Clifford Simak’s "Over and Over" Summary

The plot centers on a conflict surrounding a metaphysical discovery that could equalize organic life and artificially created beings. The work was also published under the magazine title "Quarry in Time." Clifford Simak’s science fiction novel was published as a book in 1951.

The Agent’s Return

Inspector Christopher Adams of the Bureau of Galactic Research is relaxing in the estate’s garden. A stranger emerges from the evening twilight. The visitor insistently demands the immediate termination of Special Agent Asher Sutton, immediately upon his return to Earth from a twenty-year expedition to the mysterious Cygnus-61 star system, sealed behind an impenetrable force barrier and posing a mortal threat to the future of the Galactic Empire. Sutton was presumed dead. Early in the morning, the agent’s mangled starship descends onto the landing field. The pilot’s body has been rebuilt by unknown intelligent forces from the seventh planet. His body has been given a second heart and a backup circulatory system for directly absorbing radiant energy from stars.

In a hotel room at the "Orion’s Belt," a traveler is suddenly tranquilized with paralyzing gas by government medics. The psychonometer is useless. Soon, the polite servant Herkimer enters the room with a written challenge to a duel from swordsman Jeffrey Benton. Men are required by law to accept challenges.

The Duel and the Ancient Message

Sutton accepts an invitation from his red-haired traveling companion, Eva Armor, to dine at the Martian Zag’s club. An armed Benton appears. The gunman fires a large-caliber pistol and ignominiously misses a stationary target. Sutton sends a bullet into the attacker’s shoulder, instantly killing the skilled marksman with a powerful pulse of concentrated mental rage from the depths of his transformed consciousness. The winner takes a third of the victim’s property.

In the morning, an android lawyer delivers a trunk to Sutton from the family’s robot, Buster, who has served the family for four thousand years. The trunk contains an unopened letter from July 1987. Ancestor John Henry Sutton described a visit from an alien in an egg-shaped craft near a pasture and the discovery of a self-adjusting wrench stained with dried blood.

Death and Resurrection on an Asteroid

On a late-night suburban highway, Sutton discovers a burning chronoship from the 1983rd century. The pilot is dead. In his jumpsuit pocket is Sutton’s published book, "This Is Destiny." Herkimer knocks him out with a surprise punch to save him from government surveillance and secretly takes him to the Benton Asteroid.

At the hunting lodge, emissaries of the Revisionist Corporation, Case and Pringle, await the fugitives. The traders offer the planet. The corporation intends to rewrite the philosophical treatise to justify the absolute dominance of earthlings over all other living creatures in the universe. Sutton rejects the deal. Case cold-bloodedly shoots the writer in the chest with a fatal pistol shot.

Death triggers regeneration. Waking on the floor, Sutton destroys both attackers and regenerates the torn tissue near the ship’s nuclear reactor. The voice of Johnny’s symbiotic partner echoes in his consciousness. Abstract, intelligent Fates from the planet Cygnus-61 accompany every living being in the Universe from conception to physical death, granting them the will to continually evolve.

Wisconsin Time Loop

Sutton lands the ship near Adams’ estate. The inspector agrees to grant the fugitive one hour of freedom if he wins a dice game. Sutton rolls two sixes. Using archival databases, the traveler discovers the exact location of ancient Bridgeport and is immediately transported by chronoplane to 1977.

Revisionist Arnold Dean appears near the cliff. In a brutal hand-to-hand fight, Dean delivers a crushing blow to the enemy’s head with a heavy wrench and quickly flies off into the future. Blood stains the grass. The river current carries the landed craft under a thick layer of sand. Having lost the key to the hatch, the traveler steals clothes from a clothesline and hires himself out as a farmhand for his ancestor, under the name William Jones.

Ten years pass in farm labor. Sutton plows the land, stacks straw, and patiently learns to connect his mind with the perceptions of birds, cattle, and field mice. Attempts to print a tract end with the drafts being burned. Old John Henry finally mails the typewritten historical missive to his own postal address. At night, a Revisionist patrolman appears on the road. Sutton intercepts the enemy’s thoughts, quickly finds the chronoplane hidden in a ravine, and seizes control of the vehicle.

Conversation with Trevor and Cradle

A lengthy debate about the principles of cosmic domination unfolds in the office of Revisionist Corporation head Trevor. Trevor throws marbles. Humanity demands an appealing myth of chosenness in order to conquer hundreds of distant galaxies. Sutton rejects the demands. The office occupant threatens to turn the apostate’s name into an eternal curse.

Herkimer disguises himself as a fugitive. A contact, Andrew, rushes into the hideout with alarming news of the imminent discovery of a secret Cradle facility. There, artificial humans are secretly producing Kindred without the stigma of subservience. Eva notices the deception. Herkimer cold-bloodedly kills the enemy spy with a well-aimed knife throw to the neck. Sutton abandons his comrades.

Dead-end strategy and launch to the stars

Sutton returns to Eve with a plan for victory. He proposes copying the brain structure using a molecular scanner. Hundreds of created duplicates, gifted with the ability to penetrate other minds, will infiltrate enemy structures, paralyzing any aggressive actions by the Revisionists. Trevor will find himself at a dead end.

Having completed the copying process, Sutton takes the manuscript and flies forever to a planet in the Tower constellation, to the robot Buster. In the silence of this distant world, the author will complete his fundamental work. Eva sees the ship off. She turns out to be an artificially created human being, unmarked, who sacrificed personal attachment for the sake of the great idea of equality.