He had just closed down for the afternoon break when the telephone rang. He picked it up uncertainly.
“Polar Bar.”
It was Rimae. “Are you planning on picking up your paycheck or what? You better get on over here.”
A sudden vision of his first glimpse of Rimae flashed into his mind, and he said warily, “I could pick it up when I come in to work this evening, if you don’t mind. I’ve got some things I want to take care of.”
There was a long amazed silence at the other end of the line. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Oh, sure. I’m fine. I’ve just got, you know, errands to run.”
Rimae didn’t sound pleased. “You know what you’re missing, don’t you?”
Sam swallowed, dry throated. “Yes. But I’ll take a rain check, if you don’t mind.” He winced as he said it.
Rimae laughed. “Need to get some raincoats?”
Sam winced again. He didn’t like puns, unless he was the one making them. On purpose.
Rimae didn’t wait for an answer. “Well, we’re booked for a private party at eight—a bachelorette party for Suzie McAllister. So you’d probably need all your strength up anyway. I’ll bring the check. And stand by to protect you, if you like.”
Sam almost said, “Who’s going to protect me from you?” but considering the tales he’d heard about bachelorette parties, he reconsidered. “Okay,” he responded. “I’ll see you then.”
Hanging up the phone, he wondered if Al would be back in time. It was the kind of situation the Observer normally rejoiced in, watching his strait-laced friend writhing under the attentions of several dozen slightly looped females with sex on their minds. Al still might, he thought, even if he was happily married. Still happily married, that is.
It wasn’t selfish to want to go home, he reminded himself. It was the best thing for everyone. Al agreed. Everyone agreed.
Except, of course, for God, or time, or whatever had him Leaping to begin with.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Al stood still in the middle of the Imaging Chamber, not moving. His omnipresent cigar had burned out somehow. The walls of the Chamber were blank, white, empty. He could hear a high-pitched hum of power pouring through the walls, the ceiling, the floor—it was the Accelerator powering down, Ziggy returning the centering function to a restand-ready state. He was standing on a silver disk, beneath another silver disk; the two disks and his own attire, a dark red suit with a dark blue tie, provided the only color in the room. Even the handlink had gone blank in his hand.
Usually, at this point, he was asking Ziggy questions about some crisis Sam had gotten himself into, or at the very least asking about the status of the Project. He didn’t feel like asking this time. He’d have to eventually, he knew that, but for the time being he didn’t want to say anything. He didn’t want to go anywhere. He didn’t want to move.
He was remembering his wedding day, as if fixing those details firmly in his mind would make them real.
He remembered wrapping a napkin around a champagne glass—no, that was Ruthie. He remembered an arch of swords; no, that was his very first wedding, his first love, Beth. Then a judge’s chambers, where he had made a jaunty salute to a ruling that Beth’s new marriage would stand. Sam hadn’t let him change that history, didn’t help him prevent Beth from marrying someone else. Wouldn’t tell her Al was still alive, a POW in Vietnam. So Al married again. And again.
It was past history now. All past history, though he could remember that anguish still. He loved Beth to this day, more than any of his subsequent wives. He could still see her soft brown eyes filled with tears as she danced that last dance, never knowing she was dancing with her lost love who was giving her up of his own free will.
As he’d be giving up Janna when he walked through that door, whether they were still married in this version of the present or not.
The moments stretched out. He looked down at the cigar, rolling it back and forth between his fingers, the brown leaves crinkling under the pressure. All he had to do was ask Ziggy, and Ziggy would tell him. It would be simple, quick, and reliable, and he’d pass through the Accelerator airlock knowing exactly what he’d be walking into.
He drew a deep breath and let it go, shivering a little. The Imaging Chamber was cold. It had to be; the Project required massive amounts of power, and Ziggy’s components were even more vulnerable to heat than most computers. Ziggy was silent.
He took one more glance around, as if fixing the empty room in his memory, and stepped off the disk toward the airlock door. It purred open before him, slid shut again, and the other door of the airlock opened in its turn. He was standing at the top of the ramp down to the Control Room, and he paused, scanning, to see who was waiting.
No one. A pair of white-suited lab techs, working on circuitry normally hidden by the panel propped up against the wall beside them. No anxious congressmen wanting to know about budget, no security people, no Verbeena with news of something having gone wrong with the Visitor. No Janna, waiting to welcome him back. No one.
Perfectly normal, in other words.
He drew a deep breath, discarded the cigar butt in the receptacle provided at the top of the ramp (when did that get put there? he wondered), and started down and across the room toward the Waiting Room. He couldn’t help it. He had to meet the Visitor. It was long past time.
Wickie was by himself, doing a steady series of abdominal crunches eerily reminiscent of Sam’s, a few days—and thirty-some years—before. There wasn’t even anyone up in the Observation Deck. Al’s eyes narrowed. Someone was going to hear about deserting their station that way.
“About time somebody showed up,” the Visitor said, sitting up and wiping the sheen of sweat off his face with the towel hanging off the end of the bed. “They expect me to spend all my time reading books around here?”
“How long since someone was here?” Al asked, going over to a chair, turning it around and sitting in it backward.
Wickie leaned back in his own chair, one foot on the edge of the table, balancing on the two rear legs. “Dunno. Few hours maybe. I’m telling you, I’m getting awfully pissed off at being locked up so long. You keep telling me I’m not a prisoner, but you won’t let me go anywhere.” The other man studied Al thoughtfully. “If it weren’t for what I see in the mirror, I’d think I was in jail.”
Al nodded. “I can see how you’d think that way. But it’s like you were told—if you’re not here at the right time, you might never get back at all. We’re not sure. So we don’t want to take any chances.”
“I think I’ll go on buying that for about a day or two more,” Wickie said evenly. “Then I think I’ll go for a little walk.”
Al hid a grim smile. He had no doubt that Wickie would attempt to break out as promised, or that he might even get as far as the Control Room. But they’d beefed up their security after a few such scares—one in particular, when Leon Stryker, a serial killer Sam had Leaped into, actually got all the way out of the Project, stole a vehicle, made it into the nearest town—and he wasn’t particularly nervous about Wickie getting away from them. Besides, the Visitor wasn’t being belligerent about it. He had a good argument; it just wasn’t a risk the Project chose to take.
“Treating you okay otherwise?”
Wickie shrugged, the muscles of his shoulders—Sam’s shoulders—sliding under the brown T-shirt. “I could use a little companionship, if you know what I mean.”
“Sorry.”
Wickie smiled, an echo of Sam Beckett’s own rare, infectious grin. “Didn’t think you’d go for it.”
“Got a question for you,” Al said after a moment. He wished he could smoke here; he wanted a cigar in the worst way right now. He wasn’t carrying any with him, either.
“Shoot.” Wickie rocked back and forth.
“Do you know anybody named Janna?” What was her maiden name? For one panicked moment Al couldn’t remember. “Janna Fulkes.” That was it. Fulkes.
For
a moment Al had been afraid he couldn’t recall his wife’s maiden name because she wasn’t his wife in this moment. But he knew it, and his memories of her were still solid. He’d have to ask Ziggy to be sure, but—
“Never heard of her,” Wickie said flatly. “Who is she?” “Are you sure? Maybe before you moved to Snow Owl?” The hazel-green eyes were amused. Wickie reached up to brush a stray lock of hair, brown with an incongruous white streak, out of his eyes. Sam needed a haircut. “Sure I’m sure. What about her?”
Al shook his head. “I was hoping you knew her.”
“I could tell. Who is she?”
“My wife.”
After a startled pause, Wickie burst out laughing, rocking forward to set all four legs of his chair on the floor. “That’s the first time any man ever told me he was sorry I didn’t know his wife!”
Unwilling, Al had to laugh too. He’d been in that position a few times himself. “Get around a lot, do you?”
Wickie shook his head, still chuckling. “I get my share,” he said. “I don’t have to worry about cold nights much.”
Remembering Rimae, Al was willing to bet on it. Wickie didn’t seem disposed to name names or expound on his conquests, though, which upped him a notch in Al’s esteem. While he wouldn’t mind comparing notes over a few beers, still, he had to give the guy credit for discretion.
As for Janna, well, it didn’t exactly solve the problem, but it narrowed it down a little. Janna must be linked to someone else in Snow Owl. Which meant he’d have to have a long talk with Ziggy.
He stood up, twirling the chair back into place. “Anything I can get you? Other than ‘companionship,’ that is?”
“Crossword puzzle, maybe?”
Al had learned long ago not to be surprised at Visitors. "Sure, we can get you crossword puzzles. As many as you want.” He was glad Wickie hadn’t asked why Al wanted to know; it would be just one more thing the Visitor would have to forget when he returned to his own time and self.
He left quickly, aware of the Visitor watching him as the door slid away for him and back again, shutting Wickie away from the rest of the Project. His path took him back through the Control Room again, past it and into the administrative office corridor, past Sam’s “upper-level” office and back to his own again.
He scanned it quickly. Nothing was different, as far as he could tell. The same plaques and citations on the walls, the same gleaming desktop, the same stack of papers in the In and Out baskets.
Well, maybe the In basket was a little closer to overflowing than the last time he’d been in here, but that was to be expected.
He pulled the office door shut and sat down at the desk. “Ziggy?” he said to the ceiling.
“About time,” the computer replied promptly, annoyance in its voice. “I thought you were going to ignore me completely.”
“Like I could,” Al muttered sarcastically. “Give me a status report, please.”
“Unchanged.”
The wave of relief that swept over him was almost too intense to bear. “Thank you,” he whispered.
“You’re welcome,” Ziggy answered.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“Well! You don’t have to be rude.”
This, coming from Ziggy, was almost enough to make Al laugh again.
“Glad you’re amused,” the computer remarked acidly.
Al shook his head, still smiling. “Okay, Ziggy. It’s just. . . nervous reaction.
“We need to know how Janna’s tied in to this Leap.”
“Why don’t you ask her?”
Al opened his mouth to make a cutting response, and closed it again, slowly. Finally he said, “I’d have to tell her why.”
“I could summarize it for you.”
“No. No, I don’t want to ask her, and I don’t want to explain.” He could see himself explaining to her, I’m only temporarily married to you, honey, we’ve got to enjoy this while we can .... Come to think of it, he could have used that line in several of his marriages, if he’d only known.
“Just do the data search, okay? And don’t ask Janna anything. I don’t want her to know.”
Some hours later, Al looked around the bedroom, checking the details against the new memories. Same woven cotton bedspread, same maple rocking chair on a rag rug in the corner, same pillowcases with a green foil-wrapped mint set squarely in the center of each one. Mints on the pillow. It was a private joke between them. It always made him smile. She’d never admit she put them there; must be some genie from a brass lamp who came up with them, she always said.
Folded neatly at the bottom of the bed was an old-fashioned quilt. Janna liked the country look. It was utterly alien to Al, who’d spent most of his life in the Navy and the rest of it roaming, but comforting somehow. It was Janna, and that made it home.
“Ziggy?” he said quietly.
The computer, triggered by the sound of its name, responded, “Monitoring, Admiral.”
“Search for a link between”—he swallowed, unable to believe for a moment in any past, much less one as stable as this appeared to be—“between Janna and all the people Sam’s dealing with on the current Leap. Trace the events that led to—” he took a deep breath—“this.”
“Acknowledging, Admiral.”
He heard the door slide open, heard her footsteps. “Don’t monitor these quarters. Send a summary to the terminal in my office under secure lock.”
“Yes, Admiral.” He could hear the “click” that was Ziggy’s signal that it had turned its monitors off, and at the same time heard Janna come in from the living room.
He turned to welcome her with open arms. She greeted him with a smile and a kiss, stepping into his arms as if she always did that, as if she belonged there.
“Hello, baby,” he whispered into her hair. “Missed you.”
“Well, I missed you too,” she said, nuzzling him back, “but I didn’t think you’d been gone that long. Al, you’re breaking my ribs! Is everything okay?”
“So far.” He could have bitten his tongue off. He didn’t want to interrupt the moment. Reluctantly, he loosened his embrace.
“Al?” She pulled away, looking him in the eye. “What is it?”
“It’s nothing. Nothing.”
“Albert Calavicci, don’t you try to lie to me. Something’s wrong, isn’t it? Is it Sam? Has something happened?”
“No. Nothing’s happened to Sam. He’s fine. He’s got to keep a kid from going to a party, that’s all, and then he’ll Leap again.”
But he couldn’t meet her eyes, even when she took his face between her hands and gently held it, mere inches from her own. “Then why are you so knotted up inside, honey?”
He tried to smile and couldn’t. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, I can’t talk about it. I can’t."
He couldn’t. He couldn’t make himself talk to her. If he asked her, and she answered, he’d have to go back and tell Sam—and run the risk of not finding her there when he came back.
Instead his hands slid down her sides and he took her in his arms again and held her as if he would never, never, never let her go.
Recognizing a losing battle when she fought one, Janna sighed and cooperated with the inevitable. “Al?” she whispered in his ear.
“Mmm-hmmm?” he responded absentmindedly, wishing women’s fashions still featured buttons or zippers or something a man could make sense of.
“Does this mean I get to go shopping again?”
“Later,” he muttered.
She giggled and nipped at his ear. “I know this lovely little gallery on Water Street—”
Now it was his turn to pull away. “Are you nuts?” he said, with mock indignation. “Are you trying to send me to the poorhouse?”
She laughed at him, and he laughed back, and shut away the voice in the back of his mind that echoed, “ ... you have to go back and find out the most efficient change I can make that will let me Leap. . . .”
It was the weight and measure of fri
endship, against the weight and measure of love, and Al closed his eyes and set aside the scales one more time.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Verbeena generally avoided eating with Tina; the Project’s chief computer architect didn’t have a lot of interesting conversation. She was always either wrapped up in some esoteric computer journal or engrossed in a debate on the merits of various shades of nail polish. Verbeena couldn’t decide whether Tina was too smart for her, too dumb, or both.
Today, however, she invited herself to a place at Tina’s table in the cafeteria for dinner. Tina looked up at her in some surprise. She wore, as most of the other Project personnel did, a white lab coat. Unlike most of the other Project personnel, Tina wore her coat this evening over a short body-clinging electric blue satin dress with a short frilly skirt and matching blue hose.
Verbeena’s preferred leisure attire leaned more to flowing caftans. She supposed she was in no position to criticize.
“Dr. Beeks!” Tina chirped. “How nice of you to stop by. Are you having the chicken? I think the chicken is just, you know, terrific....”
Verbeena smiled and unfolded a napkin into her lap. “Terrific” was too strong a word, in her opinion. Chicken and broccoli, in what purported to be lemon sauce, would never be her first choice anyway. Some days she thought she’d kill for a good jambalaya. Tina was eating what lookedlike corn clam chowder. With the right spices, Verbeena thought, that might almost work.
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