Time Travel Omnibus, page 979
They were off in a flash toward the window that looked over the university across the street.
Sophia turned back to me. “What were you saying?”
I was not going to obsess about little girls. I turned my palms up.
“What can I help you with?”
She frowned. “It’s just that grad school is so much more difficult than I was expecting. I feel like I’m not prepared, especially for quantum mechanics. There are these weird interpretations, like the Transactional one with waves that go forward and backward in time?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “You’re thinking of the handshake between the retarded and advanced waves. They’re supposed to cancel one another out. You’re in luck; quantum mechanics was my specialty—”
A strange rocking noise came from the corner of the room by the window. I glanced over and saw the younger girl had climbed up the huge wooden shelf and it was starting to topple over onto the other girl.
Sophia cried, “Oh my God!”
We both jumped up.
This cannot happen again! The next thing I knew, I was standing next to the shelf holding it up against the wall as merchandise showered down on me.
They kid working behind the counter yelled, “Hey! You break it, you buy it!” but made no move to come over and help us.
While ducking down, I thought I saw a woman who looked like me sitting at my table, but when I looked back she was gone.
“How? What?” Sophia asked. Then she rushed over to us and grabbed her daughter off the shelf and hugged her.
I managed to set the shelf upright.
“Kayla, what were you doing? You should know better than to climb furniture!” Sophia bent down and hugged both her daughters at the same time. “I would just die if anything happened to you two.”
Sadly, that probably wasn’t true.
After a few more moments of hugging, Sophia let go of her daughters and stood up. She looked at me. “I don’t understand what just happened. But thank you from the bottom of my heart.” There was that luminous smile again. “You just appeared next to the shelf. It was like magic.”
My mouth fell open. “Wait. You saw me do something like magic?”
Could it be my doctors were wrong and I wasn’t crazy? A tiny seed of hope sprouted in my chest. “I’m not sure what happened. I just knew I couldn’t let the girls get hurt. Can you tell me what you saw?”
“I didn’t really see anything,” she said. “I was looking at my daughters.” She shrugged. “I thought you were sitting over there, and then you materialized out of thin air in front of the shelf.”
I nodded even though I didn’t quite understand. There was something important here though.
“I hate to think what would have happened . . .” she said.
“Me too,” I said.
“Oh dear, Abigail, you’re bleeding!” Sophia said.
I reached my hand up to my head. It was wet, and when I held my hand out it was red with blood. Weird.
“You have to let me take you to the emergency room,” she said. “It’s the least I can do—you might need stitches. I’m parked right outside.” She took me by the arm and led me out the door.
Outside on the curb I had an unfortunate epiphany as she directed me to her nondescript dark SUV. She expected me to ride in her car! I hadn’t ridden in a car for almost a year—not since the accident that claimed my family. There was no way I was getting in that car. I stopped abruptly on the sidewalk. “No. Thank you, but no, I’m not going with you.”
“What?” Sophia asked. “You have to go to the hospital.”
My heart was racing. “No. You don’t understand. I was in a crash with my family. I can’t ride in a car!”
“Well, I can’t let you bleed to death,” she said. “Should I call an ambulance?”
“No!” Unwillingly, my mind went back to Emma’s fine hair matted to her little head with blood, to Isabella’s dulled unmoving eyes, and the bubble of blood that came out of Jacob’s mouth when he tried to speak, right before he never tried to do anything again.
Suddenly the pieces fell into place. I just went back in time to save Sophia’s girls, so I should be able to save my girls! I concentrated with all my might on waves that went back in time, and then I felt a Herculean wrench.
I was standing on a front stoop, my old front stoop, and I felt very woozy. Maybe an ambulance wasn’t such a bad idea. Shaking, I lifted my finger to the doorbell and pressed the button.
As I heard footsteps approach in the front hallway, I had to grab the front planter to keep from keeling over.
The door opened and I found myself face to face with . . . me.
Apparently dazed, other-me reached out and took my hand.
And then I did fall over.
The next thing I knew, I was lying on my old family room couch.
I appeared to be leaning over myself, peering into my face. “Are you me?” the other me asked.
“Yes.” There was something important I was forgetting. “Wait! What day is it?” I yelled.
“Tuesday, October 31,” she said, crouching down. “You’re in bad shape. Can I take you to the hospital?”
“The year! What year is it?”
“2006,” she said and paused. “Time travel?”
“Yes. I have to warn you.”
“Warn me?” She leaned back, her eyes straying to a family portrait. She gulped. “Who do I, er, we lose?” she asked, her voice husky.
I forced back tears as I looked at her, unable to speak.
She looked at me, then at the picture, and then back at me. “All of them?” she whispered.
I nodded, tears escaping.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, tears running down her cheeks. “How? What happened?”
“Car accident. Jacob driving.” I tried to wipe my face, but my hand was shaking too much. “Tonight.”
“Tonight? Oh, my God.”
I felt so dizzy I almost couldn’t get the words out, “On the way to the trick-or-treat party.” I was starting to feel something was seriously wrong with me.
She leaned over the couch and clutched me to her. “Oh my God. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”
When she finally released me, I said, “I don’t feel so good.”
“You do look ba—uh, you could look better. I’m calling 911.”
As she called an ambulance, I struggled to stay conscious.
“They’ll be here in a couple minutes. Hang in there.” She grabbed my hand. “Uh, how did you get back here?” Her face brightened. “Did you build a time machine?”
“No. Transactional interpretation,” I whispered. “I guess the waves didn’t cancel out.”
Other-me looked off into the distance. “The advanced waves that travel into the past and the retarded waves that travel into the future don’t always cancel out?” She peered at me. “But that would violate causality.”
I tried to nod. “Yes. You’re good, stay in school—” I could hear the sirens approaching, but they were fading.
“Abigail?” she asked. “Come on, stay with me!”
“If you keep them safe, it was worth—”
She was gone. I could tell because the haunted look left her eyes, and my soul shuddered.
There was pounding on the front door.
I went over to open it. “She’s over here.” I led the EMTs into the family room.
They ran over to her and knelt down. One of them said, “Twin sister?”
I nodded as the tears started cascading down my cheeks again.
“I’m very sorry, miss. She’s gone.”
I sank down in a chair, cradling my head in my hands. Oh my God.
“Abigail!” Jacob yelled, running into the room. “Why’s there an ambulance here? Abigail! Answer me! Are you okay?” He must have seen the figure on the couch because then he screamed, “No!”
I jumped to my feet. “Jacob! I’m here. I’m okay.”
He ran over to me and crushed me in his arms. “Thank God,” he said into my hair. We clutched each other as if our lives depended on it.
“What’s happening, Mommy?” Isabella asked from the front hallway.
Jacob and I let go of one another, and I ran into the hallway and hugged them. “Girls, please don’t go into the family room.” I turned back toward Jacob. “Can you please take them into the kitchen?”
“But we have to get ready for the party, Mommy,” Emma said.
“I’m sorry, girls. We can’t go to the party,” I said.
“Aw! I wanna be a fairy!” Emma stomped her feet.
“That’s not fair!” Isabella said, throwing her long hair back and forth. “I wanna wear my costume!”
Jacob came and took them by the hands. “What the hell is going on? Do you have a twin sister?” he whispered to me.
“I’ll tell you later,” I whispered back. “Girls, you can put on your costumes. We’re going to have our own party at home tonight.”
I watched my very confused husband lead our grumpy daughters into the kitchen and another tear escaped.
It was worth it. Anything would be worth it.
DARWIN’S SUITCASE
Elisabeth Malartre
“Our English sphinx moths have proboscides as long as their bodies, but in Madagascar, there must be moths with proboscides capable of extension to a length of between 10 and 11 inches.”
On the Various Contrivances by which British and
Foreign Orchids are Fertilised by Insects, and
on the Good Effects of Intercrossing, Charles Darwin, 1862
Sister Solange checked herself just before she nodded off. She stared bleary-eyed at the balky Temporal ViewScreen.
It was before matins, and she was never bright in the early morning. And if someone should find her here . . . the sister who ran the library would never allow this observation during regular research hours. It wasn’t on the Approved List.
Not many of the sisters were even allowed to touch the machine. Solange was still new to the convent, so it was a great privilege for her to TimeView.
Forty minutes before matins.
She reached out again to the control panel. Maybe this time she’d get it set correctly. She was not very gifted with these new electronics, and far too impatient at their eccentricities. She stared at the crumpled sheet: “Charles Darwin during the writing of The Origin of Species, 1858.”
She ran her finger back and forth over the keyboard in frustration. Still nothing on the screen, but it triggered a recorded warning: “Caution. The Temporal Viewer is a delicate instrument. Please use it carefully.”
She looked at the ancient clock on the wall. Thirty-eight minutes left.
She rapped her knuckles on the screen. The time-code indicator light flickered and a chime sounded. A toneless voice announced, “The new setting is 1866. Please confirm by pressing the return key.”
Sister Solange groaned. “Oh, no, what have I done?”
She reached for the Year Control knob and turned it back. The time-code indicator flickered again. She briefly saw 1859, then it returned to 1866. In frustration she yanked the knob smartly to the left. It came off in her hand.
She stared in horror at the knob. Too late she remembered what Sister Marthe the Librarian had said. There were nodes in the time stream that seemed to attract the Temporal Viewer. Maybe 1866 was one of them.
Sister Solange sighed. Her impatience had gotten her into trouble once again. Penance, surely, maybe even . . . she stopped as the screen cleared suddenly, showing a figure dressed in dark clothes.
“Oh, it’s working. Thank you, Lord. I am so unworthy of your beneficence.” She resolved to do penance anyway.
She squinted at the screen. A middle-aged man was walking with a stick in the countryside. She looked at the paper again. Darwin walked and thought things through in an open field called the Sandwalk near his home in England, Down House.
He looked ordinary enough for such an evil man.
She wondered what he was thinking. Was he plotting his terrible attack on the Church?
She adjusted the fine focus gingerly. It seemed like magic—but Holy magic, she corrected herself, to see something that had happened over two hundred years ago.
She bent closer to the screen, wishing for the morning coffee of her pre-convent days.
With a crackling sound, the screen erupted in diagonal stripes.
“Oh, no, please not now.” As suddenly as it started, the lines stopped. Sister Solange stared anxiously at the screen.
There were two people in the field—one walking, the second one standing a little way off.
“Funny, I didn’t see him there before.” She shrugged. “But this is so much better. I’ll be able to hear them talking. I’ll actually hear Darwin’s voice! Oh, thank you Lord!” Despite the Church’s interdiction on viewing Darwin, this had to be Divine intervention, she thought. But no recording—this one was strictly off the record.
She hunched over the screen, absentmindedly tucking a stray red curl under the edge of her severe black wimple.
Thwack!
Clink.
Norman Albright hesitated, heart hammering. Through the early morning Kentish fog, he recognized the man wielding the walking stick and approaching at a steady pace.
He cleared his throat and stepped forward. “Ahem, Mr Darwin, sir . . .”
He hoped he wasn’t too startling a figure. His clothes had been carefully researched. The unfamiliar wool overcoat was heavy on his shoulders; in the damp air it exuded a musky smell. The stiff shirt collar was uncomfortable, and through the thick cotton of the shirt he felt the box in his breast pocket.
The middle-aged man in front of him looked as Albright had anticipated: balding on top, heavy eyebrows, and a short beard streaked with grey. The few surviving photos had been morphed to this age to aid recognition. Overall, an unassuming man for so pivotal a figure. But the gaze from his pale eyes blazed forth with an intensity at odds with the rest of the body. This was indeed The Darwin.
“You have the advantage, sir.”
Albright proffered his hand awkwardly. “Norman Albright. An honor to meet you, sir. I’ve traveled far for this.” His words sounded stilted, archaic; his tongue was thick with nervousness. But Research assured him this was about right for 1866. He’d gone through a lot of coaching to get the language right.
Darwin’s hand shot out, and his grasp was firm. “Pleased, I’m sure. How may I be of assistance?”
“I . . . I have urgent need to ask you questions . . . about your work. Perhaps I could walk with you for a while.”
“That would be agreeable. It does a man good to compose his thoughts with a walk before breakfast.”
Albright fell into step beside Darwin. It was hard to concentrate. He was actually here, on the famous Sandwalk, with the Founder, where, tradition held, Darwin had done much of the thinking on his famous Theory of Natural Selection. The Temporal Voyager worked! He looked around. The land itself was unexceptional—a narrow strip of about one and a half acres, bordered by a gravel walk. On one side large broad-leafed trees shaded the gravel. But what trees! They appeared to be poplars, but much larger, and with many more leaves than the ones at home. On the other side of a low hedge was an adjoining grassy field. He stared at it. The grass was so green and lush! And the smells—so sweet. This was how country air used to smell, he understood. Unfamiliar notes hung in the air. Birdsong!
Darwin walked steadily as Albright got his bearings and took in the scene around him. As he walked he punctuated his steps with blows from the walking stick.
There was a period of silence as they fell into rhythm.
Then Darwin turned to him. “Do tell me how you came to be here so early. Are you stopping nearby?”
“No, I started out this morning from . . . London.”
“Indeed. I myself prefer not to travel, but when I must do so, I find it preferable also in the early morning. I trust the journey was not too tiring?”
“No, not at all. It was most pleasant, and of course, I was looking forward to this meeting, so my thoughts were well occupied.”
“Very kind of you. How did you find me here? Did you first call at Down House?”
“No, sir,” said the younger man. “Your work is well known among my colleagues, and your regular habits have been chronicled. I knew you would be here at this time of day.”
Darwin seemed taken aback. He looked at Albright’s collar. “Your colleagues, you say.” He pursed his lips and frowned. “But you are a man of the cloth?”
“Well naturally. Who is not these days?” A slight hesitation. “The Order of Scientism.” To Darwin’s puzzled look he added, “Protestant, of course.”
“Scientism. Pardon my confusion, I am not aware . . .”
“Nor could you be. The Order was founded after you—your time.”
Thwack! As they rounded the last corner, the battered iron tip of the briar wood cane flipped the top flint off the pile. The roughhewn grey stone landed solidly on the stony ground. Clink.
“After my time? What do you mean?”
Albright sighed. Time was short. He’d better start his pitch. “The Order of Scientism was formed in 1943. I appear in the guise of a Victorian clergyman, but I am from the future. From 2156, to be exact.”
* * *
Sister Solange started. Had she heard correctly? This man Albright claimed to be from . . . eighteen years in the future! What was he doing there? Indulging himself, as she was, or trying to change something? She felt suddenly uneasy. Perhaps he was the reason the Temporal Viewer had picked this time.
Darwin stopped and looked at him sternly. “This conversation has taken a most remarkable turn.”
“I assure you, I am most earnest.”
“Yet you claim to be—”
“From the future, yes, sir.”
“Whose future?”
“Well, everyone’s, I guess.” He smiled briefly. To Darwin’s puzzled look he added, “It’s the future you helped to bring about. And that’s why I’m here.”
“Indeed.” Darwin frowned. “This is a prank, is it not?”
