Three in time by Chad Oliver & Wilson Tucker & Poul Anderson

Author:Chad Oliver & Wilson Tucker & Poul Anderson [Tucker, Wilson & Anderson, Poul]
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction, Fantasy, American fiction, Horror, General, Science Fiction - General, Fiction, Science Fiction & Fantasy, American, Fiction - Science Fiction, Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), Modern fiction, Science Fiction - Anthologies, Time travel
ISBN: 9781565049857
Publisher: White Wolf Publishing
Published: 2010-01-21T15:39:38+00:00

EIGHTEEN

Katrina peered across the table and sought to break the unhappy silence between them.

"A family, you said? Father, mother, and child? A healthy child? How old was he?"

"I don't know: three, maybe four. The kid was having himself a fine time--playing, hollering, picking up things--until I scared off his parents." Chaney still felt bitter about that encounter. "They all looked healthy enough. They _ran_ healthy."

Katrina nodded her satisfaction. "It gives one hope for the future, doesn't it?"

"I suppose so."

She reprimanded him: "You _know_ so. If those people were healthy, they were eating well and living in some degree of safety. If the man carried no weapon, he thought none was needed. If they had a child and were together, family life has been re-established. And if that child survived his birth and was thriving, it suggests a quiet normalcy has returned to the world, a measure of sanity. All that gives me hope for the futare."

"A quiet normalcy," he repeated. "The sun in that sky was quiet. It was cold out there."

The dark eyes peered at him. "Have you ever admitted to yourself that you could be wrong, Brian? Have you even thought of your translations today? You were a stubborn man; you came close to mocking Major Moresby."

Chaney failed to answer: it was not easy to reassess the _Eschatos_ scroll in a day. A piece of his mind insisted that ancient Hebrew fiction was only fiction.

They sat in the heavy silence of the briefing room, looking at each other in the lantern light and knowing this was coming to an end. Chaney was uneasy. There had been a hundred--a thousand--questions he'd wanted to ask when he first walked into the room, when he first discovered her, but now he could think of little to say. Here was Katrina, the once youthful, radiant Katrina of the swimming pool--and outside was Katrina's family waiting for him to leave.

He wanted desperately to ask one more question but at the same time he was afraid to ask: what happened to _him_ after his return, after the completion of the probe? What had happened to _him?_ He wanted to know where he had gone, what he had done, how he had survived the perilous years--he wanted to know if he had survived those years. Chaney was long convinced that he was not on station in 1980, not there at the time of the field trials, but where was he then? She might have some knowledge of him after he'd finished the mission and left; she might have kept .in touch. He was afraid to ask. Pindar's advice stopped his tongue.

He got up suddenly from his chair. "Katrina, will you walk downstairs with me?"

She gave him a strange look, an almost frightened look, but said: "Yes, sir."

Katrina left her chair and came around the table to him. Age had slowed her graceful walk and he was acutely distressed to see her move with difficulty. Chaney picked up a lantern, and offered her his free arm. He felt a flush of excitement as she neared him, touched him.

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