All the Colors of Time (24 page)

“You dodge the issue, Doctor. I suspect that what Mr.
Schiflin has confiscated from your son is a top secret invention. The question
is: Whose top secret is it? Ours or theirs? Did you steal it from SAC
Headquarters or did you bring it with you as a tool of the trade?”

“If we’d stolen it,” reasoned Helen, “we’d hardly let our
son take it to school.”

Benoit looked unconvinced. “Oh, but boys will be boys. Your
son can’t be expected to ignore such a curiosity. Or maybe . . .
.” He rose dramatically and paced around his desk to perch against the front of
it, looming over them like a clumsy, cliché movie cop. “Maybe Tamujin
wanted
to get caught. Maybe he wanted
you to get caught—to end the years of subterfuge and pretense, the years of
lonely, trackless wandering.”

He gazed down at them soulfully, and was rewarded by their
sudden, startled exchange of glances.

“Do you think—?” asked Troy.

“I didn’t realize—” murmured Helen.

“They must be more miserable—”

“Than we had any conception.”

“I feel like such an ignoramus.”

“And selfish.”

“And sorry?” asked Benoit eagerly.

“Well, of course,” said Troy. “Those kids must be desperate.”

“We’ve got to do something, Troy,” said Helen.

“Sign a confession,” urged Benoit, leaning over them.

Troy waved at him as if he were a buzzing insect. “Helen,
have we been that—”

“Self-absorbed?” She nodded emphatically. “We owe those poor
kids an apology.”

“You owe this country an apology!”

“Maybe, but what they did was completely out of
tune—underhanded. They could have
said
something.”

“They did. They blew your cover!”

“They did, honey. They said a lot of somethings. We didn’t
listen. We were too busy being . . .”

“Spies?”

“Academicians. That’s what that mongoose was all about. They
wanted a real home, not an antiseptic holding pen. They were happy at the Farm.”

“Mongoose? Farm? What’s that—code?”

Helen nodded, grimacing. “The Farm.” She put her hand on his
khaki covered knee. “We need to talk this out with them. Listen to them.
Compromise.”

“You’re already compromised,” said Benoit.

“There’s only one problem, Helen. We haven’t finished our
research in this time zone.”

“Oh, you’re finished in this time zone, all right, Doctor.
And when Colonel Powers gets here—”

“Who?” Both Joneses turned their heads, speaking in perfect,
two part harmony.

“Colonel Powers from Strategic Air Command, the Little
Pentagon, the place you’ve been spying on.” Benoit was obviously pleased to
have finally gotten their attention. “I called when this all began to come
together. He’ll be here any minute to question you and to see this.” He patted
the dictionary.

“Do you suppose we’ll actually stay around to meet him?”
asked Troy.

Benoit looked as if he’d believed it up until that very
moment.

“You’re right about this,” Troy continued, nodding at the
dictionary. “It is, as you suspected, a highly sophisticated piece of
equipment. It’s not only a Russian-English translator, it’s a communications
device, which you have activated, signaling our operatives as to our exact
location. And—” He snatched up the little machine, activated it, and turned the
glowing green button atop it on the gaping principal. “—it’s also a weapon—a
laser beam gun, to be exact.”

He rose, taking his wife’s hand. “Come, my dear. The
submarine is waiting.”

They backed toward the door of the office, keeping the
startled teachers covered with the dictionary.

Troy opened the door and ushered Helen through. “Za mir,” he
said. “Oh, and Pazh’loosta.”

oOo

“Here they come,” said Tam urgently. He let the curtain
fall back across the front window and headed for the kitchen.

“Wow, they’re really trekkin’!” said Constantine, impressed
with his parent’s speed.

“They keep looking behind them,” observed Tahireh. “I wonder
if there’s a mob after them like that time in Salem.”

Stasi shook her head. “I don’t see anybody. I think I hear
sirens, though.”

“Hey, you guys!” shouted Tam from the direction of the
kitchen. “Stations!”

Children flew in all directions, assuming nonchalant,
relaxed poses; looking studious, looking bored, looking in the refrigerator for
leftovers.

The front door slammed open, then shut again, admitting two
gasping, giggling adults.

“Stations, everybody!” Helen wheezed. “We’re powering up!”

Galvanized, the kids followed their parents trail as far as
the dining room. There, they stopped to exchange bug-eyed glances, clicking
invisible glasses over success beyond their wildest dreams. They heard the soft
hum of the Temporal Grid coming on line and bolted, as a unit, for the Lab.

Their parents stood at the console; Father checking
settings, Mother clearing an emergency Shift through the QuestLabs Controller.
The hum grew to a flute-tone—a warm wave of pure sound. The walls of the two
story brick house began to glow softly violet, to tremble, to run and change
and remold themselves to vapor.

“We’re on our way,” murmured Helen.

“On our way?” asked Stasi. “On our way where, Mama?”

“Home,” Helen said and turned to give her children a fierce
grin. “Home, where you four will do some stiff penance.”

“Penance?” asked Tam warily. “What penance?”

“Your father and I gave it some serious thought while we
were galloping up that hill tonight.”

“Serious,” agreed Troy, eyes on his monitor.

“And?”

Four children held their breath.

“When we get back to the Farm . . . “

Their mother keyed a last sequence, depressed a final
button. The walls melted into a glorious violet spray, ran to red, to sunset,
to Sun itself. Colors exploded in the walls; splashed and crested, then
imploded becoming solid, opaque, mundane.

Helen Jones turned back to her children with a terrifying
glare.

“You’re all grounded.”

The four pairs of eyes got wider.

“Grounded?”

“Grounded. No Temporal Shifting, no terrorizing small
mid-western towns, no anachronistic dabblings.”

“Never, ever again?” asked Tahireh, her brow furrowing.

“Well,” the Doctors Jones traded glances.

“Maybe . . .” began Helen.

“. . . during vacation,” finished Troy.

Tam was troubled. Now that he had what he wanted, he wasn’t
sure he should have gotten it. “But Dad, what about your work?”

“We’ll just have to adapt—compromise. But we will not
compromise on your . . . discipline. You heard your mother. You’re
grounded. Right here, in Twenty-one—um,” he checked his chronometer, “twelve.”

The four pairs of eyes blinked. The taciturn Constantine let
out a jubilant whoop. Tahireh giggled. Stasi hugged both her parents.

“Thanks, Dad! Thanks, Mom!” said Tam. “C’mon, you guys, let’s
go check out the old neighborhood.”

The noisy rabble rolled out of the Lab, through the house
and out the front door. The elder Joneses followed their progress with the
delicate sonar of parenthood.

“Extraordinary,” said Troy. “We’ve spent our lives studying
history, but today was the first time we’ve actually
made
history. Do you realize that for the first time since the
birth of the Universe, children were grounded and liked it?”

Helen looked thoughtful. “An interesting phenomenon. We’d be
delinquent not to record it for posterity.”

“A research paper?”

“Why not a book?
The
Effects of Temporal Shift on Adolescent and Pre-Adolescent Development.
”

Troy Jones nodded, experiencing that peculiar, warm, fuzzy
feeling he always associated with love and new projects. “I like the sound of
that,” he said.

oOo

Out under the autumn trees, Stasi and Tam surveyed the
familiar and found it wonderful. Not far off, Tahireh and Constantine rolled in
the grass of Home, giggling.

Tam took a deep breath. “Dad got the dictionary back,” he
said. “I saw it on the Console. It’s kinda weird, thinking how close we came to
making an indelible mark on history. It’ll be a relief when QuestLabs perfects
that Anachron Object Recall System.”

Stasi’s mouth did funny things at the corners. “I hope they
perfect it soon.”

“Huh? Why? I just said Dad got the dictionary back.”

“Yeah. Well, I did something sort of . . .
dumb.” She glanced at him out of the tail of one eye. “I lent Elaine a book.”

Return to Table of Contents

I’ve always been fascinated by archaeology, which is probably
why I created Rhys Llewellyn in the first place—he feeds my Indiana Joneses.
But I sometimes wonder how much our own cultural contexts influence our
surmises about what role some artifacts really played in the lives of the
ancients. Naturally, I figured there was a story in that . . .

oOo

“I’m telling you, this is the opportunity of a lifetime.
Not only is this one of the most exciting archaeological finds since … since . . .”
Rhys Llewellyn’s hands searched the air for a suitable comparison.

Danetta Price, CEO of Tanaka Enterprises, settled in her
chair and propped sneakered feet atop the coffee table in the small lounge/mess
of Rhys’s corporate schooner,
Ceilidh
.
She was wise enough not to try to finish the sentence. That would be sure to
send him off into a litany on the accuracies and inaccuracies of her choice.

“I get the picture,” she told him dryly. “Now, would you
kindly stop pacing and tell me—”

But he’d gotten himself unstuck and was off again. “And of
course, to work with Dr. Burton… I did tell you I studied under him at
Edinburgh?” Seeing her nod, he forged on. “I was in awe of the man, Danetta.
Sheerly and purely in awe of him. He’s been more influential in my life as an
archaeologist—”

“I hear you, Rhys!” Danetta chuckled and peered at her chief
negotiator between the toes of her sneakers. “How long do you think you’ll be
gone?”

Rhys ran a hand through his unruly red hair and grinned
ruefully. “Sorry. I’m not sure how long I’ll be gone precisely—” Reading her
frown, he added, “But no more than a month or two at best.”

“At worst you mean.”

“I have the time coming.”

Danetta raised a restraining hand. “I know. You have months
of leave coming. I’m only selfishly concerned with the state of our negotiating
team without you and yours on it. I don’t suppose you intend to leave Yoshi and
Rick out of this little junket.”

Rhys scratched behind his ear, a gesture Danetta knew meant
he thought he was asking for the moon. “Well, actually, I thought they’d enjoy
the break. It’s been a while since any of us has worked in the field. Not that
I’m belittling your efforts to keep us in trim. That conference on
xenoanthropology last month was marvelous. But we all miss the field work—and this,
well—”

“Yes, I know—once in a lifetime opportunity, greatest dig
since King Tut, close company with the God of Archaeology.”

Rhys flushed. “Please, Danetta, I don’t worship the man, but
I’ve the deepest respect for his accomplishments. And I said not one word about
‘King Tut,’ which, as you ought to know was a find of very little historical
significance—”

“Okay, okay. Saint Burton, then, and you can pick your own
dig.” Danetta uncrossed her legs and stood, straightening bright silk shorts
around her hips. “As if I’d ever say ‘no’ to you, Rhys McCrae Llewellyn. Go on
your little sabbatical, with my blessing. We don’t have any major bids in the
offing that our regular crew can’t handle. If Yosh and Rick want to tag along,
they’re certainly entitled. They’ve got as big a backlog of leave as you have.
It’s not my idea of a dream vacation, but, to each his own. Now . . .”
She glanced purposefully at the door to the companionway. “If you don’t think
me rude, I’ll just take my little cutter and shift on back to the home world.
It’s been about two months since I’ve seen my beloved husband. And the changes
on Tson are happening just about as fast as he can handle them.”

She circled the table, caught Rhys by the upper arms and
gave him a solid kiss on the cheek. “Bon voyage, Professor. Have a nice dig.”

Rhys waited a restrained five seconds after the lounge doors
closed before executing a four-foot-high pirouette and a clan McCrae war whoop.
He’d landed and was going up for a second revolution when Yoshi Umeki poked her
head into the room from the adjoining galley.

“Sir? Are you all right?”

He caught himself on the back of a chair, narrowly avoiding
a trip to the floor, and straightened his flight suit. “Are you all right,
Rhys,
” he corrected.

Her smile was brief and bright. “Are you all right, Rhys?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” He rubbed his hands together briskly,
a gesture which Yoshi knew was usually followed by some outrageous suggestion. “How
would you like to go on a little vacation?”

oOo

The “little vacation” began with the passengers and crew
of the
Ceilidh
in an induced sleep
preparatory to a shift to the distant precincts of a star its human visitors
called Leguin. They would travel simultaneously through space and time—outward
through one, backward and forward through the other—to arrive at their
destination within a week of when they had left their point of origin. The week
of travel time was composed entirely of inter-shift stops to reorient the ship
for its next jump and check the health of its passengers; the temporal shift
itself was virtually instantaneous. Backward and forward went the
Ceilidh
, safeguards built into her
temporal grid dictating that she ascended through time exactly as far as she
had descended. Rhys, as always, slid toward sleep, imagining what it would be
like if they were only allowed to take a detour now and then.