Part 35 (1/2)
cut off. Gar led the way through the opening.
Inside there was a lot of alien-looking machinery, as well as what looked like another elevator. Annie vaguely recognized the room from her first trip through time, although she had been so panicked that most of that experience was a blur in her mind.
”Take off your clothes, both of you,” James said, and Annie noticed once again how commanding he seemed. ”The less ma.s.s we try to send through, the better.” ”I weigh a lot less than you do,” Annie pointed out. ”If it'll send you and Gar through, it should send me through with my clothes on.”
”Even so, the less ma.s.s we try to send through, the more likely the temporal displacement is to be successful. Humor me, Annie. I promise you will not wind up standing nude in public somewhere.”
”You're just trying to get me naked,” she accused.
James flashed his most disarming grin. ”You haven't seemed to have had a problem with that in the past.”
”Hmmph.” A little self-conscious, Annie turned her back to Gar and began to strip. Behind her, Gar said, ”James, what about my gun'” ”We will have to leave it behind,” James said. ”Hopefully it will not be necessary in the past, anyway.” His fingers ran over what appeared to be an enormously complicated keyboard, with symbols rather than letters. Annie a.s.sumed he was setting coordinates. At last he nodded. ”Annie, step into the TDM.” Annie frowned at him. ”I thought this whole room was the TDM.” ”The actual time distortion occurs there.” James pointed to the elevator door. ”Go through there and wait.” Annie hesitated. ”You haven't taken your clothes off. Aren't you coming'” ”We are all going through one at a time,” James said. ”You, then Gar, and finally me. The module will not handle all our ma.s.s at one time.” ”It handled our ma.s.s at one time when we came here.” ”It requires less power to return bodies to their normal place in time, so the TDM expended relatively little energy in moving Gar, Dekka and me through time. And the TDM is a set coordinate in s.p.a.ce-time, so it is fairly easy to bring people to this era. But this is an entirely different situation, Annie. I have to send us all to the exact same time and place, three centuries distant. That level of precision requires a great deal of energy, and only one of us can go at once. Go on.”
She hesitated, remembering his inexplicable melancholy. Remembering his joy at seeing his people again.
”Annie,” he said, gently. ”Trust me.”
She paused a second longer, then nodded. But before she could step into the open elevator, there was
the sound of running feet. Gar leaned down quickly, retrieved his abandoned gun, and held it trained on the door.
Two people, a man and a woman, appeared, both clad in the black uniform of the Bureau. They hesitated at the sight of Gar and his gun, and both of their hands reflexively moved toward their own side arms.
”Hands up,” Gar said.
Sheepishly, they both lifted their hands.
”Into the TDM, Annie,” James said.
”But you and Gar'”
”We will get through,” Gar said. ”Don't worry.”
Annie hesitated, her eyes moving from the black-clad Bureau agents to James. ”Annie,” James said. ”Hurry.”
Annie squared her shoulders and stepped into the open elevator, relieved that at least she didn't have to step into that stomach-churning nothingness. The walls and floor were plain, silvery metal, just as she remembered. In fact the TDM looked much like a nice, normal elevator. The door slid shut behind her, precisely like an elevator, and disappeared.
And the rea.s.suring thought that the TDM was a nice, normal elevator was immediately dispelled.
She had been through time once before, and she suddenly remembered that she hadn't liked it, not in the least. She couldn't have described the awful, stomach-twisting experience of traveling through time. It was like traveling through a spatial distortion, but multiplied. She had the horrible sensation of turning inside out, upside down, and sideways all at once. Her eyes wouldn't focus, her ears couldn't hear, and she couldn't feel anything. It was as if her brain was somehow disconnected from her body.
The elevator walls seemed to disappear from around her, leaving her utterly alone in a vast empty nothingness.
And then suddenly she fell onto a hard surface, and she was able to feel again. She knew this because her head hit the hard surface with a heavy thunk and pain radiated through her skull.
She scrambled to her feet, seeing that she was in her own kitchen.
She backed away from where she'd'landed''concerned that if Gar and James made it through, they might materialize precisely where she had. Not being a physicist, she wasn't sure what would happen if two people tried to materialize in the exact same s.p.a.ce, but she had a feeling it wouldn't be pretty. She pressed back against her refrigerator and waited.
In a moment there was a blinding flash of light, and Gar appeared. He seemed to materialize in midair and hover, then fell to the floor with a thump. It reminded her of those old cartoons where the Coyote ran off the side of the cliff and hung there for a while before he realized he was going to fall.
Gar grunted as he hit her tile floor, and she ran over to help him to his feet. He got up, and she did her best to ignore the fact that he was as naked as she was. A vague corner of her mind, however, noticed the rest of him was as good-looking as his face, and she wondered if Kay might be interested.
Great. Ten seconds back in my own time and I'm matchmaking.
”Over here,” she said, and dragged him toward the fridge.
They waited tensely. Long moments drew out, and nothing happened. Annie felt a cold, icy tension coil in her stomach.
At last she said softly, ”Gar. What happened to James'”
Gar shook his head. ”I'm not certain, Annie. He might have been intercepted by the Bureau, although he incapacitated the two we captured.”
”Incapacitated'” Annie swallowed. ”Do you mean he killed them'”
”James wouldn't kill someone unnecessarily. You know that. He struck them on the head, rather gently,
and knocked them unconscious.”
Annie remembered the way he'd put his fist through a metal wall. He could easily kill with his bare hands, but she knew he would avoid it wherever possible. ”So they might have captured him'”
”It's possible, although I left my gun with him so he could defend himself. Or the TDM might have failed.
As far as I know, it's never been used exactly this way three times in a matter of moments before. It draws ma.s.sive quant.i.ties of power. Perhaps there was a power failure.”
”Or maybe he never planned to come through at all,” Annie said quietly.
Gar turned his head and glared at her. ”Don't be ridiculous, Annie.”