"That's what I thought, at first. I thought my subconscious was just building up this stuff to fill the gaps in what I'd produced from logical extrapolation. I've always been a stickler for detail," he added, parenthetically. "It would be natural for me to supply details for the future. But, as I said, a lot of this stuff is based on unpredictable and arbitrary factors that can't be inferred from anything in the present. That left me with the alternatives of delusion or precognition, and if I ever came near going crazy, it was before the _Kilroy_ landed and the news was released. After that, I knew which it was." "And yet, you can't explain how you can have real knowledge of a thing before it happens. Before it exists," Weill said. "I really don't need to. I'm satisfied with knowing that I know. But if you want me to furnish a theory, let's say that all these things really do exist, in the past or in the future, and that the present is just a moving knife-edge that separates the two. You can't even indicate the present. By the time you make up your mind to say, 'Now!' and transmit the impulse to your vocal organs, and utter the word, the original present moment is part of the past. The knife-edge has gone over it. Most people think they know only the present; what they know is the past, which they have already experienced, or read about. The difference with me is that I can see what's on both sides of the knife-edge." Weill put another cigarette in his mouth and bent his head to the flame of his lighter. For a moment, he sat motionless, his thin face rigid. "What do you want me to do?" he asked. "I'm a lawyer, not a psychiatrist." "I want a lawyer. This is a legal matter. Whitburn's talking about voiding my tenure contract. You helped draw it; I have a right to expect you to help defend it." "Ed, have you been talking about this to anybody else?" Weill asked. "You're the first person I've mentioned it to. It's not the sort of thing you'd bring up casually, in a conversation." "Then how'd Whitburn get hold of it?" "He didn't, not the way I've given it to you. But I made a couple of slips, now and then. I made a bad one yesterday morning." He told Weill about it, and about his session with the president of the college that morning. The lawyer nodded. "That was a bad one, but you handled Whitburn the right way," Weill said. "What he's most afraid of is publicity, getting the college mixed up in anything controversial, and above all, the reactions of the trustees and people like that. If Dacre or anybody else makes any trouble, he'll do his best to cover for you. Not willingly, of course, but because he'll know that that's the only way he can cover for himself. I don't think you'll have any more trouble with him. If you can keep your own nose clean, that is. Can you do that?" "I believe so. Yesterday I got careless. I'll not do that again."