Tomorrow Is Too Far by James White

Author:James White [White, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

He had been building up a reputation as a gossiping old woman, and now that he had changed his lunch break to coincide with Jean’s and they began sitting together every day his reputation was beginning to change and be envied. If some of the people who were currently watching them had known that during the past three evenings she had spent something like six hours in his flat they would have been really envious, but without reason. Then, as now, she had been cool, pleasant and altogether professional.

‘I taped the conversation last night after you left,’ Carson said, ‘so you won’t have to rely on hearsay evidence from a layman. He really does have a complicated dream life, and the way he described some of the sequences was even weirder than the dreams themselves. If you could come over tonight and listen ...’

‘I’ll come,’ she said, ‘but I think we’re taking a risk being there together nearly every night he comes to see you. He’s innocent but not stupid. One of these nights he will either decide that he is intruding and not come back, or he will realise that our guilty looks are due to our talking about him rather than because we may have been doing something to feel guilty about..

Carson said, ‘Would you feel better if we did do something we should feel guilty about? I know I would.’

‘Be serious, Joe. What are we trying to do to John Pebbles? Get him shot, locked up? Right now he isn’t guilty of anything and we both know it.’

‘The way you should look on it,’ said Carson, ‘is that if we’re successful he won’t be guilty because we will have prevented him from committing a crime.’

‘I’m going to work late tonight,’ he added, ‘so don’t come until after nine o’clock. Tonight there is a project meeting and I intend doing a little eavesdropping. ..’

‘You’re taking a risk.’

‘Probably, but not a big one. Besides, I have to take some risks if we want to find out what exactly it is that we’re investigating. You do believe that we are investigating something?’

‘You are,’ said Jean coolly. ‘I am merely an advisor.’ Carson practised restraint for a few seconds, then said, ‘In a way this business is a little like coming in at the middle of a movie. By observing the actions and relationships of the characters it should be possible to deduce what has happened at the beginning of the film as it moves towards its climax. In a sense we are moving in two directions at once, going simultaneously into the past and future. With Pebbles we have gone back very close to the beginning. If there is any order, any symmetry at all in the universe, we must be very close to the end ...’

‘Part of my advice,’ Jean went on as if he had not spoken, ‘is not to take too many risks.’

But he took a risk later that afternoon when he rang Simpson in Publicity with a rather odd request.

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