Time Travelers Never Die - Jack McDevitt [19]
And that explained his disappearance. He’d gone somewhere, and, obviously, something had gone wrong. Maybe he’d landed in the middle of the Little Bighorn. If Shel could figure it out, he could follow him and, he hoped, do a rescue. If he was in time.
Wait a minute.
Shel had a time machine. If you have a time machine, there’s never any question about the cavalry arriving on cue. If he was too late with the first attempt, he could just reset the clock and go back another hour. Or whatever it took. All he needed to do was figure out where his father had gone.
He visualized him on Lincoln’s train to Gettysburg, or watching Washington cross the Delaware. Maybe he’d decided to tour the Renaissance. Hell, that would explain the robes! He had been going back pretty far.
But how to know where to look?
Then he realized how dumb he’d been: There was no need to follow his father into the past. Or the future. Whatever. He’d left from the house on Moorland Avenue a week ago Monday. All Shel needed to do was to show up at the house on Monday the fifteenth and say hello.
CHAPTER 5
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
—SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE, “THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER”
SHEL would have liked to transport himself directly into his father’s house, or, failing that, onto Moorland Avenue. Why drive over there when he had, in effect, instantaneous transportation? But he didn’t know how to do it. There were provisions for narrowing down the arrival site, but he had no idea of the precise location of the house in terms of degrees, minutes, and fractions of seconds.
So he waited until morning. Usually, breakfast was his big meal, but he got up with no appetite, settled for a cup of coffee and a piece of toast, wrapped the Q-pod in a plastic bag, and drove to Moorland Avenue. He parked in the driveway, got out, walked behind the house, where he was more or less out of sight, and set the converter to take him back to Monday night, October 15. With no change of geographical position.
Then he pressed the button.
The sun went out, and the sky filled with stars. The house remained dark.
He walked back out to the driveway. And voilà. Shel’s car was gone. Now it remained only to wait for his father to arrive.
But, come to think of it, there was no need to wait. Time travelers don’t have to wait for anybody. And there was the title for the book he would one day write about all this. My God, he felt good. The vast realms of past and future were opening up. And, more important, he didn’t have to worry anymore about a tumor. Life had become a dream.
What time had he spoken with his father on that night? On this night?
He couldn’t remember. He’d been watching the TV but wasn’t sure what had been on. Okay. It was simple enough. The time at the moment was eleven minutes after nine. He set the Q-pod to take him forward to ten o’clock.
The darkness faded and came back. And he realized he was standing in the middle of the driveway. Time traveler run down by father.
But no car was coming, and the garage was still empty. He was sure the call hadn’t come in after eleven, so he set the device to move forward one hour. This time he walked onto the lawn before activating.
And the black Skylark had arrived. Inside the house, lights were on.
Who said Shel wasn’t brilliant? He congratulated himself and knocked at the front door. There was movement inside, the living-room lights came on, and the door opened.
His father’s eyes went wide. “Adrian.”
“Hi, Dad.” They stood for a long moment staring at each other. “Did you want to invite me in?”
“Yes. Of course.” He stepped back. “I just got finished talking to you.”
“I know.”
Michael Shelborne resembled Jerry more than he did Shel. Or would have had Jerry not picked up weight. His father was tall, lean, with thick black hair and the kind of face that would have allowed him to play Sher lock Holmes. “Adrian, were you in your car when we talked?