“How long to U.C. Berkeley?” Dorland was getting worried.
“Maybe twenty minutes, considering the condition of the roads tonight.”
“Then figure an hour on the Arion system, for your calculations and anything Maeve might need. It’s another ten minutes up to the lab. If you need time on the Arch we’re going to lose Bermuda. We’ll only have three hours left!”
“If I go any faster I’ll get us all killed,” said Kelly, but he nudged the accelerator just the same and the SUV sped along, the windshield wipers battling with sheets of rain. The professor gave Paul another worried look.
“What about the spatial locus?” Dorland changed the subject, trying to pull in all the loose threads he could and give each one at least a moment of his own computing time.
“Ask the professor.” Kelly begged off on the question.
“What about it, Robert. Know where we’re going yet?” Maeve was eager to get a handle on the situation so she could start considering her outcome algorithms.
Nordhausen thought for a moment. “Well, we’ve got the date and a few other clues on that note. When we get to the university I’ll look up the references and see what I can find.”
“This is worrying me.” Maeve wasn’t satisfied. “I’ll need time for Outcomes and Consequences as well, Paul, and I can’t do a thing until Robert gives us a target. What are we trying to accomplish?”
“Masaui,” said Paul. “That’s the key name. It’s something to do with him.”
“But how do you intend to find the man? We’ve got a good date, and a general idea of where to go, but we could end up a thousand miles from any place where we could do some good. We haven’t the time to do the research.”
“I’ll find the references,” said Nordhausen. “Just quiet down and let me think. Our friend from tomorrow was very succinct. He gave us the year and he must have given some information on the spatial locus as well. There was another number on that note…” He lapsed into silence and Maeve rolled her eyes, giving Dorland a disparaging look.
“He’ll work it through, Maeve,” said Paul. “You can use the time to run over to the Drama Department and see what you can do for us in the way of costuming. I mean, we can’t very well go barreling through the Arch in these clothes: rain jackets and umbrellas in the desert, not to mention blue jeans and sneakers.”
“Good point.” Maeve was eager to latch on to something to do. “OK, everyone. Give me your sizes for shirts, pants, coats and shoes. I’ll write it all down and rifle the costume wardrobes while Nordhausen fine-tunes the target.” They complied as she wrote the information down. Then Paul returned to the problem at hand.
“What about that last number?” Dorland was still turning things over in his own mind. “What was it Maeve?”
“K17 something,” said Maeve. “But it looked as though it was part of the date sequence.”
“Was it hyphenated?” Kelly spoke up as he took a corner a little too sharply and the tires squealed on the wet pavement. The SUV tilted ominously, but righted itself and revved up as Kelly sped down the road.
“Watch what you’re doing!” Robert gave Kelly a wide-eyed look.
“Don’t worry,” said Kelly. “Some SUVs used to roll over a lot about ten years ago, but they widened the wheel base and lowered the center of gravity. This one never had the problem. It’s got four wheel drive.” He gave Robert a reassuring smile. “Was the number hyphenated after the date sequence?” His hand was on the stick, down shifting as they went around another bend.
“Yes,” said Maeve. “I’ve got the note right here.” She reached into the pocket of her coat, groping around and coming up empty. Dorland watched as she shifted to search another pocket. “Give me a second.”
“It’s a location.” Kelly’s voice had a definitive tone to it. “I started combining temporal and spatial coordinates in my final algorithm sequences last month. But I wasn’t using alphanumerics. The ‘K’ thing is odd, but I was coding the location right after the primary date sequence, and using a hyphen to separate the data. It should have been another long number for longitude and latitude, right down to the hours, minutes and seconds.”
Dorland smiled to think how spatial coordinates still used a temporal metaphor to fine-tune their location on the planet. Everything was described as being a given number of hours, minutes and seconds on one side of the Greenwich mean or another—the Prime Meridian, as it was called. “What was that number again, Maeve?”
She was still fishing through her pockets in silence and, as he watched her, it suddenly dawned on Paul that the note was gone. He had been thinking about the disappearance of the visitor for some time, and it bothered him. It was clear that the man just didn’t get up and walk out. Yes, there was that moment when it seemed that someone had opened the front door. Nordhausen even commented on it. Yet the security chain was still in place, and the windows in the reading room were locked from the inside as well. When he extended his hand to the place where the visitor had been resting on the love seat the chill in the air was palpable. He knew then that the visitor had been reclaimed by the continuum in some way—but how? Was it a complication of time caused by the fact that he had tampered too directly with the lives of everyone else in the room? Was it the nullifying power of a Paradox that snatched him from the love seat? Or was it simply that his comrades had yanked him out of the moment, calling him back to some distant future?
What was that future, he wondered? His own theorem of time dictated that it was impossible to return to any moment on the continuum when you actually lived. The visitor was an elderly man in his seventies. That meant he came from a time at least seventy years in the future—from the end of the twenty-first century, or beyond. What had happened to him?
He considered the possibilities while he watched Maeve’s ever more frustrated search for the note. One thought gave him hope: if the mission Mr. Graves had been sent on was to succeed, then the Palma Event would be undone, and what reason would he have for being here in the first place? Paradox, in all its confounding majesty, loomed heavily over the situation. Would that explain his sudden disappearance? But why now? We haven’t gone through the Arch yet, and might never go through the Arch. We still have to work out the numbers and time is running short. Yet Graves had vanished. If it was Paradox that had reclaimed him, then something has already altered the time continuum so radically that his mission here was made ludicrous. Could the answer lie with Kelly? With the note? Was there another Pushpoint trigger hiding in something as simple as Maeve’s inherent civility that led her to take the man’s coat?
“Did someone have the note?” Maeve looked around, giving the others a glance that was half accusing but was becoming ever more sheepish as each second passed.
“It’s gone, isn’t it.” Paul spoke in a quiet voice.
“You had it for a moment, Robert, didn’t you?” Maeve pointed an accusing finger.
“I just left it on the bookcase,” said Nordhausen. “Didn’t you take it with you?”
“Well, I thought I had it right here in my pocket.” Maeve looked around as if she might find it on the seat of the vehicle.
“Did you bring the man’s coat?” Nordhausen pressed her.
“I left it on the study table, but…”
“It’s probably gone as well.” Paul folded his arms, still thinking.
“What are you getting at?” Nordhausen nudged him.
“The man is gone, the note is gone; you get my point, professor. Something’s happened to the continuum.”
“What? Are you saying things have already changed?”
“Yes,” Paul was certain now. “Kelly’s alive, for one thing. We’re heading for U.C. Berkeley in his car instead of the hospital in my car. We’re in a Deep Nexus now, a kind of no man’s land on the time continuum. None of this was supposed to happen, so it’s very tentative until we achieve our final outcome. It’s not fixed yet; not solid. I’m not quite sure yet, but I think Mr. Graves’ job was accomplished. A Meridian of time is in play here, and he’s stuck the first needle in.”