DeVere and Hutch looked unconvinced.
“Look,” Lewis Ginter said slowly. “There’s nothing back there for me. What use is a former Special Ops guy who was injured in a war that now might never get fought?”
He looked at Hutch directly. “I’ve been here three months. I’ve seen prejudice. You think there is racism in 2026? Try segregation. America’s going to change. In eleven years Martin Luther King will give his ‘Freedom Reigns’ speech. Everything will be different now. I want to be here. This is my new battleground.”
It was Natasha who broke the silence. “I’m staying too.”
“There is no other wormhole for the two of you. And you’ll never build another Accelechron with the technology that exists today,” deVere said quietly.
“I never got to know my parents,” Natasha said. “And I have no country. At least, I hope that I won’t have the Soviet one,” she added, smiling at Amanda.
“Who knows,” she smirked at deVere. “Perhaps Lewis and I will revisit your Harrison Salisbury at the Times and tell him all about it. He may not have believed you two, but maybe, just maybe”—she looked at Ginter—“he will believe us and another tragedy can be averted.”
Ginter shrugged. “I can always use another sniper.”
“Not with this rifle, though,” Natasha said. “Dr. Hutch is right. It’s going in the quarry with that,” she said, pointing at Pamela’s body.
“It’s safe to go back,” Ginter said. “Assuming that our Russian friend here is right and Igor will be out cold for over an hour you should have plenty of time to revive and get rid of his body. That’s if he is even there, in your new future.”
“And,” Natasha added with a smile, “the bullets in his gun are all blanks anyhow. I made sure of that.”
“It’s time,” Hutch said, glancing up from her watch and standing up.
Amanda and Paul stared at the innocuous pile of leaves in the middle of the clearing that now stood within the open circle of time.
“Heck, it worked one way,” deVere said. He forced a smile. “Don’t bet too much on those ‘69 Mets of yours. People will get suspicious.”
“I just want tickets to Super Bowl III.”
Natasha moved to Dr. Hutch and the two women embraced tightly. Paul deVere shifted uncomfortably.
“I hope things work out back there,” Natasha said when they separated. “For all of us.”
Amanda nodded wordlessly.
Natasha moved over to Paul. “I always tried to get you to call me Natasha.”
Paul smiled. “Of course, Miss Nikitin. Perhaps I should have.”
She laughed and stood back from him, but held his eyes. “Godspeed,” she said softly.
Paul swallowed and nodded awkwardly. “My grandfather knew there was a God,” he said.
DeVere broke his gaze away from his intern’s and turned to Lewis. He considered extending his hand to his friend but decided that doing so would be maudlin. Instead, he extended his hand to the side and without a word Amanda took it. They looked at each other and together walked across the clearing and out onto the pile of soggy leaves.
Chapter 30
Amanda Hutch sat up first. As the cobwebs began to clear from her brain she raised her head off the floor and looked around. Paul deVere lay next to her. She thought she hadn’t lost consciousness. But as with their departure three months earlier, travel through the onrushing wormhole had left her exhausted and weak and she found herself unable to move.
DeVere opened his eyes and rolled onto his side before sitting up. He rubbed his temples and pulled at his shirt.
“We have to deal with Igor,” he said groggily.
“What?” Amanda was still foggy.
“Igor should still be lying where Pamela dropped him. If we’ve done it right it should be August 8, 2026, just a few minutes after we left. We didn’t have time to tie him up, remember?”
Amanda stood and stumbled around the counter to where they had left a bloodied Igor. The tile floor gleamed in all directions. It was, in fact, shinier and cleaner than she remembered it.
“Where is he?” deVere asked, standing behind her now. “Don’t tell me we screwed up and came back on another day.”
Amanda turned toward the back of the lab.
“Ah shit,” she said.
“You find him?” deVere asked from the sink area.
“Where the hell is the Accelechron?” Amanda asked.
DeVere spun around. Together they stared at the back of the lab. The far wall was bare except for a poster commemorating the tall ships visit in the summer of ‘25. Filing cabinets stood against the walls. The back wall was intact, and the room was deeper than when they had left. There was no walled off area.
“Where the hell is the Accelechron?” deVere demanded.
“This is different,” Hutch stammered. “I’ve got to… got to go to my office. Get on the computer. Maybe get a newspaper.”
Hutch took a step toward the door but reached out with her hand and grabbed the counter.
“Easy does it,” deVere said. “Remember how we were in the park. It will take time.”
“The fire alarm,” she said, cocking her head to the side. “It’s not ringing.”
Paul hesitated. She was right, the building was silent.
“Someone must have turned it off,” he said.
Amanda stumbled back to the counter and slumped on a stool opposite Paul. She reached for the computer mouse in front of her and started when she touched it.
“It’s already on,” she said.
“What is?”
“The computer,” she answered. “I have to get on the Gor… whoops! Here it is.” She squinted at the screen that faced away from Paul and moved her right hand quickly back and forth.
“According to the Icon it’s called the… the Internet.”
Paul turned back to the front of the lab and studied the walls. They were painted white as before but to him the tint seemed brighter and, as with the floor, shinier.
“I wonder what else is different,” he mused.
“Paul, there’s something I have to tell you,” she said from behind him. “Something I couldn’t tell you before.”
He turned back to her. In doing so he momentarily became dizzy and reached out with his hand to steady himself on the counter.
“I know,” he said. “It’s about your child.”
“What?” she exclaimed.
“I know all about it,” he said. “You weren’t honest with me. Lewis told me. He didn’t trust you so he looked into it.”
“Lewis?” she asked. She glanced back at the screen and manipulated the mouse some more.
“Lewis knew?” she asked incredulously. “And Lewis told you?”
“He had someone check your divorce decree from North Carolina. The court papers said you two had no children. There was no Jeffrey in Braintree. That whole story was bullshit.”
He waved his hand. “It’s O.K. It doesn’t matter now. You told us why you really came to Cambridge.”
She looked back at the screen and kept searching. “There’s something else,” she said, and began typing on the keyboard.
“Here I am,” she announced simply. She leaned forward and studied the screen. After a few moments she turned to where Paul stood, still gripping the counter.
“Amanda Hutch,” she said softly. “Full professor, MIT, History, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Personaclass="underline" Married to Dr. Paul deVere, full professor, MIT, Astrophysics.”
Paul stared at her, not comprehending. His cobwebs still hadn’t fully cleared.
“Paul,” she said. “We have to talk. There’s something I need to tell you.”
To deVere’s left a telephone jangled. He stared at it.
“Go ahead, answer it,” she urged.
To deVere the ring sounded slightly different. He stuck his finger in his right ear to clear it. He picked up the receiver and punched the lit button.