Quantum Leap - Knights of the Morningstar - Melanie Rawn (v1) [rtf]

by Melanie Rawn

  Her eyes, wide and startled, wild with speculation and a brief flash of fear.

  The instantaneous recognition of a kindred spir­it, a soul in sympathy with his own. Not love at first sight (he knew how that felt, even if he couldn't

  remember anything more than a cloud of dark silky hair)—no, not love, but empathy, and compassion, and—

  Desire. After the shy excitement of discovery, of revelation that he wasn't alone in this mad dance through Time, he remembered being drawn to her, and her hands drawing him onward.

  He remembered, too, how she had raked her own cheek bloody, and screamed, and pointed a gun at his heart.

  "Enough," he grated. "I remember enough."

  "Well, then—"

  "Look, let's give Ziggy something constructive to do so she'll stop worrying about Alia. Get her to work with Philip Larkin. They ought to have a pretty good time—he understands computers, and—"

  "If he was okay, I'd say go for it. He's better now, but. . . you know how it is, Sam. Some people go semi-comatose, some go all hysterical. He's the in-between type. He just stands there drinking cappuc­cino and staring at his reflection. Your reflection." Al hesitated, then finished, "I think he sees you as the original White Knight."

  "Me?" Sam almost laughed.

  "You." Al was giving him a funny look, as if consid­ering Philip's assessment. Sam glanced away, down at the paper in his hands.

  And looked more carefully.

  Just a scribbled multicolored mess of a diagram. A long blue coil (in crayon, for Pete's sake) ended in braided black lines that disappeared into a gray cube with yellow waves radiating outward. Appro­priately obscure scientific notations squiggled their

  way down the right side of the page. Once, Sam might have known what all of it meant.

  But he recognized enough to set his palms sweat­ing.

  "This is it, Al. The Larkin Capacitor."

  "It is?"

  "No, it's not!" he exclaimed, surging to his feet.

  "Make up your mind," Al suggested.

  "Damn it, this is all wrong! The juice won't flow around corners, there's no cutoff switch—and what's he doing with this gizmo over here?"

  "Aw gee, Sam," drawled Al, "I just love it when you talk all technical."

  "Scan this for Ziggy," Sam ordered, spreading the childish drawing on the table. The handlink was directed at the diagram. Al scanned. Sam fretted.

  Philip Larkin was more than two years away from patenting the Capacitor. Sam didn't remember enough about it to help from this end. It was up to Ziggy, who ought to be able to figure it out, especially if Philip pulled himself together to help her.

  {The White Knight? Me?)

  But what about Alia? What had brought her here? An accident, like last time?

  Or had that been an accident? Had they been looking for him, whoever "they" were? If Sam put things right, did she follow after and try to put them wrong again? Or did it work the other way around, and he was fated to sweep up her disastrous debris?

  Why maneuver them into that ridiculous chal­lenge? The worst that could happen was that Rog­er would thump Sam again tomorrow. The weap­ons didn't have an edge; Roger wasn't out to kill

  Philip. So if that was Alia's plan, she was doomed to disappointment.

  But she didn't need Roger to kill Sam. She was perfectly capable of doing it herself.

  No. She couldn't do it the last time.

  Still, between then and now—between that now and this one—what had been done to her? He could still hear her screams as she vanished; he'd thought for a moment that she'd died, told himself she must have. But something else told him she still existed. He'd felt it, denied the feeling, and ordered himself to believe she'd been killed.

  Cynthia Mulloy, editor of books and crafter of wind chimes, couldn't matter to Alia. Nor Rog­er Franks with his particle physics and fiendish backhand (Sam's shoulder still hurt). No, Philip Larkin was the important apex of this trian­gle, for what he would accomplish in two years' time.

  But Sam now stood in Philip Larkin's place. Per­haps he stood in Alia's way.

  Until he found out why she was here, all else was wheel-spinning.

  If it's not Philip, it's me. There's no reason to think that this time's any different from last—she's been ordered to stop me. Even if she originally Leaped in for Philip, my being here instead changed that.

  Whatever happens to me will affect Philip—and therefore the Larkin Capacitor, and therefore me. If Alia kills me, Philip will be stuck in the future, never having invented the Capacitor in the first place—

  And if he'd never invented it, there'd be no Quan­tum Leaping—and I couldn't be here for Alia to kill.

  But I am here. If I die here, what happens to Philip?

  Sam figured he ought to be pretty good at playing Temporal Tiddlywinks by now. But there were some things even his mind simply refused to wrap itself around. This seemed to be one of them.

  His guts told him Alia couldn't kill him. She might try, goaded by her controller, but she was incapable of it. Despite Al's conviction otherwise, Sam knew she wasn't evil. But whatever controlled her Leaps was. And that terrible tension between what she was and what she was ordered to do must drive her half-mad at times.

  He remembered his last sight of her: body warping into a sick miasma of color, a scream that split his heart—could the penalty for failure have been so hideous and terrified her so badly that this time she would kill him?

  Would my death truly set Alia free?

  An anguished bleat from the handlink snapped Sam's head up. Al was holding the blinking box away from him as if it had just sprouted fangs, talons, and a dragon's forked tail.

  "Calm down, Ziggy! It's okay, honey—Gushie, do something!"

  "What's wrong with her?" Sam asked, alarmed.

  "You oughta know," Al accused, frantically push­ing buttons. "What you just said set her off like the Bicentennial fireworks off Manhattan! Damn it, Gushie—"

  "What I just—oh." He must've voiced the last part, about his death and Alia's freedom. "I didn't know Ziggy cared."

  "About you? Gimme a break. It's herself she's wor­ried about. She won't even consider the idea that she was never born. The Larkin Capacitor isn't even part of her personal design specs! Okay, honey, take it easy. Sam didn't mean it. He was just—Gushie, settle her down!"

  Sam comprehended Ziggy's distress instantly. No Larkin Capacitor, no Quantum Leaping. No Quan­tum Leaping, no need for Ziggy. It was an intol­erable threat to her colossal ego. Well, he couldn't exactly blame her; he'd programmed her that way.

  But her ego crisis neatly summed up the difficulty and confirmed Sam's own analysis of what Alia's purpose must be.

  The whole point of his own Leaps was to change history for the better. Alia's purpose was just the opposite. Time as it stood now included the Larkin Capacitor. If she changed that. . .

  No Larkin Capacitor, no Quantum Leaping.

  He kept his thoughts to himself. Ziggy seemed to be feeling fragile, which was scary in a computer with more self-esteem than Henry Kissinger. Work­ing on Philip's notes would be good for her. She was a smart girl when she wasn't having gigawatt hysterics.

  Sam's own smarts were leading him some­place very specific. And from whatever path he approached, the destination looked the same.

  These past years, and everything I've done during them, would never have happened. I'd instantly go back home—or into oblivion.

  Either way, whatever's controlling Alia would win.

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  "She's where?"

  "With Dr. Larkin, Admiral. Dr. Beeks considered it not inadvisable for them to converse."

  Al felt worry-wrinkles dig into his forehead. Not inadvisable meant that Verbeena had objections but couldn't think up any really good excuses.

  "At this hour?" Al asked. "Do you have any idea what time it is?"

  "I always know what time it is. And you are in error, Admiral. Wh
ereas time is perceived by humans as a subjective experience, it is neither an idea nor a concept but a provable fact. Shall I detail the equations or simply inform you of the hour? If the latter, specify military parlance or vernacular."

  Al gave the computer a dirty look.

  "I might add that you would have no need to ask me the time if you hadn't left your watch on Tina's dressing table. Again."

  "Never mind." He tossed the handlink onto the main terminal board. "I'll be back in a little while."

  "Define your terms," the computer requested.

  He paused at the control room door and swung around. "What?"

  "In the past calendar month, Admiral, you have employed the adverbial phrase 'in a little while' on twenty-seven separate occasions. The period of time was in each case completely different, ranging from 9.62 minutes to 7.58 hours. Common politeness dic­tates that you define precisely what it is you mean in this instance by 'a little while.' "

  " 'Common politeness'?" He scowled with suspi­cion. "Has Gushie been feeding you Emily Post or something?"

  "No, Admiral," Ziggy answered. "In my attempt to interface more efficiently with human computers, I am simply requesting information. Being polite is your responsibility, not mine."

  When Ziggy felt vulnerable, she became pedantic. Considering the gazillion or so subjects on which she was one of the world's leading authorities, he supposed he was lucky she'd chosen manners as her topic tonight. At least she wasn't gibbering any­more.

  Still, this was getting a little uppity, even for

  Ziggy.

  "I'll be back in a little while," he reiterated. "And it'll take as long as I decide it's going to take. Okay?"

  "You needn't get huffy, Admiral."

  Al snorted and left. A course at charm school wouldn't hurt that monstrous electronic ego at all.

  He dawdled on his way to the Waiting Room. He knew he was dawdling, and did it anyway—until he happened by a certain door.

  VERBEENA BEEKS

  M.D., Ph.D., N.B.A.

  THE DOCTOR IS ALWAYS IN

  As smoothly as if he'd stepped on a sensor pad outside a supermarket, the gray door slid open. Ziggy, you ratted on me! Al thought, but normal human response made him glance inside anyway.

  Verbeena sat at her desk, looking straight at him. She arched her eloquent brows, pursed her luscious lips, and thumbed a button to close the door again.

  "Yeah, yeah," Al muttered, lengthening his strides down the hall. "Chronic avoidance syndrome. Heard it all before."

  N.B.A. stood for No Bullshit Allowed.

  In principle, shrinks made him nervous. Or at least they had until a plain-talking pixie of a thera­pist guided him to certain realizations regarding himself, and Tina, and Beth. It still hurt even to think his first wife's name, but he found he was no longer quite so emotionally paralyzed by the memories. He could even smile—sometimes—when reminded of her.

  Still... he would always love her, with the pas­sion of the young man who had married her and the tenderness of the much older man who'd returned to find her gone. He would always believe that what they shared would have grown stronger and deep­er—if only they'd been allowed to share it.

  Beth___

  No, he told himself stoutly, the hurt was not quite so bad. But it would always hurt.

  Even so, he had to smile now as he thought of that adamant little dynamo and her wise—if blunt— counsel. Funny, how even though she'd worn Sam's aura and spoken with Sam's voice, Al had never seen anyone other than a tiny woman with a fuzz of hair, never heard anything but a high-pitched soprano and a unique accent.

  It was the only time that had happened to him.

  At first they'd thought only Sam's consciousness Leaped, and that the body in the Waiting Room real­ly was his. After all, it looked like Sam. The working hypothesis had been that Sam's body stayed put while his essence—soul, spirit, consciousness, what­ever one was inclined to term it—went elsewhere.

  It had shocked the living hell out of them when Verbeena announced that although the body might look like Sam's, it wasn't.

  Ziggy had commented smugly that she could've told them that, if only they'd thought to ask. Al had threatened to pull her plug. She replied she didn't have a plug to pull; he told her this could be arranged. She finally took the hint and shut up about it.

  Only twice had Sam been Sam again. Once his adult self had Leaped into his teenaged self—and the kid in Sam's adult body had scared Al half to death when he'd called him by name. To be expected, Ziggy opined, when the neurons and mesons were identical—just thirty or so years younger—and had merged while passing each other during the Leap. They'd all dithered for days, afraid of what Sam might learn too soon. Fortunately for their collective peace of mind, the kid was distractible: food, an

  antique Pac-man, the hoop and basketball from his adult self's office, and several IQ tests kept him busy. (Predictably, the test results had been off the scale. Verbeena had spent the next month analyzing the data and writing a paper—"An Essay in Frustration: Comparing the Adolescent and Adult Intelligence Quotient Scores in a Subject Whose IQ Cannot Be Measured"—for some grotesquely esoteric journal, which had rejected her work and snidely suggested she cease propagating fairy tales. She canceled her subscription.)

  Once, Sam came home. For twelve hours, he came home.

  After that, Donna stopped visiting the Waiting Room.

  Sammy Jo (more properly, Samantha Josephine Fuller, Ph.D.) went in when she had time, and Al was pretty sure she reported back to Donna. Al wondered sometimes if the girl had guessed, if she knew it was her father's face she looked at and her father's voice she heard, even though her father wasn't really there.

  But until Sam made the Leap during which he and Abigail Fuller made Sammy Jo, she hadn't existed to become part of the project that was responsible for her existence. If ever they'd been unsure about where Sam's body was, the presence of his daughter removed all doubt.

  Personally, Al's brain hurt whenever he tried to follow the twists and double-backs of Time, so he avoided it whenever possible.

  Although he might dawdle sometimes on his way to the Waiting Room, he never avoided it altogether.

  He went in every day. Every day. He stood now in the doorway, watching Philip Larkin use Sam Beckett's long, lean musician's hands to input a 1992 vintage laptop computer. Al had learned by now to look for signs that whoever was in there wasn't really Sam: changes in the angle of the head, the cant of the shoulders, the gestures and grimaces and quirks of expression that were not Sam's.

  But every so often someone would do something— usually smile—that was pure Sam Beckett. "Resid­ual physicality," Verbeena called it, just as Sam experienced holdovers while in someone else's body. Right now, for example, Philip Larkin glanced up, brows arching in a manner so like Sam's that Al's neutral smile grew fixed as his jaw tightened. No wonder Donna had stopped coming in. If such moments shook Al, they must torment her.

  But tonight she was here. Nearly two in the morn­ing New Mexico time, and she was here.

  Al watched her profile, remembering how she'd looked during one of the very first Leaps—a love­ly, brilliant, energetic girl of eighteen, years away from the young woman who'd left Sam Beckett at the altar. But things had changed, and the changes were Sam's doing, and the woman who sat talking quietly with Philip Larkin was Donna Alisi Beckett as she was meant to be.

  Almost.

  For her dark beauty bore a soft patina of sadness. Not bitterness; not Donna. Even though in over four years she had spent only twelve hours with her hus­band; even though she knew about the other women (not that many—Sam wasn't made that way—but

  enough to cause acid jealousy in anyone else); even with the loss and the loneliness, there was no bit­terness in her. Donna wasn't made that way.

  She'd coaxed the whole story out of Al shortly after he'd returned from the past to find her in the control room—part of Project Quantum Leap all along, her brilliance aidi
ng and abetting Sam's genius. Al's own memories had been violently rearranged, and for the first time he experienced a serious shock to his psyche.

  Sam's first Leaps had been people whose lives hadn't touched Al's in any way. There were no memo­ries to change. But Donna was different. Seeing her there, worried and tense as Ziggy once more searched through Time for Sam, Al had reacted badly—to say the least.

  His last memory of her had been June 4, 1984, the night before the wedding. After the rehearsal dinner he whisked Sam off to a wild bachelor party. After that, nothing. Sam never said her name again. Now, with mind-jarring abruptness, there was an image in his mind of Donna in a bridal gown, miles of white silk cascading to the floor of the Old Mission Chapel in Taos.

  In the midst of his confusion, an old rhyme nat­tered at him: something old (her grandmother's lace veil), something new (Sam's wedding present of small diamond earrings), something borrowed (her mother's pearl necklace), and Al's gift of his own grandmother's handkerchief with blue embroidery tucked into her sleeve. The initials had even been right—D.A., Dorotea Abruzzi, Donna Alisi. He could still remember giving it to her that morning, just

  before departing the dressing room to stand beside Sam and wait for her to glide gracefully down the aisle ....

  Except he hadn't given it to her, because no one could find her, and he'd stood beside Sam for a solid hour before it became obvious that Donna would not be there. . . .

  But here she was, wearing a gold ring on her left hand—the wedding ring Al pretended he'd forgot­ten, and then honestly couldn't find in any of his pockets, while Sam looked murderous and Donna repressed giggles. . . .

  His back pocket, he remembered. He'd put the little velvet pouch containing the ring in his back trouser pocket—good thing he found it, too, or Sam would've throttled him. . . .

  More images rushed in, overwhelming him until he staggered both emotionally and physically, un­able to make sense of Donna's presence. He backed away, shaking and sweating in a classic case of shock. It was the only time Verbeena ever raised her voice, yelling for Tina and Gushie to help her get him out of there.