by Melanie Rawn
What he needed to know, he was allowed to remember.
"At least it does get invented," Al went on. "And Philip lives, and he and Cynthia are very happy, and—"
A sudden raucous mroww made Sam jump halfway out of the chair. The cat was gorgeously Siamese, wearing a blue collar exactly the shade of her slightly crossed eyes. She paced the ground before him, yelling another coloratura demand for Sam to stop whatever useless thing he was doing with his hands and perform the infinitely more essential honor of petting her. Obedient to a
lady's demand, he reached down to scratch her pewter-colored ears. "Wonder where Cynthia is right now."
"Wherever it is Alia's victims go when she Leaps into them."
Sam shook his head. "Her only intended victim is me, Al. I'm the one she's here for." He looked reflexively down at the hand she'd touched, that had touched her. How much of what she'd said had been honest? How much had been deliberately designed to shake him to his marrow?
How long before her shaky balance was completely lost?
The cat evidently found Sam's technique deficient. She fixed on Al as a superior source of supply and padded lithely over, purring like a 747 just prior to takeoff. She leaned against Al's leg—and fell over with a yowl of surprise. A try at marking him with her cheek yielded the same result and an even louder protest. Sam watched, smiling in spite of himself, as the peeved Siamese took a quick swipe at Al's pant leg with all claws extended. She missed, of course.
"Sorry, sweetheart," Al apologized.
She had not yet given up. Wriggling down into attack mode, she pounced on his shoe. And again. Frustrated, she backed off, arched, hissed, and spat at him before stalking off with regal disdain.
"You do have a way with women," Sam observed.
"Speaking of which, how'd you do with Alia last night?"
"How'd you—" He stopped, cursing himself for the slip. Naturally Al knew Sam had been to see her; Al knew Sam.
The admiral examined the glowing tip of his cigar. "So? You still think she's a helpless little pawn?"
Sam didn't much care for his tone. "You don't understand her."
"And you do." It wasn't quite a question.
He polished the opal chips with fierce concentration. They caught the sunlight and flung it back in fire that reminded him of the chaotic rainbow enveloping Alia just before her disappearance last time. And that led to memory of her terrified screams.
What did Lothos do to her when she failed?
Al wouldn't let up on him. "Kindred spirits?" he suggested.
"If you want to call it that."
"Don't make me laugh. What'd she tell you last night? She do a poor-pitiful-me act? Or did she put the moves on you again?"
"I don't want to talk about this, Al," Sam warned, keeping a tight rein on his temper.
"Too bad," he said without sympathy. "Because we're gonna keep talking about it until you realize she's out to kill you. Anybody with an IQ higher than room temperature could figure it out."
"She can't kill me! Hasn't that gotten through to you yet? We're opposites. Without me, Alia couldn't exist."
"And you think the opposite holds true, too, don't you? That if she dies, you'll disappear?"
Sam clenched his jaw shut and rubbed a nonexistent speck of rust from the sword blade.
Al exploded. "That's the stupidest goddamned thing I've ever heard you say! And you didn't even have to say it!"
"What do you want me to do, Al—run her through with my sword and see if the hypothesis is correct? That as opposites we cancel each other out?"
"At least you admit that she's evil."
Sam's head jerked up, his eyes blazing. "I don't admit any such thing! If she's the Devil, then that makes me God—and I don't qualify for the job!"
"You know damned well which side she's on, Sam!"
"She's nothing more than a tool." Just like I am, hung unspoken in the space between them. "Lothos is the evil here, Al. He controls her, he sends her through Time, he gives the orders—what choice does she have but to carry them out?"
"And that's why you're like her? Neither of you has any choice?" Al jabbed the handlink furiously. "When you start using that so-called genius brain of yours again, give me a call. I'm outta here."
Sam glared at the place the glowing rectangle had been, then looked down at the sword once more. His fist was painfully clenched around the hilt. In a short time he would be wielding this shining blade against a man who had not the slightest clue what was really going on here.
The Crusaders had used swords much like this one, believing with a rapacious faith that they fought on the side of God and goodness and right. Thus they had slaughtered innocents by the millions, and been slaughtered in their turn.
"Hello, darling!" Zoey caroled gaily as she popped in without warning, as usual. "The court is assembling—absolutely wild with excitement, and betting
ten-to-one against Sir Percy—and that ridiculous herald person is about to blow his silly lungs out on that trumpet."
"I'm almost ready." Alia had no notion of how to arrange a wimple, and so had placed the silver-and-crystal cap of last night on her hair. Perhaps it would shock the locals, outrage some custom of modest and seemly dress. She didn't much care. Today everyone would be staring at her—at Cynthia—anyhow, at least until the joust began. "Is Lothos ready? What does he say about my plan?"
"Exactly what he's been saying ever since you proposed it: interesting, possible, but difficult."
Bending to look in Cynthia's mirror, hung from a tent pole and about three inches too low for Alia, she tucked stray wisps of hair behind her ears. "What about the other problem? The aura?"
"Oh, didn't I mention that earlier? Lothos is perfectly fascinated. He and Thames have been discussing it all night." She retied the emerald scarf of her jumpsuit, making an ascot of it as she talked. "The theory so far is that because with the present configurations you and Beckett can see each other as who you really are, the opposite will probably hold true. Fix your mascara, pet. It's flaking."
"So if Sam can't see me, I won't be able to see him either?" Alia frowned, wiping a tiny dot of brown from below her eye. "That's not what I had in mind, Zoey. That's no help at all!"
"You'll have to work with what Lothos gives you. It was tough enough convincing him even to consider this other little trick. Thames was—and still is— skeptical."
Straightening, Alia caught up a length of yellow chiffon and draped it from her elbows. "Thames," she said acidly, "has all the imagination of a gerbil."
Zoey smirked. "My, what a generous assessment! I'd have chosen something a bit lower on the evolutionary scale."
After one last glance around, Alia started for the tent door. "I'm ready. I hope you and Lothos are."
"Alia, darling, this—"
"Had better work, I know. I know!" Alia interrupted impatiently. "Come on."
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Quantum Leaping can be seen as a gigantic game of Let's Pretend—"from a certain point of view."
I fake my way through a few days in other people's lives, take on their faces and voices, make believe I can do their jobs, and somehow things end up turning out all right. Or at least better.
But this time I felt like a fraud. Not as if somebody was going to catch me at it—somebody already had. No, it was as if everything I said and did as Philip Larkin was a lie. Worse—a self-serving lie.
Al was right. This Leap was never about a chance of getting home. Things don't work that way, no matter how much I might want them to.
But although this Leap didn't start out being about me, the instant Alia showed up things changed. It's about the two of us now.
And that's all wrong. Philip Larkin helped me make my dream a reality, even though he never knew it. I owe him for that. I have to help him. I have to make sure he lives—
—so he can maybe help bring me home.
Self-serving, and selfish. Some
White Knight I am.
No wonder Al isn't speaking to me.
The campground was empty. The Fair was deserted, and what booths had not been taken down were shuttered. No one wanted to miss the epic battle. King Steffan and Queen Elinor arrived with due pomp and settled onto their thrones. The nobles of their court surrounded them on the royal dais. Lesser League members clustered excitedly on the benches. Pennants fluttered, wagers flew thick and fast, and it took the herald three mighty blasts of his horn to quiet everyone down.
Roger was warming up off the field, near a rack of weapons. Sam watched him for a minute, knowing full well that this would be a replay of yesterday morning's joust. He knew no more about swordplay now than he had twenty-four hours ago, his shoulder still twinged, and the sword and chain mail seemed to weigh more than ever. The addition of a shield—another ten or twelve pounds of metal to lug around, despite the protection it might offer— made Sam's life just about complete.
His body remembered the moves of various martial arts disciplines, but if he'd ever learned any involving weapons that approximated a sword, he'd forgotten. What he needed to know, he was allowed to remember? Cold comfort, when Roger was eager, willing, and more than capable of ripping his head off if he so chose.
Sam walked around the far end of the field, away from the stands, finding warm-up room directly opposite Roger. As he concentrated on exercises that would stretch shoulders, hamstrings, and back
to decent suppleness, he kept his eyes and his mind as unfocused as he could manage. He didn't want to see or think or feel.
The herald blew his trumpet again, attracting Sam's attention. A small parade of mailed knights marched down the center of the field to the dais. They looked like a major league team for some outlandish contact sport being introduced to the assembled stadium fans. Had this been soccer, football, or baseball, Sam would have had a chance.
But although this was, in the end, about winning and losing, it was no game.
He told himself he had to win for Philip's sake. The fundamental honesty inherited with every particle of DNA and inhaled with every breath of Indiana sunshine told him his motives were nowhere near that pure. He wondered dismally why it was so awful of him to want to win for his own sake, too.
"Your Gracious Majesties! My lord, ladies, and gentlemen!" bellowed the herald. "Now begins the last day of the Summer Tourney!"
Sam unsheathed Philip's sword and began hacking at the wind—and at his own feelings—barely reacting when the familiar metallic whoosh sounded nearby. So Al was back, was he? The kid who'd slain dragons on the orphanage stairs wouldn't have missed this medieval madness for anything.
Not fair, not fair at all. What was the matter with him? Had Alia shaken his belief so profoundly that he maligned the closest friend he had in the world?
Sam wasn't sure if Al really knew how much he was valued—or why. Through the holes in his memory seeped images of Al in all his various guises. Master manipulator of parsimonious congressional committees; drinking buddy when Sam was discouraged; chief kicker-in-the-ass when Sam was depressed; triumphant partner when a victory was achieved over temperamental technology. A wounded and needful spirit, those first months of their friendship; later, trusting Sam, Al gave and gave with all the generosity of his volatile Italian soul. He was second father and substitute big brother, clever engineer and daredevil fly-boy, courageous warrior and dress-whites admiral and abject worshiper of beautiful women—and somehow, despite their myriad differences in style and personality and experience, Sam's most treasured friend in this life or any other.
In this life, and about a hundred others so far.
But there was more to it now. So much more. When Sam had used Al's cells along with his own in creating Ziggy, he'd been acting on instinct. Research— if he'd bothered to do any—might have confirmed Al the most compatible of the Project personnel, but it had been instinct that bade Sam to test him first. And only. Why save the best for last, when you knew it was standing right in front of you?
Thank God for instinct. In addition to all he'd been before, Al had become lifeline and rescuer; auxiliary memory for a man in unique need of one; counselor, conscience, and occasional gadfly. He was the only
constant in this crazy, sometimes frightening, sometimes exhilarating adventure.
Yet if Sam had to define what made Al essential to him right this minute, he would have said it was because over the whole course of Project Quantum Leap, Al had never wavered in his faith that things would come out right. Before the Leaps, Al had always believed the money would be found and the problems would be solved and the whole grandiose scheme would work. Now, with Sam bouncing around in Time's gigantic pinball machine, Al believed with everything he was that what he and Sam did was more important than either of them.
Sam needed that faith now. He didn't have much of his own left.
What Alia had said last night was only what Sam had been feeling. His doubt, his fear and anger and resentment. Bad enough that he hadn't recognized his selfishness while complaining to Al. Worse, listening to Alia say it; worst of all to feel ashamed and scared and to drive away the only person who could help him.
But Al was always there. Whatever his worries and hurts and private concerns, he was always there. The only constant.
"If it please Your Majesties," bawled Herald Owain, "first into the lists, for honor and glory, Sir Neville Sharpsword and the Chevalier de Haut-Roslyn!"
Sam caught sight of Alia, standing to one side of the dais. Midday sun glistened from the crystal headdress, picked out the silver threads shot through her long yellow scarf. She was the perfect
medieval damsel, surrounded by the curious and the admiring, smiling as she mimed gentle chagrin at being the center of all this attention.
Sam could hardly bear to look at her.
"Ziggy's come up with some odds, Sam."
He didn't have the courage to look at Al, either. "And?"
"We were right. Win this, and it's a hundred percent that Philip lives. He and Cynthia get together. But the Larkin Capacitor is invented a year late—from our point of view."
"And Roger?"
"If he wins, a hundred percent the gizmo's available when we need it." He didn't have to add, But Philip dies.
"That's not what I meant. What happens to Roger?"
"Not sure, but Ziggy postulates a ninety-percent chance that he continues his writing career."
So everybody would live happily ever after—if Sam won the joust.
"As for the odds of your actually beating ol' Rog over there—well, unless one reason you stayed awake last night was for sword practice . . ."
Sam nodded. "That's pretty much what I thought."
"And what she's counting on." From the corner of his eye, Sam saw Al direct a look of pure loathing at Alia. "She's enjoying this. She could ruin Philip's life and go picnicking on the wreckage. Sam, you've got to win."
Sir Neville despatched the Chevalier with a supple bit of swordplay that Sam hadn't a hope of emulating. Both young men approached the dais to bow
before the royal couple, and Sir Neville collected his accolade. The herald called out another pair of fighters.
"If I win," Sam murmured, "Alia loses. And whatever punishment she faces if she fails, in a way I'll be responsible. Because I'll be the reason for her failure."
"Responsible? Sam, she chose—"
"No, Al." He glanced around, hiding a wince at the righteous fury in dark eyes. Doggedly, he went on. "She's trapped in Time. No way out."
"Listen to me. Damn it, listen! Forget your stupid rescue complex! It's wasted on her!"
"I thought I was supposed to put people's lives right."
"And her only purpose is to make things wrong."
"She feels what I do, Al—tired and angry—we talked about that last night. It scares me that even though what she's sent to do is the opposite of what I'm here to do, we both feel the same things."
> Al gave a derisive snort. "So the shiny White Knight suit gets some mud on it every so often! So you're human. So what? I know you, Sam. You don't keep on with this just because the next Leap might take you home. You do it because it's right. Because you can't just stand by and not try to help."
The second joust lasted only as long as it took one of the knights to lose his grip on his sword. About three minutes, Sam thought, watching him trudge from the field while his opponent capered to the dais and planted a kiss on a laughing damsel.
"Alia's human, too," Sam argued, finally facing his partner. "You keep saying she's evil, but she's not. She—"
"Are you crazy? Look at her!" Al stabbed a j'accuse finger in her direction. "See her for what she is, Sam! She destroys people's lives so she can earn enough points to go home! Alia's responsible for what she is and what she does. Not Lothos. Alia. She trapped herself when she made her bargain with whatever sends her through Time—the Devil's bargain. And she knows he'll never keep his side of it."
Another note from the horn was the signal for a dozen children, daughters and sons of League members, to parade in from the far side of the field. Dressed as pages in the royal colors—purple tabards and white hose—they carried what looked like painted yardsticks bearing the flags of various nobles. The eldest child was about ten, the youngest no more than five; her blue unicorn flag was taller than she was. Proud parents pointed out their offspring as everyone applauded. The king and queen greeted each child by name, and handed out sweets as tokens of royal favor.
"Sam . . ." Al's voice was different now, dark and quiet. "Tell me what you remember about your brother."
Startled, Sam frowned. "Tom? What about him?"
"Just tell me."
He thought a minute, then smiled. The procession of flags had reminded him.
"I remember when we all drove to Annapolis for his graduation—commissioning, I guess you call it in the Navy. Mom kept saying she couldn't believe
a farm boy like Tom was going to be a sailor."
Appointment to Annapolis and a naval career had always been Tom's dream. That it also eased the financial burden on a farm family desperate to educate a promising daughter and a startlingly brilliant second son hadn't occurred to Sam until later—after he'd seen the cost of tuition and fees in catalogs from M.I.T. and Caltech.