Free Times Without Number by John Brunner Page A

other was for his visitor. Sitting down uncertainly,

Don Miguel wondered what information he was to be made

privy to.

Father Ramón offered him tobacco and a pipe, which he refused, and then

leaned back, putting his fingertips together.

"Consider what makes an act of free will free," he said.

The suddenness of the question took Don Miguel aback. He muttered a

confused answer which Father Ramón ignored.

"No, it consists in this: that all the possible outcomes be fulfilled."

" What?"

"Precisely that. If there is free will -- and we hold a priori that there

is -- all opportunities for decision must conclude in just so many ways

as there are alternatives. Thus to kill and not to kill and merely to

wound more or less severely -- all these must follow upon a choice

between them."

"But I don't understand! There -- there is no room for that to be true!"

"No?" The other sketched his habitual faint smile. "Then approach it from

a concrete instance. You go into the past. You abstract a crucial object --

shall we say a bullet from a gun aimed by an assassin at a king? A king

may change history by living or dying. Would you thereupon return to the

same present as the one you left?"

"No, of course not," said Don Miguel, and heard his voice shaking.

"But knowledge is indestructible, isn't it? The knowledge, for example,

of how to construct time apparatus! So is there any reason why, from

that alternative historical outcome, you shouldn't return to replace the

bullet? The king dies -- again , so to speak. And the present to which

you return after restoring the status quo . . . is the original present."

"Father, you are telling me that this kind of thing has already been done?"

"We have been doing it for nearly forty years."

"But this is far more dangerous than what's been done by the corrupt

Licentiates!" Don Miguel cried, feeling the universe reel around him. It

was known to everyone in the Society, and suspected by a few outsiders,

that its upper echelons were party to unshared secrets; the incumbent

Pope, for example, at the inception of his reign was now customarily

taken on a trip into the period of the ministry of Jesus, a zone of

history completely banned to anyone else. But to have been assured that

Jesus was a historical figment could hardly have been a more terrifying

blow than what Father Ramón had just announced.

The Jesuit looked at him calmly.

"There is no corruption in this matter. There is only an honest desire

to explore the works of our Creator, that we may the more completely

comprehend His omnipotence. Would you condemn in the same breath a thief

who stole away a valuable watch in order to dispose of it for gain,

and a student of horology who took it in order to inspect and copy the

mechanism, so that he might improve his own abilities?"

"Naturally not," agreed Don Miguel, his mind working furiously. "But --

but if all this is true, it scarcely seems to matter whether we interfere

or not! We ourselves may be only a fluid cohesion of possibilities,

subject to change at the whim of someone who chooses not to obey the

rule of non-interference."

"True," said Father Ramón stonily. "That is a logical consequence of

there being free will; in His wisdom, God gave it not to an elect few,

but to all mankind."

There was silence. Eventually Don Miguel said, "I suppose this might

have been foreseen by anyone who troubled to work out in detail what

kind of a future Borromeo's discovery opened up to us."

"We may give thanks that up to now few people have thought the matter

through." Once more Father Ramón smiled. "Well, Don Miguel Navarro! How

do you like the universe we live in?"

"I do not," said Don Miguel, and was at a loss to describe the sense of

impermanence, volatility and changeability that the other's words had

instilled in him.

"Nonetheless," said Father Ramón dryly, "this is how things are. Go now

to Red Bear and report to him about your trip. And do not speak