more than three years. In the
end, he sat down again at his desk, defeated. The note on the _Kilroy_
simply did not exist.

Of course, that didn't settle it, as finding the note would have. He
remembered--or believed he remembered--having gotten that item of
knowledge--or delusion--in 1970, shortly before the end of the school
term. It hadn't been until after the fall opening of school that he
had begun making notes. He could have had the knowledge of the robot
rocket in his mind then, and neglected putting it on paper.

He undressed, put on his pajamas, poured himself a drink, and went to
bed. Three hours later, still awake, he got up, and poured himself
another, bigger, drink. Somehow, eventually, he fell asleep.

* * * * *

The next morning, he searched his desk and book-case in the office at
school. He had never kept a diary; now he was wishing that he had.
That might have contained something that would be evidence, one way or
the other. All day, he vacillated between conviction of the reality of
his future knowledge and resolution to have no more to do with it.
Once he decided to destroy all the notes he had made, and thought of
making a special study of some facet of history, and writing another
book, to occupy his mind.

After lunch, he found that more data on the period immediately before
the Thirty Days' War was coming into his consciousness. He resolutely
suppressed it, knowing as he did that it might never come to him
again. That evening, too, he cooked dinner for himself at his
apartment, and laid out his class-work for the next day. He'd better
not stay in, that evening; too much temptation to settle himself by
the living-room fire with his pipe and his notepad and indulge in the
vice he had determined to renounce. After a little debate, he decided
upon a movie; he put on again the suit he had taken off on coming
home, and went out.

* * * * *

The picture, a random choice among the three shows in the
neighborhood, was about Seventeenth Century buccaneers; exciting
action and a sound-track loud with shots and cutlass-clashing. He let
himself be drawn into it completely, and, until it was finished, he
was able to forget both the college and the history of the future.
But, as he walked home, he was struck by the parallel between the
buccaneers of the West Indies and the space-pirates in the days of the
dissolution of the First Galactic Emp