The Search
by A. E. van Vogt
When salesman Ralph Carson Drake tries to recover his missing memory of the past two
weeks, he discovers he had interactions with three people: a woman named Selanie Johns
who sold remarkable futuristic devices for one dollar, her father, and an old gray-eyed
man who is feared by Selanie and her father.
Van Vogt combined this with two other stories and a little fix-up material for his 1970 publication of Quest for the Future.
— Michael Main
The Palace of Immortality was built in an eddy of time, the only known Reverse, or
Immortality, Drift in the Earth Time Stream
“The Search” by A. E. van Vogt, Astounding, January 1943.