Yet those last few seconds seemed to stretch out to infinity. What was she doing here? The tingling of the particle infusion sent a shiver to the very core of her being. How could this work? How could she stand here and have the root of her life plucked out and tossed into the wind? It was against her every instinct and desire. Why did she volunteer for this? It was madness!
Somewhere, the thinly diffused voice of Kelly came to her, calling down from the control room on the PA system.
“Ready for the big step? On my mark… Three, two, oops… Damn!”
That last word jolted her. It was not so much the unexpected invective as it was the tone of alarm in Kelly’s voice. He had been all business as he counted down—almost nonchalant. Then something happened. She gaped at Nordhausen, hoping to find the answer with him, but he was taken up with the thrill of the hunt and she suddenly felt herself being pulled forward, nearly falling, across the yellow line.
There was a vibrant rush of sound and light, and she instinctively closed her eyes. “Oh god… forgive me…” The words quavered out, drowned out by Nordhausen’s gleeful yelp as they passed into another reality.
Up in the control room Kelly was aghast. He was half way up from his seat, looking around him in a controlled panic as though he needed something at once.
“What happened?” Paul was at the particle infusion station, looking over his shoulder. The moment Kelly swore, his attention had been jerked away from the monitors and Paul turned to see Kelly’s face, clearly upset, as he pulled out his shirt tail and leaned forward over the console desk.
“Damn, damn, damn!” He swore again, annoyed with himself.
“What’s wrong?” Paul took one last look at the infusion console and started in Kelly’s direction.
“I was counting down and reached for my coffee. Spilled the damn cup all over my keyboard!”
Paul arrived at the workstation, breathless, and saw the mess. The mug was tilted on its side in a pool of dark coffee. Some of the liquid had run into the gaps between the keys, and Kelly was trying to swab up the excess liquid with his shirt tail.
“Be careful,” Paul warned. “Watch the chronometer.”
“I know—“ Kelly cut himself short as he glanced at the numerical readout on his console. “What? That’s not right…”
He tapped a function key. “Oh, crap! My keyboard must have shorted out. Quick Paul, I need a replacement—fast!”
The urgency in his voice struck Paul like a jolt of electricity. “Where are they?” he asked. “In the supply room?”
“Hell, there’s no time for that. Just yank one out of one of the other consoles. No—not the history module. Try that one.” Kelly was pointing at an empty workstation and Paul rushed over, unplugging the keyboard in a quiet rush.
By the time he had the board out and over to Kelly’s console he saw that his friend was just staring at the chronometer in disbelief. He immediately knew that this was much more than a simple accident. Something was wrong.
The light gave way to a cold mist that seemed charged with a scintillating static. Maeve stumbled forward, pulled along by Nordhausen and yet clutching to his hand as though her life depended on it. They were over the line and into the Arch. The scene around them disintegrated into darkness as she pressed her eyes tightly closed. Then the cold… so deep and penetrating that she felt as though she could never be warm again. It was the cold of infinity, of annihilation, a graveyard chill that sent uncontrollable shivers through her. For one wild moment she could not feel the ground under her feet. It was as if she was suspended in the air, feather light, or falling in an uncontrolled rush to oblivion. Then her feet felt the substance of something firm again, and the pull of gravity returned. She fell onto her knees, deeply shaken, and the beaded purse that had been dangling from her shoulder, slipped to the floor. The odor of ozone came to her, along with a sickly sweet smell that she could not quite place.
Nordhausen still had hold of her hand, his grip tight and firm. She opened her eyes to see that they were both enveloped in a gray fog, infused with a sheen of pale green light that was accented by faint sparks, like fireflies on a misty night. Tremors of cold still rippled through her body, but they grew still, and the warmth of life returned to her—a feeling of substance and presence, and weight.
“What?” The professor’s voice quavered out, and she looked to see the excitement in his eyes giving way to puzzlement. “Where are we?” He was looking around in amazement. “Now what has Kelly done this time?”
Presence of mind had finally returned to her, and she remembered who she was, and what she was about. Maeve struggled up, aided by Nordhausen, and the two of them stood gaping at their surroundings. This was not the road to Alexandria. They were not in the quiet of the early dawn near Abukir Bay, and worse yet, as the seconds passed, interminably long, she realized that they were not being pulled back to their own time. A Spook Job was just a quiet manifestation in the target zone and then return—or at least it was supposed to be. This was only the second time they had tried such an operation. If it worked as Kelly planned, they should be standing in the Arch corridor by now, safe in the year 2010. But instead they were gawking at the simple furnishings of a small room. The dull brown walls were shaped of dried earth with embedded stone, and hung with brightly colored tapestries. A thick rug covered the floor, with an ornate pattern in a stylized geometric design. Arabic, she thought, her mind filling in the blanks as they struggled to understand what had happened to them.
“He’s done it again,” Nordhausen was saying, but Maeve was still taking in her surroundings. Her eyes fixed on a low wood table, a few feet in front of them. There was a small tea pot of polished brass sitting on the table. Tiny curls of steam emerged from the curved spout, spiraling up into the dissipating fog about them. A simple porcelain cup was tilted on its side, the brown stain of freshly spilled tea still wetting the lacquered table top. She noted the simple decoration painted on the cup, a star embraced by a sickle moon and surrounded by Arabic writing.
“Damn the man,” said Nordhausen, “he’s botched the numbers again, I tell you! Now where in blazes are we?”
Maeve was still speechless as she watched the professor move cautiously toward a single open window on the far wall. It was clear that the shift had failed. They were not on their intended coordinates, at least not spatially. God only knew where they were, or when, but Nordhausen was already getting far too curious. She forced herself to speak, her voice dry in her throat.
“Stay put, Robert…”
“Don’t worry, I’ll just have a look out the window. What is this place?”
Maeve’s mind began to piece things together, with one thought stumbling after another. It was daylight. The warm light was streaming through the single open window where Nordhausen was now standing, and gleaming off the polished buttons of his blue waistcoat. The spilled teacup pulled at her, suggesting that someone had been in this very room only a moment before. It was a single person, for there was only one cup. Perhaps he was sitting down for morning tea when the two of them began to manifest. Lord, what a fright that man would have had! Spook Job was a good handle for a mission like this, but something was clearly wrong. She looked about, noticing a half open door behind them, but there was no sign of anyone else. The poor fellow must have been frightened out of his mind.
She took in more details of the room… The rug was a simple prayer rug, undoubtedly oriented toward Mecca, wherever that was. There was a wash bowl, half filled with water to one side of the table, and a book lay upside down on the floor. She stooped to see that it was a copy of the Holy Koran.