“What’s that?”
“It’s basically just the reverse of how you got us aboard. If we can get close enough to the island for one of us to swim ashore without running aground, we can jump back and take the rest of the group off by anchor. It’s a whole lot easier to sneak one person ashore than ten.”
I consider what he’s saying. “I’d have to be one of the ones to go. My objective was here on the ship. There’re no gravitites in it, so it won’t make the jump.”
“Mine either,” Ivan says. He holds up a small wooden box of the sort that might hold tobacco or a handful of cigars. He must have found time to search it out below decks.
“Okay,” Jettison explains. “So a few of us go overboard as we near the shore, taking the objectives and an anchor for getting back to the ship. We find a good spot for the anchor and bring the others over in a group. The ship can keep sailing and the Spanish never have to be the wiser. You can get to the gate, and the rest of us will be able to find our objectives without getting shot.”
I work it through in my head. “Yeah, makes sense. Is that okay with the rest of you guys?”
Genesis and Mayra both nod immediately. Genesis still has her neck bandaged so I can see why she wouldn’t want to be diving into the Caribbean, even under less violent circumstances. Jonah and Viznir agree as well. Jettison volunteers to be the one to take Ivan’s objective ashore, but one of the Ivans shakes his head. “I’ll trust myself with this.” He throws an arm around his other self and grins.
I call for Pims and hand off the wheel duties. “Steer us just close enough to the shore that you won’t run aground, then take the ship out to sea. From there we’ll consider your obligation met.”
“Aye, sir. And the other ones?” He looks to where Cliff and Jettison are piling our belongings.
“They’ll be gone, too.”
The relief on Pims’ face is immediately evident. He takes a firm grip on the wheel and I leave him alone on the poop deck. The cannons from the Spanish ship still flash periodically in the darkness, but the balls are splashing farther and farther behind us. The ship can only fire at us with guns mounted to its bow as it gives chase. With all of our lights doused and only moonlight to aim by, they’re having a hard time landing anything close. I duck into the captain’s cabin and change from my jeans into my athletic shorts and stuff my shoes and other belongings into my pack. The one exception is a bit of rope that I use to secure the captain’s prized pistol around my neck. It seems almost a crime to be diving into the saltwater with such an elaborate piece of workmanship, but my qualms are easily quelled by the sound of the cannons booming in the distance. Ready to be off this ship as soon as possible.
Jettison and one of the Ivans have stripped down to what they are able to swim in. Ivan has his cigarette box strapped to his waist. He’s ditched his other gear and is standing in his boxers and a tank top. While Jettison and I are bare-chested, he still has his pistol latched into its shoulder holster, giving an air of seriousness to his otherwise humorous outfit. The other Ivan slaps him on the ass and winks before joining the others gathered around a wooden batten that Jettison has chosen for an anchor. Viznir looks unhappy about being separated from me, but I notice he’s been careful to avoid any suggestion that he should swim too. He quietly joins the others near the main mast and prepares for departure.
Jettison puts a hand to my shoulder and faces us aft so we can’t see the circle of our friends. Ivan lines up next to us with his arms crossed and faces the captain’s quarters also. They both are clearly familiar with this simple method of avoiding paradoxes. I even do my best not to listen for the arrival of one of us from the future, but the sudden swearing of one of the sailors in the rigging cues me to the fact that someone has likely arrived. I can see Jettison’s grin out of the corner of my eye. He is clearly enjoying the theatrics and the reactions of our audience. The gasping and swearing suddenly becomes universal throughout the deck and I finally turn around. Sure enough, the area around the wooden batten has been vacated.
A couple pirates near the bow are gaping open-mouthed and unabashed, but when I catch their stares, they quickly scramble to look busy. Jettison secures the piece of batten with a bit of cord around his neck and follows me up to the poop deck.
“That ought to give them enough tales for the pub for life, eh?” He smiles at me. “It’s one of my favorite parts of being a time traveler. Every once in a while you get to totally blow people’s minds.”
Pims guides the ship between a pair of smaller islands with much more ease than I would have done. He clearly knows the waters and our hull depth well. As we round the western end of our island, he points to a bit of beach. “This is as close as I can come, but it’s mild currents between here and the shore.”
“Thank you, Pims. You’ve been a great service.” I start to reach my hand toward him, but he flinches, reminding me that I’m still something otherworldly in his mind. I merely nod at him instead. “All right, keep her steady and we’ll go over the side.”
Jettison and I rejoin Ivan near the starboard gunwale.
“You guys ready for this?
Jettison is smiling. “Absolutely.” As soon as we get abeam the beach, he swings his legs over the edge of the gunwale, pushes off the side of the ship, and dives cleanly into the water. Ivan and I both climb onto the gunwale next. I’m about to jump, when I get distracted by a man walking out of the hallway near the captain’s cabin. He’s dressed like a sailor but I don’t remember him being on the beach. He’s carrying a cutlass, letting it swing idly beside his right leg, but walking briskly toward us. There is something familiar about his sharp features. I pause to see if he has something to say to us. Ivan, seated on the gunwale with his face toward me, pauses and turns to see what I’m looking at. The man says nothing, but raises his cutlass and drives it directly through Ivan’s ribs.
I’m too stunned to speak. Ivan grimaces and lets out a surprised curse. The man thrusts the cutlass forward and Ivan falls, plummeting overboard into the waves. The man merely stares at me with cold gray eyes, the cutlass shiny with blood. My brain finally registers the danger and I dive, crashing face first into the water with my heart pounding. I surface only a few yards away from Ivan’s prone form. I swim to him and roll him over, getting an arm under his head and keeping his face clear of the waves. He’s unconscious. The moonlight glints on his wet gun. I yank the pistol free from its holster and fire wildly at the gunwale where I last saw the attacker. I sink beneath the waves and have to kick hard to get Ivan and myself back to the surface.
“You son of a bitch!” I fire a couple more shots, but the ship has moved on in the darkness and, even if the man were still there, I can’t see him. I hear splashing behind me and then Jettison is there.
“What happened?”
I don’t have any words, so Jettison helps me keep Ivan afloat and we work together to pull him toward shore. I abandon the gun to the waves, but let the anger drive my muscles, kicking and reaching farther and harder with each breath. It’s at least three hundred meters to shore, and when we finally drag Ivan onto the beach, Jettison and I are both spent and breathing hard. Ivan isn’t breathing.
Jettison checks for a pulse, but shakes his head. I start chest compressions while Jettison does mouth to mouth. We work for ten minutes with no result. I finally accept the hopelessness of our situation. We’re on a deserted island a thousand miles and three hundred years away from anyone who could save him. I collapse onto my back in the sand.
Jettison rolls Ivan’s body onto its side and examines the wound. “How did this happen? Who did this?”
“I don’t know who he is. But I’ve seen him before.”
“A pirate?”
“He wasn’t a pirate. I recognized his face. I saw him in New York. He was a homeless man.”
“A time traveler.” Jettison lets Ivan’s body rest back in the sand.
“Yes.”
Jettison gets to his feet and fingers the wooden batten
around his neck. “We have to get the others.” He stumbles briefly then steadies himself and walks toward the tree line. “I’ll find an open space. Stay with Ivan.”
Ivan’s eyes are partially open, staring at the stars. I let my head roll back in the sand and stare at them too.
Only a few moments later, I hear voices. They are cheerful and chatty at first, but then I hear Jettison’s voice among them. The babble stops and there is only the thudding of footsteps on sand as Ivan runs to his own dead body. His stoic expression cracks and his body shudders. He scoops the fallen corpse into his arms and sobs. I get to my feet and walk toward the trees. I can’t take it. Genesis puts her hand out and grazes my arm with her fingertips as I pass by.
I stare at the trees in silence for a few moments, then begin brushing the sand from my hair and body and neck with increasing ferocity. I stop when Cliff lays a hand on my shoulder.
“Travers. What happened?”
“He was murdered.” I picture the man’s cold expression as he stared at me, the cutlass dripping. “Same as Charlie.” The connection isn’t made in my mind until the words are out of my mouth, but as soon as I speak them, I recognize them to be true. “Someone is murdering racers.”
“Someone is murdering guides,” Cliff says.
I look back to the Ivans and see the race bracelet around the wrist of the man cradling his fallen lover. As much as the relationship still seems bizarre in my mind, the pain is raw and primal on Ivan’s face. The expression of catastrophic loss is universal.
In the moonlight on that unknown shore, I witness my first time traveler funeral. We gather at the water’s edge and Ivan’s body is laid in the waves, the most inconstant of anchors. Ivan gently kisses the lips of his lover before activating the timepiece around the other Ivan’s wrist. The body vanishes, transported to who-knows-where, gravitites connecting with an unknowable number of water droplets and scattering bits of him to any of a million destinations. It’s a harsh but vaguely poetic fate. I stare at the vacant waves and think of Mym.
As the eight of us follow the dog into the woods, my mind still lingers with thoughts of her. Is she running? Has she been caught by whoever is hunting her? Does she even know she’s in danger? I try not to let the doubts overwhelm me. I console myself with the reality that time is irrelevant now. If ever I get the chance to tell her, I can warn her in time. If ever I get the opportunity to save her from this farce of an accusation, it could already be done. She may already be exonerated. It’s just a matter of time. And surviving.
“Chronometers are electric. Sure, they can polarize gravitites and plunge you through a wormhole—but not without juice. Bring the charger.”–Journal of Dr. Harold Quickly, 1967
Chapter 17
A subtle silence builds during the walk to the time gate. Ivan, Viznir and I part ways with the others as they go in search of their objectives. I keep up the silence out of respect for Ivan’s grief, but when we reach the repository, it’s he who breaks it.
“I think I stay for now.”
“You’re not coming through?” I pause with my hand on the lid of the repository. The committee has seen fit to model it after a decrepit treasure chest.
“I will come.” Ivan is staring into the woods with his fingers resting on the cigar box tied to his waistband. “But not yet.”
The hint of anger in his eyes makes me wonder if there’s a motive of revenge to his lingering.
“Ivan, I don’t know that you’ll find him. I think he was a time traveler. I don’t know who he is, but I’m almost positive I’ve seen him before.”
Ivan’s eyes drift back to my face and he blinks as if waking from a daydream. “It is not matter. I think I stay a little longer.” He reaches out a hand to shake mine. “I will meet you later, Benjamin.”
“Okay. It was good getting to know you. I’m so sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you.”
I wrestle with the urge to ask the next question, then finally my curiosity gets the best of me. “Ivan, I don’t mean any offense by asking, and I’m sorry I’m not more knowledgeable about things like this, but Ivan—the other Ivan I mean—he was you. So . . . couldn’t you go back and, I don’t know, find yourself again? Will you do that?”
Ivan smiles wanly but shakes his head. “Ivan has been with me since we were boys. He was my friend. We saw world together, but different. He was him. I am me. There can be no other him.”
“I guess that makes sense.”
“Goodbye, Ben. I will see you again soon.” Ivan turns and wanders into the woods, his movements quiet and slow, as though he has no destination. I watch his silhouette disappear between the trees before turning back to the task at hand.
I take time to change back into my jeans and my last clean T-shirt. This one has a picture of Gizmo from Gremlins on it, one of my acquisitions from the 1980s. I can’t imagine it will be appropriate in any other era, but it will have to do. I straighten the pack on my shoulders and deposit the pistol in the repository. My bracelet blinks the number five.
Not bad.
Viznir leads the way through the shimmering doorway that springs up between a pair of pines. I step from humid Caribbean darkness into lightly overcast sun. I squint from the change of light and scan the world around me. An expansive prairie of withered grasses stretches to dusty and distant rock ridges. Viznir is standing at the edge of a wooden platform. My first few steps bring the rails into view beyond him. The platform belongs to a wooden train station which consists of little more than a ramp for unloading goods and a stark room with a few mismatched benches. A wind chime made of tin cans dangles from the overhang at the extreme end of the platform, patiently awaiting the first hint of a breeze.
“I was hoping we’d get another rendezvous.” I frown at the barren landscape. “We finished two levels.” I have no idea how many hours our day has been, but the vacant feeling in my stomach reminds me it’s been a long time since a meal.
“The rendezvous will get farther apart,” Viznir says. “We’re not even officially guaranteed to get them. I think it’s more of a tradition.”
I take a long drink from my canteen to appease my stomach, then walk to the end of the platform and drop the few feet into the weeds. I poke my head around the corner of the ticket office. The room is empty, but a slate has been hung in the window advertising the next train’s arrival time. The train station belongs to a ramshackle village that is eerily desolate. As Viznir and I stare down the empty dirt road between the clapboard buildings, I half expect a tumbleweed to roll by.
It takes a few minutes to find our objective boxes. Some diligent searching reveals that they’ve been hung under the raised train platform. I’m obligated to get on my hands and knees and crawl behind a bit of lattice that’s precariously held together by desiccated vines. When I reemerge from the darkness under the platform, I’ve been adorned with several spider webs. I blow the dust off the top of my objective box and pop it open. My map shows a town called Pucketsville situated near a rail line that terminates at a mining camp in the hills. The mine lies to the north, but my objective is in the valley west of town. There is an illustration of a clown and the description reads “Barnaby McSweeny’s Traveling Circus.” I spit a bit of cobweb out of my mouth and hand the map to Viznir. He starts to scan it, then pauses. “Oh God. Clowns? I hate clowns.”
An old man is seated in a rocking chair on a porch midway down the main street. Other than a pair of stray dogs, he’s the only living creature we’ve seen.
“Excuse me, sir? Can you tell us what happened to everybody?” I pause with a hand on his shabby picket fence.
The man rouses from the edge of sleep and clears his throat. “Oh, you won’t find many folk in town today. The ones that aren’t working the mines are all out at the fairground. Circus is in town!” His grin is toothless but exuberant. “I’d be there myself, but I’ve got the gout.” He reaches for his cane and thumps the porch with it for emphasis. He squints at the street, and I realize he
’s mostly blind. “What are you fellows doing in town today? I don’t think I’ve seen you round here before.”
“Just passing through, but we may check out the circus.”
“Oh, you must do that. Yes, sir. They’ve got a man who eats fire, and I hear tell they have a woman who does that eastern dancing from the O-ri-ant.”
“We’ll be sure to check that out.”
“You have to see the monster, too.”
“Monster?”
“Oh yes! Eight arms and six legs, and half a dozen heads from what I hear. A regular demon of Hell itself. It’ll cost you a half dollar to see it, though. They say they found him in the deepest jungles of Australia. Or maybe it was Asia. I can’t recall. You check the handbill posted outside the market. You’ll see I’m not telling tales.”
“Thank you, sir. We’ll be sure to do that.”
On the way out of town we pass several flyers advertising the circus. All of them promise amazing sights, from exotic animals to tattooed women. One even advertises a werewolf, though the prized citizen of the “Freak Show” is clearly “The Monster.” It’s advertised as part man, part demon, and the drawing on the posters gives me pause. It indeed shows a multi-headed beast, with too many arms and legs to be believed.
Viznir and I follow the road out of town, but cut across an open field once we get the circus tents in sight. I pause and consider the view. Viznir walks past me a few steps before stopping.
“What is it?”
I weigh my possible answers a moment before responding with the truth. “I dreamed about this place. It wasn’t exactly the same, but I dreamed this.”
Viznir considers the waving flags and distant bustling crowds. “What happened when we got there?”
I sigh and step past him. “No idea. I didn’t get to see that part.” I’m walking past what must be the fiftieth shriveled up shrub when a sharp pain in my shin makes me stagger. “What the—”
“Son of a bitch!” Viznir fumbles for his pistol.
In Times Like These: eBook Boxed Set: Books 1-3 Page 69
