He was just starting back to the time machine when there was a faint sound from the double doors.
He turned, stomach tightening into a knot. It could only be Saunders, here for a late-night briefing on the day's progress. If he noticed that the cameras were running—realized what that meant—
The doors swung open, and Major Davidson stepped in.
Garwood felt an instantaneous burst of relief... followed by an equally instantaneous burst of fear. He'd specifically requested that Davidson not be cleared for this part of Backdrop... "Major," he managed to say between suddenly dry lips. "Up—ah, rather late, aren't you?"
Davidson closed the doors, his eyes never leaving Garwood's face. "I only hope I'm not here too late," he said in a quiet voice. "You've done it, haven't you?"
Garwood licked his lips, nodding his head fractionally toward the machine beside him. "Here it is."
For a long moment neither man spoke. "I misjudged you," Davidson said at last, and to Garwood's ears there was more sorrow than anger in the words. "You talked a lot about responsibility to the world; but in the end you backed down and did what they told you to do."
"And you?" Garwood asked softly, the tightness in his stomach beginning to unknot. If Davidson was willing to talk first... to talk, and to listen... "Have you thought through the consequences of your actions? You went to a lot of illegal trouble to get in here. If you kill me on top of that, your own life's effectively over."
A muscle in Davidson's cheek twitched. "Unlike you, Doctor, I don't just talk about responsibility. And there are things worth dying for."
Unbidden, a smile twitched at Garwood's lips. "You know, Major, I'm glad you came. It gives me a certain measure of hope to know that even in the midst of the 'not-me' generation there are still people willing to look beyond their own selfish interests."
Davidson snorted. "Doctor, I'll remind you that I've seen this nobility act of yours before. I'm not buying it this time."
"Good. Then just listen."
Davidson frowned. "To what?"
"To the silence."
"The—?" Davidson stopped abruptly; and all at once he seemed to get it. "It's quiet," he almost whispered, eyes darting around the room, coming to rest eventually on the machine beside Garwood. "But—the Garwood Effect—you've found a way to stop it?"
Garwood shook his head. "No, not really. Though I think I may understand it a bit better now." He waved a hand around the room. "In a sense, the trouble is merely that I was born at the wrong time. If I'd lived a hundred years earlier the culture wouldn't have had the technological base to do anything with my equations; if I'd been born a hundred years later, perhaps I'd have had the time and necessary mathematics to work out a safe method of time travel, leaving my current equations as nothing more than useless curiosities to be forgotten."
"I'd hardly call them useless," Davidson interjected.
"Oh, but they are. Or didn't you notice how much trouble the various fabrication shops had in constructing the modules for this machine?"
"Of course I did," Davidson nodded, a frown still hovering across his eyes. "But if the modules themselves were falling apart...?"
"How was I able to assemble a working machine?" Garwood reached up to touch one of the machine's supports. "To be blunt, I cheated. And as it happens, you were the one who showed me how to do it."
Davidson's eyes locked with him. "Me?"
"You," Garwood nodded. "With a simple, rather sarcastic remark you made to me back in my Champaign apartment. Tell me, what's the underlying force that drives the Garwood Effect?"
Davidson hesitated, as if looking for a verbal trap. "You told me it was the possibility that someone would use time travel to change the past—" He broke off, head jerking with sudden insight. "Are you saying...?"
"Exactly," Garwood nodded. "There's no possibility of changing the past if my machine can only take me into the future."
Davidson looked up at the machine. "How did you manage that?"
"As I said, it was your idea. Remember when I balked at flying back here and you suggested putting a bomb under my seat to make sure a crash would be fatal?" Garwood pointed upwards. "If you'll look under the seat there you'll see three full tanks of acetylene, rigged to incinerate both the rider and the machine if the 'reverse' setting is connected and used."
Davidson looked at the machine for a long moment, eyes flicking across the tanks and the mechanism for igniting them. "And that was really all it took?" he asked.
"That's all. Before I installed the system we couldn't even load the modules into their racks without them coming apart in our hands. Afterwards, they were still touchy to make, but once they were in place they were completely stable. Though if I disconnected the suicide system they'd probably fall apart en masse."
Slowly, Davidson nodded. "All right. So that covers the machine. It still doesn't explain what's happened to your own personal Garwood Effect."
"Do you really need an explanation for that?" Garwood asked.
Davidson's eyes searched his. "But you don't even know how well it'll work," he reminded Garwood. "Or if there are any dangerous side effects."
That thought had occurred to Garwood, too. "Ultimately, it doesn't matter. One way or another, this is my final ticket out of Backdrop. My equations go with me, of course—" he pointed at the secured wastebasket—"and all the evidence to date indicates Saunders and his team could work till Doomsday without being able to reproduce them."
"They know how to make the modules for this machine," Davidson pointed out.
"Only some of them. None of the really vital ones—I made those myself, and I'm taking all the documentation with me. And even if they somehow reconstructed them, I'm still convinced that assembling a fully operational machine based on my equations will be impossible." He paused, focused his attention on the cameras silently recording the scene. "You hear that, Saunders? Drop it. Drop it, unless and until you can find equations that lead to a safer means of time travel. You'll just be wasting your own time and the taxpayers' money if you don't."
Turning his back on the cameras, he climbed once again up into the seat. "Well, Major," he said, looking down, "I guess this is good-bye. I've... enjoyed knowing you."
"That's crap, Doctor," Davidson said softly. "But good luck anyway."
"Thanks." There were a handful of switches to be thrown—a dozen strokes on each of three keypads—and amid the quiet hum and vibration of the machine he reached for the trigger lever—
"Doctor?"
He paused. "Yes, Major?"
"Thanks," Davidson said, a faint smile on his lips, "for helping me quit smoking."
Garwood smiled back. "You're welcome."
Grasping the trigger lever, he pulled it.
The President's Doll
It started—or at least my involvement in the case started—as a brief but nasty behind-the-scenes battle between the Washington Police and the Secret Service over jurisdiction. The brief part I was witness to: I was at my desk, attention split between lunch and a jewelry recovery report, when Agent William Maxwell went into Captain Forsythe's office; and I was still on the same report when they came out. The nasty part I didn't actually see, but the all-too-familiar glint in Forsythe's eyes was only just beginning to fade as he and Maxwell left the office and started across the crowded squad room. I noted the glint, and Maxwell's set jaw, and said a brief prayer for whoever the poor sucker was who would have to follow Forsythe's act.
So of course they came straight over to me.