“These are from your Transport,” the anonymous voice explained. “Exchange them and place the used ones here. They will be recharged for use.”
“Why are we here?” I felt silly looking up as I switched my tank as instructed, but it was as good a direction as any. And at least this room had a higher ceiling.
“To learn where your eyes can see better,” came the immediate answer. The strange wall panel I had noted before was alive all at once with images of incredible depth and clarity. Traveler display technology obviously took full advantage of their sense of vision.
“Will your recording system work at higher than real time speeds?” our guiding voice asked. “The capacity was stated in the data you sent.”
I looked over at Lazz. That was his specialty, and he nodded.
“As if they don’t know,” he grumbled. “We sent them the specs.” But he looked up to speak as I transcribed on the keyboard.
“Up to about thirty times normal speed given a high resolution image… well, you’ve been using this type of vision a lot longer than we have, so I guess I can assume you’ll give us a good image…” He broke off in embarrassment. “There will be no problem,” he amended.
I debated getting out of my suit to get comfortable, but before I could suggest it, our hosts spoke up again.
“Focus on the display,” came our next order. “Use the seats.”
I noticed the stools that seemed to be built into the floor in front of the screen. There were six of them arranged in pairs in a semi-circle, and we squatted awkwardly on two.
“I have a feeling we’re going to be sitting here a while,” Lazz whispered. “I could sure use a beer right about now.”
I was more worried about something else as I thought about hours of watching a video record passing too quickly to keep track of. “Is there a way to make sure the eye-sets don’t turn off if my eyes close?” I had a sudden panic image of dozing off in the middle of a prime period of Traveler history and my eye-set recorder shutting off because my eyes closed.
Lazz chuckled. “Open up,” he ordered as he reached for his belt to pull out a small tool from a kit as I undid the front of my suit to give him access to my computer. He bent down for a moment and opened a small panel, and then made some invisible adjustments before straightening.
“There. If you do happen to disgrace mankind by nodding off there will be no witnesses… except me,” he concluded ominously. “And I locked the focus on the distance of the screen, just in case.”
“How about your eyes?” I whispered needlessly.
“I’ll be okay. I’m used to this, from one of my data processing instructors.” His voice suddenly took on a droning, monotone voice as he slowly said: “He… had… this… incredible… monotone… way… of… lecturing.” He shook his head. “But God help you if you nodded off. In his classes you had to pay attention! And he loved to give pop quizzes” Lazz laughed. “No, don’t worry about me.”
As we turned to face the display, the screen shimmered and apparently reset, because we were looking in on a vivid image of the ocean in the frames on the wall outside, shifting as we watched, and alternating with teasingly brief images of close-ups within the water. I restrained a smile as I realized we were watching the Traveler equivalent of a PBS documentary. Accompanying the fluid flow of images was a rapid, high-pitched squeal which when slowed down would probably prove to be a narrator’s voice.
After a while, as I had expected, my attention drifted and the swirling images on the screen blurred, even if it stayed in focus. It was a weird feeling. I was locked at attention—I mustn’t shame humanity!—but I wasn’t really seeing the hypnotically blurred screen. Instead, I saw sheeting rain on the windshield of Ellen’s car as we drove home after a late dinner at Fleur de Lies. It had been our twelfth wedding anniversary, May 20th, 2017… the last one we had shared…
I had gone all out to reserve one of the dining rooms just for the two of us, and hired a classical trio from a nearby college to play. I wanted this to be an extra special anniversary because Ellen had just sold her first fiction novel. While I had astronomy for a hobby, hers had been writing mysteries. She had been writing and selling short stories for years and had finally—after much urging on my part—decided to try a full-length novel. And she had sold it to a mid-sized publisher, with a fair advance for simultaneous CD-Text, Electronic and Print rights.
That deserved a celebration.
The candle-lit dinner was perfect: a falling-apart tender trout aux amandes, broccoli with Hollandaise sauce, new potatoes simmered with an incredible fresh herb seasoning, fresh warm rolls on the side, an incredible Chenin Blanc—only a single glass apiece because we wanted fully clear heads for the rest of the night—and a sinfully rich chocolate cake for dessert. Gentle music of Mozart, Dvorak and Bach eased our digestion, and we left the restaurant walking on air. A sudden rain shower did nothing to dampen our spirits.
Since my car was in the shop, we were using Ellen’s and naturally she was driving. Her convertible was her baby. The rain was light but we took it easy as we headed home, anxious to get more intimate. I was trying not to look too anxious as I pictured her finding her present on her pillow: I had found a first edition of an early Agatha Christie novel that I knew she had been dying to get to add to her collection. It had cost me an arm and a leg, but after our last anniversary when she had bought me an antique telescope I had been eyeing, I had been determined to find her something equally appropriate.
With the fogging up of the inside rear window, neither of us had seen the dark blue van that had been behind us until it was right on our rear bumper. It was running without headlights in the early evening gloom, the driver obviously impatient over Ellen’s careful driving at the speed limit. The driver of the van didn’t seem to care about the fact that the small manual-control road we were on was a two-lane one with no-passing markings laid down, because as soon as a gap opened in the oncoming traffic, he floored it to pass us, ignoring the blaring alarm that was certainly coming from his dashboard as he crossed over the electronic road-markers; an alarm already logged in his violations-box, unless it had been disconnected.
Ellen had seen it, and she calmly moved over as much as possible and slowed down to give him room, but we were approaching a curve and unseen to the van, a large truck was just coming around it, lights flashing angrily on high as the truck driver slammed on the brakes. The van driver panicked and swerved right into us, the shock throwing me against side window hard enough to stun me.
The next few moments passed in a blurred haze as our car ran up on a stone wall to our right and flipped, spinning and sliding to slam into the oncoming truck with a numbing crash that blacked me out.
I had awakened in the hospital almost ten hours later. I had had three broken ribs, a broken leg and a concussion, but all that had been forgotten in the agony of learning the Ellen was dead. It had been her side of the car that had hit the truck, and while the roll-bar had saved us when the car had flipped, the windshield frame had been ripped loose to plunge into Ellen’s chest, driven by the impact to kill her instantly.
And the van driver had not even been bruised! And to make it worse, he had not shown the slightest sign of remorse on sobering up. He had laughed at the life-time sentence imposed on him and sworn that he wouldn’t even spend a week in a cell. And he had been right. Three days later, due to jail-crowding, he had been remanded to house arrest at his home with electronic surveillance as his only guardian.
I had been a basket-case for months, unable to imagine a life without her. For twelve years, our lives had revolved around each other. Sure, we each had had our own interests and we had not spent every moment together, but there had always been the subliminal knowledge that the other was there; within reach with a raised voice or the push of a speed dial button. But suddenly that had been over.