A Thief in Time
by Robert Sheckley
Thomas Eldridge was all alone in his room in Butler Hall when he heard the faint scraping noise behind him. It barely registered on his consciousness. He was studying the Holstead equations, which had caused such a stir a few years ago, with their hint of a non-Relativity universe. They were a disturbing set of symbols, even though their conclusions had been proved quite fallacious.
Still, if one examined them without preconceptions, they seemed to prove something. There was a strange relationship of temporal elements, with interesting force-applications. There was—he heard the noise again and turned his head.
Standing in back of him was a large man dressed in ballooning purple trousers, a little green vest and a porous silver shirt. He was carrying a square black machine with several dials and he looked decidedly unfriendly.
They stared at each other. For a moment, Eldridge thought it was a fraternity prank. He was the youngest associate professor at Carvell Tech, and some student was always handing him a hard-boiled egg or a live toad during Hell Week.
But this man was no giggling student. He was at least fifty years old and unmistakably hostile.
"How'd you get in here?" Eldridge demanded. "And what do you want?"
The man raised an eyebrow. "Going to brazen it out, eh?"
"Brazen what out?" Eldridge asked, startled.
"This is Viglin you're talking to," the man said. "Viglin. Remember?"
Eldredge tried to remember if there were any insane asylums near Carvell. This Viglin looked like an escaped lunatic.
"You must have the wrong man," Eldridge said, wondering if he should call for help.
Viglin shook his head. "You are Thomas Monroe Eldridge," he said. "Born March 16, 1926, in Darien, Connecticut. Attended the University Heights College, New York University, graduating cum laude. Received a fellowship to Carvell last year, in early 1953. Correct so far?"
"All right, so you did a little research on me for some reason. It better be a good one or I call the cops."
"You always were a cool customer. But the bluff won't work. / will call the police."
He pressed a button on the machine. Instantly, two men appeared in the room. They wore light-weight orange and green uniforms, with metallic insignia on the sleeves. Between them they carried a black machine similar to Viglin's except that it had white stenciling on its top.
"Crime does not pay," Viglin said. "Arrest that thief I"
For a moment, Eldridge's pleasant college room, with its Gauguin prints, its untidy piles of books, its untidier hi-fi, and its shaggy little red rug, seemed to spin dizzily around him. He blinked several times, hoping that the whole thing had been induced by eyestrain. Or better yet, perhaps he had been dreaming.
But Viglin was still there, dismayingly substantial.
The two policemen produced a pair of handcuffs and walked forward.
"Wait!" Eldridge shouted, leaning against his desk for support. "What's this all about?"
"If you insist on formal charges," Viglin said, "you shall have them." He cleared his throat. "Thomas Eldridge, in March, 1962, you invented the Eldridge Traveler. Then—"
"Hold on!" Eldridge protested. "It isn't 1962 yet, in case you didn't know."
Viglin looked annoyed. "Don't quibble. You will invent the Traveler in 1962, if you prefer that phrasing. It's all a matter of temporal viewpoint."
It took Eldridge a moment to digest this.
"Do you mean—you are from the future?" he blurted.
One of the policemen nudged the other. "What an act!" he said admiringly.
"Better than a groogly show," the other agreed, clicking his handcuffs.
"Of course we're from the future," Viglin said. "Where else would we be from? In 1962, you did—or will—invent the Eldridge Time Traveler, thus making time travel possible. With it, you journeyed into the first sector of the future, where you were received with highest honors. Then you traveled through the three sectors of Civilized Time, lecturing. You were a hero, Eldridge, an ideal. Little children wanted to grow up to be like you."
With a husky voice, Viglin continued. "We were deceived. Suddenly and deliberately, you stole a quantity of valuable goods. It was shocking! We had never suspected you of criminal tendencies. When we tried to arrest you, you vanished."
Viglin paused and rubbed his forehead wearily. "I was your friend, Tom, the first person you met in Sector One. We drank many a bowl of flox together. I arranged your lecture tour. And you robbed me."
His face hardened. 'Take him, officers."
As the policemen moved forward, Eldridge had a good look at the black machine they shared. Like Viglin's, it had several dials and a row of push buttons. Stamped in white across the top were the words: eldridge time traveler—property of THE EASKILL POLICE DEPT.
The policeman stopped and turned to Viglin. "You got the extradition papers?"
Viglin searched his pockets. "Don't seem to have them on me. But you know he's a thief!"
"Everybody knows that," the policeman said. "But we got no jurisdiction in a pre-contact sector without extradition papers."
"Wait here," Viglin said. "I'll get them." He examined his wristwatch carefully, muttered something about a half-hour gap, and pressed a button on the Traveler. Immediately, he was gone.
The two policemen sat down on Eldridge's couch and proceeded to ogle the Gauguins.
Eldridge tried to think, to plan, to anticipate. Impossible. He could not believe it. He refused to believe it. No one could make him believe—
"Imagine a famous guy like this being a crook," one of the policemen said.
"All geniuses are crazy," the other philosophized. "Remember the stuggie dancer who killed the girl? He was a genius, the readies said."
"Yeah." The first policeman lighted a cigar and tossed the burned match on Eldridge's shaggy little red rug.
All right, Eldridge decided, it was true. Under the circumstances, he had to believe. Nor was it so absurd. He had always suspected that he might be a genius.
But what had happened?
In 1962, he would invent a time machine.
Logical enough, since he was a genius.
And he would travel through the three sectors of Civilized Time.
Well, certainly, assuming he had a time machine. If there were three sectors, he would explore them.
He might even explore the uncivilized sectors.
And then, without warning, he became a thief. . . .
No! He could accept everything else, but that was completely out of character. Eldridge was an intensely honest young man, quite above even petty dishonesties. As a student, he had never cheated at exams. As a man, he always paid his true and proper income tax, down to the last penny.
And it went deeper than that. Eldridge had no power drive, no urge for possessions. His desire had always been to settle in some warm, drowsy country, content with his books and music, sunshine, congenial neighbors, the love of a good woman.
So he was accused of theft. Even if he were guilty, what conceivable motive could have prompted the action?
What had happened to him in the future? "You going to the scrug rally?" one of the cops asked the other.
"Why not? It comes on Malm Sunday, doesn't it?" They didn't pare. When Viglin returned, they would handcuff him and drag him to Sector One of the future. He would be sentenced and thrown into a cell.
All for a crime he was going to commit.
He made a swift decision and acted on it quickly.
"I feel faint," he said, and began to topple out of his chair. "Look out—he may have a gun!" one of the policemen yelped.
They rushed over to him, leaving their time machine on the couch.
Eldridge scuttled around the other side of the desk and pounced on the machine. Even in his haste, he realized that Sector One would be an unhealthy place for him. So, as the policemen sprinted across the room, he pushed the button marked Sector Two.
Instantly, he was plunged into darkness.
When he opened his eyes, Eldridge found that he was standing ankle-deep in a pool of dirty water. He was in a field, twenty feet from a road. The air was warm and moist. The Time Traveler was clasped tightly under his arm.
He was in Sector Two of the future and it didn't thrill him a bit.
He walked to the road. On either side of it were terraced fields, filled with the green stalks of rice plants.
Rice? In New York State? Eldridge remembered that in his own time sector, a climatic shift had been detected. It was predicted that someday the temperate zones would be hot, perhaps tropical. This future seemed to prove the theory. He was perspiring already. The ground was damp, as though from a recent rain, and the sky was an intense, unclouded blue. But where were the farmers? Squinting at the sun directly overhead, he had the answer. At siesta, of course.
Looking down the road, he could see buildings half a mile away. He scraped mud from his shoes and started walking. But what would he do when he reached the buildings? How could he discover what had happened to him in Sector One? He couldn't walk up to someone and say, "Excuse me, sir. I'm from 1954, a year you may have heard about. It seems that in some way or—"
No, that would never do.
He would think of something. Eldridge continued walking, while the sun beat down fiercely upon him. He shifted the Traveler to his other arm, then looked at it closely. Since he was going to invent it—no, already had—he'd better find out how it worked.
On its face were buttons for the first three sectors of Civilized Time. There was a special dial for journeying past Sector Three, into the Uncivilized Sectors. In one corner was a metal plate, which read: caution: Allow at least one half-hour between time jumps, to avoid cancelation.
That didn't tell him much. According to Viglin, it had taken Eldridge eight years—from 1954 to 1962—to invent the Traveler. He would need more than a few minutes to understand it.
Eldridge reached the buildings and found that he was in a good-sized town. A few people were on the streets, walking slowly under the tropical sun. They were dressed entirely in white. He was pleased to see that styles in Section Two were so conservative that his suit could pass for a rustic version of their dress.
He passed a large adobe building. The sign in front read:
PUBLIC READERY.
A library. Eldridge stopped. Within would undoubtedly be the records of the past few hundred years. There would be an account of his crime—if any—and the circumstances under which he had committed it.
But would he be safe? Were there any circulars out for his arrest? Was there an extradition between Sectors One and Two?
He would have to chance it. Eldridge entered, walked quickly past the thin, gray-faced librarian, and into the stacks.
There was a large section on time, but the most thorough one-volume treatment was a book called Origins of Time Travel by Ricardo Alfredex. The first part told how the young genius Eldridge had, one fateful day in 1954, received the germ of the idea from the controversial Holstead equations. The formula was really absurdly simple—Alfredex quoted the main propositions—but no one ever had realized it before. Eld-ridge's genius lay chiefly in perceiving the obvious.
Eldridge frowned at this disparagement. Obvious, was it? He still didn't understand it. And he was the inventor!
By 1962, the machine had been built. It worked on the very first trial, catapulting its young inventor into what became known as Sector One.
Eldridge looked up and found that a bespectacled girl of nine or so was standing at the end of his row of books, staring at him. She ducked back out of sight. He read on.
The next chapter was entitled "Unparadox of Time." Eldridge skimmed it rapidly. The author began with the classic paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, and demolished it with integral calculus. Using this as a logical foundation, he went on to the so-called time paradoxes—killing one's great-great grandfather, meeting oneself, and the like. These held up no better than Zeno's ancient paradox. Alfredex went on to explain that all temporal paradoxes were the inventions of authors with a gift for confusion.
Eldridge didn't understand the intricate symbolic logic in this part, which was embarrassing, since he was cited as the leading authority.
The next chapter was called "Fall of the Mighty." It told how Eldridge had met Viglin, the owner of a large sporting-goods store in Sector One. They became fast friends. The businessman took the shy young genius under his wing. He arranged lecture tours for him. Then—
"I beg your pardon, sir," someone said. Eldridge looked up. The gray-faced librarian was standing in front of him. Beside her was the bespectacled little girl with a smug grin on her face.
"Yes?" Eldridge asked.
"Time Travelers are not allowed in the Readery," the librarian said sternly.
That was understandable, Eldridge thought. Travelers could grab an armload of valuable books and disappear. They probably weren't allowed in banks, either.
The trouble was, he didn't dare surrender this book.
Eldridge smiled, tapped his ear, and hastily went on reading.
It seemed that the brilliant young Eldridge had allowed Viglin to arrange all his contracts and papers. One day he found, to his surprise, that he had signed over all rights in {he Time Traveler to Viglin, for a small monetary consideration. Eldridge brought the case to court. The court found against him. The case was appealed. Penniless and embittered, Eld-ridge embarked on his career of crime, stealing from Viglin—
"Sir!" the librarian said. "Deaf or not, you must leave at once. Otherwise I will call a guard."
Eldridge put down the book, muttered, "Tattle-tale," to the little girl, and hurried out of the Readery.
Now he knew why Viglin was so eager to arrest him. With the case still pending, Eldridge would be in a very poor position behind bars.
But why had he stolen?
The theft of his invention was an understandable motive, but Eldridge felt certain it was not the right one. Stealing from Viglin would not make him feel any better nor would it right the wrong. His reaction would be either to fight or to withdraw, to retire from the whole mess. Anything except stealing.
Well, he would find out. He would hide in Sector Two, perhaps find work. Bit by bit, he would—
Two men seized his arms from either side. A third took the Traveler away from him. It was done so smoothly that Eldridge was still gasping when one of the men showed a badge.
"Police," the man said. "You'll have to come with us, Mr. Eldridge."
"What for?" Eldridge asked.
"Robbery in Sectors One and Two."
So he had stolen here, too.
He was taken to the police station and into the small, cluttered office of the captain of police. The captain was a slim, balding, cheerful-faced man. He waved his subordinates out of the room, motioned Eldridge to a chair and gave him a cigarette.
"So you're Eldridge," he said.
Eldridge nodded morosely.
"Been reading about you ever since I was a little boy," the captain said nostalgically. "You were one of my heroes."
Eldridge guessed the captain to be a good fifteen years his senior, but he didn't ask about it. After all, he was supposed to be the expert on time paradoxes.
"Always thought you got a rotten deal," the captain said, toying with a large bronze paperweight. "Still, I couldn't understand a man like you stealing. For a while, we thought it might have been temporary insanity."
"Was it?" Eldridge asked hopefully.
"Not a chance. Checked your records. You just haven't got the potentiality. And that makes it rather difficult for me. For example, why did you steal those particular items?"
"What items?"
"Don't you remember?"
"I—I've blanked out," Eldridge said. 'Temporary amnesia."
"Very understandable," the captain said sympathetically. He handed Eldridge a paper. "Here's the list."
ITEMS STOLEN BY THOMAS MONROE ELDRIDGE Taken from Viglin's Sporting Goods Store, Sector One:
Credits
4 Megacharge Hand Pistols....................10,000
3 Lifebelts, Inflatable......................... 100
5 Cans, Ollen's Shark Repellant................. 400
Taken from Alfghan's Specialty Shop,
Sector One:
2 Microflex Sets, World Literature............... 1,000
5 Teeny-Tom Symphonic Tape Runs............. 2,650
Taken from Loorie's Produce
Store, Sector Two:
4 Dozen Potatoes, White Turtle Brand............ 5
9 Packages, Carrot Seeds (Fancy)............... 6
Taken from Manori's Notions Store, Sector Two:
5 Dozen Mirrors, Silver-backed (hand size)....... 95
Total Value............................14,256
"What does it mean?" the captain asked. "Stealing a million credits outright, I could understand, but why all that junk?"
Eldridge shook his head. He could find nothing meaningful in the list. The megacharge hand pistols sounded useful. But why the mirrors, lifebelts, potatoes and the rest of the things that the captain had properly called junk?
It just didn't sound like himself. Eldridge began to think of himself as two people. Eldridge I had invented time travel, been victimized, stolen some incomprehensible articles, and vanished. Eldridge II was himself, the person Viglin had found. He had no memory of the first Eldridge. But he had to discover Eldridge I's motives and/or suffer for his crimes.
"What happened after I stole these things?" Eldridge asked.
"That's what we'd like to know," the captain said. "All we know is, you fled into Sector Three with your loot."
"And then?"
The captain shrugged. "When we applied for extradition, the authorities told us you weren't there. Not that they'd have given you up. They're a proud, independent sort, you know. Anyhow, you'd vanished."
"Vanished? To where?"
"I don't know. You might have gone into the Uncivilized Sectors that lie beyond Sector Three."
"What are the Uncivilized Sectors?" Eldridge asked.
"We were hoping you would tell us," the captain said. "You're the only man who's explored beyond Sector Three."
Damn it, Eldridge thought, he was supposed to be the authority on everything he wanted to know!
"This puts me in a pretty fix," the captain remarked squinting at his paperweight.
"Why?"
"Well, you're a thief. The law says I must arrest you. However, I am also aware that you got a very shoddy deal. And I happen to know that you stole only from Viglin and his affiliates in both Sectors. There's a certain justice to it— unfortunately unrecognized by law."
Eldridge nodded unhappily.
"It's my clear duty to arrest you," the captain said with a deep sigh. "There's nothing I can do about it, even if I wanted to. You'll have to stand trial and probably serve a sentence of twenty years or so."
"What? For stealing rubbish like shark repellant and carrot seed? For stealing junk?"
"We're pretty rough on time theftt" said the captain. "Temporal offense."
"I see," Eldridge said, slumping in his chair.
"Of course," said the captain thoughtfully, "if you should suddenly turn vicious, knock me over the head with this heavy paperweight, grab my personal Time Traveler—which I keep in the second shelf of that cabinet—and return to your friends in Sector Three, there would really be nothing I could do about it."
"Huh?"
The captain turned toward the window, leaving his paperweight within Eldridge's easy reach.
"It's really terrible," he commented, "the things one will consider doing for a boyhood hero. But, of course, you're a law-abiding man. You would never do such a thing and I have psychological reports to prove it."
"Thanks," Eldridge said. He lifted the paperweight and tapped the captain lightly over the head. Smiling, the captain slumped behind his desk. Eldridge found the Traveler in the cabinet, and set it for Sector Three. He sighed deeply and pushed the button.
Again he was overcome by darkness.
When he opened his eyes, he was standing on a plain of parched yellow ground. Around him stretched a treeless waste, and a dusty wind blew in his face. Ahead, he could see several brick buildings and a row of tents, built along the side of a dried-out gully. He walked toward them.
This future, he decided, must have seen another climatic shift. The fierce sun had baked the land, drying up the streams and rivers. If the trend continued, he could understand why the next future was Uncivilized. It was probably Unpopulated.
He was very tired. He had not eaten all day—or for several thousand years, depending on how you count. But that, he realized, was a false paradox, one that Alfredex would certainly demolish with symbolic logic.
To hell with logic. To hell with science, paradox, everything. He would run no further. There had to be room for him in this dusty land. The people here—a proud, independent sort —would not give him up. They believed in justice, not the law.
Here he would stay, work, grow old, and forget Eldridge I and his crazy schemes.
When he reached the village, he saw that the people were already assembled to greet him. They were dressed in long, flowing robes, like Arabian burnooses, the only logical attire for the climate.
A bearded patriarch stepped forward and nodded gravely at Eldridge. "The ancient sayings are true. For every beginning there is an ending."
Eldridge agreed politely. "Anyone got a drink of water?" "It is truly written," the patriarch continued, "that the thief, given a universe to wander, will ultimately return to the scene of his crime."
"Crime?" Eldridge asked, feeling an uneasy tingle in his stomach.
"Crime," the patriarch repeated.
A man in the crowd shouted, "It's a stupid bird that fouls its own nest!" The people roared with laughter, but Eldridge didn't like the sound. It was cruel laughter.
"Ingratitude breeds betrayal," the patriarch said. "Evil is omnipresent. We liked you, Thomas Eldridge. You came to us with your strange machine, bearing booty, and we recognized your proud spirit. It made you one of us. We protected you from your enemies in the Wet Worlds. What did it matter to .us if you had wronged them? Had they not wronged you? An eye for an eye!"
The crowd growled approvingly. "But what did I do?" Eldridge wanted to know. The crowd converged on him, waving clubs and knives. A row of men in dark blue cloaks held them off, and Eldridge realized that there were policemen even here.
"Tell me what I did," he persisted as the policemen took the Traveler from him.
"You axe guilty of sabotage and murder," the patriarch told him.
Eldridge stared around wildly. He had fled a petty larceny charge in Sector One, only to find himself accused of it in Sector Two. He had retreated to Sector Three, where he was wanted for murder and sabotage.
He smiled amiably. "You know, all I ever really wanted was a warm drowsy country, books, congenial neighbors, and the love of a good—"
When he recovered, he found himself lying on packed earth in a small brick jail. Through a slitted window, he could see an insignificant strip of sunset. Outside the wooden door, someone was wailing a song.
He found a bowl of food beside him and wolfed down the unfamiliar stuff. After drinking some water from another bowl, he propped himself against the wall. Through his narrow window, the sunset was fading. In the courtyard, a gang of men were erecting a gallows. "Jailor!" Eldridge shouted.
In a few moments, he heard the clump of footsteps. "I need a lawyer," he said.
"We have no lawyers here," the man replied proudly. "Here we have justice." He marched off.
Eldridge began to revise his ideas about justice without law. It was very good as an idea—but a horror as reality.
He lay on the floor and tried to think. No thoughts came. He could hear the workmen laughing and joking as they built the gallows. They worked late into the twilight.
In the early evening, Eldridge heard the key turn in his lock. Two men entered. One was middle-aged, with a small, well-trimmed beard. The other was about Eldridge's age, broad-shouldered and deeply tanned.
"Do you remember me?" the middle-aged man asked. "Should I?"
"You should. I was her father."
"And I was her fiance," the young man said. He took a threatening step forward.
The bearded man restrained him. "I know how you feel, Morgel, but he will pay for his crimes on the gallows."
"Hanging is too good for him, Mr. Becker," Morgel argued. "He should be drawn, quartered, burned and scattered to the wind."
"Yes, but we are a just and merciful people," Becker said virtuously.
"Whose father?" Eldridge asked. "Whose fiance?" The two men looked at each other.
"What did I do?" Eldridge asked. Becker told him.
He had come to them from Sector Two, loaded with loot, Becker explained. The people of Sector Three accepted him. They were a simple folk, direct and quick-tempered, the inheritors of a wasted, war-torn Earth. In Sector Three, the minerals were gone, the soil had lost its fertility. Huge tracts of land were radioactive. And the sun continued to beat down, the glaciers melted, and the oceans continued to rise.
The men of Sector Three were struggling back to civilization. They had the rudiments of a manufacturing system and a few power installations. Eldridge had increased the output of these stations, given them a lighting system, and taught them the rudiments of sanitary processing. He continued his explorations into the Unexplored Sectors beyond Sector Three. He became a popular hero and the people of Sector Three loved and protected him.
Eldridge had repaid this kindness by abducting Becker's daughter.
This attractive young lady had been engaged to Morgel. Preparations were made for her marriage. Eldridge ignored all this and showed his true nature by kidnaping her one dark night and placing her in an infernal machine of his own making. When he turned the invention on, the girl vanished. The overloaded power lines blew out every installation for miles around.
Murder and sabotage!
But the irate mob had not been able to reach Eldridge in time. He had stuffed some of his loot into a knapsack, grabbed his Traveler and vanished.
"I did all that?" Eldridge gasped.
"Before witnesses," Becker said. "Your remaining loot is in the warehouse. We could deduce nothing from it."
With both men staring him full in the face, Eldridge looked at the ground.
Now he knew what he had done in Sector Three.
The murder charge was probably false, though. Apparently he had built a heavy-duty Traveler and sent the girl somewhere, without the intermediate stops required by the portable models.
Not that anyone would believe him. These people had never heard of such a civilized concept as habeas corpus.
"Why did you do it?" Becker asked.
Eldridge shrugged his shoulders and shook his head helplessly.
"Didn't I treat you like my own son? Didn't I turn back the police of Sector Two? Didn't I feed you, clothe you? Why— why—did you do it?"
All Eldridge could do was shrug his shoulders and go on helplessly shaking his head.
"Very well," Becker said. 'Tell your secret to the hangman in the morning."
He took Morgel by the arm and left.
If Eldridge had had a gun, he might have shot himself on the spot. All the evidence pointed to potentialities for evil in him that he had never suspected. He was running out of time. In the morning, he would hang.
And it was unfair, all of it. He was an innocent bystander, continually running into the consequences of his former—or later—actions. But only Eldridge I possessed the motives and knew the answers.
Even if his thefts were justified, why had he stolen potatoes, lifebelts, mirrors and such?
What had he done with the girl?
What was he trying to accomplish?
Wearily, Eldridge closed his eyes and drifted into a troubled half-sleep.
He heard a faint scraping noise and looked up.
Viglin was stand there, a Traveler in his hands.
Eldridge was too tired to be very surprised. He looked for a moment, then said, "Come for one last gloat?"
"I didn't plan it this way," Viglin protested, mopping his perspiring face. "You must believe that. I never wanted you killed, Tom."
Eldridge sat up and looked closely at Viglin. "You did steal my invention, didn't you?"
"Yes," Viglin confessed. "But I was going to do the right thing by you. I would have split the profits."
'Then why did you steal it?"
Viglin looked uncomfortable. "You weren't interested in money at all."
"So you tricked me into signing over my rights?" "If I hadn't, someone else would have, Tom. I was just saving you from your own unworldliness. I intended to cut you in —I swear it!" He wiped his forehead again. "But I never dreamed it would turn out like this."
"And then you framed me for those thefts," Eldridge said. "What?" Viglin appeared to be genuinely surprised. "No, Tom. You did steal those things. It worked out perfectly for me—until now."
"You're lying!"
"Would I come here to lie? I've admitted stealing your invention. Why would I lie about anything else?"
"Then why did I steal?"
"I think you had some sort of wild scheme in the Uninhabited Sectors, but I don't really know. It-doesn't matter. Listen to me now. There's no way I can call off the lawsuit— it's a temporal matter now—but I can get you out of here."
"Where will I go?" Eldridge asked hopelessly. "The cops are looking for me all through time."
"I'll hide you on my estate. I mean it. You can lie low until the statute of limitations has expired. They'd never think of searching my place for you."
"And the rights on my invention?"
"I'm keeping them," Viglin said, with a touch of his former confidence. "I can't turn them over to you without making myself liable for temporal action. But I will share them. And you do need a business partner."
"All right, let's get out of here," Eldridge said.
Viglin had brought along a number of tools, which he handled with suspicious proficiency. Within minutes, they were out of the cell and hiding in the dark courtyard.
"This Traveler's pretty weak," Viglin whispered, checking the batteries in his machine. "Could we possibly get yours?"
"It should be in the storehouse," Eldridge said.
The storehouse was unguarded and Viglin made short work of the lock. Inside, they found Eldridge Il's machine beside Eldridge I's preposterous, bewildering loot.
"Let's go," Viglin said.
Eldridge shook his head. "What's wrong?" asked Viglin, annoyed. "I'm not going."
"Listen, Tom, I know there's no reason why you should trust me. But I really will give you sanctuary. I'm not lying to you."
"I believe you," Eldridge said. "Just the same, I'm not going back."
"What are you planning to do?"
Eldridge had been wondering about that ever since they had broken out of the cell. He was at the crossroads now. He could return with Viglin or he could go on alone.