Logan made up a bed on the couch, said he was tired, and lay down while the two men were still talking in the backyard. He lay there thinking about his life. He finally understood the pain he'd suffered from his mother's suicide. Now, he realized that his father, too, hadn't outgrown her loss.
His dad had never been a hard worker when Logan was little, while his parents were still together. He remembered the two of them fighting over money and his dad's drinking. Now William was far more interested in working than in any problem Logan had. That lack of interest had bothered him initially, but he'd mostly overcome it during the time they were working together.
His recent experiences had changed him, giving him vastly more insight.
His dad had only been interested in Logan as long as he fit into the life William had created for himself. Logan's value was in how well he worked, and how much beer he could drink. College, anthropology, and even police problems meant nothing to the man.
In a way Logan understood. He was a living symbol of his father's failed attempt at marriage. His dad had to have mixed feelings for him.
He pulled the light blanket up, and rolled to a more comfortable position. He had his own problems now. Serensaa, and the ethics hearing. Of the two, the ethics hearing was by far the least important. But, then, again, if he graduated, he'd have plenty of money. Perhaps that would give him the chance to figure out how he'd traveled in time.
He'd jumped in time, somehow covering thousands of years. If he'd done it three times, he could probably do it again. Only, how would he know he was coming to the precise time where he'd have a chance to meet Serensaa? That was the point where his mind always stuck. How would he ever find her again? If he couldn't, then how would he live without her?
Logan finally slept, the dried tracks of tears on his cheeks.
He was on the road before Larry and his dad had rolled out of bed. He didn't say goodbye to them, just left a note on the table that said, “Thanks for everything. Good Luck!”
The old motorcycle made good time, running smoothly in the cooler morning air. His mind was busy as he rode. The ethics charge against him hinged on his discovery of the tanto. How could it have been in the ground, obviously deposited there thousands of years before Larry had given it to him, and how could he have it now?
There had been a critical decision point that made the difference. It happened when he had been on the verge of going towards the shore. If he'd walked that way, he probably wouldn't have returned. Discovering the stele near the shore had taken all thoughts of exploring the old campground out of his head.
The fox had made the difference. Its yip had led him to discover the dirty knife buried in the grass stems.
Maybe, just maybe, the universe had divided into two parts at that point. In one universe, the knife went undiscovered until the dig. In the other, he found it; still had it as a matter of fact. The police had given it back to him once he'd been released.
The question of the knife faded from his mind as he accelerated around a slow-moving car driven by an old man.
It was still early in the morning when he reached Gainesville. It was Sunday and the traffic was light. He stopped for some donuts and coffee, used the rest room and then got back in the saddle.
He was heading for the university, when he noticed a Chrysler convertible that looked familiar. It was sitting in a driveway behind another car. It might be Dameron's. He circled the block to make another pass.
As he turned the corner to come by again, he saw someone coming out of the house. It was Dameron.
Logan stopped, and rolled his motorcycle into the space between two cars parked on the street. He straightened so that he could just see over the top of a car.
Dameron got halfway to his convertible, but turned back when Mandi appeared at the door and called to him.
She was barely covered, wearing a thin nightie, and nothing else. Dameron looked her over. Logan clearly heard him say, “I've got to get to my office. Janice is coming to pick me up for lunch and I need to look like I've been working.”
Logan didn't hear what Mandi said in return, it was low and soft, but it obviously was something seductive. Dameron came back to her like a dog with his tongue hanging out at the sight of a bone. The two kissed in the doorway.
Logan took the opportunity to snap a couple of pictures with his cell phone.
Such a sight would have made Logan incurably jealous in the not so recent past. Now it just seemed tawdry and cheap. He wasn't interested in the woman. What he'd originally believed was beauty was only a more common sort of prettiness. She was no competition for Serensaa.
The two disappeared into the house, shutting the door.
He figured that meant he had at least a half-hour before Dameron would get on the road. He backed his motorcycle out, and headed for the Archaeology department.
Dameron's office was unlocked. Logan looked around. There was no one in sight, anywhere. Even the graduate student offices were empty. He stepped quickly in and pulled the door shut.
The man's office was full of crowded bookshelves. There were some artifacts hanging in the little available wall-space, and there was a credenza behind the desk. Both the desk and credenza were covered with a litter of papers.
He sorted through the papers on the desk, hopefully, but to no avail. There was nothing there that seemed relevant. He replaced the pages exactly as they had been, then accidentally bumped the computer mouse as he started to turn away.
The screen illuminated. The machine had only been asleep, and there wasn't even any security. Dameron was pretty trusting. Logan snorted. Even freshmen knew enough to secure their machines.
He looked at the display. It appeared that the professor had walked away while reading an email. The text was still there. He glanced at it, cursorily, then shrugged his shoulders, and turned away.
He started for the door, but then jerked and looked at the screen again. Yes, he'd been correct. The email was from Schmitzke. It was addressed to someone named “ Samuel Friedholm”, with a copy sent to Dameron. Logan scanned the text, and printed it. He tucked the email in his backpack.
He started to check the credenza, but then noise coming from the hallway told him that time was running out. He cautiously opened the door, assured himself that no one was in sight, stepped out, pulled the door shut, and then ran the other way, lightly moving on his toes to minimize any noise. He ducked into the men's room, went into a stall and sat down on the seat for a few minutes. Then he exited the room, turned and walked normally to the stairs.
The sound he'd heard was the janitor. The man was working his way down the hall, collecting the trash. Logan grimaced. The man might have discovered him.
The janitor had a wheeled trash bin. He systematically parked it by each office door, went in, and returned with the occupant's wastebasket, which he dumped into the bin. Then he replaced the wastebasket before moving to the next office. Logan watched speculatively.
When the janitor had dumped Dameron's trash, Logan walked by and glanced into the bin while the man was replacing the wastebasket.
There was a page with Dameron's name on it lying on the top of the pile. He grabbed for it, coming up with a handful of papers that he held tightly against his chest as he strode away.
One of the classrooms was open, and he turned in there to inspect his find. He poked through the papers. They looked like the start of a journal article. He picked one at random and read the title: Advanced Metallurgy and the Clovis Culture by George Dameron, Ph.D.
The abstract wasn't very specific, but Logan understood that Dameron was attempting to fit the pitted steel tanto in the context of the Clovis site.
The professor was trying to make the case that someone, possibly a wandering Japanese metal artisan, had migrated with the Clovis people, and taught them how to make high-grade steel.
Logan snorted. As far as he knew, there had been no one on Earth ten or eleven thousand years ago who had any idea of forging iron, let alone
making stainless steel. Certainly his tanto had been a new thing to the people he'd met. He didn't think the idea would be well received.
Apparently Dameron felt much the same way. The paper had been heavily edited, then wadded and thrown in the trash. Dameron had to know that this theory was ludicrous and unsupportable.
Nevertheless, it seemed the man was trying to figure out how to present the idea in a publishable form so that he could take credit for it. That meant that Dameron knew the knife was a legitimate find, and that Logan hadn't planted it.
That was all that he needed to prove. If Dameron was going to publish the finding, then Logan obviously hadn't done anything wrong.
He grinned tightly. It was going to be difficult for Dameron to get any academic traction with the paper. No one would believe that the knife was in context when found. The only proof was on the cell phone that he'd recovered at his dad's. He grabbed at his waist to make sure that it was still there. It was.
He got some coffee at the student union, and sat at a table thinking until the coffee was cold. Then he went to the library where he set up his laptop in a carrel.
He began to type, outlining the situation. He wanted to be prepared for the ethics hearing. He started and stopped several times.
He researched time-travel, but there was nothing that he could find that was very helpful. The idea of a paradox stuck with him, though. He paused and thought some more.
Was it possible that his knife, now stored safely in his backpack, was the knife that he'd found in the strata near a clovis point? There certainly had been clovis points in the camp area. Now, if he hadn't found his knife buried among the grass roots, it would have been lost. Not quite lost forever, just for about eleven thousand years or so. He'd still recover it, only to have Dameron take it from him.
What would happen now? Did Dameron even have the pitted knife? Yes. He must. The journal article that he was writing referred to it. So, the timeline hadn't made any correction, even though the knife hadn't been lost, and was now essentially duplicated. There were two tantos, one old and pitted, and one new.
He snatched up his backpack and feverishly checked. Yes, his knife was in there. It would be bad if it had somehow disappeared.
He took a piece of paper and tried to diagram out the situation, but he couldn't make sense of it. There was no knowing what would happen in the future.
He let that puzzle go for the moment, and turned to creating a short slide show, using the photos from his phone.
He took the journal article title page, which showed the title, by-line, and abstract, and scanned it to himself using one of the library's scanners. Then he added that page to the slide presentation with an appropriate title.
He considered, weighing the negative aspects against any possible advantage, before adding one of the pictures of Dameron kissing Mandi to the end of the presentation. He need not show it, but it might be nice to have, if things went badly, even if Berensten wouldn't approve.
When he was done, he recalled the email. He pulled it out of his pack and studied the names. Then he ran several searches on the Internet.
It took some time to find what he was after, but using a variety of sources for public records proved fruitful. He identified Samuel Friedholm, and found Dameron's wife's maiden name.
That discovery caused him to draw in his breath through his teeth.
“So that's why I've had such a hard time with Dameron,” he whispered.
More searches, but no luck. Then he got the idea to try Friedholm's wife. She was almost a dead end, but, while researching her, he discovered that she had a brother named Jeffery. Jeff's wife was the linchpin. There it was. Everything clicked together.
He incorporated that knowledge into his thinking. It was shocking. The idea that people would do what was implied by that email and his search results offended his sense of what was right.
The future became clear as he considered. He had to prevail in the ethics hearing. He felt relieved, but then a wave of sadness washed over him. None of this mattered, if he couldn't find Serensaa. He feared she was lost in the distant past.
Tears came to his eyes. She had been dust for over ten thousand years. How could that be? He'd been with her. They'd made love on their wedding night just a few days ago.
Logan swiped at his eyes, trying to stop the tears.
He packed his stuff up, and left the library, pausing by the exit to wipe his eyes again before putting on his sunglasses.
He needed somewhere to stay for a couple of days.
Chapter 22: ETHICAL BEHAVIOR
The motel offered a continental breakfast. Logan found it consisted of some picked over donuts and weak coffee. All of the cinnamon rolls were long gone. He figured he wouldn't need the sugar rush from the pastries anyway. It would probably make him sleepy and he wanted to be on his toes for the ethics hearing.
He went down the street to a local cafe for breakfast. The food was good, but he was so nervous about the upcoming hearing, he couldn't concentrate on it. It went down, filling his stomach, but once he was on his motorcycle, heading for the university, he couldn't have told anyone what he'd eaten.
Professor Berensten wasn't in yet and he had to wait. He found a spot outside, under a tree. His time in the past had made him feel confined whenever he was inside. It was better to be out in the fresh air.
After weeks outside, the heat and humidity didn't bother him as much as it had when he spent most of his time inside, in air-conditioned luxury. He shook his head, disparagingly. People were spoiled. They didn't realize it, but they were.
Nine a.m. rolled around and he went in to check on Berensten. She'd come in the back way and was in her office.
“Hello, Logan. Are you ready for the hearing?” she asked.
“Hi Dr. Berensten,” he answered. “Yes, I'm as ready as I can be.”
She looked at him critically, one eyebrow cocked. Then remarked, “You seem different somehow. Oh, well. Never mind that. Just remember, I want you to have one thing clear. It won't help your case if you start throwing unfounded accusations at Dr. Dameron. It would be one thing, if you had proof that he's having an affair, but even if you did, it really isn't related to your case.”
Logan shrugged. His defense was based on the photos he taken and evidence that he'd collected. He figured they wouldn't like the idea that he had been surreptitiously going through Dameron's office, but he hadn't actually found the article until it was in the janitor's trash-bin.
He remembered reading that anything that had been discarded in the trash was no longer considered private property. Or something like that, anyway. That would be his defense for having the papers. He'd found them discarded in the trash.
The other information, the results of his searches and the email weren't in his plans for the ethics hearing. Well, it was true that they showed Dameron's motive for making the complaint, but then he'd have to admit he got the email directly from the professor's computer. That wouldn't sound very good in a hearing about his ethics. He'd reserve that information for later, when he needed it.
The two of them walked across campus to Tigert Hall. Dr. Berensten led him to the conference room. They were a little early and none of the hearing committee was there.
On the way over, Berensten had explained that the committee was composed of a mix of faculty and student representatives. In the event of an equal split, the hearing officer, the assistant dean of students, would have the tie-breaking vote.
Logan shut his eyes and tried to compose himself. It was easy compared to worrying about being attacked by a saber-tooth. The old value system he had painstakingly created, now seemed trivial. He had changed, and not just mentally either. His body was harder, more able, and honed down.
He glanced at the people who were now finding their places in the room. They didn't impress him. They were uniformly out of shape, not fit to survive in the natural world, and yet, they were here to judge him. He exhaled, making a disgusted sound. Berensten gla
nced at him curiously.
He closed his eyes again, waiting for the hearing to start. He daydreamed a little, thinking of Serensaa and how he'd proceed with her English lessons.
“Mr. Walker, you've been accused of fraudulently attempting to invalidate the data collected by your first summer session archaeology team. This is a serious issue. The archaeology department, and our university cannot countenance such activity. This group has been convened to hear the evidence and decide what to do with you.”
The speaker was someone Logan didn't know. He thought the woman held a position in Student Services or was as Berensten had said, the assistant dean of students. As far as he was concerned, it didn't matter.
Paradox: On the Sharp Edge of the Blade Page 25