"There was some shooting," Sutton said. "I heard the guns."
"It seems," Herkimer told him, "that there were a few Revisionists lurking about, and it gets a little complicated, sir, when one tries to tell about it."
"You tangle with those Revisionists?"
"Well, to tell the truth," said Herkimer, "some of them were so rash as to draw their guns. It was most unwise of them, sir. They got the worst of it."
"It won't do us a bit of good," said Sutton, "if the idea was to get me out of the clutches of Trevor's mob. Trevor will have a psych-tracer on me. He knows where I am and this place will be watched three deep."
Herkimer grinned. "It is, sir. His men are practically falling over one another all around the place."
"Then why this get-up?" Sutton demanded angrily. "Why disguise me?"
"Well, sir," explained Herkimer, "it's like this. We figured no human in his right mind ever would want to be taken for an android. So we turned you into one. They'll be looking for a human. It would never occur to them to take a second look at an android when they were looking for a human."
Sutton grunted. "Smart," he said. "I hope it doesn't…"
"Oh, they'll get on to it after a while, sir," Herkimer admitted, cheerfully. "But it will give us some time. Time to work out some plans."
He moved swiftly around the room, opening chest drawers and taking out clothing.
"It's very nice, sir," he said, "to have you back again. We tried to find you, but it was no dice. We figured the Revisionists had you cooped up somewhere, so we redoubled our security here and kept a close watch on everything that happened. For the past five weeks we've known every move that Trevor and his gang have made."
"Five weeks!" gasped Sutton. "Did you say five weeks?"
"Certainly, sir. Five weeks. You disappeared just seven weeks ago."
"By my calendar," said Sutton, "it was ten years."
Herkimer wagged his head sagely, unstartled. "Time is the funniest thing, sir. It ties a man in knots."
He laid clothing on the bed. "If you'll get into these, sir, we'll go down for breakfast. Eva is waiting for us. She'll be glad to see you, sir."
XLV
Trevor missed with three clips in a row. He shook his head sadly.
"You're sure of this?" he asked the man across the desk.
The man nodded, tight-lipped.
"It might be android propaganda, you know," said Trevor. "They're clever. That's a thing you never must forget. An android, for all his bowing and his scraping, is just as smart as we are."
"Do you realize what it means?" the man demanded. "It means…"
"I can tell you what it means," said Trevor. "From now on we can't be sure which of us are human. There'll be no sure way of knowing who's human and who's an android. You could be an android. I could be…"
"Exactly," said the man.
"That's why Sutton was so smug yesterday afternoon," said Trevor. "He sat there, where you are sitting, and I had the impression that he was laughing at me all the time…"
"I don't think Sutton knows," said the man. "It's an android secret. Only a few of them know it. They certainly wouldn't take a chance on any human knowing it."
"Not even Sutton?"
"Not even Sutton," said the man.
"Cradle," said Trevor. "Nice sense of fitness that they have."
"You're going to do something about it, certainly," said the man impatiently.
Trevor put his elbows on the desk and matched careful fingertips.
"Of course I am," he said. "Now listen carefully. This is what we'll do…"
XLVI
Eva Armour rose from the table on the patio and held out both her hands in greeting. Sutton pulled her close to him, planted a kiss on her upturned face.
"That," he said, "is for the million times I have thought of you."
She laughed at him, suddenly gay and happy.
"But, Ash, a million times!"
"Tangled time," said Herkimer. "He's been away ten years."
"Oh," said Eva. "Oh, Ash, how horrible!"
He grinned at her. "Not too horrible. I had ten years of rest. Ten years of peace and quiet. Working on a farm, you know. It was a little rough at first, but I was actually sorry when I had to leave."
He held a chair for her, took one for himself between her and Herkimer.
They ate…ham and eggs, toast and marmalade, strong, black coffee. It was pleasant on the patio. In the trees above them birds quarreled amiably. In the clover at the edge of the bricks and stones that formed the paving, bees hummed among the blossoms.
"How do you like my place, Ash?" asked Eva.
"It's wonderful," he said, and then, as if the two ideas might be connected in some way, he said, "I saw Trevor yesterday. He took me to the mountaintop and showed me the universe."
Eva drew in her breath sharply, and Sutton looked up quickly from his plate. Herkimer was waiting, with drawn face, with fork poised in midair, halfway to his mouth.
"What's the matter with you two?" he asked. "Don't you trust me?"
And even as he asked the question, he answered it for himself. Of course, they wouldn't trust him. For he was human and he could betray them. He could twist destiny so that it was a thing for the human race alone. And there was no way in which they could be sure that he would not do this.
"Ash," said Eva, "you refused to…"
"I left Trevor with an idea that I would be back to talk it over. Nothing that I said or did. He just believes I will. Told me to go out and beat my head against the wall some more."
"You have thought about it, sir?" asked Herkimer.
Sutton shook his head. "No. Not too much. I haven't sat down and mulled it over, if that is what you mean. It would have its points if you were merely human. Sometimes I frankly wonder how much of the human there may be left in me."
"How much of it do you know, Ash,?" Eva asked, speaking softly.
Sutton scrubbed a hand across his forehead. "Most of it, I think. I know about the war in time and how and why it's being fought. I know about myself. I have two bodies and two minds, or at least substitute bodies and minds. I know some of the things that I can do. There may be other abilities I do not know about. One grows into them. Each new thing comes hard."
"We couldn't tell you," Eva said. "It would have been so simple if we could have told you. But, to start with, you would not have believed the things we told you. And, when dealing with time, one interferes as little as possible. Just enough to turn an event in the right direction.
"I tried to warn you. Remember, Ash? As near as I could come to warning."
He nodded. "After I killed Benton in the Zag House. You told me you had studied me for twenty years."
"And remember, I was the little girl in the checkered apron. When you were fishing…"
He looked at her in surprise. "You knew about that? It wasn't just part of the Zag dream?"
"Identification," said Herkimer. "So that you could identify her as a friend, as someone you had known before and who was close to you. So that you would accept her as a friend."
"But it was a dream."
"A Zag dream," said Herkimer. "The Zag is one of us. His race will benefit if destiny can stand for everyone and not the human race alone."
Sutton said, "Trevor is too confident. Not just pretending to be confident, but really confident. I keep coming back to that crack he made. 'Go out,' he said, 'and butt your head some more.' "
"He's counting on you as a human being," Eva said.
Sutton shook his head. "I can't think that's it. He must have some scheme up his sleeve, some maneuver that we won't be able to check."
Herkimer spoke slowly. "I don't like that, sir. The war's not going too well as it is. If we had to win, we'd be lost right now."
"If we had to win? I don't understand…"