Time Travelers Never Die (6 page)

“Neither do I, now.”

“There’s a light on in there.” The den.

“I had that one on last night.”

“Shel, maybe we should call the police.”

“I feel as if I’m in a rerun. But no. It was probably my imagination.”

“So why don’t you spend the night at my place?”

“Dave, I’d still have to come back here to change for work. I couldn’t go in like this. Well, I could, but it’s more trouble than it would be worth. No, it’s okay. I’m getting good at break-ins.” He was tired. Scared. Literally terrified about the possibilities of a brain tumor. Maybe he
was
coming apart.

Dave was still looking through the window. “I don’t think you should take any chances. Call nine-one-one.”

“I don’t want to bring the police here on a false alarm.”

“Best to play it safe, Shel.”

“I don’t even have a key. They’d think I’m a mental case.”

He tried the side door. It was, of course, locked. “Thought I might get lucky.”

Dave walked around to the front of the house. Climbed four steps onto the porch. And tried the knob.

It turned, and the door opened.

“That’s odd,” said Shel. He stepped past Dave, went inside, and listened. Air moved through vents.

Dave pushed in behind him.

“Who’s here?” said Shel. Outside somewhere, a dog barked.

He turned on more lights. Looked around. Saw nothing. No sign of a forced entry anywhere. “I’m going upstairs,” he said.

Dave went with him. They looked in the closets and under the beds. Checked all the windows. Everything seemed secure. He saw no indication anything had been taken. “Must have been my imagination.”

His keys were downstairs in the wicker bowl where he customarily dropped them when he came in the door.

“It’s been a long day,” Dave said.

“Yeah.”

“You want me to stay over?”

“No.” Shel was feeling silly. “I’ll be fine.”

“Okay.” Dave started for the door. “I’ll call tomorrow,” he said.

“All right. Good night, champ. And thanks.”

Shel stood at the door while Dave walked out to his car. He got in, gave him a thumbs-up, don’t worry, everything will be fine, and started the engine. Shel remembered he’d left the Q-pod in the backseat. “Wait,” he said.

 

 

 

IT
was good to be home. He sat down on the sofa and turned on the TV. He watched it for a while, not really paying attention, still thinking about the lost eight hours and the way Linda had responded on the phone when he’d tried to call in.

Eventually, he wandered into the kitchen, and raided the chocolate chip cookies. It was almost midnight, but he was still not sleepy.

He turned out the lights, all except the lamp on the table beside the sofa, and of course the electric candle at the top of the stairs. The house felt very still. He sat down and picked up the Q-pod. On a whim, he raised the lid and the screen blinked on. It said: ENTER ID.

He poked in
Galilei
.

Then it asked a question: RETURN?

He stared at it.

RETURN?

Return where? The Allegheny National Forest?

The smart thing would be to leave it alone. Put it on the coffee table and forget it until tomorrow. But when he tried, when he shut the lid and set it down and closed his eyes, he couldn’t get it out of his head.

Return where?

Okay. Settle it. He put on a jacket, just in case, and touched the YES key, just barely, thinking how cold it might be out in the woods.

Ridiculous.

He pressed ENTER.

The dim glow of the electric candle faded and went out. Then the lamps came on. Two of them. Including the one he’d turned off just a moment ago.

He felt himself lifted off the sofa and dropped immediately back onto it. He sat listening to the silence. Got up. Looked at the lamps. But he was still at home. Still in his town house. Thank God for that.

But it had happened again.
Something
had happened again. His heart pounded.

He hung on to the Q-pod. Hung on as if it were a lifeline.

The Q-pod was doing it. He didn’t know how, didn’t even know
what
. But the goddam thing . . . !

He sat, not moving. Whatever it was, at least it hadn’t been a stroke.

Finally, he put the Q-pod down on the coffee table. Gingerly. Then he got up and made himself a rum and Coke.

To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.

 

 

 

 

THE
sun was bright through the curtains, and the events of the day before seemed far away. Shel got up and looked at his watch, as was his habit. It showed 4:02. His alarm clock, which he hadn’t bothered to set, read 7:12. He checked the TV. The seven o’clock shows were on. But why was the watch three hours behind? Fear settled in. He tried to push it aside, made the watch right, and went over to Maggie’s for some pancakes.

Usually, he allowed himself time to relax and read the paper before going into the office, but he wanted to set his mind at ease and get back into his work routine, so after he’d finished his breakfast, he headed directly for Carbolite. He wondered what Linda’s explanation was going to be for hanging up on him the day before. Twice. She wasn’t exactly the most even-tempered person in the world, but that was way out of character.

When he arrived, she was in her office. “Hi,” he said.

She looked up from her keyboard. “Good morning, Shel.”

He sat down. “I don’t quite know what happened yesterday,” he said. “I got stranded. But anyhow, I’m sorry I didn’t call earlier.”

“Call about what?”

“About not showing up for work.”

She gave her head a shake, as if a ghost had appeared in the doorway. “What are we talking about, Shel?”

“About my not being here yesterday. Or didn’t you notice?”

She dropped her eyes to the floor, then came back to him. “Shel, you
were
here. At least until yesterday afternoon. Is
that
what you’re talking about?”

“Yesterday afternoon?”

“You
do
remember, right? I suggested you take the rest of the day off, and you went home early.”

“Linda, that was
two
days ago. I wasn’t here at all yesterday.”

“It was
yesterday
, Shel.”

“No. We’re confused here somewhere,” he said quietly. “I spent the entire day yesterday trying to get home from western Pennsylvania.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about, Shel?”

“Just what I said.”

“Western Pennsylvania?”

“Yes. A town called Sheffield. Dave came and got me.”

“Dave?”

“Dave Dryden. I think you know him. He’s been here a couple of times. But anyhow, that’s where I called from.”

“Sheffield.”

“Yes. And you hung up on me. Twice.”

Her jaw was sagging. She looked worried. “You’re saying I hung up on
you
?”

“You don’t remember that either?”

“Shel, I don’t hang up on people.”

“You did yesterday. I was stuck and I was trying to talk to you—” He stopped.

Linda got up and walked past him to the door of her office. “Sally,” she said, “would you come in here for a minute, please?”

Sally was her secretary. Dark skin, black hair, glasses. A bit too serious, probably. Linda looked at Shel. “Sally, was Shel here yesterday?”

“Well, of course,” she said. “He was here.”

“All day?”

“As far as I know. Except that he left early, I think.”

“This is crazy,” said Shel.

“You want to ask around?”

 

 

 

HE
promised he’d make an appointment with a psychologist. Linda urged him again to take some time off, take the rest of the week off, but Shel assured her he was fine. But when he sat down in front of his computer, he got another shock.

The Devil’s Disciples had gone to see
Arms and the Man
Tuesday evening. Early Wednesday morning, around two thirty, he’d experienced the
event
, whatever it was. He’d spent all day Wednesday getting home. It was now Thursday morning.

Except that it wasn’t. His computer indicated it was still Wednesday. He stuck his head in Bill Shanski’s office, across the hall. “Bill,” he said, “what day is this?”

“Wednesday,” said Bill, with his usual vacuous smile.

“You sure?”

“All day long.”

 

 

HE
tried to bury himself in his work, assembling a sales presentation for a new data-control system. He’d never dealt with a therapist, always thought that therapists were for the weak-minded, that talking to an outsider about problems was a waste of time and money.

But he didn’t have much choice. He opened the yellow pages, picked a psychologist, and made an appointment.
“You should come in tomorrow,”
said the female voice on the phone after he’d explained the problem,
“for an appraisal.”

He’d never really had a physical problem other than once going to a hospital after he’d crashed into an infielder chasing a fly ball. The possibility that he was suffering from a mental problem left a cold knot in his stomach. He went through a dozen cups of coffee. (He usually had about two.) And, as if the day hadn’t produced enough shocks, Linda came in on her way out to lunch to tell him she’d just had a weird phone call. Two of them, in fact.

“About what?”

“A guy claiming to be you, Shel.”

Shel was starting to get out of his chair, but with that news he slid back down. “What did he say?”

“He said he was sorry he hadn’t been able to get to work today.” She shook her head. “He sounded just like you.”

Shel just stared at her.

“If this is some kind of joke, Shel, I don’t appreciate it.”

It was enough. He told her about his appointment with Dr. Benson. And then said he was going home.

“I think that’s a good idea. Why don’t you
stay
home until you’re feeling better.”

 

 

HE
tried to call Dave, but all he could get was his voice mail. He’d probably be in class, so the phone was in his desk.

He skipped dinner. Had no appetite. He tried to read. Tried to watch some TV. Got on the computer for a while. But it was hard to think about anything other than what was happening to him.

He went back to the bookcase. Took down
Hands on the Past
, by C. W. Ceram. One of his favorites when he was growing up.

It consisted of accounts of the early archaeologists. He thought of his father’s passion for history. How he’d disappeared from a locked house. And Shel wondered if, somehow, he had in the same manner disappeared from
his
house Tuesday night?

The idea was crazy. But it was too coincidental not to have some validity. In any case, there could be no harm running a test. As long as he was careful.

He picked up one of the three Q-pods, sat down on the sofa, opened the lid, and entered
Galilei
. When it asked where he wanted to travel, he hesitated. Keep it simple:
Here.

DATE?

TIME?

On his Wednesday morning experiment, he’d asked for 3:00 P.M. It certainly hadn’t been three o’clock in the afternoon when he’d opened his eyes in the Allegheny National Forest. It had been more like midmorning.

But it might have been three o’clock GMT.

Greenwich Mean Time? Maybe that was it.

He’d sat in this same sofa after Dave brought him back. The Q-pod had asked him RETURN? and he’d replied
yes
. Maybe the Q-pod had taken him back, not to
where
he started, but to
when
. Two thirty Wednesday morning. My God. Was that possible?

If it were true, then it had been Shel himself on the phone to Linda this afternoon, calling from the Sheffield Chevron. Or was it
yesterday
afternoon? His head was starting to spin.

He tried calling Dave again. Still got the voice mail. The whole idea was preposterous. But it was time to find out. Where did he want to go?

There was one way to settle it: He could stay in the town house, but take himself to the time when he and Dave were just getting in. Say, a quarter to eleven. Dave had brought him back Wednesday night. But then he’d pushed the RETURN key on the Q-pod. If he was right, it had taken him back to the point where he’d been early Wednesday morning. That was why it had still been Wednesday at the offic e. Or been Wednesday again, if that was more accurate. If he was correct, he and Dave were at that moment on the way home from the Allegheny National Forest.

A quarter to eleven Wednesday night translated to Thursday, 3:45 A.M. GMT. He set the time and date, and was about to push the big black button when it occurred to him that it wasn’t a good idea to be sitting down. If it really happened, he’d want to arrive standing up. That way he wouldn’t fall on his head.

He got to his feet. Took a deep breath. And hit the button.

The lights flickered and went out. One of the lamps came back on. He was still in his den. He hadn’t moved.

He checked his watch. No change. But then, it wouldn’t, would it?

He went into the kitchen. The wall clock showed ten forty-five.

Bingo. My God, I did it.

His father had invented a time machine.

Shel walked through the downstairs, wanting to scream it to the heavens, tell the world,
We can travel in time.
He knew that physicists had been saying for years there was no known reason it couldn’t be done. But Shel had never believed it possible.