Timeslip

by Bruce Stewart

  ‘Good luck,’ said Traynor. ‘Come back with all you can find out, and we’ll all be proud of you.’

  So there was little attempt in the end to dissimulate; Simon understood now that Liz’s mother had been right about Traynor. But he took the proffered hand and grasped it firmly.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘See you in jail.’

  Simon moved forward in the field, groping for the barrier. This part of the operation never failed to intrigue Traynor. He watched with taut interest as the boy before him found the wall that could not be seen and felt carefully along it until at length he came to the hole that wasn’t there; then bent to it, struggled a little — and disappeared from view.

  Traynor slapped one fist loudly into the other. In his eyes there was now a sharp gleam of triumph.

  * * *

  You did what?’ demanded Frank Skinner incredulously, ‘You took him back to St Oswald and let him go into the time bubble — in spite of what I said?’

  Having succeeded in the battlefield, Traynor was determined now to win around the conference table. The victor can afford to be generous. He embraced the angry Skinner, Liz and an outraged Jean with the one pacific smile.

  ‘Look here, let’s not get in a state about this,’ he urged. ‘I had very little to do with it. The boy virtually insisted.’

  ‘I don’t believe you,’ said Jean flatly.

  ‘Dear Mrs Skinner...’

  ‘I don’t! Simon wouldn’t do a thing like that without telling me unless you’d put pressure on him. Oh, I should never have left the two of you alone.’

  ‘I must clear up certain misapprehensions,’ said Traynor, clearing his throat. ‘My name is not Svengali, and I don’t go around making a practice of leading young people astray. On the contrary, I’m only interested in finding out what people want to do themselves. Simon has an inquiring mind, don’t you realize that? He needs to know the answers to puzzling questions. Right, Liz?’

  They all looked to Liz suddenly, silent and at this moment a curiously small figure in the big armchair across the room.

  ‘What?—’

  I say, doesn’t Simon fret and fret till he's found the solution to a vexing problem?’

  Oh yes,’ replied Liz absently. ’Yes, he never stops trying to work things out.’

  Jean was puzzled by her daughter’s apparent preoccupation, but now Skinner had drawn himself up and was saying. Anyway, the simple fact is, this time you’ve gone too far. Commander. I’m not standing for it any longer. I’m going for the police.’

  ‘Is that wise?’ inquired Traynor politely as the other started for the door.

  ‘Stop me if you think not,’ invited Skinner.

  ‘I was only thinking of how your complaint might sound to the official ear. You mean to charge me with having kidnapped a member of your household and somehow projected him into the future. You mean to report that a young boy has gone missing, but isn’t likely to be found because he’s in the year 1990...’ Skinner had stopped in his progress, reached by this. Now Traynor’s face took on a subtly harder line. ‘If any such hare-brained notions were put to me, of course, I should deny them outright. Suggest the whole thing was a fabrication on your part ... the unhappy result of a war injury.’

  Jean gasped, leaping to her feet from the sofa. ‘Commander Traynor, I’ve always known you were a ruthless man—’

  ‘Oh, forget it, Jean,’ growled Skinner.

  ‘No, Frank! He doesn’t care who he hurts as long as he gets his own way. He’d kill someone if he had to. It’s time he knew what we think of him.’

  ‘And what about Simon?’ cried Liz all at once. ‘What about Simon? You stand there talking, arguing — but it’s Simon we ought to be thinking about! He’s back there. In that awful place ...’

  She had risen to her feet, and now turned and ran from the room with a little sob. Skinner was bewildered.

  ‘Liz—’

  Jean was already halfway to the door, but he stopped her, sensing in some part of him that perhaps he ought to go himself. Jean did not prevent him, so he ran out after Liz, leaving her with Traynor. The Commander met her eyes coolly.

  ‘That place,’ he murmured, ‘whatever it may be — whoever it may one day claim...’

  ‘Liz, sweetheart, what’s up?’ asked a concerned Skinner, coming into the kitchen.

  She was sitting at the table, her head on her arms, weeping copiously. Skinner sighed, drew a white handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her.

  ‘I’m not crying,’ protested Liz. ‘It’s nothing really. Simon can go where he wants, can’t he? Anywhere.’

  ‘Liz.’ Skinner scraped a chair back and sat down. ‘Now look, let’s get this straight. The only reason I didn’t want the two of you to go back is because I thought we’d all had enough of it. Also, because it could still be dangerous.’

  ‘But it isn’t, is it? Mr Traynor says we can’t come to any harm.’

  ‘Traynor says all sorts of things.’

  ‘But Mummy’s there, isn’t she?’

  Skinner resisted impatience. ‘Your mother. Oh, Liz, do you really believe that’s so?’

  ‘I saw her,’ cried Liz. Her tears started again. ‘And Simon — Simon can be a fool at times. Oh, he studies a lot and knows all kinds of things nobody else would ever want to know, but he’s not much good at looking after himself. Last time — last time he depended on me a lot...’

  Skinner took all this in, then nodded soberly. It was curious, he had cause to remember afterwards, what a sinking feeling it gave him. ‘I see,’ he said ruefully. ‘So the world changes, and little girls at last become big girls.’

  ‘No—’ denied Liz.

  ‘Oh, it’s a fact. Yes. So this is something we’ve got to talk about, isn’t it... whether we like it or not.’

  He smiled at her, a smile that was at once melancholy and generous, and Liz smiled back through the last of her tears; glad in her heart that she had him for a father, and wondering why she had never thought as much before.

  * * *

  So it was agreed that Liz too should go back through the barrier; so another pilgrimage was made to the Ministry field at St Oswald; so Jean and Frank watched as their daughter found a solidity in the empty air, then a space, and vanished even as they stared — wondering to the last whether or not they had made a wise decision.

  * * *

  Liz grabbed at the remaining thermal suit beside the slab of ice, and scrambled into it as needles of the intense cold pricked at her. Simon’s suit was already gone. She set out clumsily for the tunnel entrance, a dogged but incongruous figure against those icy wastes.

  She had little trouble getting down the slope of the tunnel or through the pressurized door that sealed the ice-box off from the unfriendly world outside. But it was just as she reached the entrance area that she had to skitter and hide behind a convenient wall pillar; Bukov and Edith emerged from the corridor, making for the lift to the private apartments above.

  ‘... I don’t understand it,’ Bukov was saying impatiently. ‘Liz seems simply to have disappeared, and all the boy Simon will say is that he’s been for a walk. Been for a walk! ’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Edith in her flat tone. ‘It’s funny, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s more than funny. They’re really a most unusual pair of volunteers. I wasn’t dreaming, Edith, they just vanished into thin air out there on the ice...’

  The lift door obscured them from view, and Liz thought to herself, ‘Well, that’s all right.’ She and Simon had been with her parents for over a week, but here time seemed to have stood still. Liz slipped off the thermal suit — it was much easier to get out of than to put on — and restored it to the cupboard. She turned in the direction of the corridor; but then her eye fell on the door to the side room — the door beyond which she had seen the woman who appeared to be her mother, Jean.

  Liz bit her lip. All at once, this was not easy for her. At home, with her mother beside her, it had seemed
quite clear. She had seen Jean in the ice-box. But now, in the precincts themselves, it seemed suddenly less sure, or at any rate too mysterious a business to investigate alone. But precisely as one part of her held her back, so another urged her on. Liz crossed to the silent door, stopped in front of it. Her hand went out to the catch, paused. Then, summoning up ail her courage, she opened the door and went inside.

  * * *

  The Director said, seated behind his desk, ‘I take a most serious view of all this, Simon. I want you to understand. Most serious.’

  4Yes, sir.’ Simon was standing opposite him, literally on the carpet, and feeling exactly as though he were at school getting it hot and strong from the Head.

  ‘You came here as a volunteer,’ Devereaux went on. ‘Well, we don’t have rules in an establishment like this. But we expect from everyone involved a gravity of purpose and sense of dedication. We serve science. Check?’

  ‘Check, sir,’ echoed Simon.

  ‘Now as to your companion.’ Devereaux turned to the panel, within arm’s reach as he sat, and punched some controls. The lights dimmed, and the blue screen became more pronounced. ‘Director to computer,’ he snapped. ‘Field report on search for missing volunteer. Beam curve and radar check.’

  * * *

  There was a moment’s turbulence on the screen, and then the bright legend chattered across:

  COMPUTER TO DIRECTOR . . . JULY 7TH 11.13 HOURS . . .

  NO INTERFERENCE RECORDED RADAR AREA . . . BEAM CURVE

  CHECK NEGATIVE . . . INCREASING RANGE AND POWER . . .

  ENDS.. .

  * * *

  Devereaux grunted in displeasure, snapped the screen off again. ‘I sincerely hope we’re not put in the position of having to request another volunteer,’ he remarked. ‘We should be beginning on the AB experiment almost at once.’

  Simon cleared his throat and said: ‘I’d like to say how privileged I feel to be here, sir. I’ve admired your work for a long time.’ He became aware the Director was staring at him. ‘Your work, sir,’ he repeated. ‘I think it’s terrific.’

  ‘What the devil would a kid like you know about my work?’ asked Devereaux, astonished.

  Simon was now not at all sure he’d chosen the right ploy. ‘I read everything I can about science,’ he hurried on. ‘I first got interested through reading — uh — Charles Traynor.’

  ‘Traynor? Who’s Traynor?’

  Now Simon was thrown. ‘Well, you ought to know.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean you must. He said — he was at...’ Simon swallowed helplessly. ‘Wasn’t he a friend of yours?’

  Devereaux’s brow creased in annoyance. ‘We have important work to do here, young man. If you wish to babble on about obscure and unimportant men of science, then you may do so in your leisure period. But not now. My time is valuable. We’ll take another check.’

  Simon was deeply reflective as the Director turned again for the panel.

  * * *

  There was nothing in the little room. It seemed poky and almost painfully plain. The contrived lighting had the general effect of subduing angles and smoothing out corners, but as far as Liz could see there was only a functional chair and a table, on which lay a pile of notes. And then something on a tiny shelf farther over took her eye; something in itself very small. She moved across and discovered it was a yellowing photograph in a frame. Then with a shock of surprise, she recognized that one of the two persons in the picture was herself — as a child in her mother’s arms. ‘It is Mummy,’ she breathed.

  A little noise behind her made her turn. The woman had entered the room.

  ‘Mummy! ’ cried Liz.

  The woman stopped dead, looking into Liz’s face. Then with a stifled scream she shrank back against the wall.

  ‘Mummy? Mummy, what’s wrong? It’s me — Liz.’

  She hastened across. But Jean — for Jean it now clearly was — shrank even farther back. ‘No! No, don’t come near me. You’re not real! You can’t be...’

  Liz now felt herself at a loss. Jean stared a moment longer, then slowly extended a hand. She touched Liz, satisfied herself she was really there. But the intelligence only seemed to upset her more. Jean moaned as though in pain, swayed visibly. Liz rushed to her.

  ‘Oh, Mummy, don’t! It’s all right. It’s only me.’

  ‘I thought — I thought I saw you before at the door...’ Jean’s voice was a weak whisper. 'But I told myself I'd imagined it.’

  ‘We came through the time barrier,’ Liz explained. ‘Simon and me.’

  ‘Simon? Simon Randall?’

  ‘Yes.’ Jean seemed still so unsteady that Liz took her by the arm, leading her to the chair and sitting her down. 'You remember how we used to be able to go in and out of the time barrier? Well — this time it’s brought us here.’

  ‘Not here,’ said Jean hopelessly. ‘No, it’s not possible.’

  Liz regarded her mother with concern, not sure of anything now. Abruptly the door pushed open again, and someone else entered the room. It was Beth, the cold young woman who had behaved so strangely to Liz before.

  ‘Jean,’ announced Beth, ‘the Director asked me to see you about—’ But then she too saw Liz, and gasped audibly. She rushed over to her, seizing her roughly by the arm. ‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded in sudden passion. ‘I thought you'd gone away.’

  Liz struggled against the hard grip, which bit into her flesh. ‘Don’t hurt her,’ cried Jean.

  ‘I don’t want her here, Jean. She had no right to come!’

  ‘Leave her alone! ’ Jean stood now, in possession of herself again and determined. 'It’s not her fault. She came through the time barrier. Just as you were able to — once.’

  Liz stopped struggling abruptly. Her eyes went to Jean, then back to Beth again. Something hard and implacable gazed out at her; but, she knew in that instant, something familiar too. Jean nodded weakly, feeling for her shock and alarm.

  ‘Yes, Liz,’ she said gently, ‘Try and understand. Beth is you. You when grown up. You’re one and the same person. Two people ... but each of you my only daughter. It’s the trick the time barrier has played on us.’

  24

  Liz’s immediate reaction was to want to scream. It was like something in a nightmare, where the devil that pursues you turns into someone familiar but no longer reassuring, then into your own reflection in a mirror.

  ‘This ... is me?’ she asked incredulously.

  ‘Yes, Liz,’ replied Jean.

  ‘But — but how—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how,’ snapped Beth. ‘What do you mean by coming here? We’ve no use for you — don’t you realize that?’

  ‘Simon and I were just trying to get home from the Naval Station,’ Liz said helplessly. ‘But when we came through the barrier—’

  ‘Oh, those ridiculous tricks with time! That absurd barrier! ’ Beth cut away from the two of them, caught up in a quick rage. ‘Childish — immature! How long will it be before I’ve finally outgrown it all?’

  She paused a moment to recover herself, closing her eyes and putting long fingers to her temples. In the silence, Liz looked to Jean. She was still badly shaken and could have done with some consolation from the woman who, however things had altered, remained her mother. But Jean only looked confused and a little afraid. Beth swung back on them.

  ‘Now listen to me, Liz,’ she said in a more even tone. ‘People change. At a certain time in my life I had to take some important decisions. Break with the past and become a different kind of person.’

  ‘But why?’ Liz wanted to know.

  ‘Because I was a little idiot when I was you.’ She was obviously finding it an effort to keep the passion out of her voice. ‘I had to do something about forcing myself to grow up. I needed to find a purpose to my existence. We can’t stay fools all our lives.’

  Jean said, grasping her hand: ‘Liz, you’ve got to appreciate how much things have changed for us in the past
few years. How very much. Beth wanted to come here to the icebox in 1980. Just about then, we lost our home—’

  ‘What?’ cried Liz. ‘How did that happen?’

  ‘We won’t talk about it now ... I was able to come with Beth because I’m a telepath, and the Director was interested in having some experiments done in that field. So that’s how I live now. Experimenting with telepathy, while the others experiment with physics and biology.’

  Liz frowned. ‘And Daddy?’ she asked suddenly. ‘Is he here too? In the ice-box?’

  Across from her, Beth stiffened perceptibly; and Liz was able again to observe the frightened look in her mother’s eyes. But before she had time to ask more, Beth said crisply; ‘The simple question is, what’s to be done? You obviously shouldn’t be in this time-phase at all.’

  ‘He is here, then?’ Liz insisted.

  ‘But there may be more to it than meets the eye.’ Beth was ignoring her powerfully now. ‘I’ll have to make inquiries.’

  Jean seemed surprised. ‘What inquiries? Liz and Simon just happened to come through the time barrier, exactly as she says.’

  ‘You really think it’s as simple as that?’ There was all at once something remote and even faintly patronizing about Beth as she turned cold eyes on Jean. ‘It might interest you to know the computer has identified Liz and Simon as the volunteers for the AB experiment,’ she said with due gravity. ‘Now that’s a very odd situation — wouldn’t you say? The computer doesn’t make mistakes.’ The observation seemed to bother Jean as much as it perplexed Liz. Beth turned on her heel for the door. ‘Keep an eye on her,’ she commanded.

  ‘Why did she change her name to Beth?’ Liz asked quickly.

  ‘Liz was childish and—’ Beth had swung back, at once involved again.