Time Travelers Never Die (27 page)

 

DAVE’S
classes at Penn had become impossible. Getting through the days talking about Greek pronouns and Latin verbs was overwhelming him. He wanted to tell his classes that he’d been to the Library at Alexandria. And to Selma. Tell them he was planning to go to classical Athens that weekend to see
Prometheus Bound
.

He ached to go down to the next English Department meeting and describe his conversations with Lamb and Coleridge. That maybe, if he was in the mood, he’d wander over to Oxford this evening and have tea with A. E. Housman.

“Life has become better than I’d ever dreamed possible,” he told Shel one evening at the Wan Ho Chinese Restaurant. “The only downside is that we haven’t been able to find your father. And that we can’t tell anybody about what we’re doing.”

“I know, Dave.”

“We should write a book.”

“I’ve been doing something like that.”

“What?”

“I’ve been keeping a journal. Everything’s in there, pictures, recordings, my reactions. Everything.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“Probably nothing. It’s for
me
.” And, after a moment: “It seemed as if there should be
some
kind of record.”

 

 

THEY
went back to the Library, took Aristarchus to lunch, and recorded some more plays, mostly Sophocles and Euripides, and a substantial section of the Periclean journal. Aristarchus asked whether they’d found Michael. “It’s hard to believe,” he said, “that men with such godlike capabilities can’t locate him.”

They sent the Periclean material, and two more plays,
Troilus
and
The Hawks
, to Aspasia. She reacted by posting a message at her Web site, pleading with them to contact her.

That night Shel and Dave met in a restaurant in King of Prussia. Both were eating cheesesteaks when Shel said, quietly, “There’s one more possibility we haven’t tried.”

“What’s that?”

“Thomas Paine. My father has his collected works at home. Always thought he was really the guy who drove the Revolution.”

He’d caught Dave in the perfect mood. “Tom Paine? Yes. Of all those guys at the beginning,
he’s
the one I’d most like to meet.”

“We could go down to Emilio’s Saturday. Get some clothes.”

 

 

PAINE
had spent much of his time on the road, traveling with the army, and had been a frequent visitor at their camps. “We have a couple of dates when he was present at Valley Forge,” said Shel. “That would be the right setting. The place to find him.”

Dave frowned. “Bring a good jacket.”

“Not a problem.”

“Also not a good idea.”

“You think they’d take us for British spies?”

“I think they’d take us for guys who don’t belong in the camp. We’d be questioned and probably jailed. If we were lucky.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Arrange the encounter to happen
after
the war.”

“That takes all the passion out of it. Anyway, I think my father would have wanted to see him at the height of the action.”

“Okay.” Dave googled Paine. Flipped through the entries. “Here’s one,” he said. “He was in Philadelphia in 1777. In September. Arranging for publication of
The American Crisis
. The Brits closed in, and he cleared out.”

“Where’d he go?”

“He had a friend in Bordentown, New Jersey. Joseph Kirkbride. He went up there and stayed with him through the winter.”

 

 

BORDENTOWN
lay on the Delaware River, northeast of Philadelphia. Its population was small, but it was a hotbed of anti-British sentiment. Consequently, the British sent their Hessian mercenaries to seize the town in 1776.

Shel and Dave had no interest in landing in the middle of the fighting. Late 1777 seemed relatively safe. The British Army, by then, was still in the general neighborhood, but there was no record of action in the immediate area.

They arrived Saturday, September 21, at 10:30 A.M.

In someone’s backyard. Dave found himself staring at a startled woman in a bridal gown. Her eyes had gone wide, and hysterical people were staring at him. A guy who might have been a groom screamed. An older man in ceremonial garb seized a cross from a small table and thrust it in his face. A deep voice behind him growled that “It’s exactly what happened over at Robbie’s last week.” Dave would have laughed had circumstances been a bit different. Absolutely, he thought, apparitions everywhere.

The cleric stepped forward, shielding the bride from whatever intentions Shel and Dave might have, and made the sign of the cross in the air. “Begone, Satan,” he said. “In the name of the Lord, I command you, begone. Leave this place.”

Footsteps were rushing up behind them. And Shel’s voice: “Clear out, Dave.”

“I say,
Leave, Spawn of the Devil
.”

Dave hit the button, and moments later he was collapsing in laughter on the sofa in the town house, waving at Shel, who was coming in across the room. In near hysteria.

When they’d calmed down, he said, “Think of the stories they’ll have to tell their grandkids.”

“Placement was perfect,” said Dave, when he got a semblance of control over his voice. “We were right up front. I bet you couldn’t do that again in a thousand years.”

“He’d probably just asked whether anyone had a reason why this couple should not be joined in holy wedlock.”

“Well, I’ve been called a lot of things—”

“All right. Shall we try again?”

“Sure. But let’s move a little to the north. The other side of town.”

Shel sat down with the converters. “I’ll set them to arrive a week earlier this time. Just so we don’t run into anybody who recognizes us.” He handed Dave’s unit back to him. “Ready?”

THEY
were in a field. The ground was flat, with lots of grass. There were a silo and a barn, some trees, and a grazing horse. And, just past the barn, a farmhouse. In the distance they could see a river. That would be the Delaware.

A man carrying what looked like a hoe came out of the barn, saw them, and stopped to stare. “Bordentown should be south,” said Shel, consulting his compass.

Before Dave could respond, a howl came from the direction of the barn. Two hounds raced out of the open doorway and charged. The guy with the hoe threw the implement aside, ran back into the barn, and emerged with a shotgun.

“Go,” said Shel. “Clear out.”

Dave pressed the button, watched the dogs fade into spectral light, and was glad to see the walls of Shel’s den materialize. He waited for Shel.

And waited.

Shel should have appeared over by the armchair near the fireplace.

But he didn’t.

When I contemplate the natural dignity of man; when I feel (for
Nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for
the honour and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the
attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all
knaves and fools. . . .

 

 

 

 

IT’S
hard to stay cool when two drooling hounds are coming after you. Shel should have simply stayed still and used the converter to leave. But he hadn’t attached the instrument to his belt, still had it in his hands, which, ironically, was what he’d started doing after the incident with the highwaymen. If he were holding it, he’d reasoned, he could press the button in an eyeblink. Get out of there at a moment’s notice. It had even been his advice to Dave.

The problem with having it in his hands was that it also made the device hostage to involuntary physical reactions. When the hounds showed up, Shel shrieked and flipped the device into the air.

He almost dived after it, but reflexes took over, and he froze. The dogs growled and snarled and dripped saliva and showed their teeth, but they didn’t attack. The farmer, though, had seen Dave vanish, and he now stood watching Shel with a shotgun pointed at him but held in trembling hands.

“Don’t shoot,” said Shel, trying to look friendly.

He was in his twenties. A kid. Yellow hair, the beginnings of a beard, sallow skin, thin lips. He just stared, with his mouth hanging open.

“Sorry,” Shel said. “I guess we—”

“What are you?” the kid asked.

“I’m just—”

“Where’d the other one go?”

Then Dave reappeared. First the aura, a silver glow—it was silver by daylight, gold in the dark—then a human form taking shape, growing solid. The kid swung the gun toward it while he stumbled backward. The radiance went away, and Dave stood there, Dave in all his glory, gawking at the weapon, carrying two pork chops from Shel’s refrigerator.

The dogs went after him. Dave tossed them the meat, but they paid no attention. One sank its teeth into Dave’s leg. He yelled and went down. And vanished again.

If the kid had been scared a moment before, his mental state now went to pieces. He screamed and fired a blast at a tree. “Look,” said Shel. “I know this looks strange—”

“Keep your hands up.” It was part screech. The weapon was a single-shot, and the kid was making no effort to reload, but the dogs were still there.

“Okay.” Shel raised them as high as he could.

The kid kept raising the barrel of the shotgun, signaling
higher, higher
. At the same time, he begged Shel not to hurt him.

“I won’t. I wouldn’t hurt anyone. Look, my name’s Shel—”

“Don’t tell me your name.” He was still backing away, eyes terrified. My God, at best, he was going to leave Shel with the hounds.

The converter was lying at the base of a tree. Too far away. He couldn’t get to it before the dogs got to
him
.

The kid switched the weapon to his left hand and began crossing himself. He seemed unaware that the chamber was empty. The hounds kept making false lunges at Shel and licking their lips. The kid stumbled into a hole and juggled the weapon and finally went down.

Then he was on his knees, the weapon still aimed at Shel. “Hey,” said Shel. “The dogs. Take the dogs with you.”

“Yeah,” said the kid. “Okay.” Absolutely. Anything you want. “But you go away, right?”

“Yes. Sure. Absolutely. Won’t come back.”

“Oscar,” he said. “Roamer. Come over here.”

The dogs turned to look at him. Then turned their attention back to Shel.

“Over here,” the kid said, as sternly as he could manage. Then somebody else came running. Out of the farmhouse. “Jake, what’s going on?” He was a big guy, probably would have been as tall as Dave had he stood straight, but he hunched over. His face was full of wrinkles and whiskers.

“Dad, we got some kind of devil.”

Dad was coming as fast as he could. “Just relax, Jake. Don’t shoot him.”

One of the hounds was sniffing at the converter.

Shel started to drop his arms, but the father told him to keep them in the air. “What’s he doin’ here?”

“Dad, there were two of them.”

“Two? Where’s the other one?”

“Don’t know. He just went away. Disappeared.”

The father surveyed the area. It was wide-open, except for a few scattered trees. “What are you talking about?”

“They come and go,” Jake said. “The other one came back.” His weapon was still trembling.

“You better give me that,” said the father. He checked the weapon, reloaded it, but pointed it at Shel’s feet. One of the hounds went over and began rubbing Dad’s leg. “Who are you, mister? And what are you doing here?”

“I’m a researcher,” Shel said. “Conducting an experiment. But I got lost.”

“Is there somebody else?”

“Another man?”

“Yes. What did you
think
I meant?”

“I don’t know,” said Shel. “I came alone.”

Jake snarled. “You’re a
liar
. There
was
another one, Dad. I’m telling you—”

“If there was, where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Sir,” said Shel, “I dropped that over there.” He nodded at the converter. “I’d like to get it back, if it’s okay.”

“What is it?”

“It, um, measures light. We’re trying to make better lamps.”

Dad walked over and picked it up. He looked at it and put it in his pocket. “You know what I think?” he said. “I think you’re a spy for the goddam redcoats. Why don’t you just come with me?”

“Okay. But could I have my inclinator?”

“Is that what you call it?”

“Yes.”

“Why? What’s it do again? Measures light?”

“It measures the
inclination
of the light.”

Dad laughed. “Whatever that means.” He checked to be sure Shel had no weapons, and found the gooseberry. “What’s this?”