There was nothing he could do about his predicament tonight. Tonight he could only appreciate the wonder of once again being in the most exciting century in history and think about the remarkable woman it had been his good fortune to stumble upon.
He was sitting on the front steps, watching the stars appear one by one in the darkening sky. Night fell quickly out here in the country, to the sound of chirping tree frogs and distant highway traffic. He felt a presence beside him and glanced down to see the cat, Heloise, regarding him curiously.
“Good evening,” he greeted her.
She arched her back and made a trilling sound in her throat, to which he nodded. “I quite agree,” he said, and extended his hand. She came forward and suffered herself to be stroked.
“My grandmother used to say you can judge a man’s character by the way he treats a cat,” Houston said behind him.
Quinn turned and saw her leaning against the door frame, silhouetted against the yellow light of the living room, an amused smile on her face. “And how do I rate?”
“Pretty high, in my grandmother’s book.” She came out and let the screen door bang shut softly behind her. The cat bounded down the steps at her approach, and Houston took her place beside Quinn.
She was wearing a perfume faintly redolent of vanilla and spice. It seemed to go through Quinn’s pores like a tropical breeze. For a moment they sat in silence together, and it was a warm, almost intimate thing.
Then on impulse Quinn lifted his arm, pointing to a tiny star in the western sky. “What would you say if I told you that at this very moment, on a planet just behind that star, is a poet who is writing an ode to the light in the sky that is this earth?”
She looked up at him, her mouth set in an amused, skeptical smile. The ambient light caught in her eyes and filled them with subtly twinkling diamonds. “I’d say it’s highly unlikely anyone on a planet behind that star could even see the earth, much less write an ode to it.”
“I’m surprised by your lack of romanticism.”
“It’s just basic physics.”
“What if I told you that in two hundred years that very ode would be considered the single most inspirational piece of literature ever written? A classic of its kind.”
“I would think,” she decided, “that’s fairly likely.”
He laughed. “You don’t believe it was written, but you do believe it could become a classic?”
She shrugged. “If someone who couldn’t possibly exist wrote a poem about a planet he couldn’t possibly see, it would be more or less destined to become a classic, wouldn’t it?”
Again he chuckled, but the laughter faded as he looked at her. “Do you believe in destiny?” She met his eyes. Her skin was pearlescent, her eyes dark pools. Her expression was thoughtful.
“Please,” she said, “don’t turn out to be a serial killer or a con artist or an escaped convict.”
He lifted a surprised eyebrow. “All right, I won’t.”
“Because I’m about to do something very foolish.” She drew a deep breath and pressed her hands against her knees, as though to strengthen her limbs. She said, “The apartment is sixty dollars a week, first week in advance. You can use the shower in the house, back hallway, and have dinner with us. Breakfast and lunch are on your own. You can move in tomorrow, but you’ll have to give me a chance to clean it up first.” And she looked at him anxiously. “How does that sound?”
“I’ll clean it myself for ten dollars off the first week’s rent.”
She hesitated, then extended her hand. “Deal.”
He shook her hand. It was warm and small and strong, and charged with a kind of electricity it was impossible to ignore. She felt it, as well, because she let her hand linger in his just a moment too long, then withdrew it a little too abruptly.
“Well,” she said, and got to her feet. “That’s that, then.”
“Yes.”
She hesitated. “It’s pretty dusty, but if you want to sleep there tonight I can get the key.”
“Thank you, but I’ll stay in the meadow, if that’s all right, and get an early start in the morning.”
“Sure. That’s fine.” Again she hesitated. “You do have camping gear somewhere, don’t you?”
He smiled. “I’m well provisioned. Don’t worry.”
“Because all I saw was that little duffel bag.”
“I pack very compactly.” In fact among his emergency supplies were all-weather housing, a blanket, a change of clothes, a climate-control unit and a personal computer. He did not think it necessary to fill her in on the details.
“Well, you’re set, then.”
She hesitated, looking as though she didn’t want to leave. Quinn didn’t want her to leave. But he couldn’t think of a way to make her stay.
She smiled a little uncertainly. “Good night, then.”
“Good night, Houston.”
As he watched her go inside, his smile faded. He had a feeling he was about to break every rule in the book.
Chapter Four
Within a week, Quinn knew his plan was not going to work. The tracking device that would enable him to home in on the missing resonator was beyond repair. He was stranded in time.
If he had been the kind of man to panic, he would have panicked then.
He had visually searched every square inch of the area around the apple tree, to no avail. Without the tracker, there was nothing more he could do. And the part that would enable him to repair the tracker would not even be invented for another ninety-seven years.
He could try to build a resonator with the equipment he had and the materials of this century, but the chances of success were slim. He had never been more than fair in technology classes—though he scored high on inventiveness and creativity—and he wasn’t entirely sure he knew how the thing was put together. He also couldn’t remember which of the parts were indigenous to the twenty-fourth century, and which were currently available at the local Radio Shack. Radio Shack was a term he had picked up from young Mark, and though he had yet to see the inside of one, it sounded very interesting, indeed.
The sound of car tires on the gravel driveway distracted him from his ruminations, and Quinn went to the window of the tiny apartment to watch Houston and Mark drive up. It was amazing how much he looked forward to this time of day, when they returned from the school where Houston taught and that Mark attended. Today the sight of them saddened him, serving only to underscore the obvious: there was no longer any reason for him to stay here. According to his own rules, he had already stayed too long.
And the stars only knew he had gotten far too involved with this family.
The procedure, in a situation like this, was very clear. His first duty was to complete his mission, or as much of it as was possible to do, record the information for posterity and leave it in one of the designated “time capsule” drops to be recovered by the next Traveler. His second duty was to destroy all the technology he had brought with him from the future. The third was to leave no trace of his presence here in this century—not even, presumably, his own body.
The truth was, however, that the procedure had never been field-tested. Oh, there had been some casualties—some due to technical malfunction, some due to accident or illness—but in all cases the victim had managed to get off an emergency signal before succumbing to his fate. Never before had anyone been separated from his resonator. And though it was an acknowledged possibility every time a Traveler went abroad, no one had ever been lost in time before.
So procedures, at this point, were purely a matter of theory.
The car disappeared from his view as it entered the garage beneath him. In a moment he heard the muffled thud of car doors and the sound of their voices. He stood at the window, waiting for them to appear.
It had been a big mistake, moving in here. It would be a bigger one to stay.
Mark came out of the garage, his head tilted up toward the window. “Hey, Quinn!”
Houston scold
ed him gently. Quinn could not catch all the words, but it had something to do with Mark’s bothering him while he worked. Quinn noticed, however, that she, too, cast an eye toward the window. He smiled at her.
She was wearing a rumpled blue skirt—she always came home looking far more rumpled than she had when she left—and a white blouse worn belted over the skirt, white canvas shoes and socks with lace on the cuffs. Her hair was caught at the temples with two ivory combs and spilled over her shoulders in unruly cascades of curls and spirals. The sun brought out colors in her eyes Quinn had never known existed before. She was so lovely, so delicate and natural, so earthy and real, that she took his breath away.
Quinn opened the window and leaned out. “Hey, Mark,” he returned.
Mark grinned. Houston smiled and lifted a hand in greeting. “You want to walk down to the pond this afternoon?” Mark asked. “You said you wanted to see a real catfish. Bet they’ll be jumping today.”
It concerned Quinn somewhat that a boy Mark’s age, with the opportunity to breathe fresh air and stand under the rays of the sun and taste the tender stalks of newborn grass, should spend so much time indoors, letting it all go to waste. Quinn had never seen a catfish in its natural habitat, it was true. But neither had Mark, and that was more than a shame; it was almost a crime.
“Sounds great,” he said. He turned a glance that he hoped was casual on Houston. “Maybe your mother would like to come, too.”
“Nah,” replied Mark, “she’s afraid of snakes.”
Quinn rested his elbows on the windowsill, his eyes twinkling down at her. “Well, she won’t be any help at all. May as well leave her behind.”
Houston tossed her mane of strawberry hair and sent sunlight dancing. “Just for that I should let you go alone. It just so happens I’m the only one who knows how to call the fish.”
“Magic?” suggested Quinn.
She grinned. “Bread crumbs.”
The neighbor’s big sheepdog came bounding across the lawn to greet Mark and he turned to race the dog to the house.
Houston said, “Come to the house. I’m making lemonade.”
“Thanks. I will.” He closed the window as she walked away, but stood there watching her until she disappeared inside the house.
His job was to record and analyze as much as he could about these last years of the twentieth century. In order to do that job effectively, he really should operate from a much broader base than Carsonville, Iowa. There was really nothing to keep him here. Except for the fact that lately it seemed the only thing worth recording about the twentieth century had sun-drenched hair and dancing eyes.
He moved over to the small chest of drawers that had been provided with the apartment, ducking beneath and climbing over the network of wires that were connected to, among other things, three television sets and two radios, all of them operating twenty-four hours a day. The top drawer stuck, and had to be wiggled open. Quinn got the drawer open halfway, then reached inside for the small packet of tablets. He felt the first cold clench of fear in his stomach as he looked at it. Sixteen were left. Sixteen days. It wasn’t much time.
But then time, for him, had always been a relative thing.
He closed the packet abruptly and shoved it back into its hiding place, slamming the drawer shut with unnecessary force. His mouth was set in a grim determined line. There had to be a way out of this. There was always a way.
He just hadn’t found it yet.
“I’M TELLING YOU, Mom, he’s got enough equipment up there to launch the space shuttle.” Mark gulped his lemonade. “You ought to see it. He must have a half dozen computer boards. And a palm-sized notebook computer that’s really leading edge, I’m talking something I’ve never seen before and I’ve seen just about everything. And three—count them, three—television sets, all tuned to different channels.”
“Elvis used to do that,” Houston replied absently, wiping the countertop of the morning’s breakfast crumbs.
“Who?”
“Elvis. He had a room in his house called the television room, and the walls were lined with televisions that he used to watch all at the same time.”
Mark still looked puzzled, so she added, “I don’t approve of you spying on people, Mark.”
“It’s not spying. He wasn’t trying to hide anything.”
“Still, I don’t want you up there bothering him.”
“I wasn’t bothering him. I just knocked on the door to see if he wanted to play a video game.”
“That’s bothering.”
“He said yes.”
She gave him an exasperated look. “Finish your snack and change out of your school clothes if you’re going to go trampling through the woods.”
“Are you coming?”
“Do you want me to?”
He finished his lemonade and put his glass in the sink, affecting an elaborate shrug. “I wouldn’t mind.”
It was as close to a gracious invitation as she was likely to get, and Houston accepted in the spirit in which it was meant.
A week ago, Mark would have turned up his nose at an outdoor outing such as this. A week ago Houston would never have caught herself reprimanding her son for “bothering” someone, simply because Mark would have been too shy to boldly knock on a stranger’s door.
The changes that had been wrought over the past week were subtle but definite, and when Houston thought about it she could not believe her good fortune. First of all, Quinn paid in cash, a week in advance, and the ceramic savings bank that held her secret stash of bills was growing satisfyingly full—and Mark’s chances for a CD-rom were improving every day. Secondly, he had not turned out to be a wanted criminal or a professional con man or, as far as Houston could tell, a serial killer. And that, according to Millie, was nothing short of a miracle in itself.
Quinn had brought a measure of excitement into their lives that was difficult to explain. He carried with him an air of mystery and adventure and yes, possibilities, that made everything seem new. He was, for example, a news junkie. He read every newspaper he could find and listened to every news broadcast, and then engaged in lively discussions of the headlines with them, challenging them to stay sharp on current events lest he question them on some subtle point they might have missed. He spent an enormous amount of time at the public library, scanning periodicals, reference books and fiction alike with a single-minded alacrity that suggested he must be an expert speed-reader—and have a photographic memory.
He read technical manuals and instruction booklets—whether it be for a vacuum cleaner, blender, lawn mower or automobile—as though they were comic strips, and as far as Houston had been able to determine, there was nothing he couldn’t take apart, figure out or repair. In the short time he had been here, he had fixed her VCR, her roof and a doorbell that hadn’t worked since she’d bought the house.
Yet he seemed baffled by the concept of contour sheets and aerosol sprays. He had long conversations with her cat. He quoted haunting lines of prose by authors Houston had never heard of. Houston might have dismissed him as eccentric but harmless, or even filed him away under the caption “absentminded professor,” but it wasn’t as easy as that.
There was an alertness about him that signified a man who had encountered danger and survived. There was something in the way he moved, the way he carried himself, that made him stand out in a crowd. He was good-looking, yes, in a very reassuring, guy-next-door way, but there was more to it than that. He had about him an aura of power, the kind of self-assurance that would enable him to deal with any situation, no matter how bizarre. Those were the things Houston had sensed in him when she had said he reminded her of Indiana Jones, and the impression had only grown more certain as she got to know him. Those were the things that, in combination, created a quiet strength and subtle sensuality that Houston, as hard as she tried, could not completely ignore.
She was glad he had come into their lives, for Mark’s sake. And for her own.
She changed into je
ans and high-topped walking shoes while Mark waited impatiently. She was just stuffing her hair under a cotton baseball cap when the phone rang. Mark answered.
Her heart sank when she heard his words. “Oh, hi, Dad.”
A pause. Houston watched Mark’s face light up as he heard the reply. “Oh, yeah? That’d be great! Yeah, sure! I’ll see you tomorrow. Here’s Mom.”
“Hey, Mom, guess what?” His eyes were alive with excitement as he handed the receiver to her. “Dad’s taking me out to dinner tomorrow night, then over to Camden to see the auto show. Won’t that be great?”
Houston forced a smile. “Sounds like fun. Now go downstairs and see if Quinn would like some lemonade. I’ll be down in a minute.”
She took the receiver. “Hello, Mike. How’s the new job?”
“Aw, it didn’t work out. The boss was a real jerk.”
Houston was not surprised. She pressed her lips together to suppress a sarcastic reply.
“I’ve got a lead on another one, though. I’m going for an interview in Cedar Rapids next week. District rep for Sugarman Foods.”
Mike had no experience in either sales or management.
“Are you qualified for that?”
“There you go again, Houston. Can’t you ever say anything positive? This could be a big break for me!”
Houston said with an effort, “I’m sure it will, Mike.”
There was a brief pause, in which she could almost see his pout. Then he said, “Anyway, I thought to celebrate I’d take the little guy out for a night on the town. I don’t suppose you’d want to come along, would you?”
And pick up the tab, Houston thought but did not say. “Thanks, Mike, but I don’t think so.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun. Just like old times, huh?”
Every muscle in Houston’s body stiffened. She had one of those rare brief impulses after which she was glad Mike wasn’t there, because if he had been she might have done him serious bodily harm. She let a beat pass while she regained her composure, and then she said very firmly, “No, thank you, Mike. I have plans.”
Quinn's Way Page 5
