought in and placed on his desk. Before the Head Compositor opened it, Charlie caught a glimpse of his own name on the cover.
“You said at five-fifteen A.m.?”
Charlie nodded. Pages turned.
“I’ll be—blessed!” said the Head Compositor. “Angleworm! It must have been something to see. Don’t know I’ve ever heard of an angleworm before. And what was next?”
“The e fell wrong in the word `hate’—I was going after a man who was beating a horse, and—Well, it came out `heat’ instead of `hate.’ The e dropped two characters early that time. And I got heat prostration and sunburn on a rainy day. That was eight twenty-five Tuesday, and then at eleven thirty-five Thursday-” Charlie grinned.