Time Travelers Never Die - Jack McDevitt [11]
He drove home, made himself a scotch, and settled onto the sofa. It was a beautiful, warm day. Lots of kids playing across the street.
He went to Clement’s for dinner, took the Q-pod along, and played with it while he waited for his meal. He entered various types of food and drink that his father had liked. Chablis. Hotdogs. Pancake. NYstrip. And some he didn’t like. Oatmeal. Lobster. They’d often eaten there together, so he tried clement.
When the roast beef came, with mashed potatoes and coleslaw, he put the device away and concentrated on enjoying the food.
HE was back at his desk Tuesday. He took the Q-pod back to the lab and showed it around to the engineers. Nobody could tell him anything significant although they offered to do an analysis. Shel wasn’t comfortable allowing that after his father’s insistence on destroying the things.
That night, Dave picked him up for the show. He immediately asked whether there’d been any more news.
“No,” Shel said. “They’re still looking.” He showed him the Q-pod. “Ever seen one like this before?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe. I don’t pay much attention. What do you do? Play games on it?”
“Yeah,” said Shel, as they set off for the theater.
Dave confessed he’d been looking forward to the night’s show for months. Usually, the Disciples went over to nearby Bala-Cynwyd, where there was an amateur theater group. Tonight was special, though. A troupe of professionals were at Penn to perform Arms and the Man.
They got there about twenty minutes before curtain time and took their seats. Dave told him he’d seen the group in rehearsal that afternoon. “They’re not bad,” he said.
As is usually the case at a college performance, the auditorium was noisy as it filled up. Eventually, the houselights dimmed, the audience quieted, and the curtain went up. It revealed a young woman’s candlel it bedroom.
The bedroom is, of course, Raina’s. She is standing out on the balcony when her mother enters, sees her, and sighs loudly with exasperation. “You’ll catch your death,” she says. But she brings news of a major victory in the war. The two embrace over their good fortune. They talk politics for a few minutes to bring the audience up-to-date. Then Raina is left alone. She selects a book and goes to bed. The audience’s attention is drawn back to the balcony. Something is moving out there. And they watch a male figure steal into the room.
If Shel needed anything that night, it was Bernard Shaw. Chocolate works better than bullets, one of the characters observes. And he came very close to forgetting, for two hours, the world outside.
When the show was over, and the players had taken their bows, the Disciples gathered in a meeting room, where they were joined shortly by the cast and supplied with hors d’oeuvres and soft drinks.
The Disciples had two new members that evening. One was Helen Suchenko, with lush brown hair and eyes the color of seawater. The other Shel could never afterward remember.
Dave introduced Shel to her with a sparkle in his eye. “An old friend of mine. I’ve been trying to get her to join us for a year now.”
“I heard about your father,” Helen said. “I hope everything turns out all right.”
Shel thanked her and said something about being pleased to meet her, and that was the substance of the conversation. He had a distinct impression there was a connection between her and Dave. How could there not be? The woman was a knockout. So he resisted temptation. In any case, making a pass at a stranger who was offering sympathy seemed in at least moderately bad taste.
IT was well after two when he got home. He turned his cell phone back on and saw that he had a message. “Dr. Shelborne, we’re finished with your father’s belongings. We wanted to let you know that you can pick them up tomorrow.”
He got out of his jacket, removed his tie, and started again with the Q-pod. He tried every physics term he could think of. Angular. Neutron.