The Two Timers (19 page)

As he listened, Jack Breton felt the insupportable weight of two universes
transferred to his own shoulders. His grotesque older self's descriptions
of the agony and horror that lay in this time-stream's future struck deeply
into Jack's soul and body; he felt a wrenching sickness growing in his
stomach, chilling sweat covering him. His own private universe was
crumbling about him, and he wanted to deny it, to shout "No!" as though
that would change things.
But Breton Senior stood waiting before him, a Dorian Grey image of his
past and his future.
Shuddering, he threw the pistol aside and ran forward, grasping Breton
Senior's hand.
"All right -- I'll go back," he whispered. "You can let go now. I promise."
Breton Senior hesitated, judging; but then, perhaps realizing he had no
more time, he said:
"Thanks."
The vibrations of the single word were still in the air when Breton
Senior had vanished. Jack Breton found himself staring at the workbench
through empty space. He turned helplessly and looked at John Breton,
whose face had become ashen with shock. They experienced a moment of
pure understanding which had nothing to do with telepathy.
"I .. ." Jack searched for words. "I'll get you out of that fishing line."
"I'd appreciate it. I'll still hate your guts, though."
"Can't say I blame you."
Breton opened the workbench drawer and found another spool of fishing
line. He took it to the center of the basement and used its pressure
guillotine to cut the line around John's wrists. It parted with a metallic
click. He was fitting the jaws of the guillotine over the line connecting
John's arm to the ceiling joist when he heard a car slither to a halt
outside. The sound was followed by the banging of two doors.
Jack Breton shoved the spool into John's blood-streaked hand and ran to
the workbench. He leaped onto it and pulled aside the curtains of the
window above. In the garish light from the heavens he saw the outline
of Convery's Plymouth. Kate was already running towards the lodge,
the upper surfaces of her body linined in frosty silver. Breton filled
his eyes for the last time. The sight of her oval face, long thighs,
breasts uplifted by flight, sent pain flooding through him.
He let the curtain fall back in place and jumped down off the bench.
In the tool drawer he found a small screwdriver. He pushed his watch
further up on his arm, positioned the screwdriver blade directly over the
flat lump of the chronomotor module, and hesitated, looking up at John.
"You want to say goodbye?"
"Goodbye."
"Thanks."
Jack Breton stabbed the narrow blade deep into his wrist, and the Time B
world tilted ponderously away.
XVII
Convery got out of the car more slowly than did Kate Breton.
There was no need to hurry at this stage. The answers he had been seeking
for nine years were just a few yards from him, and there was no way they
could escape him now. He wanted to move gently, with the windows of his
mind wide open, drinking it all in -- because this was fulfillment.
The shifting light from the sky was bright enough to show each individual
pebble. He noted the Turbo-Lincoln parked close to the boathouse, and was
turning towards the lodge when he saw a shoe lying at the water's edge
and picked it up. It was the black slip-on he had noticed in Breton's hand
on the previous day. But why was it lying out here? Convery shrugged.
Another piece that would have to be fitted into the puzzle when the
final reckoning came.
Keeping the shoe in his hand, he jog-trotted towards the lodge behind
Kate Breton. He had taken only a few paces when someone drew aside the
curtain of a basement window at the front of the lodge, spilling white
fluorescent light on the ground. A man's face appeared at the window.
It could have been John Breton, but Convery was not sure. There might
have been another man standing behind the one at the window, but at that
instant a particularly bright spray of meteors raced across the sky,
and their reflections on the glass turned it to beaten silver. The
curtain fell back into place again.
Convery saw Kate Breton disappear into the lodge. He ran up the steps
and into the central room. It was in darkness and he had to halt and
grope for the light switch. When the lights came on he sprinted to the
basement door, dragged it open and skidded to a standstill on the small
wooden landing.
John and Kate Breton were standing in the center of the basement.
They were clinging to each other, and there was no other person present.
Convery began to feel a premonition, the first stirrings of dismay.
"All right," he snapped. "Where is he?"
"Who?" John Breton looked up blankly.
"The guy who brought you here. The kidnapper."
"Kidnapper?"
"Look -- no games, please." Convery went the rest of the way down the steps.
"Is there another way out of this building?"
"No."
"Then where's the man who locked your wife in a closet and brought
you here?"
"I'm sorry, Lieutenant," Kate Breton said, raising her head from her
husband's chest. "It's all been a mistake. This is a . . . domestic affair."
"I'm not accepting that for an answer." Convery kept his voice flat with
an effort.
"But what other answer is there?"
"That's what I intend to find out. Have you looked at yourself in a mirror,
John? You're in a mess -- why's that?"
Breton shrugged. "On weekends I'm a slob. Especially up here at the lake."
"There's a piece of fishing line tied around your arm -- why's that?"
"It just happened. I was measuring out some line and I tied myself
in knots."
Convery looked closely at Breton. His face was covered with day-old
bruises, but it seemed to have acquired a strength which had never
been there before. And there was the way the two Bretons were standing
together, almost merged into one. In the nature of Convery's job, he
was not called upon to witness demonstrations of love very often --
but he knew it when he saw it. That, too, was something that had been
changed by the events of the last few days. Another part of the mystery.
"I've given you a lot of trouble for nothing," Kate Breton said.
"Will you stay and have a drink with us?"
Convery shook his head, tasting defeat. "I can see you two want to be
alone." Aware that his irony had been wasted, he turned to leave and
remembered the shoe still in his hand. He held it out.
"Here's your shoe, John. I picked it up close to the water. I suppose
you'd noticed you're going around with only one on?"
"Yes." John Breton was grinning apologetically. "When I decide to act
like a slob, I really act like a slob."
"That's what I thought you'd say. Good night!"
Convery went up the wooden steps tiredly, and out into the cool night
air, his brow furrowed as he tried to assimilate the wealth of new clues
he had received. Overhead, the meteor showers were still burning their
way across the dark bowl of the sky, but they scarcely registered on
his consciousness.
They were classified, in the filing system of his mind, as: "Not relevant
to the problem."
Convery walked slowly to his car. And as he walked his right hand, of
its own accord, began flexing, twisting and unflexing -- waiting for
the magical voice which would never come.
XVIII
To Jack Breton it seemed that someone had merely turned out the basement
lights.
He stood in the sudden darkness, gasping with the intensity of the pain
in his wrist, and listening intently for any sound of movement upstairs.
After a few seconds he relaxed. The lodge was cold and empty in the Time A
universe, and not owned by a Breton. Suppose, the thought came, it isn't
owned by anybody, that the basement is locked up tight from the outside?
Breton took a step forward and, on the instant of moving off balance,
felt his legs buckle beneath him. He fell forward helplessly, thudded
against what felt like a large packing case, and sprawled on the dusty
floor. When he tried to scramble to his feet, his arms and legs trembled
violently and gave way, throwing him back down on his face.
The second time he was more cautious, gripping the packing case with
both hands and working himself upward inch by inch. On his feet again,
he leaned against the rough wood, breathing heavily.
Kate!
He stared around him blindly, chokingly aware that she was probably
right there in the basement, separated from him only by the intangible
barriers of probability. John Breton would be there, too, and their arms
would be around each other.
Jack Breton tensed himself, waiting for the influx of pain; but --
miraculously -- none came. Instead, he felt the clean, pure taste of
reconciliation. He had made a mistake once, but had corrected it. In
the end he had put everything right again.
He groped his way towards the stairs and, moving slowly like an old man,
reached the top. The door opened when he tried the handle. Beyond it
the lodge's central room was lit by the garish, variable light sweeping
in through the windows. The Time A world was experiencing its meteor
showers too, but now that he had balanced the cosmic books everything
would fall back into place again.
Before he closed the door behind him, Breton turned and stared down into
the silent darkness of the empty basement.
"Excuse me," he said, feeling foolish, but unable to prevent his lips
from forming the words. "I can see you two want to be alone."
He had an illogical conviction they would get his message.
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