That meant that Asher Sutton could not, would not, be allowed to die before the book was written.
However it were written, the book must be written or the future was a lie.
Sutton shrugged. The tangled thread of logic was too much for him. There was no precept, no precedent upon which one might develop the pattern of cause and result.
Alternate futures? Maybe, but it didn't seem likely. Alternate futures were a fantasy that employed semantics twisting to prove a point, a clever use of words that covered up and masked the fallacies.
He crossed the road and took a foot path that led to a house standing on a knoll.
In the marsh down near the river, the frogs had struck up their piping and somewhere far away a wild duck called in the darkness. In the hills the whipporwills began the evening forum. The scent of new-cut grass lay heavy in the air and the smell of river night fog was crawling up the hills.
The path came out on a patio and Sutton moved across it.
A man's voice came to him.
"Good evening, sir," it said, and Sutton wheeled around.
He saw the man, then, for the first time. A man who sat in his chair and smoked his pipe beneath the evening stars.