The End of Eternity Read Online Free PDF

just a Technician. You will be my personal Technician. You will have special status. How does that sound now?”
    Harlan said, “I don’t know, sir. I may not qualify.”
    Twissell shook his head firmly. “I need you. I need just you. Your reports assure me you have what I need up here.” He tapped his forehead quickly with a ridge-nailed forefinger. “Your record as Cub is good; the Sections for which you have Observed reported favorably. Finally, Finge’s report was most suitable of all.”
    Harlan was honestly startled. “Computer Finge’s report was favorable?”
    “You didn’t expect that?”
    “I—don’t know.”
    “Well, boy, I didn’t say it was favorable. I said it was suitable. As a matter of fact, Finge’s report was
not
favorable. He recommended that you be removed from all duties connected with Reality Changes. He suggested it wasn’t safe to keep you anywhere but in Maintenance.”
    Harlan reddened. “What were his reasons for saying so, sir?”
    “It seems you have a hobby, boy. You are interested in Primitive history, eh?” He gestured expansively with hiscigarette and Harlan, forgetting in his anger to control his breathing, inhaled a cloud of smoke and coughed helplessly.
    Twissell regarded the young Observer’s coughing spell benignly and said, “Isn’t that so?”
    Harlan began, “Computer Finge had no right—”
    “Now, now. I told you what was in the report because it hinges on the purpose I need you most for. Actually, the report was confidential and you are to forget I told you what was in it. Permanently, boy.”
    “But what’s wrong with being interested in Primitive history?”
    “Finge thinks your interest in it shows a strong Wish-to-Time. You understand me, boy?”
    Harlan did. It was impossible to avoid picking up psychiatric lingo. That phrase above all. Every member of Eternity was supposed to have a strong drive, the stronger for being officially suppressed in all its manifestations, to return, not necessarily to his own Time, but at least to some one definite Time; to become part of a Century, rather than to remain a wanderer through them all. Of course in most Eternals the drive remained safely hidden in the unconscious.
    “I don’t think that’s the case,” said Harlan.
    “Nor I. In fact, I think your hobby is interesting and valuable. As I said, it’s why I want you. I want you to teach a Cub I shall bring to you all you know and all you can learn about Primitive history. In between, you will also be my personal Technician. You’ll start in a few days. Is that agreeable?”
    Agreeable? To have official permission to learn all he could about the days before Eternity? To be personally associated with the greatest Eternal of them all? Even the nasty fact of Technician’s status seemed bearable under those conditions.
    His caution, however, did not entirely fail him. He said, “If it’s necessary for the good of Eternity, sir—”
    “For the
good
of Eternity?” cried the gnomish Computer in sudden excitement. He threw his cigarette butt from him with such energy that it hit the far wall and bounced off in a shower of sparks. “I need you for the
existence
of Eternity.”

3. CUB
    Harlan had been in the 575th for weeks before he met Brinsley Sheridan Cooper. He had time to grow used to his new quarters and to the antisepsis of glass and porcelain. He learned to wear the Technician’s mark with only moderate shrinking and to refrain from making things worse by standing so that the insigne was hidden against a wall or was covered by the interposition of some object he was carrying.
    Others smiled disdainfully when that was done and turned colder as though they suspected an attempt to invade their friendship on false pretenses.
    Senior Computer Twissell brought him problems daily. Harlan studied them and wrote his analyses in drafts that were four times rewritten, the last version being handed in reluctantly even so.
    Twissell would appraise them and nod