TimeSlip (12 page)

She had agonized about the dedication, wavering between warm
and friendly to soppy and sentimental. In the end, she kept it simple—
For my
viking, from your family
. Although the back cover had a formal photograph
of her looking serious and academic, she persuaded the publisher to include a
small photograph of her and Adam on the inside the back cover.

“How is the famous author?” Finn swooped in for a kiss and
presented her with a bouquet of flowers. He was accompanied as usual by Chris
Myles, star of his latest stage production. Those two had been getting cozy
lately and Ingrid made a mental note to grill Finn about him later.

“Nervous as hell,” she admitted. “What if this doesn’t
work?”

“Don’t sweat it, Ingrid. When the big guy finds out about
Adam, he’ll probably park his spaceship in Merrion Square. Wouldn’t that be a
hoot?”

By the end of the evening, she had signed almost one-hundred
copies, mostly for actor friends of Finn and colleagues from her old job at the
museum. One hundred little messages to the one she loved, and she needed only
one response. She went home on a high.

Ingrid didn’t know what to expect when she woke the
following morning. Everything looked the same. She could hear the TV blaring in
sitting room. Adam must be up already, probably munching his way through a bowl
of dry cereal while he watched cartoons. In her dreams, Strom had magically
appeared, swept her off her feet and whisked her and Adam back to the future.
But nothing happened, and a week later she was still waiting. She had to accept
that it hadn’t worked.

* * * * *

As each week passed, her hopes faded. He wasn’t coming. She
had done her best, but Strom would never know about his son. She cried each
night after Adam went to sleep, and in some ways, it was worse than before. At
least she had hope then, but now she had none. She missed Finn. He seemed to be
avoiding her lately, spending hours at the theater. Some weeks she barely saw
him at all. It was time to stop moping about the viking and get back to normal.
She rang Finn’s number at the theater and left a message, promising to cook his
favorite dinner.

Finn was wearing a new blue shirt, his red hair was neatly
trimmed and she caught a faint hint of his favorite aftershave. If she didn’t
know any better, she might have thought that he had a date. She picked up the
plates and started to tidy up.

“Please, Ingrid, leave that. We need to talk.”

“Okay.” She sat down again. “Look Finn, I’m sorry about the
way I’ve been lately, I’ll try not to mope about him—”

“Ingrid, it’s not about you, it’s about me. I don’t know how
to say this, but Chris has been offered the lead in
Phantom
at the
Venetian in Las Vegas. It’s a big opportunity. Ingrid, I…” Finn reached across
the table and squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry, Ingrid.”

She had been so wrapped up in her own romance that she had
missed another one taking place right under her nose. Finn looked pleadingly at
her, begging her to understand that he wasn’t going to be around for much
longer.

“You want to go with him? Oh my god, Finn, is he, you know,
the
one
?”

When his eyes lit up, she knew for certain. Finn was her
best friend, the one who had stayed with her through the worst time of her
life, putting his own life on hold for her.

“I think so, Ingrid, but I’ve been afraid to say anything
because of—”

“Finn O’Leary, what did we vow on our wedding day? And I
don’t mean that love, honor and obey crap.”

Finn took her hand and rubbed his thumb gently against her
wedding ring. “That we would stay together until we met
the one
.”

Relief washed over his face and he hugged her tightly
against him. “You know that I’ll always love you, Sorrenson. Maybe you’ll meet
someone else. Not like the big guy, but different.”

Ingrid blinked away the tears that were threatening to spill
from her eyes. “Oh Finn, I couldn’t cope with a little love. I’ve already had
the big, messy, heartbreaking kind. It ruins you for anything else. Now get out
of here or Chris will be frantic.”

After he left, she tidied up and then tiptoed into the
bedroom and lay down beside Adam. The nursery ceiling was decorated with
stick-on stars, and every surface of the walls was covered in posters about
space and aliens. Like father, like son, she thought. Adam was sound asleep.
His little chest rose and fell steadily. Ingrid stroked his blond curls.

“Well, Adam, it looks as if we’re on our own.”

Spring 2529

Strom opened the door of his latest bachelor quarters with a
reluctant sigh. Déjà dump. His personal stuff had arrived from central storage
and the box sat on a cheap rug in the middle of the floor. He hadn’t unpacked
it in over two years. He bounced experimentally on the edge of the narrow bunk.
It was lumpy, so what else was new?

“Well, it looks like it’s you and me, box, how about a
date?”

Taking a laser-knife, he cut the tape and started to unpack.
One bottle of scotch three quarters full. Strom smiled and grabbed a glass and
poured a generous measure. Next out of the box were some trophies from Fleet
Academy. He didn’t know why he kept them. There was nothing more depressing to
a man than a reminder of his past glories.

An image projector, now that should cheer the place up a
bit. Strom switched it on and watched the images play across the wall. His hand
touched a paper cover. Damn and blast, it was Ingrid’s book. He had forgotten
to return it to the library at the cultural history museum.

“Shit, I wonder what the fine will be on that one.”

The solitary chair in the room looked like something from a
retirement colony, so he sat on the floor and crossed his legs. Ingrid. No
matter how far he traveled or who he met, he was never going to love anyone
else. Strom’s fingers traced the letters of her name and he opened the first
page and read the dedication,
F
or my viking, from your family
.

His heart did a flip in his chest. Surely he would have
remembered something like that? Strom flicked through the pages swiftly until
he reached the end, and there it was on the inside cover, a photograph of
Ingrid Sorrenson-O’Leary, and her son Adam. He took a deep gulp of scotch.

Jealousy ran through Strom’s veins like acid. None of this
made any sense. How could she have married Finn? He looked at the little boy in
the photograph. A boy with white-blond hair and dark eyes. Oh dear god. Ingrid
was the cleverest woman he had ever met. She had found a way to send him a
message across time, a very personal message. He had a son. Strom’s hand
trembled and he dropped the glass, spilling scotch all over the synthetic rug.
His mind raced. Someone at the Department of Temporal Security must have known
about this.

“Central Com, locate General Leona Hallstrom. I need to
speak to her immediately.”

When Leona refused all of his calls, Strom made his way to
the Department of Temporal Security. They didn’t want to know him either. He
paced the lobby floor for two hours until they started to close the building.
There was nothing for it, he would have to do the unthinkable and contact his
dad.

Strom pressed the door-com nervously. Leona had been married
to his dad for almost a decade, but he had never been to their home.

“Son.” Hal Hallstrom stepped back in shock as Strom pushed
his way inside.

“Where is she?” Strom demanded.

Leona emerged from the kitchen, and from the aroma that
wafted around the room, she was cooking. Strom had seldom seen her out of
uniform and never in a million years had he imagined her as a housewife.

“Son, would you like to tell me what’s going on?”

“Why don’t you ask your wife? I’m sure she has quite a lot
to tell you.”

Leona glared frostily him. “Strom, please don’t do this. I
received your messages and I know that you’re upset. Perhaps we can talk
tomorrow, when you’ve calmed down.”

He couldn’t believe it. The cold-hearted bitch was trying to
play hardball with him. Strom barely restrained himself from punching a hole in
the wall.

Hal rounded on him. “What’s wrong with you, son, coming here
like this?”

It was obvious that his dad knew nothing, and in some way
that made him feel better. At least he wasn’t involved. Strom opened the book
and thrust the photograph in his father’s face. “Why don’t you ask her to tell
you about your grandson?”

His dad’s face blanched when he looked at the photograph.
“Leona, do you want to tell me about this?”

Leona shook her head. “I’m sorry, Hal, I’m afraid it’s
classified.”

“Classified, my… This is my grandson, Leona, and you better
tell me everything you know.”

Leona left the room, slamming the door behind her. Hal shook
his head sadly. “Grab a drink, son, this may take a while.”

He was left alone while Hal went in pursuit of his wife.
Strom looked around the room, recognizing some of the furniture from his
childhood. A burnished metal frame on one wall displayed a series of changing
images. His father shaking hands with the President, his grandfather and his
crew alongside an old beta class transporter. There was even one of him,
graduating from the Academy. He was surprised his dad had kept that one. They
hadn’t exactly seen eye-to-eye about a lot of things. Three generations of
Hallstrom men wearing Fleet Command uniforms. His father was a great believer
in tradition. Strom felt a small twinge of regret.

Tradition was pretty much all the old man had left now. He
was two years away from retirement, and after that it was just him and Leona.
Strom could hear voices coming from behind the door. His dad’s was low and
gruff and Leona sounded as if she was crying. Eventually the door opened. Leona
barely acknowledged his presence, but made a call to her office requesting some
files, and then they waited.

It was the longest, most uncomfortable meal he had ever sat
through. They sat like polite strangers around the table, picking listlessly at
their food. From time to time, his dad opened the book and looked at the
photograph of Ingrid and Adam with an expression of such hurt and loss that
Strom almost regretted dragging him into it.

The door-com chimed loudly in the silent room and Leona
moved swiftly to the door. Strom followed her. He didn’t trust her one little
bit. When the courier left, the dining table was swiftly cleared.

“Pour me a drink, son, and make it a large one. I think I’m
going to need it.”

Leona set up the holo-projector and looked around the table
as though she was giving a presentation.

“Just get on with it, Leona,” his father snapped.

“Central Com, this is General Leona Hallstrom. Authorization
code one-zero-alpha -seven-alpha-zero.”

“Affirmative.”

“Please access classified temporal file.
Subject—Sorrenson-O’Leary, Adam.”

And there it was, a three dimensional holo-image of his son.
The image seemed to have been generated from a number of photographs taken at a
birthday party. Adam stared at the camera, his mouth pursed to blow out the
candles on a colorful cake. A small pale handed rested on his shoulder. Ingrid.
Strom reached out, the image was so real that he felt he could almost touch
them.

“You knew, didn’t you, Leona? You knew all along that I had
a son.”

“We knew about Ingrid, yes,” she admitted. “I recognized the
wolf-head ring in the photograph immediately and knew that it belonged to you.
But we didn’t know about Adam until later.”

“When you arrived in the twenty-first century, the temporal
model checkers went into overdrive. We thought that we were heading for a
temporal paradox. You kept an entire department running day and night for a
week, just monitoring your actions and trying to figure out what was going on.”

Strom reached for his glass and took a deep swig. Everything,
every little thing he had done there was monitored by the geeks back at
temporal central, even his time with Ingrid. He had an overwhelming desire to
vomit.

“I’m flattered that you were so interested, Leona,” he
drawled. “But all I want to know is when my wife and son can come here.”

Leona ignored his question. “Central Com, display file
please.”

Other images flashed by, Adam as a teenager, Adam in his
twenties and finally Adam as an old man. “Sweet merciful stars,” his dad
stammered. “Is that who I think it is?”

Leona’s face assumed a smug expression. She really was a
first-class bitch. “Meet Adam O’Leary, inventor of the hyper-drive and father
of interplanetary travel. He’s up there with Einstein and da Vinci as one of
the most brilliant minds ever.

“Now do you understand, Strom? Ingrid and the child have to
stay there. All of the scientific knowledge that supports our daily lives is
based on what he theorized in the twenty-first century. You were meant to go
back there, meant to meet Ingrid, but if Adam O’Leary is gone, then the world
as we know it would not exist. They can never come here.”

Save the world or be with the woman you loved. A dozen
scenarios raced around Strom’s head. Leona was right, they had to stay there,
but this world was meaningless for him without Ingrid and his son. There was
only one solution. “Then send me back there.”

“Are you crazy, Strom? What do you think I’m running—a
dating agency? It’s completely out of the question. Do you think I’m going to
let you go back there and create another temporal anomaly? Forget it, the
mission is over.”

Strom looked at his dad, who shook his head imperceptibly.
The old bastard wasn’t going to rock the boat, not even for his own grandson.

Hal escorted him to the door. “Good night, son. I’m really
sorry about this, but Leona is right.” With that, he winked and pressed Leona’s
com badge into Strom’s hand. “You have her access code and eight hours,” he
whispered.