“What do you mean by that?” Garison asked, looking up from the book.
“This is not a big bookstore. They can’t waste space by having more than one copy of most books. That's a pretty famous book. And, I’d guess, still popular—even this far from Texas."
"Says here she won the Hugo award for the sequel and was honored with a lifetime achievement award from the Science Fiction Writers of America in 1997," Garison read. He flipped to the front of the book and said, "This edition was published in oh-three and it speaks of her in the present tense then."
"Says she lives 'near Austin,'" Heather pointed out. "I wonder how near and what our chances are of finding her?"
"Too bad the library was closed. Olivia would know—probably without even having to look it up."
"Unless that's a pen-name," Bat pointed out, "It won't be hard at all. Getting her to talk to us may be a little harder. Look, this little store has five different books by her."
"So?" Garison asked, irritated by Bat's manner—as usual.
"All I'm saying is that she's a very popular writer. She may have fans trying to talk to her all the time. And science fiction fans can be especially rabid. Lunatics out there who think the stuff she writes isn't fic—never mind," Bat said, smiling with embarrassment at a scowling Heather. Beside Heather, Jody was trying her best not to smile. Jody finally turned away and pretended to be looking at something else.
Garison picked up a copy of each of the Bronwyn Kerrigan novels and walked over to the checkout counter. He set them down there and told the cashier, a teen-age girl with a hairdo like a hedge-hog, "I'll be back," before walking over to the reference section of the store. The girl thought about saying something snide in return about the shop not being a library, but Garison was the best looking man she had ever seen and decided not to.
Bat was already in the reference section, flipping through a book titled, "Who's Who in American Fiction." He told Garison, "According to this, she lives in Florence, Texas, with her husband, who is a professor emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin." Bat looked up at Garison and said, "I've got a friend that runs a string of dry cleaners in Central Texas. I doubt that he knows the Kerrigans, but he might could point us in the right direction. I bet he would at least know the sheriff in Florence or somebody who could help us."
"Then we've got to get her to talk to us."
Bat smirked, "That shouldn't be too hard—once we get through to her in the first place. What science fiction writer is going to turn down the chance to talk to a Nobel Prize winning physicist who almost built a time machine?" Bat looked around, "Where are the wives? I thought they came in here with us. They were here a minute ago."
"If Heather's in a bookstore, she's probably in the quilting section," Garison replied.
"Oh yeah, that was in the book, too, wasn't it?"
"Mrs. Kerrigan?" Garison said into the phone in his most friendly voice. "I'm sorry to bother you, but my name is Garison Fitch and—what?" He listened for a moment. "Yes ma'am, I did win a Nobel Prize. Thank you. Well, I was wondering if I could come see you?"
After a long pause, part of which seemed to be due to Garison's own hesitation, he said, "I want to talk to you about the Republic of Texas. You see, I think I may know someone—or at least know of someone—who has been there. Mrs. Kerrigan? Mrs. Kerrigan? Are you still there?" After another moment, he smiled as he said, "Great! Where's the closest airport? Will we need to fly into Austin? Killeen, OK. Well, my wife's a pilot and, if we can get everything cleared, we'll fly down tomorrow. I look forward to meeting you, too, Mrs. Kerrigan."
Heather looked at Bat, her fellow Texan, and smiled, "Looks like we're going home, Bat."
"You really want me along?" He turned to Garison and said, "I guess that question should have been directed at you."
Heather shot Garison a stern look, but he ignored it and said, "You've got to come along. You're at the center of this, not me." At everyone's questioning looks, he explained, "It was another Garison Fitch that traveled through time, but it was this Bat Garrett that met him. It’s the impossibility of Bat remembering that meeting that started all this, you know."
"Are you sure it's OK for you to be up here?" Heather asked Jody. They had claimed the two front seats of the twin engine airplane (Heather because she was the pilot) and had relegated the men to sitting together in the back.
"Will you stop asking me that? You're as pregnant as I am."
Bat injected, "Remember in high school when they'd say some girl was 'sort of pregnant'? I was never sure what they meant by that. Either you are or you aren't."
As everyone rolled their eyes, Jody shifted in her seat, again, and said, "The only reason I can't sit still is that I can't find a comfortable position. I could be on the most comfortable chair in the world right now and I would still be miserable. It's just one of those days when Junior apparently has his hands wrapped around my spinal column while simultaneously trying to shove a foot out of my belly button. And he's got Bat's feet."
Heather put a hand to her own abdomen and said, "I can't wait to feel our little Sarah kicking around in here."
"Ninety-nine percent of the time I love the feeling," Jody told her with a smile, that turned into a grimace, "But this is that other one percent."
Bat leaned forward and asked Heather, "So, you're confident it will be a girl, huh?"
Heather shrugged and replied, "I don't know if I'm confident. But after all we read in that manuscript, it seems like a likely possibility."
"And you're really going to go with the name Sarah?"
"Why not?" Garison answered him. "We both like the name and, at the very least, Sarah was an ancestor of mine. At least according to that family tree book I showed you."
"If all this is for real," Bat mentioned, "I thought it was interesting that he named his fourth child Heather. Showed he thought a lot of you, Heather." Bat reached behind him and pulled out "A Fitch Family History" by Maureen Fitch Carnes. Holding it up, he said, "What's also interesting to think about is that this version is different from the one the Heather and Garison were reading in that story, you know?"
"How do you mean?" Heather called over her shoulder.
"Well, the version they quote from in the manuscript talks about Garison dying in the fire and only having three children. This version here doesn't even mention the fire because Garison died of old age with six kids—one of which he named after me, I might add.” He said this with emphasis, directed at Garison.
“Don’t forget: he named one after me, too,” Jody pointed out, just before another grimace. “Stop it, Junior,” she muttered.
Bat wished he could do something for his wife, but knew he couldn’t, and continued, “This version mentions his daughter Heather—even saying that it was an unusual name for its day—while that other version wouldn't have mentioned her at all. Garison's actions not only changed the world, it changed a little thing like your aunt's writing. If all this is for real," he repeated, "It kind of gives you a headache."
The Garison in the airplane pointed out, "Let's just assume all this is for real, Bat. I obviously believe it is but, just for the sake of argument, let's say you believe it, too. Do you have any idea how you could remember that meeting back at Sul Ross? I've racked my brain and I can't."
Bat shrugged, "I haven't the slightest idea. And see, that's still the one major thing keeping me from believing all this. I used to read science fiction and I went to college and all.” As Jody turned and gave him a scowl, then a smile, he corrected, “OK, I went to junior college. Anyhow, I’ve read as much as any of you I know what's supposed to happen if time changes. People aren't born, others are, people don't remember things because they never happened. I know all that. So there's no reason at all why I should remember meeting you—or the other Garison—back at Sul Ross. It should be a logical impossibility."
"One thing I've been wondering among the many things I've been wondering," Jody entered, "Was the whole thing about the two
Garisons becoming one Garison. Did that mean they merged at some cellular level? If so, was the hybrid Garison four hundred pounds?"
Heather responded, "I've thought about that myself and I don't think that could be right or they would mention it in the manuscript. One thing I thought of was that, if that were the case, when Garison—um—laid on me—Heather—he would have crushed her. I'd think she'd mention that in a journal entry or something."
"So what happened? It couldn't have been like some sort of demon possession or something, could it?" Jody asked dubiously.
Garison answered, "That wouldn't square with what happened after he repaired the hole in time—after he talked to me. He retained corporeal form, after all."
Jody added to the confusion by adding the question, "And why didn't he disappear as soon as he gave you that tape? Why did he hang around for the next eighteen years?"
“I’ve been wondering about that,” Garison nodded. “But back to the question of the two of the—two of me—together, I wonder if it was almost like their genes were spliced? They say all our memories are stored in our genes—and some people even say our parents memories are in there, though I until recently doubted that myself. What if it were a splice at the genetic level? He somehow got the older Garison’s wrinkles and physical appearance, but maybe something of the younger Garison’s physicality as well. Like the younger Garison’s heart or something.”
Bat nodded in wonder as he asked, “What if the spliced Garison had had a child with Heather? Would that child have been the product of one Garison or both? What if—and pardon me for thinking unpleasant thoughts—but what if a child produced by the spliced Garison, um, had something wrong with it? Like he was a hybrid that couldn’t reproduce?” As Jody shot him an unpleasant look, Bat quickly added, “Or, a child produced by the spliced Garison could be the smartest person in the history of the world—what with two Nobel Prize winning fathers and a genius mother.”
“It’s about time someone said that about me,” Heather quipped.
They had a great flight all the way into Killeen, Texas, the airport that had proven to be the closest to the tiny town of Florence. The air had been smooth, with only one brief and pretty minor pocket of turbulence, a rare trip for such a long one. As they landed, Jody said to Bat, "This seems familiar, huh?"
"You've been to this airport before?" Garison asked.
"We all have, except Garison," Bat replied. "Jody and I were here just about six months ago for the funeral of a friend." Speaking to the front seats, he said, "And isn't this where you and Heather came back when we were trying to piece together Darla's father's past?"
"I'd forgotten that," Heather nodded. "This was where we flew into, wasn't it?"
"I remember it," Jody laughed. "That was the time Heather showed me that she could get almost as much information by undoing a button on her blouse as I could get by flashing my Home identification."
Blushing as she taxied down the runway, Heather responded, "You make it sound like I propositioned the guy! All I did was show him a little cleavage." Suddenly, she was talking to her headset as she said, "Nothing, Tower." To her passengers, she said, "I distracted him while Jody asked him questions so that he wouldn't realize that some of the information he was giving us was classified."
Jody turned her head toward those in the back seat and said, "You guys would have enjoyed it. She's wearing those tight blue jeans she used to like and this button sweater that, um, showed her figure pretty well even when buttoned.. All of a sudden I look over and she just 'happens' to be sitting on the edge of his desk and with her legs crossed and a couple buttons undone on the sweater. And she also just 'happened' to have a push-up bra on—"
"I did not!" Heather retorted. "I've never worn one of those things—except as a joke back in college. What I did here was completely within the rules of propriety."
Jody put a hand on Heather's shoulder and said, "No, you were just jealous that Bat was in love with me so you were trying to show me that you were more of a woman than me."
"I was not! That was before I was in love with—oops," Heather shut up abruptly.
"I've heard the story of Darla's father—and yes, Heather, I even knew you were once in love with this guy—but I don't remember ever hearing that little espionage tidbit," Garison mumbled.
"What did you say?" Heather demanded defensively.
"TID-bit. I said TID-bit."
"Oh," Heather mumbled in return as she taxied over to the hangar she had reserved. For some reason, she felt really hot and they weren't even out in the Texas sun, yet.
As they were gathering their things, Jody commented, “I hope we don’t have to do anything like that on this trip. While Heather could still pull it off, I’m not sure I could.”
Bat perked up as he asked, “So you were in on it, too? You wouldn’t even let me kiss you in a bathing suit until we were married but you flash some skin to a complete stranger?”
“I did not!” Jody retorted, blushing as red as Heather had been earlier.
“It depends on what you mean by skin,” Heather injected, much to Jody’s horror. “She was wearing dark hose that day, but I did notice she happened to sit in such a way as to make her skirt ride up a little higher than normal.”
“I did not! It—it always was like that!”
“Uh-huh,” Heather nodded, enjoying to the chance to get back at her best friend.
As Garison looked at the two ladies like he had never seen them before, Bat told him, “Ah, this isn’t even their best one of these. My favorite was the time they got into an argument over whether Jody could wear one of Heather’s blouses.”
When Jody and Heather both shot him looks of stern reproach, Garison remarked, “Based solely on their response to your statement, Mister Detective, I believe I would like to hear more testimony on this matter.”
Jody sighed and asked Heather, “I guess one of us better tell the story before Bat’s version of it gets way out of hand.”
Bat wasn't sure what he thought the woman that some said was to science fiction what Agatha Christie had been to mystery would be like, but this wasn't it. He had somehow expected her to be a little more—far out. At least like those weird author ladies he used to see at the library reading stories to little kids with several extra layers of incongruous clothes and long, dangly earrings. Or maybe like the pictures he had seen of Agatha, very well-to-do and proper. As they had pulled up the long driveway to the large farmhouse on the southeast side of Florence, they were greeted by a woman that just looked like anybody's grandmother. Gray hair, cotton dress, gardening shoes, big grandmotherly smile.
As the quartet got out of the car she came over and went first to Bat, "Oh Mister Fitch, I've followed your work for years—"
Bat pointed to Garison and said, "That's Garison Fitch. I'm Bat Garrett. I'm . . . nobody famous." He took Jody's hand and said, "And this is my wife, Jody."
Mrs. Kerrigan took Jody's hand and said, "You're so lovely. How far along are you?"
"Six months," Jody replied, her left hand involuntarily patting her expanding stomach. It wasn't completely involuntary, though. She had learned that if she kept her hand there it helped prevent other people—especially strangers—from patting her on the stomach, something she had hated from the moment it started.
"You know, I used to have hair almost your color when I was young." She touched her gray locks and said with a smile, "But five kids, eighteen grandkids and more decades than I care to admit can take a little of the color out."
Garison was around the car by that time and offering his hand, "Garison Fitch." He held Heather's hand in his other and introduced, "This is my wife, Heather."
"Oh my," Mrs. Kerrigan said, "You're pregnant, too?"
"How could you tell?" Heather asked in surprise, with a movement that mimicked Jody's.
Mrs. Kerrigan smiled and said, "When you've been around as long as I have, you notice these things." She turned toward her house and said, "Why don't you come o
n up and meet my husband. He would have come out here himself but he's nursing a bad foot. Doctors don't know what's wrong but some days he can hardly walk on it. This is one of those days."
She led them up the sidewalk beneath the live oaks and up onto the front porch. Opening the screen, she called out, "Jason! They're here." Turning to her guests, she said, "I never introduced myself. I'm Bronwyn Kerrigan."
She led them inside where an elderly man sat in a recliner. He had thick, white hair and the ladies thought he had probably been handsome in his day. He smiled and said, "Pardon me for not getting up. Got something wrong with my foot and laying here is the only way to ease the pressure."
The quartet said various versions of, "That's quite alright" as they came in.
"Have a seat," Jason offered. It was a nice, big living room decorated to look like an old style farm house even though the house itself was less than ten years old.
Jody leaned near Bronwyn and asked, "Could you direct me to a restroom, please?"
"You just went at the airport," Heather mentioned.
As Jody went down the directed hallway, she said over her shoulder, "See what you have to look forward to?"
As they were all seated (except Jody, of course), Bronwyn asked anxiously, "So why does a handsome young Nobel Prize winning physicist want to bring a whole entourage from Durango, Colorado, to Florence, Texas, just to see an old science fiction writer no one reads anymore?"
"According to what I've read, that's not strictly accurate." Garison had brought in a nylon bag, from which he produced the manuscript and a copy of "Lost Time." He hesitated, then said, "And because I've got a story that's going to sound crazy but I want you to hear it."
Garison held up the manuscript and said, "Last March this manuscript was delivered to me by UPS. Over two hundred years ago a man with the same name as me dropped it off at a church and told them to deliver it to me on March 15, 2005. He knew my name and where I would live and who I would be married to and everything. Even knew about UPS."
The Legend of Garison Fitch (Book 3): Lost Time Page 28