“Merry Christmas, Eli! Want to play some baseball?”
It’s Gassy. He’s eating some of the dried apples that Lewis passed out earlier for Christmas presents. He also had a few big sips of the brandy that was part of Christmas breakfast.
The apples had been in the crates with other treats, and were meant to celebrate both the holiday and the fact that we finished building the last part of “Fort Mandan” yesterday.
The fort is really just a group of small wooden huts surrounded by a big fence, right across the frozen river from the Mandan village.
You can see the round huts from here.
Lewis said the Mandan village “is the last known stop on the white man’s map. Fur traders come up here. West of this, terra incognito.”
I’ve been meaning to ask him what that means. Maybe he meant “terror”? Like he’s afraid of what lies ahead?
The Mandans and their neighbors, the Hidatsas, have been really friendly to us. They’ve sent food, and visited us, and had us over in the village for feasts. They don’t celebrate Christmas though.
Gassy’s still waiting for an answer. The men all seem intrigued by “base,” as they originally called it, until I updated them, since it was the game that helped get us out of that jam downriver. I left Kentuck’s Fives ball with the Lakotas, but I’ve managed to make another one out of some old rags, and that’s been usable. Barely.
“I can’t right now, Gassy. I’m busy.”
“Busy? On a field of ice on Christmas Day? The Fort’s built. There’s nothing to do but freeze. And play. Oh, and fire off the cannon, tonight.”
He’s grinning when he says it. He’s weaving a little bit.
“I know, Gassy. I’ll be there for the cannon firing.” I mean, that sounds cool, as long as it’s not actually aimed at anybody.
He holds up the rag bundle, and the small willow branch I helped carve into a vague Louisville Slugger shape.
“Come on, Eli. You can hit first. Christmas present.”
Every mention of Christmas gets my thoughts all churning up again. It’s not Gassy’s fault. The last Christmas I spent was with my mom, in San Francisco, during World War II. And that involved keeping her from getting blown up.
I don’t know what’s happened to her since.
I don’t even think it’s been a full year since that Christmas happened. Not for me. That’s another problem with time travel. Holidays don’t obey any rules about how often they’re supposed to come.
That might be good if, say, you really liked Halloween, or chocolate Easter eggs. But not when you’re missing somebody on Christmas.
I miss my family. And if I find Clyne, maybe I can get back to them.
“Sorry, Gassy. I don’t think I feel like it right now. I don’t feel very Christmasy.”
“But you feel cold, don’t you? That’s Christmasy. And you said you love this game. Besides, what else is there to do?”
I don’t know. Maybe he’s right. Maybe that would cheer me up.
“Eli will be coming with me.” Lewis had come out of the fort, wrapped up like some shaggy swamp creature from a Comnet cartoon, like the rest of us. “I know it’s a holiday, but I’ve got to walk across the river to the village and see about hiring that French trader who came into camp. We could use him as a guide for the second half our journey.”
“That Charbonneau fellow they were talking about around the fire the other night? You want him to be our guide? Sir?” Gassy asks.
“Well, I’m actually more interested in hiring his wife. She’s not much older than Eli here. Her name’s Sacagawea. She’s supposed to be a full-blooded Shoshone, and we’ll be meeting that tribe sometime in the spring. She may know the area, and we could use a translator.”
“Well that’s too bad the pair of you have such highfalutin important business on Christmas Day,” Gassy says. “Forgettin’ already it’s a holiday and such. But you both have yourselves a good time with the Mandans.” Still grinning, he throws up the rag bundle, swings the branch, and knocks a pretty good pop fly out over the snow.
“You don’t mind the walk, young squire?” Lewis asks me, after Gassy goes after the rag ball.
“It’s best to keep moving in weather like this, sir.”
As we walk across the ice toward the village, I lose my balance and almost drop the orange. Drawing closer, we can smell the sharp smoke trailing from the chimney-holes on top of the round huts.
“You seem to be feeling particularly alone today, Master Sands,” Lewis says at last. The words are muffled, and he has to say them more loudly than usual, in order to get them past all the fur strips. “Missing anyone in particular? Anything or anyplace?”
“Nothing — no one — that would make any sense, sir.”
“It never does.”
Lewis lets the conversation stop there. We cross from the slick river ice to the mushier snow on the banks, which is a little easier to walk on. Lewis taps me and points to the largest of the huts. We walk toward it and pull back the flaps
“Hello!” Lewis says. “Happy Holiday.”
One of the Mandan men jumps up and begins shouting at us. I think we startled them. They were all planning on spending a cold day around the fire, and here we are, yelling about a holiday on a calendar they don’t even follow.
The Mandan children surround Lewis and me. A couple of them touch me, giggle, then run back toward the fire and smoke, and the grownups, in the middle of the lodge. All of us in the Corps still seem so strange to them.
We’re the outsiders, with the weird customs. We’re like Barnstormer teams, showing up in a new town. Needing to prove ourselves to everybody. To prove we can be trusted. Of course, in Barnstormers, it never works out.
Closer by the fire, I think I see at least one of the people Lewis had come for: Sacagawea. She’s young — I mean, not as young as me, but she’s still a teenager. With long black hair, tied in several rings down her back. And she’s pregnant.
I walk with Lewis in her direction, when someone taps me on my shoulder and says, “You are probably looking for me.” I turn to see another young Indian, about the same age as Sacagawea, who steps forward from the haze. He has a large painted blanket wrapped around himself. There are wolves on it. There are also stars, and what appears to be a planet, sort of Earth-like, except with two suns.
He motions for me to head back to the corner — well, the “round,” maybe, since technically there aren’t any corners — with him.
“I’m looking for —” I have to struggle to remember the name — “North Wind Goes,” I said. “The medicine man.”
The Indian nods. “He may have medicine. Or he may not. But ‘medicine man’ is a white term.”
Did I say something wrong? I know that medicine can also mean “power,” but I wonder if I’ve offended him. Hey, wait. He understood everything I just said in English. How could he? Unless…
“My name is now ‘North Wind Comes.’ It’s changed. I’ve gone out and come back.”
Come back from where? I want to ask. Instead, it comes out like this: “I hear you might know the lizard man.”
“The lizard man is just a rumor.”
I hold out the orange.
“If you know this rumor, if you see him, would you give this to him? From me. That’s all.”
North Wind takes the orange in his hand, and holds it to his nose. Then he looks into my eyes and nods.
“Then you must be Eli.”
Chapter Fourteen
Thea: The Sklaan Room
February 2020
I watch Eli’s father for several minutes, walking around the room. He’s holding something in his hand: two prongs with an arc and a ball of light, dancing between them. The light changes color, turning bluer and bluer as he comes closer.
He wears some kind of messenger bag at his side.
This room hasn’t been lived in for a very long time. There’s dust, and clutter, and the furnishings seem strange even by the standards of Eli’s
era, as though they’re not quite of the same period.
Near me, on a shelf, is a brown glass bottle with an orange covering. The covering says OVALTINE, and I try to pronounce the strange word.
No sound comes out.
Eli’s father hasn’t noticed me yet, either. I don’t want to startle him, but I need to make my presence known.
The blue light glows brighter still as he turns the apparatus toward me.
I try to speak, but still nothing. I reach for the Ovaltine jar but cannot grasp it. My hand goes through it, like a specter, a phantom. And I realize that as I hold my hand in front of the bottle, I can see both my hand and the glass container behind it. I am in the same ephemeral state as the projected light of Mother’s in the lighthouse. I am here. But not completely.
What does this mean? What happened to me after I put on Eli’s cap in Jefferson President’s house? How is it that I am mostly here… but not quite?
Eli’s soft helmet, the one he uses for personal time displacement, seems to have affected me in a different way.
Eli’s father is staring at me now. The apparatus in his hand is a brilliant blue.
He’s staring at me, but he doesn’t see me.
Instead, he sets the portable down on the floor, where it continues to glow. Looking toward me, but not seeing, he reaches into his pocket and puts on a glove. And then another. Then he reaches into the bag, and pulls out…a cloth of some kind. A… sklaan. The sklaan. The artificial skin covering I was given on Saurius Prime to keep me warm or cold, as needed.
I had given it away to a woman named Hannah, a refugee from Peenemünde. She was fleeing the slave caves of the Reich, where captives worked on building rockets that would be used to destroy more lives. That was the place that taught me just how fearsome the future could be.
What is the sklaan doing here?
“Sandusky…”
I say his name. I mouth it. Still no sound.
He looks at me, where I … where I’m not standing. I’m floating. My feet aren’t touching anything solid, either. It’s like being in a dream.
But Eli’s father keeps looking in my direction, with an intense, yet quizzical, look on his face. I remember those sorts of expressions on my mother’s face. And in remembering, might cry damp tears if I were more solid.
Sandusky reaches into the bag, and pulls out a small sharp blade. He begins to cut a piece off of the sklaan. Then he stands back and throws the cutting into the middle of the blue orb, like tossing meat onto a fire.
The blue light explodes.
I am surrounded by arcing, sparking streaks of lightning and other light that moves like liquid waves. It’s as if a great sluice gate of water has been flung open, and I’m cascading into the middle of the room.
Sandusky, surprised, is knocked back into the shelves by the reaction. He turns to where I am, where the light is most intense.
“Thea?”
Now he can see me.
I try to speak. Still nothing. I nod instead.
“What are you…?”
He steps toward me, stands in front of me, reaches out…and his fingers go right through me.
“Are you… are you… are you all right?”
I nod. Though how can I be sure?
“Are you a ghost?” He looks around, as if he might want to retract that question.
I shake my head no.
But then again, how can I tell?
“Where’s Eli?” He’s staring at my hair when he says it… at the hat. Even in an ephemeral state like this, Eli’s cap is visible on my head.
He returns his gaze to my eyes. “Where are you now?”
That’s a good question. Since I am not fully here, is part of me somewhere else? Has some of my life force been lost, perhaps forever, in transit through the Fifth Dimension? Am I also appearing as a ghost in Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello at this same instant?
But I can’t ask any of these questions. Not out loud. So instead, I shrug.
Mother always hated shrugs. She preferred a good no to a shrug, even if she was looking for a yes. She loathed anything noncommittal.
“Is Eli all right?” A yes-and-no question. I could nod, if I knew the answer. But I don’t want to shrug again. For Eli’s father, that would be as bad as a no. So I nod. It’s not quite a lie. It’s giving us all the benefit of the doubt.
“Have you seen my wife?”
I shake my head. It’s the first clear answer I can give him, and it’s sad news.
“The dinosaur boy?”
His voice is rising. He has to compete with the sparking blue energy swirling around the room.
I’m so sorry I can’t tell him what he wants to hear.
I’m so sorry.
I reach out for him. He reaches back.
Our fingers nearly touch. But more sparks, not just blue ones, burn and crack between them.
Sandusky snaps his hand back. “Thea! What have I done to you?”
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
I can’t tell him it’s not his fault. Even if I could speak, he wouldn’t hear me over the sudden loud thudding as the door flies open — SHZZZT! —and slams shut. I’ve seen this man before. He once ordered soldiers to open fire on a Saurian time-craft I was in. “Hello, Sandusky.”
He’s there with a woman.
“Howe. Thirty.”
There are two armed guardians behind them now. He’s keeping the same kind of company.
Thirty — I wonder if she’s a mathematician — and Howe both squint against the brightness.
“Quite a dramatic meeting, Mr. Sands,” Thirty tells him. “And quite clever. We thought you had run away. And yet here you were, under our noses, in the most restricted area of the tunnels.”
“Everything seems to be here. Every last splinter and crumb from the hotel room. Everything but my wife.”
“She’s never been here, Sands.” The one named Howe seems always impatient, whereas Thirty acts more like this is a game. “If you’d cooperate, maybe we could find her.”
“And look,” Thirty makes her next move, “you’ve brought the artifact.” She points to the sklaan. “We’ve kept that under very tight security, since our predecessors found it. You’ve been quite busy, Sands, stealing it, breaking in here and contaminating the entire room.”
“How long has this project been going on? How many ‘Danger Boys’ have there been before my son?”
It’s not a game to Sandusky. But there’s still some strategy. He has put himself between me — the apparition of me — and the intruders.
“Your wife doesn’t appear here, Sands. She doesn’t haunt this place like a ghost. We need you back in your lab. Helping us. Helping your country. Helping the world.”
“You’ve taken my family from me. How much more help can I give?”
Howe doesn’t respond to that but keeps looking around the room. Perhaps after you’ve done certain things to someone, it becomes impossible to look them right in the eye.
But Sandusky looks at Howe. “You even took a hotel room my wife lived in once and rebuilt it here, in this tunnel, where no one could find it. Why?
“Things in the world…are not as under control as we would like, Sands.” The guardians are moving slowly toward Eli’s father. Howe keeps talking to him. “It’s dangerous for all of us.”
“This isn’t a man who worries about danger, Mr. Howe.” Thirty still seems to be enjoying this situation. “This is a man who brings an alien artifact like that”—she nods at the sklaan—“into a room like this, hoping all the time-particle residue will ignite a reaction with his portable time-sphere. He wants to tear open another hole in time and space. This isn’t a man who worries about danger at all.”
“Maybe this is a man who needs to be left alone to experiment, if you ever want me to help you.”
The guardians are steps away from Eli’s father, but at these words, even Thirty and Howe involuntarily step forward. As everyone closes in, Sandusky is forced to adjust position, and can
no longer block their view of me.
“My God.” Howe stares.
Thirty moves toward me. I move — drift — aside. She circles around me, then looks at Eli’s father. “So, Sands, do you know this… emanation?”
He doesn’t answer.
“We’ve seen her before, I believe.” She motions at the guardians, who lower their weapons, pointing them at both Sandusky — and Mr. Howe.
“This room is contaminated in all sorts of interesting ways. Mr. Howe and Sandusky, you’ll have to stay here. And so will the girl. However much of her there is.”
Howe seems shocked. “But—”
Eli’s father just shakes his head. And laughs.
Thirty continues. “We’ll say it was slow pox and keep these corridors sealed off.”
The laugh turns into a sudden roar as Sandusky charges Thirty. “Taken…everything!” The guardians look like they want to fire, but Mr. Howe, still loyal to her, tries to stop his charge, and they don’t have clear aim.
As Howe and Sandusky grapple, Howe is spun toward the center of the room, toward the sklaan, and the glowing blue orb. Toward me.
Howe hits me first.
But there is no “hit,” no impact, just tingling, and the skittish release of even more energy.
Howe flails his arms and tries to grab ahold of me, to slow himself, but I’m not solid.
And then it starts to feel like there’s an electrical storm, like it did when Eli and K’lion and I were ejected from the Saurian time-ship, and fell through the Fifth Dimension, seemingly so long ago…
From somewhere comes the sound of one of the guardian’s weapons firing.
Howe still tumbles, still trying to hold me, but he can’t. I’m not really all there, all here — I haven’t been all anywhere for a while — but still, he slows down going through me. It’s as if I am made of sticky ether. Then he slips away, and much to my surprise, it feels like he’s pushing me along with him, like we’re tangled up…
There are more flashing lights and then BAM! I hit something really solid. Somebody falls on me, or over me, and knocks the wind out of my stomach. There are screams and running feet, and then I hear a voice. Sally’s.
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