“You’re talking nonsense,” I said. “We are here. The guard brought us. Would it be too much to ask . . .”
“Not at all,” said the thing behind the desk. “We knew one another long ago. I suppose you may be pardoned for not recognizing me, for I have changed considerably. You once knew me as Ramsay O’Gillicuddy.”
It seemed outrageous on the face of it, of course, but there was something in that voice that almost made me think so.
“Mr. O’Gillicuddy,” said Cynthia, “there is one thing you must tell me. How many metal wolves were there?”
“Why, that’s an easy one,” said O’Gillicuddy. “There were three ofthem. Elmer killed two of them and only one was left.”
He motioned at chairs set before the desk. “And now that you have tested me, please sit down. We have catching up to do.”
When we were seated, he said, “Well, this is very cheerful and cozy and it is wonderful that you are here. We had it all planned out and it seemed to be so foolproof, but in temporal matters one can never be entirely sure. I shudder at the thought of what would have happened if you had not arrived. And I have every right to shudder, for I know exactly what would have happened. This all would have if disappeared. Although, come to think of it, that’s not exactly right …”
“By the phrase, all this,” I said, “I suppose you mean this ‘:’; museum. It is a museum, is it not, housing the collection of the census-taker?” ; “Then you know about the census-taker?”
“You might say we guessed.”
“Of course,” O’Gillicuddy said, “you would have. You (both are quite astute.”
“Where is the census-taker now?” asked Cynthia. “We had hoped to find him here.”
“Once he had seen his collections housed,” said O’Gillicuddy, “this collection and the original and much larger collection recovered from its hiding place in the old Balkans area, he took off for the planet Alden to lead an expedition of archaeologists to his old home planet. Not having heard from it or any of his fellows for many centuries, he is convinced that his race has disappeared, for one of the many reasons which might bring about the disappearance of a race. So far we have had no word of the expedition. We await it anxiously.” “We?”
“Myself and all the rest of my brother shades.” “You mean you’re all like this?”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “It was a part of the bargain that we made. But I forget you do not know about the agreement. I shall have to tell you.” We waited to be told.
“It goes this way,” he said, getting down to business. “From here we’ll send you back to your own present time, to that temporal moment you would have expected to arrive at if the time-trap had worked as I said it would . ..”
“But you bungled then,” I said, “and you will bungle now and . . .”
He raised a metallic hand to silence me. “We never bungled,” he said. “We did what we intended. We brought you here, because if we had not brought you here the plan would not have worked. If you were not here to have the plan unfolded, you’d not know what to do. But going back with the plan in mind, you can bring this all about.”
“Now, wait a minute there,” I protested. “You’re getting this all tangled up. There is no sense . . .”
“There is an amazing lot of sense to it,” he said. “It works this way. You were in the distant past and we bring you forward to this future so you can be told the plan, then you’ll be sent back to your present so you can implement the plan that will make it possible for the future you now occupy to happen,”
I jumped to my feet and banged the desk. “I never have heard so damn much foolishness in all my life,” I shouted. ‘ “You’ve got time all tangled up. How can we be brought into a future that won’t exist unless we are in our present to do whatever damn fool thing we have to do to make this future happen?”
O’Gillicuddy was somewhat smug about it. “I admit,” he said, “that it may seem slightly strange. But when you think of it, you will perceive the logic of it. Now we’re going to send you back in time . . .”
“Missing your mark,” I said, “by several thousand years . . .”
“Not at all,” said O’Gillicuddy. “We’ll hit it on the nose. We no longer depend upon mere psychic ability. We now have a machine, a temporal selector, that can send you anywhere you wish, to the small part of a second. Its development was a part of the bargain that was made.”
“You talk about plans,” said Cynthia, “and bargains. It might help a little if you tell us what they are.”
“Given half a chance,” said O’Gillicuddy, “I would be charmed to do so. We will send you back to your temporal present and you will go back to Cemetery and see Maxwell dieter Bell . . .”
“And Maxwell Peter Bell will throw me out upon my J5tar,” I said, “and maybe . . .”
“Not,” said O’Gillicuddy, “if you have two war machines standing just outside, loaded for bear and ready. They’ll make all the difference.” “But how can you be sure the war machines . . .” “You asked them, didn’t you, to be at a certain place at a certain time?” “Yes, we did,” I said.
“All right, then. You will see Maxwell Peter Bell and you will let him know that you can prove he is using Cemetery as a cache for smuggled artifacts and you will tell him . . .”
“But smuggling artifacts is not against the law.” “No, of course it’s not. But can you imagine what will happen to Mother Earth’s carefully polished image if it should be known what is being done? There would be a smell not only of dishonesty but of ghoulery about it that would take them years to wipe away, if they ever could.” “It might work,” I said, somewhat reluctant to admit it. “You will explain to him most carefully,” said O’Cillicuddy, “being sure he does not mistake your meaning or intent, that you might just possibly find it unnecessary to say anything about it if he should agree to certain actions.”
O’Gillicuddy counted the actions on his fingers, one by one. “Cemetery will agree to donate to Alden University all its holdings in artifacts, being very vigilant in recovering and turning over all that they have hidden, and henceforth will desist from any dealing in them. Cemetery will provide the necessary shipping to transport the artifacts to Alden and immediately will implement the establishment of regular passenger service to Earth at a rate consistent with other travel fares throughout the galaxy, providing reasonably priced accommodations for tourists and Pilgrims who may wish to visit Earth. Cemetery will establish and maintain museums to house the collection of historic artifacts collected since mankind’s beginning by a certain devoted student who is designated by the name of Ronex from the planet Abernax. Cemetery will . . .” “That is the census-taker?” Cynthia asked. “That is the census-taker,” said O’Gillicuddy, “and now if 1 might proceed . . .”
“There’s one thing,” said Cynthia, “that still bothers me a lot What about Wolf? Why should he first be hunting us and then .. .”
“Wolf,” said O’Gillicuddy, “was not exactly a metal wolf. He was one of the census-taker’s robots that had been infiltrated into Cemetery’s wolf pack. The census-taker, as you must understand, was no one’s fool, and he kept a hand in almost everything transpiring on the Earth. And now if 1 may proceed . . .” “Please do,” said Cynthia.
O’GiDkuddy went on, counting off the points on his fingers. “Cemetery is to< contribute funds and all necessary resources to a. research program aimed at a reliable system of temporal travel. Cemetery likewise is to contribute all necessary funds and resources to another research program aimed at discovering and developing a method by whichhuman personalities can be transferred in their entireties to a robotic brain and once such a method is developed the first objects of such transfers shall be a group of beings known as shades now existing on the planet Earth and . . .""That's how you . . ." said Cynthia."That's how I came to be as you see me now. But to go on. Cemetery shall agree to the appointment of a galactic watchdog commission which will not only see to it that the provisions of this agreement are carried out, but which shall, in perpetuity, examine Cemetery's books and actions and make recommendations for the conducting of its business."