 Why is the narrator thinking about the words "First Edition" when he returns with food?
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I admit it: I didn't know if I was coming or going—but I know that if I stuck to the old man, I was a comer ... even if he was a goner! The golden Moon and the silver ship, symbols of greed. "Sure," the man agreed severely, prying a little worriedly at Doc's arthritic fingers that were clamped on his collar. I came alongside and carefully started to lever the old man loose, one finger at a time. If a half dozen winos in Seattle hadn't helped me get them loose, Doc and I would have been wanted for the murder of a North American Mountie. "'Memory Jump,' you mean. All my great-grandfathers have it. I told the human no, thanks, and walked Doc toward the flophouse three doors down. It had happened a few times right after I first found him, but now it was worse. The tubercular clerk looked up from the gaudy comics sections of one of those little tabloids that have the funnies a week in advance. The clerk's hand fell on the coin and slid it off into the unknown before I could move, what with holding up Doc. You don't have any quarter, not if I say so. I was bent double, but I got from the floor to the chair and found my notebook and orb-point in my hands. I found I couldn't focus both my mind and my eyes through the electric flashes of agony, so I concentrated on Doc's voice and trusted my hands would follow their habit pattern and construct the symbols for his words. Beyond Six, Seven, Eight ... Oh, are ... see ...." Somehow, inside me, I knew that these words were what I had been waiting for. They told everything I needed to know to become the most powerful man in the Solar Federation. When I got to thinking it was just a dream and that I was dragging this old man around North America for nothing, I remembered who he was. I remembered that he was somebody very important whose name and work I had once known, even if now I knew him only as Doc. He shut up at last and I laid him down again and put his arm back across his face. I don't know why, but nobody will help you if they think you are blotto. "Do you want it for coffee, or to apply, or a glass or hypo of something else?"
 As a side effect of the time travel technology, the narrator was putting pieces together about the situation as he read the notebook
 He thought he remembered something about a book Doc needed  The slip of paper had requested the first edition of a book, so he knew it had to be that specifically  As a side effect of the time travel technology, the narrator was putting pieces together about the situation as he read the notebook  The woman had been telling him about books