Restoration

by Deborah Chester

  “I explained it,” said Bruthe.

  “Yes, and now you want to try something fancy while he’s spinning around in the void? I think you are all indulging yourself in flights of pure fancy. It cannot be done.”

  “And so we shouldn’t try?” said Meissen scornfully. “Is that it? Just sit here, the way Rugle wants us to, and do nothing?”

  “The anomaly could fade,” said Speratkin.

  Noel snorted.

  “Yes? And why not?” persisted Speratkin. “It is only recently that the problem has grown worse. If we plotted it, I am sure we would see a bell curve of increasing disturbance until the distortions themselves became large enough to register. There is every chance that they will fade away just as they came. You do not want to overreact. There has been, surely, enough of that today.”

  No one said anything.

  Noel glared at Speratkin. He’d been close to getting them fired up enough to try, and this pet of Rugle’s had to ruin everything. Noel felt a fresh burst of temper, then shivered as though the adrenaline drained from him all at once. He couldn’t get angry, couldn’t let them see the rage and frustration eating holes in him. He had to get out of here before he started yelling and made enemies of them all.

  Shoving his hands back into his pockets and clenching his fists there, he swept them all with a look and said, “Well, think it over. I’ve got to…”

  Letting his voice trail off without realizing it, he left the room in a rush.

  Outside, he felt a tremendous sense of relief, as though oppression had been lifted from his shoulders. Not bothering to analyze that, he wiped the sweat from his face and stopped, staring at his hand.

  It was shaking.

  He curled his fingers into a fist, afraid it was happening again and not knowing what to do about it.

  How could a distortion reach him now with the portal closed? Impossible. Yet…

  He stood in the corridor, not daring to move, not certain he could. The lights seemed dim, and he wondered if the power was being affected. He didn’t hear an alarm. In fact, he didn’t hear much of anything.

  The silence had closed around him stealthily, without him noticing it, until all the sounds faded. He tried to swallow away the dryness in his throat, but he couldn’t. He thought he should move over to the wall, but he couldn’t take a step. He was frozen in place.

  The corridor ahead of him swelled into a bulge, the walls curling into it, widening around him. He stiffened, frightened of the effect. A terrible coldness swept over him, a coldness that sank so deeply and instantly through his body it was like death.

  Behind him the conference door opened, and the technicians filed out, gesturing and talking among themselves. He could see their mouths moving, but sound remained cut off. There was only the dimming light, the bulging walls, the silence, and the numbing cold.

  They would see him. They would sound the alarm. They were coming right toward him. They would help him as soon as they noticed. They had to notice. They had to see that something was very wrong.

  But they walked right by him as though he did not exist. Bruthe was speaking to Meissen, who smiled and shook her head. She glanced back at Wemble, who was shuffling along in a daze, his thoughts still a thousand miles away.

  “Help me!” called Noel, except no sound came from his throat.

  They walked away from him, scattering, some vanishing through the curve of the walls and disappearing, others fading into the shadows.

  “No!” cried Noel. “Come back!”

  But no one could hear him.

  Desperation gripped him. Was he fading too, dissolving somehow through the distortion into the time stream itself? Without a destination, without his LOC linked into the Time Computer, he would be lost forever, sucked into a void without end, to spend eternity nowhere.

  Wasn’t that what had happened to Leon? asked a tiny voice in the back of his brain.

  I’m not Leon! he raged, struggling to break free of whatever paralysis held him. I don’t deserve his fate!

  A flash of color seared his eyes. He blinked, squinting against it, then flinched as more color passed by him, almost on top of him.

  For a moment he was surrounded by shapes and colors, all abstract and incomprehensible. He squinted, trying to look at them, trying to understand, and after a moment he thought he began to recognize a circle, large and turning.

  No, it had spokes…it was a wheel. Circles and squares meant a wagon. Flashes of color, large and too fast to capture. He concentrated, struggling to make sense of it. People, perhaps?

  Sound came then, babbling layers of it, rising and falling in volume, scaring him with unexpected shrieks that pierced his hearing, then murmured lower, all of it going too fast for him to catch any particular words or phrases, even to be certain it was language at all.

  And he smelled something pungent and unpleasant. He smelled pigs.

  With that single recognition came a sense of triumph, filling him for the space of a heartbeat, before he comprehended something else. It was the sound of a pig grunting, low and unmistakable amid the cacaphony of noise. A broad blur of crimson swooped at him and sailed over his head, making him flinch.

  He squinted, listening to the pig, trying to find it with his blurred vision that was so out of sync with this world. From the sound of it, the animal must be rooting right at his feet. But he couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it. He could only smell the strong barnyard stench of it, and then, for an instant so fleeting he might have imagined it, his outstretched fingers felt something firm. Flesh, hair, warmth. He had touched the pig.

  Everything went black, and he felt himself hurled backward.

  Then he hit something solid, and crashed through it with a deafening noise. He was still falling, through splintering, cracking resistance. There was light and commotion around him, the smell of dust, and pain.

  Something heavy landed across him, and he heard someone shouting for help. Noel opened his eyes and found himself lying on his back with bits of wall and board on top of him. Puzzled, he tried to figure it out. Had he materialized in a wall or just fallen through one? And where was he now?

  A face appeared over his. Soft blond hair brushed his cheek. “Noel? Noel, can you hear me?”

  It was Dr. Ellis, the peach who kept him at a professional distance no matter how often he tried to close in. Noel blinked and sneezed, sending plaster dust flying around his face.

  “Doc,” he gasped.

  He tried to raise his head, but she held him down. “Just lie still a moment. Your foot is still caught in the wall. They’ll soon have you free.”

  He raised his head anyway, but couldn’t see anything for people crowding around. “What? My foot? I don’t—”

  “Stand back,” said Dr. Ellis. “Give him some room. I want a gurney here right away.”

  He gripped her wrist. “No shots. Promise me!”

  The tremors in his hand were violent enough to shake her arm. She frowned and put her other hand on top of his. “Okay. No shots right now. But promise me you’ll remain calm.”

  He drew in a deep breath, afraid of the tremors, but knowing he could hold himself together. He would do anything to avoid being sedated and made helpless.

  Another medic joined Dr. Ellis. She said, “His body surface temperature is very low. Scan him and make sure you record everything, no matter how peculiar. Let’s wrap him in the thermals and see if we can’t thaw him out.”

  She had to pry his fingers off her wrist. They swathed him in blankets and lifted him onto a self-powered gurney. By now Noel realized he was in one of the data centers. Terminals and desks were all around him. The workers stood in a huddle, talking among themselves and looking frightened. There was a man-sized hole in the partition wall. He could see right through it to the corridor outside.

  But it wasn’t the same corridor, or even the same floor he’d been on when the distortion had caught him. Noel tried to sit up.

  “I…I c-can walk,” he said, stumb
ling over the words. “I’m b-better.”

  “Why don’t you just take a little ride with us,” said Dr. Ellis smoothly, keeping her hand on his chest as they guided him down to the infirmary. “You’re still a bit unsteady. Let’s not rush anything.”

  Dr. Rugle, her craggy face creased with worry, stood at the infirmary doors when they arrived. “Doctor, I want details on every—”

  “Yes, of course,” said Ellis, brushing past her. “But not right now. We’ve got hypothermia and shock to treat.”

  Noel chuckled to himself, glad to leave the old bat behind. By the time he realized they had stripped off his clothes and were wrapping him in a very strange material, he found Dr. Ellis had vanished.

  “Doc!” he shouted, gripping the sides of the shallow bath they were trying to immerse him in. “Not c-cold. C-cold pigs in there b-but no found m-me.”

  “Please,” said a nurse, struggling with him. “Just relax. This solution will raise your body temperature. It will help you feel much better.”

  “P-pigs!” he shouted, frowning as he realized he wasn’t making sense. They pried his grip off the edge of the bath and got him into the warm solution. But the cold didn’t leave his bones, and the shaking didn’t stop. He wanted to tell them they were treating the wrong symptoms, but he couldn’t get his tongue to link properly with his thoughts.

  Dr. Ellis reappeared, her pretty face creased with a frown. “Noel, you’re not responding the way I’d like. We need you to settle down.”

  “No shots!” he gasped out, and was pleased that made sense. He struggled to raise his hand, fighting the wrappings they had on him. The tremors racked his body, and he couldn’t stop his teeth from chattering. “No sleep n-now. N-need Bruthe here.”

  “Perhaps later, when you’re stabilized.”

  “Now!” he said with all the force he could muster. He glared up at her, infuriated by his helplessness. “No t-time for l-later.”

  She reached behind her. “Noel, I’m sorry, but I can’t keep my promise if you don’t keep yours.”

  “D-don’t put me out!” he gasped, desperate to make her understand. “Won’t help.”

  “Yes, it will. It will relax you and give you some rest. Your body needs—”

  The syringe came at him, but he managed to knock it from her grasp.

  “Noel!” she said in annoyance. “You mustn’t—”

  “Listen!” he said. “M-must listen to m-me. T-tell Bruthe.”

  “All right. I’ll give him your message,” she said. “But then you must rest.”

  He shook his head, but realized he couldn’t waste time arguing with her when she so plainly did not understand.

  “Going again,” he said, concentrating on making himself as plain as possible.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Going.”

  “Another distortion?”

  He nodded, then found he couldn’t stop his head from bobbing. He shivered, racked with a new chill so pervasive his heart almost stopped.

  “Dr. Ellis,” said a voice, breaking in. “His symptoms correspond to traveling without preparation.”

  “What?”

  “Yes, it’s very odd, but that’s what the bio-comps say.”

  “Going,” said Noel. “Going again. Went this time.”

  “But the portal is closed.”

  He winced. “Doesn’t m-matter. G-got to p-protect m-me until…”

  He struggled, unable to continue.

  She reached into the bath solution and took his hand. Her grip was reassuring. “Until what?” she asked.

  “Until Bruthe is…ready,” he said. “T-tell him I went. Saw a…a…”

  “Yes? What did you see?”

  “Saw p-pig. There b-but not in sync. He’ll understand.”

  “So do I,” she said grimly. “But with the time portal closed, how—”

  “G-got to hurry. P-program LOCs. Wemble hurry.” He gasped for breath, closing his eyes in exhaustion. The shivers wracked him constantly now, sapping his strength. It would come soon. This time, he might not return. “T-taking me, ready or n-not.”

  “Doctor, his readings are fluctuating wildly.”

  “I hear you,” said Dr. Ellis. “Prepare another sedative.”

  Noel lacked the strength to protest. He lay there, eyes half shut, unable to stop the little moans that burst from him, feeling his heart skip and race. Travel sickness, they called it among themselves as a joke. He’d never had it before; he had always been so thoroughly prepped because of the precautions and safety measures Rugle insisted on that he’d sailed through travel easily. Once in a while there was a little nausea, and he always arrived ravenously hungry, but that was minor. This was god-awful, worse even than his sabotaged plunge through the time stream when Leon had been created and he’d thought he was going to die in the void.

  And he was scared, scared down to the little dark corners of his soul, because nothing had kept this effect from reaching him. If the shut portal was no barrier, then what safety did he have?

  Sooner or later, ready or not, he was going into the past.

  Chapter 6

  Curled inside the bubble of protective shielding like a chick inside its egg…faces and voices coming and going, fragments of comprehension laced between spans of madness when the time stream reached for him and only the thin barrier of technology kept him safe.

  “Noel, we’ve managed to unravel some of the equations. There’s a chance of getting the portal opened and back under control. Of course we’ll have to wait until a distortion occurs before we can try to activate. It’s risky…”

  “Noel, your LOC has been reprogrammed. The parameters are very clearly defined. There’ll be no problems this time.”

  “Noel, as soon as you find Leon, you will have three days in your time to get this LOC on him. As soon as you do, he’ll be recalled. That will trigger your recall sequence, and we’ll be able to bring you both back at the same instant. That is…if we have the Time Computer fully operable by then. It’s only fifty-two minutes, more or less, on our side to get it right.”

  Noel lay at the bottom of the bubble, curled up against the constant shivering and sporadic cramps of pain. He listened to their voices but could not always answer. They were all working hard on his behalf and it troubled him that he could not express his gratitude. More and more he seemed to be in a dream, as though he had been implanted with head chips. It was a foggy place where reality and other time slipped side by side, interchanging without warning, one or the other becoming incomprehensible or clear at any given moment. He understood now what had driven Trojan insane. This was the madness, this being caught between times, unable to be in either place. They had brought Trojan’s body back through the distortion, but his mind still lay trapped. Did they understand? They were prepping Noel to return to his last point of travel. Would they return Trojan to his last visit coordinates as well?

  “Noel, time for more conditioning,” said Dr. Ellis’s voice. “These are subcutaneous implants. Your translator receiver and immunizations. They’ll hurt a little.”

  The burning sensation in his forearm was far away. Noel turned his head, trying to look at her.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” she said, her voice warm with care and sympathy. “It won’t hurt long.”

  “Send Trojan back,” he said, focusing all his will on those three vital words. “Send…him back.”

  She patted his shoulder and closed the bubble. “Rest a while now. They’ll be ready soon.”

  He frowned, curling himself up tighter. Had she heard him? Had he even managed to speak aloud? He had to make them understand.

  “Ellis,” he whispered. “Ellis!”

  But the babble of incomprehensible sound, the ghostly voices and shrieks of things not understood, gnawed upon the fringes of his mind. He lay still, refusing to surrender to the flash of shapes and color that were all of the wrong size and perspective, too fast, too frightening to follow.

  The lid of the bubb
le opened, letting in a rush of lab-scented air. Blinking against the dazzling light, Noel struggled up, damp and dazed like something newborn.

  They lifted him out and garbed him in breeches, coat, and buckled shoes with tall heels. His LOC was fastened to his left wrist. Leon’s LOC was fastened to his right. They gave him a sword and a pistol and a plumed tricorn hat.

  “There’s a packet of food in your pocket for when you arrive,” said someone. “Eat it all immediately. It’s high carb and packed with special nutrients to get you over any exhaustive side effects of travel.”

  The old man had a familiar face, but Noel could put no name to him. He looked around at the others, and could not remember their names, either.

  “You think he’s getting this?” asked the gloomy, dark-faced man. He was unshaven, and his eyes were red rimmed with fatigue. They all looked tired.

  The blond woman came to Noel. Her face was like an angel’s; her spun-gold hair gleamed under the lights. She ran a scanner over him, peered closely into his eyes, and gave her head a slight shake. “I can’t tell. His brain wave patterns have altered too much. They’re getting closer and closer to Heitz’s all the time.”

  “Then we’re doing all this for nothing. Risking the equipment, risking our careers by going against Rugle’s orders, for nothing.”

  Their talk went on, circling Noel, but he stopped listening to it. Tremors shook in his hands. He lifted them, curling and uncurling his fingers, aware in some dim periphery of his brain that there was significance to this particular discomfort.

  “He’s shaking,” said the woman.

  “Right. It’s coming then. Open the portal.”

  The words themselves had no meaning, yet something in Noel understood. He sat upright on the table and turned to face the metal doors now spiraling open. Beyond them…beyond them should have been a gray mist, a wonder undescribable.

  But there was nothing. Just darkness, empty and unremarkable.

  Noel stared at it, blinking slowly, the unnatural cold creeping by relentless degrees through his body.

  “Powering up…computer coming on-line.”