by Rachel Ford
“I didn’t realize I wasn’t pointing it downrange,” he stammered. “I just turned around.”
“Alfred’s never handled a gun before,” Nancy put in. “He just needs practice, Josh.”
Stevenson’s jaw clenched, but he nodded. “Alright. But dammit, Favero, you do something like that again, and that’s it.”
Training, after that, was less fun. Despite it being the sad ploy of a desperate man to spend time with Nancy, he’d half looked forward to it before. Back in his own time, he’d tried to convince Caspersen that he needed a sidearm. “For when I’m in the field, in case things get dangerous.”
“You’re an analyst, Alfred: a paper pusher. Not a cop.”
The idea of getting his gun after all had sat well with him. Now, it sat less well. Instead of ignoring him, the marine now watched him like a hawk, seizing on every mistake. Still, though it was a miserable experience, he earned his pistol at the end.
Nancy’s progress went much better, not least of all because she was familiar with firearms. “My granddad used to take me shooting,” she told Stevenson, when he’d asked why she was such a fast learner. “It was years ago, but still, I’ve shot before. I even went hunting once. Although that was less than stellar.”
“Is that why you only went once?” Josh grinned.
“Yeah.”
“And…?” he prompted. “You can’t just drop a lead like that and leave off.”
“It’s just not much of a story. I let the ‘buck of the century’ go.”
“How?”
Nancy colored. Alfred frowned at that. He couldn’t ever remember seeing Nancy blush. “Well…I couldn’t shoot it.”
“Couldn’t?”
She grinned sheepishly. “In my defense, I was a kid. But, no, I couldn’t. We were in the stand, we’d been out there for hours, when this huge buck came into sight. Grandpa helped me bring the gun up, and I looked at him through the sights, just eating and wandering around…and I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t pull the trigger. So he got away.”
Stevenson laughed. “Ho boy. How’d your grandpa take that?”
“I’ve never saw him so mad. He didn’t say anything, but there was practically smoke coming out of his ears. We called it a day after that, and he never took me again.”
“Geez. And I thought my hunting story was bad.”
Alfred rolled his eyes. As segues went, he thought, that was spectacularly bad.
Nancy, though, took the bait. “Oh? What’s your hunting story?”
“Only when I almost lost my truck in like five hundred acres, in a freaking blizzard.”
She laughed out loud, and Alfred rolled his eyes again. “How the hell did that happen? And what were you doing hunting in a blizzard?”
“A lot of drinking,” he admitted.
Alfred couldn’t resist offering, “Oh, that sounds safe.”
“It wasn’t,” Stevenson acknowledged. “But I was young and dumb.”
The taxman badly wanted to ask, “Was?” But in act of sheer willpower, he restrained himself, and only pulled a skeptical face instead.
“One my buddies from the service invited me to go hunting with him on his parent’s land, during deer season. It was in Wisconsin on Thanksgiving Day, and they got this freak blizzard. Total whiteout. But I’d driven hundreds of miles for this hunt, and we decided, f-” He caught himself in the nick of time, saying instead, “to heck with it. We were going out anyway.”
“Mistake number one,” Nancy teased.
“No,” he said. “Mistake number one was staying up the night before drinking beer. This was seven-ish, and we still had a hell of an overnight buzz going on.”
She groaned, and he grinned.
“Yeah. Now you’re getting the idea. So we head out in my truck. Snow’s coming down like crazy, and once we’re about halfway out to the stand, I get stuck.
“So we decided that we’re already most of the way there – let’s just go on foot.”
“Oh no,” Nancy laughed. Alfred just shook his head.
“We take the case of beer and the rifles and head out. We spent a few hours in the stand. It’s still snowing, but we’re still drinking, so we don’t really care.
“Well all of a sudden, these two bucks come crashing out of the undergrowth, antlers locked together, like they want to kill each other.” He paused to explain, “They were in rut.”
Alfred snorted as he watched the marine, hanging on Nancy’s every word, every smile, and couldn’t refrain from muttering under his breath, “They’re not the only ones.”
The comment went by unheard, though. Stevenson continued, “I empty every round I have at them. So does Dylan – my buddy. Neither of us hits a thing.”
Nancy was snorting with laughter.
“The bucks run off in opposite directions. We’re both a little pissed. We decide to call it a day. We figure we still have to unbury the truck anyway.
“Only now – and this is where it really gets good – we can’t remember where we left the damned thing.
“So we’re wandering around in a blizzard with no damned idea of where we’re going, or where we’re at. It starts getting dark.”
“Oh my God,” Nancy interjected. “You’re lucky you didn’t freeze to death.”
What a loss that would have been, Alfred thought ill-humoredly.
“We probably would have, if Dylan’s mom hadn’t gotten worried about us. She sent his dad out to look for us. He found the truck, and then he went back and got his dogs. They tracked us down.” He shook his head. “We had to wait until the next day to get my truck out. We had to take their tractor out there to plow a way back, and then unbury the damned thing. It was absolutely humiliating.”
“Well, you lived at least,” Nancy grinned.
“Yeah,” he grinned back.
Chapter Sixteen
David Garrity had taken an interest in helping Alfred and Nancy settle, and as Nancy seemed to be spending more of her time with the marine, Alfred found himself spending more of his own time with the tax cheat.
Aside from the fact that David Garrity was a tax fraudster, he found him to be an otherwise likeable human being. He was a workaholic, but Alfred could respect that. He was ambitious, too. Even stranded in the Cretaceous period, he hadn’t given up. His mind seemed alive with ideas, ever churning with improvements they could make to the facility or research they could perform.
His current project, though, was finding a fit for Alfred. “You’ve got a very analytical mind, Mr. Favero,” he said over coffee. “Did you never consider research?”
“No,” Alfred admitted. “I was always drawn toward law enforcement.”
Garrity studied him for a moment, then shrugged. “Well, we don’t have much need for that here, thankfully. But we have endless research opportunities. You’re welcome to occupy your time how you see fit, of course. You’ll be expected to contribute a little, just to carry your own weight, but other than that, you can do what you like.
“But, if you’re interested in doing more, in advancing our tiny colony…I think you could make a big difference.”
The taxman was interested. In his own time, he’d been a servant of the greater good. He’d worked in the shadows to protect the common interests against avarice and fraud. He had, he flattered himself, helped make his nation a better, fairer, and more just place.
But those days were over. Now his nation was these people, the only remnant of humankind in the Cretaceous period. His cause, his calling, must be them. His duty must be to his species in this inhospitable and dark world.
He wasn’t sure how, exactly, he could contribute though. Garrity was less concerned on that score. “Give me a few days. I’ll find something for you.”
“I’m proud of you, Alfred,” Nancy told him, when he relayed his plans. “I really am. All that crazy stuff you said about being the thin blue line between order and chaos?” He frowned at the characterization, but didn’t interrupt. “I didn’t realize yo
u actually meant it. I’m proud of you for sticking with it.”
“It wasn’t crazy,” he protested.
“It was,” she said. “Just a little crazy. But you’re a courageous man, Alfred Favero.”
“I am?” In his entire life, he couldn’t remember anyone accusing him of that.
“You are. I can’t imagine anyone taking this better than you are. I can’t imagine anyone waking up sixty-plus million years in the past, and just being ready to make a difference right away.” She shook her head. “I still wake up with night sweats thinking about it.”
“You do?” His concern for her pushed other considerations – even the preening pride he felt at her words – from his mind.
She flushed. “Sometimes, sure. It’s no big deal.”
“Nance,” he said, “why didn’t you tell me?”
She held his gaze for a moment, then shrugged. “You’re going through the same stuff, Alfred. You don’t need my lack of coping on top of your problems. Anyway, Josh said he had them too in the-”
“Josh? You mean, you told that damned soldier?”
“Marine.” She frowned. “But…yeah. He’s been through this already. We haven’t.”
“But I’m your friend.” It sounded stupid when he said it out loud, not least of all for all the feeling he put into it. “Aren’t I?”
She blinked. “Of course, Alfred. I just…didn’t think you needed anything else on your plate right now.”
“Friends support each other, Nance.” He felt, somehow, keenly hurt by the revelation that she’d trusted Stevenson before him. He couldn’t articulate it, not even to himself, but it manifested like a molten weight in his chest. The closest feeling he could recall experiencing was food poisoning, but this was worse. Much worse. “I thought…you knew I’d be there for you.”
She took his hand and squeezed it. There was, he saw, a sheen of moisture in her eyes. “I do now, Alfred.”
She put his offer to the test shortly thereafter, and if she’d been any one else, he might have regretted it. She wasn’t, though; and he didn’t.
Two nights after they’d talked, he was roused from a deep sleep by a knock at his door.
They’d each been assigned a room in the base’s personnel quarters. They were sterile concrete boxes, with a bed, a chair, and bathroom facilities. It was more like a prison cell than anything else. But, he reminded himself when he struggled to get comfortable, it beat sleeping on rocks.
He had been sound asleep, but rose, bleary-eyed, from his bed. “Hello?” he asked, pulling the door back. It was Nancy. “Nance.” He tried to blink the exhaustion away. “What’s wrong?”
“I…I can’t sleep. Do you mind if we talk for awhile?”
“Uh…” he glanced up at the clock. It read two-o’clock in the morning. “Of course not. Come in.”
She was, he saw, drawn, and her manner agitated. She took a seat as his urging, and then stood, pacing back and forth.
“What’s wrong?”
“I had another nightmare.”
“Oh.” He tried to think of what to say to that. He didn’t have any good advice, or any experience with these nightmares. He’d slept soundly since they’d arrived. So he went with, “Tell me about it.”
“It was back in the oasis.”
“Oh, when we were chased by the T. Rex?”
She shook her head. “No. It wasn’t us. It wasn’t even me. It was the team, the first team. You know, Garrity’s people. It was about Nash.” She frowned. “I don’t even know what he looked like. I still had a dream, where he got eaten.” She sat down again, and he sat across from her on the bed. “It was awful, Alfred.”
“I’m sorry,” he said gently. On impulse, he stretched out his hand and took hers. “Are you okay?”
She glanced up, surprised it seemed by the action. But she didn’t pull away. “I think so.” She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“Maybe we should talk to the base’s medic,” he suggested. “Maybe they’ll have something to help you sleep.”
“I think it’s more than that, though, Alfred.”
“More? How?”
“I keep thinking about that incident. ‘The accident.’” She shook her head. “What the hell happened? How did they lose control of their own lab? Of the oasis? Of the spacetime manipulator? It doesn’t make sense. I think that’s why I keep dreaming about it: it just doesn’t make sense.”
He wasn’t sure if he followed. He wasn’t sure, if he was entirely honest with himself, if Nancy’s problem was anything more than lack of sleep and shock. “Well…what do you think happened?”
“I don’t know.” She was exasperated, not with him, it seemed, but with herself. “That’s the thing. I keep thinking about it, but I just can’t make any damned sense of it.”
He decided to try another tactic. “Are you sure…it matters?”
“What?”
“I mean, whatever happened, it’s over, right? We’re here, they’re here. There’s no changing that. Right?”
She frowned in thought. “I don’t know.”
“Nance,” he said gently, “there’s no way back. You know that.”
She nodded. “I know that. I just…I think there’s something we’re missing, Alfred. It’s like…I’m almost there. I almost have it. I just can’t find the last piece.” She got to her feet again, and started pacing anew. “Remember when Angie asked why came separately?”
“Yeah,” he said. “But we told her we didn’t.”
She brushed that aside. “Yeah, I know she knows we didn’t. But she thought we did.”
He wasn’t sure what that proved, and he said as much.
“Why did she think that?”
“I…uhh…have no idea.”
“Exactly. And that’s the problem.”
He was really confused now. “What is?”
“We don’t know anything. They’ve kept us completely in the dark.”
“We are new. They might not trust us.”
“Well, the feeling’s mutual. But the thing is, I think they have a way to tell when someone’s used their little device.”
“You do?” He felt his forehead crease. “Why?”
“Two reasons. She was certain we’d come separately. But more than that – they knew to look for us at all. That means, they knew someone had crossed. They had to.”
He considered this for a moment, and then nodded. “That makes sense.”
“So if they can tell when someone enters this time period, and they thought we entered separately: that means someone else followed us. And that’s why they sent three armored cars to greet us. That’s why they sent armed troops. That’s why the Garrity’s looked so damned worried when we arrived.” She was speaking more excitedly as she worked out her conclusion. “Because there’s somebody else here, Alfred – and they’re afraid of whoever it is.”
Chapter Seventeen
Once she’d worked out the problem, or at least her solution to it, Nancy slept. She was seated on the bed beside Alfred, still talking about her ideas, when she nodded off. He wrapped her in his blanket, and laid her down gently.
Then, ever so carefully so as not to wake her, he moved to the chair. He didn’t sleep very comfortably after that, but he did sleep. He woke early, though, his mind full of her ideas.
At two in the morning, he’d been skeptical. But now, thinking it through, he could arrive at no other conclusion than the one she’d drawn. Now, his ire was raised.
All the while David Garrity had been smiling and talking of the greater good of their colony, he’d been lying to him. There was someone – someone dangerous – roaming about out there, and Garrity had concealed the fact from him. From Nance. He’d endangered them both. He’d abused their trust and deprived them of critical intelligence.
Alfred grabbed one of the generic utility jumpers he’d been assigned and slipped into the bathroom to change. Then he scribbled a quick note for Nancy.
Nance, I’m going to get u
s answers. If anything happens to me – I’m sorry I got us into this. I hope you can forgive me.
Alfred
PS I keep my pistol in the top drawer of my dresser.
Then he headed out of his room, closing the door softly behind him. At this point, his demeanor changed. The quiet, mouse-like Alfred Favero was gone. In his place was a man driven by purpose. He was not a man without fear, but, more dangerously, a man who had channeled his fear into rage, and his rage into action.
He strode with long, angry steps for the Garrity apartments, and when he reached them he didn’t knock and wait for a summons to enter. Instead, he pushed the door open, and stomped inside.
David Garrity was in the room beyond in his bathrobe and slippers, sipping a mug of coffee, and he turned startled eyes at the door and the newcomer. “Alfred,” he said with a measure of relief in his tones. The relief, though, changed as quickly to annoyance. “It’s a little early for company isn’t it? And my doorbell still works.”
“You can shove your doorbell,” Alfred declared emphatically.
Garrity seemed stunned. “What?”
“You heard me. I’m done playing games, Garrity. You’re a tax cheat and a fraud and a liar, and I want answers.” He crossed his arms. “And I want them now.”
“Uh…” The inventor stared at him in confusion. “What are you talking about, Alfred?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about!”
“Actually…I don’t have a freaking idea what you’re talking about,” Garrity answered, his surprise morphing into anger.
Alfred, though, had him far outmatched on the rage scale. “You lied to me and Nancy,” he said, his tone raising to a bellow. “You knew when we crossed time periods. You know someone else crossed after us. Someone dangerous. And, by God, you’re going to tell me the truth. Or else.”
Garrity blinked. “Well…uh…I didn’t lie, exactly, Alfred. I just…omitted certain truths.”
“Then stop omitting. Start talking.”
The inventor sighed. “Fine. I guess…you deserve the truth.” He headed to a sofa and gestured for Alfred to follow. The taxman didn’t budge. “You’re right. We do have a way to see who comes across. You see, the generator – the one you used, back in the lab – it’s not the only one.”