“Wait,” Slade said, feeling desperate. All was going wrong. “Hear me out, JackDowland.”

“There you go with that funny talk again,” Dowland said. But he paused, waiting. “Well?” he demanded.

Slade said, “Mr. Dowland, I am from the future.” He was not supposed to say that—Mr. Manville had warned him severely—but it seemed at the moment to be the only way out for him, the only thing that would stop Jack Dowland from walking off.

“What?” Dowland said loudly. “The what?”

“I am a time-traveler,” Slade said feebly, and was silent.

Dowland walked back toward him.

When he arrived at the time-ship, Slade found the short-set operator seated on the ground before it, reading a newspaper. The operator glanced up, grinned and said, “Back safe and sound, Mr. Slade. Come on, let’s go.” He opened the hatch and guided Slade within.

“Take me back,” Slade said. “Just take me back.”

“What’s the matter? Didn’t you enjoy your inspiring?”

“I just want to go back to my own time,” Slade said.

“Okay,” the operator said, raising an eyebrow. He strapped Slade into his seat and then took his own beside him.

When they reached Muse Enterprises, Mr. Manville was waiting for them. “Slade,” he said, “come inside.” His face was dark. “I have a few words to say to you.”

When they were alone in Manville’s office, Slade began, “He was in a bad mood, Mr. Manville. Don’t blame me.” He hung his head, feeling empty and futile.

“You—” Manville stared down at him in disbelief. “You failed to inspire him! That’s never happened before!”

“Maybe I can go back again,” Slade said.

“My God,” Manville said, “you not only didn’t inspire him—you turned him against science fiction.”

“How did you find this out?” Slade said. He had hoped to keep it quiet, make it his own secret to carry with him to the grave.

Manville said bitingly, “All I had to do was keep my eye on the reference books dealing with literature of the twentieth century. Half an hour after you left, the entire texts on Jack Dowland, including the half-page devoted to his biography in the Britannica—vanished.”

Slade said nothing; he stared at the floor.

“So I researched it,” Manville said. “I had the computers at the University of California look up all extant citations on Jack Dowland.”

“Were there any?” Slade mumbled.

“Yes,” Manville said. “There were a couple. Minute, in rarified technical articles dealing comprehensively and exhaustively with that period. Because of you, Jack Dowland is now completely unknown to the public—and was so even during his own day.” He waved a finger at Slade, panting with wrath. “Because of you, Jack Dowland never wrote his epic future history of mankind. Because of your so-called ‘inspiration’ he continued to write scripts for TV westerns—and died at forty-six an utterly anonymous hack.”

“No science fiction at all?” Slade asked, incredulous. Had he done that badly? He couldn’t believe it; true, Dowland had bitterly repulsed every suggestion Slade had made—true, he had gone back up to his attic in a peculiar frame of mind after Slade had made his point. But—

“All right,” Manville said, “there exists one science fiction work by Jack Dowland. Tiny, mediocre and totally unknown.” Reaching into his desk drawer he grabbed out a yellowed, ancient magazine which he tossed to Slade. “One short story called ORPHEUS WITH CLAY FEET, under the pen name Philip K. Dick. Nobody read it then, nobody reads it now—it was an account of a visit to Dowland by—” He glared furiously at Slade. “By a well-intentioned idiot from the future with deranged visions of inspiring him to write a mythological history of the world to come. Well, Slade? What do you say?”

Slade said heavily, “He used my visit as the basis for the story. Obviously.”

“And it made him the only money he ever earned as a science fiction writer—dissapointingly little, barely enough to justify his effort and time. You’re in the story, I’m in the story—Lord, Slade, you must have told him everything.”

“I did,” Slade said. “To convince him.”

“Well, he wasn’t convinced; he thought you were a nut of some kind. He wrote the story obviously in a bitter frame of mind. Let me ask you this: was he busy working when you arrived?”

“Yes,” Slade said, “but Mrs. Dowland said—”

“There is—was—no Mrs. Dowland! Dowland never married! That must have been a neighbor’s wife whom Dowland was having an affair with. No wonder he was furious; you broke in on his assignation with that girl, whoever she was. She’s in the story, too; he put everything in and then gave up his house in Purpleblossom, Nevada and moved to Dodge City, Kansas.” There was silence.

“Um,” Slade said at last, “well, could I try again? With someone else? I was thinking on the way back about Paul Ehrlich and his magic bullet, his discovery of the cure for—”

“Listen,” Manville said. “I’ve been thinking, too. You’re going back but not to inspire Doctor Ehrlich or Beethoven or Dowland or anybody like that, anybody useful to society.”

With dread, Slade glanced up.

“You’re going back,” Manville said between his teeth, “to uninspire people like Adolf Hitler and Karl Marx and Sanrome Clinger—”

“You mean you think I’m so ineffectual…” Slade mumbled.

“Exactly. We’ll start with Hitler in his period of imprisonment after his first abortive attempt to seize power in Bavaria. The period in which he dictated Mein Kampf to Rudolf Hess. I’ve discussed this with my superiors and it’s all worked out; you’ll be there as a fellow prisoner, you understand? And you’ll recommend to Adolf Hitler, just as you recommended to Jack Dowland, that he write. In this case, a detailed autobiography laying out in detail his political program for the world. And if everything goes right—”

“I understand,” Slade murmured, staring at the floor again. “It’s a—I’d say an inspired idea, but I’m afraid I’ve given onus to that word by now.”

“Don’t credit me with the idea,” Manville said. “I got it out of Dowland’s wretched story, ORPHEUS WITH CLAY FEET; that’s how he resolved it at the end.” He turned the pages of the ancient magazine until he came to the part he wanted. “Read that, Slade. You’ll find that it carries you up to your encounter with me, and then you go off to do research on the Nazi Party so that you can best uninspire Adolf Hitler not to write his autobiography and hence possibly prevent World War Two. And if you fail to uninspire Hitler, we’ll try you on Stalin, and if you fail to uninspire Stalin, then—”

“All right,” Slade muttered, “I understand; you don’t have to spell it out to me.”

“And you’ll do it,” Manville said, “because in ORPHEUS WITH CLAY FEET you agree. So it’s all decided already.”

Slade nodded. “Anything. To make amends.”

To him Manville said, “You idiot. How could you have done so badly?”

“It was an off-day for me,” Slade said. “I’m sure I could do better the next time.” Maybe with Hitler, he thought. Maybe I can do a terrific job of uninspiring him, better than anyone else ever did in uninspiring anyone in history.

“We’ll call you the null-muse,” Manville said.

“Clever idea,” Slade said.

Wearily, Manville said, “Don’t compliment me; compliment Jack Dowland. It was in his story, too. At the very last.”

“And that’s how it ends?” Slade asked.

“No,” Manville said, “it ends with me presenting you with a bill—the costs of sending you back to uninspire Adolf Hitler. Five hundred dollars, in advance.” He held out his hand. “Just in case you never get back here.”

Resignedly, in misery, Jesse Slade reached as slowly as possible into his twentieth century coat pocket for his wallet.