OTHER BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR

Stark's War
STARK'S WAR
STARK'S COMMAND
STARK'S CRUSADE

Paul Sinclair: JAG In Space
A JUST DETERMINATION
BURDEN OF PROOF
RULE OF EVIDENCE
AGAINST ALL ENEMIES

The Lost Fleet
DAUNTLESS
FEARLESS
COURAGEOUS
VALIANT
RELENTLESS
VICTORIOUS

The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier
DREADNAUGHT
INVINCIBLE
GUARDIAN

The Lost Stars
TARNISHED KNIGHT
PERILOUS SHIELD

Short Story Collections
SWORDS AND SADDLES*
BORROWED TIME*
AD ASTRA*

*available as e-books from Jabberwocky Literary Agency

Borrowed Time: Short Stories

Copyright © 2013 by John G. Hemry
Cover art by Tiger Bright Studios.

Collected for the first time in this e-book by Jabberwocky Literary Agency, Inc. in 2013

ISBN 978-1-625670-168

PUBLICATION HISTORY

"Small Moments in Time"
first published in Analog (December, 2004)

"Where Does a Circle Begin"
first published in Amazing Stories (Fall, 1999)

"Working on Borrowed Time"
first published in Analog (June, 2005)

"These are the Times"
first published in Analog (November, 2007)

"Joan"
first published in Analog (November, 2009)

"Betty Knox and Dictionary Jones in The Mystery of the Missing Teenage Anachronisms"
first published in Analog (March, 2011)

"Crow's Feat"
first published in Analog (November, 2000)

Author's Note on Small Moments in Time

Until AIDS, the Spanish Influenza was the worst plague of modern times. It also had a somewhat odd origin and an odd pattern of who it killed. Unlike most illnesses that are dangerous for the old and weak, the Spanish Influenza killed those who were the strongest. Young adults were at the most risk. Modern science has determined that was because the Spanish influenza killed by turning the human body’s own immune system against it. The stronger the immune system, the more at risk you were. Now, in recent decades, official rates for all sorts of auto-immune diseases where the immune system attacks the body have been rising dramatically. The reasons for this remain unknown, but what it has in common with the Spanish influenza is the paradox that a strong immune system can be the human body’s worst enemy. As a result, in this story when a time traveler gets involved in the Spanish Influenza, he faces the most difficult choice imaginable.

Small Moments in Time

The odd truth of working as a Temporal Interventionist is that some there and thens are better than others. History books make the past sound like one thrilling event after another. But for every Shoot Out at the OK Corral moment of excitement, there’s days, weeks, months and years of people just doing the things that people have to do. Things important enough to keep them alive and their society functioning. Plenty of the all-too-usual human drama, but not the stuff of great historical drama. Most people don’t believe that when I tell them, though.

I leaned against the window frame, squinting against a dry, hot wind blowing across the Kansas prairie and into my face, bringing the gritty taste of fine dust into my mouth whenever I licked my lips. Sometimes I think about the fact that the dust might literally have once been part of someone I knew in another long ago there and then. Usually, I try not to think about that, but something about the apparently endless prairie and the seemingly endless wind brought it to mind now, along with memories of the Earps and their brief moment in another western town where the wind had always seemed to be blowing hard.

The thin curtain drawn back from the hotel window fluttered in that wind. From my second story room, I could see down the main drag of Junction City, Kansas circa July, 1918 A.D. Such as it was. Lots of wood structures, some brick and some sandstone block construction, primitive internal combustion-driven automobiles contending for space on the road with horse-drawn wagons, and a few clouds in a faded blue sky as yet contaminated mainly only by that damned dust.

A cluster of men wearing drab military uniforms came around a corner, offering a small reminder of the hosts currently grinding each other into the bloody mud of Europe, just as they’d been doing for the last four years here and now. I knew that particular war was finally drawing to a close. If I wanted to, I could find out the names of the soldiers I saw and learn which of them would die before the end of the war. I didn’t want to.

Instead, I gathered up the coat local fashion demanded I wear despite the weather, wished I could do without the neck-tie local fashion likewise demanded, took a drink of the lukewarm water remaining in the pitcher the room boasted instead of a sink, and headed for one of the local grain suppliers.

I had to walk into the sun to get there, but local fashion at least had the wisdom to also demand hats with brims, so I was protected from the worst of the glare. “Jeannie. Confirm my directions to this place.”

“One more block down, then two blocks south. Just before the railroad track.”

“Thanks.” Jeannie, my implanted personal assistant, had a wonderful navigational package. A female friend of mine had once remarked that my having Jeannie inside me was perfect for a man, since it meant I could ask for directions without anyone knowing I’d done so.

The grain supply office was filled with the musty smell of a different kind of dust, this from the endless bushels of wheat which passed through the office or the nearby grain elevators. I could see the grain dust as well, clouds of it floating gently in the air currents, as I walked down the line of sample bags, looking for specific seeds for wheat variants which had gone extinct between now and the future I came from. A lot of people needed those extinct plant seeds, and needed them enough to be willing to pay the large sum needed to bring me to Kansas in the early years of the twentieth century.

I found a couple of wheat varieties listed among the requirements Jeannie kept track of for me, as well as a bonus rye variant, and purchased sample bags with some of the better-than-real counterfeit local currency I’d outfitted myself with. Such are the exciting adventures of a Temporal Interventionist.

I stopped by the town’s other major grain supplier and found a few more samples I needed, then walked back to the hotel to drop off my purchases and have lunch there. Lunch turned out to be fried chicken. Again. But at least it wasn’t chicken and dumplings. Again. The iced tea made up for it, though. Downtime farmers know how to make iced tea like nobody else.

Conversation among the other hotel guests was mostly about The War, of course. One of the couples were put out because they couldn’t see their son, who was at the big Army base nearby. I shrugged it off as the usual sort of wartime security, until they said the word ‘quarantine.’

Downtime diseases make any Temporal Interventionist nervous. You can’t develop an immunity or sometimes even get a vaccination for some bug which died out centuries before you were born. Even if decent medical records existed for the period, those records were only as good as the medical theory and technology of the time. And primitive armies were notorious for attracting epidemics. The little nano-bugs which helped out my immune system could deal with a lot of things, but you never knew just how virulent something unknown might turn out to be. I hurriedly finished my lunch and headed for my next objective in town, determined to get my work done and then out of here and now as fast as possible.

“Jeannie, did any serious disease outbreaks take place in or near Junction City, Kansas in 1918 A.D.?”

“Only the Spanish Influenza.”

Anyone watching would’ve seen me jerk with momentary shock. “Is that all?” It’d been a long time since the Spanish Influenza when I’d first learned about it, but it still held the dubious record of being the deadliest epidemic in history, which was why I immediately recognized the term. “Here?”

“It apparently originated in Camp Funston.”

“I thought the big Army installation here was named Fort Riley.”

“That’s correct.”

I felt briefly reassured, then remembered why ‘artificial intelligence’ is still a disparaging term. “Is Camp Funston related in any way to Fort Riley?”

“Camp Funston is located on Fort Riley.”

“Thanks for elaborating. How serious is the threat at this time and place?”

Jeannie, as always, sounded authoritative and calm. “Very limited, which is why there is no disease warning flagged on this here and now. The early phases of the Spanish Influenza were widespread in some areas but had low mortality rates consistent with usual influenza outbreaks.”

That was reassuring. “When did the later phases begin?”

“August, 1918.”

Plenty of time to work with. Still . . . “Here?”

“No. Simultaneous or near-simultaneous outbreaks of a much more deadly variant of Spanish Influenza will erupt in Freetown in Sierra Leone, Brest in France, and Boston in the United States.”

That was even more reassuring, but also odd. “Simultaneous or near-simultaneous outbreaks, in three different widely-dispersed areas, of the same deadly variant?”

“Yes.”

“How could . . . how did that happen?”

“Insufficient data.”

“Just in your database, or insufficient data, period?”

“My database contains all information available in our time of origin.”

Very odd. But I’d just have to live with that oddity. I wasn’t surprised no one had yet made jumps into downtime to investigate whatever had brought about the Spanish Influenza’s multiple simultaneous deadly assaults. Jumping into plague zones isn’t the smartest thing to do. In the case of the Spanish Influenza, for which I confirmed with Jeannie a specific vaccine had never been developed, it could be suicidal. And I was only here and now to collect extinct seeds, not to try to stick my nose into dangerous and unresolved medical mysteries.

But I’d only made half a block toward my next destination when I got diverted anyway.

“I’m detecting a nearby temporal field,” Jeannie advised.

Another jumper here and now? There’s not that much demand for extinct seeds. “Coming or going?”

“From the temporal jump field echo it’s an arrival.”

I looked around, trying to remember what the street had looked like moments before and whether there was an extra person suddenly out there now. Instead, I saw a rapidly forming crowd peering down at someone or something on the ground across the street from me. I weighed the term ‘Spanish Influenza’ and the risks of mixing with people against the chance that the crowd might be forming around a fellow Temporal Interventionist, perhaps one who’d been injured.

By the time I got there, though, the crowd was breaking up. A pale, skinny man was being helped to his feet by a stout character. Jeannie did a quick visual diagnosis. “Seizure disorder.”

“The pale guy just had a seizure?”

“Correct.”

“I guess that rules him out as the person who jumped in.” I meant the comment to be sardonic, but Jeannie surprised me.

“He is carrying a jump mechanism. The fading field signature indicates it is a primitive design.”

I took another look. The man was indeed skinny, with the look of someone who’d never gotten enough to eat. He was tall, though, like someone who ought to be very big and healthy if he wasn’t starving. The skin seemed paler than a seizure could account for, and I wondered if he was anemic as well. His eyes blinked, watering heavily, and the man sneezed violently several times before he fished a handkerchief out of one pocket and held it over his mouth and nose.

“His clothes appear to be original to here and now,” Jeannie added. “Their fabric has indications it has aged substantially since its manufacture.”

The sick man in the old clothes smiled weakly at his helper, waving off further offers of assistance, and stumbled away, one hand carrying some sort of valise. If the jump mechanism was as primitive as Jeannie thought, it might in there instead of being an implant. I saw the jumper pause after several steps and look around in the fashion of someone who was unfamiliar with their surroundings. But as soon as his eyes fell on the same hotel where I was staying he headed that way as if he knew the place on sight. More strangeness. “Any idea when he’s from, Jeannie?”

“I cannot correlate the apparent age of the garments and his apparent ethnic mix with any specific uptime period which would account for his physical condition.”

“Maybe he’s from inside a closed loop.” Somewhen created by an attempted temporal intervention, and then choked off by a countervailing intervention, so it’d been but never been.

“A loop born of a late Twentieth Century full-scale nuclear war might correlate to his appearance and the apparent age of his garments.”

An ugly possibility, but that could certainly explain the man’s physical ailments. “Why would someone from that kind of loop come here?”

“Insufficient data.”

A refugee fleeing a horrible future and seeking what he thought was an idyllic rural past? That wasn’t impossible, but if so I needed to see what he was up to. An amateur messing around in my history might create any number of inadvertent interventions with big consequences down the road. If he did intend some deliberate intervention, now was an important period, but he’d picked an odd here to do it. All the Temporal Interventionists I knew of in 1918 A.D. were working in Europe or in national capitals. I’d picked 1918 myself only because the year was so well mapped for temporal jumps. Like me, though, this guy had jumped into a here where nothing of great importance had ever happened.

Except the start of the Spanish Influenza. But that’d apparently already been underway for a while. “When were the first reports of the Spanish Influenza?”

“March, 1918 A.D.”

“And he just got here. So he couldn’t have brought that germ with him and introduced it by accident.”

“Not unless he had an earlier or subsequent jump to the earlier date,” Jeannie reminded me.

Oh, yeah. But that made very little sense. Why jump back a few months, or forward a few months, in a small Kansas town in 1918? Even if jumps weren’t extremely expensive, they also involve physical stress, and my unknown traveler obviously wasn’t up to the stress of pleasure trips. Nor did wherever and whenever he came from seem wealthy enough to pony up money for jumps that frequent.

I sat down on a handy bench and thought about it, my eyes on the door to the hotel. I was still thinking when the jumper came out again, his handkerchief once again over his nose and mouth, and walked unsteadily down the street. The other hand still held the valise. I waited until he’d gone a good distance past me and then followed, ambling along as if I were talking a pleasure walk in the Kansas heat and wind and dust.

“He appears to be headed toward Fort Riley,” Jeannie advised.

“Why is an obviously physically frail man heading for the place where a lot of sick people are located?”

“Insufficient data.”

“Somehow I knew you’d say that.”

The swelling of Fort Riley’s population due to the demands of the so-called Great War had resulted in a fairly steady stream of transit between Junction City and the not-too-distant main entrance to the Fort, which far from being a stereotypical wooden stockade turned out to actually be a pretty large expanse of northeast Kansas dotted with military facilities and housing.

The jumper didn’t try to enter, instead mingling with those outside the gate. I wandered close enough to hear him asking about the epidemic. How many were sick? Had many died? Were people worried? Understandable questions, which attracted no special interest from the locals. Their replies were fairly reassuring, speaking of not as many sick as before, not too many dead, and a general feeling that the epidemic was winding down. After asking those same questions of numerous people, including soldiers heading on and off the Fort, and getting roughly the same answers from all of them, the jumper went back toward town. The whole process should’ve reassured me, except for the unmistakable depression the jumper radiated on the way back to Junction City. He didn’t seem to regard the information he’d acquired as good news.

The trip had clearly worn out the jumper, who stumbled back to the hotel. I waited for a few minutes after he’d entered, then went in myself and cornered the desk clerk. “Did a tall, skinny, pale-looking fellow just come in?”

The clerk nodded. “You just missed him. Goin’ to his room, I expect. Sickly fellow. I’d have thought he’d be better by now.”

“You’ve seen him before?”

“Yes, sir. He stayed here a few months back.”

“A few months?” I felt a chill that had nothing to do with the temperature.

“That’s right. Um, lessee, that’d have been . . . ” The clerk frowned, checked his ledger, then nodded. “February. Yes, sir. Checked in February the 26th and checked out March 5th.”

And the Spanish Influenza had first been noted around here in March. I faked a smile I didn’t feel. “That’s my friend, all right. What room did you say he was staying in?”

“I didn’t.” The clerk grinned at his own joke. “3B, sir.”

“Thank you.” Had the man jumped ahead a few months to avoid the disease he might’ve carried here? But if so, why had he seemed so morose after finding out at the Fort that the epidemic seemed to be under control? Depression over knowing he could’ve caused the deaths which had occurred already? I had too many questions to which Jeannie would only answer ‘insufficient data.’

I knocked firmly on the door to room 3B, waited a long minute, then knocked again in a way that conveyed I’d keep knocking all day if I had to do so. I heard sounds on the other side of the door, then it opened and the jumper looked cautiously out at me. “Yes?”

“Hi.” I shoved my way into the room, using some subtle unarmed fighting techniques that pushed my opponent off balance until I was inside. I shut the door and held it closed. “We need to talk.”

The jumper staggered back and held up his hands as if to ward me off. Seeing the extremities for the first time close-up, I could easily spot the swollen joints and twisted digits that marked severe arthritis. Was there anything this guy didn’t suffer from?

I stood still, spreading my own hands out at waist level, palms out. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Then why are you here?” His voice was raspy and weak. He seemed to be having trouble breathing. Asthma, too?

“I’m collecting seeds,” I informed him.

“What?”

“Really. But I’m not from here. Just like I know you’re not. And I’m not from now. Just like I know you’re not.”

It took a few moments for my statements to sink in. The man’s eyes grew bigger, then started watering heavily. He sneezed, staring at me. “You’ve been to the grain elevator?”

“Seed suppliers.”

“Uhhhh.” He staggered back again like I’d threatened him. “Wheat dust.”

Of course. “You’re allergic to wheat.” That could explain the malnutrition and anemia. The jumper stopped backing up when he reached the window, where the ever-present breeze blowing in would keep any grain dust I’d picked up from reaching him. “Do you mind telling me your name?”

“Call me John Smith.”
“Very funny.”

“That’s the only name you’re going to get.”

“Fine. Mr. Smith, I don’t know exactly when you’re from, but I have reason to believe you’ve brought a disease back to here and now.” Smith’s expression had closed down, revealing nothing. “On the Fort, Mr. Smith. I know you’re aware of it.” Smith nodded. “Why’d you make a jump from March to July? Did you think the epidemic would be over by then?” Smith didn’t answer, didn’t move. “Do they remember germ theory when you’re from?”

His face finally shifted expression, twisting into some sort of disbelief at my question. “We’re not primitive.”

“You’ve obviously suffered some . . . uh . . . problems.”

Smith grinned widely, as if I’d said something funny. “You’ve noticed that?” he rasped in that feeble voice.

“You need to go away. If you’re the vector causing this epidemic you need to isolate yourself. That’s not that hard around here. Stay there, until you’re sure you’re not a carrier.”

He nodded again. “Certainly.”

Liar. I didn’t need Jeannie’s analysis of his breathing and other external signs to know that. The answer, the agreement, had come too easily. “Why are you here? I want the truth.”

“I’m . . . seeking refuge.”

Another lie, I was certain. “A man allergic to wheat seeking refuge in twentieth century Kansas? A man with a lot of medical problems seeking refuge in a time when medicine was still very primitive?”

“I have my reasons.”

“Share them with me. Please. Or else.” I’d long ago learned that keeping threats vague allowed the recipients to imagine the worse thing they could envisage, which could easily be worse than anything I’d really do. But, if this deceitful idiot really was spreading what would become known as the Spanish Influenza, I had to bring him to his senses.

Smith took a step to one side, reaching out to grasp the handle of his valise. “Sorry,” he whispered, just about the time I remembered that the valise probably contained his jump mechanism. I hadn’t taken half a step toward him before Smith popped out of existence.

“He has jumped out of the temporal period,” Jeannie announced.

“Really?” I tamped down my irritation. “Which way did he go?”

“Uptime.”

“Can you estimate the length of the jump?”

“My calculations are very tentative, but based on the strength of the temporal pulse I would estimate the jump involved a chronological period of less than one month.”

One month. This was July. Next month was August. When three different locations would simultaneously or nearly-simultaneously experience outbreaks of a much more virulent strain of the Spanish Influenza. I remembered Smith’s unhappy reaction after he’d heard the epidemic appeared to be subsiding here and now. Maybe he hadn’t been depressed for the reasons I thought he had been. “He’s doing it on purpose. Whatever he introduced here in March isn’t doing the trick, so he’s going to set loose something a lot worse.”

Jeannie managed to follow my logic trail without having it spelled out for her. “There is a significant probability that you are correct.”

“Why would anyone do something like that?”

“Insufficient -.”

“Yeah. I know.” Smith didn’t look like a mass murderer, but I’d personally seen people as diverse as Caligula, Genghis Khan, and Adolph Hitler. None of them had ‘looked’ like mass murderers, either. I still don’t know what a mass-murderer looks like, and I’ve seen some of the worst. “Where were those three locations again? The one’s where the much more virulent strains of Spanish Influenza will pop up in August?” Jeannie recited them and I thought over my options. Boston was (for this now) a big city, filled with humans who had the same general ethnic appearance as Smith. My chances of finding Smith there were damned close to zero. Same for the city of Brest, in France.

But Freetown was another story. A much smaller town, and Smith would be a Caucasian in an African country. A Caucasian who’d be particularly easy to track down given his appearance and ailments. All I could do was hope Freetown was his first planned stop. “Jeannie, is my bank balance good enough to afford a jump to Freetown?”

“No.”

“Is my credit good enough -.”

“No.”

“Can I mortgage -.”

“No.”

“Are there -.”

“No.”

Jeannie didn’t have to read my mind. We’d had this sort of conversation before, on other jumps, and her learning subroutines were well up to the task of figuring out this was another case of my wishing for more than I could afford. I sighed and pulled out the small device that would manufacture as much local currency as I needed. Too bad the now I came from could detect the counterfeit stuff in a heartbeat. “Can here and now transportation get me to Freetown, Sierra Leone within three weeks?”

“Possibly.”

“Let’s get going.”

I bid adieu to the Kansas prairie, using plentiful amounts of local currency to bribe my way onto the next train east despite wartime travel restrictions. American east coast ports were full of ships, and a lot of those ships would be stopping at Sierra Leone. I’d wondered why it might be a good place to feed an epidemic, if that’s what Smith was doing, but it was in fact a very good place, indeed. Or a very bad place from a different perspective. Freetown was, now, the primary re-coaling site for ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean as well as those enroute other parts of the world. Just about every ship stopped there. If Smith intended having those ships take on a nasty new variant of the Spanish Influenza, it’d spread worldwide as fast as now transportation could possibly manage it.

Not that those coal-fired ships were as swift as I would’ve liked. Even while thanking providence that I didn’t have to worry about a wind-dependent sailing ship for this crossing of the Atlantic, I still had entirely too much time to think on my trip to Freetown. “Jeannie, how many people died in the Spanish Influenza epidemic?”

“Exact figures are not known.”

“What’s the estimate?”

“Twenty million dead is the low end. The high end is generally set at around forty million dead.”

Twenty million. At least. “What’s the now world population?”

“Of humans?”

“Yes.” What else? Artificial intelligence, again.

“Approximately 1.8 billion.”

I did some math in my head. One or two percent of the world’s population dead in the course of less than a year. Amazing, in a very bad way. “You told me we don’t have a vaccine for it. Why not?”

“The Spanish Influenza vanished after the epidemic. Attempts to analyze the disease from fragmentary samples in partially preserved victims were undertaken in the early twenty-first century, but were inconclusive.”

“Jeannie, diseases don’t just vanish. They may be driven to extinction by proper medical actions, like small-pox was, or go underground for a while like bubonic plague before they pop up again, but even I know diseases don’t simply vanish without a trace and never resurface.”

“The Spanish Influenza has never resurfaced.”

Every new thing I learned about the disease made it a greater anomaly. “Is there anything else unusual about it?”

“Clarify?”

“Anything else that made the Spanish Influenza different from other outbreaks of influenza?”

“Yes. Influenza viruses normally posed the greatest mortality risk to humans who were very young or very old.”

“The weakest, in other words.”

“Correct. However, the vast majority of those killed by the Spanish Influenza were in the age range of fifteen to forty chronological years.”

“Adults? Were they predisposed somehow?”

“Insufficient data. The only conclusions medical researchers have been able to affirm are that those who should’ve had the strongest immune systems were those who were most likely to be killed by the illness.”

I leaned on the rail of the ship, looking out across bright blue waves capped by spurts of white foam. Clouds of sooty ash from the ship’s smokestacks drifted slowly down into the water astern of us, disappearing without apparent trace. Little wonder now-humanity still believed the ocean was a limitless sink for pollution. “I guess in this case strong immune systems were a bad thi -.”

Jeannie waited a moment. “Clarify?”

“Jeannie. Auto-immune diseases. Like that Smith guy has. Those were caused by immune systems attacking their own bodies, right?”

“That is essentially correct.”

“So, asthma and arthritis and wheat allergies, they’re all signs of an, uh . . . ”

“Overactive immune system.”

“But the Spanish Influenza wasn’t an auto-immune disease?”

“The Spanish Influenza was very definitely a type of influenza.”

A type of influenza that seemed to have uncharacteristically targeted the strongest human immune systems. I had a lot of pieces, but none of them fit into a reasonable picture. I needed Smith. And the next time I had him cornered I’d wrap my hands around his scrawny neck to keep him from jumping away from me again.

I prowled Freetown for a good week after arriving, spreading around more bribes and descriptions of ‘John Smith,’ with promises of bigger pay-offs for anyone who found him for me. Eventually, somebody did.

I waited until I knew he was in the room he’d taken at a transients’ boarding house, then broke the door open and had one hand on his neck before he could move. “Hi. We have a conversation we need to finish.”

Smith stole a glance toward the valise he had no chance of reaching, then glared at me, his eyes very wide in that very pale face. “You have no idea what’s at stake.”

“So tell me.”

“What if I don’t?”

“Maybe I’ll break your neck, then take that bag of yours and drop it into the hottest boiler I can find so that anything inside it is totally incinerated.” Smith’s eyes widened even more and he trembled. Then his eyes swung all the way to one side and stuck there, while his body went limp except for his hands, which twitched over and over again.

“He is suffering a seizure,” Jeannie advised me.

“I figured that out.” I kept my hand on his neck. “Could he be faking?”

“It cannot be ruled out, but a seizure disorder such as he apparently suffers from can result in seizures being triggered by stress.”

Stress like someone breaking into his room and threatening to break his neck. I sighed, made sure Smith’s seizure didn’t seem life threatening, transferred my grip to his wrist, and waited.

Three minutes later Smith’s eyes regained their focus. He stared at me for a long moment before recognition entered them. “Happy?” he whispered.

“Knock it off. I have no sympathy for you.”

“Really?” He held up his free hand, the arthritic joints almost painful to even look at. “Do you see this? I can barely grasp my bag with it. Even then it hurts. It always hurts. Do you know what’s it like to always hurt?” Smith’s weak voice broke on the last word, as if he’d run out of air.

I kept my eyes away from the twisted ruin of Smith’s hand. “No. How does that justify what I think you’re doing?”

“You don’t understand.”

“Right. I don’t. So why don’t you and I take a paired-jump to my uptime where some people in authority can listen to you explain it all in detail?”

His eyes showed fear. “You can’t.”

“Yes, I can. And I’m about to.”

“No!” Smith tried to twist out of my grip, then started gasping for breath.

“Asthma attack,” Jeannie informed me. Smith’s free hand fumbled desperately in one pocket. I watched, trying to remain dispassionate, as he tried to bring out a small device and dropped it on the bed. “Aerosol medication delivery device,” Jeannie added.

I picked up the thing and offered it to Smith. He grasped it as carefully as his warped hand and labored breathing allowed, then sprayed something from it into his mouth. A few minutes after this labor his breathing was back to normal. For him. He stared at me, then nodded his chin to indicate the device. “Thank you.”

“I assume I may’ve just saved your life.”

“Yes. You may have.”

“Why did I do that?” I asked even though I knew the answer; because I still wasn’t certain of Smith’s guilt, and even if I were I didn’t have it in me to watch someone die if I could prevent it.

But Smith looked away as if embarrassed. “That’s a reasonable question, isn’t it? You’ve guessed what I’m doing.”

“Am I right?”

I couldn’t look directly into his eyes, but Smith’s face twisted with some emotion I couldn’t read. “Yes.”

“You’re deliberately spreading what will be known as the Spanish Influenza. You dropped off the first batch in Kansas in March, then checked on its progress in June and figured out it wasn’t lethal enough. So you’re here and now to spread a much more lethal variant.”

“That’s right.”

“I assume you’re doing this for a reason.”

He kept his face averted from me. “I need to change the future.”

I couldn’t help sighing. “A temporal intervention. That’s what the Spanish Influenza is/was?”

“Of course.” His raspy voice had sunk to a whisper, but I could still hear it clearly enough. “What else?”

“I’d wondered what natural disease would appear in three places at the same time, and then disappear without a trace.”

“Yes. It’ll disappear. We designed it that way. A genetically-engineered suicide instruction. What you call the Spanish Influenza virus will die out after one year.”

“Gee, that’s really humanitarian of you.”

My sarcasm got a reaction. Smith swung his head back and glared at me. “What the hell do you know about it? Humanitarian? You smug bastard! Have you ever heard of the auto-immune plagues?” I shook my head slowly and Smith trembled. “It works. You’re from . . . when?”

“None of your business.”

“After the twentieth century? After the twenty-first?”

I decided to tell him that much. “Yes.”

“God help me.” Smith let his gaze wander, staring straight up as if he could see through the roof. “We stopped it.”

“Stopped what?”

“The auto-immune plagues.” Smith held up his hand again, his eyes still staring up toward the heavens he couldn’t see. “We didn’t know what was happening. Sudden surges in the incidence of diseases and ailments. One hundred, two hundred, three hundred percent increases annually. Asthma. Hypothyroidism. Hyperthyroidism. Arthritis. Many other things. We didn’t understand, for the longest time. Too long. Finally, we knew. Evolution and science had failed us. Given us better and better immune systems as we survived the assaults of everything Earth could throw at us, while we developed vaccines to keep many natural ailments away from our ever-stronger, ever more vigilant immune systems.” He fell silent, breathing heavily.

“And?” I prompted.

“And? You fool. Don’t you see? Our immune systems were so strong, so vigilant. They didn’t have enough to do. They attacked us. More and more. Our digestive systems, our nervous systems, our joints, our cardiovascular systems. Everything. And we didn’t realize what was happening until literally millions were afflicted and more coming down by the day.”

“Millions?” I prompted.

“At first. By now it’s billions. Crippled and dying by the very immune systems which are supposed to protect them.” He looked back at me at last, his eyes wild. “Billions. Society is collapsing. Worldwide. Too many people sick in the most fundamental ways with no means of correcting their conditions. They just linger on, dying very slowly, needing more and more medical care. The only ‘cure’ we have is to suppress the immune system with some crude methods available to us. Do you know what happens when you do that? The auto-immune diseases go into remission but then you die from any number of ‘normal’ illnesses. We can’t win.” He gestured down his own body. “The medications I have to take to keep my immune system from causing me further agony themselves make me prone to seizures. How’s that for a bargain with the devil?”

I tried to read truth or falsehood in his eyes and couldn’t manage either. I asked Jeannie, instead, then relayed her information. “That sort of thing started to happen. In the very-late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. We developed treatments.”

“We didn’t! Don’t you understand? We bought you time.”

“Bought us . . . ?” The things I knew suddenly clicked into place. An influenza which killed those with the strongest immune systems. Killed them by the tens of millions. Leaving those with weaker immune systems still alive to pass that on to future generations. “Eugenics.”

“No! This isn’t about making humanity ‘better,’ whatever the hell that means. It’s about culling enough of the strongest immune systems from the human gene pool now in order to put off the onset of the auto-immune plagues for another one or two generations. Long enough for medical science to develop the means to diagnose and treat the disorders before they overwhelm the human race.”

I turned inward to Jeannie again. “Is what he’s saying plausible?”

“The scenario outlined does not fall outside the realm of possible historical outcomes.”

“Is it likely?”

“Insufficient data.”

Smith shuddered, and I looked down to see my hand gripping his arm so tightly that even on his thin frame the flesh was coming up in ridges between my fingers. “You want to be free to kill tens of millions of people.”

His gaze was defiant, now. “Yes. For the sake of billions of people in the future.”

“I’ve heard that argument before.”

“I’m sure you have.”

“Do you think this’ll save you? Produce an alternate version of you who’s healthy?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care. Not about me.” His eyes flicked away from mine, but I saw tears welling there. “The kids.” He was whispering again. “Dear God. The kids. They don’t even know. Don’t understand what’s twisting and crippling and killing them. They live and die in pain and we can’t even explain to them what’s happening. We can’t help them.”

It’s not supposed to be like this. When you meet someone bent on mass-murder they’re supposed to foam at the mouth and talk like a fanatic and their eyes are supposed to be filled with righteous certainty. And I was supposed to be absolutely certain that stopping those deaths was the right thing to do. Instead, I felt a sick uncertainty inside, and translated it into anger. “You’re just killing a few tens of millions of people for the kids, huh? You don’t plan on being better off yourself? Do you realize the odds that introducing this plague here and now could just cancel you out? Eliminate your ancestors so you never exist outside of the closed loop you’ve created? You’d never see that great new world you say you want to make.”

Smith’s mouth worked for a moment before he could answer, but I saw a strange glint of what I thought must be eagerness in his eyes. “This is more important than me.”

I closed my eyes to shut out the sight of his. There was only one thing I could be certain of. In my history, Smith’s mission had unquestionably succeeded in its immediate goal. The Spanish Influenza had killed its millions upon millions. If I stopped him, I’d be making a major temporal intervention with results I couldn’t predict on the future from that point forward. Would it be the hell Smith was describing? Or better? Or worse? There simply wasn’t any way for me to know. “How can I let you go out of here and kill tens of millions of people?” I finally said softly.

Smith kept his eyes fixed on mine. “For the sake of billions yet to come.”

“That kind of math is an abomination.”

“It’s also true. Dammit, do you think we wanted to do this?”

And somehow I knew then that Smith wasn’t lying. He might be delusional or crazy, but he believed what he was saying. Which left it up to me. Change my future, or let Smith kill on a scale unmatched in human history. Save tens of millions, maybe, and if Smith was to be believed condemn billions to awful fates. Take a chance that whatever my own intervention caused here would produce a future no worse than the one I knew of from this point forward. But that was impossible to know. Even aside from the group impact of so many humans living who’d died in my history, any one of those individual Spanish Influenza victims could’ve been another Hitler or another Einstein or another Martin Luther or another Julius Caesar. I looked at Smith again, letting my eyes stray down his ruined body. What kind of society would send somebody in his physical condition on a mission it regarded as so important? Only a society at the end of its rope.

I didn’t trust myself to speak. I just let my grip on Smith go and stepped back. Then I turned around and walked out. He might’ve called something after me. I couldn’t be sure and didn’t want to know.

Dawn found me staring across the anchorage of Freeport, thinking about the extra, unknown cargo those ships would be carrying soon. I looked down at my hands, didn’t see any blood there, and wondered why. Twenty million. At least. For the future good of the human race. For the future I knew, for better or worse, though it easily could’ve turned out a lot worse. I knew that, and when push came to shove I couldn’t risk a worse outcome in the future. Even though that future now felt forever tainted. Playing god isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. “Jeannie -.”

“Yes?”

“It’s nothing. I just finally figured something out.” That flash of eagerness in Smith’s eyes. He wasn’t afraid of being cancelled out of the future he was creating. No, he wanted to be cancelled out of that future. Wanted to cease to exist, so that even an alternate version of him who had no idea what ‘he’d’ done would suffer the ultimate penalty. I understood now. Because, unlike Smith, I’d have to live with the knowledge of what I’d done, or more correctly what I hadn’t done, for the rest of my life. “Work up a jump home, Jeannie. Let’s get out of here.” Before Smith’s influenza started its deadly march across the planet.

I hope the kids who would’ve been Smith’s came out okay.

Author's Note on Where Does a Circle Begin?

Whenever you think about time travel the issue of causality comes up. Causality just means that whatever caused something has to happen before the thing it causes. But if you can travel through time, the cause could happen after whatever it caused. Or so most thinking goes. But the physics equations that govern the situation work either way. If it turns out that time travel is possible, then it will mean people from the future will be able to cause events in the past. And if they can someday do that, it means our own past already reflects their meddling with history. You know, all of those astounding coincidences and baffling events that are explained away or just ignored in the history books. Like a certain event which has been called the most amazing technological coincidence in the history of warfare . . .

Where Does a Circle Begin?

A fine mist fell from a gun-metal sky, adding a soggy undertone to the chill that ate into me from the surrounding air. Mud sucked at my boots as I eased along the fence, listening for any sounds of human activity, especially the sloshing tramp of a sentry making rounds. I'd researched what a minié ball could do to human flesh and didn't want to gain any personal experience with humanity's current state-of-the-art in maiming-and-killing technology.

Still, you gotta do what you gotta do. Portsmouth, Virginia, on January 12th, 1862 certainly offered rotten weather and the threat of deadly violence, but it also likely held information of great importance to me and my client. I'd jumped into Richmond, the capital of the American Southern Confederacy, looking for clues to a possible Intervention and the biggest clue I'd found here-and-now pointed to this spot. A former U.S. warship, a frigate to be precise, had been burned to the waterline at Portsmouth in 1861 when U.S. government troops pulled out one step ahead of the Confederates. The useless wreck had later been towed out and sunk in Hampton Roads after the Union retook the city. Which made the here-and-now work around the frigate's hulk very interesting indeed. Why had Richmond ordered a Confederate shipyard to waste time on a burned-out ship? One more sailing ship, more or less, couldn't make any real difference in the war. It was an anomaly, something that didn't fit with the history I knew, and that made it number one on the list of things to check out.

Of course, I could just jump several years ahead and see What had happened When to help the Confederates, but then I'd be fighting history instead of working with it. Momentum helps a lot. Besides, Interventions snowballed. A small Intervention early on could produce major changes down the line, so that I'd waste effort fighting the big changes and still not identify or counter the original Intervention. The people I’d been hired to stop knew that as well as I did. So, here I was in 1862 getting rained on.

Despite its aged appearance, the fence around the shipyard felt pretty sturdy wherever I tried it. Bowing to the inevitable, I reached up and swung myself over, blessing the fact that barbed wire hadn't yet been invented. On the other side, the mud was even worse, a fact I confirmed by sinking into it up to my ankles when I landed. An assortment of two-story brick buildings loomed in the mist, surrounded by the usual piles of shipyard junk. Ahead, the Elizabeth River rolled sluggishly toward its junction with the branch of the Chesapeake Bay known as Hampton Roads. On the other side of the Elizabeth, the buildings of Norfolk were invisible in the gray drizzle.

The dry-docks were big ship-shaped holes lined with brick, set below the level of the river, protected from the water by huge gates. Given the nearly-non-existent status of the Confederate States Navy, it was hardly surprising that most were empty. One, though, had a separate fence around it, a fence obviously of newer vintage than that surrounding the shipyard as a whole. It also had lamps hung at more-or-less regular intervals and entirely too many sentries in gray cloaks pacing around, each huddled against the weather but obviously still alert for intruders.

"Jeannie, do you have a map of this place in 1862 on file?"

Nano-implants are beautiful things. Help's never far away. My Personal Assistant considered the question for a long moment before replying on her internal link: Sorry. That's not available.

"Blast." In a history replete with lost and destroyed records, even close-at-hand help could be of limited use. Okay, so I'd have do it the hard way. Picking the nearest brick building, I eased close, eyeballing the doors and windows for possible access and the presence of any more guards. Entry proved easy by prying open a wooden-framed window. I prowled down the halls, checking offices for signs of construction information and keeping my eyes and ears peeled for roving sentries.

The fourth office I tried held the jackpot. They weren't plans as such, but they were a whole list of requisitioned materials. From that list, it was pretty obvious what the Confederates were doing to that burned-out ship. It was also obvious that I had my work cut out for me. My opponents were well along to achieving a very effective Intervention that might well swing events decisively in the South's favor.

Fortunately for the North and my client, Confederate guards wore heavy shoes. I heard the tramp of footsteps coming down the hall outside. I'd been carrying my muddy boots since entering the building, but they'd dripped some on the way down the hall, leaving a scattered but incriminating trail. If the sentry happened to be careless or tired that wouldn't matter, but this one was neither. The steps halted near my door, then came again, much softer and slower.

The door swung slightly open, prodded by a sharp steel point at the end of a long three-sided bayonet stuck on the business end of a .69 caliber Enfield rifle. Very crude weapons by my standards, but at close range sophisticated technology isn’t a requirement for deadliness. Eventually, a middle-aged guy in a gray uniform stuck his nose in the room, swinging his rifle barrel from side-to-side as he surveyed the office. Shrugging, he brought the barrel up to a ready position and walked out, closing the door carefully behind him.

I relaxed, lowering my arms where they’d been poised to slam the door into the sentry if he’d tried to enter the room any further. It’s funny how often the old standing-behind-the-door trick works, but then maybe it wasn’t old in the here-and-now. I took another long look at the papers in the office, sizing up the opposition, while the footfalls headed away. Once they'd faded out, I eased back through the door, aiming for the window I'd jimmied on the way in.

"Haaalt!" The accent was very broad but the meaning unmistakable. I fixed an expression meant to convey confusion and fear on my face, then turned slowly, hands and arms dangling loosely. The guy with the rifle stood there, looking determined. He'd been smarter than I’d expected, faking a walk-away and then watching for anybody to show up. "Who're you?"

"Me? One of the builders. I'm working on the ship."

His face worked as the words soaked in, then lit with a sudden realization. "Hey! You're a Yankee!"

"No. Not at all. I was born on Io."

"Huh?" While he was still digesting that, I threw my left hand wide, drawing both his attention and rifle barrel that way, then pointed my right hand and fired the stun charge implanted along the bottom of the first digit. The crystal hit him low on the torso, drawing a surprised jerk as the sentry focused back on me, then the chemical hit and his eyes rolled up, his knees collapsed, and the rest of his body went limp as a Beta Cetian without an exoskeleton. I caught both falling man and falling weapon, not just because I needed the Karma but because I didn't need any loud crashes drawing anybody else's attention.

The stun charge would keep him out for about a half hour, after which he’d look and feel like he was suffering from a severe hangover. Since the stun crystal didn’t leave a noticeable entry wound, he’d hopefully have a hard time making anyone believe he’d been knocked out by an intruder instead of a bottle. I propped the guy up, weapon at his feet, and left him snoring away. "Sleep tight."

#

Richmond in 1861 had that ugly ambiance which seems to afflict every capital of every warring political entity. The streets were packed with smiling generals in crisp, pretty uniforms who'd probably never gone anywhere near a battle, a few other generals with grim expressions and outfits battered by hard use who looked eager to get out of town again, hordes of hearty men in suits who flashed money and talked about war contracts, and lots and lots of kids in new, ill-fitting battle garb who gawked at the big city while passing through on their way to the ironic immortality that death in battle brings. Money, glory and death walking hand-in-hand. I've never cared for it, but you couldn’t do jumps without running into that kind of scenario, and if I wanted to keep tabs on what the Confederates were doing, I had to be where they made their big decisions, which meant Richmond.

I'd made a short jump downtime so there'd be enough time to get my counter-Intervention going, but I wasn't sure yet what form it should take. Try to short-circuit the other Intervention before it happened, or whip up a counter-Intervention to stop it later? I could only afford a few more jumps on what my client had paid me, so I had to do things right the first time. For now I sat in a fancy restaurant with war-profiteer inflated prices, eating Smithfield ham while surrounded by Southern aristocrats all confidently predicting a short and victorious war. Funny how nobody ever predicts long and losing wars.

"Greetings, Citizen Holmes."

The anachronistic title brought me slowly around, staring poker-faced at a tall, slim and familiar figure in a here-and-now expensive suit. I pretended to smile. "Harry Dawson. Small world.” Harry came from a period about a century Uptime from my own, but we’d met when we were students and he came Downtime to study under one of my professors who’d become famous in the intervening decades. Unfortunately, Harry’s idea of studying was to suck up to a professor tighter than a lamprey to a shark, a method which worked just often enough to earn him a degree and my lasting dislike. “What brings you here-and-now?”

He smiled back just as falsely. “I was about to ask you the same thing.”

I shrugged. “Research. I wanted to check out the old Civil War battlefields.”

"There aren't any old Civil War battlefields yet. Some are new and the others haven’t been fought."

I scratched my head in mock puzzlement. “I wondered why so many locals were still running around in uniforms. I’ve got to talk to my Assistant about her scheduling of my jumps. So, why are you here?"

Harry flashed another smile notable for its lack of sincerity. “Good old, Mike. Always kidding.” He leaned forward, smirking. “I’m a T.I. Working for a big outfit. I guess they could recognize real talent.”

“Congratulations.” It wasn’t too hard to guess what kind of outfit would hire someone like Harry. Exactly the same sort of outfit working to ensure a Southern victory in the here-and-now.

Harry seated himself opposite me, playing idly with the heavy silver place setting before him. "Thanks. I hear you’re a Temporal Interventionist, too, Mike.”

"It’s one of the few jobs history majors are suited for,” I noted. “I’ve done a few Interventions."

“Yeah. I heard about that bit with the Wright Brothers. How’d you swing that?”

I couldn’t help smiling a trifle smugly. “Somebody wanted them to be the first to achieve powered heavier-than-air flight, but their craft was a touch too heavy. I slipped them some precipitation-hardened metal for their engine, just lighter enough than their state-of-the-art to do the trick. Somebody finally noticed the anachronism maybe a century later, but they just credited it to dumb luck.”

Harry smiled back, also smug. "Maybe it was dumb luck, Mike. You don’t seem to be too good at Interventions." He shook his head, trying to look sad this time. "You left a calling card up in 1862, Citizen. Sloppy." There wasn't anything too surprising about my use of the stun shot being detected. That the word had made it further Downtime, though, indicated Harry and his outfit were running multiple jumps to the same Downtimes. Apparently, his client had money to burn. "You think we can't spot stun after-effects?"

His insult stung a little despite my resolve to stay impassive. "'We'?” I asked with exaggerated interest. “Is that the royal ‘we’? Have the locals anointed you emperor, Harry?"

He glared back, momentarily off-balance. “No. I’m not working alone. My clients, unlike yours, could afford to hire an outfit with more than one T.I., Mikey."

I just grinned, letting the old taunting form of my name glide off my back. "Some people prefer quality to quantity, Harry."

Harry's grip on the big steak knife in his hand shifted, momentarily canting the point my way. "Look, Mikey, you already lost."

"Really? When did this happen?"

That smirk I remembered all too well lit his face again. "Several months from now. Hang around a while and keep reading the papers. You'll see it."

"I'm looking forward to it. Do you have any more wisdom to pass on?"

"Yes." Harry’s smirk shifted into a snarl. "Get out of the here-and-now. You're playing out of your league."

I laughed, loudly enough to draw some disapproving stares from the Southern aristocrats in the vicinity. "I thought you said you already won, Harry. So why are you trying to threaten me?”

“Just trying to protect an old friend. You’d take my advice if you were smart.”

“Thanks. Why is this so important, Harry? What’s your client’s stake in a victory by the Southern Confederacy?”

“You think I’m unprofessional enough to tell you that?”

I shrugged as if the point were a small one. “Harry, I already know what your client wants, a victory by the South. I’m just curious why.”

“What’s it matter to you?”

“I’m an historian, remember?”

“Oh, yeah.” Harry grinned nastily, as if recalling school days. “The client’s a funny old guy, Mikey. He’s also dying, but he figures that’s because he’s got defective genes.”

“That’s nuts. Everybody dies.”

“Yeah, but rich people figure they ought to be exempt. This guy thinks if his blood was pure he’d live longer than a couple of centuries.”

“Pure blood?” I had to dredge up memories of some antiquated prejudices before the connection made sense. “He thinks if his ancestry had been pure, what did they call it, Aryan or something, he’d be healthier?”

Harry grinned wider, enjoying the chance to mock his client. “He thinks he’d be a superman. So, if we make sure these Southerners win, that’s a step on the way to keeping racial separation a reality for a while.”

“Did you tell your client that during slavery there was more racial mingling than afterwards for a long time?”

“The client is always right, Mikey, especially when they’re rich.” Harry leaned back, using the knife to clean his fingernails. “So,” he wondered in a too-casual voice, “what’s your client’s beef with my client?”

“My client hates slavery, Harry. It’s a moral thing. You wouldn’t understand.”

Harry lost his smile, sitting up straight and canting the knife back toward me. “Too bad, because slavery’s gonna be around a while longer, like it or not. Get out of the here-and-now.”

“And if I don’t?”

"There's a war going on, Mikey. People can get hurt.”

“I’ll remember that. I’ll also make sure my Personal Assistant forwards that threat back Uptime so that if anything happens to me the authorities will know who to question about it. Have a nice day, Citizen.” I walked out, leaving the still-annoyed aristocrats to focus on a visibly uncomfortable Harry. For an allegedly experienced T.I., he'd pulled a real amateur trick, boasting of a win. Granted, that win made things harder for me. Undoing something that's already happened is a lot harder than doing something new. If I was another amateur, I'd focus my effort on trying to stop Harry's outfit from getting their win instead of looking at the long game. Fortunately for my client, I wasn't an amateur.

"Jeannie, I need an inventor."

American? Operating during this down-time segment?

"Yes. No. I don't care what nationality, as long as he or she lives in the current United States."

Jeannie hummed softly while she thought, then offered her results. There are several possibilities. All are male, which is characteristic of this period.

"Any of them specialize in maritime engineering?"

Yes. One. Name John Ericsson. Scientist and engineer. Produced a mix of minor inventions. Remembered primarily for first successful design of a screw propeller.

"I see. What exactly is a screw propeller?"

A relatively efficient means of propelling a waterborne craft via rotary motion.

"He sounds like our man. Do you have his current address?”

Jeannie thought about that. Yes, Michael.

“How about maritime engineering information? Things invented and built within the next half-century of here-and-now?”

Yes, Michael. You brought the necessary data modules.

"Good. Now, where's this Ericsson live?"

New York City.

Technology let me jump thousands of years in the wink of an eye, but once in a here-and-now I was limited to their forms of transport, which in this particular here-and-now tended to be both slow and uncomfortable. The fact that armies were arrayed for battle between me and my objective didn’t simplify things any. Fortunately, the old United States was so big and so sparsely settled that slipping through the battle lines turned out to be a piece of cake. It still took time, though, and based on what I'd learned in Richmond and Portsmouth I realized there wasn’t any too much time left to make sure Harry's win next year didn't last.

People who don’t work as Temporal Interventionists have a real hard time grasping the process, or maybe only people who can think in the right way become T.I.’s. I recalled the baffled look on my current client’s face as I’d tried to explain things. “But if we change the past, won’t that change the present?”

“The present has already been changed,” I explained patiently. “Before time travel became practical, people worried that it violated causality, because they thought causality had to be linear through time. That’s not necessarily the case, of course. That’s why even in pre-time travel eras the physics equations indicated time travel was possible.”

“Because causality is circular through time, right?” the client recalled.

“Exactly. It’s a loop. We do something Uptime which causes something to happen Downtime which creates the conditions for us to do the something Uptime.”

“Then you already know how you’ll achieve what I want. It’s in the history files.”

“No, I don’t, and no, it isn’t.” This was where clients’ eyes always glazed over. “I haven’t done it, yet.”

“But if you’re starting the process now . . . ”

“The process doesn’t start anywhere. It’s a loop, Citizen. Where does a circle begin? Yes, it’s already happened, but it hasn’t happened, yet. Sort of like Schrodinger’s Cat on a really big scale. We live in a world that’s the end result of countless Interventions, but we aren’t aware of the Interventions until they’ve closed their loops. That’s how time works.”

“I don’t understand,” the client noted helplessly.

“I know. That’s why you’re hiring me.”

Cities never changed in some respects. They were always crowded. In Downtime, they also always stank. Nonetheless, Ericsson had an open window. One of the advantages of Downtime is that break-in's are a lot easier before air conditioning becomes common. I used an aerosol to painlessly inject my sleeping subject with a carefully configured cocktail of designer drugs, waited until they’d had time to take effect, then hauled him into a nearby chair and sat opposite. Ericsson stared back, drugged into a half-hallucinatory state of receptiveness which would pass easily as an inspired dream come the morning. The technique worked for ‘inspiring’ lots of things, even poetry, in unsuspecting Downtimers.

“Hi. I’m your subconscious.” I hauled out some drawings I’d been working on during the trip with Jeannie guiding my hand, displaying various inventions appropriate to current technology, explaining how they worked, and implanting a sense of urgency as I did so. Ericsson soaked it all up, mustering a few smiles with the goofy delight an engineer gets when he sees a really neat machine. “You’ve got to put a lot of this together to build a new kind of ship,” I finished up. “You’ll be famous. You’ll do a great service for your adopted country.” He nodded back, the gesture sort of wobbly from the drugs, then subsided back into receptiveness. I took him back to bed, settled him in, then injected a second dose to counteract the first set of drugs so Ericsson wouldn’t accept any unwanted inspirations from background noise or events before morning, then left as dawn was graying the sky.

I really wanted to get on to the next stage of my Intervention, but had to wait to ensure Ericsson hadn’t reacted to my dream-sequence by trying to start a new religion or something. The process isn’t foolproof, but then nothing is. After staying in the city for several days and almost getting used to the smell, I made another midnight visit to Ericsson’s place, this time just sedating him so I could search his house at leisure. Sure enough, the diagrams scattered around revealed he’d taken on board everything I’d shown him. I stared at the result, skeptical despite myself. “Will this thing float?”

Jeannie ran a quick analysis. Yes, Michael.

“Will it work? I didn’t expect Ericsson to toss everything I showed him into one plan.”

It appears workable given the current state of technology.

“Okay. Let’s go make sure it gets built.”

Temporal Interventionists specifically and historians in general know there are basically two obstacles to any technological innovation. The first is whether or not they’re feasible given the current state-of-the-art. The second is getting establishments wedded to older technologies to accept the new concepts. I knew Ericsson’s design would pass muster on the first count, but for the second I was going up against the institutional inertia of one of the most conservative mind-sets in human experience, that of Naval Officers. Not that I entirely blamed them for that conservatism. If some land invention doesn’t work, you just walk away. If a ship design is bad, you get to practice inhaling water.

While waiting to check on Ericsson I’d pondered the problem, finally concluding no here-and-now Admiral busy fighting a war would ever voluntarily agree to build a new kind of ship, and even if I convinced one by induced-dreaming the rest of the establishment would negate his efforts. That meant I had to convince someone who couldn’t be overruled.

Washington, D.C. had the same wartime look Richmond had, only more so since the North was bigger and richer. More generals, more kids in uniform, more money. Abraham Lincoln wasn't hard to spot, being both taller and homelier than most of his fellow Downtimers. The hard part turned out to be getting close enough to him to pass a message. I'd figured security for a public figure would be pretty minimal in this period, but I hadn't taken into account the war and the fears for his safety it would generate. Nor could I fault that attitude with Harry and his friends lurking about.

I hung around the President for several long frustrating days and nights without any chances developing to get his ear in a waking or dreaming state. From what I'd seen of the here-and-now White House, I could cool my heels for months waiting for an actual appointment, and I couldn't afford to waste that much time. Lincoln had to hear from me before he heard Ericsson's proposal.

While strolling down Pennsylvania Avenue past all the brick and wood-frame buildings, dodging pedestrians, carriages and piles of horse manure as I tried to come up with another angle, I noticed I was being followed. The two individuals trailing me weren't very good, which told me they were locals and not some of Harry's co-workers. That kind of tradecraft has come a long way in the intervening centuries. It seemed like a good idea to find out what they wanted, despite the physical risk. "Jeannie, I need an alley with a way out the back."

The maps from this period aren't very reliable, Michael. Too much temporary construction.

I took a moment to wish I’d been able to reload my finger stun charge. "That's okay. Do your best."

Two more blocks, hang a right, half a block down.

"Thanks." I followed Jeannie's directions, and found myself fronting a pile of garbage blocking a narrow lane. In a pinch, I could climb over it as long as I didn’t think about what was under me. Turning, I saw my two friends standing at the entrance to the alley. One was big and wide, like a gorilla. He looked powerful but slow, so he'd be easy to outrun. The other reminded me of a ferret on two legs, thin, quick and dangerous. They came halfway down the alley and stopped, facing me with bland expressions. "May I help you gentlemen?"

"Maybe," the ferret drawled. "You seem pretty interested in President Lincoln."

"He's the President."

"That's right," the ferret agreed, "and we want him to stay that way." A slim hand dipped into one pocket and surfaced with a shiny metal badge. "Pinkerton Protective Services."

"I see." During the American Civil War, Jeannie informed me, Pinkerton acted as both the forerunner of the Secret Service and as Military Intelligence. Here I'd been busting my gut to get the President's ear, and a direct line to him had just walked into my lap.

The gorilla leaned toward me, rubbing one fist into the other palm. "Just answer our questions. No funny stuff."

"Why are you in town?” the ferret pressed. “Why are you following the President?"

I licked my lips, trying to project nervous sincerity. "The truth is, there's something I wanted to tell the President. Something very important."

The gorilla snorted in derision while the ferret looked skeptical. "Lots of people think they got important stuff to tell Mister Lincoln. You tell us, and we'll decide."

"Okay. But this really is important. I got a friend down in Virginia, you see..." So I spilled my guts about the scheme Harry's group had cooked up, leaving out the Temporal Intervention parts, of course.

As I talked, the gorilla furrowed his brow while he tried to think, but the ferret whipped out a notebook and writing implement and started making manual notes like mad. When I finished, he fixed me with a searching stare. "This on the level?"

"Of course. Why would I lie to you?"

"You tell me."

"You must have people down in Norfolk. Check it out for yourselves." Once these Pinkertons confirmed my story and handed it to Lincoln, he’d be very receptive to the proposal Ericsson would be making in the near future. Receptive enough to over-rule any objections from the ship-building establishment. As someone once suggested, letting people act in their own best interests was the best way to get results.

The notebook flipped shut and slid into a pocket as the ferret nodded. "We’ll check on it. Thanks. If this is true, President Lincoln will hear about it." He stood aside, gesturing with a jog of his head out the alley. "Where are you going now?"

It didn't seem like a good idea to announce I had to return to Richmond for my next jump. "Actually, I have business up North."

"Good. Since you seem unfamiliar with the city, we'll walk you to the train station."

"I hate to put you to all that trouble," I protested. Not that I minded being run out of town, but I didn't want these locals watching where I went.

"No trouble at all," the ferret assured me. I shrugged and walked out beside him, the gorilla following with a disappointed look on his face. At the station, the ferret offered me his 'pencil' so I could pretend to write down some schedules, then I bought a ticket to New York City and palmed the pencil as a bit of petty revenge. As far as I could tell, no other tails followed me onto the train, but just in case I used a doubleback in Baltimore before heading south.

I'd primed a Northern inventor to build something and the Northern President to want that same thing despite any protests. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the fireworks and hoping I'd timed things right.

#

The fireworks were impressive. I had to give Harry and his pals credit. The ironclad ship concept they'd suggested to the Confederates had been simple and suited to current technology. No messy anachronisms this time. So here I was on 8 March, 1862, back at Hampton Roads, watching the old frigate Merrimack, reborn as a hump-backed metal monster and rechristened Virginia, steaming grandly back to port after trashing a couple of wooden warships in the Union blockade fleet. This, as it happened, was the 'win' Harry had boasted to me about. Break the Union blockade, and you opened the door to European recognition of the Confederacy and a steady supply of weapons.

Harry had been partly right to announce victory, but only partly. Just because his people had managed a win for the South on March 8th didn't mean they'd continue the winning streak the next day, not if the counter-punch I'd set in motion materialized on schedule. Which it should, since I'd primed the North to keep track of the work on the Merrimack. I hadn’t been able to follow events up North since coming South, but Ericsson's ship ought to be on its way here now.

"Well, well, look what the cat drug in."

I turned at the familiar voice, seeing Harry two paces behind me smiling as smug as you please. "Harry Dawson. Fancy finding you here-and-now."

"Long time no see, Citizen."

"Not long enough, Citizen." We were playing a delicate mental ballet, each trying to determine when we'd last seen the other. Had Harry already threatened me in Richmond months before, or would he go there after this meeting? I was on my third jump, but he might be on his first or his fifth. I tried playing to his not-inconsiderable ego. "Is this your work?"

His smile widened so far I could examine his dental work. "That's right, Citizen. I hope you weren't hired by somebody who didn't want it to happen, because if you were they wasted their money."

Bingo. Here-and-now he wasn't sure who'd hired me, which meant this meeting came before the one in Richmond back in 1861. "I never discuss my clients' business in public. It's unprofessional."

"So is losing, and I bet you just lost. Are you going home now?"

"No. I think I'll hang around. I'm starting to like this place."

Harry's eyes narrowed. "Don't get any ideas. We're watching you."

I started to reprise my last year's remark about him being an emperor, remembered he hadn't heard it yet, and decided to hold it so it'd have full impact when I slung it at him earlier. "You do that, Harry. See you around."

I left him standing there, looking triumphant, and headed back into Norfolk, looking for a place to spend the night. The next few days might or might not be a foregone conclusion, so I needed to confirm firsthand that I'd done what my clients wanted. The sun set in a gunpowder-and-burning-ship-smoke-filtered blaze of glory as I walked, wondering how well-lighted the streets here were at night.

The answer was not very well, not that it mattered for long. While walking through a particularly dark patch on the street I heard a stealthy sound behind me, followed an instant later by the impact of a stun charge punching into my back. After that, it really got dark.

I awoke with an aching head and a queasy stomach. The reason for the painful head was obvious, and once I pried open my eyes so was the reason for the upset stomach. I lay in the bottom of some kind of small wooden watercraft, bobbing erratically in the choppy waters. Except for the moving water, everything else was silent and still in that curious way things always get between midnight and dawn. My first attempt to move revealed that my hands were bound together at the wrists behind me.

"Good morning, Citizen," a now very familiar voice snarled.

"Hi, Harry."

He knelt in the bottom of the boat, angry face centimeters from mine. "Real good trick you’re going to pull, Citizen. But not good enough. Maybe you stopped us tomorrow, but it won't happen that way."

I took a moment to sort the jump-tangled tenses through my aching brain. Apparently, this Harry had come from an even later jump, after tomorrow's events were decided. "Criminey, Harry. How many jumps can your client afford?"

"Enough," he spat back.

"Well, you should lay off them. They're making you real anti-social."

Instead of getting madder, Harry just smiled. "Talk all you want. Your ace is about to get trumped." With a dramatic flourish he whipped a piece of canvas off an object lying near me, revealing a cylindrical shape that glinted metallically in the moonlight.

A mini-torpedo. Not the things they called torpedoes here-and-now, which were just tethered mines, but a real self-propelled fish as long as my leg and equipped with a high-explosive warhead. Four holes in the top and sides of the back marked the outlets for the pressure-jet impellers. No primitive screw propellers for Harry's guys. Technology that flashy and anachronistic was risky as all get out, not even counting the cost of bringing it on a jump, which meant my opponents were desperate. That was good. Unfortunately, I was tied up in their boat and the ugly little weapon they'd brought Downtime had a very good chance of doing its job, all of which was bad.

"You can't be serious," I suggested. "What kind of Temporal Intervention footprints are you planning on leaving behind here?"

Harry's smile didn't waver. "None that matter. Your ship is sitting at anchor nearby. This jewel will cruise under its keel and blow a hole in the bottom. It won't sail out to fight tomorrow. End of Michael Holmes' little toy, and none of the locals will ever guess what really happened. For that matter, maybe the end of Michael Holmes, period. Like I told you earlier, Mikey, there's a war on, and people get hurt all the time."

"That's not very nice, Harry." A glimmer of an idea came to me, but if I was going to execute it I needed a good bit of distraction. Well, there was Harry leaning over me and my feet were free...

The sole of my foot caught him in the solar plexus. Harry went back and over with a tremendous splash. While his two pals dropped their oars and lunged to get him, I brought my knees up and hands forward until they cleared my feet, then dug frantically in my coat pocket, fumbling with my bound hands to seize and pull out the ancient writing implement I’d lifted off the Pinkerton ferret. I rolled toward the torpedo as my hands surfaced with the pencil, and jammed it as hard as I could into the right-hand impeller hole. It stuck solid halfway in, so I swung my clenched hands viciously, breaking off the protruding portion. By the time Harry, dripping wet and mad as a French Revolutionary circa 1800, saw me again I was lying back in place, smiling apologetically. "How's the water, Citizen?"

His fist came part way back, then lowered slowly. "You'll find out," he whispered. "Only nobody will pull you back in the boat. Understand? But first, I want you awake and aware while your Intervention gets ruined." I lay there as the boat bobbled its way across the water for an interminable period, occupying myself by slowly working at the ropes binding my hands. Based on the period, and the way they felt against my skin, those ropes should be natural fiber, which meant they were a lot stiffer than a synthetic and were also slightly slick. Also rough. It hurt like hell, but one of my hands slowly began to work through its binding. I hadn't quite finished when Harry finally gestured to his friends to stop rowing and pointed gleefully off to the side. "There. You can't miss it. And neither will the torpedo." With the help of both buddies, he hoisted the weapon over the side.

I needed to distract them in order to make sure they didn’t look too closely at the weapon and perhaps see my sabotage. “How’s that torpedo work, Harry? Some sort of homing device?”

Harry shook his head scornfully. “Too unreliable after a jump, Citizen, as you should know. No, it’s a simple straight-runner with an internal gyro to keep it fixed on course.” He leaned over the side of the boat, fumbling with something, then straightened. “There it goes. Say goodbye to your plan, Mikey."

"Goodbye, Harry." Something about my voice must have alerted him, because Harry looked at me with a very worried expression for about five seconds. That's how long it took for the torpedo, unable to hold a straight course with the impeller on one side completely blocked, to circle back around and pass under our boat. There was a muffled whump as the center of the rowboat flew upward and into pieces, followed by a geyser of water. Harry and his pals got tossed in one direction with their end of the boat while I went in another.

The water was cold as Europa and murky with stuff I didn't care to think about. No wonder Harry had been so mad when I dunked him. I lunged up gasping for air, before my period clothing absorbed water like a sponge and dragged me back under. I had time to wonder if my improvised plan hadn’t had a serious flaw, then flexed with all my strength against my bonds. Thanks to a little extra lubrication from the water, the hand I’d been working on jerked free, leaving a significant quantity of skin behind. Stroking to the surface again, I got another breath before my clothes pulled me down once more, then pulled off my coat before fighting my way up a third time. Grabbing a largish piece of rowboat as it drifted by, I rested on the impromptu float, watching as my hand dribbled blood into the frigid water. “Jeannie, did sharks inhabit these waters in this here-and-now?”

Affirmative. I do not have records giving precise hunting areas, however.

“That’s okay. Thanks.” I ripped my shirt off despite the cold, wrapping it around my hand, then started paddling away from the yells and curses of Harry and his pals. I wondered what story they'd tell if a Union picket boat picked them up.

I mostly drifted until daylight, which fortunately wasn't long in coming, wishing this little event had been timed for a much warmer part of the year. Uptime mental training included a lot of ways to activate ancient methods of coping with severe temperatures, but the ability to survive didn’t make the cold any more pleasant. Eventually, a sailboat full of locals out to see the Merrimack aka Virginia in action again came by and picked me up. Wrapped in a blanket and fortified with their bourbon, I watched Ericsson's ship, (which he’d christened the Monitor) screw-propeller, rotating gun turret, forced ventilation and all, steam out to meet the Confederate vessel. The rest of the day was spent contemplating the two ironclads bouncing solid shot off each other, until the Merrimack slunk home, stymied.

#

"So," I finished explaining, "the disappointed locals took me back to Norfolk with them, and I headed for Richmond to get my jump gear and come back Uptime. With the Merrimack nullified, the Union took Norfolk a couple of months later."

“And no one thought it amazing that both North and South decided to produce these ironclads at the exact same time?” my client marveled.

I couldn’t help smiling. “Downtime historians labeled it a remarkable coincidence.” Coincidence explains everything and nothing, which made it convenient for Temporal Interventions like the Wright Brothers’ engine and Ericsson’s ironclad.

"That's wonderful. Is there any chance this torpedo the other T.I.’s used will be found and create temporal problems?"

"No, the bottom there is soft mud, so any pieces left after it exploded sank right out of sight.”

The client shook her head, plainly bewildered. “But now history records this battle of ironclad ships. It couldn’t have before. Why didn’t your changing history change our present as well?”

“Because I didn’t change the present. It’s based on the North winning the American Civil War. Fine. The North won. Some details changed, that’s all.”

“But . . . but . . . someone once said God is in the details!”

“They did? They were wrong. God doesn’t care about details. Neither does the Universe. Ask a quantum physicist. Historians used to care about details, which is why all the inconsistencies in the historical record drove them crazy.”

“I still don’t understand,” the client lamented. “If our present is based on large events which are inevitable, such as the North winning the American Civil War, why do some people try to change those large events?”

I grinned reassuringly. “Because they’re people, because they can try, and because people do things regardless of whether they’re right or smart. As to inevitability, we don’t know that. You hired me, I stopped the other guys.”

“But what if I hadn’t hired you and no one had stopped them? Wouldn’t our present still remain the same if you’re right? Wouldn’t someone else have ensured the North still won?”

“I don’t know. Is that a risk you’d care to take?” The client stared, then nodded and left. I leaned back for a while, remembering people and places long gone to dust, then started reviewing a file on Victorian England. Something told me I might need that information someday.

Author's Note on Working on Borrowed Time

Another story featuring my hero from Small Moments and Circle. Now he has to deal with a big change that could alter history in major ways. That change involves something which did occur in history and left a very big mark at the time. The Tunguska Event in 1908 was a mysterious airburst in an unpopulated region of Siberia. The exact strength of the burst is now estimated at being equivalent to ten to fifteen megatons of TNT, or equal to a nuclear weapon one thousand times as powerful as that which was dropped on Hiroshima. I have often wondered that it struck on practically the only spot on Earth where such an explosion would directly or indirectly cause no loss of human life. What a lucky coincidence, because if it had landed on a city . . . It’s a big job, but fortunately, our hero finds an ally.

Working on Borrowed Time

The Here and Now which I call home has a number of advantages compared to most earlier There and Thens, one of which is air conditioning. I was still wiping sweat from my forehead and contemplating the fairly recent dust of now-ancient Egypt on my sandals when Jeannie interrupted my work. “You have a call from Mr. Farrow.”

I automatically looked up, even though my implanted Assistant couldn’t be seen, and fastened an annoyed glare on the nearest wall. “Tell him I just got home and ask him to call me back in a few hours.”

“He says it’s very urgent.”

I smothered an exasperated reply. Whenever I got together with other Temporal Interventionists we usually ended discussing one of the still-unsolved mysteries of the universe; why we had access to all of human history but always seemed not to have any time to spare. “Okay. Put him on.”

An image of Bill Farrow appeared before me, his usually cheerful face looking worried. I started talking before he could. “Look, I’m sure this is really important, but I just got back from dodging homicidal priests through the City of the Dead so I could stop someone from looting a tomb a few millennia before it was supposed to be looted. In other words, I had a really long night last night a long time ago. Can’t this wait?”

Bill frowned. “You guys always talk funny.”

“T.I.’s, you mean? It comes from living in circles. Can this wait?”

“No.”

I smothered another exasperated expression and tried to look halfway accommodating. “What’s up?”

“Tom, we’ve been friends since college, right?”

“Right.”

“Have I ever remembered stuff that wasn’t true?”

I started to give a flippant reply, then thought better of it. “No.” Not more so than anyone else, that is. But I didn’t want to get into Quantum Memory Effect at the moment.

“Then why . . . ” He looked bewildered now. “I was preparing a lecture for my classes, and went to check some of the information, and, and . . . ”

“Something didn’t match?”

“Not at all! How could I have forgotten London, England was destroyed by an asteroid in 1908 Common Era?”

“It was?”

“Yes!”

“Jeannie, please check Bill’s last statement for accuracy.”

Her voice sounded as calm and confident as always. “Historical data bases all agree that London, England was destroyed in 1908 CE. I am unable to check the accuracy of Mr. Farrow’s alleged forgetfulness.”

“Thanks.” I shook my head. “That’s not what I remember, either, Bill.”

Bill spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “But that’s what happened! Every history I’ve consulted says so. How could we misremember something like that? How could I misremember it? Imperial England is my specialty.”

I rubbed my forehead to fight off the first twinges of a headache. It looked like this conversation would take a while whether I wanted it to or not. “Have you ever heard of Quantum Memory Effect?”

“Uh, no.”

“Human brains work partly on a quantum level. That’s how we accomplish creative work, and it’s why our minds can accept apparent multiple realities simultaneously. You know, like fiction. But it also has an effect when there’s been a temporal intervention that causes changes to ripple up through history. Thanks to QME you remember something being a certain way, and it’s not, even though you’re positive you couldn’t be mistaken. That’s because part of you is still remembering a reality which has been altered, a reality which no longer actually happened. Usually, it’s just something small and insignificant. But if a really big change happens downtime it can cause really big changes uptime.”

Bill didn’t look reassured. “But your assistant -.”

“Jeannie, and every other artificial intelligence, doesn’t work the same way as our brains do. Not yet. They can only accept one reality at a time, even though they can shuffle through alternatives very quickly.”

“You’re saying London wasn’t destroyed in Victorian times?”

“Well, no. I mean, it obviously was. But it apparently wasn’t before. Maybe. Now it was.”

“I don’t understand. You’re talking in circles again.”

Despite everything, I laughed briefly. “Because that’s how I have to think. You can think in linear terms of before and after. But I have to deal with causality loops brought into existence when someone uptime goes downtime and changes something. The cause of the action takes place after the action, you see. It’s a causality loop through time, not a straight line.”

Bill didn’t look reassured, then he looked puzzled. “What does that all mean? Look, what’re we arguing about, anyway?”

“You wanted me to explain why you didn’t remember London being destroyed.”

“London? You mean the 1908 CE event? Of course I remember that. I wrote my thesis on it.”

I looked away for a moment, startled by the rapid overwhelming of the QME. When I looked back, Bill’s image was gone. “Jeannie, did Mr. Farrow terminate that call or did something else happen?”

“I require further information to answer your question.”

I pointed, unnecessarily, at the spot where the image had been. “Mr. William Farrow. The call he made to me just now. How did it terminate?”

“You were not engaged in a call. Your last call was made seven minutes ago to notify your employers of your successful completion of your mission.”

“I see.” Or, at least, I was afraid I did. “Please put through a call to Mr. Farrow.”

“I have no data for a Mr. Farrow in your personal contact file. Please provide more identifying information.”

I stared at the spot where Bill’s image had been, rubbing my chin this time. He wasn’t there anymore, and he wasn’t in the contact list I maintained for friends. Someone had made an Intervention downtime, something which might’ve made William Farrow disappear completely from existence, like that man who’d famously walked around the horses, or maybe he’d just shifted to a new reality where he and I weren’t friends. I don’t like Interventions that mess with my friends. “Jeannie, how many names are in my personal contact file?”

“Eighty six.”

There should’ve been an even one hundred, a number I’d stuck to so I could keep the file from bloating into uselessness. I was certain of that, even though doubt nagged at me in a way I recognized. “Confirm. Eighty six?”

“No. Eighty five.”

Damn. I’d lost another in that second of time. It’d been a big Intervention, then. Not just ripples causing localized effects that dampened out as they ran up through the inertia of history, but a big wave crashing through time and rearranging what had been. Big wave. Big Intervention. London, 1908.

And I had to assume I was just experiencing the front of that wave. As a T.I., I’d developed some extra resistance to changes working their way through time. No one knows for sure why that is, but even with that resistance if I was still here when the crest hit . . . maybe I’d change enough not to remember what had been, either. I didn’t know what that new reality would be like, but I had a feeling anyone willing to destroy a city to bring it about wasn’t interested in building a better tomorrow in any way I’d approve of.

“Jeannie, I need to do a jump.”

“Your credit reflects payment for your Intervention in Egypt.”

For what that was worth. Museums hated losing objects from their collections but couldn’t budget much to get them back, especially since they often couldn’t prove they’d ever had them. Also unfortunately, T.I.’s are prohibited from soliciting work, even in what I assumed was a good cause. “Will my current credit line cover a jump downtime to 1908 CE?”

“Yes. It will be close to maximized, however. I am required to counsel against making a jump on borrowed funds with no specific client.”

“Thank you. Counsel noted.” I glanced around the room, noticing a blank space where I was sure a picture ought to be. A picture of what? The memory was already blurring. “When exactly was London destroyed? And what does history say did it?”

“Old London was destroyed just before dawn on 30 June, 1908 CE by an atmospheric explosion attributed to a meteor impact with the Earth.”

A meteor? There must be another explanation, even though I now had memories of a New London crowding into my head. I waited a very long second while Jeannie set up the jump.

“The period immediately prior to the destruction is inaccessible,” she reported.

“Inaccessible? How can it be inaccessible?”

“I cannot determine the reason. I can jump you in four months prior.”

Too long. “That’s the closest you can get?”

Another long second passed. “I can access 28 June, 1908. There’s a very narrow window available.”

I needed to change out of my outfit and get into clothes at least halfway appropriate for the period. “How long can you hold that window?”

“I do not know. It appeared on my third access scan and may disappear just as quickly.”

“Then let’s go. Right now.” A moment later, I dodged into an alley while the locals were still trying to figure out if they’d really seen a man dressed like an ancient Egyptian court functionary standing in the middle of a street in very early twentieth century London.

“Jeannie, I’d appreciate suggestions on how to get Here and Now clothing.”

“You should acquire such clothing prior to a jump.”

“You’re supposed to tell me things I don’t already know.” I spent a moment becoming aware of my surroundings. Something scuttled through a pile of trash not far from me. The tang of horse manure and assorted less pleasant scents filled the air. Downtime cities stink. Downtime people usually do, too. I coughed, glancing up at the soot-laden sky. “They burn coal for heat Here and Now, don’t they?”

“Yes. I can describe the effects of the coal burning residues on health if you desire.”

“No, thanks.”

The sky seemed darker than it should be, though, even through the smog. I got a glance of a sunbeam spearing through the sky and realized the sun was setting. Jeannie’s narrow window must have been late in the day, leaving me that much less time to discover what had destroyed London and whether I could stop it.

I studied the nearest pile of trash, kicked it a few times, waited for various unseen somethings to scurry out of it, then reached down and pulled out a broken wooden chair leg about the length of my forearm. Then I waited for the sky to get darker.

As I’d expected, the street lighting of the period wasn’t up to the task. It never is. I reached out through the gloom, grabbed a passing stranger who seemed about my size, yanked him into the alley, then menaced him with my club. A few minutes later, my victim was trussed up in strips torn from my Egyptian get-up, and I was wearing somewhat ill-fitting but appropriate clothing and striding rapidly down the street. As rapidly, that is, as my Here and Now footwear permitted. My feet, accustomed most recently to sandals, sent out pain messages with almost every step in the heavy, stiff shoes I’d appropriated. Just my luck that in this Here and Now feet were supposed to accommodate themselves to shoes rather than the other way around.

When I’d put a good deal of distance between me and my mugging victim, I found a bench and sat down to think. I was here. The day after tomorrow, something really bad was going to happen to London. I needed a lead. Fortunately, whoever was carrying out this Intervention had to have left footprints of some kind. All I had to do was spot those footprints within less than two days in a very large and primitive city. I watched the foot and vehicle traffic going by, coughed some more, and wished I had more time to work with and more ideas.

A boy’s voice was yelling out something. I looked that way, and saw he was selling newspapers. I slapped my forehead, drawing an alarmed look from a passerby. Maybe it was some lingering effect of the Intervention wave, but I’d failed to immediately focus on the obvious and best search method.

My new clothes proved to have some coins in one pocket, with which I purchased copies of every newspaper I could find being sold. Then I returned to the bench, opened the first newspaper to its personal advertisements, and started reading. Hours later, the street lights were turned down and passing police officers began giving me long looks, so I found a hotel cheap enough to pay for with my ill-gotten gains but not cheap enough to run too high a risk of picking up parasites. Soon after that I fell asleep despite my best intentions, waking only after the sun was well up the next morning.

As a result, it was mid-morning before I finally found what I was looking for. A personal ad. Mister Meyer Kampf wishes to inquire as to the whereabouts of Miss Leni Riefenstahl with whom he attended the Triumph of the Will lectures in Nuremberg. Anyone with information on Miss Riefenstahl please contact Mister Kampf at . . . The combination of names teased at my memory. “Jeannie, I need a fact check. Leni Riefenstahl. Triumph of the Will. Nuremberg. Identify any connections.”

“Leni Riefenstahl was the producer of a primitive video depiction of Nazi political rallies in the German city of Nuremberg. It was entitled Triumph of the Will.”

“Primitive? When was it made?”

“1934 CE.”

“Great.” The most common method of making contact, or just advertising your presence in a downtime Here and Now, was to literally place a personal advertisement containing anachronistic references. No one from downtime would realize the anachronism, but to someone from uptime it would stand out like a sore thumb. As a result, Temporal Interventionists were masters of historical trivia. Occasionally the anachronistic contact data got into permanent, widely distributed form, like when Swift got his hands on an accurate description of the moons of Mars and put it in Gulliver’s Travels quite a while before the moons were actually discovered. That particular blunder wasn’t my fault, though.

In this case, the ad confirmed that someone from uptime was operating in London. Moreover, I knew Germany and England had been at each other’s throats twice in the next few decades, so anyone citing Nazi trivia probably didn’t have London’s best interests in heart and might well be involved in the upcoming disaster. If they weren’t involved, they should be a potential ally for me. “Jeannie, how far away is this address from here?”

“About three kilometers.”

“Then let’s take a walk.”

Jeannie’s database is a wonderful thing. I don’t know what I’d do without her maps. She provided directions to “Kampf’s” address, and I set off, trying to walk in the same fashion as those men around me dressed like I now was. Not too arrogant but not very servile. I’d apparently mugged a solid member of the Here and Now middle class.

The weather wasn’t bad, though the sun shone a bit weakly through the haze of coal dust, smoke and other unhealthy substances suspended in the air. And the people didn’t smell too bad for downtimers, all in all considered. I enjoyed the walk for a while. Then my feet started to hurt again in the heavy, ill-fitting downtime footwear and I started coughing again and my stomach wondered what had happened to last night’s dinner and this morning’s breakfast.

“How much further, Jeannie?”

“About one-half kilometer straight ahead.”

I looked in that direction, and saw something that didn’t belong. A woman, not mincing along in confining clothing but striding along rapidly wearing something slightly loose and functional. Her bright blond hair glowed like a beacon because she wasn’t wearing a hat. That fashion error alone would’ve made her stand out on that downtime street, even if she wasn’t shoving through the crowds like a lioness ignoring a herd of hyenas. People on the street were stopping to stare, either at her clothes, her behavior or at her strikingly beautiful face. Beautiful, but also disturbing. Even from a distance there was something about her which somehow made me think of my one look at Caligula. Then those eyes rested on me, her face instantly lit with fury, and one hand swung upward holding something which looked disturbingly like a weapon.

I’m no hero, which has probably kept me alive in Here and Nows where heroes wouldn’t last long. My mind was still registering what my eyes had seen when my legs propelled me sideways into the doorway of the shop I was passing. The impact of my shoulder against the door was muffled by the crash of a weapon discharging, then a chunk of the door frame blew apart. I scrambled the rest of the way inside and ran for the back of the shop as more shots ripped up parts of the structure and the merchandize. The gape-mouthed storekeeper hadn’t had time to yell as I rushed past and hit the rear exit, finding myself in another noxious alley.

“We are being pursued,” Jeannie announced as I dashed past mounds of refuse.

“I’d noticed. Did you recognize her?”

“No.”

Not likely someone I’d ever met, then. A cross-alley entrance loomed and I swung around into it as another shot ripped through the space where I’d been and exploded downrange. Whoever psycho-blond was and wherever she came from, she wasn’t worried at all about blowing her temporal cover, and she really wanted me dead.

The cross-alley was short, coming out on another street. As I slid out into the thoroughfare, barely missing a horse-drawn cab making its way through the crowds, I remembered my old Temporal Survival instructor’s advice. Do the unexpected. In this case, the expected would be for me to run down a street filled with other people who were walking.

I cupped my hands and yelled as loud as I could. “They’re on to you! Run for your life!”

At least half a dozen men and one woman began running as people stared at them. I yelled again. “For God’s sake, run!”

Most of the crowd did what crowds usually do. They panicked. In a moment, the street was full of people pushing and stampeding in all directions. I ignored them, heading instead for the nearby cab.

The cabby fought his wild-eyed horse to a standstill and began shoving his cab forward through the mess. I yanked open the door, hopped inside and smiled at the two women staring back at me. “Lovely day, isn’t it?”

The older woman eyed me warily. “Yes. You are . . . ?”

I dredged up a period name from memory. “Alfie. You remember me.”

Barely visible through the edge of one of the cab’s windows, my pursuer came out of the alley like death incarnate, her hand weapon jerking back and forth as she scanned the crowd. I tried to keep smiling at the two women despite the sweat I could feel forming on my skin, desperately hoping they wouldn’t scream and draw psycho-blond’s attention.

“Alfie?” The younger one suddenly smiled. “Oh, yes. Ascot!”

“Yes! Ascot!”

“How did that work out, Alfie?”

“Uh . . . fine.”

“Fancy you being here.” More shots boomed down the street. I couldn’t be sure, but they seemed to be going away from me and the cab. “What do you suppose is happening out there?”

The older woman gave her a stern glance. “Don’t look. It’s not our affair. But if this gentleman would be so kind?”

I kept my smile fixed in place even though my cheeks were beginning to ache. “Of course.” I cautiously looked out. Amid the Victorian hats streaming away from us, a head of blond hair was visible fighting its way along. Then the cab turned a corner and cut off the view. I started breathing again.

“What is it?”

“I couldn’t tell. Odd, eh? Nice seeing you again.” I was out of the cab and back on the street before they could say anything else. One street away, the panic I’d started was already being swallowed into the inertia of the city. The entire incident, crazed blond shooter included, might merit a couple of sentences in the next day’s papers. “Jeannie, how far are we now from Kampf’s place?”

“Two hundred meters.”

I found the street and the address, a four-storied rooming house of some sort. Kampf’s room was on the third floor, so I headed up the narrow stairs.

The man who answered my knock peered suspiciously at me. “Yes?”

“Mr. Kampf?”

“Yes?”

“I know something about Miss Riefenstahl.”

“Then you know when I met her.”

“That was in 1934, right?”

His eyebrows rose, then he squinted at me. “I’m not expecting you.”

“Something came up. Please. We don’t want anything to go wrong.”

Kampf pulled me partway into his room. “Why? What’s happened?”

It’d worked once. “They know. They’re on to you.”

“What? How?”

“I don’t know.”

“What are my orders?”

“Abort.”

“Abort!” He shrilled the word, his face disbelieving. “No. Impossible. They’d never order an abort at this point. Who are you?”

I had one hand on Kampf’s coat to keep him from pulling away. “The orders are to abort.”

Kampf barred his teeth at me. “I need verification. I won’t abort without verification, even if you threaten to kill me.”

I tried to look menacing, which was the best I could do. My old survival instructor had drilled into me that you should never carry a gun. It made you too confident, too careless, so you missed warning signs. It also meant I didn’t have anything to shove in Kampf’s face.

But old Professor Matson had been right. There was a tiny sound to my left, just the barest rustle of fabric which I only noticed because my senses were hyped-up with fear. I dropped to the floor while Kampf spun about partway. His coat came off in my hand at the same moment his chest exploded. The door swung wider and I got a glimpse of a newly familiar face. Psycho-blond had her gun out and was staring at what was left of Kampf with an expression that went from horrified to enraged. Then her eyes locked on me without any hint of recognition but a very Caligula-like promise of death.

I didn’t waste time trying to get up, but rolled out of the doorway and right down the stairs, banging myself up painfully. Moments later I was once again running frantically through alleys and streets to lose my pursuer.

An hour and considerable distance later, I chose a small garden and finally sat down to catch my breath. In one hand I still held the late Mr. Kampf’s coat. But at least I appeared to be safe for the moment from psycho-blond.

The late Mr. Kampf’s coat didn’t match my own outfit, so I had to get rid of it as soon as possible. I went carefully through the pockets, then felt along all the seams, examined the buttons, then carefully pressed my hands along every square centimeter of fabric. Finished, I examined the meager results. A few more coins to add to my small supply of local money. A handkerchief which seemed to have no other hidden use. A big key with a number embossed on it which matched that of the room Kampf had been using. And a cancelled train ticket to Greenwich.

I pocketed the money, returned the key and handkerchief to the coat, then took a long look at the ticket. It was apparently no more nor less than what it appeared to be. Why had Kampf gone to Greenwich? The Royal Observatory was there, so maybe he’d snuck a peak at the rock which was scheduled to arrive in less than twenty-four hours. No, that was ridiculous. The rock was probably too small to be seen by the optics available Here and Now, even if Kampf knew the exact place to look.

I had a lot of questions for Mr. Kampf, but he wouldn’t be answering any of them for me. My stomach took that moment to once again protest. It was past noon, and the last time I’d eaten was in ancient Egypt.

Jeannie directed me to a pub with an outdoor dining area, as I wanted to be able to keep an eye out for dangerous blonds coming my way. The early twentieth century English food wasn’t very tasty, but then I didn’t expect it to be and it did a decent job of filling me up. The English beer, though, was a positive joy. I ordered a second pint after polishing off my meal, then leaned back to ponder my next move.

Something hard pushed against the base of my neck as a female voice whispered “don’t move.” I sat as still as I could, wondering why psycho-blond wasn’t shooting me right off the bat. Perhaps this run-in with me was coming for her before either of her earlier meetings with me. The pressure eased and I heard someone moving around to my left.

The woman who came into view didn’t look familiar, and she was dressed like a Victorian. But her movements betrayed the casual grace of someone trained in gymnastics or martial arts, and didn’t appear hindered by the horribly confining undergarments required of women Here and Now. Not a local, I was a certain. She sat down opposite me and gave me a long, searching look before speaking. “Who are you?”

I put my best confused and innocent look on my face. “I’m from out of town -.”

“That’s obvious, since you have an implanted jump mechanism.”

Definitely not one of the locals. “Do you mind telling me who you are, first?”

“Yes, I do. Obviously I’m not someone you were expecting to see.”

I hoped my smile looked sincere though I feared it was still a bit shaky. “There’s a woman who’s tried to kill me a few times. You’re not her.”

“I could be,” she advised dryly. “Now, tell me who you are. I don’t want to ask again. My weapon still has you covered, so you’d be advised to take my requests seriously.”

I noticed one of hands was inside her purse, and nodded in what I hoped was a non-threatening fashion. “I’m a T.I.”

“Private work, then.”

“Sort of.”

“Why are you Here and Now?”

I briefly considered possible responses as I examined her. Whatever her motives, she didn’t have any trace of Caligula, or even Mussolini, in her eyes. So I opted for truth, and explained how I’d happened to be Here and Now.

Her expression didn’t change even after I’d finished. “This woman you say you encountered -.”

“The psycho-blond.”

My nickname for my would-be killer finally brought a brief smile to one corner of her mouth. “Why does she want to kill you?”

“Apparently, she tried to kill me the first time we met because the second time we met she accidentally blew away a friend of hers while she was taking a shot at me.”

“She back-jumped and tried to intercept you before the accident happened.”

“I’m sure of it.”

“And why was she trying to shoot you the second time you met her?”

“I’m not certain. I’d cornered someone who I’m sure was an ally of hers, but I don’t know why she responded by trying to blow a hole in me instead of taking some less extreme step.” I paused and frowned. “Though from what I’ve seen of her, psycho-blond doesn’t seem to think of killing people as being all that extreme a step.”

My questioner nodded. “If she’s with whoever caused the destruction of London tomorrow, that’s entirely too likely.”

“Then the asteroid is an Intervention?”

“Absolutely.” I finally saw tension leaving her posture, though her hand stayed inside that purse. “I know because I was here when it hit. Not in this spot, needless to say. I was a ways out of town working a job, saw the object streaking in, and knew immediately it had to be an Intervention because my background studies hadn’t mentioned even seeing such an aerial display. Then it blew. I had my assistant jump me back before the shock wave hit so I’d have a chance of doing a counter-intervention.” She eyed me closely, and then relaxed for real, though her eyes kept roaming around in precaution against us being surprised as she’d caught me. I hoped she was better at spotting danger than I was. . “I had to make sure you weren’t one of the people trying to carry off the Intervention. Did you catch any of the change wave before you jumped in?”

“The first parts. Not the crest, I’m sure.”

“My assistant’s history files haven’t been exposed to the change wave. If we compare them with yours we should be able to figure out who will profit from what happened to London tomorrow.”

I didn’t reply directly, instead having Jeannie call up her information so I could summarize it. “Starting with tomorrow, the short story is that the British Empire responded to the tragedy by vowing to rebuild London in even more glory than before. Huge sums and resources were sunk into the effort. The rebuilding effort was well along when World War One took off.”

She leaned forward, eyes narrowed. “Who won that war?”

“The allies.” I saw her relax, puzzlement plain to see. “At tremendous cost. Russia’s monarchy was overthrown –,“ she nodded, “and replaced eventually by a communist dictatorship –,“ another nod, “the French were bled white -,” nod again, “the United States came out relatively unscathed, and the British Empire sank what was left of its wealth into finishing the job of rebuilding London.” Another frown. “The combination of the loss of London, the war and the rebuilding effort bankrupted the empire, so it started falling apart in the 1920s CE -.”

“What? The British Empire started coming apart in the 1920s?”

“Yes. By the 1930s there were just a few rump possessions left. Then when resurgent Germany invaded and conquered France in short order, the British had no choice but to sue for peace on the Germans’ terms -.”

“Damn!”

I checked some more of Jeannie’s data and flinched inwardly. “The Nazi Third Reich lasted for one hundred fifty-two years.” I didn’t elaborate on what the Reich had done with that length of time, but I had a feeling I didn’t need to.

I was right. Her eyes and voice reflected horror. “They’re supposed to lose. The Third Reich dies in 1945 CE.”

“Not after tomorrow.” I shook my head. “I have to give them credit, the one’s who pulled this off. The years, even the decades, right before and during World War Two are packed with T.I.’s trying to stage interventions for or against the Nazis. They’re always running into each other and countering attempted interventions. But these guys went way downtime, far enough down to avoid the crowds yet close enough that their intervention played out in the outcome of World War Two.”

She grimaced. “Very clever, in more ways than one. If Germany hadn’t lost the First World War then the Nazis wouldn’t have come to power. Our opponents had to take out London early enough before World War One to ensure the Empire would commit to the rebuilding, but not too early to allow the Empire to possibly recover from the double blow before 1939. I never thought I’d describe destroying a major city as a surgical intervention, but they did it.” My fellow T.I. (for that was what I was sure she was by now) reached for my beer, pulled it toward her and took a drink. “I hope you don’t mind.”

“Am I still covered?”

“Of course.”

“Then be my guest.” She flashed a grin which quickly faded as I asked a question. “What exactly happens tomorrow?”
She took another drink and made a face I knew had nothing to do with the taste of the beer. “You tell me. I saw the object flaring across the sky, then the flash of detonation.”

I checked with Jeannie again. “Best estimates are that an object entered earth’s atmosphere and detonated over London. The city was totally destroyed by an explosion of at least ten megatons equivalent.” I glanced at my companion. “So what really destroyed the city?”

“A meteor.”

“That’s what my history says -.”

“That’s what happened. My assistant picked up enough information from the object’s entry to confirm it as an asteroid.”

I sat digesting that for a moment. “Do you have any idea how they managed to use a meteor as an intervention?”

“There’s only one way they could’ve. They jumped a spacecraft through and shoved the rock this way.”

“A spacecraft? In a jump?” My expression must have revealed what I was thinking. The cost and energy requirements for jumps go up exponentially as mass increases.

“I know it’s hard to believe. Whoever did this must have expended a large world’s gross planetary product’s worth of wealth on the project.” She finally relaxed completely and took her hand out of her purse. “I’m Pam.”

“Tom. You’re also a T.I.?”

“That’s right.”

“And you really haven’t met psycho-blond, yet?”

“No.” Pam’s eyes went distant for a moment in the way they do when someone’s thinking deeply. “She’s blond, you say. Tall.”

“Yes.”

“Blue eyes?”

I hesitated, but Jeannie had automatically saved a file on my brief looks at psycho-blond. “Yes.”

“She’s someone’s idea of the perfect Aryan killer, I guess. Just the sort of thing a hundred and fifty year old Reich would produce.”

“Kampf looked nothing like that,” I objected.

“No? And this, uh, psycho-blond was apparently waiting in Kampf’s apartment when you got there?”

“Yes, I . . . hell. How stupid can I be? I’d waylaid Kampf, someone in the intervention-created future realized it in time to do something, and they sent her to stop me from getting to him.”

Pam nodded and drank again. “Countering your attempt to counter them. Wheels within wheels. But being a blood-thirsty assassin she bungled her rescue of Kampf in her eagerness to kill you.”

We fell silent for a while. I ordered another beer, since Pam didn’t show any signs of returning what was left of my first, and wondered what about this whole picture was bothering me. “Why does it matter?” I finally asked her.

She looked astonished. “Are you serious? Why does the destruction of Here and Now London and a Nazi victory -.”

“No, no, no. Not that. That matters. What I mean is, if someone shoved a rock at London from out in space, why does it matter if I got Kampf? Or anyone else? How can we stop a rock? Spacecraft are hideously expensive to jump, but imagine trying to jump downtime a Space Object Destruction or Diversion System. If we can’t get a SODDS, why does Kampf matter, and if we can get a SODDS, why do we need Kampf enough for them to worry about it?”

Pam frowned thoughtfully. “Very good question.” Her expression shifted. “And why is Kampf even Here and Now for that matter?”

“Was Here and Now.”

“Was Here and Now. He must have had some role in what happens tomorrow.”

When in doubt, bounce information off of your assistant. Jeannie pondered the question briefly before replying. I stared at Pam as I relayed the answer. “Terminal guidance. A rock hurled at the planet wouldn’t be that accurate a weapon. They need to hit London square on. The only way to ensure that is to have a maneuvering system on the rock so they can bring it down at the right place. Kampf must have been involved with that.”

“But how does the rock know where its target is? They didn’t jump through constellations of navigational satellites. Even aside from the cost, there’d be too big a chance of them being spotted by Here and Now astronomy, or their signals being inadvertently interfered with by primitive electronic experiments -.”

“Then they need a surface locator or homing beacon . . . ” Here and Now astronomy. Of course. I laughed, earning a questioning look from Pam as I reached into my pocket. “Kampf had this,” I told her, holding out the train ticket.

“Greenwich?”

“The Royal Observatory. High ground, near London.”

“Yes! The perfect site! They must’ve installed something there already. Maybe Kampf was just hanging around in case it malfunctioned and needed repairs.”

I grinned. “I think we can arrange for a serious malfunction beyond the possibility of repair. Interested?”

“Absolutely. Want to take a train ride?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

It took us a while to reach Victoria Station, then we had a wait for the next train to Greenwich, and then we had the journey itself. The day was drawing to a close, and another day wouldn’t dawn over London unless we found what we hoped for at Greenwich. At some point, I realized that even if we diverted the rock we’d still have a very dangerous object heading for someplace on Earth with potentially horrible consequences. I couldn’t think of any consequences worse than a century and a half of Nazi rule over Europe and a good chunk of Russia, But I wasn’t happy thinking of the people who might catch that rock instead.

Everything considered, I enjoyed the ride. Pam had an easy smile and a good face. It’s usually impossible for me or other T.I.’s to get emotionally involved with locals in downtime because there’s no way to shake the knowledge that those people have all been dead since before you were born. They’re alive, walking and talking and feeling, but it seems like stepping into an old movie where the characters are playing parts you learned about in ancient history lessons. Pam being from uptime, like me, made it possible to connect with her. Pam being Pam made it easy to connect with her.

But all good things come to an end.

The walk from the platform where the train dropped us to the observatory wasn’t too far. It’d gotten very late and plenty dark, however.

A long grassy slope led upward toward the observatory. Aside from a few trees dotting the landscape, it was all distressingly open. We began sauntering up the path, trying to look casual, unconcerned and inconspicuous.

It didn’t work. Either psycho-blond recognized my clothing or she was in a kill-just-in-case mode. I noticed something move against an opening near the top of the observatory and shoved Pam to one side moments before a shot dug a very large divot out of the grass.

We scrambled to one of the trees, which fortunately wasn’t too far away and had a trunk big enough to hide behind as long as Pam and I huddled real close together. Under other circumstances, I would’ve really enjoyed that, but occasional shots blew chunks out of the tree trunk and kept my mind on business.

“Now what?” I asked Pam.

She grimaced. “There’s only one option. One of us has to jump downtime far enough to try to get into the observatory before your blond girlfriend gets to it.”

“Please don’t call her that. And I had trouble getting into this Here and Now, by the way.”

“Nice time to mention it.” Pam fell silent, communing with her assistant, then frowned at me. “My assistant can’t set up a jump within weeks of this date. The period’s blocked.”

“I came in on a narrow window on the 28th.”

“It’s not there anymore. Nothing within four months.”

“How are they blocking jumps?” We both knew it could be done. No one could jump uptime past a certain year because whoever lived Then had set up barriers to jumps for reasons that remained unknown. But no one downtime of that was supposed to have such capability.

Pam shook her head angrily. ”I’d guess one of the results of this intervention was the discovery of a means to block jumps farther downtime of when it should’ve happened. They must’ve opened that window to jump one of their own people in. Maybe Kampf. You just got lucky and saw it during that brief gap.”

I winced as another shot sent wood splinters flying. “How much ammo does that homicidal maniac have?”

“Too much. Do you think we have a chance if we split up and try to rush from two different directions?”

I looked around, judging the terrain and what I knew of psycho-blond’s accuracy, then shook my head. “She’d nail us for sure. We’d be out in the open too long.”

Pam looked unhappy, but nodded. “I have to agree. There’s no sense getting ourselves killed without a reasonable chance of success. Too bad we can’t call on reinforcements.”

“You, there!” Pam and I looked at each other, wondering who’d spoken. “What’s all this?”

I rolled slightly and bent my head to see ten men in uniform standing a ways down slope on the walkway. They looked magnificent in what must have been full dress or mess dress, their insignia and medals flashing even in the dim illumination of the night. British military officers, obviously, probably returning late from the sort of social function which made up a large part of Victorian and Edwardian military life. Just what we needed to balance the odds. “There’s a foreign agent in the observatory! Here to kill the . . . ” Exactly when had Victoria died?

“King,” Pam whispered.

“ . . . King!”

A shocked pause followed, then rasps of metal and more glints of moonlight revealed the Brits were drawing the swords hanging at their sides, swords I’d automatically and incorrectly assumed to be simply ceremonial. “Unthinkable,” the most heavily be-medaled officer stated. “We shall put a stop to this.”

“Good. If we split up and work our way around -.”

The apparent commander raised his sword. “Forward, men.”

Pam and I stared at each other. “Wait,” I yelled. “The agent has a gun!”

The Brits didn’t hesitate. They stepped out, walking upslope at a brisk pace, their swords held at ready, the senior officer slightly in the lead and the others in line abreast behind him. It made for a glorious sight, if you happen to think that watching brave people do stupid things is glorious.

“What are they doing?” Pam demanded, both her face and her voice revealing her disbelief.

I shook my head, feeling sick inside. As I noted earlier, part of a T.I. knows the people he or she is seeing died a long time ago. Maybe so long ago that even memory of what they believed worth dying for had gone to dust along with their bodies. But another part of a T.I. sees living humans who aren’t fundamentally different from those of us uptime from them and hates to actually see them die in the Here and Now. “World War One hasn’t happened, yet. They still think war’s a grand and glorious game. They haven’t seen tens of thousands die on barbed wire while struggling through Belgian mud, or watched battlecruisers exploding, or seen poison gas drifting across the landscape.”

“Fools. They’re throwing away our only chance to get to that building.”

“No, they’re not. They’re providing a diversion and absorbing shots that psycho-blond could be aiming at us. Come on. Let’s take advantage of it.”

As Pam and I raced up the slope at an angle shots started booming from the observatory and gaps began appearing in the ranks of the soldiers. The officers didn’t hesitate as their companions fell, stubbornly, valiantly and brainlessly continuing their attack. I was off to one side and just coming even with the forwardmost Brit, the most senior of the officers, still plodding forward with head held high, when his forward progress jerked to an abrupt halt as a large hole appeared in his chest. The officer, his face seeming to reflect just a small degree of surprise and puzzlement, toppled backward slowly, his body hitting the grass and rolling a few times down the slope.

And I was still too far from the building.

I dodged and ran and heard the boom of a shot and prayed. Then I realized the shot I’d heard had come from the side, not ahead, and that Pam had snapped off a round to keep psycho-blond’s head down so she couldn’t nail me. I was rapidly falling in love with Pam. I gained the side of the observatory building just as psycho-blond’s next shot cracked by perilously close behind me.

Pam was a few meters down, flattened like me against the side of the building, and like me gasping for breath after our dash. I eased her way as Pam checked her weapon with a grim expression, then looked at me. “You do realize that if she’d taken time to shoot us first she could’ve still nailed all those Brits before their frontal attack reached her.”

“Yes. I hoped she wouldn’t be able to resist going first for the easy targets and sure kills. It seemed to match what I knew of her.”

“The more I learn about her the more I can’t wait to meet this woman.”

“I can wait. She’s really dangerous, Pam.”

“So am I when I want to be.” Pam held her weapon ready as she eased inside. No shots went off, so I followed. We crept through the dimly lit rooms, heading for stairs leading up.

It was night, this was an observatory, but there seemed to be a disturbing lack of astronomers. Then we spotted the first body.

Pam covered me while I crouched down to check. “He’s not dead.”

“He’s not?” Pam seemed to be as surprised as I was.

“No. It seems like some sort of heavy sedation. I don’t see any signs of a struggle, though.”

Pam nodded. “An area incapacitating weapon. Gas, or maybe a short-ranged neural suppressor. Something to get these people out of the way for a few hours without raising any alarm outside or creating too many risks for that blond to be able to operate here right afterwards.”

That made sense, though I could imagine psycho-blond had been disappointed at not being able to engage in mass murder. “I guess once she spotted us she stopped worrying about keeping things quiet.”

We reached the stairs and stopped. Pam waved me forward again while she kept her weapon at ready. I knelt near the stairs, wondering if Pam’s reflexes were faster than psycho-blond’s. “Jeannie, can you detect anything here?”

“There is a sensor of some sort placed nearby. It appears to be focused on the first few stairs.”

I informed Pam, who nodded. “My assistant says she can jam the sensor for about four seconds. Do you think you can cover those stairs that fast without making a lot of noise?”

“I can try.”

We both made it without setting off the alarm, then we crept upward as silently as possible. We made our way past some more sleeping astronomers, assistants and others who’d been unfortunate enough to be in the observatory tonight.

The door into the big domed area holding the telescope was closed and locked. I pantomimed slapping my head in exasperation and Pam grinned tensely. Then she brought out a small gadget and rested it against the lock. After a moment I heard a very faint click. Pam winced at the tiny noise, then pocketed the device. She held her weapon up, gesturing me to the right. I nodded.

Pam’s hand on the door knob moved smoothly and quickly, then she was pushing the door open and dodging inside and to the left. I was right behind her, catching only a quick impression of the big telescope and the Victorian-vintage architecture around it as I searched for danger.

And there she was, her blond hair standing out like a beacon in the dim light. The barrel of her gun was already swinging my way. A big piece of girder nearby rang with the impact of a shot aimed at me as I dove for cover. Pam hit the deck, too, as psycho-blond snapped a second shot her way. I couldn’t see Pam where she’d dropped, and hoped she hadn’t been hit.

This was bad. Very bad. Even if Pam was still in good shape the best we could do was to try rushing psycho-blond and hope she only dropped one of us before the other one reached her. Given what I’d seen of psycho-blond’s aim and reflexes, I wasn’t at all sure even one of us would make it. “Jeannie, can you contact Pam’s Assistant?”

“Yes.”

“Is Pam okay?”

“Pam is uninjured except for a bruise developing on her -.”

“Does she have any ideas?”

There was a brief pause before Jeannie answered this time. “She wants you to distract your opponent for a few seconds.”

"Does she have any helpful suggestions for how I should do that?"

Another pause as Jeannie relayed the question and response. “She suggests you give your opponent something to shoot at.”

“Great suggestion.” I didn't have any personal appendages to spare, nor did I see any lifelike mannequins lying nearby. I had one tranquilizer crystal shooter imbedded in my right forefinger, but that was a point-blank weapon with little accuracy beyond a meter or so. Even if I fired my single crystal, it’d only distract psycho-blond for a second. I shifted position slightly, wincing as psycho-blond snapped off a shot toward the sound I made and then wincing again as a new blister rubbed against the heavy, uncomfortable shoe on my left foot.

Maybe I did have some more weapons handy. I reached back cautiously, working both shoes loose, then braced myself, one shoe in each hand. “Jeannie, tell Pam I’m preparing the diversion.”

“She is awaiting your action.”

“Pass her this countdown. Three, two, one, now!”

I rose up at a slight angle to hopefully complicate psycho-blond’s aim and hurled one shoe without bothering to aim. The big object flying her way must have worried her (for all she knew it contained a grenade) because she caught it with a direct hit that blew leather in all directions. The second shoe, better aimed, met a similar fate well short of psycho-blond, then I started to bring my forefinger to bear, realizing as I did so that she was going to be able to hit me with a third shot before I could duck back down.

Fortunately, Pam was better armed than I and also a good shot. Psycho-blond’s wrist snapped back at an odd angle and her weapon flew away as Pam’s shot hit. I jumped up to run forward as Pam pumped out a couple of more shots, but psycho-blond evaded both by a stunning display of speed as she leaped at Pam. Pam’s gun also flew away as the two women grappled. Despite psycho-blond’s bleeding and apparently broken wrist, Pam barely held her own while I watched for an opening.

Pam finally got in a good slam at psycho-blond’s wrist, generating pain even the Aryan berserker couldn’t shake off. In the momentary lull I shoved my finger against psycho-blond’s back and fired the tranq crystal into her.

After that it was only a matter of keeping her from killing Pam and I until the tranq knocked her out. That was easier said than done, but eventually we found ourselves looking down at our unconscious foe, breathing heavily and trying to ignore all the places where we’d been battered. “Based on how she killed all those soldiers,” Pam gasped, “I guessed she’d be so focused on killing you that she’d ignore me for long enough.”

“You don’t know how glad I am that you were right,” I wheezed back.

“Why don’t you carry a more effective tranq weapon?”

“It’s effective enough to drop a mammoth within seconds!”

Pam shook her head, looking down at the blond. “But it took a few minutes to take her down. I wonder what her genetic profile looks like.”

“I don’t want to know.” Nazis and genetic engineering wasn’t a scenario I liked contemplating.

“We need rope in case she comes to.”

“Rope, hell. There’s some chain back where I was hiding.”

The chain wouldn’t have sufficed to hold a battleship at anchor, but we wrapped it around psycho-blond as many times as we could, interweaving the wraps so she wouldn’t be able to just shrug it off.

Fortunately, it wasn’t too hard to find the device psycho-blond had been guarding. Outside, it looked like a small Here and Now trunk. But the energy it was giving off led our assistants to it easily. We checked for booby-traps, then cautiously opened the lid and saw a control panel far too sophisticated to be local work. “Jeannie, what is this thing?”

“The device before you is transmitting a continuous encrypted signal.”

“Can you break the encryption?”

“No. Not with available resources.”

I turned to Pam. “My assistant can’t break the signal.”

Pam nodded and smiled. “Mine can.”

So Pam’s Assistant was more capable than mine. I hadn’t really had time to think about When she was from, but it was now apparent she lived uptime from me. Not too far uptime, I hoped. “Should we shut it off?” I asked.

“No. If we just did that, the asteroid would probably continue on its last heading and still cause a lot of damage even it didn’t hit the city. My Assistant thinks she can alter the homing signal parameters, though, and . . . ah! She’s found the atmospheric entry command sequence.”

“Has it activated?”

“Not yet.”

“If we can cancel the maneuver -.”

“No! The rock will still reenter and we’ll have no idea where it’d impact.” Pam stared at me. “Trust me.”

“But -. Okay.” It sounded like Pam was going to try to make the object enter earlier than planned. It’d come from the east, Pam had told me, so that meant the new trajectory would bring it down somewhere east of England. What was east of London in 1908? Europe. Heavily populated even then. Then Russia. Or the Russian Empire, rather, in 1908 CE.

Pam seemed to be sweating as her assistant worked silently to alter the space object’s destination. Jeannie and I waited. I watched Pam’s face for any sign of how her attempt to alter the asteroid’s path was working, but couldn’t see any clues there. I found myself looking outward, wondering if I’d see the incandescent path of the space object heading for London.

A light blinked off on the device. Then another. Pam drew a long, deep breath. “It’s coming down early.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere in a region called Siberia.” She shot me an aggrieved look even though I hadn’t said anything. “I couldn’t stop it and I can’t achieve a precise target area without a homing device like this there, so I aimed it for emptiest place I could. Siberia seems the best chance we have to minimize the death and destruction this intervention will cause.”

I nodded, realized it’d been a while since I’d breathed, and inhaled deeply. “Siberia is one of the least populated regions on Earth right Now.”

“Yes.” Pam sagged with reaction as the tension fell out of her. “When we get back to our own Here and Now’s, there’ll no doubt be mention of a big explosion in Siberia on,” she paused to check the date, “30 June, 1908 CE. Hopefully in the middle of nowhere.”

I grinned. “I wonder to what they’ll attribute the good fortune of it hitting in the middle of nowhere?”

“The usual, I’m sure. Accident or chance or luck. The standard way of explaining something when they don’t really know the answer.”

“If they didn’t explain things away like that, your and my jobs would be a lot harder.”

“True.” We heard a strangled sound, and both looked toward where we’d left psycho-blond. The killer was snarling soundlessly at us, having recovered from the tranq with amazing speed. “What should we do with her?” Pam wondered.

“If they don’t manage another counter-intervention, she should loop out any time now when the future that created her ceases to exist.”

“Yeah, but how long will that take?” Metal clanked on the heels of Pam’s question, and as we watched the loops of chain which had been wrapped about psycho-blond collapsed into the vacant space she’d once occupied. “I think the fat lady just sang. How’s it feel to know you’ve saved London?”

“Right now it still hurts. Too bad the bruises that woman inflicted didn’t vanish along with her.” I stared at the pile of chain. “I wonder what kind of person she’ll be with a different history? Maybe not too bad.”

“Are you planning on looking her up?”

“No way. I think I’m going to be a little wary of blonds for a while.” I suddenly noticed shouting outside. “I think all the gunplay has attracted too much attention.” I went to what must have been the same point where psycho-blond had been firing from and looked downward. People who’d had cause to be about in the very early hours of the morning were gathering around the bodies of the dead soldiers, examining them and speaking in indistinct but clearly excited voices. “We’d better get out of here.”

“Not without this.” Pam indicated the now-silent device. Unlike psycho-blond, it’d been put here by a history that still existed. “I hope it’s not too heavy.” She tried to raise it, then grinned with relief as it came up easily. “Not bad at all. I can handle it alone. Let’s go before anyone realizes the shots came from here.”

“Wait.” I checked to make sure psycho-blond’s weapon had vanished along with her. Sometimes the strangest things get left behind even after the reason for their existing had looped out. But that’s another story. “Where’s your gun?”

Pam smiled. “Already on me. But thanks for thinking of that. Now let’s go.”

Pam and I ran again, this time out of the observatory. Once at the door, we slackened our pace to a walk, moving nonchalantly away from the growing crowd around the remains of His Majesty’s brave military men. I felt sick again, even though I knew that because of historical circumstances their deaths Here and Now wouldn’t even be a drop in the tides of history. Odds were that all of those soldiers would have died anyway within a few years, between 1914 and 1918.

Or during the influenza epidemic that started in 1918. But that’s also another story and not one I like remembering. Then my shoeless foot hit a stone and another pain occupied my attention.

We soon entered a built-up area where the streets meandered past still-closed shops and pubs. I wondered what the local time was, thinking it must be getting close to dawn. Pam finally paused and set down the trunk. “It’s high time we jumped out of here. The local cops are going to be looking for anyone who might know anything about those dead men. And as long as this homing device is still Here and Now there’s a chance someone might try to retrieve it. Do you want it?”

I had Jeannie calculate the cost of jumping that extra mass uptime and winced. “Not unless you don’t want it.”

“Okay. I think I know some people who’ll give me a few bucks for it.” She smiled and offered her hand. “Nice working with you.”

“Likewise.” We shook hands, then I gathered my courage. “Pam, what would you think about getting together on a non-business basis?”

“I’d like that.” She named a date about a century uptime from me, then saw my expression. “Are you up or down from that?”

“Down.” I named my own date and Pam had the grace to look disappointed. There’s expensive get-togethers, and then there’s going on jumps for get-togethers, which only the incredibly rich and idle can afford. I didn’t fit either category.

“Well, maybe something will work out,” Pam offered. “Come up and see me sometime.”

“If I can, I will.”

“Too bad we can’t see the sites of London together. Thanks again for the help. And the company. See you around.” Pam smiled, blew me a kiss, and then jumped uptime, leaving me gazing at the empty place on the sidewalk where she’d been.

I checked in my pockets, confirming that my stash of ill-gotten cash had dwindled to a few small coins I suspected even beggars would turn up their noses at. Both of my feet hurt from running on cobblestones and the occasional tree trunk or rock.

There I stood in Edwardian London, with no money, no girl, and no shoes, doubtless being sought at this moment by numerous Sherlock Holmes-wannabes from Scotland Yard. Hail the conquering hero.

“Jeannie, prepare the jump back home.” Maybe I’d be able to hit up my friends for contributions to pay for my trip here and back. Bill sure as heck owed me some, but professors didn’t tend to have large bank accounts and he might not even remember the entire incident. “And look up any organizations that might give me some sort of reward for saving London and ensuring Hitler’s defeat. That ought to be worth something.”

“You will have to convince them that the history they know is the result of your Intervention,” Jeannie reminded me.

“I know. Hopefully they’ll accept your files on this trip.” When you’re a Temporal Interventionist, history is what you make of it, but you usually don’t make enough from making history. I faced east, where a gradual lightening of the night sky foretold the sun still rising on the British Empire. “Let’s go home, Jeannie.”

Author's Note on These Are the Times

Our favorite Temporal Interventionists, Tom and Pam, are back. Literally. They’re back in 1775. There was a shot fired that year in Massachusetts that started the American war of Independence. We still don’t know who fired it, but we may be about to find out. And Tom has to decide whether he is willing to move “up” or lose his chance at changing his own history. This story was inspired by helping my youngest son with his homework on the American Revolution. Those old weapons put out a lot of smoke when they fired. Why didn’t anyone see where the shot came from that day on the field at Lexington?

These Are the Times

Like different people, some places and times in the past attract a lot more attention than others. Sometimes a particular there and then only needs a few Temporal Interventionists dropping by before every question is pretty much answered. Lady Godiva, for example, who really did do her bare-back ride, but no one who saw her picture in action once wanted to see it again. They probably forgave the taxes just so she’d put her clothes back on.

Other places get a fairly constant stream of TIs either trying to change things for their clients or trying to collect information from the past. It’s hard to visit Washington, DC anytime during the first three centuries of the United States, for example, without tripping over fellow TIs.

Then there’s very specific there and thens, places and times where something special happened, a turning point, and everyone wants to be there.

Like Boston, Massachusetts, in April, 1775 CE.

I’d landed what should have been a nice, simple job. No Interventions this time by someone wanting to ensure Great-Great-Great-etc.-Uncle Ned made it to Lexington Green so they’d have a hero in the family instead of an ancestor who’d stayed in bed with a hangover that morning, or someone wanting to murder Paul Revere or poison his horse. That stuff could get hazardous, especially with so many TIs from different centuries clustered in this here and now all trying to either carry out their own Interventions or stop someone else from achieving their Intervention.

There wasn’t anything dangerous in my job description. I was supposed to jump back uptime before sunset on the 18th, well before serious shooting started, and any travel by me near decision points or critical individuals would be finished well before then. No, all I had to worry about was being caught in the crossfire between TIs fighting before that time to either create or block Interventions. Unfortunately, this here and now had a lot of crossfire, and as a TI myself I looked entirely too much like one of the combatants, so I stayed as alert as anyone else who knew a secret war was underway around them. That’s aside from the fact that I was trying to blend in with the locals, who were also ready and willing to commit potentially homicidal actions against each other.

I’d been sent back by the Virtual City project, whose latest plan was to record everything said and done in Boston and the nearby surrounding area on 18 and 19 April 1775. Important places, like where the Sons of Liberty had met, had long since been bugged so you could get detailed transcripts of everything said by anyone of any importance in the city on those days. But the Virtual City project aimed to create a visual and auditory record of the entire place and time. Once all of the data from the thousands of bugs was integrated, individuals several centuries from 1775 would be able to “walk” down the streets of this here and now, go into just about any building, and hear and see what had actually happened to anyone, not just the famous people.

Historians loved it, people who enjoyed soap operas loved it, privacy advocates screamed bloody murder and pointed out that people farther uptime could be doing the same thing to us. But the law said no such project could include any living person, so not enough people who were alive objected to it. And like every other TI, my implanted personal assistant made sure I was invisible to the bugs so no future voyeurs would be eyeing me. Historians insisted on that so we wouldn’t mess up the record, which is sort of ridiculous since TIs spend a good part of their time messing up history. It’s what we do. Historians love us for the facts we can tell them and hate us for changing the facts we tell them.

But I wasn’t out to change anything this time. My job consisted of walking down a preplanned grid of streets while the bug deployment gear built into the heavy coat I wore spat out bugs according to its own programming. To the casual observer here and now who got close enough to one, the bugs looked like gnats as they flitted into position on buildings or inside windows and doors to observe activity inside. Each had a nice array of visual and audio recording gear which would send their data to collection arrays which I and other TIs had dropped off in various places where they looked like rocks. If any local picked one up, they’d feel like rocks, too.

All I had to do was keep one internal eye focused on the map my implanted Assistant named Jeannie displayed my route on, and one external eye on the assorted denizens of Boston, other obstacles to be avoided, and anything suspicious or dangerous.

Not exactly safe, but not the most hazardous job I’d ever had, either. Everything went fine until I realized somebody was following me.

He was aristocratic-looking, fair-haired, wearing very nice clothes, and seemed the sort of guy who robbed people by embezzling from the bank he owned rather than the sort who followed someone down an alley and hit them on the head. But he kept showing up in my peripheral vision and that got me worried.

I finally turned quickly and focused on him for a moment before turning away again. Jeannie, lock on. Can you ID this guy? Internal communications come in very useful at such times.

Negative, Jeannie responded. You’ve never encountered him before, but he’s not a local. He does have an implanted time jump mechanism. I can’t be certain from this distance, but it seems a couple of generations more primitive than yours, placing the man’s origin a little more than a century before our home now.

Any weapons?

None detected.

Which didn’t mean none were there. But I had to know what this guy wanted with me, and accosting him in public was less risky than letting him chose the moment. I turned the next corner as my preplanned route directed, but then pivoted and took several quick steps back to the corner just in time to meet my tail as he came around. “Hi, citizen,” I greeted him in a low voice as the crowds of locals walked past us, using the anachronistic term on purpose to get his reaction.

He glowered at me. “You’ve got your nerve.” High-class British accent, and very well done. I wondered if it was authentic. “Do you think I don’t know what you’re doing?”

“Since you’ve got an implanted Assistant and jump mechanism I’m sure you know what I’m doing. So what? It’s not about you.”

His glower changed into a snarl. “I suppose it’s just a coincidence that you’re planting sensors in the same area where I was waylaid tomorrow.”

“As far as I know, yes.” Wait a minute. If he was here tomorrow and knew what had happened that meant he was also probably here today. “You doubled-back? You’ve got dual-presence in this here and now, and both within this city?” Instead of answering directly, he smiled unpleasantly. “Don’t you know what that can do to someone’s mind?” No one knows why, but being consciously present in the same here and now more than once can create a lot of problems that mimic old ailments like schizophrenia and paranoia. The closer you physically are the worse the effects are.

“That’s only a problem for weak-minded mongrels,” he replied with that supercilious sneer that only a many-generational member of the upper class can really carry off. “You think yourself very superior. But you’ve met your match.”

“Look, I’m not –”

“You won’t stop me!” He must one of the guys trying an Intervention. I took a moment to wonder what, but it didn’t matter much. Everyone who made any difference in the events of the next few days had TI bodyguards secretly following them everywhere. Every building that mattered had other TIs guarding them and sweeping them for bombs and such. The people who wanted to keep history the way it more or less was in general had a lot more money than the ones who wanted to change things, and could hire more TIs to protect turning points in history. Some of them must have taken out this Brit tomorrow.

His sneer turned contemptuous. “I know your kind. Sit back safely, give the orders, send out your hooligans to do your dirty work while you pull the strings within your lair. It’s a regular Moriarty you consider yourself, isn’t it?”

“Actually, no.”

He leaned close, his face reddening with anger. “You stopped me tomorrow but you won’t stop me tomorrow this time. Try to sic your hounds on me again and I’ll be ready.”

I leaned a little closer, too, emphasizing my words. “I don’t know you, I don’t care what you’re trying to do, I’m not here on Intervention or Counter-Intervention or Counter-Counter-Intervention. I’m just working for a data collection project. Go away and I promise you any further interactions between us will be purely by chance.”

“You lie. I have my eye on you Moriarty. Neither you nor your ruffians will be safe if you try to cross me again.”

I started losing my temper, too. “Listen, you moron. I’m not Moriarty, but if you mess with me I’ll do a Wellington on you. Understand?”

His eyes narrowed, he shifted his weight and I braced for him to jump me. I’ve got a tranquilizer crystal shooter embedded in one finger that can knock out someone for a long time, and if necessary I’d use it on this loon. But he just glanced around, taking in the crowds passing by, then stepped back slightly. “Right, Yank. Think you can rule the world, eh? And all time as well. Not bloody likely. Keep yourself and your brutes away from me and my plans.” Then he spun about and vanished rapidly around the corner.

I blew out a long breath, relaxed, then started walking my route again. Jeannie, any idea what that last little speech of his was about?

He seems to believe that you’re a citizen of the United States, which supplanted the United Kingdom as the world’s most powerful political entity.

That figured. Someone out to try to cause the UK to stay on top of the world longer than it had. Since I didn’t intend going anywhere near any potential targets for someone like that, he’d hopefully go off and follow some other innocent TI through the streets of Boston.

My route took me down toward the docks, where the smell of the sea, rotting fish and raw sewage got worse. Even though the port had been closed by British authorities since the Boston Tea Party a while back, there was still plenty of street traffic here. The narrow lane ahead was partially blocked by a cart holding some of those fish, so I worked through the throng squeezing past on one side.

Standing against a building up ahead was a man wearing a cloak draped around him, his tricorn hat pulled low on his forehead. He looked up as I drew near and our eyes locked.

I came to a dead stop, drawing some mumbles of anger from those who had to suddenly avoid me.

The boat-cloaked figure stepped forward and extended one hand. “Thomas? I’m Palmer. I trust you remember me from London?”

“Palmer?” I took the hand, which would have been slim on a man. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“I had business.” Her voice sounded deeper than I recalled, probably because her own Assistant was tweaking her vocal cords so she’d pass as a male. The locally fashionable male wig helped, too, as did the clothes. Locals expecting to see a man would see one. “It’s nice to see you here and now.”

Jeannie actually sounded happy. I’ve established contact with her Assistant. This meeting is after our last encounter in London but prior to any other encounters. That’s the sort of thing TIs have to straighten out right away when they meet someone they know. Have I already seen you again before or after this? What did we say or do? It gets confusing. But no problem this time.

I realized I was grinning like an idiot. “Yeah. Very nice to see you, too.”

“Going somewhere?” Pam asked. I nodded. “May I accompany you?” Another nod, and we set off down the street, speaking in low voices.

“Pam, what brings you to Boston?”

“Palmer,” she murmured back. “I get really tired of enduring male attitudes toward women in downtime places like this, and even more tired of enduring the clothes they’re expected to wear. It’s easier to pass as a man at this time of year when I can wear a cloak. What are you up to?”

“Something called the Virtual City project. Do you know about it?” Maybe she’d even walked through it.

“Annie told me about it,” Pam advised. Annie must be her Assistant. “She’s happy to be talking to Jeannie again.”

“Yeah, Jeannie’s thrilled, too.” I gave Pam a speculative look. She lived way uptime from me. “I guess you could tell me how the project comes out.”

She grinned back at me. “Could. Won’t.”

Because TIs don’t share things they know about other TI’s futures. That’s the rule anyway, though I know of TIs who’ve broken it, either to help another TI or because they want to mess up another TI. “I hope the fact that you’re smiling means nothing serious happens to me.”

Pam looked away, studying the buildings around us. “Serious? I don’t know. Harmful, no, I don’t know of anything like that.”

Enigmatic at best, but she didn’t seem willing to go into more detail and I couldn’t press her on the issue. “So what brings a nice girl like you to a here and now like this?”

“Boston? Boston’s full of nice girls here and now,” Pam replied.

“Not down by the docks.”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m not a sailor.”

“Are you doing an Intervention you can’t talk about?”

She shook her head. “No. Data collection. I need to be in Lexington the day after tomorrow.”

“The day after tomorrow? The 19th? That’s the day.” I gave her a frankly skeptical look. “Data collection? Lexington on 19 April, 1775 has more bugs planted in it than the Amazon rainforest. There’s still something they haven’t got even in your time?”

Pam nodded. “The shot.”

“The shot?”

“The shot.”

I got it then. The ‘shot heard ‘round the world.’ Two forces facing each other, American militia and British regulars, both ordered not to fire unless fired upon. A shot rings out from somewhere, and both sides start shooting. The start of the American Revolution. But who fired that first shot? “They still haven’t found the shooter?”

“Nope.” Pam spread her hands in frustration. “It wasn’t from either of the forces on the Green. They’ve tried triangulating but the sound echoes and reechoes in weird ways. It can’t be tied to any window or door or open area. Sound analysis says it’s a gunshot of some kind, but can’t identify any weapon, of this period or any other, that matches it. So I’m planting more gear to try to nail down the spot and find the person responsible.” She caught my expression. “What’s the matter?”

“Lexington then and there is full of TIs and crazies from a half-dozen centuries, Pam. They must be tripping over each other. I’m just worried.”

She smiled at me. “About me? We saved London together, remember? I’m a big girl, and unlike certain guys I know I carry heavy artillery.” Pam twitched her arm then turned her hand slightly, and I saw her pistol gleaming in her palm, all smooth curves, beautiful and deadly. A description which also matched Pam in some ways, I realized. But in good ways. Then she turned her hand again and the weapon vanished. “Thanks for caring, though.”

“I just met a crazy a little while ago,” I told her. “Some Brit with a snooty attitude who called me a Yank. He’s planning something.”

Pam shook her head. “You mean like him?” She looked to one side where a seaman in a captain’s uniform was passing. “Or her?” She turned her head and gazed at an elegant woman wearing a dress that looked like it must be worth a lot here and now. “They’ve all got jump mechs. Maybe one of them will take care of your Brit.”

“I hope so. I swear he would’ve attacked me if we’d been alone. You can spot them that far away, huh?” Pam came from a century uptime from me, and had correspondingly more advanced capabilities for her Assistant.

“Yup.” She paused for a moment. “So how come you never came up to see me?”

“Because I couldn’t raise the money.” Making a time jump for a date was the sort of luxury only the insanely rich indulged in, but I’d tried to see if I could swing it. “I’ve heard a lot of loan dealers laugh at me lately. I sure am glad we ran into each other here.”

Pam gave me another smile, and I knew her Assistant had automatically analyzed my physiological reactions and told her that I was being truthful. Sometimes that’s annoying, but this time I was glad she didn’t have to wonder. “Same here. I couldn’t afford a jump down to your time on my own.”

She’s not lying, Jeannie told me.

I already knew that. Pam wouldn’t lie to me. I checked my internal map. “I’ve got about another kilometer to go this afternoon and then I get to break for the night. They don’t want me wandering around in the evening with so many British soldiers all over the place watching for suspicious Colonials. Are you free?”

“Sure am.” She smiled just the way I remembered from when we’d someday meet in London, and we set off along my route, talking about this, that and everything. I didn’t notice the snooty Brit following me anymore so stopped worrying about him and concentrated on Pam.

#

Pam led me back to the inn where she had a room. “How’d you manage a private room?” I wondered.

“It’s small, and I paid plenty, but I couldn’t exactly share.” She sighed as we entered the smoky gloom of the inn’s main room. A glowing fire cast more light than the lanterns set around the room, and most of the tables were occupied by men with pipes, their earnest visages as they debated politics illuminated by the radiance from their pipe bowls. Jeannie went to work filtering the second-hand smoke out of my lungs, suppressing my sneeze reflex and curbing the irritation to my eyes so they didn’t water. A good Assistant never lets you down. “Want a drink?” Pam asked.

“How’s the beer here?”

“Safe enough. Not bad. Have you tried flip?”

“No. Should I?”

Pam grinned again and beckoned to a serving wench. One of the neat things about being a TI is that you actually get to be served by real serving wenches. This one had seen better days, or maybe this had just been a long day, but she smiled beguilingly at Pam, who must have appeared a pretty good looking young man through the haze filling the air. “Flip for two,” Pam directed.

I watched doubtfully as the woman broke three eggs into a big mug, added some irregular brown lumps of sugar, tossed in a couple of jiggers of rum and brandy, beat the mess vigorously, then filled the mug the rest of the way with beer. Carrying the mug over to the fireplace, she yanked a glowing hot poker out of the fire and plunged it into the concoction for a few moments until foam rose up, then brought what certainly qualified as a ‘mixed drink’ to our table along with another smile for Pam.

Then she did it once more and brought me the second mug, though Pam got the smile again.

I tasted cautiously. “How dangerous is this?”

“If your shots are up to date and your Assistant is on the ball? Not very.” Pam took a big drink. “It grows on you.”

“I can believe it grows in you.” I gave the server a glance where she was leaning against the bar. “If that woman could see under your cloak she’d be disappointed.”

“That’s me,” Pam admitted lightly. “Breaking hearts all through downtime. Usually it’s men’s hearts, though.”

“You damn near broke mine,” I agreed.

Pam’s smile disappeared. “Really?”

“Yeah. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to contact you a century uptime from me. It’s not easy. There’s too many ways for a message to go astray and I needed to make sure you wouldn’t see it before we’d met.”

“That’d be hard to set-up,” she agreed, taking another long draw on her mug. “People with TI mindsets don’t pay attention to ‘do not open file until X date’ instructions. Drink your flip.”

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” She laughed, because Assistants only let someone get a buzz on before they start filtering out the alcohol. We can drink pure grain alcohol all night and not feel it. “Look, about the day after tomorrow –“

Pam made a shushing gesture. “Finish your drink and we’ll go up to my room to talk in private.” Then she grinned again. “Hey, I invited you to come up and this time you can.”

A pair of empty mugs later I followed Pam toward the stairs after she snagged a lit lantern. A harried-looking woman intercepted us on the way to the stairs and gave me and then Pam a hard look. Pam obligingly hauled out some coins and dropped them into the woman’s palm, who smiled in a way that showed teeth in serious need of dental care and hustled away. “Inn-keeper,” Pam explained as we went up the narrow, steep stairs. “She thought I was trying to sneak someone else into the room.”

It was common practice here and now for men to share beds just to save money. The landlady must have thought Pam was trying to sublet half of ‘his’ bed and pocket the cash. “You paid for me?”

“It was easier than worrying about her spying on us while you’re up there. I’ll put it on my expense account.” Pam led the way down a corridor as narrow as the staircase, to another small set of steep stairs that led up again and ended in an even narrower door. “And, Annie says no one has disturbed my room.” She pulled open the door and gestured inside. “Welcome to the Boston Palace circa 1775 CE.”

The room had a bed, a small dresser with a wash basin and cracked pitcher of water, and not much else except a small, high window in which sealed shutters made do in place of glass. Not that there was room for much more than that. Pam waved me to the bed, set the lantern on the dresser, then sat down beside me. “Annie says we’re clear of bugs, even the ones you’re spreading around. She’s got a beautiful suite of jamming capabilities.”

Sitting close to Pam, I couldn’t help thinking that she had some beautiful qualities, too. Pam pulled off the wig she’d been wearing and tossed it onto the dresser, then shrugged out of the cloak. Her coat was nicely cut to still do a pretty good job of concealing her woman’s figure even without the cloak. “Now, don’t worry about me,” she added, her voice going back to its normal pitch now that we were alone. “I’m not going to get in anybody’s way. I just need to deploy the gear and then step back and let it search for the shooter.”

“At Lexington on 19 April 1775,” I added.

“Do you know any reason why anyone would be targeting me?” she asked.

“No, but there was no reason for that guy to come after me, either. I don’t think he was a TI. I think he was an amateur out to change history.”

“You’re probably right,” Pam conceded. “Boston in April 1775 is the sort of then and there that attracts amateurs and fanatics.”

“And he’s here and now multiple times.”

“You’re kidding! What an idiot,” Pam observed.

“You didn’t seem that worried about running into yourself when we’ll be in London,” I pointed out.

“Of course I was. I just didn’t want to admit that to some guy I’d just met. But this nut-case isn’t after me. You keep your eye out for him and relax about me. I’m not in any more danger than you are.”

That wasn’t exactly reassuring. “You asked me up here just to tell me that?” I probably sounded a little angry and I was. I wanted Pam to take my worries seriously.

“Not just for that.” She leaned over slightly, her shoulder brushing mine.

It felt comfortable up here and the flip had left me with a happy buzz. I’d spent a lot of nights thinking about Pam, and here she was sitting beside me. Sitting real close beside me.

Pam looked over at me for a long moment, then stood up and peeled off her coat, dropping it onto the small dresser. When I’d first seen her well over a hundred years from now she’d been wearing clothes appropriate for an Edwardian English lady, which weren’t exactly revealing. The cloak and coat she’d been wearing today didn’t show much of what was underneath either. But now, though the light from the lantern wasn’t great, it was plenty good enough to reveal that Pam looked very good in tight breeches.

She turned back to face me, caught my gaze and raised an eyebrow. “Care to share your thoughts?”

Since I was wearing tight breeches, too, she probably knew exactly what I was thinking. I just couldn’t tell how she felt about it, but as John Paul Jones said (or would say in about twenty years or so) ‘he who will not risk cannot win.’ “I’m thinking I wish I didn’t have to go back to the room I’ve got.”

“Worried about British sentries?” Pam asked innocently.

Jeannie chose that moment to pipe up. Her breathing is speeding up.

Thanks. Now go into passive mode. “Not really. I’d just like to stay here with you tonight,” I told Pam.

Her lips curved in a slow smile. “I was hoping you’d help me get out of all of these buttons. Just make sure you don’t rip any. I need to wear this stuff again tomorrow and I hate sewing.”

As it turned out, I did rip a couple toward the end, but by that point Pam was as eager to get the clothing off as I was and didn’t raise any fuss.

#

I woke the next morning to the sound of water and looked over to see Pam standing next to me stark naked, her feet in a big shallow tin dish as she rinsed off soap. “If you want a bath, too, you’ll need to use the same water,” she cautioned.

“Oh boy.”

Pam rolled her eyes in a silent commentary on males that must be part of women’s genetic makeup, because I’ve seen it in every century and place I’ve ever visited. She toweled off quickly and started pulling on things that needed buttoned, giving me an accusing look as she found a rip. I hastily cleaned up and started dressing as well, trying to think what I should say.

Pam checked herself in the small mirror when she’d got just about everything on, then suddenly turned to face me. “Confession time. I knew you’d be here and now.”

My own half-formed speech professing long-term interest, but regret over the impossibility of a relationship when our home nows were a century apart, dissolved under a wave of surprise. “You did?”

“The TI central records said you’d worked the Virtual City project here and now.”

I frowned. “Those records are confidential.”

“Not any more. They changed that a couple of decades ago. Or about eighty years from your home now. They figured it might help keep TIs from tripping over each other.” She shrugged. “I used it to set up a meeting. I found someone who wanted a TI to make a run here and took the contract. The project records showed the routes you’d been assigned to cover.”

“You wanted to meet me that much?” I must have sounded stupid, but it had never occurred to me that someone like Pam would go to that kind of trouble on my account.

“Yeah. I knew you’d never be able to set up a meeting with me since I was uptime from you. And . . . you did seem kind of interested in that.”

“Very interested,” I agreed. “Should I say it?”

“Only if you want to, and mean it.”

“Then I will. Pam, I fell in love with you in London. I didn’t realize that until I met you again before then.” She smiled happily. “I want to be with you long-term.” Time for the cold water of reality. “But what are the odds that we’ll be able to swing more meetings like this in the future in the past?”

“Not great,” Pam admitted, then spoke in a rush. “Have you ever considered emigrating?”

“Emigrating?” That floored me. Sure, everyone thinks about it at one point or another, the chance to move to another time within the band of centuries where TIs operate from and make it your home now. But hardly anyone does. The rules are very tight, and the idea of leaving everything you know is hard to stomach. So most people never really give it serious consideration. “You really mean that?”

“Yeah.” Pam sat down next to me again, looking at the floor, squeezing her interlocked hands together anxiously. “I didn’t know if I’d ask you, not absolutely for sure, not until I’d spent more time with you. But I do mean it. I can sponsor you. We worked really well together in the future. I couldn’t stop remembering the time we’ll spend together in London. I’ll have a great time with you there and then. I love you, too. And our Assistants like each other.”

“I noticed.” I took a deep breath. “What about you? Emigrating?”

She grimaced. “You know the rules, Tom. If I emigrated downtime I’d have to have my implanted tech downgraded to match your level. That would be like giving Annie a lobotomy. I can’t do that.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to. Sorry I didn’t remember that.”

“But if you came up with me, Jeannie would get an upgrade,” Pam pointed out, then looked slightly guilty at dangling that lure in front of me.

“Yeah. She would,” I agreed in tones designed to show I didn’t mind Pam bringing that up. I breathed deep again, thinking. It was a huge thing. And yet I’d been through century after century and never found anyone like Pam. What kind of idiot would turn down this opportunity? “Can I think about it for a little while? I think I’ll want to, but I need a little while, okay?”

Pam grinned and kissed me. “I’ve got another forty-two hours here. Long enough?”

“It ought to be.” I kissed her back. “Especially if we spend it in this bed.”

She laughed and shoved me away. “I’ve got work to do, and I bet you do, too. Besides, I don’t want to think you’re being motivated by nothing but lust.”

“There’s nothing wrong with lust,” I pointed out. “But, no. I wouldn’t consider emigrating on the basis of lust even for Helen of Troy.” Who was incredibly hot, though not even remotely blond like she used to be portrayed. Which was okay, because I’m a bit skittish around blondes after some negative experiences I’ve had.

“Helen was a slut,” Pam responded shortly. Female TIs tend to have strong opinions about Helen, maybe because male TIs tend to talk about her.

“Nothing like you,” I agreed quickly.

“Get your buttons buttoned,” Pam ordered, standing up and grabbing her wig. “I need to turn back into Palmer, and check out routes to Lexington.”

“Are you staying there tonight?”

I must have sounded tragic because she grinned at me. “No. I can’t. Between the locals and all the TIs hiding in the bushes the place is full. I’ll scout the route today, then get in very early tomorrow and deploy my collection gear while everyone else is scrambling around watching each other. The focus of attention will be on the moving British troops and the Colonial VIPs then, so nobody will worry about one more TI moving through the countryside.”

“I’m not so sure. It’s not what you’re doing, Pam, it’s what some nut-case Interventionist might think you’re doing. Like the guy who threatened me.”

“You’ll wrap up your job this afternoon, right?” Pam answered. “Want to meet in Cambridge at sunset? I don’t want to have to worry about sneaking out of Boston tonight with the British trying to lock the place down. I was going to get dinner at Cambridge and maybe a little rest before I had to head back to Lexington.”

“Sure. I’ll see you there.” She’d avoided replying to my statement, and we both knew it. But like Pam had said, she was a big girl and she had a job to do.

Only after I’d agreed to meet her did I realize that I was supposed to jump out before sunset, returning to my home now. But it wouldn’t matter if I stayed a little longer since the jump back would cost the same. The Virtual City project wouldn’t cover my expenses after the scheduled end of the job, but that would be pocket change if I just stayed one more night.

We parted ways just outside the inn. I wanted to kiss her goodbye, but with Pam disguised as a man again that probably would’ve attracted the wrong kind of attention in this here and now. Instead we shook hands, Pam repeated “Cambridge, at sunset, where the main road from Boston enters town,” then she headed off to rent a horse while Jeannie popped up my map in my mind and I went to deploy bugs.

#

Boston felt different today, in that just-before-a-thunderstorm sort of way. I wondered if I was imagining it, but lots of locals were extra tense as if they sensed what I knew, that a decade of growing tension was about to burst and put history on a fundamentally different path. TIs were everywhere, giving me suspicious glances as I passed by. I recognized a few that I knew, dressed as soldiers or tradesmen or servants or ladies, all of them fully alert. We were inside the decisive events period, and those ready to try to change those events were already sparring with those trying to keep things unchanged, like unseen armies clashing beneath the surface of actions the locals were experiencing.

I covered the last street on my grid, my coat informed Jeannie that all of its bugs had been deployed, and I headed for the only ground path out of Boston. In this period the city was almost an island, connected to the mainland by a narrow stretch of land known as Boston neck. The British would be sealing off the neck tonight, but I should be early enough to get past them.

I managed to catch the local coach to Cambridge and reached the town well before sunset. Cambridge didn’t have nearly as many TIs hidden among the populace, but once again I spotted one I knew. He meandered over to walk near me as I ambled down the road. “Business done or business to do?” he murmured to me.

“Done,” I replied. “I’m supposed to jump out soon. You?”

“To do. I could use some help if you want to hang around a little longer. My employers pay really well.”

“Thanks, but I’m meeting someone later.”

His glance was skeptical. “I thought you were done.”

“It’s personal.”

“A local?” He grinned. Some TIs loved the fact that they had the perfect opportunity to love them and leave them. “Has she got a friend?”

“It’s personal,” I repeated. “And I thought you were on a job.”

“I’m free until just after sunset.” He looked around casually. “If you’re going to be anywhere around here after midnight be careful. It’s not just the British regulars patrolling all over the place. There’s TIs everywhere and most of them are armed and jumpy.”

“Thanks for the warning. Take it easy yourself.”

“Sure.” He paused as we reached the place where Cambridge stopped and fields began. “This your spot? I’ll see you around.”

“Hopefully not anytime soon,” I added. He winked and moved off.

Pam and her horse came trotting in while the sun was still a finger’s width above the horizon. She nodded wearily to me. “Damn redcoats everywhere, but I’ve got the route scoped out.”

“How long do you have?”

“I need to leave here by about nineteen hundred so I can move slowly and be ahead of the fuss around William Dawes when he comes through.” Pam dismounted and led her horse and I back into Cambridge. “I’ll have the horse taken care of while you and I spend some time.”

“Nineteen hundred?” I should have known that there wouldn’t be time for another romantic interlude. Not a physical one, at least. “You’re going to eat, right?”

“Yeah. No flip tonight, though.”

After Pam dropped her horse off at a stable for a rub-down and a nice bucket of molasses-soaked grain, we found a tavern and took a table in one corner. Between the background noise as the other diners discussed the rising level of tensions with British authorities and the haze of smoke from tobacco and the hearth fire, we had a pretty decent level of privacy as we dug into spit-roasted chicken. “I’m still worried,” I finally stated.

“That’s only allowed if you’re serious about me,” Pam replied, her eyes on mine.

“I’m serious.” Now or never, Tom. Jump through time all you want, but the odds were vanishingly small that I’d ever encounter this moment again. “I’ll go.”

“Go?”

“Emigrate. I don’t want to lose you. Now can I be worried?”

She smiled broadly. “Oh, I wish we weren’t in public so I could kiss you. Yeah, worry away. But it’s okay. I’ve got the British patrols mapped out, I’ve spied on the activity of TIs planning Interventions and Counters around Lexington so I should be able to avoid any that might take me out on general principles, and Annie can tell me if any TIs get too close despite that.” Pam saw my expression. “Hey, any man of mine has to avoid over-protectiveness.”

“Understood.” I exhaled and shrugged. “I know you’re good. You don’t need me holding your hand. Okay. How do we handle the emigration?”

“Here.” She paused.

I’m receiving a certified sponsor affidavit from Pam’s Assistant Annie, Jeannie informed me. It conforms to authentication requirements for our home now.

I gave Pam a look. “You had it ready?”

“I had confidence in you. Besides, there’s not much chance we’ll connect here after my job’s done. You need to get out of here before you get hurt.”

“I thought you said it was safe,” I complained.

“Not for someone armed only with a single-shot tranq crystal,” Pam pointed out. She smiled at me in a different way, then made a face. “Annie says I need to get going. Walk me to the stable.”

It was plenty dark out now in that pre-industrial way that defines dark. She stopped short of the stable, in a patch of street very poorly illuminated, pulled me close and kissed me hard. “I can’t wait to see you in my home now.”

“Pam? Did I ever meet anybody else in my own home now?”

She looked away, then back at me, meeting my eyes. “I didn’t look. I didn’t review your personal history at all, just the TI trip files. Because I didn’t want to know.”

And if I went uptime to be with her, I’d never know, either. Because Pam would have staged an Intervention in my future and her past, changing both. She had already changed my future, since I would have left this now already if not for wanting to meet her again. “That’s okay. I wouldn’t want to know either. If there ever would have been anyone else, she couldn’t make me happier than you will.”

Pam kissed me again, then broke contact abruptly. “See you in several centuries. When you emigrate uptime, Annie gave Jeannie directions on how to find me and exactly when to jump to. She also transferred all the credit I’ve got to you. Between us, we’ll be able to afford your jump uptime even though we’ll be paying it off for a long time.”

Pam seemed to have thought of everything. As I stood in the shadows and watched her mount up and ride out of Cambridge toward Lexington, I hoped she really had thought of everything.

Eventually I moved, knowing I should go ahead and jump back uptime. But some instinct made me fade into more shadows and watch the road which Pam had vanished down. I was still there when another figure led a horse out of a nearby stable, distinctly looked toward the place where Pam had left me and then down the road she’d taken, then mounted up and galloped after her.

I knew that man. Jeannie never forgets a detailed silhouette and she sees really well at night anyway. It was the aristocratic Brit who’d confronted me in Boston. And every indication was that he’d somehow followed me without my spotting him or Jeannie picking up his proximity, that he’d decided Pam was one of my ‘hooligans,’ and he was now after Pam.

I wouldn’t be jumping uptime. I headed for a stable, hoping a horse would be available without too much delay and realizing I was about to charge down a road populated by edgy British military patrols and who-knew-how-many trigger-happy TIs.

#

I made it over Alewife Brook, then through the crossroads at the place that would someday be Arlington but was now Menotomy at about twenty-two-thirty, narrowly avoiding a patrol of British regulars. Paul Revere and William Dawes would be leaving Boston now to warn everyone that the main body of the British regulars was coming out. I was about even with Pierce’s Hill at twenty-three hundred, when I knew the British expedition was departing Boston.

Jeannie’s warning came a fraction of a second too late. Something clipped my left side, paralyzing it. My horse screamed with fight and bolted to the right while I failed to keep my saddle with half my body not working and kept going left. I hit the road with the half of me that could feel it, naturally, then lay there trying to breath.

A pair of boots came within my field of vision. “Game over, mate.”

“I’m not playing,” I managed to gasp, wondering who this TI was working for.

“Not anymore.” Everything went dark.

#

I woke up with a raging post-stun headache. Time?

Twenty-three thirty, Jeannie answered promptly.

I’d only been out for half an hour?

It was an older model stun system, Jeannie continued. I managed to nullify some of the effect. The TI responsible was himself ambushed as he lurked near us and was taken off by three other TIs.

It had started then, but I was stuck on the road without a horse and still a long ways from Lexington. I managed to get to my feet, staggering from the lingering effects of the stun weapon, and wavered back toward the road. As I did, I heard a horse galloping my way. If I could stop that guy and get his horse –

I would advise against leaving cover at this time, Jeannie insisted. If my estimates are correct, all hell is about to break loose.

When Jeannie’s right, she’s right. Given the time of night, I realized that the man I was hearing might well be William Dawes, Paul Revere’s southern route counterpart. If he was . . . I hit the ground and tried to be invisible.

Judging from what happened next, it was Dawes.

Jeannie alerted me to energy discharges and jumpers arriving down the road where the hoof beats sounded, everything coming closer fast. I spotted a man on a horse thundering down the road, just about the time a figure in a stealth suit rose up less than a hundred meters away from me in the direction of the rider. The TI would be invisible to any local, but Jeannie could pinpoint him or her for me.

The stealth-suited TI leveled a weapon, then dropped as a stun charge hit. Moments later the other TI who’d fired the stun charge fell, then two more TIs appeared and took out whoever had nailed the second TI. But then the stealth-suited TI reappeared, having recovered somewhen in the future and jumped back to try to finish the job. One of the last set of TIs fell, then the remaining one grappled with the first TI and knocked them both down.

Dawes rode past the battle scene, and as he drew even with me two more TIs appeared on the opposite of the road from me, weapons drawn. What looked like half-a-dozen more TIs materialized around them as the air filled with energy discharges. Another TI jumped into view just beyond the ring of six TIs, but instead of firing at Dawes aimed across the road and sent a blast into the bushes entirely too close to me. A body flopped to the ground near me, then another figure appeared, took a weapon from it, then was itself grappled by another person.

And so it went. Interventions. Counter-Interventions. Counter-Counter-Interventions. Etc. I kept my head down, watching as William Dawes rode up the road toward Lexington oblivious to the silent, stealthy running battle raging alongside him every step of the way as some TIs tried to stop him and others tried to ensure he made it. I found myself wondering if Dawes had made it originally, or if Paul Revere had, or if those defending them were actually the ones doing the Interventions to change history. The original truth, if such a thing had ever existed, had long since been lost in the web of interferences by time travelers.

People used to think, and many people still do think, that causality is linear through time. Cause has to precede effect. But the truth is that causality forms a circle through time, where cause may be hard to identify but may occur apparently after effect. Sometimes what you think is the cause turns out to be the effect. The old time travel paradoxes weren’t real because they didn’t recognize that, but we couldn’t learn it until we were able to travel through time and start identifying all of the deliberate and accidental Interventions going on. The more we learn about that, the more we see how tangled and interwoven the circles of cause and effect and cause are, the more people wonder if there ever was a base reality, because history as we know it already reflects countless changes from what might have been.

But for tonight, I just needed to get to Lexington and ensure whatever changes took place didn’t include anything bad happening to Pam. I started walking. Midnight. Revere should be in Lexington now, if he hadn’t been stopped. Dawes would get there about zero zero thirty, then they’d leave for Concord with some other guy. Well behind me, the British regulars had disembarked at Lechmere Point and were marching toward me. I had a good lead on them, but I’d need every extra moment since I couldn’t just walk into Lexington along the main road the British soldiers would use. There’d be way too many locals and TIs posted along that route.

When the road bent up toward Lexington I followed it until another road cut off to the left. It would take me south of the town, where another road would lead me straight up into Lexington along a route which shouldn’t be nearly as hazardous. I was pretty sure it would be the same route Pam had taken. And the Brit following her. They were likely both still on horseback, with substantial leads on me. I walked faster.

#

There seemed to be locals everywhere as I approached Lexington from the south, but they weren’t hard to avoid. The Colonials wanted to force a confrontation with the British troops, so they were standing out in the open or walking into town. I merged with them when I could, blending in. Most had muskets of varying age, but I wasn’t the only one not carrying a weapon, so I didn’t stand out on that account. The older men were serious and grim, the younger ones hopped up with excitement and joking with each other. Funny how it’s always that way. I remembered the Roman teenage conscripts laughing and fooling around before Cannae.

Being a TI can be damned depressing sometimes.

When I got close to the town it was still long enough before dawn that the gloom made it easy for me to fade off to the side so I could approach cautiously from overland. As it got light enough to see faces well suspicious locals might detain me as a spy for the British authorities since no one here would know me. Unfortunately, I had no idea where Pam was planning on deploying her gear. Jeannie could tell me where bugs had been placed in Lexington before my particular job, though, so I could guess what spots had been judged in need of better coverage.

There were so many TIs around that Jeannie kept calling warnings and I stopped paying close enough attention. Mistake.

“Hold it.” The voice was very soft but very clear. I froze obediently, then turned my head enough to see someone step slightly out of cover, a weapon in one hand pointed straight at me. “Tom? What the hell are you doing here?”

It was the same TI who I’d met in Cambridge yesterday afternoon. “I’ve got to help somebody.”

His weapon didn’t move. “You told me you were done working here and now.”

“I am. This is personal. She needs my help.”

He shook his head. “Tom, you can’t get that involved with locals. You know that. Whoever she is was dead and dust before your ancestors were born.”

“She’s not a local!”

“Another TI? You dog. I never would have guessed. But I can’t let you stage an Intervention or help some other TI do it.”

I unfroze enough to make a pleading gesture. “She’s not here and now for an Intervention. Just data collection. I swear it. The guy who’s after her is planning an Intervention.”

“Who is this guy?”

“I don’t know. Some Brit. Looks like his family has been interbreeding with horses for generations. You know the type.”

My acquaintance grinned. “Old line nobility? Yeah. I didn’t see anybody like him on this route, but I didn’t get here until after I’d helped make sure William Dawes made it through.”

“This Brit left Cambridge on horseback early in the evening, so he probably got through here before you got in place.”

“Probably,” the other TI agreed. “And you want to stop him?” I nodded. “You’re sure he’s planning an Intervention?” I nodded again. He raised his weapon and stepped back slightly. “Then right here and now we’re working for the same side. Go ahead.”

“Thanks,” I gasped in relief, but he stopped me from running on ahead with a gesture.

“It’s dangerous going into that town right now, Tom. Is this babe worth it?”

“Yeah.”

“I wish I’d met her before you did. Good luck.” He faded back into cover and I headed the rest of the way into Lexington as cautiously as I could. It felt like I was in one of those training simulations where enemies are on all sides waiting to pop out. Once among the buildings of the small town of Lexington, I couldn’t sneak from place to place, so I walked, trying to look non-threatening.

I came around a corner and even though the sun wasn’t up yet I recognized Pam. She was maybe fifteen meters away, her back to me, walking very slowly down one side of the street next to the houses there. I recognized her movements as being those of someone listening to her Assistant on where to go to deploy sensors.

But she was, clearly, fine. I’d run a lot of risks and made a fool of myself for nothing. The best thing to do now was to jump out of here before Pam saw me.

Pam suddenly staggered, then went down limp. The door to the home she’d been passing opened and a man stepped partly out to grab her arms and pull her inside. He was wearing a different outfit, the uniform of a British regular officer I thought from the brief glimpse I’d caught, but I didn’t need Jeannie’s confirmation to tell me that he was the Brit I’d seen before. How he’d manage to surprise Pam when her Assistant should have warned her that he was nearby I didn’t know, but that didn’t matter. I was already running across those fifteen meters toward the small house into which the Brit had pulled Pam.

I reached the door without anyone else shooting me and paused just outside. The house was small and old, built of roughly-hewn planks sealed with plaster, not much more than a box maybe four meters by three meters in length and width, the edge of the roof just above my head. How close is he? I asked Jeannie, knowing she could detect the Brit’s implanted equipment if he was near enough.

I can’t sense any trace of him, Jeannie assured me. At our last encounter I spotted his presence at a range of six meters.

That house was smaller than that. He must have pulled Pam inside and run. Relieved, I barreled through the door.

And found myself looking at the Brit standing over Pam, a Dazer stun pistol in one hand pointed directly at me. “Don’t move,” he ordered. “Close the door.”

I considered pointing out that I couldn’t follow both orders, but decided that it wasn’t worth playing games with a guy pointing a weapon at me and with Pam helpless. Nothing in the house seemed like it would be of much help. A single chair and a narrow bed against the side walls, and a Franklin stove, its open side facing me from where the black iron box sat within the old stone fireplace against the back wall, a tin pipe running straight up from it and through the roof. Why didn’t you detect that he was here? I mentally yelled at Jeannie.

It’s strange to hear an Assistant sounding shocked. He’s shut down his systems. His Assistant and his jump mech.

You should’ve been able to spot them in standby!

They’re not in standby. They’re completely shut down. I don’t know of any way he could restart them in this now.

All of this had taken perhaps two seconds. I stared at the Brit, wondering why anyone would permanently disable their ability to get back to their home now, then at his weapon. But at least that explained how he’d surprised Pam. Her Assistant wouldn’t have spotted him either. Can that pistol deliver a lethal charge? I asked Jeannie as I closed the door, moving slowly and carefully.

Insufficient data. Models sold were set to prohibit lethal charges, but were easily modified to allow a lethal nerve overload. That’s why Dazers were outlawed sixty years prior to our home now.

The Brit looked way too much like someone who’d make that kind of modification, so I spoke in what I hoped was a calming voice. “I’m just here to help her. Neither of us wants anything to do with you.”

“Lies!” His face twitched but the weapon remained fixed on my mid-section. “I was about to finish her off when you showed up. You want to stop me!”

“Citizen, I don’t even know what you want to do.”

“More lies. As if you didn’t know about this!” The Brit’s free hand pulled open his uniform coat as I realized he looked a lot bulkier than the last time I’d encountered him. The reason for that became obvious as the coat pulled open to reveal a vest loaded with lots of blocks of something that looked dangerously familiar.

What is that stuff?

Plastic explosive, Jeannie replied.

“You’re going to take out the Colonial militia?” I asked.

“Of course not,” the Brit answered contemptuously. “If your little rebellion is to be crushed it must be met with overwhelming force and righteous retaliation. Boston doesn’t need to be occupied, it needs to be flattened as an example to any Colonials who support rebellion.” He gestured toward the outside with his free hand. “A battle is one thing. It will arouse outrage in England, but not enough. No, that requires the belief that the Colonials murdered large numbers of our soldiers with a cowardly trick!”

His intent suddenly came clear. “You’re going to mingle with the British regulars and then detonate that vest?” No wonder he’d been willing to shut down his systems. He didn’t intend going home.

“Yes! Everyone will think the Colonials concealed some explosives in the road and detonated them without warning! Even Parliament will call for Boston to be dismantled brick by brick as an appropriate response to such a barbaric attack.” He seemed enormously pleased with himself for a man who was about to commit suicide.

“But you’re British, too. You’ll be killing your own soldiers.”

“So?” He made a dismissive gesture. “They agreed to die for the crown.”

“And you’re willing to do that, too?” I asked, not bothering to hide my revulsion at his attitude. “Then why isn’t there a detonator wired into that vest?”

The Brit smiled unpleasantly and pulled a detonator out of one pocket. “No sense risking an accidental premature explosion. Once I finish you off, I’ll set this in place, then go to join the British soldiers on their way here.”

His hand with the stun pistol still remained steady on me, making a grab for it hopeless. But I knew he’d expect me to go for the Dazer, not realizing that what I needed to get was the detonator.

I feinted toward the Brit’s gun hand, then lunged back for the hand holding out the detonator. He reacted to protect the gun, turning that side away and firing at where I should have been. As the charge tore by close enough to numb my side under my arm, I closed one hand on the detonator and swung my other fist in a low hook. I couldn’t waste a blow on the Brit’s torso since it was well-cushioned by all that plastic explosive, but his vest didn’t go too far below his belt line. My fist hit his groin as the Brit tried to line up another shot at me. He squealed and his hands went limp, the detonator coming free in my left hand as I brought up my right and slapped the Dazer away.

The Brit went to his knees and the Dazer skidded into the corner. The detonator flipped up out of my grip and spun twice before I frantically caught it in mid-air and stepped back.

A lightening of the sky outside vaguely seen through a single window revealed that dawn was well under way. I heard commands being shouted in a way that called to mind disciplined military forces. The British regulars, deploying into line of battle at Lexington Green.

The Brit heard it, too. Delaying to attack Pam and then me had thrown off his schedule more than he realized since he hadn’t had his Assistant working to remind him of the time line. “Give me that detonator,” he half-threatened, half-pleaded as he got his feet back under him.

“No. I don’t particularly like people who are willing to murder other people on their own side in the name of some higher cause.”

The Brit’s eyes flicked from side to side, seeking some advantage.

I heard more shouts outside. It sounded like someone making demands and someone else answering, though I couldn’t make out the words.

Pam groaned and raised her head, and my eyes and attention focused on her anxiously.

The Brit sprang. He barreled into me full force, grabbing for the detonator. I went backwards, his hand hit my wrist, and I lost my grip. The detonator flew backwards into the open front of the iron Franklin stove, hit the back wall of it, and did what detonators do when subjected to a shock like that.

The explosion wasn’t very big, but the stove magnified the sound. The Brit stumbled to a halt and stared at the stove. “What have you done?” he shrieked.

“Saved some of your countrymen.” The explosive vest completely covered his torso, so I stuck my finger against his neck and pumped the tranq crystal into him. He stiffened, then dropped limply. Tempted as I was to let him slam full force onto the floor, I have a policy of not letting high explosives slam into things if I can help it, so I caught the Brit and lowered him to the floor, vaguely aware of the sounds of more explosions echoing outside.

That’s when I spotted Pam again. She’d gotten to her feet against one wall, her eyes on me and her expression shocked. “What did you do?” she gasped.

“Why is everybody asking me that?” The explosions somewhere outside were rising in crescendo. “What happened?”

Pam looked from me to the stove. “You’re hearing the Colonial militia and the British regulars exchanging fire on Lexington Green. The American Revolutionary War has started.”

No wonder she was upset. “And because of this guy you weren’t able to deploy your gear to help find who fired that first shot.”

Pam gave me a look like she doubted my sanity. “Are you kidding? You haven’t figured it out? You fired the first shot. You’re the shooter.”

“That’s ridiculous. I –“ It hit me then, and I pivoted to look at the stove. The detonator had exploded inside it. The metal box had magnified the sound, much of which had vented into this room, but plenty had gone up the metal tube that formed the chimney. Metal tube. Explosion at one end. The noise on the other end would sound like a gun shot. “I don’t even carry a gun and I’m the shooter.”

Pam shook her head in wonder. “No wonder no one could localize the shot to any possible location! The noise vented upward through the chimney and got deflected to all sides by the rain baffle on top! And no one could identify the weapon because it was an anachronistic detonator ‘fired’ through a chimney ‘barrel.’ But why did you do it?”

“What do you mean why did I do it?” I demanded. “The Brit here was about to kill you. I had to stop that which meant I had to stop him.”

“You started a war to save me?” Pam didn’t seem certain how she should feel about that. “Tom, that’s so very gallant. Also so very stupid, but gallant.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose!”

Pam came away from the wall, rubbing her forehead and grimacing. “So the shot that started the American Revolution was an accidental explosion caused because a time traveler here and now to document the American Revolution was trying to rescue another time traveler, who was here and now to find out who fired the shot, from a third time traveler who was here and now to change the events of the day but in the process made them happen the way they historically did. This is the sort of thing that makes people really upset with TIs, you know.”

“It’s not my fault causality is circular through time,” I grumbled, retrieving the Brit’s Dazer. “If I caused the shot, how come nobody discovered me doing it before this?”

“Because even though you did it you hadn’t done it yet!”

“And I wouldn’t have if I hadn’t been following you!”

Pam stared at me again. “Which you wouldn’t have been if I hadn’t come here and now to see you.”

I was getting dizzy. “Which you wouldn’t have done if we weren’t going to meet in London about a hundred and thirty years from now. Which wouldn’t have happened unless other people had tried to alter the outcome of a war which was decided by the future United States. I’ve always known how complex it all is, time filled with countless causality wheels interacting and blending and interfering, but where the hell did this one start?”

“There isn’t any beginning and there isn’t any end. You know that. So did the ancients. That’s why the symbol for infinity grew out of the worm Ouroboros swallowing its own tail.” Pam sighed. “But my job here is a success. I’ve learned where the shot came from and why.”

“But no one knew that before you came here. Why don’t I tell anyone? Aside from embarrassment, I mean.”

Pam smiled. “I guess you’re not in your home now to tell anyone.”

“Why wouldn’t -? Oh. I guess this means I have to emigrate to your now.”

Her smile went away and her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Have to? Is that how you see it?”

From the way Pam was looking at me, if I didn’t think fast the first day of the American Revolution might see another casualty. I raised my hand to my head and feigned confusion. “Did I say something that didn’t make sense? That guy hit me pretty hard and I’m still really rattled –“

“Your Assistant told my Assistant that you’re fine. No concussion.”

Traitor, I told Jeannie. “It’s probably something she can’t detect. I’m sure the medical tech in your now can handle it. I’m really happy to be going there to be with you. Did I mention that?”

“Uh huh. Sure.”

“Hey, I started a war because I love you! Doesn’t that count?”

“Next time just give me chocolate,” Pam advised. “What do we do with this guy? Send him home?”

“We can’t. He’s shut down his jump mechanism.”

“Yeah, we can,” Pam announced. “Annie can transmit enough power to reactivate his power source, then his own power source can trigger his jump mech. Once Jeannie gets her upgrade in my now she’ll be able to do that, too. I’ll have Annie reset his jump so he comes out fifty years uptime from his home now. He’ll have a real hard time explaining his presence there and trying to get back to his home now.” Pam held still for a moment, then the Brit’s body popped out of existence. “What was that he was wearing?”

“Explosive vest.”

“Ugh. One of them. He’s going to get a real unpleasant reception when I sent him.” Pam looked toward the outside, alarm showing. “There’s TIs all over the place out there and some of them are getting closer. Let’s get the hell out of Dodge.”

“Will you be there too?” I asked.

“Dodge City? Yeah, 1878.”

“I’ll be there in 1879!”

“Late! Just like a man. Now let’s jump back to our own home nows before someone else we don’t want to meet catches us here!”

But I waited until Pam vanished, then triggered my own jump.

#

Which is how I found myself filling out the forms for emigration uptime, accompanied by the sponsor’s affidavit from Pam, and saying goodbye to everyone I knew in what would soon be my former home now. The guys I knew all told me I was nuts to be leaving my home now for a girl, and the girls I knew all cried and told me what a great guy I was. They all chipped in a little to help pay for the jump in lieu of presents for a wedding that wouldn’t happen for another century.

I didn’t tell anyone I started the American Revolution by accident. That secret is safe for another century.

Author's Note on Joan

The well-known and extremely-talented author Greg Bear challenged me to write a story about Joan of Arc. I thought I had a good grasp of who she was and what she had done, but was amazed to learn how remarkable a person she was. If the historical record were not so complete and detailed it would be tempting to dismiss Joan as fictional given her accomplishments. But the Joan most of us know from popular presentations has little to do with reality (the Joan of movies always seems to be prone to religious hysteria and fits, something never seen in the real Joan). This is a story about a woman trying to save the Joan she thought was real, only to learn that the actual Joan was more than she had ever realized.

Joan

Kate paused on her way out of her apartment to adjust one of the pictures adorning one wall. Every picture on that wall had the same subject, a young woman either riding or fighting in Medieval armor, or in Medieval men’s clothing facing hostile questioners, and in one heartbreaking depiction tied to a stake in the middle of a town while flames rose around her.

Her friend Cylene turned a long-suffering look on Kate. “Have you ever thought that maybe you take the Joan of Arc thing a little too far?”

“That depends on your definition of ‘too far.’”

“Learning French.”

“Lots of people learn French. It’s an important language.”

“Buying every picture and book about Joan of Arc that you can find.”

“She was an important historical figure,” Kate argued.

“Joining the Society for Creative Anachronism, buying an entire set of authentic Medieval-type armor and a sword and devoting plenty of hours to fighting other SCA-type people.”

“It’s fun, and it helps you understand history better, and SCA-type people are very interesting.”

Cylene shook her head. “How many of them mention at least once a week how much they love Joan of Arc and how they wish they could somehow save her from being burned at the stake?”

Kate frowned at the floor. “I don’t . . . love her that way.”

“Right. If you were still in junior high school instead of graduate school you’d spend all of your class time practicing writing ‘Kate of Arc’ in your notebook. Look, I’m not as up on history as you are, but I’m pretty sure that Joan of Arc didn’t have a lesbian bone in her body.”

“You can’t be certain of that.”

“Oh, Kate.” Cylene’s expression turned pleading. “You should be living your life today, with . . . people today.”

“Like you?” Cylene blushed slightly at Kate’s blunt question. “I’m sorry. You’re really great, Cy, but I guess I just wish . . . ”

“It was six hundred years ago, Kate!”

“A little more than that, but, yes,” Kate answered in a low voice. “I realize I may seem a little obsessive, but is it so wrong to wish I could have saved her from being burned? She was such a remarkable person and it was such a horrible fate.”

“Yes, it was.” Cylene sighed. “I guess I’ll have to stay the other woman in your life.”

#

The first thing a graduate student learned was that being a grad student consisted of nine parts drudgery to one part learning. Kate and two other grad students were drudging away evaluating under-graduate papers when Professor Barandila poked his head into the room they were using. “Kate, I need some assistance in my lab. Are you available?”

Kate perked up, aware of the other students casting envious glances at her. Prof Barandila’s lab was off-limits, leading to constant speculation about what he was working on. Now Kate would be in a position to find out. “Can you guys handle the rest of these?” she asked her fellow grad students.

They nodded with different degrees of resignation and Kate followed as Barandila shuffled to his lab with a defeated air. “I need the lab papers collected and archived. It has to be completed this week. Don’t worry about the equipment. That will be dismantled later.”

“Oh.” Kate looked from the professor to the massive gleaming hollow cube formed of wires and tubing. “It didn’t work?”

“I don’t know. Nobody knows.” Barandila walked over to the equipment and gazed at it morosely. “There’s no sense in not telling somebody now. This should be a working time travel device, something capable of placing a human being in the past and then recovering that person.”

“Isn’t that impossible?”

“Anything is impossible if you don’t do it right!” Barandila pointed to his device. “Time doesn’t even exist if you do the equations properly. The problem was in repositioning someone to a different place, a place they couldn’t be in. Have you heard of tunneling? Yes? A particle goes from one place to another place it cannot go, yet it does? That’s very simplified, but that’s the principle this device uses. It doesn’t actually move something through time, it just establishes conditions under which that object is actually in another time.”

“But, it doesn’t work?” Kate asked again.

“It seems to work.” His burst of energy gone, Barandila slumped against a desk. “But we can’t use a human test subject unless we know it’s safe. Rules and regulations. Animals aren’t even permitted unless it’s proven safe for robots first. We tried using robots, then just cameras and sound recorders. They were all disabled, none of them brought back samples. Something about the travel device wipes everything on any recording device we’ve tried. It’s just blank. The return device seems to work, but is it really returning them? Are they really going anywhere? The return is the instant after they left. It has to be, so there’s no proof anything went anywhere, no proof it is safe, and without that proof we can do nothing.”

“Why not just send something back in time a couple of hours? A note or something?”

Barandila mustered a smile at the suggestion. “Good thinking. We tried that. Nothing happened. It may be a problem with trying to make an object simultaneously exist twice, which is what would happen if we sent something back a short time, and there are no conditions we can establish in which an object or living thing simultaneously exists twice. As far as we can tell the universe will not accept that.” He shrugged. “One more thing that didn’t work. So the machine will be taken apart next Monday.”

“Next Monday?” That left six days. Kate couldn’t take her eyes off of the device, a wonderful and frightening idea coming to her. “Professor, since they’re taking it apart soon, would you mind showing me how it works?”

#

It felt ridiculous sneaking into the university lab complex after midnight with her armor. Being caught with a weapon on campus, even a sword, would get her into major trouble. But Kate kept on going, wondering if she really was far too obsessive for her own good.

But then she thought of Joan. Thought of her tied to the stake as the flames rose.

Kate kept on going.

She put on her armor, trying to imagine any possible cover story if she got caught by campus security. The contents of the bag tied to her waist were illegal on or off campus, but she needed what was in there even though the cost had made her cringe. Kate had to leave her gauntlets off to set the controls, specifying the date, time and location as precisely as she could, making sure the return device was firmly attached to her wrist.

Taking up position on the platform which Professor Barandila had indicated, Kate closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then winced in shock as sunlight flared around her.

#

Rouen in May, 1431 AD was crowded, dirty and overrun with English merchants, knights and other soldiers. The city had been controlled by England for more than a decade, so the invaders carried themselves with easy familiarity. Kate, hidden behind her armor, had to talk her way past guards at the city gate who laughed at what seemed to be the spectacle of a knight who was walking because ‘he’ couldn’t afford a horse.

She had an idea for getting a horse, though.

It wasn’t too hard to find where Joan’s public appearance was going to take place. Many people were heading that way, speculating about the Maid, wondering if the devil or God’s angels would appear to save her.

Two elevated platforms had been set up, a small one for Joan and her guards, and a larger one for the inquisitors. The crowd around the platforms seemed a solid mass, but on the outskirts squires stood holding the horses of their masters. Kate walked confidently toward the squires, ignoring their speculative looks.

She stopped in front of two horses which looked very promising, massive war steeds resembling the Belgian draft horses of her own time. The two squires holding them looked at each other nervously, then Kate couched her voice in what she hoped sounded like a man’s tones through her helmet, also hoping that the old English phrases she had wheedled out of a fellow grad student and hastily memorized were accurate enough to be understood. “Your masters need their horses to accompany the Earl of Warwick. Come along.”

The armor concealed her nervousness as Kate turned with the casual arrogance she had seen in alpha girls on campus, and began heading toward the platform where Joan was already being subjected to public trial, humiliation and intimidation under threat of immediate death by burning. Kate could hear the squires leading the horses behind her as Kate shouldered her way through the crowd, making free use of her armor to plow ahead. The citizens of Rouen and English spectators gave way reluctantly and angrily, but in the manner of people everywhere didn’t question someone else who seemed to know what they were doing. Eventually Kate reached a point near the platform holding the Maid of Orleans.

Joan looked awful, weak from illness and maltreatment, worn down by the constant harassment of her inquisitors. In a little while, Kate knew, after holding out against physical and mental torment for a year she would finally bend enough under threat of being burned alive to sign a recantation even though Joan didn’t know what the recantation actually said. A few days later Joan would be declared in violation of recantation, tied to the stake and burned to death.

That had happened, but none of it would happen, if Kate could help it.

Kate faced the squires again, who were looking around for their masters in puzzlement. “I’m to ride one of the horses and lead the other.” She moved to mount the horse which seemed steadier.

“But, sir -!” the squire holding that horse protested as Kate barely managed to hoist herself and the weight of her armor into the saddle.

The English men nearby were eyeing Kate, some of them putting their hands to their sword hilts. A gaudily-dressed English noble trailed by three knights was coming toward her in the same manner Kate had seen police officers use to approach a potential trouble-maker.

Kate reached into the bag at her waist and pulled out two of the flash-bang grenades she’d gotten from a gun-nut acquaintance who had bought them over the internet. Everyone watched, trying to figure out what she was doing, as Kate pulled the pins on the two grenades, counted to three, then tossed them to either side into the crowd and gripped her seat in the saddle as tightly as she could.

The grenades exploded with thunderclaps of noise and intensely bright flashes of light designed to disorient people but not inflict injury. Those nearby fell away with startled cries, rubbing their eyes and falling to the knees in surprise. Kate had already seized the bridle of the other horse, and now converted their panicked bolt into a charge toward Joan.

Everyone in the area was looking at her now, including the band of religious inquisitors on the larger platform. As her horses pulled up short of the small platform, Kate hauled out more grenades, pulling the pins and tossing them toward the guards and other men near Joan, at the large platform with an unspoken wish that the grenade would blow off the nose of the noxious Bishop Cauchon, and out into the crowd again. The crash and flare of the explosions scattered people everywhere the grenades burst, some fleeing in panic and others disoriented and unable to muster resistance.

“Joan!” Kate yelled. “To me!” Joan hesitated only a moment, then leaped forward and down onto the second horse. More English knights were coming, forcing their way through the terrified crowd. Kate tossed more grenades at them, then her mount and Joan’s were stampeding toward and through the fleeing crowd.

It took all but one of Kate’s flash-bang grenades to clear a path and throw off pursuit, then she and Joan’s mounts were thundering toward the main gate of Rouen while arrows and crossbow bolts flew toward them. The last flash-bang broke up a line of pikemen at the gate itself, then Kate hauled out her last weapon, a homemade thermite grenade courtesy of a design a physics major had obligingly drawn up for her under the pretext of researching a story. She dropped the weapon in the center of the gate as they went through, the grenade flaring to life in an intense blaze which would block the gate for a good while.

This would make a great movie, Kate thought through her relief and elation as the two riders tore away from the city.

They kept going until Rouen could no longer be seen and Joan slowed their exhausted horses to a walk, then the Maid turned her eyes on Kate. “Who are you, sir, who hurls lightning from your hands?”

Kate laughed and pulled off her helmet, dizzy with relief. “I’m Kate.”

Joan stared. “A woman? Such as myself?” Crossing herself, Joan shook her head. “Or are you instead an angel or a witch?”

“Neither, I’m just a woman.”

“That has been my argument,” Joan said. “You saw how well it has served me.”

“Well, yeah.” Kate pulled out the crucifix she wore out of habit and her devotion to Joan. “See? I’m okay.”

“Oh-kay?” Joan studied the crucifix. “Can you make the holy sign?”

“Cross myself, you mean? Sure.” Kate had been raised Catholic, but had stopped believing in the rituals and the male-dominated hierarchy long ago. She still knew the gestures, though. “See? I can recite the Lord’s Prayer, too.”

“Without stumbling?” Joan asked in a self-mocking manner. “I won’t ask that of you, since I wouldn’t yield when they demanded it of me in hopes I would offer them some grounds for their charges. But if you are but a woman, how did you discomfort the English so?”

“The grenades? They’re like petards, just better.”

“Much better! You didn’t have to light them so the English had no warning of their use. Do you have many?”

Kate shook her head. “I used all of them getting us out of Rouen.”

“Then we must fear pursuit, even though your weapons surely delayed the English.” Joan turned her horse off the road, leading the way across country at the best pace the steeds could maintain. “We must move fast and along quiet ways, hidden by tree, hillock and bush. But then you know this.”

“Yes. Yes, I do,” Kate agreed quickly, looking backwards in sudden worry.

For her part, Joan looked ahead, breathing deeply. “St. Catherine told me I would be saved, and a woman named Kate has fulfilled her promise. How can anyone doubt the word of God? Surely now His hand will guide us as our enemies seek us.”

“We can go somewhere safe now,” Kate said eagerly. “Where no enemies can find us. Completely safe.” Joan gave her a questioning glance, amazingly bright eyes under dark hair cut short in the current male fashion, as Kate continued. “I can take us both there.”

“Where is this place?”

“My home. Very far from here, but we can get there instantly.”

Joan’s glance was measuring now. “But you are not a sorceress or a demon sent to tempt me?”

“No!”

“Very far from here,” Joan repeated. “Your French is odd. Your home must be far from France indeed.”

“Yes,” Kate admitted.

“Could we return as quickly?”

“No.”

“Could we return ever?”

As quick thinking as her trial record had revealed, Joan had immediately asked the questions which Kate had hoped wouldn’t come up until much later. Now Kate willed herself to lie, to assure Joan that yes of course they could, but instead the word “no” came from her.

Joan nodded, took another deep breath, then smiled at Kate. “Then I cannot go there, even if you are an angel. I must go south again, find my friends, and serve the kingdom of France and my Lord.”

“Charles? King Charles? Who left you a prisoner and did nothing to help you?”

“My Lord is God,” Joan said softly, her eyes forward again. “I serve King Charles, who I would ask you not to disparage, I serve the kingdom of France, I serve the people of France, but I serve my Lord first.”

“Um, excuse me.” Kate hadn’t thought it would be hard to convince Joan, who had been betrayed by her own side, treated horribly by the English, and had just narrowly escaped a painful death. It hurt to look at her, to see the marks of illness and maltreatment. “You’ve already done what you need to do. The English will leave France. It’ll take a while yet, but they’ll lose.”

Instead of answering, Joan had a distracted air, as if listening to something else that Kate couldn’t hear. After a few moments, Joan’s focus sharpened again and she looked at Kate. “My voices tell me I must stay. My mission is not yet done. God wishes more of me. That is why I was saved.”

“No. Wait.” This wasn’t right. Grateful Joan, smart Joan, clever Joan who had talked rings around her learned inquisitors at her trial, who had been abandoned by supposed friends and allies, who had been beaten down to the point where even her will had been about to bend, was supposed to see the sense of coming with Kate. “I know you credit your voices with telling you things, but women used to do that a lot, because society wouldn’t accept that women could have ideas on their own. So women claimed they’d been told things by voices or spirits. You don’t have to pretend with me. I know you’re smart. I mean, you’re barely twenty years old now, and look what you’ve done!”

Joan seemed bemused, though. “You know much of me, it seems, and yet much of what you know does not seem to be me.”

“I’ve studied you for years and admired you all my life!”

“All of your life?” Joan laughed in a halting way, as if she had grown unused to any lightheartedness in her captivity. “You seem my own age.”

“I’m twenty-three.”

“Then you can only have heard of me for a few years! And I must tell you that what you have heard is not my truth. My voices are true, and have guided me honestly when I listened to them. They tell me of God’s commands for me.”

Kate bit back her first reply. Clearly, Joan wasn’t the religious hysteric she had often been painted as, but just as clearly she wasn’t going to admit to someone she had just met something so personal as what Kate knew had to be the truth about her voices. “I didn’t mean to question you. But, really, God didn’t save you, I did. I came here for you.”

Joan reined in and Kate stopped her horse as well, the two gazing at each other across the small distance between them. Her face lit with some inner fire, Joan reached across to grasp Kate’s hand. “Yes, you came. Do you not see the hand of God in this? You were His instrument in my rescue, and that is how I know you will continue to help me. You are a true companion. There is no falseness in you. My voices told me this, as did my heart. I cannot come with you. But you can come with me.”

Kate stared at Joan, at Joan’s shining eyes, at Joan’s face glowing with conviction, and felt her own will yielding like a weak dam trying to hold back an ocean of faith. “All - all right.”

“Then onwards!” Joan kicked her mount into motion again and Kate followed, slowly realizing as they rode that Joan was now leading, not her.

#

They couldn’t have gone more than an hour longer, following a wandering path along small trails and through low areas, before Joan began swaying in the saddle. “Your pardon, but do you have anything to eat? I have not been fed for two days, nor been allowed sleep in that time.”

“Two days?” No wonder Joan had been on the verge of collapse. The inquisitors had softened her up in every way possible. Kate dug into another small bag containing a variety of just-in-case-they-were-needed food bars. Joan eyed the food bars dubiously, but after a tentative taste began wolfing them down.

“Have we anything to drink?”

Kate started to say no, but then began checking the contents of the bags hanging from the saddles of the horses. One contained a leather flask which seemed to have about a liter of liquid in it. “How about this?”

Joan took the flask gratefully, putting it to her mouth and drinking deeply before lowering it with a contented sigh and passing it back to Kate. Taking a cautious swallow, Kate found that the flask was filled with sharp red wine. Finishing the last food bar, Joan extended her hand for the flask again and drained it.

Not long after that, Joan fell asleep in the saddle, Kate riding as close as she could to help prop up her companion when necessary even though Kate’s own discomfort from riding was growing with every jolt of the horse beneath her. She had ridden enough to know horses, but never for really long periods and rarely in armor. Despite the aches assailing her, Kate wanted to keep going even when the sun set, but the exhausted horses made it clear that wasn’t going to happen. Joan roused long enough to lead them off the path they were on into a stand of trees which shielded them from view, their worn out horses quietly cropping grass. Kate sat, her arms around her knees, watching Joan and trying to think.

Joan sighed happily before falling asleep again. “I shall sleep free tonight for the first time in many, many days. I can never thank you enough, Lady Kate.”

Lady Kate? Apparently Joan had decided that Kate deserved a social promotion. The glow of happiness that brought (Joan thinks I deserve to be called Lady Kate!) soon dissolved, though. Kate really hadn’t planned for a long time in Medieval France. She was supposed to rescue Joan, then Joan would quickly and gladly agree to be spirited back to modern times, and some sort of vague happily-ever-after would follow. But Joan wasn’t going along with Kate’s perfectly sensible plan, even if that plan wasn’t very detailed. She’s amazing, though. No wonder Joan impressed, or scared, everybody who met her. But she’s not exactly what I expected. Kate fell asleep herself while trying to marshal new arguments to convince Joan to come with her.

#

The next day brought a marvelous variety of dull and sharp pains from sleeping outdoors in armor, as well as gnawing hunger since there wasn’t anything left to eat. Joan seemed to be blossoming under the open sky, toughened by her peasant upbringing and well accustomed to privation from her long imprisonment, but Kate felt like death warmed over. The horses, surly from too little to eat and too short a night’s rest, didn’t help matters. Nor did having to wait while Joan knelt by herself for an extended period of prayer.

Eventually they got on the road, but soon Joan insisted on veering into a small village in search of food. “Have you any coin?” Joan asked Kate, cradling bread and wine which a peasant had brought from a tavern.

Kate reluctantly hauled out the single just-in-case real silver coin she had brought along. The image of Franklin D. Roosevelt on one side of the dime was already worn down quite a bit, so there didn’t seem much chance that anyone would be able to recognize the coin by the time actual United States currency came into existence in another three or four centuries. But Kate paused as she started to hand the money over, staring at the coin. I’m worried about a single anachronistic dime? Yesterday, I blew my way out of Rouen with Joan of Arc, who won’t be burned at the stake there on schedule, and I’m worried about a dime messing with history? What will freeing Joan do to history if she refuses to come home with me and keeps rampaging around France? What the hell have I done?

But it wasn’t like she could turn Joan back over to the English. The English would probably burn both of them to death on matching stakes, which wasn’t the kind of altered history Kate was interested in being a part of. Without a map, Kate knew only that they needed to go south to find safety, but the winding roads they were following didn’t seem to care about cardinal directions. After an hour’s ride they reached one crossroads that looked like every other crossroads they had passed. Trying to make out the words on the battered wooden sign to one side of the path, Kate wondered how anyone in this time found their way anywhere. “My kingdom for a GPS.”

“You have a kingdom?” Joan asked.

“No, it’s a saying.” Kate thought it best not to explain that it was from an English playwright, especially since Shakespeare had referred to Joan as a “foul fiend.”

“What is a Gee Pee Ess?”

“It’s kind of like a map.”

Joan nodded, then pointed assuredly down one of the intersecting roads. “We have no need of maps. My voices told me this morning that we should come to this place, and to take this way when we did.”

“Your voices?” Somehow that didn’t sound to Kate like a good substitute for a GPS. When had Joan talked to her voices? “We need to go south to get to safety, and that’s kind of west, I think.”

Shaking her head, Joan pointed down the other roads. “The English have many parties out trying to find us. They have every man available on the search. If we go down any of those other ways, our chances of being found are much higher.”

“What’s so special about that road?”

Joan smiled. “It is the right road.”

“Joan –“

“We must go that way. We dare not linger here to debate. Come!”

Kate found herself riding to catch up with Joan’s horse as they headed down the road Joan had chosen.

As the morning and their ride wore on, any remaining glow of adventure faded as the pain grew in Kate’s chafing thighs and sore butt and her mind worried about what a free Joan would do to change history. The rising summer sun beat upon her armor until Kate wondered just how long it took to broil a human being alive. Just after noon they rode through a village whose inhabitants stared at them both. They had almost made it out the other side when an old man stepped into the road and gestured for them to halt.

Irritated, Kate started to ride past, but Joan reined to a halt and gave the man a respectful nod. “Good day, friend farmer.”

The man came close to Joan, studying her face, then smiled to reveal a mouth with few remaining teeth. Kate had been gradually getting used to the unwashed fragrances of human bodies, including Joan’s, but this man was particularly ripe. From the smell, he seemed to raise pigs. “The Maid. You are the Maid.”

Joan smiled back as if to an old acquaintance. “I am, friend farmer.”

“You still fight for France?”

“I will fight for France to my last breath, friend farmer.”

The old man smiled again, and gestured them to wait, then hobbled quickly to a house nearby.

Kate glanced around nervously. “Joan, we need to keep moving.”

“No. Let us wait.”

Setting her jaw with growing anger at Joan’s assumption of command, Kate started to argue again, then stopped as the old man reappeared along with two younger men carrying heavy burdens. “You will need these,” the old farmer announced, unwrapping the bundles. In one, an assortment of pieces of armor rested, in the other, a sword and scabbard. “Years ago, a drunken Burgundian knight stayed here the evening, attempted to dishonor one of my daughters, and never left. He rests in one of those fields. Now you can make use of his armor and weapon.”

Most of the armor didn’t fit, but Joan was able to fasten on the breastplate, then belt on the sword. “My thanks.”

“Will you touch my sons, Maid, that they may have long lives and find good wives?”

Joan gave a weary sigh, but then smiled and lightly touched each of the younger men on their shoulders. “I have no special powers, but I ask that God grant you long lives and good wives.”

The old farmer grasped Joan’s hand for a moment and kissed one of her rings. “May God bless you, Maid.”

“And may He bless you,” Joan replied, before finally heading onward.

“I thought we were in a hurry,” Kate grumbled some time later, after stewing since leaving the village.

“But now I have a sword and some armor. The poor people have few who listen to them, who care for them. I do what I can,” Joan replied.

It was bad enough that Joan kept telling her what to do, but Joan also had been right to stop for the old man. That just made it more aggravating. It would be nice if you listened to me even once, you bossy little - Kate caught herself. This was Joan. She knew what Joan had done, and she knew how Joan had done things. Why had she ever expected Joan, of all people, to be compliant? And any student of the Middle Ages knew that Joan was absolutely right that few with any power cared about common folk. Remorse replaced anger. “I’m sorry. I’m really rotten sometimes.”

Joan turned a reassuring smile on Kate. “You are not a bad person, Lady Kate. You came to save me.”

Kate stared at Joan as a realization filled her, as clearly as if one of Joan’s voices had been speaking a truth which Kate did not want to hear but couldn’t avoid. I didn’t come to save her. I didn’t really know her. I came to save her for me, for what I wanted her to be. It was all about me, never really about Joan. Not this Joan, not the real Joan.

“Kate? Are you well?” Joan, who had just endured many months of torment, was watching Kate with real concern.

“I’m fine. I haven’t gone through anything compared to you.”

Joan shook her head. “I am not an easy person, Kate,” she confided in a low voice. “I was raised a peasant, without the fine manners of the court. My mission from God and my devotion to France consume me. I can be impolite and abrupt, and sometimes prideful. I know this, I sorrow for this, and I pray you will grant me forgiveness for my failings.”

Kate, consumed with guilt, reached out a hand to touch hers. “Joan, you’re a wonderful person. Really.”

“Really? But I am a witch, a sorceress and a heretic, did you not know? The English and the University of Paris have said so.” Joan grinned in a sudden mood swing. “In the name of God, it sometimes felt when I was a prisoner as if only God was on my side!”

Kate laughed. “I’ve run into my share of university professors who think they’re God, and the English aren’t the best people around these days. But if not for the English we wouldn’t have had the Beatles, so I guess they get better.”

“The beetles?” Joan’s mood shifted again, to curiosity and puzzlement. “Beetles are from England?”

“I mean the singing ones.”

“Singing beetles?” Joan laughed this time. “What do they sing? Do the fairies lead them in song? The common folk of your land must have the same fancies as those here.” Her laughter faded. “Such things are innocent, I think, yet the learned churchmen tried to use the simple old beliefs as proof I was a witch. My faith in God sustained me, but I hope He will forgive that I wondered sometimes during my ordeals at His purpose.” She crossed herself.

Kate’s frustration came back, fed by her own clashes with the church she had been raised in. “I don’t understand. I just don’t get it, Joan. You’re so smart. So very intelligent. Anyone talking to you can tell that.”

“Thank you, but I can neither read nor write anything but my own name.”

“You just weren’t taught how to do those things! That has nothing to do with how smart you are. But then you talk about your voices, and God . . . and . . . ”

Joan turned a puzzled look on Kate. “And?”

“How can you . . . ?” She couldn’t say it, couldn’t accuse Joan of mindless superstition, of being the kind of hysteric which history had often painted her as.

But Joan somehow understood, looking first startled, then to Kate’s shock laughing again. “Do you think that being smart and having faith cannot live together?”

“But - There’s no proof –“

“Proof?” Joan waved her hand. “I am here. Orleans did not fall, Charles was crowned king in Rheims. None of these are proof?” She laughed again as Kate struggled for words. “Lady Kate, my voices do not tell me to deny what is. They do not say ‘Joan, ignore what your eyes see, for the sky is red, not blue.’ I would not listen to them if they said such things, because by that I would know them false. The churchmen who examined me in my trial questioned my faith and my voices in many ways, but even they never could point to anything and say ‘this is proof she is a witch and a heretic.’” Joan gestured to herself this time. “Though they cared not for my male attire, as you may have heard.”

Kate couldn’t help smiling. “I understand your male clothing and fighting in battle horrified them more than the idea that you were a witch or heretic. It will be a long time before men can accept women wearing so-called men’s clothes.”

“I do not know that men will ever accept that!”

“Sure they will. If you’d come with me, I could take you to a place where they do.”

Joan smiled back, then shook her head again. “No, Lady Kate. I could not betray my mission.”

“But how can you still believe in that mission when everyone you helped abandoned you?” Kate burst out.

“There must have been reasons. I must believe.” Joan must have read Kate’s reaction. “Surely you believe in something, Kate?” Joan spoke confidently, her eyes seeming to glow, her presence so strong that Kate stared wordlessly for a moment. “You may confess to me,” Joan whispered with a grin.

“Yes,” Kate said, unable to take her eyes off of Joan’s face. “There is something I believe in, something that was a lot more than I thought I knew.”

“Then follow your heart,” Joan advised. “Our Lord gave us both heart and head for a reason. Everything has a purpose.” She crossed herself again. “In time, we may learn the purpose.”

Every argument which Kate had ever heard against such fatalism popped into her head, but faced with Joan they all seemed inadequate. Orleans did not fall, Charles was crowned king in Rheims. Both had been thought impossible before Joan came to lead the French army. The very idea of a teenage girl with sword and armor leading the French army into battle had been thought impossible, would be dismissed as fantasy if the historical record wasn’t undeniable. How did anyone refute that those things had nonetheless happened? Would Kate be the one arguing that the sky was red if she tried to refute them? Anyway, fatalism wasn’t the right word, was it? Joan might believe that God was dictating outcomes, but she used that faith to motivate her to action on behalf of others. “I just don’t know.”

“Your heart will tell you if you listen,” Joan said again.

#

Sunset wasn’t far away when they rounded a turn and found themselves facing an even dozen mounted knights in battle-scarred armor. Kate froze, knowing they should run, but too shocked at the moment to react.

Joan sat calmly, though, raising one hand in greeting. “Good day. Who do you serve?”

One of the knights rode forward, his battered armor and harsh face telling of long years at war. “We serve France, Maid. It has been long since I saw you last.”

“Andre.” Joan smiled. “I was told that one I knew before would find me this day. Who pays you now?”

“Duke Alencon.”

The smile on Joan’s face broadened so much that Kate felt as if the sun had suddenly come out from behind clouds. “My good duke. He is near?”

The knight shook his head somberly. “Duke Alencon could not come here. Nor could any army he could raise fight its way this deep into territory controlled by the English. Instead, he hired a few small groups of mercenaries such as we who could travel through the nets of the English and the Burgundians. We were to go to Rouen in hopes some opportunity to aid you might arise. Maid, there are English everywhere. They scour the countryside for you.” Andre turned a questioning look on Kate. “I do not know this knight.”

“Lady Kate. She is my rescuer and trusted companion.”

“Another Maid to fight for France?” one of the other knights asked in a wondering tone.

Kate hoped it was getting dark enough that her blush couldn’t be seen. If these knights were looking for another virgin, they had found Kate a few years too late.

But Joan was already answering. “Lady Kate is a stout warrior who alone rescued me from Rouen.” The mercenaries all turned impressed looks toward Kate, making her blush even more. “If God wills it, we shall return safely to my good duke. Do you know of a secure place for the night?”

Andre nodded and turning his horse led them onward in the direction which Joan and Kate had been traveling. By the time night fell they had made camp in a small dell well off the road, with trees close enough by to provide a small measure of shelter as well as fallen wood for a small fire. Overheard, the stars came out so thick and bright that Kate couldn’t help staring, astounded at their brilliance and finally understanding why people had thought that the heavens really did hold Heaven.

The mercenary knights shared out hard bread and the raw red wine in their flasks while some of their number went scrounging for food, eventually returning with piles of wild mushrooms cradled in their arms. Kate watched with alarm as everyone took thin sticks, spearing the mushrooms to hold them over the fire for roasting. “Are those safe?”

Andre gave her a puzzled look. “Of course they are. Who wouldn’t know a dangerous mushroom from a safe one?”

“Lady Kate is from far away,” Joan explained. She seemed in her element among these rough soldiers, trading jokes, asking for news, sharing stories of earlier battles. Every once in a while one of the mercenaries would inadvertently utter an oath and then Joan would gently reprove him, the hardened warriors humbly accepting her admonishments.

Kate ate her share of the mushrooms and bread, taking swigs from flasks as they went around, the red wine warming her insides, watching Joan laugh and talk. The mercenaries listened attentively to her, showing real respect. “I don’t get it,” Kate finally murmured to herself.

Andre had been close enough to hear, and now turned to Kate. “Something bothers you, Lady?”

“Yes. You’re all experienced fighting men. You’re mercenaries. You’re men, and these days men don’t listen much to women. But you really seem to think a lot of Joan.”

Andre looked toward Joan as well. “A wise man listens to women on some matters. My father told me that. Most women confine their concerns to the home and the farm, though. But the Maid is different. It’s like this. I’m a mercenary, Lady Kate. I used to believe in other things, but mercenaries believe in only one thing, and that’s money.” Andre nodded toward where Joan sat. “You need to stay alive to spend the money you earn, and that’s why mercenaries have no qualms about following the Maid. She’s a fine leader, with a good mind for combat.”

“Really? I’ve heard a lot about her, but not much about that.”

The mercenary laughed harshly. “Thank the nobility for trying to hide it! They couldn’t have it known that a girl was a better leader of men in battle than any of them. The English and the Burgundians want little said of it as well, that a woman beat them soundly again and again. Better for them to call her a sorceress who won her battles through black magic, or to talk about her clothing and her faith. But surely you’ve heard some of the Maid’s military doings, like her advice before the fight at Patay.”

Kate managed to dredge up that memory. “Something about spurs, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. ‘You have good spurs. Use them.’ Then she explained that it didn’t make sense to wait around and let the English choose where and when to fight. When we saw them, we should hit them hard and fast, before they were ready.” Andre grinned. “We tried it at Patay and slaughtered the English, who thought to have another Agincourt or Crecy. We beat them handily at other places, too. The Maid taught us how important speed is, on campaign and in battle, and in a fight she’s always at the fore, leading her men onward. If an attack at one place fails she shifts, seeking better approaches. When she has failed, it was because the rock-heads of the nobility held her back. We would have had Paris easily if not for self-serving truces agreed to by the court. The Maid is the best leader many of us have followed, Lady, and that’s why I took Duke Alencon’s coin and came looking for her.”

“So, it’s self-interest.”

“You could call it that, Lady.” Andre frowned down at the grass. “That’s all it is.” But then he looked at Joan again and his expression wasn’t that of a man working only for money.

#

Another dawn on a journey which was only supposed to have lasted a few hours. Kate sat with her back against a tree, trying to understand what had gotten her here. Time travel? That part was easy. What she couldn’t figure out was what she was doing following a religious warrior and a band of mercenaries through territory crawling with enemies.

And why did she have a nasty suspicion that she was enjoying this, that she wouldn’t leave Joan now no matter how bad things got?

Kate looked at the return control she carried on her wrist, safely under the sleeve of her armored gauntlet when she wore it. Just punch in the code, and she would be gone from here, back to the land of warm showers and fast-food and soft beds, where hordes of enemies weren’t hunting for her head. But all she did was look.

Joan came around the side of the tree, wearing her breastplate, her sword swinging sheathed by her side, the dawn light gilding her. Kate could only stare for a moment. “God, you look hot,” she blurted out.

“Take not His name in vain, Lady Kate.” But then Joan’s expression turned rueful. “In truth, it becomes very warm under armor, does it not?”

“Uh . . . yeah. Yes. That’s what I meant. Joan, have you ever been in love?”

Joan sat down nearby. “Of course. I love my parents, my brothers, I love Duke Alencon. There are many I am fond of.”

“I don’t mean that kind of love. I mean passionate love, like getting married.”

Joan gave her a quizzical look. “Do you mean romantic love? But that is not what marriage is about. Parents arrange marriages for many reasons, but romantic love is never one of them! Have you been listening to too many court troubadours and their silly songs?”

Kate looked off into the distance. “Romantic love is real.”

“Of course it is,” Joan conceded. “But it is not something I could ever have.”

Then some of the knights came to tell them it was time to go, and Kate followed Joan to their horses.

#

They made it through that day, and halfway through the next, riding through a countryside where rumor and news of soldiers hunting the Maid were constant companions. Some of the people they encountered warned them, while others doubtless carried word to their hunters.

Joan had continued to improve rapidly despite the hardships of their road. She spent time with the mercenaries, but she also rode with Kate often, talking of many things. Once Kate asked her about the fabled sign to the Dauphin, but Joan just laughed and would say nothing about it. “You are not to be my inquisitor as well,” she chided Kate lightly. “I care for you too much to have you assume such a role, my good Lady Kate.”

Just before noon they rode past the ruin of a keep consisting of a small walled court and a tower. Topping a ridge beyond the keep, the lead mercenary halted abruptly. “English!” he called back. “Three score at least!”

Andre turned his mount. “We ride back and across country.” Spurring their tired horses, the party headed back past the ruined keep.

But on the other side, before they could leave the road, they saw another party of hunters coming toward them. This time the English saw the group with Joan, and warning trumpets sounded as they charged, trumpets which were answered from the group on the other side.

Joan drew rein. “There are at least a hundred English knights and men-at-arms there, and more than sixty behind us.”

“They come on fast. Our mounts cannot outrun them,” Andre replied grimly.

“No, and the English have bowmen with them. A fight in the open would be hopeless. To the keep.”

The dozen mercenaries, Joan and Kate kicked their horses into a final burst of speed, into the courtyard of the ruined keep where the knights hastily began barricading the broken gate with any available object. They had barely finished piling up a barrier when the first group of English arrived. Within minutes, the second group joined them. Kate watched with a sinking feeling, certain that there were at least two hundred men facing them, and more trumpets could be heard signaling in the distance as other groups converged on the keep.

There was an elevated stone walkway about a yard off the ground, allowing defenders to stand chest-high to the wall, which was substantially intact but only about eight feet tall. Joan dashed up onto the walkway, followed by Kate and most of the mercenaries.

Everything seemed to pause for a moment, the banners of the English flapping in the breeze the only movement and the cries of birds the only sound. Finally, a herald rode out from the English lines, stopping well away from the wall. The herald’s voice rang out clearly in passable French. “Brave knights, you cannot prevail here. Surrender the witch and you shall all be granted your lives and your freedom.”

Her own voice strong, Joan called back an answer. “In the name of God, leave France, go back to your home, and you will have no need to fear me.” No answer came from the English. Joan spoke again, much more quietly, so only those on the wall could hear. “There is no chance of victory here. They want me, but I will not willingly be imprisoned by them again for they seek only my death. I ask no more than that you grant me time to fortify myself inside the keep and then you are free to go where you may and say what you will to ensure your safety.”

Kate swallowed nervously, looking sidelong down the ranks of the mercenary knights.

But every one of the knights just gazed forward, their faces as hard and uncompromising as the stone of the wall. None of them replied to the herald.

In a little while an English knight in fine armor rode up to the herald and spoke to him, then the herald raised his voice once more. “If you surrender the witch, you shall be granted your lives, your freedom, and one hundred gold crowns apiece, this sworn to on the word of Sir Costain of Kent.”

“You may accept the offer as long as you grant me time to get into the keep,” Joan murmured to the knights. “This alone I ask of you.”

After a long moment, Andre shook his head, looking disgusted. “We can’t, Maid.”

“I thought all you believed in now was money,” Kate said.

“That’s the problem with the Maid, you see.” Andre smiled toward Joan, then turned a grim face back to the English. “She makes you believe in things again. She makes you believe in her, she makes you believe in yourself, and she makes you believe in dying for France.” Andre raised his own voice to a shout. “You won’t have the Maid from us while we live, you English pig! You can take your filthy gold to hell!”

The herald and the English knight rode back to their lines. There was another pause, messengers riding down the English line calling out orders, then a line of archers stood out. “Beware the longbows,” Joan warned Kate.

The archers bent their bows, then as the trumpets sounded again they launched their arrows as the men-at-arms and knights charged the keep.

It’s not real. It’s a game. It’s not real. It’s a game. Kate kept repeating that in her mind to keep from running and hiding as the English reached the keep. Most of the French knights had gone down to hold the gate, but five stood with Joan and Kate along the wall as the English soldiers reached it and began trying to boost their comrades up onto it.

Kate’s sword was out and she was actually using it in a real fight, trying not to think about the fact that she was really trying to hurt and kill. Men-at-arms fell back, but one of the French knights on the wall took two arrows and fell, then another was stabbed in the throat by an English soldier who had made it up. That soldier died at the hands of the remaining three French knights with Joan and Kate, then in a momentary lull they heard a cry from below. “The gate is going!”

“To me!” Joan cried, and Kate and the other three knights followed as Joan hurtled down the stairs to the courtyard, where the improvised barricade was coming apart under the pressure of the attackers and several French knights already lay dead or dying. Men-at-arms were coming over the abandoned wall. “We cannot hold here! To the keep!” Joan ordered.

The remaining knights at the gate fell back, joined by those with Joan, and the small group backed their way toward the entrance to the keep, fighting the mass of English soldiers boiling through the gate and over the wall. One more French knight fell, then another, then as Joan, Kate and two other surviving knights reached the keep only Andre stood between them and the English. “Close the entry!” Andre shouted.

“I’ll not leave you outside the door!” Joan cried in return. “I was so abandoned at Compiegne and I will not do the same to a brave and loyal knight!”

But as Andre raised his sword for another blow at the onrushing English, longbow archers who had entered the courtyard released their arrows, three of their shafts slamming into him, piercing the armor and leaving Andre swaying for a moment. “I am done,” he said in a slightly puzzled voice, then fell forward into his attackers, his final collapse holding back the enemy a little longer.

The surviving two knights joined Joan and Kate in levering closed the broken door to the keep, wedging wreckage around it to help hold as the door began splintering under blows from outside.

Joan looked upwards. “Kate, go up and see the state of the tower above. There is too much light there. There may be an opening the English can use to enter above us.”

Kate took the rickety, decayed stairs at the best speed she could manage in armor, the wildlife nesting in the tower taking flight. The part of Kate’s mind not filled with fear noted the many nests and the dried out old wood and realized the tower’s interior was a tinder box waiting for a spark.

The first level up was choked with more debris and broken wood, the remains of furniture and chests. Kate staggered up the next set of stairs, which creaked ominously under her weight, and onto the second level, bright with light streaming in through a breach in the tower wall close to two meters wide and just as tall. Reaching the opening, Kate gazed downward to where the English were readying tree trunks with the branches lopped off short to form improvised ladders. She went back to the stairs, yelling down to be heard over the clash of fighting below. “Joan, there’s a gap in the tower wall two levels up. They’re getting ready to try to come through here.”

No answer. Despite her tiredness Kate went back down the sagging stairs to the first level and shouted her message to the figures she could now see below.

Joan looked upwards, then to the door. “Lady Kate and I will hold the tower above.”

One of the French knights nodded. “We shall hold here as long as breath is in us, Maid. Bless us before you leave us, please, that we may die in God’s grace.”

“I am but a servant of God, not one of His angels,” Joan protested.

“Please, Maid!”

Tears spilling from her eyes, Joan fumbled through a blessing of the two knights as they leaned against the crumbling door. “I come, Kate. Hold the breach until I reach you.”

Kate had to pause to rest before lurching up the stairs one more time, one of the steps cracking into fragments and nearly tossing her down. But she made it up again, then to the side of the gap in the tower, where the end of a tree trunk could now be seen just above the bottom of the breach.

She had seen enough movies to know what to do. Kate planted her foot against the tree trunk and shoved as hard as she could. The trunk shifted, to the sounds of yells below. A loud report of metal on stone sounded nearby as an arrow struck the tower. More archers were bending their longbows, aiming at her, but Kate thought of Joan and the knights holding the door below and somehow nerved herself to stay in the opening long enough to shove the trunk again, so that it toppled to one side.

Then Kate whirled back into cover, leaning against the inside of the tower, breathing heavily as arrows rattled through the opening and struck the far wall.

Joan came up the stairs and to the other side of the breach, smiling at Kate through tears. “There is little time left. If you would leave, leave now.”

Kate stared, her mouth hanging open, then she shook her head, aware that she was crying as freely as Joan. “I won’t leave you.” The words she had never managed to say burst out. “I love you.”

“I love you as well, Kate.” But then Joan’s eyes locked on Kate’s, and Joan somehow read the meaning there. Kate waited for the look of anger, of denial, but Joan’s smile just saddened. “That is the way of it? Alas, my good Lady Kate, your love is not the kind I could ever return. Even were you a man, my only Lord can be my God.”

“You don’t hate me?”

“Hate you? I have been judged by others, Kate. I know how little such judgments say of the truth. How could I hate a woman such as you? My Lord bid us love all, and though I have great bitterness toward the English even they would I willingly grant leave to depart France in peace if they would do so. But there is no evil in your heart, Kate. Your love is not such as I could ever feel, but it is pure nonetheless. My voices told me this of you, and now you see again how true they are.”

More arrows flew through the breach in the wall, but this time they trailed smoke and heat. Joan took a quick look out, then leaned back, shaking her head, for the first time showing a trace of fear. “They seek to force us out of the tower by setting fire to it.”

Kate had thought she couldn’t be more frightened, but now realized there was always another intensity worse than the last. “This thing will burn like a torch.” A realization broke through her fear. “I can’t hear the fighting at the door.”

Joan nodded. “You are closer. Check the stairs while I guard here.”

Scuttling to the stairs, Kate looked downward. The thud of weapons against wood or their clang against armor no longer came up from below, but she could hear the sounds of movement among the wreckage as well as something else, a crackling sound which she couldn’t place for a moment.

Then Kate heard the crackling sound growing louder amid alarmed shouts of “Outside! Outside!” in archaic English, and smoke began curling upwards from the ground level in rapidly growing billows as the shouts faded.

Now was definitely the time to panic, but instead as Kate looked toward Joan she felt an odd resolve settle over her.

Kate rejoined Joan at the breach in the tower. “The English won’t be coming up the stairs,” Kate gasped.

Joan looked back, seeing the smoke now streaming upwards through the stair opening. “The fire has caught below.”

“Yes. The English were down there, but I think they ran from the fire. The other two knights must be dead.”

Joan leaned back against one side of the breach while Kate rested against the other side. The fire venting up the tower was sucking in air through the breach, keeping this spot clear of smoke and relatively cool despite the growing heat. But the edges of the stairwell up here were smoldering, ready themselves to catch fire, and then the floor beneath them would burn as well. “It seems, my good Lady Kate, that you have saved me from one pyre only to land both of us inside another. I confess to you a secret I tried to hide from my captors. I fear death by fire. There is little I fear, but I fear that so very much.”

“We can still escape,” Kate urged.

“I told you to go, dearest Kate.”

“No. Both of us. We can both get away from here.”

Joan’s eyes locked on hers. “And afterwards to continue my mission?”

Kate longed to say ‘yes,’ to lie to Joan, anything to get her out of this trap, but her traitor lips shaped the truth. “No. We’d be gone from France, from this time, forever.”

Her eyes momentarily went distant, then Joan smiled at Kate even though her eyes still revealed her dread of the fire. “You must go. You need not die here. But my voices say that here is where I stand, here is where I stay.”

“Don’t listen to them!” Kate screamed. “They don’t care about you!”

“They do care,” Joan corrected, her eyes lit with an inner fire now as well. “But they only carry messages to me from my Lord. I always knew it would end. I wish it were not so soon, and I wish it were not to end in fire. But this is my mission, and I will not falter now. Others have died at my command, others have died for France. How can I flee and deny their sacrifice?”

“You have to die so you can keep inspiring people?” Kate yelled. “That’s awful. It’s not fair!”

Joan turned those intense eyes on Kate. “It is as God wills.”

“Then I won’t leave you.” Part of Kate was screaming in terror inside her, but she couldn’t go now. “You won’t face the fire alone.”

Joan’s answering smile held more gratitude than fear this time. She nodded to Kate and raised her sword in a salute. “Thank you, sister.”

Another tree trunk thudded against the breach in the wall. Joan and Kate both tried to shove it aside, but it was heavier than the first and soldiers below were holding it in place as men-at-arms climbed clumsily upward. The archers were firing again, trying to hit Joan and Kate as they struggled to move the tree trunk, but then the first of the men-at-arms reached the top.

Kate swung her sword and fought, side by side with Joan, trading blows with the attackers as one man-at-arms after another came up swinging. One, two, three attackers fell back and down, then in a moment’s gap before the next man-at-arms could reach them the two women shoved at the trunk again and this time it shifted, then slid away.

Flames erupted through the floor behind them as the tower turned into a massive chimney feeding the blaze. The floor sagged suddenly as a beam gave way, and Kate staggered back on a still-intact portion of the floor, holding up her arms to protect her face against the heat, trying to keep terror from overwhelming her.

“Kate.” The voice was weak yet somehow penetrated the noise of the fire.

Looking down, Kate’s fright turned to horror as she saw Joan half-sitting, half-lying near the breach. The shaft of an arrow which had punched through Joan’s breast plate protruded a good foot from her chest. She must have been hit in the instant the tree trunk had been cast down. “Oh, God, no.” Kate fell to her knees beside Joan, momentarily unaware of the fire, the threat of the English forgotten. She reached toward the arrow shaft, then hesitated.

Joan, her face very pale, managed to turn her head to look at Kate. “Don’t. It is over . . . my sister.”

“It – It can’t be.” Kate shook her head, renewed tears running down her face and splashing onto Joan’s breastplate. “That’s not what’s supposed to happen. You’re supposed to live. To come back with me. You’re supposed to.”

“My mission,” Joan reminded Kate, her voice growing weaker. “My voices told me . . . it must end in fire . . . This is my Lord’s will . . . but, by His grace . . . you have given me a gift . . . that I die fighting . . . and never feel the flames.”

“No,” Kate moaned. “In my time you could be happy. You’d belong there. You deserve a better fate than this.”

Joan’s eyes were shining despite the nearness of death in them. “My fate . . . my reward . . . is a great one . . . my voices tell me . . . I shall see my Lord soon . . . Take my sword . . . Kate, my sister . . . live . . . ”

Kate knelt there, shaking, as Joan’s breath stilled, her eyes still lifted upward and a smile fixed on her face. “Goodbye,” Kate gasped.

Another section of the floor collapsed, and Kate shrank back against the stone wall as the flames burst out closer to her. The wood floor under Joan’s body and Kate was hot and would surely explode into flame at any moment. The cries of the English seemed faint as they kept back from the inferno the tower had become. Kate gazed on Joan’s body, the floor around it smoking now, then picked up Joan’s sword and gripped it tightly. Every other defender was dead, no one else had known who Kate was, and so no one would carry the tale of Lady Kate into history. “Goodbye, Joan,” Kate repeated, then pulled back the cuff of her gauntlet and finally punched in the return code through eyes blurred with tears as fire flickered to life on the floor around her.

#

Kate moved in a daze through the pre-dawn campus and to her apartment, not really aware of her surroundings, and never afterwards able to understand why she hadn’t been spotted by campus security on her way out or stopped by police on the walk home. Maybe anyone seeing an armored knight walking through the dark had not wanted to find out what was going on. But at some point, Kate found herself at the door to her apartment, and managed to dig out her keys.

She paused as the door swung shut behind her, staring at the pictures on one wall. Walking stiffly, Kate moved toward that wall, studying the pictures.

The one which had shown Joan being burned at the stake now depicted a fully-armored knight rescuing Joan from the site of her planned execution while bursts of smoke and flame cast by St. Catherine and St. Margaret dazzled the English soldiers on guard. Next to it hung a print of a Medieval picture Kate had never seen, one showing Joan fighting on the top of a tower while flames rose around her, angels hovering ready to take her to heaven as Joan’s attackers cowered in fear below.

Beside that was a photograph of a monument near a small, ruined stone keep, Joan standing in her armor atop a pedestal, gazing heavenward. On the pedestal had been carved the images of knights standing ready to fight to their last with Joan.

Kate just stared at the pictures for a while, then staggered into the bedroom and sat down heavily on her bed, laying the sword carefully beside her and looking at it. She had no idea how long she had been there when a soft knock on the door was followed by a key turning in the lock.

“Hello? Kate?” Cylene’s steps sounded softly in the living area, then she peered around the side of the door into the bedroom. “Hey, you weren’t on campus this morning and you didn’t answer your cell so I wanted to check . . . What’s the matter?”

Blinking her way back into thought, Kate shook her head. “Nothing.” It came out in a hoarse whisper which even Kate knew didn’t sound convincing.

Cylene came closer, bending down to look at Kate’s face, then wrinkling her nose. “I smell smoke. Have you been near a fire? Your armor is all beat up. God, that SCA stuff can be a little scary if you ask me.”

“Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain,” Kate whispered.

“What? Kate, are you okay?” Cylene snapped her fingers in front of Kate’s face. “Do you need a doctor?”

“No. I’m fine.”

“Sure you are.” Cylene sat down next to Kate, on the opposite side from the sword, looking at the weapon curiously. “You got another sword?”

“Someone gave it to me.” Kate reached out to touch the blade. “She belonged here, Cy. In a time when a woman could be smart and lead knights into battle and be herself. But she was needed then.”

“Are you talking about Joan?”

“Yes.” Kate took a long breath, then finally focused on Cylene. “Joan wasn’t what I thought. I mean, she was in some ways. But she wasn’t any of the things people think about with her. No, that’s not right. She was all of those things and different things and most of all just herself. Strong and smart and brave. She was Joan.”

“Okay.” Cylene looked away. “You know who Joan was now. What did you do, go back in time and talk to her?”

“Uh –“

“Because you’ve talked about that so many times. ‘If only I could be that mysterious knight! If only I could be the one to rescue Joan from execution by the English!’” Cylene smiled teasingly at Kate and tapped her armor. “So, was it you?”

“Yeah. It was me.”

“What? Kate, this is not funny because you don’t sound like you’re joking!”

Kate made a major effort and tried to look normal. “I’ve really always said that I wanted to be that knight? Not that I wanted to keep Joan from being burned alive at the stake?”

“Yes. You’ve said it a million times, that and about how you used to pray you could be one of the knights with her at the keep. But she didn’t burn at the stake because that one knight rescued her, so that’s the same thing, isn’t it?”

“Not exactly.” Kate smiled, feeling a sense of wonder breaking through the numbness. She really had changed things.

Cylene was still talking. “It’s not like Joan didn’t get to die fighting. How many women has that inspired over the years?”

“It has?” Kate asked. “I mean, yes, it has. Although, if she had died being burned at the stake it would been harder for her, Cy. Facing the fire alone, and never crying out in pain or for mercy. It would have been the bravest and strongest thing she ever did.”

“Uh, sure, I guess. You never talked about it that way before.”

“I never really understood before, how strong and brave and amazing she was.” Kate ran one hand through her hair, feeling the ashes still clinging there. Ashes from a fire which had burned more than six centuries ago.

Cylene spoke hesitantly. “So, what have you been crying about? Seriously, Kate, you look like hell.”

“I’m a lot better off than the others.” That really sounded wrong, even though it was true. “I mean, I just had some very stressful experiences, and I don’t think I’m ready to talk about them.”

“All right.” Cylene made an uncertain gesture. “Do you want to keep sitting here or go into the living room where it’s more comfortable? I can make you some lunch. When’s the last time you ate?”

Over six hundred years ago, Kate realized. “It’s been a while. I could use some wine. Red wine.” Cylene helped her get her armor off, unsuccessfully trying to hide her reaction to the state of the clothes under the armor which Kate had been wearing for days. Kate managed to stand up despite her entire body feeling stiff and sore, then walked into the living room behind Cylene, but once there hesitated, staring once again at the picture of Joan on the flaming tower. “I didn’t see angels,” she heard herself saying, “but maybe Joan did. Maybe she heard them. She was so calm, so content when she died, so sure she was going to heaven.”

“You’re scary again,” Cylene said. “And since when do you believe in heaven?”

“I don’t anymore. No, maybe now I do. I don’t know, yet. But Joan believed, and maybe that’s what’s needed, like a spiritual Schrödinger’s cat. If you don’t really believe in heaven and angels, they’re not there. But if you do . . . and Joan made you believe.”

Cylene was looking at Kate with a baffled expression. “Where have you been, and what did you do there, and what did you do with Kate?”

“Kate is still here. I’ve just learned a few things. It’s a long story.” Should she tell Cy? Listen to your heart. Live. Kate reached a decision. “There’s probably only one person on earth I could tell it to, and I want to tell you. You may decide I’m crazy, but I’ll tell you. I swear it’s true.”

“You’ll tell me? Only me?” Cylene smiled with delight. “Okay. Long story? Maybe I should order pizza delivered. You want mushrooms, right?”

Visions flooded Kate’s mind, images of a night distant in time now, a small fire, figures in armor sitting around it roasting wild mushrooms on sticks, Joan’s eyes in the firelight as she laughed, a skin of raw red wine being passed around, the dark sky above brilliant with stars more numerous than the modern world could now see. The memory could have brought tears, but instead Kate found herself laughing at the joy of it all. “Yes. With mushrooms.”

Author's Note on Betty Knox and Dictionary Jones in The Mystery of the Missing Teenage Anachronisms

I don’t know why, but the idea of building a time travel story around an early 1960s “kid detective” tale came to me one day. Like most story ideas, this combined more than one concept. Sure, these are “kids” trying to fix problems. But what if the kids were not exactly typical? And what if the problem was a very big one? In most time travel stories, the travelers are worried about doing anything that might change the past. Even the smallest thing they do could cause big changes up the line. But suppose you wanted to change the past, and it was in fact very, very hard to do?

Betty Knox and Dictionary Jones in The Mystery of the Missing Teenage Anachronisms

In faded photographs, fifteen year-old Betty Knox had worn not just the usual modest skirts and blouses, but also the usual barely-concealed teenage uncertainty visible in eyes behind dark-framed glasses that hadn’t really been fashionable even by the questionable standards of the mid-1960’s. She looked like she should be carrying a book even when she didn’t have one.

Now, fifteen year-old Betty had a wariness well-hidden in those same eyes as they glanced from side-to-side at her classmates. Unlike the rambunctious teens around her, she moved surely, carefully, more aware of what she was doing. She also moved, James Jones thought, like someone unaccustomed to her neat blouse, mid-length skirt and sensible shoes.

While the other teens leaving school streamed off in various directions, Jim sidled close to Betty as she briskly strode down the sidewalk. “Uh, hi.”

Her eyes shifted to him. “Hi.”

“I’m Jim.”

“Dictionary Jones. I know.” Betty was really giving herself away now. She should be getting a little shy, a little giggly, nervous at being approached by a boy of the same age whom she knew only because they shared the same school. Instead, Betty seemed amused, the veteran of decades of clumsy come-ons who thought this one not just lame, but also cute.

It annoyed Jim, so he cut to the chase. “And I know that after Johnson, Richard Nixon is elected president. Then Ford. Who comes next?”

Betty’s amusement vanished, the wariness back and intensified. “Carter. Jimmy Carter.”

“Then Reagan. So now we both know who we are.”

“What the hell are you doing here?” Betty demanded, her nicely-permed hair flouncing prettily. “Why are they sending new people down right after we got here? Those stupid bastards should have –“

Jim cleared his throat loudly and Betty shut up with a guilty look around. “Long story short, they sent us as close to your arrival time as they could manage because the first wave disappeared.”

“Us? First wave? There’s –“ Betty’s voice caught. “Disappeared?”

Maybe to any adults watching from a distance they still looked like two kids strolling down the street, encumbered with school books, talking about the latest “music” from that new foreign singing group with the outlandish name The Beatles. But up close Jim could see the Betty in much more recent images, the Betty usually addressed as Doctor Knox. “Within a few months of the aimed arrival dates,” he explained, “every single one of you vanishes, usually with no record of what happened. Removing a few documents before old newspapers and records were digitized and data-based could get rid of whatever happened to you as long as it was low profile. But they found nothing you guys did to alter things, and only a few items saying that two of you were reported as runaways soon after your projected arrival times, and there’s nothing on any of you after this October.”

“What about our bodies? The original ones?”

“The older bodies you left behind? Nobody came back, if that’s what you’re asking. The bodies are still there, but there’s nobody home.”

“Slabs of meat,” Betty murmured.

“You don’t have to get all poetic about it,” Jim said, stung by the image that also might now apply to his own much older self.

“I’m a geneticist, not a poet, Jim,” Betty snapped, sounding very much like Doctor Knox. “When are you from?”

“2040.”

“The year after we were sent?”

“It took a while to find people who might know you, who could find you as teens, and then to evaluate and train us.”

Betty detoured to a vacant bench at a bus stop and sat down, staring outward. “Why exactly are you here? To find out what went wrong? To try something different? To find out if the time patrol bagged the first group of us to keep us from altering history?”

Sitting down next to her, Jim shrugged. “All of the above. This is by far the longest trip into the past that has been attempted. Did it make you unstable? Did you actually arrive? Okay, you’re here, and you don’t seem unstable.”

“No more so than any other fifteen year-old girl.”

“But no one really believes in a time patrol. How could that work?”

“It couldn’t.” Betty looked down at her legs stretched out in front of her. “What happened to the others? To me? I’m still trying to adjust to this. Look at my legs. I’d forgotten how good my legs looked when I was fifteen. At the time, I thought they were too short and too stocky. Which they were, compared to Barbie’s legs.”

Jim felt his own midsection, flat and even. “Yeah. It’s really strange. I keep expecting to be over ninety years old. I think I was in pretty good shape for that age, but compared to fifteen . . . ”

“What does the process do when someone is sent back this many decades? Maybe it does create some kind of instability. Have they even discovered how it works in the time since I left?” Betty asked. “Even though it’s only been two weeks for me.”

“Two weeks? Uh, no, they haven’t figured it out yet. The mechanism causes something to be projected back to an earlier time, to an earlier age in the same body, but what that something is they don’t know.”

Betty sighed. “Why not just call it a soul?”

“Too metaphysical. They’re still vetoing ‘spirit’ for the same reason. The people who trained me usually called it ‘self.’”

“That’s nicely ambiguous. Science finally discovers that something besides the physical body makes us us and then doesn’t want to deal with the implications.” Another sigh as Betty looked across the street without focusing on anything. “But we have to deal with the fact that time travel is only possible within the lifespan of any living human, so we can’t send someone back to when all of this seriously began. If only we could get someone into Germany before they launched their big chemical manufacturing plants in the nineteenth century!”

Jim didn’t see much sense in imagining that outcome, since it couldn’t happen. “How are things going now for you? Have you attempted any progress on the mission yet?”

“Attempted?” Betty spun on him, glaring, her mood shifting with startling suddenness. “I’m a girl, Mr. Dictionary Jones! Guess who listens to girls in 1964?”

He could guess the answer by her tone. “Nobody?”

“Nobody! And they define ‘girl’ as any female of any age!” Betty shot to her feet. “Let’s keep walking. I can’t just sit and talk about this.”

Jim hastened to keep up. “You’re walking like Doctor Knox.”

Betty flinched and shortened her gait. “I hate this. I hate these clothes. I want to put on a t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans and a comfortable pair of sneakers, and I want to be able to move like my fifteen year-old self can move!” She jumped upward in mid-stride, then turned another glare on him. “We played basketball at school the other day. Girl’s basketball. I took the first shot.” She mimicked a clean overhead toss at a basket. “Everybody gasped and the teacher told me I was unladylike, that only boys threw that way and if I wasn’t careful I would damage my uterus.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I’d forgotten that the sort of physical activity we know is normal and healthy for girls was believed in 1964 to lead to athletic fields littered with expired uteruses.” Her anger faded as swiftly as it had come. “Anyway. After I got my bearings here I tried raising a few topics with my father, who is a physician. And a good one. I mentioned a few things about epigenetics, and he got this indulgent look and said when I went to college I’d learn about Lamarck and how wrong he was. Then my mother said maybe I’d want to get married instead of going to college and I said I could do both and everything went downhill from there. Of course, both of my marriages ended in divorces, so maybe mother had a point.”

“They don’t know about epigenetics?”

“They barely know about genetics! I’d get further talking to Mendel, because he wouldn’t have a lot of preconceptions about what he thought he knew.” Betty shook her head. “Except for preconceptions about ‘girls,’ I suppose. It’s complicated. Lamarck was wrong, but he was also right in a far more subtle way than people of his time could grasp. Humanity needed to figure out epigenetics decades earlier than we did if we are to halt the spread of effects on the human genome in time to make a difference. Right now, though, and for decades to come, it’s assumed that either Darwin or Lamarck had to be right, rather than understanding that more than one means of adaptation exist, and that one of those means is directly affected by environmental conditions far less intense than radiation.”

She gave him a rueful look. “That’s why this is going to be a long project, beginning with manually typing letters sent under other names than my own, male names, to nudge people in the right directions.”

“Except,” Jim pointed out, “the last record of Betty Knox the project could find in 2040 was a school paper at the end of September, 1964. As far as we could tell in 2040, you never got a chance to send any of those letters. Even if you became unstable as a result of the long trip into the past, there should be medical records of that, so the project thinks someone deliberately went after you.”

She stopped walking again to stare at him. “Are you a bodyguard? Is that it?”

“If I found you, and you weren’t crazy, yeah.” Jim flexed one slim arm. “Not much there to work with, but I know a few things about unarmed combat. I don’t remember ever crossing paths with you after we left school, but I served in the Marines for a while.”

“I don’t think I ever talked to you when we were in school together. The first time, I mean. Dictionary Jones, a Marine?” Betty asked. “Where’s your dictionary, anyway? You always carried that book around, and had it yesterday, so I guess you must have arrived since then.”

Jim scowled at the sidewalk. “I came in last night. It wasn’t a dictionary. I didn’t want to tell anyone what it really was.” He realized she was waiting for him to say more. “It was game rules. I was working on a role-playing game.”

“A game? You were a game geek before game geeks were cool?”

“I don’t think game geeks have ever been cool,” Jim said. “Some of us made a lot of money and we impacted the culture a whole lot, but cool? Dictionary Jones never had a girlfriend, remember?”

“How many boyfriends do you think I had?”

They had reached a house he recognized as hers, not from ancient memories but from his briefings.

“We need to talk about whatever theories they developed in 2040 about what might have happened,” Betty said. “And I need to figure out how to contact the two other people I can find in this time to see if they’re okay. I’ll be honest with you. I have a lot of trouble believing that something bad has happened to everyone, and that something will happen to me. We do need to find out what caused –“

“Betty!”

Jim turned to see a woman standing in the doorway of Betty’s home.

“Why don’t you and your friend come inside and have some cookies?” the woman called.

Doctor Betty Knox blushed liked any fifteen year old girl. “Damn! Mother must think you’re a potential boyfriend for me. She thinks I need to study less and be more freaking feminine.”

“Do you talk like that in front of her?”

“Hell, no! I can’t even say ‘hell, no’ in front of mother. Not in 1964.” She gave a defeated shrug. “Come on. At least it’ll explain why we’re hanging around each other, Mister Bodyguard. But don’t plan on getting lucky.”

Jim suddenly realized that ever since Betty Knox had mentioned her legs he had been aware of her body under those modest clothes. “Lucky?” he demanded, feeling guilty. “We’re both fifteen!”

“Oh, yeah. Tight and virile young bodies with the hormones of teenagers and the experienced minds of the old and lecherous. They didn’t warn me about how that would complicate things. Have you noticed trouble with focusing on one thing? How your thoughts bounce around?”

“Yes, now that you mention it.”

“Our physical brains, our bodies, are fifteen. Our selves are being affected by that.” She took a long, deep breath. “Maybe too much so. Maybe the danger lies within ourselves.”

#

Betty and he had spent a while strategizing in low voices over cookies and milk. It wasn’t until Jim was leaving and caught the knowing expression on the face of Betty’s mother that he realized how that must have looked, two teenagers with their heads close together for a long time.

One thing Betty had insisted upon was that he had to maintain his original life. “You can’t go rogue from who you were at fifteen, Jim. This society couldn’t handle that. Our parents couldn’t handle it. That was the project’s assessment before I came here and I’ve seen nothing to make me think different. You need to do your job for the project and live the life of Dictionary Jones at the same time.”

Now Jim walked up stairs he only dimly recalled, opening a back door whose image had completely faded from his memory, to see his mother standing in the kitchen making dinner. “Where were you?” she asked.

“I was visiting a friend.”

“That’s nice.”

Times had changed. In 2040, parents would track their child’s whereabouts constantly by GPS chip and freaked out at any deviation from planned, safe, organized and adult-supervised after-school activities. Funny how the restrictive society of 1964 also produced more freedom in other ways. “Is there anything I can help with?” Jim asked.

That earned him a startled look from his mother. “No. Thank you. Just go ahead and watch the TV until dinner.”

He ambled into the living room, trying to move more like a teenager, then spent almost a minute reflexively looking around for the remote before realizing there wouldn’t be one. Jim walked to the hulking TV console, almost as big as the widescreen on one wall of his home in 2040 but with a screen barely twenty inches across, and after studying the knobs turned one until it clicked.

Aside from a humming sound, nothing happened. Jim waited, and waited, finally moving to peer inside the console through air vents in the side. The orange-reddish glow of vacuum tubes met his eyes. How long did it take vacuum tubes to warm up? His memories of that were dimmed by time and affected by what he had once accepted as typical.

Giving up, Jim went back to the couch and flopped down, grinning as he enjoyed the feel of being physically fifteen again. But then the grin vanished as his little sister Mary walked in.

She stopped and glared at him. “Is there something wrong with you?”

“Uh, no. I’m just glad to see you.” Mary had died abruptly in 2006 of an undiagnosed heart ailment.

“This morning at breakfast you looked at me like I was some kind of freak.”

“No! I was very glad to see you.” Already disoriented from his future self arriving in the early morning hours, it had been hard not to break down into tears when he saw Mary again. He had been told to be careful what he did, to avoid any unnecessary changes to the patterns of the past even though no one knew how hard it would be to actually change the past. But he would make sure that heart ailment was found in time.

She gave him a suspicious look, then went to the TV which had finally produced coarse black and white images. Mary flicked the channel changer, rapidly spinning past empty channels to only ones with signals. NBC, ABC, CBS. NBC, ABC, CBS. On the third go round of the same three channels, she stopped on one showing a dancing package of cigarettes.

Cigarette ads on TV. Somehow that seemed to epitomize the prevailing tendency toward self-inflicted poisoning. A line from Jim’s training came back to him. Before leaded gasoline was banned in the United States, an estimated seven million tons of lead had been released into the air, soil and water from that source alone.

“There’s nothing on,” Mary said with disgust.

That hadn’t changed. How many times had Jim said the same thing after scrolling through hundreds of channels? He tried to remember when his family had bought their first color TV. One with transistors rather than vacuum tubes. It had been after he enlisted to avoid being drafted. What kind of idiot joins the Marines so he won’t be drafted into the Army? Mary had said, her hair much longer then and her jacket adorned with a peace symbol.

“What are you looking at?” Mary demanded.

He realized that he had been watching her again, remembering all that had been, that once would be, and wondering what would happen now. There was only one way back from a trip into the past, and that was the old-fashioned way, living one day at a time. The Marines again? He had been lucky in ‘Nam, picking up only a few minor injuries and a lot of memories he had spent a long time trying to deal with. But it would take only a very tiny change in where he stood to put an enemy bullet into his heart rather than grazing his shoulder. He was no longer a kid to whom death was an alien thing that happened to others. He knew how easy it would be to die in ‘Nam if he risked it again.

And how could he stand seeing his old pals again at the Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego, knowing which ones wouldn’t be coming home? Could he even consider replaying that part of his past when a larger responsibility now rested on his shoulders? He had wondered about that before, but it had all been sort of abstract, not real. Now it was as real as the past which had become his only present.

“Somebody’s deep in thought,” Jim’s mother observed. “Dinner’s ready. I made that frankfurter casserole you like.”

Jim sat down at the dinner table, grinning at the once-loved and now almost forgotten meal. But his smile faded as he thought about what was likely in that food. No. Not too much yet. Most of the stuff that leaches into the human food supply, or is deliberately introduced into it because it’s thought harmless or even beneficial, comes later. Betty still has time to change things.

He had been ninety-one years old when the project contacted him. Unlike the newest generations, plagued by a host of ailments, there was nothing physical specifically wrong with Jim, just a very tired body, so that he faced each day knowing that it might be the last, and accepted that reality with weary resignation. He had already felt like a time traveler then, one who had jumped forward in time to a period when no one remembered the things which had been important when he had been young, and were now concerned with things he had never imagined as a young adult. But they had told him this was important, that he could make a difference, because almost eighty years ago he had gone to the same school with a girl who had become a highly respected geneticist and now needed help.

Jim looked at his mother again, fighting down a sense of disbelief. Alive. Healthy. Astounding things that he had taken for granted the first time he had been fifteen. She had died from cancer in 1984. Cancer later discovered to be triggered by some of the chemicals, plastics, and industrial byproducts which by the mid-twenty-first century were overwhelming humanity with its own toxins. Aggravating the assault on mankind were bacteria and viruses which had developed immunity to every countermeasure due to clumsy overuse of those countermeasures. By the time humanity figured out what its own creations and leavings were doing to it, it seemed to be too late to do anything about it.

Except that another discovery offered a way that might provide a head-start on solutions, and maybe a way to limit the damage which would be done. The first attempt had simply vanished in time, and now he had to find out why and help Betty change history in small ways that might over time add up to very big differences.

#

The next day, Jim stood in science class, staring at the silvery globules of mercury which the teacher had doled out to the students. This was one of the classes he shared with Betty, who sat at the other side of the room and was almost cringing away from her sample of mercury. The other kids were laughing and playing with the stuff, dipping pennies into it to see the copper acquire a silvery coating, and breaking it into little globules which would roll around and merge back into big globules. Tom Farand had stuck his finger into his mercury and was waving around a silver-coated digit.

“Make sure you wash your hands before you stick that finger in your mouth, Mr. Farand,” the science teacher instructed in a severe tone.

Betty shook her head like someone emerging from shock and her hand rocketed into the air. “Sir, isn’t mercury an extremely toxic substance?”

“Toxic?” The science teacher nodded judiciously. “It can be poisonous if ingested, yes.”

“What about inhaling fumes? Or absorption through the skin? Couldn’t even a tiny amount of mercury cause serious neurological problems?”

The other students were watching Betty now, some nudging each other and laughing, while she reddened slightly in embarrassment.

Jim raised his hand. “I’ve heard the same thing, sir. Mercury is incredibly neuropathic and ingesting even small quantities leads to sensory impairment.”

“Dictionary Jones and his big words,” someone whispered.

The teacher frowned. “I’m not aware of that, Mr. Jones. Or what you say, Miss Knox. If there are scientific studies which support what you say, and you want some extra credit, why don’t you two produce a paper on the topic?”

By now most of the class had stopped laughing, and were looking down at their globules of mercury with worried expressions.

Betty swung by him as they left class. “Thank you. It was so nice not to be the sole voice of sanity. One small step at a time. We get people thinking about this a few years earlier, and let the results snowball. I hope.”

“Do those studies exist yet?” Jim asked.

“I don’t know. That area wasn’t supposed to be my priority. I did memorize some of the places and people who are working on things like that right now. But a big part of the problem is that existing means can’t detect extremely low levels or the impact they’re having. What’s your specialty, Jim?”

Here it came. “I don’t really have one. No advanced degrees at all. I did a lot of stuff, and have a decent general background in science and technology, but my primary qualification for being chosen for this was because I went to school here at the same time you did and I was still alive.”

“Oh.” But instead of getting arrogant or dismissive, as so many of the highly-degreed had reacted to such news, Betty smiled at him. “Some of the dumbest people I ever met had the most advanced degrees. See you after school.”

He watched her leave, smiling to himself, until a hand hit his shoulder hard enough to make him stumble. “When did you two fall in love, Dictionary?” Tom Farand asked, while several other boys laughed.

“We were talking about working together,” Jim said.

“Working? Nobody works with girls.”

“Why not?”

The question seemed to stagger Farand for a moment. “Because they’re girls!”

The sort of attitude that Betty had blown up about yesterday. Jim had vaguely remembered the ways women had been put down when he was young, but things had changed so much by 2040 that the reality of it had dimmed considerably. Now here it was, full strength, and he could only imagine how hard it been for Betty to suddenly be living with that again. The least he could do was stand up for her, but Jim’s young hormones provided words before his older self could censor them. “Wow,” he said to Farand. “That is so dumb. The mercury must already be affecting your brain.”

Farand’s face reddened. “Watch your mouth, Dictionary.” His right arm shot out to stiff-arm Jim’s shoulder.

Jim’s left arm came up and easily parried the blow in a move he had learned years from now, leaving Farand and the other nearby students gaping at him . “Sorry,” Jim said. “I shouldn’t have put you down like that. But you shouldn’t put down girls, either. And don’t try to hit me again.” Jim turned and walked off toward his next class, realizing belatedly that he had just done something out of keeping with being fifteen.

As he left school that afternoon he saw Betty among a group of girls, most of them talking a mile-a-minute. Noticing him, Betty left the group, while the gaggle of girls pointed at Jim and emitted a gust of giggles. “God help me,” Betty whispered to Jim as they started walking. “They were talking about who the cutest Beatle was. I thought I was going to go insane.”

“I always liked Paul,” Jim commented, “though not in the same way the girls did.”

“Paul was great. I told them John was a jerk and they were all ‘no’ and –“ Betty slapped her forehead. “Stop talking about it.”

“In a couple of years you can argue with them about who’s the cutest Monkey.”

“Mickey,” Betty replied immediately, then slapped her forehead once more. “I haven’t forgotten anything but my feelings are turning fifteen again. I have one of those portable record players and I spent a while last night listening to 45s on it. Why do I have a 45 of Lesley Gore singing ‘It’s My Party’? Why did I listen to it?”

“You could get a copy of ‘You Don’t Own Me,’” Jim suggested.

“Did that come out in ’64? Talk about anachronisms! I need to find that record.” She bit her lip. “Are you starting to get a good appreciation for the challenges we’re facing? Memories are one thing, reality is another.”

“Yeah. But because of that stupid civil defense drill we did today I did think of something else that might help.”

Betty gasped out a sad laugh. “Crouching under our desks as protection against nuclear weapons. How could anyone seriously believe that hiding under a spindly school desk would protect against a nuclear shock wave?”

“Duck and cover,” Jim recited. “Yeah. Ridiculous. But I was thinking how that changed, how people came to realize that nukes were more than just bigger bombs. People wrote books and made movies about nuclear weapons destroying everything and it changed how people thought about the weapons. Remember On the Beach?”

“Where everybody dies from radiation? That movie gave me nightmares.”

“That’s the point!” Jim said. “Within a few years everybody is going to start getting nervous about radiation and mutants. I told you about my game. Well, I looked at what I’d done, and it’s really a mess, because I didn’t know how to design a game like that when I was fifteen. I can do it right now, though. I could redo Dungeons and Dragons or something, but I won’t, because somebody else came up with that and I’m not going to steal their ideas even if they haven’t had them yet.”

“Really?” Betty gave him a sidelong look. “Technically you can’t steal something that someone else hasn’t even created yet.”

“See, that’s why I didn’t become a lawyer,” Jim said. “I don’t care about technicalities like that. It would be wrong. But, I can make a game about what’s choking humanity to death in 2040.”

“Jim, you can’t demonize technology. Some of the project’s opponents accused us of wanting to do that, but that was never the intent. We need technology. It caused the problems but it also holds the solutions.“

“I know! I need to build a game where the enemies are produced not by paranormal evil, but by high-tech by-products. And you win by fighting, but part of the treasure is learning new stuff that you can use to help others and counteract the environmental toxins that make things dangerous for you, and if you’re not careful your own weapons create more problems.”

Betty smiled widely at him. “That’s brilliant. As well as ethical. You can guard me and help our mission. I can still focus primarily on advancing genetics research while both of us try to change attitudes about toxins and by-products. All right. This afternoon we check on Paul and Charlie, who will probably love your idea. I asked around about how to make long distance calls and I brought some money.”

Betty stopped at a pay phone booth, holding up a quarter. “We were all supposed to operate independently, and not even try to check on each other for about six months to allow us time to get settled in our young selves again. Paul and Charlie are two guys I know enough about to locate. I’ll call them and see if they’re still okay, and you can warn them”

“Aren’t we going to need a lot more money than that?” Jim asked, eyeing the phone booth. When had those disappeared? How long after that had it been before pay phones themselves disappeared entirely?

She reached over and tapped his forehead with the coin. “A quarter is real money in 1964. See? It’s actually made from silver. Unfortunately, I don’t have a lot of quarters, but it should be enough.”

Leaving the folding door to the phone booth open and lifting the handset, Betty rattled the cradle a few times, then waited. “Operator? I need to call someone in Stockton. Paul Davidson. He lives on Broward Street. Right.” She waited, rolling her eyes. “Stone age technology,” she mouthed at Jim.

He leaned close to whisper. “Won’t the operator be able to listen in?”

“I’ll be careful,” Betty whispered back, her free hand covering the lower part of the handset. “But we don’t have any choice, Einstein. I can’t find out his phone number without an operator and in 1964 some places still can’t handle direct dialing of long-distance calls. What?” she said into the phone. “Yes. Please . . . put me through.”

Feeding a quarter into the phone, Betty waited. “Mrs. Davidson? I’m a pen pal of Paul’s and I –“

Jim tensed at the way Betty’s voice cut off.

“He is?” she finally said. “When? I’m so - No. If I do, I will. I’m so sorry. Did he seem okay before -? Thank you. Goodbye.” Betty hung up the phone, then took a deep breath and looked at Jim. “Paul disappeared a week and a half ago. No signs of problems. He just wasn’t in bed one morning.”

“Try calling the other guy.”

But Charlie Bennet had vanished three days ago. He had left school but not made it home. All his desperate mother could tell Betty was that Charlie had been oddly attentive to her and happy in the days before he disappeared.

Jim looked both ways down the street, trying to appear casual as he searched for anyone watching them. “They’ll be labeled runaways. Maybe an article in the local paper. A file at the local police department. Maybe an alert to different departments. Easy enough to make a few things like that go away before records were digitized.”

“What really happened to them?” Betty asked, wiping away tears.

“We know they never showed up again. Do the math.”

“Damn. Damn it to hell. Maybe there is a time patrol. A time patrol that works like the Gestapo.”

“I don’t care if it’s a damned killer cyborg. No one’s getting you, Dr. Knox.”

“Call me Betty, you idiot.” She grasped his arm tightly. “Was anyone sent back at the same time as you to watch Paul and Charlie?”

“They didn’t tell me,” Jim said. “With the first wave disappearing and all, there was a lot of concern about security with the second wave. There was also some talk I overheard about funds being really limited this time. I don’t know how many there were, or who they were going to watch. And the aiming process must be more imprecise than we realized. I was supposed to get here within a day of your arrival, and I was two weeks off. There’s no telling when any others arrived.”

Betty ran her free hand through her hair, keeping a firm grip on Jim with the other. “It’s real. I kept hoping there was some overreaction, that nothing had really gone wrong. Maybe . . . maybe Paul and Charlie had some warning. Maybe they went underground to avoid some danger.”

“Betty, there’s no trace in 2040 of any activity by them after this. Why wouldn’t they have used the code words you guys were told to employ in public communications if anything went wrong?”

“I don’t know. I’m glad you’re here, Jim. What if they went crazy? Forgot who they were and fled their own homes because of some instability caused by a trip this far back?”

“That hasn’t happened to you,” Jim pointed out.

“Not yet.”

#

One week had gone by, then another. Jim and Betty, lowering the pitch of their voices and using different pay phones, made calls to the police departments and hospitals around the areas where Paul and Charlie had lived, trying to find out any more information. But as the days passed with no signs of the boys, the police began responding with the word “runaway” and none of the hospitals reported having anyone matching the boys’ descriptions.

Jim and Betty fell into a pattern. They walked to school each day, and then he walked her home in the afternoon, or to the library. One of the hardest things to adjust to had been the inability to have research data bases at their fingertips. Instead, Jim and Betty relearned the arts of looking up books in file catalogues and finding items in heavy encyclopedias. They also spent a good part of the weekends together. When not working at drafting her letters, they took breaks by working on his game rules.

Betty occasionally spoke openly of wanting Jim around in case she became mentally unstable, “though my teenage mood swings might make it hard to spot for a while.”

Despite Betty’s protests, Jim also made a habit of sneaking out of his room every night. “I have to watch your house, and I have to watch for anyone else watching your house,” he explained.

“What if you’re caught, Jim?” Betty asked.

“They don’t have stalkers in 1964. They have love-struck teens. I’m varying the times I sneak away from home, and varying how long I stay out watching your place. That increases my chances of spotting anyone hanging around your home and limits the chances of my being caught.”

“I still feel guilty knowing you’re doing that.” Betty was taking a break as she massaged a hand cramped from manual note-taking. “It’s bad enough that you have to spend so much time with me during the days.”

“It’s not a hardship,” Jim replied. “I kind of like it.”

She smiled. “Then why haven’t you tried to kiss me?”

“Because I don’t trust myself. To stop at just kissing, I mean. I can’t believe how hormone-addled I am sometimes.”

“Tell me about it.” Betty sighed. “You’re right. We know too much about that, about how good it would feel, and our older selves might not have enough control to keep us from going too far. Especially since you’re probably the only boy in our school who knows how to get a girl’s bra off. If we got caught, there’d be hell to pay and you’d never be allowed within a half-kilometer of me again.”

“So instead we’re being the models of well-behaved youth, circa 1964.”

“That is so weird, isn’t it?” She picked up her pen. “Back to work, Mr. Jones.”

#

“Why haven’t I seen Bill around?” his mother asked at dinner.

“Bill?” One of Jim’s closest friends when he was fifteen. They had talked at school in the last few weeks, but that was it. “I guess he’s been busy.”

“He’s been busy?” Mary said. “Maybe you’ve been busy spending every minute with Betty Knox. They’re always together,” Jim’s little sister continued dramatically. “Every minute of every day. Everybody’s talking about it.”

His mother bent a smile toward Jim. “I’m glad you’re spending time with her. She’s a smart girl. And a nice girl.”

Only because we don’t dare do anything, Jim thought. “We’ve got a lot in common,” he mumbled, feeling fifteen years old again in every way.

“Mom said she was smart,” Mary remarked. “How could you have anything in common with her?”

“Maybe I have reservoirs of intellectual capacity that you’ve failed to appreciate.” No sooner had Jim said that than he knew it had been a mistake. His fifteen year old self never would’ve spoken that way at home, and now his mother, father and Mary were watching him with surprise. “I read that in a book,” he added hastily.

“What book was that?” his father asked.

Austen? It had sounded like something one of her characters would have said. But did teenage boys in 1964 read Jane Austen? Probably not. “Hemingway. Something by him.”

“Pretty long-winded for Hemingway,” Jim’s father commented. He gave Jim a wink. “Be careful with this Betty girl. You might end up married to her some day.”

“If you’re lucky,” his mother added.

To his horror, Jim realized that he was blushing.

#

The library was almost deserted this night, only a few other patrons far off among the book stacks and the librarian half-dozing at her desk, Jim and Betty bent over reference books as they noted contact information and important data. Realizing that Betty’s pen had fallen silent, Jim looked up to see her staring blankly at the book in front of her. Without any warning, she leaped to her feet and ran down the nearest aisle between bookshelves.

Jim stood up slowly, tense with worry, and followed at a casual pace hoping that no one else had noticed Betty’s sudden flight. He found her at the end of the shelves, facing into the corner between a shelf and the wall, her entire body shuddering with sobs. “Betty?” he said softly.

She didn’t answer for a moment, then Betty started speaking while she kept her face to the wall, her voice coming out rough and so low he could barely hear it. “Ten years from now, my best friend in college, Cindy Arens, will be diagnosed with breast cancer. She’ll die in 1975. Sixteen years from now my older brother will be diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. He’ll spend seventeen years suffering before dying from pneumonia. I’m fifteen, Jim. I’m physically alive in ways I’d long forgotten. But all around me I see people I know are dead, and sometimes I know how and when they died. And I can’t stop it in time, even if it’s something our work could eventually accomplish, and sometimes it’s too damned hard to even think about. Do you understand? Or is this a sign that I’m losing it, becoming unstable?”

Jim tried to keep his own voice level, but heard it quaver. “I understand. Sometimes I feel like I’m in one of those movies where almost everyone has died but still walks, like I’m surrounded by ghosts or zombies. They don’t want to hurt me, because they don’t know I’m different. But I’m alive, and I have memories of them being dead. Most of the time, it’s wonderful being young again and seeing them alive. But then . . . I remember their graves.”

She turned around, her face streaked with tears, and lunged into his arms. He held her, and she held him, while Betty buried her face in his shoulder. “I can’t help them, Jim.”

“I know.” He heard his own voice cracking. “The Tonkin Gulf Resolution passed this year. Next year the big build-up begins in Vietnam. Nobody but us knows what’s going to happen. I knew guys. They’re alive now, they’re kids like me, and they’re going to go there. And some of them are going to die there. And even though I know what’s going to happen, I can’t stop it.”

Betty pulled back a little to watch him, misery in her eyes. “I’m so sorry. Our levers are so small, Jim, and the momentum of history is so strong. It will take a long time to make things change even a little. Too long to save Cindy. Too long to save my brother or your friends. We can’t alter events that are taking place over the next few years. No one would listen to us. The generals, the politicians, the scientists and the doctors today, they all think they know the answers. So two fifteen year old kids stand up and say it’s a mistake, you’re doing it wrong, and why should they care?”

He felt old tears of his own coming. “One of the worst things . . . back then . . . sitting in the dirt . . . holding a guy whose life was leaking out . . . feeling so helpless . . . nothing I could do. And it’s still like that. All over again.”

Betty shook her head. “No. You survived. You could do that. And you did the right thing, didn’t you? I haven’t really known you that long, Jim, but I’m sure you did the right thing.”

Jim nodded. “Yeah. I stayed alive. And I kept the faith. I didn’t let anyone down. But it didn’t matter, did it?”

Betty clasped him tightly, her head close to him again so her voice was slightly muffled. “It meant you were alive to come back and help me, and help everyone. Maybe we’re all that’s left, Jim. Maybe all the others in the first wave and your wave are gone and there won’t be a third wave because the project seems to be a failure, and it’s up to us to get people thinking a little quicker about environmental toxins and their effect on the human genome, to get research pointed in the right directions. We have to believe that we can make some difference. I didn’t know it would be this hard to live among our past, but the future of billions of people is in our hands. That matters, doesn’t it?”

He stared at the books before him, not seeing their titles. “I can’t grasp that, Betty. Billions of people? That’s too hard to get a handle on. I discovered a long time ago that someone like me keeps trying because someone else, someone they care about, needs them, is depending on them.”

“I need you, Jim. Is that good enough?”

His arms tightened about her. “Yeah.”

She wasn’t crazy, just enduring the same thing which had been tormenting him. Somehow, knowing that someone else understood that, felt that, made it possible to endure. They stood there, holding each other as if sharing their strength, until the lights blinked to indicate the library was about to close, then Jim walked Betty home before he went to his home, a place that existed here and also as a distant memory.

#

The third week since his arrival was drawing to a close. The strange sensation of once again living within a dimly-remembered past had faded a bit, but Jim still felt a growing uneasiness, aware that the last trace of members of the first wave had been in October, and they were well into that month now.

He and Betty had worked out a coping mechanism they called surfing the past. When around others, they tried to live in the moment, accepting and enjoying moments and people that had once been long gone. When alone together, they blocked out the present, working with each other to change the future. More than once Jim had wondered what it would have been like to be alone with his memories of the future.

“I said ‘thank God it’s Friday’ today and everybody looked at me like I said something amazing,” Betty commented as he walked her home. “I wonder if I just coined that phrase?”

“There you go changing history without thinking.” Jim’s grin was cut off as he felt the itching between his shoulders that sometimes came when someone was watching him. “Excuse me.” He went to one knee, pretending to retie his shoelace, but angling his body as he knelt so the corner of his eye could see behind them.

A boy he didn’t recognize was standing a little distance off, not-watching them in a way obvious to Jim.

Jim straightened up, walking with Betty, who eyed him. “What’s the matter?”

“Don’t look, but I think there’s a boy our age watching us back there. Or watching you. I don’t recognize him from school.”

“A boy our age.” Betty almost stumbled, catching herself. “That doesn’t necessarily mean anything.”

Jim paused at a phone booth, using the reflection in a piece of glass to look behind them again. “I think he’s still there, but a long ways back.”

“You can’t tell if he’s following us?”

“Not without making it clear I’m watching him.”

She looked frightened, but Betty’s voice stayed steady. “We need to learn a lot more, Jim. If he is another time traveler, why did he come here? Why is he interfering with things, if he is? And what happened to Paul and Charlie and maybe all the others who came down with me?”

Jim nodded to her. “So I keep a closer watch out and a low profile. Not let on that I’m anything more than a typical kid who likes hanging out with you. And you keep a close watch out, too. Tomorrow we can walk around a bit more, and see if he shows up again. Maybe we’ll be able to go someplace where you’ll be able to get a good look at him.”

“All right.” They reached her home and Betty took a deep breath. “I am so glad you’re here.” She leaned in and kissed him on the lips before he realized what she intended, then walked quickly to her front door.

#

Jim watched Betty’s house a good part of the night, but saw no one. Saturday morning, yawning, he walked up to her front door and knocked.

Betty’s mother answered, but instead of a welcoming smile she gave Jim a stiff look. “Betty can’t come out today.”

The door closed in his face before Jim could say anything.

What the hell happened? Jim went back out to the street, then angled across some yards under cover, working his way around the back of Betty’s house. Like any proper 1960s suburban home, Betty’s house had a few trees and plenty of bushes along the fence line in the back yard, so Jim could stay concealed until he could see the ground-floor window of Betty’s room. She was sitting there, looking out, and when he waved she put one finger to her lips to invoke silence before tossing him something.

Jim picked up a note wrapped around a pen. Mother saw me kiss you yesterday and was worried about me getting too serious with a boy. She tried to have The Talk with me. I made the mistake of trying to reassure her that I knew what I was doing and used the word condom. Mother almost spontaneously combusted. I’m grounded except for school while I consider the immorality of being knowledgeable about my physical health.

He nodded to her, tried to indicate wordlessly that he would keep an eye out, then waved a rueful goodbye before sneaking back out to the street. There was no use making things worse for Betty right now.

#

Jim had done this before, sneaking cautiously through night-shrouded terrain, from bush to tree, making no noise and alert to every movement and sound. At least this time he didn’t have to worry about the VC or North Vietnamese regulars hunting him. Memories of the area around Khe Sanh flooded back as Jim moved into position and settled down to watch Betty’s house, determined to remain through most of Saturday night.

Who was he watching for? Kids like him and Betty had minds and memories and knowledge from 2040, but they didn’t look any different and none of them should be dumb enough to parade their anachronistic nature. The coincidence of the time travelers being targeted meant it had to be other time travelers at work. He had been told the time travel process was being worked on at multiple locations. It was hard and expensive, but the project wasn’t the only outfit with access to the process. But who would kill kids and why?

The end days people? The ones who think everything happening in the mid-twenty-first century is God culling out the unfit before Armageddon? There’s been some killings by groups who think like that.

But how would they get their hands on time travel equipment? And why would anyone with access to that stuff help some homicidal religious warriors? It’s not just the time travel itself. Whoever this is, they know who was sent back and they know enough about where those people live to go after them.

Betty’s right. We need to get our hands on this guy and get some answers.

Nothing had happened during his previous night shifts except for occasional routine neighborhood activity, but some instinct told him that something would occur tonight. It was almost an hour before anything out of the ordinary did take place, though.

Whoever the other kid was, he wasn’t skilled at concealment. Jim heard him before he spotted the boy scuttling along in a fast, noisy, and obvious way apparently learned from watching bad action movies. The boy seemed to be the same size as the one Jim had seen on Friday. He wasn’t alone this time, though. With him was another boy, one who bulked physically larger. Either he was a few years older, or he had a powerful build.

Jim watched from concealment between two bushes, ready to move if necessary but wanting to size up the opposition. The two other boys reached the back of Betty’s house, less than ten feet from Jim, but seemed totally oblivious to his hidden presence.

Light glinted on something in the hand of the larger boy. It had been a very long time ago when he had seen such things, but those were memories that didn’t fade. It was the play of the moon’s radiance on the dull metal of a knife blade.

Murder? The other cases had left no clues to the fate of the missing kids, and there had been nothing in future data bases. Teenage runaways were one thing, depressingly common, and often resulting in little publicity, especially during this period. But these two didn’t want the kind of fuss that the murders of children in their bedrooms would create. How could they erase that kind of thing from public and private records? If these boys had homicidal intent, they weren’t planning on killing Betty in her room or anywhere nearby. As with Paul and Charlie, they doubtless intended taking her somewhere distant first, and that meant they needed her able to walk.

The two boys didn’t move toward Betty’s window, instead casting constant looks toward one of the neighbor’s houses, where a lighted window spoke of someone still awake.

Jim waited, watching, as the two boys grew more and more nervous, then after perhaps an hour and a half had a quiet, heated argument in whispers that Jim couldn’t quite make out, though their frequent glances at the neighbor’s lighted window made it clear they were worried about being seen by someone in that house. Finally, the two bolted, moving with their clumsy attempts at sneakiness out onto the street and vanished from sight.

He spent another hour on sentry, but the two didn’t return even though the neighbor finally turned off his light.

Jim moved out with extreme caution, just in case the other two were still watching, but he found no trace of them.

He was certain they would be back the next night, though. The vaunted time patrol had arrived, in the form of two kids with a knife.

#

“Hi, Mrs. Knox. Can I see Betty?”

Mrs. Knox gave him the fish eye, shaking her head. “I’m afraid not.”

Jim tried to project the right degree of awkwardness, innocence and politeness. “Is she okay? I’m really worried she might be sick or something.”

Relaxing a bit, Betty’s mother shook her head again. “Betty’s all right. She just needs a little time to reflect.”

“Oh.” Show disappointment. Show teenage heartbreak. “I just came by to make sure she was okay.”

Mrs. Knox’s severity melted into a reluctant smile. “All right, Jimmy. Wait here and you can talk to Betty at the door for a minute.”

A few minutes later, Betty opened the door. “Hi, Jim.” She cast her eyes to one side, indicating that her mother was just out of sight and listening.

What kind of message, what kind of warning, could he pass to her without her mother understanding and asking questions without answers anyone would believe? “Uh, I, uh, wanted to tell you . . . you remember that bird I saw on Friday afternoon? The one I talked about and you wanted to see it, too? It turns out there’s two of them. I looked them up, and they’re . . . seagulls. A type called naz gulls.”

“Naz gulls,” Betty repeated carefully.

“Yeah. Two naz gulls,” Jim said, changing the pronunciation slightly closer to the original word this time. He couldn’t remember if The Lord of the Rings had already been published in the US by 1964, but the odds that Betty’s mother had read it seemed comfortably remote. “They’re here. I knew you’d want to know.”

“Yes.” Betty had paled, but then steadied and looked out on the street warily. “Uh . . . keep an eye on them, okay? But don’t scare them off. Remember, I’d like to study them more, and learn why they’re here and everything. If you scare them off, there’s no telling when they might come back.”

“All right,” Jim agreed reluctantly. “I’ll keep an eye out for them. I hope you’re okay. I, uh, I wouldn’t want anything to ever happen to you. You’re . . . the neatest girl I’ve ever met.” He had meant the last to be a cute teenage sentiment to explain his stated worries about Betty to her mother, but to his own surprise Jim realized the feelings in his voice were sincere.

Betty’s eyes went from the street to him, her own age and experience clear once more, then she smiled with a fifteen year-old girl’s lack of guile. “Thanks. I think you’re pretty neat, too.”

She sounded like she really meant it.

#

Sunday night. Jim had moved into concealment in Betty’s backyard as early as he dared, risking detection since it wasn’t quite dark enough to shield him completely. But he made it, settling down in a position he could hold, barely moving, for hours if necessary.

All around him the sounds of the neighborhood gradually subsided, lights going off, shapes moving behind curtained windows, voices barely heard, cars passing on the street. In some of those very houses might be children who would grow up to design or manufacture the many devices and other advances which would revolutionize medicine, agriculture, research, and transportation among other things, producing countless benefits for mankind. They would also produce leavings which would annihilate the lower end of the food chain, aggravate climate change, and poison humans in a thousand different ways.

He heard people taking out trash to the curb. Clean up your mess. How many mothers are telling how many children that? Keep your work area neat. How many fathers said that today? All the girl scouts and boy scouts are being told ‘safety first.’ But those mothers and fathers, those children, are going to dump unbelievable messes into the water they drink, the food they eat, and the air they breathe. Technology tells us we need to keep our machines clean or they’ll break down. Science tells us that equations have to be balanced, that remainders don’t just go away. It’s like Betty says. Hi-tech produced the problems we faced in 2040, but only because people weren’t paying attention to things they already knew were important. We need to make them think about those things in time to make a difference, and use the tech to find the solutions before they create the problems.

The last noises had faded, the last lights had gone out in the houses around him. Jim had stopped wearing his wristwatch when he realized the glowing numbers on the dial used radium, but he guessed it was a little after midnight.

He heard the sound of footsteps, the rustle of more than one body pushing through shrubbery too fast to really be quiet. The two boys appeared, walking quickly and hunched over to keep low profiles. They went to Betty’s window and peered inside. Once again the larger one carried a knife.

Sitting still then was the hardest thing that Jim had ever done. Whoever these guys were, they had to be caught in the act, unmistakably guilty, after hopefully being led into saying who they were and why they were after people like Betty.

But that meant Jim had to sit, watching as the larger one used his knife to pry open Betty’s window. As the large boy scrambled inside, Jim took advantage of the noise to shift his own position so that he had his feet under him, ready to move in an instant. They won’t kill her in her room. They didn’t and they won’t. He kept repeating that to himself while his heart pounded with growing fear.

Betty appeared at the window, moving slowly as she came over the sill and dropped to the ground, the large boy right behind her with his knife out. The other boy grabbed her arm and led Betty away, but she dug in her heels only a few feet from Jim’s hiding place. “Who are you?” she whispered.

“We’re friends from 2039,” the big one mumbled in an unconvincing way.

“Friends? You had that knife at my throat when I woke up! You threatened to kill me if I didn’t keep quiet and come with you! But I’m not going any farther until you tell me who you are.”

The smaller boy spoke quickly. “It was for your own protection. We are from 2039, just like you are, but we can’t talk now. It’s not safe. Keep moving, don’t make any noise and you won’t be hurt.”

Betty stared at the smaller boy, who was trying to look away. “Professor Oldham,” she said. “Professor Conrad Oldham. It’s you, isn’t it?”

Conrad Oldham straightened his fourteen year old body and tried to look down on her, which didn’t succeed since Betty had a couple of inches of height on him at this age. “For once in your life, Doctor Knox, listen to someone else. If you come along quietly, we’ll explain what’s happening and -”

“You’re not part of the project. You argued against the project.”

Jim saw the white flash of a reassuring smile on Conrad Oldham’s face. “The situation changed. Everything will be fine once I have a chance to tell you about it. Haven’t you missed the opportunity to speak with someone else who understands what it’s like to be here? We can share all that if you come along.” Oldham said the last as if expecting that would dissolve all resistance from Betty.

But she shook her head. “What are you doing here?” Betty asked.

“It’s critical that I give you important new information. Why else would the project have sent me back here?”

“Why would the project send someone I had no reason to trust?”

Her failure to cooperate must have perplexed Oldham, because he just repeated his earlier argument. “I’ll explain when we’re away from here.”

“Like you explained to Paul Davidson and Charlie Bennet?” Betty asked.

Oldham didn’t respond, seeming lost for words, and the larger one brandished his knife, dropping the pretense of comradeship. “Do it now!” he insisted.

“No!” Oldham told the larger boy. “There’ll be too much to remove from the records if they find –“ He stopped speaking.

“My body?” Betty demanded. “Why, Professor? And who is this assassin?”

“Your only chance -” Oldham began in a conciliatory tone.

“Why? We disagreed. We argued. But murder –“

This time Oldham interrupted, his voice growing heated. “You and those like you wouldn’t listen. The answers are in scientific research and technological applications. If you tie the hands of science then the problems will only be worse, and your project sought not just to bind science but to label it the cause of all of our problems! Humanity can’t afford that kind of solution!”

“You never listened!” Betty shot back with the same anger. “That was never true, but all you saw was what you wanted to see. How scientific is that, professor?”

“You can twist my words any way you want, but the facts are that you would doom humanity and I have to save it.”

The large boy made a noise of derision. “Humanity is doomed. The end is upon us all, and those who would deny the will of the Almighty must be stopped.”

Even in the dark Jim could see Betty’s eyes widen. “You allied yourself with them?”

Oldham shrugged. “If Hitler invaded hell, I’d find something good to say about the devil. Churchill said that. I had access to the required equipment and that group had access to the required funding. It’s sometimes necessary to find allies where you can.”

“Allies willing to kill, you mean. To do the dirty work for you.” Betty’s voice broke. “You murdered them? You knew those men. How could you . . . ?”

Oldham looked away once more. “I didn’t kill anyone. Neither did Gordon here. How can you murder someone in 1964 when they lived until 2039? That’s a logical impossibility.”

“Is that how you’re rationalizing it?”

“They lived long, full lives,” Oldham insisted. “How can you tell me that someone who was a great-grandfather in 2039 died in 1964? It’s absurd and obviously violates causality. Therefore, it didn’t happen.”

“You son of a bitch. You cold-blooded –“

“Shut up.” Gordon raised the knife again. “We need to shut her up now, whether you want it or not,” he told Oldham.

Jim launched out of his hiding place, his legs propelling him forward in a leap that brought him to Gordon before either of the other two boys realized what was happening. Gordon had just begun to turn when Jim’s right fist punched hard into his side over the kidneys. As the large boy staggered with pain, Jim caught his knife hand and twisted the weapon free, then swung the hand and arm behind Gordon and slammed him face first into the grass, bringing his own body down on him hard enough to stun the boy and drive the wind from his lungs.

Oldham was staring open-mouthed toward Jim, then one hand dove for his pocket. Before it could reach its destination, the heel of Betty’s palm smashed into Oldham’s nose. As he reeled backwards, both hands to his face, Betty kicked him in the groin. “I’ve wanted to do that to you for years,” she said as Oldham collapsed.

Jim had whipped off Gordon’s belt and was using it to hogtie him, then jumped up and went to Oldham. “Don’t move or I’ll kill you,” he told Oldham, and something in his voice must have made it clear that he wasn’t bluffing because the other laid still. Pulling out his handkerchief, Jim covered his hand with it before reaching into Oldham’s pocket and pulling out a switchblade that he tossed to one side.

“Betty,” Oldham gasped. “Dr. Knox. Listen. I can help. You’re the last, you know. Our sources inside the project gave us all the names, and we got a few more that weren’t on the list but were obviously working with the others. It’ll be too hard for you alone. But with my assistance perhaps you can still have a chance to succeed. Gordon did all the killing. I swear it. I didn’t want that. Let me go and we can work together -“

“You actually think that I’d be dumb enough to trust you?” Betty asked. “You never did think much of women, did you, professor? And since it’s apparently escaped your own keen powers of observation, I’ll point out that I’m not alone.”

“What are we going to do with these guys?” Jim asked. “If we let them go, they’ll just keep trying to get us. But we can’t imprison them.” That left one ugly alternative, one that he shied from.

Betty looked at him, a humorless smile slowly spreading across her face. “You’re right. We can’t imprison them. And I won’t do what these two would have done to us. But these two juvenile delinquents must be runaways. And the justice system in 1964 doesn’t look kindly on criminal juvenile delinquent runaways.” She knelt, pinning the handle of Gordon’s knife to the ground with a knee and then, wincing, drew her arm across the edge of the knife. Standing up, the shallow cut dripping blood that she smeared across one cheek, Betty took a deep breath.

Betty’s scream, long and laden with terror, echoed through the night, bouncing off the walls of the suburban houses as lights began flaring behind windows and doors banging open throughout the neighborhood.

By the time the first men arrived, some bearing handguns or improvised weapons, Betty was clinging to Jim, quivering, with tears streaming down her face. “Those two got into my room!” she yelled, pointing at Oldham and Gordon. “They threatened me with that knife and said they were going to do . . . terrible things to me! They said they’d killed other kids, too! Oh, but Jim was worried about me and he came by to look at my window and saw them pulling me out and he attacked them even though they had knives and he was sooooo brave.”

Betty stopped her semi-hysterical account long enough to gaze at Jim with such feigned but fervent admiration and gratitude that he nearly broke into laughter, which might have caused someone to question her story. But then some of the men were pounding Jim on the back and calling him a real man, while others were grabbing Oldham, who seemed frozen with horror, and Gordon, who was shouting out that they were all damned until someone rocked his head back with a hard blow.

The police officers who showed up were big men who didn’t seem to worry about inflicting bruises as they handcuffed Oldham and Gordon, and then bundled them into the back seat of the police car. “Runaways. Armed assault. Burglary. Kidnapping,” one of the officers said to Betty’s father. “And, uh . . . ” The officer glanced toward Betty and lowered his voice. “Attempted rape and murder. Don’t worry. The judge will take care of these two. They’ll be locked up for a long time.”

“Betty said they mentioned two other boys by name,” Mr. Knox said, “and boasted of having killed them. I had her write down the names and the cities where the boys lived.”

The police officer took the paper, then turned a very hard look on Oldham and Gordon. “Murders. If what they told your daughter is true, they’ll never come out of prison, sir, juveniles or not.”

“The smaller one is yelling something about being from the future,” the other police officer commented. “He’s a little young to be a homicidal maniac, but you know kids these days.”

“It’s that Dr. Spock,” the first officer said.

“And their music. Have you heard that ‘Louie, Louie’ song?” the second officer said as they climbed into their car.

Mr. Knox offered his hand to Jim as the police drove away. “Mrs. Knox and I were a little concerned about Betty getting too serious with you, but from this night forward you’re okay with us, son. I can’t imagine a better man for my daughter.”

#

“How was Christmas?” Jim asked as he sat down beside Betty on her porch steps.

“Better than I expected.” Betty held up a large magazine. “I wrote a story about what happened with Oldham and Gordon, and I just got a letter saying this magazine’s editor bought it. Only, instead of changing the names to protect the innocent, I used all our real names.”

“What magazine –“ Jim stopped when he saw the cover. “Analog Science Fact and Fiction? You sold a story to John W. Campbell?”

“Yeah. That’s good, isn’t it?”

“I . . . I . . . ”

“And,” Betty continued, “I used our names, like I said. There will be thousands of copies printed of that story. It will be in the data bases. Back in 2040, any search of past documents will ping on that story for certain because it has both of our names, and then the project’s researchers will see Oldham’s and Gordon’s names and characters, and know what took place.”

“You used the real events?” Jim asked, thumbing through the magazine quickly. “I mean, the time travel and everything?”

“Of course I did. It’s part of getting our message out, and I had to be certain that in 2040 they’d understand what had occurred, what had actually happened to all those other poor people who came back when I did. And I wanted them to know that James Jones is a hero.”

“Betty, I didn’t –“

“Did I tell you yet that I’m going to marry you someday, Dictionary Jones? And we’ll write more books and stories that contain what we want to say in ways that people today can accept, and publish your game, and I’ll nudge researchers to aim them in the right directions, and some day I’ll officially be Doctor Knox again and we’ll be conducting the research. We’re going to do this thing.”

Jim grinned at her. “Yes, we are. I wonder how many people reading that story will realize it’s true? Science Fact, not Fiction.”

“I had to use what really happened,” Betty said, pointing to the magazine. “You can’t make this stuff up.”

Author's Note on Crow’s Feat

I learned a number of things from this story. One of them is that you should never send Stan Schmidt (the editor of Analog) a story set partially in Elizabethan times, because Stan will insist that the Elizabethan English used be absolutely accurate as to words and grammar. And I learned that much of what is commonly “known” about William Shakespeare isn’t actually so. Finally, I learned that Kage Baker was a fine writer and an even better human being. She not only helped me with the Elizabethan grammar, she also pointed me toward the right depiction of Shakespeare. This is the closest I ever came to a collaboration with Kage Baker, who sadly died of cancer in 2010, and I treasure it for that reason. It may not be my best story, but it is the story that has Kage’s touch on it.

Crow’s Feat

An odd quiet pervaded the crowded city, a quiet filled with the cries of humanity and assorted animals, punctuated by the creak of wood in wheels, doors, and beams. Paul Randal Gallatin, unnerved by the absence of machinery clamor and amplified music, shivered occasionally as he inhaled a pervasive, ever-changing and incredibly foul mix of stenches which filled the air in counterpoint to the lack of noise. He hesitated, warned by some sixth sense, just before a cascade of filth plummeted to the cobblestones immediately ahead as some upper-story occupant emptied a chamber-pot into the street. The romance of Elizabethan England, like forbidden love it seemed, was best admired from afar. Up ahead, Gallatin finally caught sight of his goal, the tavern where hopefully-discreet inquires had led him to hope he would find his quarry.

#

Cocktail Party. Paul Gallatin switched hands on his beer, hurriedly wiping the now-free right to rid it of moist condensation before shaking the hand proffered by a slim man whose haircut was exceeded in cost only by his designer suit. “Heyniceseeingyou. Whatdoyoudo?”

Gallatin nodded politely. “I’m a writer.”

Eyebrows rose dramatically. “Really? That’s great. What do you write?”

“Novels and short stories. My latest book is part of the Servian Quadrant series.”

“Can’t say I’ve heard of that. Sounds like astronomy or something.”

“Science Fiction, actually.”

The eyebrows dropped. “Oh. So you aren’t a real writer.”

Gallatin bit back his first reply, then smiled thinly. “How about you? What is it you do?”

“I’m a lawyer,” the expensive suit noted with obviously forced modesty.

“A lawyer?” Gallatin let his eyebrows rise to match the earlier gesture aimed at him. “So you fight battles in the courtrooms? Confront murderers and get them to confess their crimes?”

“No, not that. My specialty is Patent Law.”

“Oh. So you’re not a real lawyer.” Gallatin left the suit standing, mouth agape, to make his way to the buffet table. He hadn’t quite reached it when another hand thrust into his field of vision.

“Greetings! You’re Paul Randal Gallatin? You’re a good writer.”

Gallatin smiled back at a chunky man grinning heartily through a dark beard. “I like to think so.”

The other man nodded. “As you should. What we think of things matters a great deal. That’s quantum physics, you know.” He leaned forward conspiratorially. “And I’m a physicist. Name’s Ivan Grashchev, but call me Ivan Ivanovich.”

“Ivan . . . ? I’ve heard of you.”

“Thank you,” Ivan beamed. “I like your books.”

Paul Gallatin smiled again. “No. Thank you. I didn’t expect to meet a fan here.”

“Then why did you come?”

“Hopefully to generate some new fans. I need every one I can get.”

“Better stay away from the lawyers, then.” Ivan strolled toward the buffet, urging Gallatin along with one hand. “I’m surprised, though. Your books sell pretty well, don’t they?”

“Pretty well isn’t good enough, today.” Gallatin took a deep breath. “The publishers want best-sellers, and nothing but. I’m what they call a mid-list writer. I sell enough to generate some profit, but not enough by their standards.”

“You don’t sound too happy.”

“I’m not.” Gallatin stood beside the buffet, waiting while Ivan shoveled a wad of thin-sliced ham into his mouth. “It gets old. I’ve thought about quitting. You pour your heart and soul into writing, and connect with some people, but it’s like the Red Queen’s race.”

Ivan nodded in understanding. “You have to run as fast as you can to stay where you are? I guess every writer can’t be Shakespeare.”

Gallatin grimaced. “Shakespeare? Don’t get me started. That man never wrote a word.”

“Ah. Are you an Oxfordian, or something more exotic?”

“I’ve never decided. But how can you hand some man the mantle of the greatest writer of all time when we have absolutely no manuscripts in his own hand, and he left a will which didn’t even mention his alleged writing?”

Ivan grinned. “Would you like to write a best-seller, my friend? Be a ‘real’ writer and make your publishers beg for more?”

“Sure. Have you invented a magic lamp I can wish for that on?”

“Maybe.” Ivan grinned wider. “My lab’s in this building, you know. Used to be in the basement, but when scientists win enough awards they move them into nice, clean labs where they can see sunlight and be shown off. Want to come see what I’ve done?”

“Sure. At the very least it might inspire a story.” Gallatin followed as Ivanovich headed out of the room, veering off course slightly to refresh his drink at the bar. An elevator dropped them several stories, then paused expectantly until the scientist slid a card into a waiting slot to trigger the doors open.

The lab looked suitably high-tech, marred only by the mess and tangle of actual science underway. Ivanovich led the way over heavy power cords until they reached a large gleaming box in one corner, its dimensions broken on one side by a small shelf holding a laptop hard-wired in place. “Lovely, isn’t it?” the physicist beamed.

“Uh, yes. What exactly is it?”

“A mass-particle reorientation device. You realize time is just a measurement we apply to particles, correct? So, it’s quit simple, actually,” the scientist explained, gesturing with his drink while his other hand stroked the stainless steel exterior. “You know how every advance in quantum mechanics has occurred?” Without waiting for a reply, Ivanovich continued speaking, even as he began punching commands into the keyboard. “You simply have to believe everything you knew beforehand is wrong. So, lo and behold, I applied that philosophy to the problem of what you would call time travel.”

“Time travel?” Gallatin stared at the mechanism. “You’re joking.”

“Not at all. And this little toy, my literary friend, is going to make you and me rich and famous.”

“Rich and famous?” Paul Gallatin laughed. “What are you thinking, we should go back and bet on horse races we already know the results of?”

Ivanovich waved his drink again, this time dismissively. “No. That sort of thing is for people with no imagination. But you and I, we have imagination, right? Tell me, how many copies do you think a book would sell if it proved your belief that Shakespeare was a fraud?”

“There’s been a lot of theories -“

“No theories!” Ivanovich wagged a reproving finger. “Proof. Evidence. Incontrovertible.”

“Ivan, if any such evidence ever existed it vanished a long time ago. You’d have to go back to Elizabethan England . . . ” Gallatin’s voice trailed off as Ivanovich smiled hugely. “My God. You could do it. Find handwriting samples, talk to people who knew, place the real evidence where you could be sure it would survive and where only you knew to look. Even talk to the man himself!”

“Exactly.” Ivanovich typed a few more figures. “It’s all ready. Have a nice trip.”

“What? Me?”

“Of course, you.” Ivanovich swallowed the rest of his drink. “I don’t know the right things. I build machines. You know literature and history and enough about this Shakespeare to find the truth, right?”

“Well, yes, I think so. Maybe. It’s just that -“

“Here’s your chance to live one of your fictions. Then write a book which will be a bestseller, make a few millions, make us famous.”

“Isn’t it dangerous?” Gallatin wavered.

Ivanovich shrugged. “Crossing the street is dangerous. Hey, at least back then you can’t get run over by a car, eh?” He dug in one pocket for a moment, then offered a few coins to the writer. “Elizabethan currency. Not much, but you might need a little.”

Gallatin took the coins, his mind still churning. “Do you always carry Elizabethan currency in your pocket?”

“Only when I know a certain writer is coming to a party. Sometimes even us non-writers can predict the future, you see.”

#

The tavern’s greatroom, its outlines obscured by weak illumination coming through small, heavily-leaded windows, stank of other smells than those which warred outside. Against one wall a table rested, its sole occupant drinking ale.

Gallatin stared, overcome by emotion despite himself. The man slumped in his seat, eyes fixed on the table before him, looked older than expected, but then he’d already seen enough of Elizabethan life to understand how it would age anyone prematurely. Life, too, presented a million variations in appearance which fixed portraits could never capture, especially those done perhaps a century after a man’s death. Gallatin took a few more steps, pausing in front of the man’s table. “Are you William Shakespeare?”

Large, soft eyes looked upward, heavy nose seeming to droop over the bushy mustache. “I am. God’s Breath, man, hast thou not heard that all my worldly debts have been these last few days discharged? I owe no man in this cluttered dung heap more.”

“I’m not here to collect on a debt. I . . . merely wished to discuss your work.”

Shakespeare’s eyes lost their weariness, lighting with sudden enthusiasm. “My sonnets and poems? Venus and Adonis? Lucrece?”

“No,” Gallatin quickly protested. “Not your poetry. I, uh, admire your plays.”

The playwright frowned. “The plays? The comedies, histories and tragedies? Thou art oddly garbed, and thine accents are outlandish. I did never know my feeblest works were widely hailed. Whence comest thou?”

Gallatin paused, then gestured vaguely. “Oh, from out west.”

“West? Thou are not of Devonshire, surely.”

“No. Further west. The, uh, New World.”

“The New World? Art thou then an Indian such as those the Virginia Company gives report of?”

“You might say that. Yes.”

“Fine apparition! I had never thought to meet the like! Yet, thou resemblest not those Indians of my knowledge, and thou sayest thou hast heard of my plays.”

“Well . . . ” Gallatin cast about frantically for a story to explain himself, then smiled politely at Shakespeare as clichéd inspiration struck. “I was born to English parents, but our ship was wrecked on the wild coast of the New World, and I was left an orphan, then raised by the Indians there. I heard about your works from the Virginia Company settlers who discovered me.”

“A remarkable tale. Come, then, good fellow, and share my table.”

“Thank you.” Gallatin sat, casting about for a means to direct the subject away from Indians and back to Shakespeare’s alleged plays. “I hope to see one of your performances while I’m in London.”

His words seemed to amuse the playwright. “Thou hast come fair late for such. On occasion in time past did I prance upon stage, but no more. Two nights hence Stratford-bound I shall be.”

“What? Ivanovich’s machine didn’t get the right year?”

“I know not -“

“I’m sorry. I got here when you’re leaving London? Your theatrical career is over? What about your plays?”

“What of them? My rough tales profited me well enough to earn a goodly life in Stratford if well-husbanded, but I hold no desire for further labor in similar manner.” Shakespeare’s mouth worked in mild aggravation. “Best thou should ask of my true art, such as found great favor with the Earl of Southampton.”

“You mean your poems?” Gallatin forced a false smile. “They’re, uh, very good.” Shakespeare brightened again. “But that’s too bad about your not writing plays anymore. How does the Earl of Oxford feel about that?” he added with forced nonchalance.

“I assume it matters not to him and his. The old Earl is dead some years gone, and with the younger I have but small acquaintance. Art thou Oxford’s agent?”

“He’d like to see your plays,” Gallatin suggested casually. “In manuscript. He doesn’t have any.”

William Shakespeare shrugged. “Manuscript? If thou seekest plays, thou wilt find foul papers in plenty at the Globe Theater amongst the other tools of my theatrical company of old.”

“Foul papers? But those are just rough drafts, right? Drafts that many actors have written on? What about a complete, finished play? I haven’t been able to find one of those.”

Shakespeare shrugged again, his eyes revealing more than a hint of disinterest. “I cannot claim surprise in that. Nor do I know of such Oxford might purchase, nor why he should care.”

“Such a manuscript would be valuable,” Gallatin protested.

“Of value? Thou again speakest of manuscripts where I labored on plays only. Such are not art. They brought profit, but I care little for their fates now.”

Gallatin couldn’t hide his surprise this time. “You don’t care about the rights to your plays? You don’t own any of them any longer?”

“Own? The foul papers rest with my theatrical company. I have no claim there. My sonnets and poems hold my art. Hast thou read Lucrece?”

“Yes. Of course. A while ago.”

“Many have done the same,” Shakespeare noted proudly. “Though,” he muttered, “much criticism I gained for Venus and Adonis. Too popular with the masses, ‘tis said. Is this so ill? Lucrece proved a graver labor yet found favor as well, so happy result met my perseverance in the face of sneers. But I have tired of the labor, the eternal endeavor to please both critic and reader, and so made shift to sell the drafts of those fine works, my sonnets and poems.” Shakespeare drained his tankard of ale before fixing a hard look on Paul Gallatin. “Hast thou never despaired or been in sore need?”

“No. Not at all. I’m a writer myself, in my own land.” Gallatin thought desperately, all his preconceptions thrown off balance. “I’m sorry you’ve decided to stop writing, but I’d be very grateful if I knew where to find a copy of your plays, in your own hand.”

Shakespeare laughed suddenly. “Mine own hand? Thou art indeed new to London!” His mirth changed, becoming tinged with embarrassment as he looked away. “Unlettered at birth was I and even now I write but little.” One finger tapped his balding head. “Herein lies the baseless fabric of my pageantry. Others scribed the words, midwives even as to Minerva from Jove’s brow.”

“You didn’t write down your own plays, not even the foul papers?”

“Is this so remarkable? I spent my youth at labor, and in similar fashion my adulthood. Such leaves little time for simple labor such as placing word upon page. A man must eat, and work dawn to days-end to earn that meal, unless fortune grants leisure for more.”

“But writing was your job!” Gallatin protested suspiciously. “Why couldn’t you find time to draft plays?”

Shakespeare flushed, making as if to rise, then collapsed as if deflated. “Rough are thy manners, son of shipwreck, but tell truth and shame the devil, ‘tis said. I depart this city and this old accustomed life, wherefore it mattereth not an thou knowest this truth I tell thee, as few others know but good Ben Jonson could confirm of his certain knowledge. I cannot read nor write well, but only with greatest labor, for the words and letters swim before mine eyes in disorder. God Himself hath willed this, it seems, that I should speak fine words but never see them in form I can grasp with comfort.”

“There’s no surviving copies of your written manuscripts because you couldn’t write easily? The signatures are poorly scrawled and mis-spelled for the same reason? Why didn’t I ever think of that?” Gallatin faltered, momentarily at a loss for words. “You’re dyslexic.”

“I like not this, for I know not this word, and had not known this matter concerned others,” the playwright muttered angrily.

“No, I’m sorry,” Gallatin offered hastily. “Very sorry. The evidence was there, I just didn’t consider all of the possible explanations. I just believed what I wanted to believe.”

Shakespeare smiled softly, mollified. “In that thou art but one with all of humankind. True knowledge of past or present is oft of less merit than that history which we desire to be so.”

Gallatin looked down before glancing at the playwright again. “I was also jealous, I suppose. Your writing is so . . . so unparalleled.”

“Ha!” Shakespeare laughed with obvious delight. “Too rare is such praise, even from those guided by wishes unknown.”

“You must have heard that kind of praise a million times.”

“I say again, stranger to London thou art, and despite your claims unaware of the artist’s lot, it seems.” Shakespeare made an angry face, rubbing spilled ale into the table surface before him. “My praises come too rarely, and then in main from those groundlings who flock to my plays. Plays! Works of no merit. I care for such fantasies not at all. Yet for my sonnets, art in truth, the self-anointed judges of great art oft time care but little. Not an artist of grave subject am I, they say, looking to Venus and Adonis. Upstart crow, said Greene, the fine University man.”

“But that last was only one criticism, years ago.”

“So thee, who claims status as an artist, forgets the words of those who flay thine art?”

“Ummm, no,” Gallatin admitted. “No matter how small or how long ago, I tend to remember criticism more than praise.”

“Just so. Yet in mine heart, I oft wonder if I am a true artist, or if here sits a mere dreamer of speculations.”

Gallatin froze, his mouth open, then snapped it shut. “Speculations? Critics look down on you, and you question your own merit, because you write speculative fiction?”

“Fiction? If such is the like of mine plays, then this is well known man!”

“What sort of speculations are you talking about? All the plays? But there’s brilliant work in them. A lot of brilliant work.”

Shakespeare eyed Gallatin with slight suspicion, then shrugged again, smiling briefly. “It seems thou hast some sympathy as an artist, after all. In truth, I have imagined tales both strange and wonderful. Tales of magicks, tales of wondrous strange creatures trafficking with men and women like unto ourselves, of other lands far removed in time and place from this our own. I have given words to heroes of legend, and recast legends to suit my fancies.”
“Yet the histories are looked down upon, too?”

“Ah, yes,” Shakespeare nodded. “Even there I framed events in such wise as to make them mine own, adding figures to the stage historical, all uttering such words as I wished them to speak. Yet this is not writing of worth, ‘tis said. Not like my sonnets. In truth, some such plays met with the pleasure of the Court for obvious reason, but any writer must toil at commerce to earn the means to art.”

“Yes, yes, I understand all that. Better than you know. But why haven’t all your works been published?” Gallatin pressed. “Surely your critics don’t control the presses.”

“Why this question? Folios I have commissioned of Lucrece, and of Venus and Adonis. Both have seen several editions.”

“I’m sorry. I mean your plays. Why haven’t they been published?”

Shakespeare shook his head wearily. “Thou still thinks my plays deserve folios? Who would make purchase of such low art? Yea, with the masses, as I said, my plays find favor, and money enough in measure, but such labors possess little merit in the world’s eyes. Why, the world would mock me should I commission folios of plays, and little profit would it avail me if attempted. Too few moneyed followers of low art have I to inspire printers to work on such speculation, too little chance of earning them the large sums they seek in return for their labors.”

“You’re a mid-list author?” Gallatin grabbed at a passing tray, lifting a brimming tankard of ale and hastily drinking the bitter, warm fluid. “They won’t publish play folios for you because they wouldn’t sell enough copies?”

“Mid-list? More outlandish words, sir? But as for the rest, yea, even in my finest poems I am no Edmund Spenser nor Philip Sidney, men blest far more than I by those who claim to weigh artistic merit. So the gentlemen and their ladies make purpose to purchase their works, and so those authors prosper in relation.”

“I didn’t understand anything,” Gallatin noted bleakly. “Only a few centuries past, in a similar society which even spoke basically the same language, and I didn’t understand what happened, or why, or what it was like. I depended on secondary sources, popular accounts and my own preconceptions.”

“In like manner I understand nothing of your speech,” the playwright noted archly. “Have done, or tell in what wise thy words claim interest.”

“Because I write about the future. I imagine what may happen in years to come. I’m wondering, though, if I didn’t really know about the past, just how good were my speculations on the future?”

“A man need not know from whence he came to see whence he goes, but he hath no knowledge of the meanings of his travels if he sees not the whole.”

“Damn.” Paul Gallatin stood, shaking his head. “You do say things better than I do. Thank you, William Shakespeare. My old English teacher was right; you do have a lot to teach a writer. Of course, I don’t think she ever expected me to get a personal lesson.”

Shakespeare smiled as if amused. “If so, such is the last lesson for any soul from my tongue. As I have told thee, my poet’s life is done, my foul papers left to whatever fate time may grant.”

“Because you don’t think of your plays as art, and don’t consider them your property? And because you’ve sold the drafts of your poems and sonnets? So of course you won’t mention any of it in your will. Thank you for your time and your words, sir.”

“Words I have in plenty, though hence they’ll bring me no more profit than any other man, nor more aggravation.” Shakespeare laughed again as if sharing a joke with Gallatin. “Mayhap in some far future such as thou dreamest the fate of an artist will differ. How sayest thou?”

“I sayest thou shouldn’t bet on it.”

#

Ivan’s grin didn’t seem to have shifted during whatever time the journey had required. “Did you get what we need?”

“I’m afraid not.” Paul Gallatin shook some foul-smelling London mud from his shoes, still wet with centuries-old damp. “Shakespeare’s not a fake.”

“The hell you say. Is there a best-seller in that?”

“There ought to be, but probably not.”

The physicist smiled in commiseration. “Sorry it was a waste of time.”

“Not at all.” Gallatin smiled back. “Very inspiring, truth to tell, not to mention instructive. I’ve got a lot of reading and a lot of work to do.”

“Reading? You’re going to read Shakespeare?”

“Him and a lot of other old stuff I hadn’t thought worth the trouble. I just learned they may have something to tell me after all.”

“Ah, well.” Ivanovich patted his machine. “I’m sure we can think up some other subject that’ll generate a wildly popular book. Have you ever been to the Middle East?”

“The Middle East?” Gallatin questioned suspiciously. “Let me see those coins in your hand. They look . . . hell, they are Roman. That’s Augustus. Augustus?” He fixed Ivanovich with a hard look. “You want one of us to visit the Middle East during the reign of Emperor Augustus?”

“Religious books are popular, aren’t they?”

“Ivan?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t go there.”