“Does that make sense?” Pax asked Cha.
Cha nodded, and Ellis thought there might be reluctance there, but “Aztec Tattoo” got points for being honest.
“So the killer isn’t an expert.”
“I wouldn’t think anyone alive these days is an expert,” Cha said. “So you haven’t narrowed anything.”
“Is there more you can tell us?” Pax asked.
Ellis got up on his knees. “Yeah—this fella’s eyes were bad. He wore glasses.”
“What did you say?”
“He or she—ah, I mean—well, I don’t really know what to…never mind. This personwore glasses. See the pinch marks along the bridge of the nose, and the little half-moons on the cheeks? Glasses do that.”
Pax looked at Cha. Both were puzzled.
“Hang on.” Ellis set down his pack, unzipped a side pocket, pulled out his reading glasses, and set them on his nose. “See. Glasses. I take them off and you can see the divots left—the little impressions.”
“I understand what you’re saying, Ellis Rogers,” Pax explained, “but no one wears glasses.”
Cha had found the courage to inch closer to peer down at the body. “I hadn’t noticed that. Something did pinch the nose, and there’s a crease along the forehead too.”
“Like a hat,” Ellis said, and pointed at Pax. “Some people still wear those, at least.”
Pax offered him a smile, and he responded with one of his own.
“So where are the glasses and hat?”
Pax and Cha looked around but found nothing.
“Killer might have taken them—but no, I don’t remember anything in his hands—oh!”
“What?” Pax asked.
“The killer—I just remembered—was missing two fingers. Right hand, I think.”
“So, whoever did it was interested in the Hive Project, had likely never killed before, and is missing two fingers. And the victim wore glasses and a hat.”
Ellis shrugged. “I told you I wouldn’t be much help.” He was feeling worse and reconsidering whether he might vomit after all.
“Actually, that’s much more than we knew five minutes ago. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And speaking of time and knowing things, what year is it?”
“Oh right.” Pax looked embarrassed. “This is the year 4078.”
“Forty seventy-eight? That’s…that’s more than two thousand…” Ellis wavered, and Pax reached out, grabbing his shoulders.
“I’m sorry,” Pax offered. “I didn’t realize it would be such a shock.”
“No—no—well, yes, it is, but really I—I’m not feeling very well. I think I need to lie down.” He settled to the grass, lying on his back.
“What’s wrong with you?” Cha asked.
“I told you I have a respiratory problem,” he said, looking up at the sky. “It’s called idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis. No one in my time knew what caused it or how to cure it, and in my case it’s terminal.”
Cha drew closer than ever before and studied him. “Are you feeling better right now?”
“Lying down, yeah. A little bit.”
“Stand up.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Do it anyway,” Cha insisted.
Ellis looked at Pax, who nodded. “Cha is a very good physician.”
Ellis pushed up and staggered, as the world swam more than before.
“Okay, okay, sit down,” Cha told him and gave up his security distance to touch Ellis on the neck. “Your skin is hot and dry. When was the last time you had something to drink?”
“Early this morning, I guess—a couple swallows.”
“And did you say you traveled down out of the forests? Five or six miles, right? That’s what you said.”
“Yeah.”
“And then passed out in the sun here?”
“Uh-huh.” He nodded.
“You may have a respiratory illness, but right now you’re suffering from sunstroke and dehydration.”
“Really?”
“Trust me, I see a lot of it. People come to the surface and don’t realize the difference a real sun makes.”
“A real sun?”
Cha ignored him and turned to Pax. “We need to get the Darwin out of the sun, into a cool place, and reintroduce fluids and electrolytes.” Cha pulled Ellis’s canteen from around his neck, unscrewed the cap, and smelled.
“It’s just water,” Ellis explained.
“Then drink,” Cha ordered.
“I’m actually feeling nauseous now.”
“Of course you are, and soon you’ll start to have trouble breathing if we don’t fix you. Now sip. No big gulps, just sips.”
Pax stood up and drew something out of the frock coat.
“Where are you going?” Cha asked.
“My place. You call the ISP and wait for them.”
“You sure? You don’t know anything about this Darwin.”
“Are you offering to take Ellis Rogers home with you instead?”
“Forget I said anything.”
A burst of light and a hum, and Ellis saw another portal appear. Through it he could see a room with a bed, pillows, and blankets.
“Grab him,” Cha said, and they lifted Ellis by the arms. The world spun, far worse than before. He heard a ringing, and, as he was half dragged into the opening, darkness came again.
Chapter Five
Times They are a Changin’
Ellis woke up sporting a hangover without the benefit of a binge. He’d been awake for some time but resisted the temptation to get out of bed. He had no real idea what had happened or where he was but appreciated the time alone after having ridden the tornado to Oz. How long had he been asleep? How long had it been since he’d left the doctor’s office? Only a matter of hours in one sense but more than two thousand years in another.
Two thousand! How is that possible? Hoffmann was off by a factor of ten!Had he dropped a zero somewhere? The whole thing was hard to believe despite having achieved his intent. This must be the feeling that gave expressions of wonderment to Olympic athletes when they took the gold, the look of shock on Academy Award winners even as they took out the speech they had carefully prepared. Some part of them never really believed it was possible until after it happened, and even then such miracles were hard to accept. He’d done it; he’d traveled through time—but Hoffmann was way off on the number of years.
Ellis had expected to jump forward about the same distance as the founding of the United States was back. Life would be very different, but not too alien, and he expected the world would still be fundamentally the same. Instead, he had jumped the same span of years dividing the time of Christ from the age of the Internet. He was the equivalent of a Roman citizen used to slaves, the luxury of horses, and the labor of carrying water—plopped down in the age of computers and fructose corn syrup. Faced with such a shift, Ellis was grateful for the chance to wade in slowly.
Lying in a very comfortable bed, he could tell it didn’t have springs, like one of those space-age sponge beds he used to see advertised. He had pillows and sheets, not cotton though; these were softer. He spent little time pondering the bed covering given his surroundings. He’d seen 2001, Blade Runner, Logan’s Run,and Star Trek. He knew the future was supposed to be stark, cold, and clean—or grease-stained and grit-covered. Maybe it was, but this room wasn’t.
He lay in a massive canopy bed nestled in a cathedral of carved wood and luscious drapes. The décor of the room was castle-Gothic, with walls half clad in dark, eight-panel oak and uppers decorated in vibrant murals of medieval ladies and men on horseback. Lions, swans, crowns, and lilies abounded—carved in wood or sculpted in plaster. Above loomed a ceiling painted to look like the sky, with puffy clouds and hilltops around the edges. Light streamed in through a series of peaked, two-story windows with crisscrossed latticework, which cast spears of radiance across the foot of the bed. A breeze fluttered the edges of curtains, and Ellis could hear birds and a distant trickle of water. He smelled flowers as well as something exotic, like cinnamon or nutmeg. Besides the distant birdsong and splashing of water, he occasionally caught a distant voice calling out or laughter rising from far off.