"'...you will be alright... I made sure.'"
-Poul Anderson, There Will Be Time (New York, 1973), XIV, p. 150.
When he has spoken:
"Leonce drew a sharp breath. For a time nothing spoke except the soughing of the branches outside. A cloud shadow came and went." (ibid.)
The sound of the wind in the trees and the passing of clouds are perpetual reminders that nature continues beyond human concerns. There is also time for Havig's words to sink in.
"'You mean,' I said at last, 'you verified I'll live quietly till I die.'
"He nodded.
"'You know the date of that,' I said.
"He sat unmoving." (ibid.)
When Anderson has explained that he does not want to know, his teakettle whistles, recalling them to the present.
2 comments:
Unbreakable rule of the Service: "The date of death of a sentient entity must never be mentioned in a Dirac 'cast." — The Quincunx of Time; the original version in "Beep" only protected Service members
H. Beam Piper's first published story, "Time and Time Again," is about a man whose mind is somehow flung thirty years back in time into his then-thirteen-year-old body. When he takes his father into his confidence about this, the older man says, "Please, if you know, don't ever tell me when I'm going to die." The inadvertent time-traveler replies that his father was still alive and very active, including flying his own plane, at the moment of the time travel, so he doesn't know when the man will die.
For the record, "Time and Time Again" was published in 1947. "Beep" came out in 1954.
Kaor, Paul!
And Robert Anderson must have realized, to his relief, that he would not live to die in the War of Judgement, that the catastrophe would come after his time.
Sean
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