Time Travelers Never Die - Jack McDevitt [111]
“There’s something else on your mind.”
Maybe there was. “Helen, I miss you when we’re not together.”
She was dividing the slices. “Ah, Shel, that’s a bit over the top. But the truth is, I miss you, too.”
“Really?”
“Well, up to a point.”
He leaned across the table. “Helen, this doesn’t feel like the right time to ask, but—” The world squeezed down to the tabletop, the Cokes, the candles, and the pizza. And those large, lustrous eyes. “I’m in love with you.” He lowered his voice. “I’d like you to share my pizza forever.”
She laid a piece on his plate. “Is that a proposal?”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. I know this isn’t exactly a romantic spot.”
She laughed.
“And I don’t have a ring with me. I didn’t expect to do this tonight—”
“When did you expect to do it?”
“I don’t know. But anyhow—”
“Yes,” she said.
HE dropped her at home. “I’d invite you in, Shel,” she said, “but tomorrow’s my day at the hospital. Starts at dawn.”
“I know.”
“It’s not exactly the way to launch our engagement, but I have to be awake.”
“I know. Call you tomorrow night.”
“I hope so.”
He walked her to the door. She delivered a deep kiss, and held on to him for a long minute. Then she laughed and pushed him away. “I better go.”
She put her key in the lock, looked back briefly, with glowing eyes and a happy smile. Then the door opened, and she let herself in just as a bolt of lightning brightened the street. Seconds later, thunder boomed, and rain began to fall. “Appropriate staging,” he said.
She laughed. “Good night, Shel.”
He drove home through a downpour. Life with Helen was actually going to happen. And yes, this weekend he’d take her to meet Voltaire.
HE didn’t like his living room anymore. The twenty-second-century penthouse was better. It was, in fact, spectacularly better. He could sit up there and look down at the city lights. Helen would love the place. And he’d take her there, too. Maybe take her there first, so she could get used to the jumps. Come to think of it, Voltaire might not be a good idea. He had no clue whether she could speak French.
He’d call Dave in the morning and tell him.
But now there would be three travelers. It was getting crowded. He could imagine his father’s reaction.
He made a drink and listened to the rain pounding on the roof. The storm had become torrential. Lightning lit up the curtains, and thunder shook the place.
He was wide awake, so there was no point going to bed. Couldn’t put on the TV or the computer during the storm. But, of course, he had options.
He got a converter out of the bottom drawer in his desk, set it for the penthouse, and traveled out.
HE arrived on a clear, cool summer evening. There was a concert getting ready to start down on the Parkway, and lights were just coming on at the Art Museum. He’d brought his drink along, and he went outside onto the balcony to finish it.
He was still excited, too ramped up over Helen to sleep. He thought about going down and joining the crowd. But he’d need her along. In the end, he simply made himself another drink.
He listened for a while. The band was mostly strings, and they were playing pop music. Some of it was familiar, tunes that had been around in his own time.
Eventually, he went back inside, sat down in front of his computer, and turned it on. He checked the news on Wide World. A price-fixing scandal had erupted among food distributors. Somebody had filmed a celebrity orgy, and it was playing all over the Internet. Congressmen had been caught taking money from China to influence U.S. policy. Crime rates were dropping again. The National Football League had gone back to salary caps. And a prominent physicist was saying that antigravity was close.
Then, without giving himself time to think about it, he did what he’d been wanting to do ever since the converters became available. He ran a search.
On himself.
CHAPTER 33
Time is like a river. As soon as a thing is seen, it is carried away and another takes its place, and then that other is carried away also.
—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS
DAVE was