Time Travelers Never Die - Jack McDevitt [134]
“McCloskey. I’m new in Philadelphia. I just wanted to get a routine checkup.”
She nodded, gathered some papers, and pushed them in his direction. “Fill these out, please.”
“Thank you.” He started toward one of the chairs, laid the papers on a side table, then turned and went back to the window. “Excuse me. Do you have a washroom?”
She pointed at a double door. “Through there, and on your right.”
The doors opened into a corridor. He could hear a drill in back somewhere, but the corridor was quiet. He took the converter out of the laptop bag and went into the washroom. It was empty. He moved himself forward ten seconds. Got a reading on the location of the washroom so he could come back to it later.
He washed his hands and returned to the waiting room. “I’m sorry,” he said to the receptionist, “but I think I came to the wrong place. This isn’t Dr. Vester’s office, is it?”
“No,” she said. “This is Dr. Hightower.”
“Oh. I’m sorry for wasting your time.” He returned the papers and went outside.
Helen looked his way. “How’d you make out?”
“Okay.”
CHAIN-REACTION collisions have become an increasingly dangerous occurrence on limited-access highways around the world. Hundreds die every year, thousands are injured, and property damage runs well into the millions. On the day that Shel was buried, there had been a pileup in California. It had happened a little after 8:00 A.M. on a day with perfect visibility, when a pickup rear-ended a station wagon full of kids headed for breakfast and a day at Universal Studios.
Helen and Dave materialized well off the highway moments after the chain reaction had ended. The road and the shoulder were littered with wrecked vehicles. Some people were out of their cars trying to help; others were wandering dazed through the carnage. The morning air was filled with screams and the stench of burning oil.
“I’m not sure I can do this,” Helen said, spotting a woman bleeding in an overturned Ford. She went over, got the door open, and motioned Dave to assist. The woman was alone in the car. She was unconscious, and her arm looked broken.
“Helen,” Dave said, “we have a bigger rescue to make.”
She shook her head. No. This first.
She stopped the bleeding, and Dave got someone to stay with the victim. They helped a few other people, pulled an elderly couple out of a burning van, stopped a guy who was trying to move a man with two fractured legs. But Dave was unhappy. “We don’t have time for this,” he pleaded.
“I don’t have time for anything else.”
Sirens were approaching. Dave let her go, concentrating on finding what they’d come for.
He was in a blue Toyota that had rolled over several times before crumpling into a tree. The front of the car was crushed, a door was off, and the driver looked dead. He had bled heavily from a head wound. One tire was spinning slowly. Dave could find no pulse.
The guy was about the right size, tangled in a seat belt. When Helen got there, she confirmed that he was dead. Dave cut him free with a jackknife. EMTs were spreading out among the wrecked cars. Stretchers were appearing.
Helen could not keep her mind on what they were doing. “Your oath doesn’t count,” David said. “Not here. Let it go.”
She looked at him desperately.
They got him out of the car, wrapped him in plastic, and laid him in the road. “He does look a little like Shel,” she said in a small voice.
“Enough to get by.”
Dave heard footsteps behind them. Someone demanded to know what they were doing.
A big, beefy EMT.
“It’s okay,” Dave said. “We’re doctors.”
Helen looked down at the body. “He’s dead,” she said by way of explanation.
The EMT looked annoyed. “We could use your help up ahead.”
“On our way,” said Dave.
As soon as he was gone, they put on plastic gloves. Dave attached one of the converters to the victim’s belt and pushed the black button. They watched him fade and vanish. “So far, so good,” he said. “I was afraid it would be like the cushion.”
“What cushion?”
“It’s a long story,” he said. “I tried to use a converter on one, but it didn’t work.