Chaser from my companion. It’s not difficult. Only two wires need to be decoupled and a third rerouted.
I check my work several times to make sure I did it right. The only way to know for sure, though, is to make the trip.
I enter the date and location information from the first note, key in an adjusted time, then stare at the device, my confidence wavering.
Should I really do this? Is it worth the risk?
My answer vacillates with every second, until, with yesstill in my head, I press the GO button.
As always, the world around me winks out and I’m shrouded in gray mist. What’s missing this time is the faint but ever-present sense that Palmer is there, too. As quickly as I register this, the mist is gone and the world of March 16, 1982 appears. The note told me to arrive at 4:30 in the afternoon, but, per my training, I’ve arrived thirteen and a half hours early at 3 a.m.
A trip of thirty-three years would typically result in nothing more than a headache that might last a few minutes. What I experience is a spike of pain more reminiscent of a hundred-year jump. It forces me to a knee as I ride out the sensation.
Once the pain has abated, I look around and see that I’m not, as is usually the case, behind a building or in an alleyway or some other hidden spot in a city. In fact, there are no buildings in sight. I’m at the edge of a forest in a grassy meadow where boulders stick out of the ground here and there like skullcaps of buried giants. The only sound I hear is a gently flowing river somewhere to the right.
It’s a perfect place for an out-of-the-way meeting.
Or ambush , the cautious part of my brain thinks.
I choose a spot just inside the woods, use the Chaser’s calculator to refigure my arrival location, and pop to 4:30 p.m.
As soon as my eyes adjust to the tree-filtered daylight, I creep up to the edge of the meadow and look around. At first I think something must be wrong. No one’s waiting for me near the spot where I’m supposed to appear. I scan the meadow, wondering if this is someone’s idea of a joke, perhaps Lidia trying to get me into trouble. But then I spot someone sitting on one of the rocks about fifty yards away, back to me.
By the time I’m halfway there, I’m pretty sure I know who the person is, and when I’m near, I know I’m right.
“Gorgeous here, isn’t it?” Marie says.
I take a look around. “It is.”
She motions to a spot beside her. “Join me.”
The rock is easy to ascend, and within seconds I’m sitting next to my old instructor.
“If you’re hungry, I have some snacks,” she offers. “Water, too.”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
After a quiet moment, she asks, “When did you come from?”
I give her the date of my home time.
“Took you a whole week, huh?”
“When did you come from?” I ask.
“I put the note in your pants ten minutes before I got here.”
“Which note?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Well, I guess it would be the first one. I take it I needed to give you another.”
I nod and reach into my pocket to get the second note, but she lays a hand on my wrist.
“No. I still have to give it to you, so let me surprise myself.”
I pull my hand back out, empty.
“Since we’re not surrounded by security officers, I’m guessing you figured out how to disconnect.”
“Not on my own.”
She raises an eyebrow but says nothing.
“Are you sure we can’t be traced here?” I ask.
She nods. “It’s a hole in the system the institute’s science department hasn’t been able to plug. Any jump more than ten years, with or without a companion, doesn’t even show up on their scanners.” Her eyes narrow, assessing me. “You already knew that, too, didn’t you?”
I shrug.
“I tell you that in the second note?”
“No. You had a boy tell me on one of my missions.”
She chuckles. “Still more work you’re making me do, I see.”
I hear the cry of a bird. I look up and spot it soaring above the far end of the meadow.
I check my work several times to make sure I did it right. The only way to know for sure, though, is to make the trip.
I enter the date and location information from the first note, key in an adjusted time, then stare at the device, my confidence wavering.
Should I really do this? Is it worth the risk?
My answer vacillates with every second, until, with yesstill in my head, I press the GO button.
As always, the world around me winks out and I’m shrouded in gray mist. What’s missing this time is the faint but ever-present sense that Palmer is there, too. As quickly as I register this, the mist is gone and the world of March 16, 1982 appears. The note told me to arrive at 4:30 in the afternoon, but, per my training, I’ve arrived thirteen and a half hours early at 3 a.m.
A trip of thirty-three years would typically result in nothing more than a headache that might last a few minutes. What I experience is a spike of pain more reminiscent of a hundred-year jump. It forces me to a knee as I ride out the sensation.
Once the pain has abated, I look around and see that I’m not, as is usually the case, behind a building or in an alleyway or some other hidden spot in a city. In fact, there are no buildings in sight. I’m at the edge of a forest in a grassy meadow where boulders stick out of the ground here and there like skullcaps of buried giants. The only sound I hear is a gently flowing river somewhere to the right.
It’s a perfect place for an out-of-the-way meeting.
Or ambush , the cautious part of my brain thinks.
I choose a spot just inside the woods, use the Chaser’s calculator to refigure my arrival location, and pop to 4:30 p.m.
As soon as my eyes adjust to the tree-filtered daylight, I creep up to the edge of the meadow and look around. At first I think something must be wrong. No one’s waiting for me near the spot where I’m supposed to appear. I scan the meadow, wondering if this is someone’s idea of a joke, perhaps Lidia trying to get me into trouble. But then I spot someone sitting on one of the rocks about fifty yards away, back to me.
By the time I’m halfway there, I’m pretty sure I know who the person is, and when I’m near, I know I’m right.
“Gorgeous here, isn’t it?” Marie says.
I take a look around. “It is.”
She motions to a spot beside her. “Join me.”
The rock is easy to ascend, and within seconds I’m sitting next to my old instructor.
“If you’re hungry, I have some snacks,” she offers. “Water, too.”
“I’m fine, thanks.”
After a quiet moment, she asks, “When did you come from?”
I give her the date of my home time.
“Took you a whole week, huh?”
“When did you come from?” I ask.
“I put the note in your pants ten minutes before I got here.”
“Which note?”
She raises an eyebrow. “Well, I guess it would be the first one. I take it I needed to give you another.”
I nod and reach into my pocket to get the second note, but she lays a hand on my wrist.
“No. I still have to give it to you, so let me surprise myself.”
I pull my hand back out, empty.
“Since we’re not surrounded by security officers, I’m guessing you figured out how to disconnect.”
“Not on my own.”
She raises an eyebrow but says nothing.
“Are you sure we can’t be traced here?” I ask.
She nods. “It’s a hole in the system the institute’s science department hasn’t been able to plug. Any jump more than ten years, with or without a companion, doesn’t even show up on their scanners.” Her eyes narrow, assessing me. “You already knew that, too, didn’t you?”
I shrug.
“I tell you that in the second note?”
“No. You had a boy tell me on one of my missions.”
She chuckles. “Still more work you’re making me do, I see.”
I hear the cry of a bird. I look up and spot it soaring above the far end of the meadow.
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