Time and Again by Clifford D. Simak Read Free Book Online Page A

or park or garden.
    Sutton ran his eye down the Earth column. An earthquake in eastern Asia. A new underwater development for the housing of alien employees and representatives from watery worlds. Delivery of three new star ships to the Sector 19 run. And then:
    Asher Sutton, special agent of the Department of Galactic Investigation, returned today from 61 Cygni, to which he was assigned twenty years ago. Hope of his return had been abandoned several years ago. Immediately upon landing a guard was thrown around his ship and he was in seclusion at the Orion Arms. All attempts to reach him for a statement failed. Shortly after his arrival, he was called out by Geoffrey Benton. Mr. Sutton chose a pistol and informality.
    Sutton read the item again. All attempts to reach him…
    Herkimer had said there were reporters and photographers in the lobby and ten minutes later Ferdinand had sworn there weren't. He had had no calls. There had been no attempt to reach him. Or had there? Attempts that had been neatly stopped. Stopped by the same person who had lain in wait for him, the same power that had been inside the room when he stepped across the threshold.
    He dropped the paper to the floor, sat thinking.
    He had been challenged by one of Earth's foremost, if not the foremost, duelist.
    The old family robot had run away…or had been persuaded to run away.
    Attempts by the press to reach him had been stopped…cold.
    The visor purred at him and he jumped.
    A call.
    The first since he had arrived.
    He swung around in his chair and flipped up the switch.
    A woman's face came in. Granite eyes and skin magnolia-white, hair a copper glory.
    "My name is Eva Armour," she said. "I am the one who asked you to wait with the elevator."
    "I recognized you," said Sutton.
    "I called to make amends."
    "There is no need…"
    "But, Mr. Sutton, there is. You thought I was laughing at you and I really wasn't."
    "I looked funny," Sutton told her. "It was your privilege to laugh."
    "Will you take me out to dinner?" she asked.
    "Certainly," said Sutton. "I would be delighted to."
    "And someplace afterwards," she suggested. "We'll make an evening of it."
    "Gladly," said Sutton.
    "I'll meet you in the lobby at seven," she said. "And I won't be late."
    The visor faded and Sutton sat stiffly in the chair.
    They'd make an evening of it, she had said. And he was afraid she might be right.
    They'd make an evening of it, and, he said, talking to himself, you'll be lucky if you're alive tomorrow.

X

    A DAMS SAT SILENTLY , facing the four men who had come into his office, trying to make out what they might be thinking. But their faces wore the masks of everyday.
    Clark, the space construction engineer, clutched a field book in his hand and his face was set and stern. There was no foolishness about Clark…ever.
    Anderson, anatomist, big and rough, was lighting up his pipe, and for the moment that seemed, to him, the most important thing in all the world.
    Blackburn, the psychologist, frowned at the glowing tip of his cigarette, and Shulcross, the language expert, sprawled sloppily in his chair like an empty sack.
    They found something, Adams told himself. They found plenty and some of it has them tangled up.
    "Clark," said Adams, "suppose you start us out."
    "We looked the ship over," Clark told him, "and we found it couldn't fly."
    "But it did," said Adams. "Sutton brought it home."
    Clark shrugged. "He might as well have used a log. Or a hunk of rock. Either one would have served the purpose. Either one would fly just as well as, or better than, that heap of junk."
    "Junk?"
    "The engines were washed out," said Clark. "The safety automatics were the only things that kept them from atomizing. The ports were cracked, some of them were broken. One of the tubes was busted off and lost. The whole ship was twisted out of line."
    "You mean it was warped?"
    "It had struck something," Clark declared. "Struck it hard and fast. Seams were opened, the structural plates were