Time Travelers Never Die - Jack McDevitt [6]
“Not that I know of,” said Shel.
“Okay. If we turn up anything, we’ll get back to you.”
They got into their cruiser and drove away.
THEIR father maintained an office in back. Books were everywhere, mostly dealing with the joy of physics, the sheer ecstasy of the quantum world, the absolute unadulterated rapture of zero, and happy times with the gravitational constant.
Several volumes Shel hadn’t seen before were piled on a desk. Petrarch’s Canzoniere, The Divine Comedy, and The Decameron. He lifted the covers. All were in Italian. Also on the desk were two software packages: How to Learn Italian at Home and Speak Italian Like a Native.
Michael Shelborne had no facility with Italian. He’d picked up a little when they’d visited Rome and southern Italy years ago. But he had just enough to say “hello” and “good-bye” and, as he liked to joke, “You got a boyfriend?”
On a side table he found a copy of John Lewis’s memoir, Walking with the Wind.
The walls held more family pictures, of him and Mom from their salad days. There was one of the four of them together, taken with Shel in his mother’s lap, while Jerry stood cradling a baseball bat. And there was a picture of Clemmie, a cat they’d owned years ago.
Piled on a table were plaques and framed certificates recognizing his accomplishments. Thank you from Parker Electronics. Appreciation from Deercroft Oversight. Montgomery County Man of the Year. There was a team picture of last year’s Phillies. (Dad, like Shel, was a loyal fan.) Centered over the printer was a portrait of Galileo, gazing soulfully at his telescope. His father’s hero.
Shel tried the cell phone again. It rang, a few notes from Beethoven’s Fifth. The phone was in the desk. He pulled the drawers open. Picked it up. Saw no record of calls other than the ones to him and to Jerry.
IT made no sense. Jerry went upstairs, and Shel could hear him walking around, opening doors.
“Shel.” Jerry came out onto the stairway landing. “Did you see these robes?”
“What robes?”
“In the closet. Come on up here a minute.” Jerry went back into one of the spare bedrooms. “Look at this.”
Several robes hung side by side. They were the only clothes in the closet. Jerry took one out. It wasn’t really a bathrobe. “It’s more like a toga,” said Shel.
It was dark scarlet, made of coarse material. Jerry laid it on the bed and took down another one. Mud brown, this time. Again, a rough fabric. “It’s what you might wear onstage,” he said. “You ever know Dad to be interested in acting?”
“Dad? I can’t imagine it.”
There were six of them. And, on the floor of the closet, three pairs of sandals. “I don’t recall ever seeing him wear these, either,” said Jerry.
Shel took a closer look. “They’ve been used,” he said.
“WHAT do we do now?” asked Shel.
Jerry looked more annoyed than worried. He took a deep breath. Exhaled slowly. “Give up and go home,” he said. “And wait to hear what’s happened.”
Shel stared at the house, at the big empty windows, at the chimney, at the front deck where he’d spent so many quiet summer evenings. The place was full of memories, of jigsaw puzzles and card games and essays that had to be written for next morning’s class. Of old friends and girls he’d loved for a summer.
It had all gone away. The house felt strange. It had become a place he’d never known.
CHAPTER 2
One now finds scholarly analyses of time travel in serious scientific journals, written by eminent theoretical physicists. . . . Why the change? Because we physicists have realized that the nature of time is too important an issue to be left solely in the hands of science fiction writers.
—KIP THORNE, QUOTED IN PHYSICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE BY MICHIO KAKU
NEXT day, the police called Shel and asked him to meet them at Michael’s home, where they interviewed him for an hour. Had he heard from his father? Had anything like this ever happened before? Could Shel provide a list of friends and associates? Did his father have any enemies that he knew of? Had anyone ever threatened him?