Time and Again

by Clifford D. Simak

  Gun in hand, Sutton wheeled and ran, twisting through the shrubbery, ducking overhanging branches, plowing through a tulip bed. Out of the corner of one eye, he caught a twinkle…the twinkling breath of a silent flaming gun, and the dancing path of silver that it sliced into the night.

  He plunged through a ripping, tearing hedge, waded a stream, found himself in a clump of evergreen and birch. He stopped to get back his breath, staring back over the way that he had come.

  The countryside lay quiet and peaceful, a silvered picture painted by the moon. No one or nothing stirred. The gun long ago had ceased its flickering.

  Johnny's warning came suddenly:

  "Ash! Behind you. Friendly…"

  Sutton wheeled, gun half lifted.

  Herkimer was running in the moonlight, like a hound hunting for a trace.

  Sutton stepped from the copse and called gently. Herkimer stopped his running, wheeled around, then loped toward him.

  "Mr. Sutton, sir…"

  "Yes, Herkimer."

  "We've got to run for it."

  "Yes," said Sutton, "I suppose we have. I walked into a trap. There were three of them laying for me."

  "It's worse than that," said Herkimer. "It's not only the Revisionists and Morgan, but it's Adams, too."

  "Adams?"

  "Adams has given orders that you be killed on sight."

  Sutton stiffened. "How do you know?" he snapped.

  "The girl," said Herkimer. "Eva. The one you asked about. She told me."

  Herkimer walked forward, stood face to face with Sutton.

  "You have to trust me, sir. You said this morning I'd put the ringer on you, but I never would. I was with you from the very first."

  "But the girl," said Sutton.

  "Eva's with you, too, sir. We started out to find you as soon as we found out, but we were too late to catch you. Eva's waiting with the ship."

  "A ship," said Sutton. "A ship and everything."

  "It's your own ship, sir," said Herkimer. "The one you got from Benton. The ship that went along with me."

  "And you want me to come with you and get into this ship and…"

  "I'm sorry, sir," said Herkimer.

  He moved so fast that Sutton couldn't do a thing.

  He saw the fist coming and he tried to raise his gun. He felt the sudden fury grow cold within his brain and then there was a crushing impact and his head snapped back so that for a moment, before his eyelids closed, he saw the wheel of stars against a spinning sky.

  He felt his knees buckling under him and his body falling.

  But he was out, stone-cold, when his body hit the ground.

  XVIII

  EVA ARMOUR was calling to him softly.

  "Ash. Oh, Ash. Wake up."

  To Sutton's ears came the muted mutter of the coasting rockets, the hollow, thrumming sound of a small ship hurtling through space.

  "Johnny," said Sutton's mind.

  "We're in a ship, Ash."

  "How many are there?"

  "The android and the girl. The one called Eva. And they are friendly. I told you they were friendly. Why don't you pay attention?"

  "I can't trust anyone."

  "Not even me?"

  "Not your judgment, Johnny. You are new to Earth."

  "Not new, Ash. I know Earth and Earthmen. Much better than you know them. You're not the first Earthman I've lived with."

  "I can't remember, Johnny. There's something to remember. I try to remember it and there's nothing but a blur. The big things, of course, the things I learned, the things I wrote down and took away. But not the place itself or the people in it."

  "They aren't people, Ash."

  "I know. I can't remember."

  ''You're not supposed to, Ash. It was all too alien. You can't carry such memories with you…you shouldn't carry such alien memories, for when you carry them too closely, you are a part of them. And you had to stay human, Ash. We have to keep you human."

  "But someday I must remember. Someday…"

  "When you must remember them, you will remember them. I will see to that."

  "And, Johnny."

  "What is it, Ash?"

  "You don't mind this Johnny business?"

  "What about it, Ash?"

  "I shouldn't call you 'Johnny.' It is flippant and familiar .. but it is friendly. It is the friendliest name I know. That is why I call you it."

  "I do not mind," said Johnny. "I do not mind at all."

  "You understand any of this, Johnny? About Morgan? And the Revisionists?"

  "No, Ash."

  "But you see a pattern?"

  "I am beginning to."

  Eva Armour shook him. "Wake up, Ash," she said. "Can't you hear me, Ash? Wake up."

  Sutton opened his eyes. He was lying on a bunk and the girl still was shaking him.

  "O.K.," he said. "You can stop now. O.K."

  He swung his legs off the bunk and sat on its edge. His hand went up and felt the lump on his jaw.

  "Herkimer had to hit you," Eva said. "He didn't want to hit you, but you were unreasonable and we had no time to lose."

  "Herkimer?"

  "Certainly. You remember Herkimer, Ash. He was Benton's android. He's piloting this ship."

  The ship, Sutton saw, was small, but it was clean and comfortable and there would have been room for another passenger or two. Herkimer, talking his precise, copybook speech, had said it was small but serviceable.

  "Since you've kidnapped me," Sutton told the girl, "I don't suppose you'd mind telling me where we're going."

  "We don't mind at all," said Eva. "Were going to the hunting asteroid that you got from Benton. It has a lodge and a good supply of food and no one will think of looking for us there."

  "That's fine," said Sutton, grinning. "I could do with a spot of hunting."

  "You won't be doing any hunting," said a voice behind them. Sutton swung around. Herkimer stood in the hatch that led to the pilot's shell.

  "You're going to write a book," said Eva, softly. "Surely you know about the book. The one the Revisionists…"

  "Yes," Sutton told her. "I know about the book…"

  He stopped, remembering, and his hand went involuntarily to feel of his breast pocket. The book was there, all right, and something that crinkled when he touched it. He remembered that, too. The letter…the incredibly old letter that John H. Sutton had forgotten to open six thousand years before.

  "About the book," said Sutton, and then he stopped again, for he was going to say they needn't bother about writing the book, for he already had a copy. But something stopped him, for he wasn't certain that it was smart just then to let them know about the book he had.

  "I brought along the case," said Herkimer. "The manuscript's all there. I checked through it."

  "And plenty of paper?" asked Sutton, mocking him.

  "And plenty of paper."

  Eva Armour leaned toward Sutton, so close that he could smell the fragrance of her copper hair.

  "Don't you see," she asked, "how important it is that you write this book? Don't you understand?"

  Sutton shook his head.

  Important, he thought. Important for what? And whom? And when?

  He remembered the open mouth that death had struck, the teeth that glittered in the moonlight and the words of a dying man still rang sharply in his ears.

  "But I don't understand," he said. "Maybe you can tell me."

  She shook her head. "You write the book," she told him.

  XIX

  THE ASTEROID was enveloped in the perpetual twilight of the far-from-sun and its frosty peaks speared up like sharp, silvery needles stabbing at the stars.

  The air was sharp and cold and thinner than on Earth and the wonder was, Sutton told himself, that any air could be kept on the place at all. Although at the cost that it had taken to make this or any other asteroid habitable, it would seem that anything should be possible.

  A billion-dollar job at least, Sutton estimated. The cost of the
atomic plants alone would run to half that figure and without atomics there would be no power to run the atmosphere and gravity machines that supplied the air and held it in its place.

  Once, he thought, Man had been content, had been forced to be content, to find his solitude at a lakeshore cottage or a hunting lodge or aboard a pleasure yacht, but now, with a galaxy to spend, Man fixed up an asteroid at a billion bucks a throw or bought out a planet at a bargain price.

  "There's the lodge," said Herkimer, and Sutton looked in the direction of the pointing ringer. High up on the jigsaw horizon he saw the humped, black building with its one pinpoint of light.

  "What's the light?" asked Eva. "Is there someone here?"

  Herkimer shook his head. "Someone forgot to turn off a light the last time when they left."

  Evergreens and birches, ghostlike in the starlight, stood in ragged clumps, like marching soldiers storming the height where the lodge was set.

  "The path is over here," said Herkimer.

  He led the way and they climbed, with Eva in the center and Sutton bringing up the rear. The path was steep and uneven and the light was none too good, for the thin atmosphere failed to break up the starlight and the stars themselves remained tiny, steely points of light that did not blaze or twinkle, but stood primly in the sky like dots upon a map.

  The lodge, Sutton saw, apparently sat upon a small plateau, and he knew that the plateau would be the work of man, for nowhere else in all this jumbled landscape was it likely that one would find a level spot much bigger than a pocket handkerchief.

  A movement of air so faint and tenuous that it could be scarcely called a breeze rustled down the slope and set the evergreens to moaning. Something scuttled from the path and skittered up the rocks. From somewhere far away came a screaming sound that set one's teeth on edge.

  "That's an animal," Herkimer said quietly. He stopped and waved his hand at the tortured, twisted rock. "Great place to hunt," he said, and added, "if you don't break a leg."

  Sutton looked behind him and saw for the first time the true, savage wildness of the place. A frozen whirlpool of star-speckled terrain stretched below them…great yawning gulfs of blackness above which stood brooding peaks and spirelike pinnacles.

  Sutton shivered at the sight. "Let's get on," he said.

  They climbed the last hundred yards and reached the man-made plateau, then stood and stared across the nightmare landscape, and as he looked, Sutton felt the cold hand of loneliness reach down with icy fingers to take him in its grip. For here was sheer, mad loneliness such as he had never dreamed. Here was the very negation of life and motion, here was the stark, bald beginning when there was no life, nor even thought of life. Here anything that knew or thought or moved was an alien thing, a disease, a cancer on the face of nothingness.

  A footstep crunched behind them and they swung around.

  A man moved out of the starry darkness. His voice was pleasant and heavy as he spoke to them.

  "Good evening," he said and waited for a moment, then added by way of explanation, "We heard you land and I walked out to meet you."

  Eva's voice was cold and just a little angry. "You take us by surprise," she said. "We had not expected anyone."

  The man's tone stiffened. "I hope we are not trespassing. We are friends of Mr. Benton and he told us to use the place at our convenience."

  "Mr. Benton is dead," said Eva, frostily. "This man is the new owner."

  The man's head turned toward Sutton.

  "I'm sorry, sir," he said. "We did not know. Of course, we'll leave, the first moment that we can."

  "I see no reason," Sutton told him, "why you should not stay."

  "Mr. Sutton," said Eva, primly, "came here for peace and quiet. He expects to write a book."

  "A book," said the man. "An author, eh?"

  Sutton had the uncomfortable feeling that the man was laughing, not at him alone, but at the three of them.

  "Mr. Sutton?" said the man, acting as if he were thinking hard. "I can't seem to recall the name. But, then, I'm not a great reader."

  "I've never written anything before," said Sutton.

  "Oh, well, then," said the man, laughing as if he were relieved, "that probably explains it."

  "It's cold out here," Herkimer said, abruptly. "Let us get indoors."

  "Certainly," said the man. "Yes, it is cold, although I hadn't noticed it. By the way, my name is Pringle. My partner's name is Case."

  No one answered him and after a few seconds he turned and trotted ahead of them, like a happy dog, leading the way.

  The lodge, Sutton saw as they approached it, was larger than it had seemed from the valley where they had brought the ship in. It loomed huge and black against the starlit backdrop, and if one had not known that it was there it might have been mistaken for another rock formation.

  The door opened as their feet sounded on the massive stone steps which led up to it and another man stood there, stiff and erect and tall, thin, but with whipcord strength about him as the light from inside the room threw his figure into black relief.

  "The new owner, Case," said Pringle, and it seemed to Sutton that he pitched his voice just a key too low, that he emphasized the words just a bit too much. As if he meant the words to be a warning.

  "Benton died, you know," said Pringle and Case answered, "Oh, did he? How peculiar."

  Which, Sutton thought, was a funny thing to say.

  Case stood to one side to let them enter, then pulled shut the door.

  The room was huge, with only one lamp burning, and shadows pressed in upon them out of the dark corners and the cavernous arch of the raftered ceiling.

  "I am afraid," said Pringle, "that you'll have to look out for yourselves. Case and I are roughing it and we brought along no robots. Although I can fix up something if you happen to be hungry. A hot drink, perhaps, and some sandwiches?"

  "We ate just before we landed," Eva said, "and Herkimer will take care of what few things we have."

  "Then take a chair," urged Pringle. "That one over there is comfortable. We will talk a bit."

  "I'm afraid we can't. The trip was just a little rough."

  "You're an ungracious young lady," Pringle said, and his words were halfway between jest and anger.

  "I'm a tired young lady."

  Pringle walked to a wall, flipped up toggles. Lights sprang into being.

  "The bedrooms are up the stairs," he said. "Off the balcony. Case and I have the first and second to the left. You may have your pick from any of the rest."

  He moved forward to lead them up the stairs. But Case spoke up and Pringle stopped and waited, one hand on tie lower curve of the stair rail.

  "Mr. Sutton," said Case, "it seems to me I have heard your name somewhere."

  "I don't think so," said Sutton. "I'm a most unimportant person."

  "But you killed Benton."

  "No one said I killed him."

  Case did not laugh, but his voice said that if he had not been Case he would have laughed.

  "Nevertheless, you must have killed him. For I happen to know that is the only way anyone could get this asteroid. Benton loved it and this side of life he'd never give it up."

  "Since you insist, then, I did kill Benton."

  Case shook his head, bewildered. "Remarkable," he said. "Remarkable."

  "Good night, Mr. Case," said Eva, and then she spoke to Pringle. "No need to trouble you. We will find our way."

  "No trouble," Pringle rumbled back. "No trouble at all." And, once again, he was laughing at them.

  He jogged lightly up the stairs.

  XX

  PRINGLE AND CASE were wrong. There was something wrong about them. The very fact that they were here, at the lodge, was sinister.

  There had been mockery in Pringle's voice. And he had been laughing at them all the time, laughing with a sneering amusement, enjoying some thinly varnished joke that they did not know.

  Pringle was a talker, a buffoon…but Case was stiff and s
traight and correct and when he spoke his words were clipped and sharp. There was something about Case…some point…some resemblance…a resemblance to something that escaped Sutton at the moment.

  Sitting on the edge of his bed, Sutton frowned.

  If I could just remember, he told himself. If I could put my finger on that mannerism, on the way he talks and walks and holds himself erect. If I could associate that with a certain thing I know, it would explain a lot. It might even tell me who Case is, or what he is, or even why he's here.

  Case knew that I killed Benton. Case knows who I am. And he should have kept his mouth shut, but he had to let me know he knew, because that way he bolstered up his ego and even if he doesn't look it, his ego may need boosting.

  Eva didn't trust them, either, for she tried to tell me something when we parted at her door and I couldn't quite make out what it was from the way she moved her lips, although it looked as if she was trying to say, "Don't trust them."

  As if I would trust anyone…anyone at all.

  Sutton wiggled his toes and stared at them, fascinated. He tried to wiggle them in series and they wouldn't wiggle that way. He tried to match the wiggling of each toe on each foot and they wouldn't match.

  I can't even control my own body, he thought, and it was a funny thing to think.

  Pringle and Case were waiting for us, Sutton told himself, and wondered even as he said it if he might not be giving himself over to sheer fantasy. For how could they be waiting when they could not have known that Herkimer and Eva would head for the asteroid?

  He shook his head, but the belief that the two had been waiting for them stayed…an idea clinging like a burr.

  After all, it was not so strange. Adams had known that he was coming back to Earth, returning home after twenty years. Adams knew and set a trap for him…and there was no way, absolutely no way that Adams could have known.

  And why, he asked himself. Why?

  Why did Adams set the trap?

  Why had Buster run away to homestead a planet?

  Why had someone conditioned Benton to issue a challenge?

  Why had Eva and Herkimer brought him to the asteroid?