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mistake for me. I ought to resign. I should have put tabs on you, too,
Nimmo, instead of concentrating too hard on Potterley and Foster. I
didn't have much time of course and you've ended up safely here, but
that doesn't excuse me. You're under arrest, Nimmo."
"What for?" demanded the science writer.
"Unauthorized research."
"I wasn't doing any. I can't, not being a registered scientist. And
even if I did, it's not a criminal offense."
Foster said savagely, "No use, Uncle Ralph. This bureaucrat is
making his own laws."
"Like what?" demanded Nimmo.
"Like life imprisonment without trial."
"Nuts," said Nimmo. "This isn't the twentieth cen-"
"I tried that," said Foster. "It doesn't bother him."
"Well, nuts," shouted Nimmo. "Look here, Araman. My nephew
and I have relatives who haven't lost touch with us, you know. The
professor has some also, I imagine. You can't just make us disappear.
There'll be questions and a scandal. This isn't the twentieth century.
So if you're trying to scare us, it isn't working."
The cigarette snapped between Araman's fingers and he tossed
it away violently. He said, "Damn it, I don't know what to do. It's
never been like this before. . . . Look! You three fools know nothing of
what you're trying to do. You understand nothing. Will you listen to
me?"
"Oh, we'll listen," said Nimmo grimly.
(Foster sat silently, eyes angry, lips compressed. Potterley's
hands writhed like two intertwined snakes.)
Araman said, "The past to you is the dead past. If any of you
have discussed the matter, it's dollars to nickels you've used that
phrase. The dead past. If you knew how many times I've heard those
three words, you'd choke on them, too.
"When people think of the past, they think of it as dead, far
away and gone, long ago. We encourage them to think so. When we
report time viewing, we always talk of views centuries in the past,
even though you gentlemen know seeing more than a century or so is
impossible. People accept it. The past means Greece, Rome, Carthage,
Egypt, the Stone Age. The deader the better.
"Now you three know a century or a little more is the limit, so
what does the past mean to you? Your youth. Your first girl. Your
dead mother. Twenty years ago. Thirty years ago. Fifty years ago. The
deader the better. . . . But when does the past really begin?"
He paused in anger. The others stared at him and Nimmo
stirred uneasily.
"Well," said Araman, "when did it begin? A year ago? Five
minutes ago? One second ago? Isn't it obvious that the past begins an
instant ago? The dead past is just another name for the living present.
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What if you focus the chronoscope in the past of one-hundredth of a
second ago? Aren't you watching the present? Does it begin to sink
in?"
Nimmo said, "Damnation."
"Damnation," mimicked Araman. "After Potterley came to me
with his story night before last, how do you suppose I checked up on
both of you? I did it with the chronoscope, spotting key moments to
the very instant of the present."
"And that's how you knew about the safety-deposit box?" said
Foster.
"And every other important fact. Now what do you suppose
would happen if we let news of a home chronoscope get out? People
might start out by watching their youth, their parents and so on, but it
wouldn't be long before they'd catch on to the possibilities. The
housewife will forget her poor, dead mother and take to watching her
neighbor at home and her husband at the office. The businessman
will watch his competitor; the employer his employee.
"There will be no such thing as privacy. The party line, the
prying eye behind the curtain will be nothing compared to it. The
video stars will be closely watched at all times by everyone. Every man
his own peeping Tom and there'll be no getting away from the
watcher. Even darkness will be no escape because chronoscopy can be
adjusted to the infrared and human figures can be seen by their own
body heat. The figures will be fuzzy, of course, and the surroundings
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