Turncoat

by Deborah Chester

  Noel shook his head, trying to still his rising panic. “I was wearing a ring. It’s—”

  “Don’t worry,” said Robert, fishing out a string from inside his shirt. The ring hung on it. “I’ve been keeping it safe for you. Sally and Mr. Kinkiddie took it off. They were afraid your hand wouldn’t heal properly.”

  He slipped the string off over his head and pressed the ring into Noel’s hand. “There it is, sir. Safe and sound. We didn’t lose it.”

  Noel let out his breath in relief and gripped the LOC tightly in his fist. It was still with him. He still had a chance to get home. Things were okay. Recall hadn’t worked because they took off the LOC. That was all.

  “Okay,” he said shakily. “Okay.”

  “No one stole it,” said Robert gently. “Indeed, we took the greatest care to keep it safe. I’m sorry I upset you—”

  “Robert?” said Sally in concern. “Upset him? How? What have you been doing?”

  She came in briskly, carrying a tray. “Good heavens, Mr. Kedran. You don’t look half as well as when I left you.”

  Noel looked up distractedly. “I’m okay.”

  “You’re as white as the sheets. Here’s some broth. It’s hot and very good.”

  She picked up a spoon, but Noel reached out for it. He wasn’t going to be fed like a baby.

  “You mustn’t tire yourself. If you overdo, your fever could come back.”

  As hungry as he was, Noel wanted to be alone so he could question his LOC. Was it even working? He had to know.

  “I can feed myself,” he said.

  “I’m sure you can, but why don’t you taste this first?”

  So he had to lie there and be spoon-fed. The soup needed salt, but it tasted fine to a starving man. When the bowl was less than half-empty, he found himself abruptly too full and tired to continue.

  “Enough for now, I think,” said Sally. “Do you feel strong enough for a shave?”

  It was tempting. His whole face itched. He couldn’t remember when he’d ever had a beard. He wanted it off, but other things had to come first.

  He feigned a yawn.

  “Perhaps another nap now,” she said with a smile. “Then we’ll take off that fine dark growth, unless you’re of a mind to keep it?”

  “No!” he said in revulsion.

  She cleared the tray off the bed and gave him a little curtsy. “Enjoy your nap, sir. I’ll check on you later.”

  Shooing Robert ahead of her, she closed the door.

  As soon as they were gone, chattering to each other as they went downstairs, Noel struggled out of bed. He staggered to the door, as weak as a newborn kitten, and put the chair under the latch. By the time he got back into bed, he was out of breath and ready to collapse with fatigue. He rested a moment, then slipped the ring on. It was too big now since he’d lost weight. He clenched his hands to keep them from shaking.

  “LOC,” he said, almost afraid to say the words, “activate.”

  At first nothing happened at all, then with a little hiccup and whir the blue light flashed across his hand. “On-line,” said the LOC. “One moment for self-test…ready.”

  Noel wiped his forehead. “You’re working.”

  “Affirmative.”

  He tipped back his head with a chuckle. “Thank God. We are back!”

  “No travel has commenced since initial materialization at these coordinates.”

  “Absolutely.” Noel forced himself to be sober, although a grin kept tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Okay, down to business. Have you managed self-repairs?”

  “Specify.”

  “All damaged areas.”

  “Negative. Molecular shift parameters remain off—”

  “Stop. I don’t care what you look like. Have you repaired the recall sequence function?”

  The LOC flashed steadily. “Repairs ran past initial estimate of seven point two three hours.”

  “You might say my repairs ran overtime too,” said Noel.

  “Recall function has been rerouted. Accuracy loss is predicted at ninety-seven point nine nine percent.”

  Noel blinked. “About two points off? What does that mean? We’ll miss the time portal?”

  “The possibility exists. Two point—”

  “Stop. I don’t like statistics. If we’re in the time stream, how can we miss the portal?”

  “According to the first principle of interdimensional dynamics, the Sheffield curve must intersect with—”

  “Stop,” said Noel hastily. “Never mind. I’m still willing to take the risk.”

  “Affirmative.”

  Noel thought he heard a noise and stopped, listening. The sound did not come again. After a while he relaxed and scrunched lower beneath the covers.

  “I need information and fast,” he said, lowering his voice. “First, search biographies for Sally or Robert Crewe, circa 1778.”

  “Scanning…Robert Mathias Crewe, governor of Pennsylvania 1798-1802, married Annabel Brewster of Philadelphia and had two sons, Noel Robert Crewe and John Lester Crewe.”

  Noel stared in astonishment. “My God. Quick, have there been any alterations to history? Any problems?”

  “Negative. The history of Robert Crewe is unchanged.”

  A smile widened across Noel’s face. “So he’s going to name his oldest son after me? The little devil.”

  “The sons of Robert Crewe founded the Independence Bank of Philadelphia, later part of the funding consortium of DIONEK Consolidated, famous in the twenty-third century for—”

  “Stop. Okay, Robert is fine. What about Sally?”

  “I scan no information for Sally Crewe.”

  Noel’s good mood vanished. “Nothing? Try, uh, Sarah.”

  “Negative for this date and location.”

  Noel propped himself up on one elbow and scratched his beard. “Cross-reference with Robert. There must be some information about her.”

  “Scanning.”

  This was it, Noel told himself. This was where his accidental interference had changed history. It always happened. Getting involved with people had too many ramifications.

  “Data banks are incomplete,” said the LOC. “Reference to one S. Crewe, spinster, in household of Robert Crewe.”

  “That’s her.” Noel frowned. “A spinster? Don’t you have anything else?”

  “Data banks are incomplete.”

  Spinster. Noel knew that originally the word referred to an unmarried woman of the household. Later it came to have the connotations of failure attached to it, as though a woman who did not marry somehow came short of what society, her relatives, and destiny had intended. Finally the word fell out of usage altogether. But he found himself thinking about lovely Sally Crewe as he had first seen her, so self-assured, so spirited, so beautiful. What kind of future was she to have? What kind of life would she live? A happy one? A bitter, disappointed one? Compression into one tiny historical footnote as S. Crewe, spinster, conveyed no information at all.

  “She deserves more than that,” said Noel. Then he put his thoughts in the context of the times in which Sally lived. A woman married or she did not. If she did not, she was cared for and served as a dutiful aunt, worked for charity, and stayed behind the scenes. If she married, she could look forward to one pregnancy after another, without benefit of medical attention. She could see half or more of her children die from childhood diseases, or she could die herself from childbirth fever. He shuddered, unable to imagine Sally in any of those scenarios. Maybe being a spinster wasn’t so bad after all.

  “Please specify instructions,” said the LOC.

  He sighed. “No instructions. Does her history change? Any problems there?”

  “Unknown. No indications of alteration.”

  “You mean I don’t affect their lives at all? Other than having a son named after me?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “That’s a relief,” said Noel, but he couldn’t help feel a bit deflated. “What about the people who live
here? The, uh, Kinkiddles. No, the Kinkiddies.”

  “Negative,” said the LOC.

  “No alterations?”

  “This entry is not in my data banks.”

  “Then I’m not going to worry about them. Okay, now for the important question. Leon.”

  “Specify instructions.”

  “Can—can you locate him?”

  “Negative.”

  Everything in Noel grew very still. “Is he dead?”

  “Negative.”

  “Are you malfunctioning? Or is that an informed response?”

  “No malfunction.”

  “If you don’t know where he is, how do you know he wasn’t hanged?”

  The LOC did not immediately answer. “Contradictory questions. I have relayed no information about hangings.”

  “No, I asked if he was dead.”

  “Negative.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Scanning is possible.”

  “Then you do have his location?”

  “Negative.”

  Noel struck the bed with his fist. “I don’t understand. Do you know where he is, or don’t you?”

  “Negative.”

  “But you can scan him?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Why can’t you get a fix on his location?”

  The LOC flashed. “Unknown.”

  “Find out. Run diagnostics if necessary.”

  The LOC hummed to itself a moment. Noel heard that tiny hiccuping sound and a whir. He frowned, worry creeping over him. Those were not normal operating noises.

  “Error corrected,” announced the LOC.

  “Great. Now tell me where he is.”

  “Coordinates—”

  “Stop. Translate to town or landmark.”

  “Headquarters of Continental Army. Valley Forge.”

  Noel rolled his eyes. “Swell. How am I going to get him out of there?”

  “Four courses of action can be given in logical order of priority—”

  “Stop. No thanks. I’ll figure out something for myself. What’s our recall deadline?”

  “Scanning…no deadline.”

  “What?”

  “No deadline.”

  Noel shook his head. “That’s impossible.”

  “No deadline.”

  “What’s happened to safety-chain programming, antirogue programming, automatic functions?”

  “Canceled.”

  Noel was stunned. It had to be part of the damage. “Recall is no longer possible?” he asked in a voice that didn’t even sound like his.

  “Manual recall instructions only. Automatics not functioning.”

  “Damaged?”

  The LOC flashed.

  Noel forced himself to stay calm. “But we can still initiate recall sequence?”

  “Affirmative. Voice command only.”

  “Okay, that works. Okay.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “No recall deadline. That’s incredible.”

  He backed off from the freedom of the idea, afraid of temptation. He’d been here nearly a month. Leon had been here even longer. Usually they managed to goof up history within minutes or hours.

  “Postulation of history alterations can be given—”

  “No!” said Noel hastily. “I don’t even want to know.”

  “Conditioning implant has failed,” said the LOC.

  Noel rubbed his arm where the implant was located. “I guessed that. I could stay here, and there’s no one to stop me.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “But I don’t want to stay,” said Noel. “I want to go home. I want to kick that anomaly back where it came from. I want Leon reassimilated so that he doesn’t cause any more trouble. I want to see if my friends are okay.”

  He couldn’t forget that he had left the Time Institute in major trouble, in danger of being shut down permanently. His friend Trojan was insane from a travel accident, and others had died.

  And while time duration did not correlate on either side of the portal, Noel knew he did not have an indefinite amount of time to fix the problems he’d been sent back for. He and the other technicians had defied orders to open the time portal. If it was shut down again, he would never get back at all.

  He sighed. “So it comes back to the same old thing. Find Leon and attempt return one more time.”

  “Affirmative.”

  Noel thought of something else. “LOC, can you scan for an entity called Qwip?”

  “Specify Qwip.”

  “You ought to know,” said Noel. “After all, Qwip caused that feedback problem during our last recall attempt. You had a meltdown and nearly took me with you.”

  “Specify Qwip.”

  Noel draped his hand over his eyes. There was no point in arguing with a literal-minded computer. “Qwip is a noncorporeal consciousness point from an alternate dimension. A door—no, a window—to that dimension has been opened by the distortions in the time stream. Qwip has reached through. Is that enough information?”

  “Affirmative. Will scan.”

  “I want to know if Qwip is anywhere nearby.”

  The LOC said nothing.

  Noel tapped the ring with his finger. “You working in there?”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Any sign of Qwip?”

  “Qwip is an energy force of—”

  “I don’t want a definition,” said Noel impatiently. “I want you to keep a watch for him. If he shows up, alert me. Understood?”

  The LOC hiccuped and whirred. “Affirmative.”

  “I don’t want to be possessed again. If we’re to achieve recall, we’ve got to keep Qwip away.”

  “Affirm—ative.”

  “LOC, are you malfunctioning?”

  “Negative,” said the LOC firmly.

  “Run a self-check anyway.”

  “All systems in working order.”

  “You’re sure?’

  “Affirmative.”

  Noel’s frown deepened. “Don’t fail me now, buddy. I depend on you to get me out of this time. Okay?”

  “Affirmative. Systems functioning.”

  “Good. Deactivate.”

  The blue light flashed and went out as the LOC shut down. Noel studied the ring on his finger for a long while, troubled more than he wanted to admit. There was a good chance that the LOC still had a glitch in its programming. It probably had more than one, and he couldn’t rely on it to admit it if it did.

  All the more reason to get back on his feet as quickly as possible. It was time to travel.

  Chapter 16

  Three days later, Noel was back on his feet, well enough in his own judgment to handle himself. Sally had tried to persuade him that he was rushing things. Mrs. Kinkiddie had scolded him for eating her out of house and home, for using up all her good linens and melting her kitchen with all the water heated for his nursing, and for making them worry so. He decided that the plump woman’s bark was worse than her bite, but he was still ready to go.

  “So anxious to be gone,” murmured Sally as he walked with her after supper on the eve of his departure. “We’ve barely gotten a chance to talk with you, to enjoy your conversation and wit.”

  In the starlight her hair was a soft cloud about her face. Her slim white shoulders gleamed where her shawl had slipped down. Now and then he could see the glistening of her eyes or glimpse a touch of moonlight upon her cheek. She smelled of lavender, and as she walked beside him—straight and graceful—all he could think about was her fate, to go through life unloved, unclaimed, unwanted. He wished suddenly that he could take her back with him instead of Leon.

  How ironic life was, how unfair sometimes.

  But even as the thought winged through his mind, he knew it would not work. As clever and intelligent as she was, Sally could not adapt to his world. The gulf was too wide for her. Besides, he kept expecting her to be unhappy, yet there was no indication that she was.

  “We shall go to Philadelphia, Robert and I,” Sally was
saying, “to live in my uncle’s house. I have written to him to tell him we are coming.”

  “What will you tell him?” asked Noel.

  “I hardly know. It’s awful, to go to his protection while considering a lie.”

  “Hardly a lie.”

  “Omission is a lie,” she said firmly. “Or perhaps I shall confess it all. Some of it is Uncle John’s fault. He knew he could rely on Father to shelter his couriers, and he assumed I would feel the same. But I was never one to be governed by opinions other than my own.”

  Noel took her hand. “Don’t make it harder on yourself than it has to be.”

  “I won’t.” She sighed, tipping back her head to look at the sky. “I shall miss the farm. No one can say how long the war will drag on. And we can’t go back until it’s over. Not now.”

  “But you intend to go back,” said Noel, knowing she wouldn’t.

  “Oh, yes. I could never give it up.”

  He wanted to warn her, but instead he squeezed her hand lightly and let it go.

  “I’m afraid, Mr. Kedran.”

  “Please call me Noel. After all you’ve done for me, surely we can be friends.”

  He sensed her smile.

  “Very well, then. I shall call you Noel if you wish to be so informal.”

  “Why are you afraid? Do you think Burton will still come after you?”

  “No, not now. How poor-spirited you think me.”

  “I think you have great courage,” he said sincerely.

  She was silent a long while as though he had confused her. They came to the split-rail fence and lingered there, listening to the chirp of insects in the soft night air.

  “I’m afraid for all of us, for America. Do you think we shall win this war?”

  “Yes.”

  “So does Robert.” She sighed again. “What a curious boy he is, so full of optimism. He thinks only the greatest advantages can come of our being separated from England. I fear we will come to grief. We depend so much upon our mother country. How will we survive without her aid and protection?”

  It wasn’t politics that Noel had on his mind. He said, “You should listen to Robert. The boy’s on the right track. The colonies are going to be fine.”

  “But—”

  He cupped her chin in his hand and kissed her soft lips. They were honey-sweet and innocent. He felt her tremble, and when he let her go, tears sparkled on the tips of her lashes.