End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov

Author:Isaac Asimov
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science Fiction, Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Time travel, General
ISBN: 9780586024409
Publisher: Grafton Books
Published: 1955-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

It couldn’t be a housebreaker. The entire period of the spatio-temporal chart, grace period and all, had been painstakingly cleared and chosen out of other similar periods of Time because of the lack of complicating factors. On the other hand, he had introduced a micro-change (perhaps not so micro at that) by abstracting Noÿs.

Heart pounding, he forced himself to turn. It seemed to him that the door behind him had just closed, moving the last millimeter required to bring it flush with the wall.

He repressed the impulse to open that door, to search the house. With Noÿs’s delicacies in tow he returned to Eternity and waited two full days for repercussions before venturing into the far up when. There were none and eventually he forgot the incident.

But now, as he adjusted the controls to enter Time this one last time, he thought of it again. Or perhaps it was the thought of the Change, nearly upon him now, that preyed on him. Looking back on the moment later, he felt that it was one or the other that caused him to misadjust the controls. He could think of no other excuse.

The misadjustment was not immediately apparent. It pinpointed the proper room and Harlan stepped directly into Noÿs’s library.

He had become enough of a decadent himself, now, to be not altogether repelled by the workmanship that went into the design of the film-cases. The lettering of the titles blended in with the intricate filigree until they were attractive but nearly unreadable. It was a triumph of aesthetics over utility.

Harlan took a few from the shelves at random and was surprised. The title of one was Social and Economic History of our Times.

Somehow it was a side of Noÿs to which he had given little thought. She was certainly not stupid and yet it never occurred to him that she might be interested in weighty things. He had the impulse to scan a bit of the Social and Economic History, but. fought it down. He would find it in the Section library of the 482nd, if he ever wanted it. Finge had undoubtedly rifled the libraries of this Reality for Eternity’s records months earlier.

He put that film to one side, ran through the rest, selected the fiction and some of what seemed light non-fiction. Those and two pocket viewers. He stowed them carefully into a knapsack.

It was at that point that, once more, he heard a sound in the house. There was no mistake this time. It was not a short sound of indeterminate origin. It was a laugh, a man’s laugh. He was not alone in the house.

He was unaware that he had dropped the knapsack. For one dizzy second he could think only that he was trapped!

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