“No, sir.”
A pause, and then: “Where is Katrina?”
“She is waiting in the place, Mr. Chaney.”
“Does she know I am here?”
“Yes, sir.”
“She knew I would ask about her?”
“Yes, sir. She thought you would.”
Chaney said: “I’m going to break a rule.”
“She thought you would do that, too.”
“But she didn’t object?”
“She gave us instructions, sir. If you asked, we were to say that she told you where she would wait.”
Chaney nodded his wonder. “Yes — she did that. She did that twice.” He moved back along the path by way of the cistern and they carefully retreated before him, still uncertain of him. “Did you do this?”
“My father and I dug it, Mr. Chaney. We had your book. The descriptions were very clear.”
“I’d tell Haakon, if I dared.”
Arthur Saltus stepped aside when they reached the parking lot and allowed Chaney to go ahead of him. The woman had darted off to one side and now kept a prudent distance. She continued to stare at him, a stare that might have been rude under other circumstances, and Chaney was very sure she’d seen no other man for too many years. He was equally certain she’d never seen a man like him inside the protective fence: that was her apprehension.
He ignored the rifle resting in the cart.
Brian Chaney fitted the keys into the twin locks and swung the heavy door. His two lanterns rested on the top step, and as before a rush of musty air fell out into the waning afternoon sunlight. Chaney paused awkwardly on the doorsill wondering what to say — wondering how to say goodbye to these people. Only a damned fool would say something flippant or vacuous or inane; only a damned fool would utter one of the meaningless clichés of his age; but only a stupid fool would simply walk away from them without saying anything.
He glanced again at the sky and at the golden fleece about the sun, at the new grass and leaves and then at the aging mound of yellow clay. At length his gaze swung back to the man and woman who waited on him.
He said: “Thank you for trusting me.”
Saltus nodded. “They said you could be trusted.”
Chaney studied Arthur Saltus and almost saw again the unruly sandy hair and the peculiar set to his eyes — the eyes of a man long accustomed to peering against the sun-bright sea. He looked long at Kathryn Saltus but could not see the transparent blouse or the delta pants: on her those garments would be obscene. Those garments belonged to a world long gone. He searched her face for a moment too long, and was falling head over heels when reality brought him up short.
Harsh reality: she lived here but he belonged back there. It was folly to entertain even dreams about a woman living a hundred years ahead of him. Hurtful reality.
His conscience hurt when he closed the door because he had no more to say to them. Chaney turned away and went down the steps, putting behind him the quiet sun, the chill world of 2000-plus, the unknown survivors beyond the fence who had fled in terror at sight and sound of him, and the half-familiar survivors within the fence who were sharp reminders of his own loss. His conscience hurt, but he didn’t turn back.
The time was near sunset on an unknown day.
It was the longest day of his life.
SEVENTEEN
The briefing room was subtly different from that one he’d first entered weeks or years or centuries ago.
He remembered the military policeman who’d escorted him from the gate and then opened the door for him; he remembered his first glance into the room — his lukewarm reception, his tardy entrance. He’d found Kathryn van Hise critically eyeing him, assessing him, wondering if he would measure up to some task ahead; he’d found Major Moresby and Arthur Saltus playing cards, bored, impatiently awaiting his arrival; he’d found the long steel table positioned under lights in the center of the room — all waiting on him.
He had given his name and started an apology for his tardiness when the first hurtful sound stopped him, chopped him off in mid-sentence and hammered his ears. He had seen them turn together to watch the clock: sixty-one seconds. All that only a week or two ago — a century or two ago — before the bulky envelopes were opened and a hundred flights of fancy loosed. The long journey from the Florida beach had brought him twice to this room, but this time the lantern poorly illuminated the place.
Katrina was there.
The aged woman was sitting in her accustomed chair to one side of the oversized steel table — sitting quietly in the darkness beneath the extinct ceiling lights. As always, her clasped hands rested on the tabletop in repose. Chaney put the lantern on the table between them and the poor light fell on her face.
Katrina.
Her eyes were bright and alive, as sharply alert as he remembered them, but time had not been lenient with her. He read lines of pain, of unknown troubles and grief; the lines of a tenacious woman who had endured much, had suffered much, but had never surrendered her courage. The skin was drawn tight over her cheekbones, pulled tight around her mouth and chin and appeared sallow in lantern light. The lustrous, lovely hair was entirely gray. Hard years, unhappy years, lean years.
Despite all that he knew a familiar spark within him: she was as beautiful in age as in youth. He was pleased to find that loveliness so enduring.
Chaney pulled out his own chair and slid down, never taking his eye off her. The old woman sat without moving, without speaking, watching him intently and waiting for the first word.
He thought: she might have been sitting there for centuries while the dust and the darkness grew around her; waiting patiently for him to come forward to the target, waiting for him to explore the station, fulfill his last mission, end the survey, and then come opening doors to find the answers to questions raised above ground. Chaney would not have been too surprised to find her waiting in ancient Jericho if he’d gone back ten thousand years. She would have been there, placidly waiting in some temple or hovel, waiting in a place where he would find her when he began opening doors.
The dusty briefing room was as chill as the cellar had been, as chill as the air outside, and she was bundled in one of the heavy coats. Her hands were encased in a pair of large mittens intended for a man — and if he bent to look, he would find the oversize boots. She appeared bent over, small in the chair and terribly tired.
Katrina waited on him.
Chaney struggled for something to say, something that wouldn’t sound foolish or melodramatic or carry a ring of false heartiness. She would despise him for that. Here again was the struggle of the outer door, and here again he was fearful of losing the struggle. He had left her here in this room only hours ago, left her with that sense of. dry apprehension as he prepared himself for the third — now final — probe into the future. She had been sitting in the same chair in the same attitude of repose.
Chaney said: “I’m still in love with you, Katrina.”
He watched her eyes, and thought they were quickly filled with humor and a pleasurable laughter.
“Thank you, Brian.”
Her voice had aged as welclass="underline" it sounded more husky than he remembered and it reflected her weariness.
“I found patches of wild strawberries at the old barracks, Katrina. When do strawberries ripen in Illinois?”
There was laughter in her eyes. “In May or June. The summers have been quite cold, but May or June.”
“Do you know the year? The number?”
A minute movement of her head. “The power went out many years ago. I’m sorry, Brian, but I have lost the count.”
“I don’t suppose it really matters — not now, not with what we’ve already learned. I agree with Pindar.”
She looked her question.
He said: “Pindar lived about twenty-five hundred years ago but he was wiser than a lot of men alive today. He warned man of peering too far into the future, he warned of not liking what would be found.” An apologetic gesture; a grin. “Bartlett again: my vice. The Commander was always teasing me about my affair with Bartlett.”