WE SHOULD NOT.
“What? We’ve got to try. We can’t leave people in there!”
YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND, said Bill Door. TO TINKER WITH THE FATE OF ONE INDIVIDUAL COULD DESTROY THE WHOLE WORLD.
Miss Flitworth looked at him as if he had gone mad.
“What kind of garbage is that?”
I MEAN THAT THERE IS A TIME FOR EVERYONE TO DIE.
She stared. Then she drew her hand back, and gave him a ringing slap across the face.
He was harder than she’d expected. She yelped and sucked at her knuckles.
“You leave my farm tonight, Mr. Bill Door,” she growled. “Understand?” Then she turned on her heel and
ran toward the pump.
Some of the men had brought long hooks to drag the burning thatch off the roof. Miss Flitworth organized a team to get a ladder up to one of the bedroom windows but, by the time a man was persuaded to climb it behind the steaming protection of a damp blanket, the top of the ladder was already smouldering.
Bill Door watched the flames.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the golden timer. The firelight glowed redly on the glass. He put it away again.
Part of the roof fell in.
SQUEAK.
Bill Door looked down. A small robed figure marched between his legs and strutted into the flaming doorway.
Someone was yelling something about barrels of brandy.
Bill Door reached back into his pocket and took out the timer again. Its hissing drowned out the roar of the flames. The future flowed into the past, and there was a lot more past than there was future, but he was struck by the fact that what it flowed through all the time was now.
He replaced it carefully.
Death knew that to tinker with the fate of one individual could destroy the whole world. He knew this. The knowledge was built into him.
To Bill Door, he realized, it was so much horse elbows.
OH, DAMN, he said.
And walked into the fire.
“Um. It’s me, Librarian,” said Windle, trying to shout through the keyhole. “Windle Poons.”
He tried hammering some more.
“Why won’t he answer?”
“Don’t know,” said a voice behind him.
“Schleppel?”
“Yes, Mr. Poons.”
“Why are you behind me?”