“Where are we going?”
“Outside. I want some fresh fruit.”
She stopped. “I thought—I remember, I think, that it’s dangerous out there.”
“Not unless you spend years out in it. You once did, and you’re still here.”
She shook her head. “That’s kind of a dream.” When the doorway slid back and they stepped out, it was clear that the dream was less so than she’d thought.
The groves of trees, the jungle’s edge, the distant pounding of the surf…
Doc turned to her and nodded. “I didn’t know any other way to break it to you.”
“But—this is the old place, isn’t it?”
“The old place—yes, I guess it would be.” Her mouth dropped, and she shivered slightly in the tropical sun. “Then—this isn’t later, it’s earlier. Then that belt was set to bring me back before. Oh, Jesus! That means. …”
“Yes,” said Kahwalini softly. “You are Dawn.”
She stared at herself in the full-length mirror. She should have known, known right from the first time she’d looked at herself, she thought sourly. But, then, Ron had never looked at Dawn in the same way as she looked at herself.
The idea scared her; it also made her mad. For her to be Dawn, then, the computer—the all-seeing, all-knowing damnable computer—had to know it right from the start, when it sent Ron uptime with a belt that homed to this point in time instead of a later one.
The damned thing had planned it, planned it all out. It knew in advance all that was going to happen, even the capture by Eric. It knew and did nothing, except to arrange for things to come out right.
It was, Doc explained, in the nature of time loops.
“The problem is, only the leading edge is new,” she explained. “All else was new once, when it was the leading edge, but it’s already happened. Back here, near the dawn of time, the computer, anchored both here and on the edge, can monitor what happens and evaluate any changes.”
“But why is it happening now!” Dawn asked her. “I mean, it’s already happened, right?”
“No, not exactly. Just remember that any loop, once initiated, is assumed by time to have been completed. The record is there. The computer can then read it, evaluate it, and then accept it, change it, or reverse it, depending on the outcome.”
“And what say do I have in this? What if I decide not to go along with this whole thing?”
“Then you will still exist, cut off absolutely from the time stream, a total nightside. Ron Moosic will die in the attack, and all links to you will be severed. Dawn will exist only as her least common denominator, devoid of the knowledge, strength, and understanding she—you—still draw from him. As such, you will be no further use to us. We will shift you uptime, where assimilation will be instantaneous.”
She gulped and sat down. Her fury at being so manipulated was tempered somewhat by the idea of fulfilling, living, what had been a fantasy. Still, there was something bizarre in it all, sort of the ultimate in masturbation.
“And if I… go through with it?”
“Then we will come for you at the proper time. We know where and when you’ll be.”
“But—it’s not fair! All that time, all that… Hey! This can’t be real! I can’t have children!”
“Megan can’t, but Megan’s a product of 1905. Dawn is a synthesis, a nightsided person.”
“But it’s not fair! I’ll lose him forever! And come out old and sick!”
“We can fix what goes wrong, either by medicine or through tripping. You know that. As for losing him—well, that’s all in the way you look at it, isn’t it? You’ll have a longer time together than many people have.”
“But—I’ll know.”
“Time and mind have a way of dealing with that. Complete your loop, and give yourself a purpose and a future. We are in the long process of undoing what has been done. It’ll save a lot of lives. Isn’t that worth it?”
She shook her head in bewilderment. “I don’t know. I really don’t. But, tell me, how can you people be so cold? What gives you the right to do this?”
Doc couldn’t address what she herself doubted, but she could answer the second question. “We have the machine, the knowledge, and the skill to do it. So does the enemy. That last makes the rest irrelevant.’’
Ron Moosic arrived the next day, but she did not see him immediately. She wasn’t certain how she was going to handle this, or if she could. As long as he remained out of sight, it was a problem postponed, and she spent time out by the sea and the waterfall, just thinking and trying to sort it out.
She almost ran into him the next day in the lounge, but kept out of sight, watching him while remaining unobserved. The man she saw was a shock, the embodiment of the man she saw in her dreams and fantasies, but he neither looked nor acted quite like she expected. Her mind tried to grasp it, tried to remember this moment, but she found it impossible to bring it forward. All of her that was Ron Moosic seemed to recede into a distant haze.
That day they issued her a communicator and a time belt. “Remember,” Lind warned, “we’re going to be attacked.”
She nodded and took it, almost without thinking.
On the third day she checked out the lounge and went down there for a few moments, hoping to catch Kahwalini in an off moment. She feared going back to Doc’s lair; he was there.
Herb was over in a corner playing computerized backgammon. He looked up and waved to her, then went back to his game.
Almost as soon as she’d sat down, he came in, talking to Doc. She felt petrified, but there was nowhere to hide, so she just sat there and hoped he wouldn’t notice. Of course, he did, and came over.
“Hi! I finally get the chance to say thanks for saving my life,” he said cheerfully, sitting down in a chair opposite hers. “How’s that for a good opening line?”
She smiled, but was inwardly terrified. This is it! she realized, and in that moment had absolutely no ability to recall anything at all of this time. Her nervousness, and her mind, had blocked it out. What did he mean about saving his life, though? It puzzled her, but then cheered her a bit. She had, hadn’t she? And she hadn’t done that, yet. There was still time, and perhaps a future, yet to come.
She sighed. “I’m sorry for not being a little more hospitable. I’m afraid I’ve got a load on my mind and a lot of hard decisions to make. I’ve just had a nasty personal shock.”
“Try being crucified,” he suggested.
The line seemed almost hilarious. “I have. It’s not very nice. Not much has been nice lately.”
He shrugged. “I don’t want to intrude on what’s none of my business.”
She gave up. He was so nice and attractive he was turning her on. The longer the discussion, the less she could relate to him other than the same way she would with an attractive stranger. “No, no. Stay, please. I’m still a little new at this myself, and it’s pretty hard to get used to. As soon as you’ve found out everything, you find you don’t understand anything at all. This whole business of time is the craziest thing you can think of…”