All in all, a most up-to-date group of young ladies—if the date was 2112.
Tam said, “Hi,” and returned to his room.
“Your little brother’s awful cute,” observed Trudy Wessa. “For a kid,” she added.
“I heard he got in trouble today,” said Elaine. “Do you know why?”
Stasi dumped her books on her desk and flopped into her study chair, a fulsome papasan they’d picked up in Japan.
“Gosh, no,” she said, wide-eyed. “I didn’t see him at lunch, though.”
“I heard he got caught with some kind of Air Force secret weapon,” offered Beth.
Elaine glared at her. “I heard it was just a toy.”
Stasi laughed. “Sure. What’s my little brother doing with an Air Force secret weapon?”
“Well, your dad works at Offutt, doesn’t he?” asked Beth. “Maybe he brought something home and Tam just . . . borrowed it.”
“Tam wouldn’t do that.”
“Well, Mr. Schiflin was real mad,” Trudy interjected. “I saw him talking to Mr. Benoit about it while I was in the Administration Office this afternoon.”
“Sounds like you heard him, too. Eavesdropping, were we?”
Trudy figured Elaine’s smirk warranted retaliation. She grabbed a pillow from under Elaine’s elbow and smacked her with it, sending her on a giggling roll against the headboard.
“Ow!”
Elaine sat up again, rubbing her elbow and glowering at the two very hard objects it had connected with. Her expression changed immediately.
“Oooh, wow! What are these?” She abandoned the wounded elbow in favor of checking out her find. “Dune, by Frank Herbert,” she read. “Winner of the Nebula Award.” She looked at the other one. “Studies in Physics and Metaphysics by Dr. Jamal Am-a-di-yeh.” She glanced over at Stasi. “Those sound like book titles.”
Stasi pretended embarrassment and leapt (belatedly) to collect her property.
“Uh, they are.”
Elaine swept them out of her way only to have Trudy grab one.
“What are these? Some kind of ritzy slip covers?”
“Slip covers!” snorted Trudy. She tapped the one she held with her fingernail. “They feel like metal or plastic or something. What’s this red button do?”
Of course, she pushed it, and the Reader opened and presented her with a full-page menu which enquired politely if she wished to go to the last bookmark and, if so, would she like a summary of what had happened in the story so far, or would she rather start at the beginning? Would she like the book in black on white or white on black or would she rather select colors from a palette? Did she want pictures as well as text? Did she want audio output in addition to visual? Would she like to print hard copy?
“Wow!” she said. “Wow! What is this? Did you get this in Paris?”
Stasi scratched her nose, hiding a grin. “San Francisco.”
Trudy gaped at her.
“Who are these guys?” asked Beth. “Herbert and Ama- Ama—”
“Amadiyeh. Herbert’s a science fiction writer. Dr. Amadiyeh is my educational counselor.”
“Your what?”
“I thought Mrs. Hester was your Counselor,” said Elaine, “same as me.”
“Well, this is different. This is for my, uh, home study program. You know, supplemental education.”
Beth nodded. “’Cause you’re a brain, right?”
“Something like that.”
Stasi reached for the books again.
“2100 edition,” Elaine read. “Another Cyber-Book from—”
Stasi snatched the volume from her hands. “We’d better start on our skit.” She tossed the books into a drawer of her dresser. Three pairs of eyes locked on the drawer.
Elaine giggled. “Are you from Mars?”
oOo
“Any idea what this parent-teacher conference is all about?” Troy Jones asked the general assembly, since there was nothing in the usual “to discuss (your child’s name here)” blank.
Four innocent stares met him over the edge of the paper. He waved it in the air over his dinner plate.
“Anyone care to claim this?”
The four innocent stares converged over the tofu loaf in a hasty, silent conference. Then, Stasi spoke, which was, in itself, was enough to give both Doctors Jones pause. A speech by the eldest child generally meant she had been elected Ring Leader which, of course, meant there was a ring to lead, which could only lead to parental aggravation.
The Doctors Jones simultaneously recalled the last such occurrence, which had centered around the appearance of an unauthorized mongoose on the house manifest after a Shift to colonial India. The resulting furor in their quiet, well-modulated environment had gotten them and the mongoose evicted from their inner city condominium to a rambling house in the Berkeley hills.
“It’s probably just further repercussions from Tam’s disagreement with Mr. Schiflin,” Stasi said sagely, then added, “although, Miss Tindall did talk to me the other day about my clothes.”
“What’s wrong with them?” asked Helen warily.
Stasi shrugged. “She thought they were a little, um, bright . . . different—you know, too individualistic.”
“But, I bought you some new skirts and blouses.”
“I like my old clothes better sometimes. They remind of who I am. Where I’m from . . . really.”
“Are there some problems here we’re not aware of?” asked their father.
Stasi and Tam shrugged in unison and glanced at each other.
“I got reprimanded for looking up some words during one of Mr. Schiflin’s lectures the other day,” offered Tam.
“Mr. Matthews didn’t like the way I did my math problems,” added Constantine.
Both Joneses Senior moved their eyes to Tahireh.
“I’m fine!” she said and smiled.
oOo
Tahireh Jones was not fine. Not according to Mr. Matthews and a sampling of mothers. She was a fomenter of discord, a libertine, a Bad Influence. Parents had complained that the daughter they’d assumed would work at the library until she married and settled nearby, now showed a sudden interest in their brother’s college fund. Some even showed an interest in his toys and books. Others played at being Sarah Bernhardt or Katherine Hepburn; their dolls gathered in audiences so entranced as to be left unblinkingly wide-eyed and speechless.
While Helen and Troy Jones, seated in the principal’s office with that gentleman and a delegation of three teachers, pondered their response to these charges, Miss Tindall fired her volley. Their eldest daughter was an equally negative influence, encouraging the most ridiculous extremes in dress and hair styles. Distressed mothers wondered why their daughters had suddenly taken to ripping the hems out of their dresses and twisting their hair into shapes reminiscent of ornamental shrubbery.
Mr. Schiflin observed darkly that excesses in clothing were nothing compared to the sort of un-American, irreligious philosophy expounded by Tamujin Jones in his treatise on the future role of America in the free world.
“And then,” he said, pausing dramatically, “there’s this.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew—
“My God!” Troy Jones gasped. “Where did you-?”
“You recognize it, I see,” said Schiflin mildly.
“Ah . . . that is, well . . . yes. It belongs to— That is, it’s . . . a piece of my lab equipment.”
“Really? Your son said it was his dictionary. May I ask how this obviously sophisticated piece of equipment came to be in the hands of a fourteen-year-old boy?”
“And how your daughter, Anastasia, came to be in possession of equally sophisticated reading devices with books written by unknown authors with no record in the Library of Congress?” added Miss Tindall.
“And how Constantine appears to be able to write without a pencil?”
“What?” said Mr. Benoit, and the other teachers stared at him.
“I saw him,” Matthews said, his voice low.
“I did not imagine it.”
Helen tried to dart in before a panic ensued. “The children weren’t supposed to—” she began and stopped. Weren’t supposed to what—unleash future developments on this poor, unprepared, narrow environment? She glanced at her husband, who cleared his throat.
“In our line of work, Helen and I are . . . privileged to make use of many rather startling new technologies.”
“Your line of work?” repeated Mr. Benoit. “And what would that be? Espionage?”
“Good Lord, no. We’re research scientists—archaeologists, anthropologists, sociologists, historians.”
“Come now, Dr. Jones. We’ve seen enough to know that you and your family are digging up more than bones. This equipment, what Beth Silverberg and the others saw in your daughter’s room, the things your children have said and done, all lead to the obvious suspicion. You are Communist spies, Doctor Jones.” Benoit sat back in his principalian throne, looking quite pleased.
“Absurd!” said Troy irritably. His eyes followed on Tam’s dictionary to the principal’s desk, wondering how to get it back.
“Ridiculous,” added Helen, and wondered the same thing.
“Is it? Even your children’s names are foreign. Tamujin—that was Genghis Kahn, if I’m not mistaken; Anastasia—a member of the Russian aristocracy; Tahireh—the name of a Mohammedan suffragette—”
“That’s Muslim,” Troy corrected absently. “And she wasn’t. She was a Báb’í.”
“You dodge the issue, Doctor. I suspect that what Mr. Schiflin has confiscated from your son is a top secret invention. The question is: Whose top secret is it? Ours or theirs? Did you steal it from SAC Headquarters or did you bring it with you as a tool of the trade?”
“If we’d stolen it,” reasoned Helen, “we’d hardly let our son take it to school.”
Benoit looked unconvinced. “Oh, but boys will be boys. Your son can’t be expected to ignore such a curiosity. Or maybe . . . .” He rose dramatically and paced around his desk to perch against the front of it, looming over them like a clumsy, cliché movie cop. “Maybe Tamujin wanted to get caught. Maybe he wanted you to get caught—to end the years of subterfuge and pretense, the years of lonely, trackless wandering.”
He gazed down at them soulfully, and was rewarded by their sudden, startled exchange of glances.
“Do you think—?” asked Troy.
“I didn’t realize—” murmured Helen.
“They must be more miserable—”
“Than we had any conception.”
“I feel like such an ignoramus.”
“And selfish.”
“And sorry?” asked Benoit eagerly.
“Well, of course,” said Troy. “Those kids must be desperate.”
“We’ve got to do something, Troy,” said Helen.
“Sign a confession,” urged Benoit, leaning over them.
Troy waved at him as if he were a buzzing insect. “Helen, have we been that—”
“Self-absorbed?” She nodded emphatically. “We owe those poor kids an apology.”
“You owe this country an apology!”
“Maybe, but what they did was completely out of tune—underhanded. They could have said something.”
“They did. They blew your cover!”
“They did, honey. They said a lot of somethings. We didn’t listen. We were too busy being . . .”
“Spies?”
“Academicians. That’s what that mongoose was all about. They wanted a real home, not an antiseptic holding pen. They were happy at the Farm.”
“Mongoose? Farm? What’s that—code?”
Helen nodded, grimacing. “The Farm.” She put her hand on his khaki covered knee. “We need to talk this out with them. Listen to them. Compromise.”
“You’re already compromised,” said Benoit.
“There’s only one problem, Helen. We haven’t finished our research in this time zone.”
“Oh, you’re finished in this time zone, all right, Doctor. And when Colonel Powers gets here—”
“Who?” Both Joneses turned their heads, speaking in perfect, two part harmony.
“Colonel Powers from Strategic Air Command, the Little Pentagon, the place you’ve been spying on.” Benoit was obviously pleased to have finally gotten their attention. “I called when this all began to come together. He’ll be here any minute to question you and to see this.” He patted the dictionary.
“Do you suppose we’ll actually stay around to meet him?” asked Troy.
Benoit looked as if he’d believed it up until that very moment.
“You’re right about this,” Troy continued, nodding at the dictionary. “It is, as you suspected, a highly sophisticated piece of equipment. It’s not only a Russian-English translator, it’s a communications device, which you have activated, signaling our operatives as to our exact location. And—” He snatched up the little machine, activated it, and turned the glowing green button atop it on the gaping principal. “—it’s also a weapon—a laser beam gun, to be exact.”
He rose, taking his wife’s hand. “Come, my dear. The submarine is waiting.”
They backed toward the door of the office, keeping the startled teachers covered with the dictionary.
Troy opened the door and ushered Helen through. “Za mir,” he said. “Oh, and Pazh’loosta.”
oOo
“Here they come,” said Tam urgently. He let the curtain fall back across the front window and headed for the kitchen.
“Wow, they’re really trekkin’!” said Constantine, impressed with his parent’s speed.
“They keep looking behind them,” observed Tahireh. “I wonder if there’s a mob after them like that time in Salem.”
Stasi shook her head. “I don’t see anybody. I think I hear sirens, though.”
“Hey, you guys!” shouted Tam from the direction of the kitchen. “Stations!”
Children flew in all directions, assuming nonchalant, relaxed poses; looking studious, looking bored, looking in the refrigerator for leftovers.
The front door slammed open, then shut again, admitting two gasping, giggling adults.
“Stations, everybody!” Helen wheezed. “We’re powering up!”
Galvanized, the kids followed their parents trail as far as the dining room. There, they stopped to exchange bug-eyed glances, clicking invisible glasses over success beyond their wildest dreams. They heard the soft hum of the Temporal Grid coming on line and bolted, as a unit, for the Lab.
Their parents stood at the console; Father checking settings, Mother clearing an emergency Shift through the QuestLabs Controller. The hum grew to a flute-tone—a warm wave of pure sound. The walls of the two story brick house began to glow softly violet, to tremble, to run and change and remold themselves to vapor.
“We’re on our way,” murmured Helen.
“On our way?” asked Stasi. “On our way where, Mama?”
“Home,” Helen said and turned to give her children a fierce grin. “Home, where you four will do some stiff penance.”
“Penance?” asked Tam warily. “What penance?”
“Your father and I gave it some serious thought while we were galloping up that hill tonight.”
“Serious,” agreed Troy, eyes on his monitor.
“And?”
Four children held their breath.
“When we get back to the Farm . . . “
Their mother keyed a last sequence, depressed a final button. The walls melted into a glorious violet spray, ran to red, to sunset, to Sun itself. Colors exploded in the walls; splashed and crested, then imploded becoming solid, opaque, mundane.
Helen Jones turned back to her children with a terrifying glare.
“You’re all grounded.”
The four pairs of eyes got wider.
“Grounded?”
“Grounded. No Temporal Shifting, no terrorizing small mid-western towns, no anachronistic dabblings.”
“Never, ever again?” asked Ta
hireh, her brow furrowing.
“Well,” the Doctors Jones traded glances.
“Maybe . . .” began Helen.
“. . . during vacation,” finished Troy.
Tam was troubled. Now that he had what he wanted, he wasn’t sure he should have gotten it. “But Dad, what about your work?”
“We’ll just have to adapt—compromise. But we will not compromise on your . . . discipline. You heard your mother. You’re grounded. Right here, in Twenty-one—um,” he checked his chronometer, “twelve.”
The four pairs of eyes blinked. The taciturn Constantine let out a jubilant whoop. Tahireh giggled. Stasi hugged both her parents.
“Thanks, Dad! Thanks, Mom!” said Tam. “C’mon, you guys, let’s go check out the old neighborhood.”
The noisy rabble rolled out of the Lab, through the house and out the front door. The elder Joneses followed their progress with the delicate sonar of parenthood.
“Extraordinary,” said Troy. “We’ve spent our lives studying history, but today was the first time we’ve actually made history. Do you realize that for the first time since the birth of the Universe, children were grounded and liked it?”
Helen looked thoughtful. “An interesting phenomenon. We’d be delinquent not to record it for posterity.”
“A research paper?”
“Why not a book? The Effects of Temporal Shift on Adolescent and Pre-Adolescent Development.”
Troy Jones nodded, experiencing that peculiar, warm, fuzzy feeling he always associated with love and new projects. “I like the sound of that,” he said.
oOo
Out under the autumn trees, Stasi and Tam surveyed the familiar and found it wonderful. Not far off, Tahireh and Constantine rolled in the grass of Home, giggling.
Tam took a deep breath. “Dad got the dictionary back,” he said. “I saw it on the Console. It’s kinda weird, thinking how close we came to making an indelible mark on history. It’ll be a relief when QuestLabs perfects that Anachron Object Recall System.”
Stasi’s mouth did funny things at the corners. “I hope they perfect it soon.”
“Huh? Why? I just said Dad got the dictionary back.”
“Yeah. Well, I did something sort of . . . dumb.” She glanced at him out of the tail of one eye. “I lent Elaine a book.”
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