“What have you got?” Auger asked.
“When the Phobos portal blew,” Skellsgard said, “something weird happened. We didn’t notice it at the time—our monitoring equipment just wasn’t sensitive enough. But the Slashers? Different story. They had the whole system laced with sensors tuned to pick up portal signatures. For years they hadn’t detected a squeak; nothing to hint that there were any portals other than the one on Sedna and the one in Phobos.”
“And now?”
“When the Phobos link died, it must have given off some kind of death-scream vibration that drew a sympathetic resonance from other dormant links in the vicinity. The sensors picked up faint signals from fifteen different locations around the system.”
Auger wondered whether she’d heard Skellsgard correctly. “Fifteen?”
“That may not be the end of it. The weakest signals were at the limit of detection: could be there are other sources they missed entirely. The whole damn system could be riddled with portals we never even suspected were there. We’d never have found them by accident: they’re all buried underground, on anonymous little iceballs no one ever paid much attention to before.”
“Jesus,” Auger said.
“Jesus squared. I hope you’re impressed.”
“I am.”
Skellsgard smiled. “I figured you needed cheering up. Like I said, it’s preliminary. But as soon as things simmer down around here, we’re going to put together a joint expedition and dig down until we find one of these things. Then we’re going to switch it on and see where it takes us.”
“That’s a big question.”
“I know. Out into the galaxy? But what would be the point of that? We already have the Sedna portal for that. Me, I think they’ll take us somewhere else entirely.”
At first, Auger fought to keep the excitement from her voice. Then she decided she didn’t care. What was the point? Skellsgard knew exactly how she’d be feeling.
“Inside another ALS?”
“That’s my best guess. We know there are a lot of them out there. We know one of them contained a snapshot of Earth from the twentieth century. Why not other spheres containing other snapshots? There could be dozens of Earths out there, all frozen at different instants in history. One portal might be our ticket into the Middle Ages. Another might put us into the middle of the Triassic.”
“I need to be on that team,” Auger said.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way. Just remember to bring your best digging clothes: we’re not likely to come out so close to a tunnel the next time.”
“I hope you’re right about this.”
“I do, too,” Skellsgard said, just before the communications link finally gave up the ghost. “But even if I’m not, I don’t think either of us will have to worry about funding committees for a little while.”
Floyd slowed his stroll, coming to a stop under a streetlamp. He reached out and took hold of the poster gummed to the lamp’s fluted shaft and pulled it away, carefully this time, so as not to tear the thing in two. He held the sheet up to the light, peering at the printed image through a shifting veil of fog.
It was a picture of Chatelier. Except—now that he thought about it—the picture looked a lot like someone else he’d met recently. Not an exact likeness, but enough to raise the hackles of recognition. Not close enough to be the same man. But certainly close enough for them to be brothers.
Maybe it was just his imagination.
Maybe it wasn’t.
He folded the poster and shoved it into his pocket. There was a telephone number at the foot of it for anyone who wanted to support Chatelier’s political campaign. Floyd thought that maybe tomorrow he might think about paying Chatelier’s people a visit. Just to ask a few questions. Just to make a nuisance of himself.
He carried on into the city, counting down the street numbers, looking for some essential landmark. Somewhere in the distance he heard a maritime foghorn blare into the night. A telephone kiosk loomed out of the void like a lighthouse. He stepped inside and closed the door, tried the money-return hatch and pulled out a single coin. His lucky day. Floyd fed the telephone and dialled a number in Montparnasse that he knew by memory.
Sophie answered.
“This is Floyd,” he said. “I hope it’s not too late. Is Greta there?”
“Just a moment.”
“Wait,” he said, before she stepped away to find Greta. “Is Marguerite still…?”
“She’s still alive, yes.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ll fetch Greta. She’s upstairs.”
He waited, drumming his fingers on the glass door of the telephone box. They hadn’t parted on the best of terms. How was she going to take his coming back now, after all the time he’d been away?
Someone picked up the receiver.
“Floyd?”
“Greta?”
“It’s me. Where are you?”
“Somewhere in Paris. Not exactly sure where. I’m trying to find my way back to rue du Dragon.”
“We were worried, Floyd. Where have you been? We’ve had people out looking for you all day.”
She sounded concerned and confused, rather than angry. “I’ve been away,” he said, wondering what she meant by “all day.” He’d been away longer than that, surely? “With Auger.”
“Where is she now?”
“Gone.”
“Gone as in…?”
“Gone as in gone. I don’t think I’ll be seeing her again.”
She seemed to go and then come back. When she returned, something had changed in her voice. Some crack of forgiveness had opened up. “I’m sorry, Floyd.”
“It’s all right.” But it wasn’t all right. Not at all.
“Floyd, where are you? I can send a taxi—”
“It’s OK. I need the walk. Can I come around tomorrow?”
“Yes, of course. I’ll be here all morning.”
“I’ll be there first thing. I’d like to see Marguerite. I have something for her.”
“She still thinks you’re going to show up with strawberries,” Greta said sadly.
“I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Floyd… before you hang up. I’m still serious about America. You’ve had time now, haven’t you? Time to think. And now that you don’t have any other distractions—”
“You’re right,” he said. “I’ve had time to think. And I think you’re right. America will be good for you.”
“Does that mean you’ve come to a decision?”
“Kind of,” he said.
He put down the receiver and stepped out of the kiosk. Suddenly, the fog cleared a little, enough to give him a better view of the street on which he stood. Some glimmer of recognition teased his memory. He knew where he was, more or less. He had been heading in the right direction all along.
Floyd reached into his pocket. The bag of strawberries was still there, like some token from a dream that had no business existing in the real world. The little vial of UR was there as well.
He thought of Greta getting on that seaplane to America, turning a new corner in her life. Something brighter and more wide open than he could ever offer her in Paris. Something brighter and more wide open than he could offer her if he went to America with her, too. And then he thought of her staying here, out of love, nursing Marguerite out of her illness, while that other life slipped further and further from her grasp.
He took out the vial and dropped it on to the cobbles.
He crunched it underfoot and lost himself in the fog.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND FURTHER READING
A number of books proved invaluable during the writing of this novel. In searching for a plausible “counterfactual” scenario for the events of May 1940, I am indebted to Julian Jackson’s excellent The Fall of France (Oxford University Press, 2003) for suggesting that the Ardennes offensive could so easily have failed had the Allies appreciated the vulnerability of the advancing forces and taken action at the decisive time.