independent life and they'd order you executed as a heretic! Which shows they are right. But I let him go on. Not too long from now, he'd get what was coming to him.
"Next," said Heller, "there is TIME." And he put that on the screen. "And then there is SPACE." And he put that on the screen. "And then there is ENERGY. And then there is MATTER. And you now have the seniorities from top to bottom."
The board now said:
LIFE
TIME
SPACE ENERGY MATTER
"As WE are life," he continued, "we can control this scale. Most living creatures are so much the effect of their environment that they think it controls them. But as long as you think this way, you won't get anyplace much.
"The reason we are an advanced technology is because we can control that scale there to some degree. A technology advances to the extent it can control force. That is the formula of technical success: the ability to control the factors you see there on that screen. If you get the idea they control you, you wind up a failure."
Oh, he was really into heresy now! Any psychologist can tell you that man is totally the effect of everything, that he can change nothing!
"So," said Heller, "we have to understand time a bit in order to at least try to control it. Actually, the idea of controlling time is inconceivable to savages. And in defense of them, it does seem the most immutable entity there is. Nothing seems to change it ever. It is the most adamant and powerful factor in the universe. It just inexorably crushes on and on.
"The Voltarian discoveries about time made them a space power.
"Time is the thing which molds the universe, unless interfered with by life.
"Time determines the orbits of the atom, the fall of the meteorite, the rotation of the planet and the behavior of a sun. Everything is caught up in an inexorable time cycle. In fact, nothing would exist were it not for time
which, below life, establishes the patterns of motion.
"It is time which says where something will be in the future.
"Fortunately, one can discover what this determination for the future is. Time has what you can call side bands—a sort of harmonic. We can read directly what time will cause to be formed, up to twenty-four hours in the future. Mathematicians have an inkling of this when they calculate object paths and positions. But it can be read directly."
He reached down and pulled a case out of a locker. It was one of the two time-sights which he had brought aboard. He showed me where the variable knob was and had me point it at the door.
I didn't know what I expected to see. The instrument was easy to hold, like a little camera. So I thought I would humor him and pretend to work it. The image was awful when seen through the eyepiece: it was green; it was more like a picture done on a printing machine with dots than a true picture of something. Still, I could make out the entrance to the room.
I twiddled the big knob on the side of it, not expecting more than additional dots. Then I seemed to see a shape. It seemed to be leaving the room. I looked at the door not through the machine. There was nobody there. I twiddled the knob again and got the shape back.
If you stretched your eyeballs and were good at reading dots, that image looked an awful lot like my back!
I twiddled the knob again. It made the image leave again. The image, now that I was more accustomed to it, looked defeated, all caved in! It made me angry. I wouldn't be leaving this room, all caved in! I thrust the time-sight back at him.
He read the dial: "Six minutes and twenty-four seconds. What did you see?"
I wasn't going to let him win anything. I shrugged. But I was cross.
"You have to have this to steer a ship running at high speeds," he said. "It tells you in advance whether you have run into anything and you can, in now, steer to avoid doing that. Life can alter things."
I determined right then to change leaving this room, caved in. "None of this excuses running these engines flat-out just to get
"Next," said Heller, "there is TIME." And he put that on the screen. "And then there is SPACE." And he put that on the screen. "And then there is ENERGY. And then there is MATTER. And you now have the seniorities from top to bottom."
The board now said:
LIFE
TIME
SPACE ENERGY MATTER
"As WE are life," he continued, "we can control this scale. Most living creatures are so much the effect of their environment that they think it controls them. But as long as you think this way, you won't get anyplace much.
"The reason we are an advanced technology is because we can control that scale there to some degree. A technology advances to the extent it can control force. That is the formula of technical success: the ability to control the factors you see there on that screen. If you get the idea they control you, you wind up a failure."
Oh, he was really into heresy now! Any psychologist can tell you that man is totally the effect of everything, that he can change nothing!
"So," said Heller, "we have to understand time a bit in order to at least try to control it. Actually, the idea of controlling time is inconceivable to savages. And in defense of them, it does seem the most immutable entity there is. Nothing seems to change it ever. It is the most adamant and powerful factor in the universe. It just inexorably crushes on and on.
"The Voltarian discoveries about time made them a space power.
"Time is the thing which molds the universe, unless interfered with by life.
"Time determines the orbits of the atom, the fall of the meteorite, the rotation of the planet and the behavior of a sun. Everything is caught up in an inexorable time cycle. In fact, nothing would exist were it not for time
which, below life, establishes the patterns of motion.
"It is time which says where something will be in the future.
"Fortunately, one can discover what this determination for the future is. Time has what you can call side bands—a sort of harmonic. We can read directly what time will cause to be formed, up to twenty-four hours in the future. Mathematicians have an inkling of this when they calculate object paths and positions. But it can be read directly."
He reached down and pulled a case out of a locker. It was one of the two time-sights which he had brought aboard. He showed me where the variable knob was and had me point it at the door.
I didn't know what I expected to see. The instrument was easy to hold, like a little camera. So I thought I would humor him and pretend to work it. The image was awful when seen through the eyepiece: it was green; it was more like a picture done on a printing machine with dots than a true picture of something. Still, I could make out the entrance to the room.
I twiddled the big knob on the side of it, not expecting more than additional dots. Then I seemed to see a shape. It seemed to be leaving the room. I looked at the door not through the machine. There was nobody there. I twiddled the knob again and got the shape back.
If you stretched your eyeballs and were good at reading dots, that image looked an awful lot like my back!
I twiddled the knob again. It made the image leave again. The image, now that I was more accustomed to it, looked defeated, all caved in! It made me angry. I wouldn't be leaving this room, all caved in! I thrust the time-sight back at him.
He read the dial: "Six minutes and twenty-four seconds. What did you see?"
I wasn't going to let him win anything. I shrugged. But I was cross.
"You have to have this to steer a ship running at high speeds," he said. "It tells you in advance whether you have run into anything and you can, in now, steer to avoid doing that. Life can alter things."
I determined right then to change leaving this room, caved in. "None of this excuses running these engines flat-out just to get
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