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

of water, floated in an eddy where the current turned back upon itself. It jerked, almost disappeared, then bobbed to the surface and floated once again.
    Sutton leaned forward, tensed, arms aching with the tenseness. But even through the tenseness, he knew the goodness of the day…the utter peace and tranquillity…the freshness of the morning, the soft heat of the sun, the blue of sky and the white of cloud. The water talked to him and he felt himself grow and become a being that comprehended and became a part of the clean, white ecstasy that was the hills and stream and meadow…earth, cloud, water, sky and sun.
    And the bobber went clear under!
    He jerked and felt the weight of the fish that he had caught. It sailed in an arc above his head and landed in the grass behind him. He laid down his pole, scrambled to his feet and ran.
    The chub flopped in the grass and he grabbed the line and held it up. It was a whopper! A good six inches long!
    Sobbing in his excitement, he dropped to his knees and grasped the fish, removed the hook with fingers that fumbled in their trembling.
    A six-inch one to start with, he said, talking to the sky and stream and meadow. Maybe every one I catch will be that big. Maybe I'll catch as many as a dozen and all of them will be six inches long. Maybe some of them will be even bigger. Maybe…
    "Hello," said a childish voice.
    Sutton twisted around, still on his knees.
    A little girl stood by the elm tree and it seemed for a moment that he had seen her somewhere before. But then he realized that she was a stranger and he frowned a little, for girls were no good when it came to fishing. He hoped she wouldn't stay. It would be just like her to hang around and spoil the day for him.
    "I am," she said, speaking a name he did not catch, for she lisped a little.
    He did not answer.
    "I am eight years old," she said.
    "I am Asher Sutton," he told her, "and I am ten…going on eleven."
    She stood and stared at him, one hand plucking nervously at the figured apron that she wore. The apron, he noticed, was clean and starched, very stiff and prim, and she was messing it all up with her nervous plucking.
    "I am fishing," he said and tried very hard to keep from sounding too important. "And I just caught a whopper."
    He saw her eyes go large in sudden terror at the sight of something that came up from behind him and he wheeled around, no longer on his knees, but on his feet, and his hand was snaking into the pocket of his coat.
    The place was purple-gray and there was shrill woman-laughter and there was a face in front of him…a face he had seen that afternoon and never would forget.
    A fat and cultured face that twinkled even now with good fellowship, twinkled despite the deadly squint, despite the gun already swinging upward in a hairy, pudgy fist.
    Sutton felt his fingers touch the grip of the gun he carried, felt them tighten around it and jerk it from the pocket. But he was too late, he knew, too late to beat the spat of flame from a gun that had long seconds' start.
    Anger flamed within him, cold, desolate, deadly anger. Anger at the pudgy fist, at the smiling face…the face that would smile across a chessboard or from behind a gun. The smile of an egotist who would try to beat a robotic that was designed to play the perfect game of chess…an egotist who believed that he could shoot down Asher Sutton.
    The anger, he realized, was something more than anger…something greater and more devastating than the mere working of human adrenal. It was a part of him and something that was more than him, more than the mortal thing of flesh and blood that was Asher Sutton. A terrible thing plucked from nonhumanity.
    The face before him melted…or it seemed to melt. It changed and the smile was gone and Sutton felt the anger move out from his brain and slam bullet-hard against the wilting personality that was Geoffrey Benton.
    Benton's gun coughed loudly and the muzzle-flash was blood-red in the purple light.