Time Travelers Never Die (29 page)

“No, of course not.”

“It’s all there. People in power need to speak up when authority gets abused. Unfortunately, even in democracies, sometimes they sit back and let the idiots run things.”

Paine was enjoying one of Mrs. Kirkbride’s biscuits. “I’m sure it would get abused. If there
were
any democracies.”

“We have one here, sir.”

“Not yet.”

Dave couldn’t resist jumping in: “Dr. Franklin was wondering whether you’ve been making any progress with your history of the Revolution?”

“At the moment, I’m preoccupied, sir. But I’m keeping a journal. It’ll happen eventually.”

“Good.”

Dave knew, of course, that it would not. Paine would be preoccupied for a lifetime.

“I’m also thinking about writing a treatise on religion.”

“Really? That would be interesting.”

“I hope not to offend either of you gentlemen, but unbridled faith creates enormous problems. And generates stupidities that leave me breathless.” He shook his head. “It’s on my mind because we had two incidents here during the past few weeks.”

“Really? And what might they have been?”

“Two demons allegedly showed up at a wedding.”

“You’re not serious, Tom.”

By now, even Kirkbride was loosening up. “There were a dozen people,” he said, “who swore they simply popped in out of nowhere, then vanished again. Before everyone’s eyes. Frightful-looking creatures, they said.”

“A week or so before that,” Paine added, “the son of one of our local farmers claimed to have seen something similar. A devil who floated down out of the sky.”

Shel laughed. “It just amazes me what people will believe.”

Paine finished his third muffin and expressed his compliments to Mrs. Kirkbride. Then to Shel and Dave: “We get indoctrinated when we’re young. Some of our people are as bad as those New England idiots. They hear about witches and devils, and they start seeing them.”

“What did they look like?” asked Dave.

“The ones at the wedding had horns,” said Kirkbride. “Eyes on fire, claws, the usual. I don’t recall hearing anything about tails. Did these creatures have tails, Melissa? Do you know?”

“Not that I heard, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”

“The world,” said Dave, “needs a book about common sense.”

“I’ve already done that.”

“I mean, common sense about other things. Not just politics.”

Melissa took offense at that. “Tom’s book was not simply about politics,” she said.

“You know,” said Paine, “the world really does need such a book. Something that will make a stand for reason rather than the ravings of lunatics.” He cleared his throat. “It
would
need a provocative title, though.”

Shel thought about it. Smiled. “How about
The Age of Reason
?”

My stern chase after time is, to borrow a simile from Tom Paine, like the race of a man with a wooden leg after a horse.

 

 

 

 

THEY
left Joseph Kirkbride’s home and walked away from the town into the woods. To a place where they couldn’t be seen. “Somebody sees us come out of there,” said Dave, “and vanish, it would create some problems for them.”

“You mean where Paine gets picked up for witchcraft and never completes
The American Crisis
? He hasn’t finished it yet, has he?”

“I don’t think so. He’s published the first four parts. I don’t know what else has actually been written.”

“So the rest of it goes by the board, and the Revolution fails. We go back to a country run by the U.K. That’s the way these things usually work on television.”

“That’s the way.”

“I don’t think,” said Shel, “we’d need to worry about a witchcraft trial. This is south Jersey, not New England.”

“You saw those people at the wedding. I wouldn’t be too sure.”

They seemed safely lost among the trees. “Ready to go?” asked Shel.

Dave’s converter was clipped to his belt. He lifted the lid. “All set.”

“See you at home.”

Dave pressed the button and watched the trees and sky begin to fade, watched the familiar walls of Shel’s den take shape. The leaves and twigs underfoot were replaced by soft carpet.

He looked for Shel.

And waited.

Come on, Adrian.

 

 

HE
set the converter to return to the point of origin, and went back to the forest. Shel was standing there, holding the unit in his hand, and impatiently stabbing at it with his index finger. “It doesn’t want to work,” he said. “I had a problem with it earlier, too.”

“What’s wrong?”

“How the hell would I know?” He sat down on the trunk of a fallen tree and removed the power pack. “It got dropped a couple of times while we were dealing with those farmers. Something’s probably loose. But let me try a test.” He handed the power pack to Dave. “See if you can make yours work with that.”

Dave exchanged the power packs, hit the button, and went back to the town house. Moments later he’d returned to the forest. “It’s okay,” he said.

Shel scratched one ear and looked at his own unit. “Okay. So now it’s official. It’s broken.”

“I’ve got room for a hitchhiker.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“What do you suggest?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re sure there isn’t another converter at home somewhere?”

“None that I know of.”

Dave put a hand on his unit. “So we try it with this one and find out what happens.”

Shel ran his fingers through his hair. “Okay,” he said finally.

Dave moved next to him and grabbed hold of his belt. “Ready?”

“Okay.”

Dave hit the key. The road and the countryside faded. And came back.

“Try again,” said Shel.

Dave tried again. It left them still standing in the woods.

“Well.” Shel looked distinctly unhappy. “What now?”

“I don’t know.”

Shel sat back down on the log. He closed his eyes for a few moments, then brightened. “I have an idea.”

 

 

DAVE
returned once more to the town house. He took the converter off his belt, tied it to a cushion, set it to return to the woods, and sent it on its way.

Except that it didn’t move. It and the cushion remained solid and immobile on the floor. He tried it a second time, with the same result.

Damn.

He went back to the forest, looked at Shel, and shook his head. “What happened?” asked Shel.

“Nothing. Apparently it doesn’t like to transport pillows.”

Shel lifted his hands at the sky. “Why me, Lord?”

“I guess,” said Dave, “it won’t work unless somebody’s connected to it.”

“It’s a fail-safe, Dave.”

“How do you mean?”

“They’ve built something in to prevent its activating accidentally. Like if you drop it.”

“How would you do that?”

“Damned if I know. But that’s what they’ve done.”

“This is turning into a donkey drill.”

“I know. Maybe it’s time I started looking for a hotel.”

“Not yet.” A large yellow butterfly drifted past. “Can I get into your computer?”

“Password is
spiffy
.”

“Don’t ask.”

DAVE
returned to the town house. They needed Shel’s father. Maybe there was a better way than all the historical guesswork.

He googled
Michael Shelborne
. And got hundreds of hits. Michael Shelborne at the Smithsonian. At the University of Maryland. Shelborne’s paper on temporal anomalies. His paper on slotted-line measurement. Shelborne gets Tindle Award. Kraus Award. Invited to annual Vatican symposium.

There were several other Michael Shelbornes: a mystery writer, a former senator from Idaho, a noted chess player, a serial killer, and a pioneer in the development of stage lines in central Italy during the mid- seventeenth century.

But he could find no clue revealing where
the
Michael Shelborne might have gone. Then, suddenly, he wondered how many people in seventeenth-century Italy had owned a name like
Shelborne.

He went back and looked at the biography. There wasn’t much. Shelborne’s birth date, 1570, was given as an approximation, as was his date of death, 1650. He’d lived in Caréo, near Florence, during the middle of the seventeenth century, where he’d been deeply involved in connecting Rome, Florence, and Naples via stagecoaches.

He looked at a map: Caréo was only a short distance from Arcetri, Galileo’s home.

 

 

DAVE
was on his way out to his car, intending to drive home and change into robes, when he realized he didn’t need to go back to the Renaissance looking for Michael Shelborne. There was a much easier way to rescue Shel.

He used the converter to put him back inside the town house at two o’clock the previous Friday, when Shel was at the office. Once there, he retrieved the key to the desk from the Phillies cup. He opened the bottom desk drawer. It held both converters. One was the same one he had clipped to his belt; the other would break down later in Bordentown. He knew of no way to distinguish them. Not that it mattered. He took one, closed the drawer, and locked it.

He set his own converter to take him back to Bordentown, and was relieved when he emerged only a few feet from Shel, whose eyes bulged when he saw the second unit. “Where’d you get that?”

Dave explained. Shel laughed and shook his head. “Good idea.”

“Let’s go home.”

Shel nodded. And this time, both appeared more or less simultaneously in the town-house den.

 

 

DAVE’S
first act was to go back an additional two days and return the converter he’d borrowed to Shel’s desk. “Can’t be too careful,” he said, when the task was finished.

“You know,” said Shel, “it looks as if we have as many converters as we could possibly want.”

“You mean by going back and retrieving them.”

“Yes.”

“That might be Cardiac City.”

“That’s begun to seem a little silly now. Anyhow, you’re okay, aren’t you?”

“I’m okay. I’m not sure whether that would hold true if we didn’t put the converter back.” Dave was taking off his jacket. “Shel, remember the Atlantic.”

“I know.” Shel sank into a chair. “We’re down to one converter now. So we’re not going to be able to do this anymore, the way we have been.”

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean,
maybe
?”

“Shel, I’m not sure, but I think I’ve found your father.”

Galileo was obliged to retract by those mitred marionettes who are today tyrants and the shame of Italy.

 

 

 

 

“WE
put the extra converter away too soon,” said Shel.

“I guess,” said Dave. “Let’s hope this is the last time.”

Shel used the working converter to go back to the early morning and retrieve both units, for a total of three. That provided an additional one for his father, should they find him. He assured the Powers That Be that he’d replace them literally within seconds after their return from Italy.

Now they were ready to go after Michael Shelborne again. By then, both were convinced that the man in Florence would indeed turn out to be Shel’s father. “We’re going to find out,” Shel predicted, “that he dropped the converter. And got stuck. Just the way I did.”

They arrived in open country, in a field, on a cool morning in May 1640. Two young men, probably teens, were working in the field, about a mile away, and the first thing Shel did was look for dogs. The kids saw them. One waved. Shel and Dave waved back and started in their direction.

They were on their knees, doing something to the soil, spreading fertilizer, perhaps. One got up as they approached. “Hello,” he said. “Are you lost?”

“Yes,” said Dave. “We’re looking for Caréo.”

“You have to get back on the road.” He pointed in the direction from which they’d come. “Go left. It’s about a twenty-minute walk.”

 

 

DAVE
stopped an elderly couple traveling in a cart and asked if they knew of a Michael Shelborne, who lived in Caréo.

“Well, he
used
to live here,” said the woman.

“Has he moved?”

“Oh, no, sir. He’s
dead.
”

Shel didn’t have to wait for the translation.

“Are you sure?” asked Dave.

“Oh, yes. It was three or four years ago, wasn’t it, Poppa?”

“Yes,” Poppa replied. “He was a good man. Did you know him?”