He stopped, embarrassed at himself and trying awkwardly to grin. “Excuse me. Sermons are more your province than mine.”

“It was interesting,” said Father Gonzales. “But you brood too much. So do a number of the men. Even if they have no close ties at home—it was wise to pick them for that—they are all of above-average intelligence, and aware of what the future is becoming. I’d like to shake them out of their oppression. If we could get some more sports equipment—”

“Sure. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Of course,” said the priest, “the problem is basically philosophical. Don’t laugh. You too were indulging in philosophy, and doubtless you think of yourself as an ordinary, unimaginative man. Your wildcatters may not have heard of Aristotle, but they are also thinking men in their way. My personal belief is that this heresy of a fixed, rigid time line lies at the root of their growing sorrowfulness, whether they know it or not.”

“Heresy?” The engineer lifted thick sandy brows. “It’s been proved. It’s the basis of the theory which showed how to build a projector: that much I do know. How could we be here at all, if the Mesozoic were not just as real as the Cenozoic? But if all time is coexistent, then all time must be fixed—unalterable—because every instant is the unchanging past of some other instant.”

“Perhaps so, from God’s viewpoint,” said Father Gonzales. “But we are mortal men. And we have free will. The fixed-time concept need not, logically, produce fatalism; after all, Herries, man’s will is itself one of the links in the causal chain. I suspect that this irrational fatalism is an important reason why twentieth-century civilization is approaching suicide. If we think we know our future is unchangeable, if our every action is foreordained, if we are doomed already, what’s the use of trying? Why go through all the pain of thought, of seeking an answer and struggling to make others accept it? But if we really believed in ourselves, we would look for a solution, and find one.”

“Maybe,” said Herries uncomfortably. “Well, give me a list of the equipment you want, and I’ll put in an order for it the next time the mail goes out.”

As he walked off, he wondered if the mail would ever go out again.

* * *

Passing the rec hall, he noticed a small crowd before it and veered to see what was going on. He could not let men gather to trade doubts and terrors, or the entire operation was threatened. In plain English, he told himself with a growing bitter honesty, I can’t permit them to think.

But the sounds which met him, under the subtly alien rustle of forest leaves and the distant bawl of a thunder lizard, was only a guitar. Chords danced forth beneath expert fingers, and a young voice lilted:

…I traveled this wide world over,
A hundred miles or more,
But a saddle on a milk cow.
I never seen before!…