“I behaved badly,” said Jake. “I…” His gaze roamed the room. Electronic equipment piled on the work table. Security video displayed on four monitors. No one would plant a bomb in their lab! The table, the monitors, the lab on a building’s roof were so far away from the collapsing ship, from old people jumping from windows. “I didn’t help anyone.”
Martin turned the computer off. He shut the notebook. “Jake, those people were dead before we got there. They’d been dead for a quarter of a millennium. You couldn’t help them. You couldn’t harm them. You couldn’t change their fate.” He sat on the table’s edge and smiled. “I know it’s a shock. I’m still quivering myself.” He held his hand out, but if it was trembling, Jake couldn’t see it. “We traveled in time, Jake, and we returned. All that nonsense about causality loops and killing your grandfather so you won’t be born, and a dead butterfly changing human history, it’s wrong. Brownson’s fears were wrong. We can travel in time. Think about how wonderful you felt when you realized what we’d done.”
Surprisingly, the coffee tasted good. Jake took another sip. “That’s true. When we arrived. Yes, it was great.” He brightened. “We’ve made history.”
Martin laughed. “That’s the spirit.” He checked the clock on the wall. “It’s early, still. You know what we need to do, don’t you?”
Jake sat up, put the coffee cup on the table, straightened his shoulders, ran a quick diagnostic on his implanted computer. “Yes, I do.”
“That’s right,” said Martin. “We have to go again.”
He pressed the button that activated their synchronized devices.
“See, we’re on the ground,” said Martin.
They stood on a narrow brick-paved road between a line of two-story shops, neatly-swept concrete stairways leading to their doors, arched stone lintels over the windows. The signs were in French. Tobacco and Supplies. Fresh bread every morning at 10:00. Overhead, low, dark clouds grayed the sky, but the sun on the horizon cut under them, casting shadows on the buildings across the street.
A newspaper hung inside the bakery’s window. “Les Colonies, ‘Voice of the French Peoples Everywhere,’” said Jake. His computer said, There are 785 unique matches to newspapers entitled Les Colonies. Then it pinged off. Jake needed more information for it to give him a useful analysis. He wiped a thin layer of dust from the glass, then read from the top story. “It says the governor and his wife are in town and not to worry.” He struggled with the translation. “The commission, it says, declares that the crisis is past. It doesn’t say what the crisis is. Lots of news about an upcoming election.”
“So, where and when in the French speaking countries are we?” Martin walked part way down the street, peering into the windows. “Everything seems closed.”
Jake scanned the rest of the paper he could see. “Religious holiday. Ascension day. Early morning services at Notre-Dame de l’ Assomption.” The computer chirped to define Ascension Day.
Martin looked back at him, eyebrows raised.
“Catholic holy day in May. Everyone goes to mass. No date on the paper, though. No city name.”
Ladies’ hats rested on red velvet stands at the next shop. Martin sniffed. “Do you smell that? It’s the ocean.”
Jake joined Martin walking up the street which curved slowly to the left. Their shoes kicked up puffs of dust, and when Jake turned, he saw their footprints buffed the bricks clean as if they had just missed a momentary snow storm, but the air was warm. A pile of wooden baskets were turned upside down beside one shop door, shreds of lettuce clinging to the slats.
“Ah, there you go,” said Martin. A gap between two buildings revealed a bay to their left only a couple blocks away. A handful of single and double-masted boats, their sails furled, rested quietly on the smooth water, where sea gulls perched on the docks’ pilings or skimmed the surface between the ships.
Appearing from around the street’s curve, a family walked toward them. The man wore a jacket with wide lapels, and he carried a walking stick. Beside him, the woman held the front of her long dress up to keep the hem from trailing in the dust. A pair of ten-year-old boys walked primly behind them, both hugging a book to their chests. When they passed, Jake offered a “Bonjour.”
The man stopped, tipped his hat, revealing dark hair slicked to his skull and parted in the middle. “Bonjour. You are scientists?” the man said in a French Jake barely understood. Some kind of creole? The woman stood beside him, and the children hid behind, but they peeked around her skirt.
“We are visitors,” Jake said, confused. Why would the man call them scientists? It would only be more startling if he’d called them time travelers. “Yes, scientists, I suppose. Why do you ask?”
“Your clothes, monsieur. The fashion on the continent, I suppose. We don’t get important visitors on the island often.”
“We are safe?” said the woman. Her voice was surprisingly deep. “There is noise at night, and the dust. The children worry.” She waved her hand at the air.
One of the children shook his head. Jake put his hand to his mouth to hide a smile.
“Of course we’re safe,” said the man. “The governor’s family, after all. Would they be within a hundred miles of here if we were not? Come, we will be late. Au voir.”
The man set off at a brisk pace. The woman gathered a child’s hand in each hand, and followed.
“What did you find out?” said Martin. “Did you get a date?”
“No. We’re on an island, though. Not France. And he said something about the continent. A French colony then. And they’re worried about something. He thought we were scientists.”
Martin looked at the road. “There’s no room for an automobile here. No radio or television antennas. Sailing ships in the harbor. We could be in the 1800s.” He laughed. “It worked again, Jake. We’ve slipped time’s surly bonds.”
Unease kept Jake from joining Martin’s joy. The memory lingered too strongly of the growing roar, the flames reaching around the zeppelin’s side. How could they have arrived then and there? A change in the light caught Jake’s attention. Where the sun cut a sharp shadow on the buildings now all was a uniform shade, as if dusk was falling. Rolling like a slow ocean at storm, the clouds squirmed overhead. The two-story buildings standing so close together under a ceiling of black clouds suddenly seemed imprisoning. Jake ran ahead. What hid on the other side? Why were the clouds so strange? He passed an old man in his Sunday best, walking with a heavy limp. A young girl, leading a dog on leash, watched wide-eyed as Jake dashed by.
“What are you doing?” yelled Martin.
Jake reached a junction. Across the street, a small park held cast-iron benches with brightly painted red seats. In a small white gazebo, surrounded by yellow flower beds, a man in military uniform leaned on the railing, smoking a pipe. He tipped his hat at Jake, but Jake’s attention was beyond the gazebo, up and up. Martin joined him. “We should stay together. This is an unfamiliar time, and…”
Beyond the park, beyond and above the rows of houses that made the rest of the city, a mountain rose against the sky, pouring black clouds from its peak. No gentle oozing of clouds either. They catapulted from the shrouded mountain, ascended, caught in a high wind that didn’t reach the ground, and flattened over the town.
Jake strode across the street, into the park, his gaze trapped by the silent display. The mountain was close, no more than five miles. Houses in rows lapped against the sloping flank of it. How quiet the town was. None of the seabirds called out. Water in the bay made no sound under the docks. Only his muffled footfalls in the dusty grass. His own breathing.