Time Travelers Never Die - Jack McDevitt [2]
He opened her car door for her. She got in, started the engine, and lowered the window. “Thanks for everything, Dave.”
She raised her left hand in farewell and drove slowly away. She had known so much about Adrian Shelborne. And so little.
JERRY was Shel’s older brother. He wasn’t much like Shel. He smiled more easily and was more aware of what was going on around him. He’d been staring down at the coffin, which waited on broad straps for the workmen who would lower it into the ground. When he saw that Helen was gone, he came over. “Dave,” he said, “I appreciate your coming.”
“No way I wouldn’t have.”
“I know. I know you guys were pretty close.” He took a deep breath. “It’s hard to believe.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry, Jerry.”
“You coming over to the house?”
“Yeah. I could use a drink.”
They shook hands, and Jerry walked away. Dave thought how superficial the guy was. This was the first time he could recall that Jerry had actually seemed to care about anything important. If Shel’s father had taken him into his confidence, had given him access to the converter as he had Shel, he wouldn’t have known what to do with it.
Jerry ducked his head and climbed into his limo. He pulled out into the road and scattered a few pigeons.
Dave took a deep breath and turned away. Hard to believe. Gone now. Shel and his time devices.
They’d been destroyed in the fire. Dave had the only surviving unit. Safely hidden in his sock drawer. When he could summon the will, he’d get rid of it, too. Let it go.
ON the way home, he turned on the radio. It was an ordinary day. Peace talks were breaking down in Africa. Another congressman was being accused of diverting campaign funds. Domestic assaults had risen again. The economy wasn’t doing well. And, in Los Angeles, there was a curious conclusion to an expressway pileup: Two people, a man and a woman, had broken into one of the wrecked vehicles and kidnapped the driver, who was believed to be either dead or seriously injured. They had apparently made off with him.
Only in California.
SHEL had never talked much about his father. But Michael Shelborne had been a Nobel candidate on two occasions, for work that Dave couldn’t begin to understand. And he had found a way to travel in time, a feat that nobody except Dave even knew about. He recalled Shel’s mentioning that his father had been disappointed at his career choice. Shel, like his dad, had become a physicist. But he apparently lacked Michael’s genius and had eventually become the public-relations director for Carbolite, a high-tech firm. But if Michael had been disappointed in Shel, what must he have thought of Jerry, who’d become a lawyer?
Dave already missed Shel’s voice, his sardonic view of the world, his amused cynicism.
He sighed. The world was a cruel and painful place. Enjoy life while you can. He remembered his grandfather once commenting that he should live life to the fullest. “While you can,” he’d said, his intense sea-blue eyes locked on Dave. “You only get a few decades in the daylight. Assuming you’re lucky.”
Ray White, a retired tennis player who lived alone near the corner, was out walking. He waved as Dave slowed down and pulled into his driveway. Dave waved back.
He got out of the car, went inside, and locked up. He didn’t usually drink alone, but today he was willing to make an exception. He poured a brandy and stared out the window. The sky, finally, was clearing. It would be a pleasant evening. In back somewhere, something moved. It might have been a branch, but it sounded inside the house.
He dismissed it. It had been a long day, and he was tired. He sank into a chair and closed his eyes.
It came again. A floorboard, maybe. Not much more than a whisper.
He took down a golf club, went into the hallway, looked up the staircase and along the upper level. Glanced toward the kitchen.
Wood creaked. Upstairs.
A hinge, maybe.
He started up, as quietly as he could. He was about halfway when the closed door to the middle