Time to Love Again (2 page)

“You can use my computer,” Hank said, “just
as long as you don’t disturb these two piles of paper or turn on
the switch on this component.”

“I won’t touch it,” India promised, “but will
I be in your way at all?”

“I’ll probably be in late tomorrow,” he
replied. “I have a date with Willi tonight.”

“In that case, I’ll get here early in the
morning, and work until you arrive.”

“Fair enough. But be careful of my baby.”
Hank sat down in the chair India had vacated. “I don’t let just
anyone use her. This is a special favor, because of Willi.”

“I understand, and I appreciate your
generosity. I promise I’ll be careful.” She wasn’t sure he heard
her, or even that he was aware of her when she said good-bye and
left. All of his concentration was on the screen where, as she
glanced back before closing the office door, India could see the
strange swirls of three-dimensional color graphics and a series of
numbers that looked like some kind of complicated mathematical
equation.

India was up early on Sunday morning. After
feeding Charlemagne his favorite tuna breakfast and making a cup of
black coffee for herself, she dressed with care. Willi’s fashion
lectures during the past week, coupled with the process of trying
on and deciding about new clothing, had reawakened the vanity she
had so sternly put aside three years previously, when she had
decided that nothing mattered except her terminally ill husband.
She had always liked nice clothes and had relished the sensation of
rich fabrics against her skin. This morning she put on a lacy bra
and a silk teddy trimmed in matching lace. The salesclerk had
called the pale color
antique gold
. It suited India’s golden
brown hair and light brown eyes. She applied brown and green eye
shadow, added black mascara to her naturally thick lashes, and
finished her makeup with a warm peach lipstick. Then she pulled on
one of her new outfits, a tunic and narrow trousers of dark green.
The wristwatch Robert had given her was at the jeweler’s for
cleaning, and none of her earrings suited her costume. At a loss
for accessories, she rummaged through her small collection of
jewelry until she found the necklace that had been Robert’s first
gift.

“I wish I could give you the real thing
instead of just a museum reproduction,” he had said when she opened
the box. “It’s from the eighth century.”

The round pendant was about two inches
across, its gold surface decorated with bright red, green, blue,
and yellow enamels. The center design was a flower with four
petals, arranged like a cross. The flower was surrounded by bands
of color, each band divided into triangles and squares, and the
piece was finished with a gold border. The chain was of heavy
gold-plated links.

“Perfect.” India slipped the chain over her
head and adjusted the pendant, noticing that the green enamel
exactly matched the color of her tunic. Then she stood still,
looking at her left hand in the mirror. “Robert, you told me not to
mourn you forever, and Willi has recently told me the same thing.
It’s time I took the advice of the two people I love most. I’ll
never forget you and the wonderful life we had, but it’s time for
me to start living again.” With a feeling of complete serenity,
knowing somewhere deep in her heart that what she was doing was
right and Robert would approve, she removed her engagement ring and
wedding band and laid them in the jewelry box, closing the lid
firmly on them.

Picking up her purse, she walked downstairs
to the back parlor of the old house, to the room they had converted
into an office for Robert’s historical research. The shelves were
still crowded with his books and papers, the only empty spot being
the place where the computer had once sat. India had sold it
shortly after Robert’s death. After a quick search she found what
she wanted – a notebook and two floppy disks, which Hank had warned
her were outdated, but he’d said his computer would still accept
them. Stuffing both notebook and disks into her purse, she returned
to the living room, frowning at what she beheld.

The house needed some Christmas brightness.
It was only three days until the holiday, and she hadn’t even hung
a wreath on the door. Picking her keys off the hall table and
heading toward the garage, India decided she would visit the mall
again that afternoon. She wanted some new decorations, and she also
wanted to buy a gift for Hank, who had been so patient with her the
day before. She still did not think he was the right man for Willi
because he was too involved with his work – work that India simply
could not understand. She doubted if many people could understand
what Hank was trying to do, which must have been frustrating for
him. Feeling a bit sorry for him, she resolved to invite him and
Willi to dinner one night during the coming week.

She was in an upbeat mood as she backed her
car out of the driveway. She had the feeling that something
wonderful was going to happen. Her life had begun to change, and
unlike her recent holidays, this was going to be a happy
season.

The university was not as deserted as she had
expected. Most of the students had gone home for the holiday break,
but as she followed the janitor toward Hank’s office, India met
several professors she knew, all of them carrying armloads of the
blue books that contained the students’ answers to the
just-completed final exams. Grades had to be posted by Monday
evening, so everyone she met passed her with only a hurried
greeting. Remembering how distracted Robert could become at the end
of a semester, India thought with some amusement, as the janitor
opened Hank’s office door and let her in, that everyone except the
janitor would very likely forget having seen her.

Sitting down at the computer, she got right
to work, checking the material on the first floppy disk against
Robert’s handwritten notes. Soon she was immersed in the old
familiar world of eighth century Francia, the land that would by
modern times become partly France and partly Germany. She could
speak the language of that world, after a fashion, for Robert had
tried his best to teach it to her.

A few hours later, she stopped to stretch her
muscles. While walking around the office wriggling her shoulders
and flexing her fingers and wrists, her eyes fell upon a pile of
printout material that Hank had left. On the top sheet was the word
Time
, followed by a mathematical equation that looked
vaguely familiar. She picked up the paper, sinking back into the
chair as she read it over, trying to make some sense of it. In
spite of its apparent familiarity, the meaning of the formula was
beyond her.

“Space and time,” she muttered, frowning at
the numbers.

Recalling with a guilty pang that Hank wanted
his papers left untouched, she reached across one of the new pieces
of equipment to lay the sheet back on the pile. As she did so, her
left hand accidentally brushed against the switch Hank had warned
her not to touch. The mysterious piece of equipment hummed into
life.

“Oh, dear.” At first, India snatched her hand
away from the switch, then, almost immediately, she leaned forward
again to turn it off. But she froze before she made contact with
it, mesmerized by the bright peach-colored glow now emanating from
the screen in front of her. As she watched, the letters of the data
she had been working on disappeared into the growing brilliance of
that light. Within another second, the light had eclipsed the
components of Hank’s entire system.

India knew she ought to turn the computer
off, but she could no longer see the switch, and she was afraid of
an electrical shock if she put her hand into the light and started
fumbling around. Still seated, she scooted the chair backward,
wondering how best to deal with this unexpected problem. She
thought about diving beneath the work station to find the plug and
pull it out, but she wasn’t sure where the plug was -possibly
behind a heavy section she wouldn’t be able to move – and she
wasn’t absolutely certain there was only one plug. Hank might have
arranged more than one electrical connection when he modified the
computer.

All of this she thought about within a moment
or two, before she remembered the janitor. He would know where the
fuse box was, or the circuit breaker, or whatever gadget kept
electricity streaming into the infernal machine now filling the
office with an eerie shade of golden peach. The janitor might be
able to cut off the electricity before whatever was happening could
wipe out Hank’s program and destroy all his work. She jumped out of
the chair and headed for the hall, the peach light growing ever
brighter behind her. Just as she stepped through the door, Hank
appeared around a corner at the end of the hall.

“What have you done to my computer?” he
shouted, racing to the doorway to stare wild-eyed at the
now-pulsating light.

“It was an accident. I bumped the switch. I
never meant to touch it. Oh, Hank, I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? Oh, my God!” he swore, his eyes still
fixed on the light.

“Can you turn it off?” India asked. “If I’ve
ruined your program, I’ll never forgive myself.”

“Which switch did you turn on?” Hank
demanded, throwing his parka on the floor and moving toward the
computer.

“The one on this component.” Seeing that he
was not afraid to get closer to the peach-colored light, India
reached through it, eager to undo the damage she had already
done.

“Don’t touch it!” Hank yelled.

But her groping fingertips had found the
rounded top of the switch. She pushed at it. Nothing happened. She
tried again, though she could see neither the switch nor her own
hand, and she felt the strangest sensation, as if her arm was being
pulled into the humming machinery.

“What’s happening?” she cried. “Hank, you’re
fading out. Where are you?”

“India, get away from there!”

Hank’s voice was fading, too, as though he
spoke from an increasing distance, and she could just barely see
him through the brilliant glow coming from the computer. Suddenly
the air was sharp with the smell of ozone. She heard the crackle of
electricity, and it seemed to her that numbers whirled about her
head, forming and reforming into complicated equations.

“Innndiaaa – “ Hank’s frantic shout drew out
into a long, sad whisper of sound. From somewhere beneath her,
blackness grew and developed, an aching, empty void through which
she was falling…falling…

“What’s going on here?” Willi stood in the
open doorway, watching a singed and dirty Hank crawl out from
between two sections of furniture. “I could hear you shouting from
all the way down the hall. Did India blow a fuse? Where is
she?”

“Gone.” Pale and shaking, Hank pulled himself
to his feet.

“She hasn’t gone far,” Willi said. “Her purse
and coat are still here.”

“She went” – Hank took a deep gulp of air –
“she went into the computer.”

“What are you saying?” Willi’s puzzled
expression showed just the beginning of fear.

“She’s lost. Somehow she got mixed up in the
program. She was working on her own data, and she turned this on.”
He gave the offending component a hard smack with one hand. “I
never thought it would actually work. It was just one of my far-out
ideas. I left my new computations in here last night. I warned her
not to touch the switch, but she did, and when she tried to turn it
off, she vanished.”

“Are you crazy?” Willi’s eyes were huge with
dawning horror. “Or have you been reading too many of those weird
scientific journals of yours? People don’t vanish into
computers!”

“India did. I saw it happen.” Hank passed one
hand across his face as if he would wipe out that awful sight. “She
said it was an accident. I’m not sure what she did in here before I
arrived.”

Willi opened her mouth, then shut it,
breathing deeply through her nose several times to steady herself
before she could trust herself to speak.

“I am not going to waste precious time
screaming or crying or having hysterics,” she said in a tight
little voice. “You are going to bring India back. If I can do
anything to help, I will.”

“That’s just it,” Hank cried. “I don’t
know
what to do.”

“Then you shouldn’t be fooling around with
this machine.” Willi shook her head in disgust at his carelessness.
Then she went to the table next to the keyboard, searching for
anything that might offer a clue to India’s exact whereabouts.
“Look here. I know this, it’s Robert’s notebook. And here’s one of
his floppy disks.”

“Yesterday she was talking about working on
some of his notes,” Hank offered, moving to stand next to her.
“There’s a date on it.”

“Robert was such an old fuddy-duddy that he
dated and cross-referenced everything,” Willi told him. “See? This
floppy disk is labeled
AD 777
.”

“And this empty sleeve is dated
AD
778
,” Hank added. “This must be the one she was using.”

“Which means?” Willi asked, a hard edge to
her voice.

“If what I think happened actually did
happen, India may well have been sent to the year 778,” Hank said,
still looking down at the disk sleeve in his hand.

“
Henry Adelbert Marsh
.” Willi’s voice
was slow and deadly now, and no one hearing her could possibly
doubt that she meant every word she said. “I don’t know what you
have done with this stupid machine of yours to change it from an
ordinary computer into this monster, or how you have done it, or
what mad experiments you have been trying, but this I do know: You
will bring India back from wherever you have sent her, and you will
bring her back alive and healthy, or by heaven, you won’t live to
see Christmas Day.”

Hank looked at the short, plump young woman
in her black leather outfit. Mythology wasn’t his field of
expertise, but he knew an avenging fury when he saw one, and he
believed Willi would do what she had threatened. Under her
implacable stare he felt himself inundated by a wave of guilt. At
the same time, he experienced a burst of excitement. Was it
possible that his far-out theory was correct? Could he make India
reappear and then duplicate what she had done? If so, he would be
the author of one of the great discoveries of all time.