Twelve
Justin had been wondering how to get away from his squad. Once he decided to risk it, it turned out to be the easiest thing in the world. He just walked off, looking as if he knew where he was going and what he was doing.
He'd come a couple of blocks when he got to a checkpoint. "What's up?" one of the soldiers there asked him.
He pointed ahead. "I'm supposed to patrol down that way."
"Okay." The soldier didn't ask any more questions. Justin was white and he was in uniform, so the fellow figured he had to be all right. He'd counted on that. The soldier at the checkpoint did say, "Keep your eyes peeled. Still may be a few holdouts running around loose."
"Thanks. I will." That was the last thing Justin wanted to hear. He tramped on. Other soldiers went here and there, sometimes singly, sometimes in groups. Except for that one sentry, nobody challenged him. If you seemed legit, people assumed you were. Most of the time, they were right. Every once in a while, you could take advantage of them.
He heard scattered gunshots, but none very close. The civilians on the street were all white. African Americans were lying low. How much good would that do them? Sooner or later—likely sooner—the white Virginians would take their revenge for the uprising. That would make the Negroes hate them even more, and would light some sparks to help kindle the next revolt.
How could Virginia break the cycle? The only way Justin saw was for whites to treat blacks the same way they treated each other. He also saw that that was something no local whites wanted to do. They feared, and with some justice, equality wouldn't seem like enough. They looked fearfully toward black-ruled Mississippi, the way slaveowners in the home timeline once looked fearfully toward black-ruled Haiti.
That wasn't his worry, for which he thanked heaven. It might be Crosstime Traffic's worry one of these days. The company would have to figure out what to do here, and whether it could do anything. Sometimes slipping the right idea to the right people at the right moment made all the difference in the world. Sometimes it didn't change a thing. You never could tell till you tried.
He turned on to the street on which Mr. Brooks' coin and stamp shop lay. His heart pounded in his chest. Was everything all right? Was anything left? He didn't want to think anything bad could happen to his mother. But he'd seen enough horror the past couple of days to know anything could happen to anybody.
There'd been fighting here. Several buildings had bites taken out of them. Bullets pocked walls and shattered windows. The donut house across the street from the shop, the one where he'd seen the car pull up when he first got into Charleston, was nothing but a pile of rubble. Did somebody make a point of knocking it flat, or was it just unlucky? He'd probably never know.
But the coin and stamp shop was still standing. Even if it weren't, the room in the subbasement where the transposition chamber came and went wouldn't be damaged. But could Mom have got down there fast enough? Even if she could have, would Crosstime Traffic have let her leave this alternate with a genetically engineered disease on the loose? It seemed unlikely.
Justin hoped that was all wasted worry. He looked up and down the street. No other soldiers in sight. Nobody to notice if he went in here. He pulled at the door. It was locked. He muttered—he should have known it would be. He still had a key. He put it in the lock and turned, then tried the door. It opened.
Nobody stood behind the counter. Justin took a couple of steps forward into the shop, letting the door click shut behind him. The sharp little noise brought his mother out from the back room. She looked alarmed—she looked terrified—at seeing a large soldier with an assault rifle in the shop. But her voice was brisk and didn't wobble as she asked, "What do you want, Private?"
She didn't recognize him. He was wearing a grimy uniform she didn't expect, a helmet that changed the shape of his face, and a couple of days' worth of filth and stubble. He grinned. "Hi, Mom," he said.
Her jaw dropped. "Justin?" she whispered. Then she said, "Justin!" at something not far from a scream and threw her arms around him. When she finally let go, she said, "I never thought I'd hug anybody carrying a gun."
That reminded him of what he'd seen and done while he wore the uniform and the helmet and the dirt and stubble. With a shudder, he set the rifle down and said, "If I never see this . . . this thing again, it'll be too soon."
"Oh." She looked at him again—for real this time. "You weren't just carrying ME! You used it, didn't you?"
"Yeah." He grimaced. "If I didn't, one of the rebels would have used one on me. I lost my lunch right after that."
"I believe you," his mother said. "How come you had it in the first place?"
"It was the only way I saw to get back here from Elizabeth," Justin answered. "It worked, too." He wasn't exactly thrilled that it had. People said you could buy something at too high a price. He'd understood that with money before, but no other way. He did now.
Mom must have seen as much on his face. "Well, you are here," she said. "That may not be the only thing that matters, but I'm awful glad to see you—now that I'm not scared to death any more, I mean. Is Randy all right?"
"He was fine the last time I saw him, a couple of days ago," Justin said. "But how have you been? You were in the middle of everything."
"More like on the edges," Mom said. "If this place were in the middle, it wouldn't still be standing."
She was right about that. "Can they cure the disease the Ohioans turned loose?" he asked. "Can they get us out of here?"
"They already have a vaccine. They're getting close to a cure," his mother answered.
"A vaccine's just as good," Justin said, and then, remembering Irma and Mrs. Snodgrass, "Well, unless you've already got it, anyway."
"Unless," his mother agreed. "The problem now, the way I understand it, is getting the vaccine to the Virginians without making them suspicious. Last I heard, we were thinking of mailing it to Richmond as if it came from a lab in Pennsylvania or Wabash." The state of Wabash wasn't too different from Indiana in the home timeline. "The hope is they'll be so glad to get it, they won't ask many questions."
"What about getting us back to the home timeline?" Justin asked. That was the thing that was uppermost in his mind.
"They . . . aren't quite ready yet," Mom said. "We've been exposed to the virus. The air the transposition chamber picks up when it opens for us may have the bug floating around in it, too. They don't want to bring it back to the home timeline."
"But they've got the vaccine! You said they're close to a cure!" Justin had come back to Charleston wanting to get home. If he couldn't, if he was still stuck in this alternate, he might almost have stayed in Elizabeth—though it was nice to be sure Mom was okay.
"They've got 'em, and they don't want to have to use 'em," she said. "That would be expensive, and if they start having cases anyway. . . . Well, can you imagine the lawsuits? They really—I mean really—don't want another black eye so soon after the slavery scandal."
Justin could see that. It made good sense in terms of what Crosstime Traffic needed. In terms of what he and his mother and Mr. Brooks needed, though, it wasn't so great. "They can't just strand us here . . . can they?"
"I don't think they'll do that," Mom said.
"If they do, well sue them," Justin said fiercely.
"Well, no." His mother shook his head. "We signed liability waivers before we came here. This isn't company negligence or anything. This is part of the risk we take when we come to a high-tech alternate. No lawyer will touch this one, and we'd get thrown out of court if we found one who would."