What had happened?
"Let me through!" she cried, while the loudspeaker continued its repetitions without pause. With wild energy she cut a path for herself through the crowds, beating at the people in her way, striking out with closed fists, flailing desperately, moving toward the door in a nightmare slowness.
"Miss Fellowes, please-Miss Fellowes-urgent-"
Mandy Terris was in tears in the corridor outside the bubble. "I don't know how it happened. I just went down to the edge of the corridor to watch a pocket view-ing-plate they had set up. Just for a minute. And then before I could move or do anything-" She cried out in sudden accusation, "You said they wouldn't make any trouble; you said I should leave them alone-"
Miss Fellowes, disheveled and trembling uncontrollably, glared at her. "Where's Timmie?"
Mortenson had appeared from somewhere and was swabbing the arm of a wailing Jerry with disinfectant. Elliott was there, too, preparing an anti-tetanus shot. There was a bright bloodstain on Jerry's clothes.
"He bit me, Miss Fellowes," Jerry screamed in rage. "He bit me!"
But Miss Fellowes looked right through him.
"What did you do with Timmie?" she cried out.
"I locked him in the bathroom," Mandy Terris said. "I just threw the little monster in there and barricaded it with some chairs."
Miss Fellowes ran into the dollhouse, scarcely even noticing the ripple of disorientation as she entered Stasis. She pushed the chairs aside and fumbled at the bathroom door. It took an eternity to get it open.
At last. She looked down on the ugly little boy, cowering miserably in the corner.
"Don't whip me, Miss Fellowes," Timmie said huskily. His eyes were red. His lips were quivering. "I didn't mean to hurt him. You aren't going to whip me, are you?"
"Oh, Timmie, who told you about whips?" She drew him to her, hugging him wildly.
He said tremulously, "She did. The new one. She said you'd hit me with a long whip, that you would hit me and hit me."
"She was wicked to say that. You won't be whipped. -But what happened? What happened, Timmie?"
He stared up at her. His eyes looked enormous.
In a low voice he said, "He called me an ape-boy."
"What!"
"He said I wasn't a real boy. That he read it in the newspaper. He said I was just an animal." Timmie was fighting to hold back tears; and dien they came, a flood of them. His words grew indistinct as he snuffled, and yet she could make out every syllable all too clearly. "He said he wasn't going to play with a monkey any more. I said I wasn't a monkey. I'm not a monkey. I know what a monkey is."
"Timmie-Timmie-"
"He said I was all funny-looking. He said I was horrible and ugly. He kept saying and saying and I bit him." They were both crying now.
Miss Fellowes said, amid sobs, "It isn't true. You know that, Timmie. You're a real boy. You're a dear real boy and the best boy in the world. And no one, no one, will ever take you away from me."
She went outside again. Elliott and Mortenson were still busding around, patching Jerry up. Mandy Terris was nowhere to be seen.'
Miss Fellowes said, "Get that boy out of here. Take him to his father's office and finish whatever it is you need to do with him there. And if you see Ms. Terris, tell her she can pick up her paycheck and clear out."
They nodded. They backed away from her as if she had begun to breathe fire.
She turned and went back inside, to Timmie.
Her mind was made up, now. It had been very easy: the sudden awareness of what had to be done, die sudden resolve to do it right away, quickly, no hesitation possible. Maybe there were dangers in it that she didn't understand, but she had to take diat chance. If she didn't act at iall, Timmie would surely be sent back across time to die. If she did what she planned now to do, there was at least the hope that things would work out. On the one hand, the certainty of death-on the other, hope. An easy choice, that one. And there wasn't any time for considering and reconsidering, not now, not when Hoskins' own son had been mangled like this.
No, it would have to be done this night, this night, while the celebration over the success of Project Middle Ages still had everyone distracted.
She wished she could call Bruce Mannheim to let him know. But she didn't dare risk it. The switchboard computers might have some kind of security program in them; they might listen in and report what she was intending to do. She would have to get in touch with him after it was done. Mannheim wouldn't mind being awakened in the small hours of the night, not for this. And then he could get to work doing his part.
Midnight, she thought. That's the right time.
There would be no problem about her leaving and coming back that late. She often went there at night, even on nights when she had decided to sleep at her own apartment and had already left for the day. The guard knew her well and wouldn't dream of questioning her. He wouldn't think twice about why she happened to be carrying a suitcase, either. She rehearsed the noncommital phrase, "Some games for the boy," and the calm smile.
Games for the boy? Bringing them in at midnight?
But why should anyone doubt her? She lived only for Timmie. Everyone around here knew that. If she was bringing games for him in the middle of the night, well, that was the way she was. Why should he take any notice?
He didn't.
"Evening, Miss Fellowes. Big day today, wasn't it?"
"Very big, yes. -Some games for the boy," she said, waving the suitcase and smiling.
And went on past the security barrier.
Timmie was still awake when she entered the doll-house.
"Miss Fellowes-Miss Fellowes-"
She maintained a desperate pretense of normality to avoid frightening him. Had he been sleeping? A little, he said. He had had the dream again, and it had awakened him. So she sat with him for a rime, talking about his dreams with him, and listened to him ask wistfully about Jerry. She was as patient as she could force herself to be. There's no hurry, she told herself. Why should anyone be suspicious? I have every right to be in here.
And there would be few to see her when she left, no one to question the bundle she would be carrying. Timmie would be very quiet and then the thing would be done. It would be done and what would be the use of trying to undo it? They would let her be. They would let them both be. Even if what she was about to do blew every power line in six counties, there'd be no point afterward in bringing Timmie back to his place.
She opened the suitcase.
She took out die overcoat, the woolen cap with the ear-flaps, and the rest.
Timmie said, with a note of bewilderment and perhaps distress in his voice, "Why are you putting all these clothes on me, Miss Fellowes?"
She said, "I'm going to take you outside, Timmie. To where your dreams are."
"My dreams?" His face twisted in sudden yearning, yet fear was there, too.
"You don't need to be afraid. You'll be with me. You won't be afraid if you're with me, will you, Timmie?"
"No, Miss Fellowes." He buried his little misshapen head against her side, and under her enclosing arm she could feel his small heart thud.
She lifted him into her arms. She disconnected the alarm and opened the door softly.
And screamed.
Gerald Hoskins was standing there, facing her across the open door.
There were two men with Hoskins and he stared at her, looking as astonished as she was.
Miss Fellowes recovered first by a second, and made a quick attempt to push past him into the corridor; but even with the second's delay Hoskins had enough time to stop her. He caught her roughly and hurled her back through the door of the bubble and up against a chest of drawers. Then he waved the other two men in and confronted her, blocking the door.
"I didn't expect this. Are you completely insane?"