Restoration

by Deborah Chester

  Noel looked down, his eyes hot, his mouth grim. He knew exactly who to blame. Leon was behind this. Leon, who had remained in the seventeenth century. They could say all they liked about Leon not actually existing back there, but Noel knew better. What he had said to Dr. Rugle about his separation from Leon pulling the time stream apart had been right. He knew that now. He also knew there was only one thing he could do to stop the situation from getting worse.

  “Now, Noel, don’t be stubborn about this. It will help to talk through this. It really will. Let’s go to my office for a few minutes.”

  “I’d rather talk to Bruthe,” said Noel.

  “Yes, well, the senior travel technician has his hands full at the moment, trying to keep the portal closed.”

  That startled Noel from his anger. “What?”

  “Er, they’re having a bit of a problem down there. Nothing they can’t handle, of course, but—”

  “Damn!”

  Noel pushed past him and ran from the infirmary, ignoring Filingby’s shouts to come back. The lift balked after one floor, and refused to operate.

  “Access denied,” intoned an automated voice.

  He jabbed the open button and stepped off. Jogging down the corridor, he passed rooms of technicians huddled over computers, their voices overlapping and shrill.

  Someone looked up as he hurried past. “Hey! You can’t go down there.”

  Noel was already ducking through the emergency stair doors. He scooted down the steps, only to pause on the landing as his knees went funny on him. If he hadn’t been holding on to the railing he would have pitched forward into the stairwell. He clung there, gasping for breath, and wondered why the walls seemed to be pulsing around him.

  Dismay filled him. Not another distortion.

  But it didn’t happen, at least not with the suddenness of the previous two. This was something different, something that made prickly sensations crawl across his scalp. His teeth started itching. His mouth felt as dry as powder. Every time he blinked, his eyeballs seemed to jolt loose in their sockets. And all through him he could feel, or sense, a mighty humming noise on a pitch too low for his ears to register. Rather, his bones seemed to pick it up, this humming vibration that seemed larger than the building, or even the world.

  The time portal, he guessed with a fresh spurt of fear. It was open full tilt, and it was running out of control.

  Below him, a door opened, and a figure in a shielded protection suit stepped into the stairwell. It gestured at him. “Go back!” it said, the voice muffled by the helmet. “Go back! You’re making it worse.”

  Noel believed him without any conscious attempt to reason through it. He tried to go up the stairs, but his legs still refused to support him. He was reduced to crawling, dragging his lower body like a cripple. And each time he reached for the next step he was afraid his hand would go right through the solid matter.

  The suited figure waddled up to him and gripped him by the arm. Pulling him upright, it supported him the last few steps, then pushed him through the door. He went staggering across the full width of the corridor and thudded into the wall.

  The suited figure followed him, closing the stairwell door and activating shielding and full lockout. NO ACCESS flashed above the door, and the weird sensations in Noel abruptly stopped. He sagged against the wall, breathing hard, but able to feel strength returning to his legs. The dizziness vanished, although he could still—faintly—feel the humming going on below in Lab 14.

  Bruthe pulled off his helmet and glared at Noel. “Just what were you trying to do, wreck everything? We’re barely holding containment right now as it is.”

  “How could I make it worse?” retorted Noel, but he had an idea—an impossible idea floating in the back of his skull—but one that went right along with his separation-from-Leon theory.

  “Now what do you think, you and your reversible wave pattern?” said Bruthe with exasperation.

  “I knew it,” said Noel. “I knew it was Leon. We should have come back together.”

  “Apparently. I don’t have time for that right now. Communications are shot, and I’ve got to give these readings to the secondary computers up here. Once we get the Time Computer closed down and the portal shut, we can deal with solutions.”

  “Bruthe, I—”

  “Stand aside, Kedran. We’ve got a hell of a mess to deal with right now.”

  “I want to help!” Noel called after him in frustration.

  “You aren’t trained to deal with this,” said Bruthe over his shoulder as he hurried away. “Just stay out of the way.”

  Noel pushed himself after Bruthe. “Wait,” he said. “Talk to me.”

  Bruthe never slowed down. His heavy jaw was locked in a harsh line. “I don’t have time.”

  Noel caught up with him and matched his pace. “Leon and I are two parts of a whole, right?”

  “Hmmph.”

  “Our patterns are the same, aren’t they?”

  “No, they’re like a zipper.”

  “Reversed.”

  “Of course reversed,” said Bruthe, glaring at him as though he were mentally defective. “How else would you fit together?”

  “And if we’re not together, then the time stream can’t function the way it’s supposed to.”

  “You’re getting delusions of grandeur, Kedran.”

  Noel cursed to himself and caught Bruthe’s sleeve. “Listen to me. Our separation is an anomaly, right?”

  “It’s sure the hell something.”

  “And an anomaly in the time stream can theoretically cause distortions, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So if I go back, then that should—”

  Bruthe came to an abrupt halt and flung his arm across Noel to stop him. “Hold it. Where did you get that idea?”

  “How else does it work out?”

  Bruthe rolled his eyes. “The eggheads could tap out a whole series of combinations and possibilities.”

  “I’m not talking about an abstract problem,” said Noel urgently. “I’m talking about myself. I know what’s wrong. Look, I felt a distortion yesterday that didn’t register. It happened to me, and no one else. I’ll bet you my year’s paycheck that today the distortion happened here because I was here. Nature is trying to pull us back together, only we can’t be put back together as long as I’m in one time stream and Leon is in another.”

  Bruthe stared at him a long while. “You’re telling me you want to go back?”

  “Hell no, I don’t want to go back. But I have to. What happens if two time streams come together—and I don’t mean just opening one a tiny bit for a traveler to slip through. I mean, really coming together.”

  Bruthe stared at him. “You know. Poof.” He gestured with his hands.

  “And how close are we to that…poof?” asked Noel.

  “You know that too.”

  “So are you going to listen to me and help me, or are you going to go watch the eggheads run numbers through the computers?”

  Bruthe stood there in silence a long while, so long Noel almost gave up.

  “Bruthe!”

  “Okay,” said the technician reluctantly. “God knows, this is crazy, really crazy. You’ve got no rational basis for this, no formula.”

  “I’ve got my instincts,” said Noel. “I know I’m right.”

  “You better be,” said Bruthe. “Or it’s over for all of us.”

  Noel swallowed hard, trying to ignore the nervousness that crawled up his spine, trying not to look ahead at what he intended to do.

  Bruthe tilted his head. “Let’s go run some numbers and set up a field of entry.”

  “You take care of that,” said Noel. “I’m going to get a LOC.”

  “Amie will program that. We’ll need several—”

  “No!” said Noel sharply. “Just you and me. I’ll do the programming.”

  “You don’t know how.”

  “I used to hang out with Tchielskov, remember? I can do it,
close enough anyway.”

  Bruthe gasped. “Kedran, you’re out of your mind! This has to be exact.”

  “We’ve got a Time Computer running out of control and you intend to be exact?” sneered Noel. “Speed is a little more important than—”

  “No way! You want to get there with two heads? You want to come back with all your body parts reassembled in the wrong places? What do you think this is, mumbo-jumbo? My God, we’re lucky we got Heitz and the others back in the right combination. This isn’t a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants operation. It—”

  “We have to hurry,” said Noel with all the urgency he could muster. “We have to do it ourselves, and we have to do it fast.” He held up his hands, which were shaking uncontrollably. “Another distortion is coming, Bruthe. I swear to you that I know. Rugle will stop us if you let her, and she’ll be wrong. We have to act now while we still can.”

  Bruthe gripped him by the arms and shook him. “And I’m trying to tell you that I’m not sure we can get you back, not if you go in like this. Without prep or—”

  “I have to take the risk,” said Noel, everything in his eyes. If he couldn’t convince Bruthe, then there was no chance at all. “I have to.”

  Bruthe’s dark eyes met his own, troubled and filled with doubt. “God help you,” he said at last, and turned back with him. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter 4

  The protective suit gave him anonymity among the technicians rushing about the laboratories, except he had to move slowly while they ran and shoved in an effort to get their jobs done. Noel had never been claustrophobic, but the suit was stifling. He could feel sweat trickling down his back. Every breath inside the helmet was a clammy one. The suit had a fairly decent ventilation/air circulation system, but his nervousness kept him short winded and drenched.

  Heavy shielding built into it enabled him to enter the laboratory area, but the vibrations humming through him were almost unbearable and every fluctuation in the wave patterns had his heart jumping in response. He could feel the relentless tug of the time stream. The open portal was like a maw, sucking at him with a greediness that was frightening.

  Always before, he’d entered Lab 14 with anticipation and excitement. The portal had been a doorway into adventure and knowledge. Entering the time stream was a gentle experience, like walking through a dark mist to the other side.

  But not now.

  He walked in and stared at the portal, mesmerized by the pulsing, swirling violence on the other side. The gray void now resembled roiling storm clouds. A sharp flash of energy made the lights in the lab flicker ominously. Monitors shrilled and flashed screen after rapid screen of data. Warning lights signaled across the board. Inside the helmet, Noel’s hair stood on end as though he’d received an electrical charge. Fear engulfed him. He couldn’t step into that.

  A technician bumped into him, almost knocking him off balance. “Hurry,” said Bruthe over the helmet mike. “Take your LOC and a blank one from the safe, and then get out of here.”

  Ignoring him, Noel continued to stare at the portal, feeling it reaching for him, wanting him. It was as though the time stream had become alive, had taken on an intelligence. His rational mind knew that was nonsense. What he felt was simply the phenomenon of his wave pattern responding to those within the stream, but the superstitious, primitive part of him came clawing up out of control, pushing him to run from this place, to run and abandon everything in an effort to save himself.

  Bruthe thumped his helmet to get his attention. “Noel! Take the LOCs and get out of here! Even in the suit, you’re upsetting the slight balance we’re able to maintain.”

  Noel nodded, trying to pull himself together. He turned his body slowly about, finding it almost impossible to move. His joints seemed to be glued in place, and the itching in his teeth grew worse. He could feel prickly, unwholesome things crawling over his body and digging into his skin. It was just his nerve endings going insane, he told himself. Just nerve endings.

  He fumbled at the safe, his gloved fingers unbearably clumsy. His concentration grew fuzzy; his vision blurred. He knew he could not stay in here much longer. He knew also the danger if he went mad and threw himself into the time stream with neither LOC nor destination. His hands were shaking so bad he had to enter the security code four times before he hit the proper sequence.

  The safe opened, and inside it the LOCs were all activated—flashing green, blue, pink, or any of the other colors in the normal spectrum, each according to its isomorphic code. They shouldn’t be on, not in here, but nothing was working right.

  He grabbed his, the blue light flashing across the pale gray surface of his suit. He selected one of the blanks flashing white. Withdrawing his arm, he started to hit the closure control, then on impulse seized Trojan’s LOC as well.

  The loudspeaker blared over the general noise: “Noel Kedran, report to Dr. Rugle’s office immediately. Noel Kedran, report to Dr. Rugle’s office immediately.”

  Noel closed the safe with a snort of defiance. If the hag thought he was going to sit by meekly while her analysts asked him questions and the whole place went up in smoke, she could think again.

  He shoved the LOCs into his pocket and blundered from the lab on stiff, shaking legs. In the corridor, it was better. He sagged against the wall with a sigh of relief, then jumped as a warning klaxon sounded.

  “All personnel move to safety stations. All personnel move to safety stations.”

  Alarm rose through Noel. Another distortion must be coming, right now. And he wasn’t ready. Pressing his arm across his pocket, he started running slowly, clumsily, his legs as responsive as lead. He’d taken only a few steps when the warning klaxon failed in mid-shrill, and the lights went out.

  Plunged into absolute darkness, Noel lost his balance and fell. Not again, he thought in despair, but when he went down he hit the floor immediately. His outflung hand struck the wall, which was standing upright and normal, just where it was supposed to be. A distortion wasn’t happening.

  “What the hell?” he said aloud.

  The lights flickered, then went out and stayed out. The Institute had powered down.

  At the far end of the corridor he heard noises, footsteps, low voices. Hand torches shot beams of light here and there. Still lying on the floor, Noel realized belatedly that the vibration was gone. The crawling, itching sensations were gone. His joints had unlocked, and he could move freely again. He sat up and tugged off his helmet, feeling hollow with astonishment and dismay. The time portal must be closed.

  “Kedran?” called Bruthe’s voice. “You out here? Kedran?”

  A hand torch came closer, brighter. It shone in Noel’s face, making him squint. He shielded his eyes. Behind the light he could make out Bruthe’s blocky shape.

  “Kedran?” said the technician. “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Noel said, and staggered to his feet. He felt lost, the adrenaline in his veins streaking without purpose now. After pumping himself to be a hero, to face his own secret fears and overcome them, it was over before he could do anything. Strangely enough, he felt let down, almost disappointed, and a little angry about it. “She pulled the plug. Dr. Rugle pulled the plug.”

  “She had us cut the main generator power to the Time Computer and portal,” said Bruthe heavily. His voice dragged with fatigue. “It’s down. It’s all down and finished.”

  Something in his tone caught Noel’s attention. He opened his pocket and fished out his LOC. It was no longer activated. The circuitry lights had stopped flashing. Pulling off his glove, he held it clenched in his bare hand until the LOC grew warm from his touch.

  “LOC,” he said. “Activate.”

  Nothing happened.

  “The Time Computer’s down,” said Bruthe gently. “LOCs can’t run without it. Nothing runs without it.”

  “Yeah, well, when we power up again—”

  As Noel spoke, the main corridor lights flickered and came on, making him squint. Bruthe switched off his hand
torch. Down the corridor, there was scattered applause and a few cheers. Bruthe glared at them. “Fools. They’ll really clap when they find they’re out of a job.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Noel. “Bruthe, what’s the matter?”

  “Guess.”

  Noel stared at him a long time. Then his eyes widened and he sucked in a quick breath. “Oh, no…”

  “Oh, yes. We had hold of the time stream the way a boy holds the string of a kite. We turned it loose. We let it go. There’ll be no getting it back again.”

  Noel frowned, trying to comprehend what he was saying. “The past is gone? We can’t go there again?”

  “No more travel,” said Bruthe heavily. “No more recordings. No more research.”

  “But originally, years ago, when the time stream was discovered and accessed, that was based on—”

  “It was a fluke. The only thing those experiments and long years of research did was to make a little jiggle, and we accessed the time stream by accident. The old boys were smart enough to grab on, and they built a whole science on top of that lucky break.”

  Bruthe threw up his hands. “There you are. In all the years I’ve worked here, old Rugle has been so cautious she made a glacier look like a speedway. Then, under the first by-God truly cosmic-serious crisis we’ve ever had, she makes the one and only gut-instinct decision in her whole life, full speed ahead, and damn the consequences.”

  Bruthe’s voice dripped with bitterness. “I guess I could be unkind and say the old broad lost her head and panicked. Maybe under the circumstances it was understandable. It certainly worked.”

  “It can’t be closed off forever,” said Noel, refusing to accept Bruthe’s pessimism. “You’ll figure out a way to—”

  “Kedran, you live in a dreamworld of romance and happily ever after. You’re so used to flitting back to the days of yore when all things were possible that you can’t cope with a little hard-core reality.”