He turns tactical. "Can we descend unseen?"
"If you're careful. Go slowly as I guide you." I recognize the Stanford campus, a mostly unlighted patch. Lean forward against him, left hand holding onto the cloak. These are well-designed seats; my knees will keep me in place. That's a mighty long drop, though. Reach right arm past his side. Point. "Toward there."
The machine tilts forward. We slant down. My nose fills with the scents of him. I've already noticed: pungent rather than sour, yes, very macho.
Got to admire him. A hero, on his own terms. Can't stop a sneaking wish that he'll get away with his desperate caper.
Whoa, girl. That's a pitfall. You've heard about kidnapped people, even tortured people, developing sympathy with their captors. Don't you be a Patty Hearst.
Still, damn it, what Luis has done is fantastic. Brains as well as bravery. Think back. Try, while we chase through the air, try to get straight in your mind what he told you, what you saw, what you figured out.
Hard to. He admitted a lot of confusion himself. Mainly he hews to his faith in the Trinity and the warlike saints. He'll succeed, dedicating his victories to them, and become greater than the Holy Roman Emperor; or he'll die in the attempt and go to Paradise, all sins forgiven because what he did was in the cause of Christendom. Catholic Christendom.
Time travel for real. Some kind of guarda del tiempo, and Uncle Steve works for it. (Oh, Uncle Steve, while we laughed and chatted and went on family picnics and watched TV and played chess or tennis, this was behind your eyes.) Some kind of bandits or pirates also running loose through history, and isn't that a terrifying thought? Luis escaped from them, has this machine, has me, for his wild purposes.
How he got at me—wrung the basic information out of Uncle Steve. I'm afraid to imagine how, though he claims he didn't do any permanent damage. Flitted to the Galapagos, established camp before the islands were discovered. Made cautious reconnaissance trips into the twentieth century, 1987 to be exact. He knew I'd be around then, and I was the one person he had any hope of . . . using.
The campsite's in the arboretum behind Darwin Station. He could safely leave the machine there for a few hours at a stretch, especially in the early morning or late afternoon and at night. Walk into town or around the area, minus his armor. Clothes look funny, but he's careful to approach only working-class locals, and they're used to crazy tourists. Wheedle some, browbeat some, maybe bribe some. I got the impression he stole money. Ruthless. Anyhow, a few shrewd inquiries, at well-spaced intervals. Found out things about this era. Found out things about me. Once he knew I'd gone off on terminal leave, and roughly where, he could hover too high for us to see, watch through that magnifying screen he showed me, wait for an opportunity, swoop. And here we are.
He will do these things, come September. This is Memorial Day weekend. He wanted me to bring him to my home at a time when nobody would disturb us. Mainly me. (What's it like, meeting yourself in the living flesh?) I'm with Dad and Mom and Suzy in San Francisco. Tomorrow we're bound for Yosemite. Won't be back till Monday evening.
Him and me in my apartment. The other three units are vacant, I know, students also away for the holiday.
Well, I dare hope he'll continue "respecting my honor." He did make that nasty crack about me dressing like a man o una puta. Thank—well, be glad I had the wit to get up indignant and tell him this is respectable ladies' garb where I come from. He apologized, sort of. Said I was a white woman, in spite of being a heretic. Indian women's feelings didn't count, of course.
What will he do next? What does he want of me? I don't know. Probably he isn't sure either, yet. If I got the same chance he's got, how would I use it? It's a godlike power. Hard to stay sensible with those controls between your hands.
"Turn right. Slowly, now."
We've flown above University Avenue, across Middlefield, and yonder's the Plaza; my street's that-a-way. Yep. "Halt." We stop. I look past his shoulder at the square building, ten feet below us and twenty ahead. The windows glimmer blind.
"I have rooms in that upper story."
"Have you space for the chariot?"
Gulp. "Well, yes, in the largest chamber. A few feet"—how many, damn it?—"about three feet behind those panes at the very corner." I'm guessing the Spanish foot of his day is not too different from the English foot of mine.
Evidently not. He leans forward, peers, gauges. My pulse gallops. Sweat prickles my skin. He means to make a quantum jump through space (no, not really through space. Around it?) and appear in my living room. What if we come out in the middle of something?
Oh, he's experimented, in his Galapagos retreat. The nerve that that took! He's made discoveries. He tried to explain them to me. As near as I can follow it, put in twentieth-century words, you pass directly from one set of space-time coordinates to another. Maybe it's through a "wormhole"—vague recollection of articles in Scientific American, Science News, Analog—and for a moment your dimensions equal zero; then as you expand into your destination volume, you displace whatever matter is there. Air molecules, obviously. Luis found out that if a small solid object is in the way, it gets pushed aside. A big object, and the machine, with you aboard, settles beside it, off the exact spot you punched for. Probably mutual displacement. Action equals reaction. Agreed, Sir Isaac?
There must be limits. Suppose he gets it badly wrong and we end up in the wall. Splintering studs, nails shoved through my guts, stucco and plaster like cannonball, and a ten- or twelve-foot drop to the ground on this heavy thing.
"Saint James be with us," he says. I feel his motions. Whoops!
We're here, inches above the floor. He sets us down. We're here.
Street glow dim through the windows. Get off. Knees weak. Start. Stop—his grip on my arm like jaws. "Halt," he commands.
"I only want to give us better light."
"I will make quite sure of that, my lady." He comes along. When I flick the switch and everything turns bright, he gasps. His fingers close bruisingly hard. "Ow!" He lets go and stares around him.
Must have seen electric bulbs on Santa Cruz. But Puerto Ayora's a poor little village, and I don't suppose he peeped into the station personnel's quarters. Try to look at this through his eyes. Difficult. I take it all for granted. How much can he actually see, as alien as it is to him?
Bike fills most of the rug. Crowds my desk, the sofa, the entertainment cabinet and bookshelf. It knocked two chairs over. Fourth wall, door open on the short hall. Bathroom and broom closet to the left, bedroom and clothes closet to the right, kitchen at the end, those doors closed. Cubbyholes. And I'll bet nobody less than a merchant prince lived like this in the sixteenth century.
What immediately astounds him: "So many books? You cannot be a cleric."
Why, I doubt if I have a hundred, texts included. And Gutenberg was before Columbus, wasn't he?
"How poorly bound they are." That seems to renew his confidence. I suppose books were still scarce and expensive. And no paperbacks.
He shakes his head at a couple of magazines; the covers must seem downright garish. Harshness again. "You will show me these lodgings."
I do, explaining things as best I can. He has glimpsed (will glimpse) faucets and flush toilets in Puerto Ayora. "How I wish for a bath," I sigh. Give me a hot shower and clean clothes, you can keep your Paradise, Don Luis.
"Presently, if you like. However, it shall be in my sight, like all else you do."
"What? Even the, uh, even that?"
He's embarrassed but determined. "I regret this, my lady, and will keep my face averted, save that I must see enough to be certain you make ready no trick. For I believe yours to be a valiant soul, and you have mysteries and devices that I do not fathom at your beck."