“Impossible,” said his LOC.
“It can’t be impossible,” said Noel angrily. “That’s the whole point of this trip. We have to find Leon and get this other LOC on him in order for—”
“Impossible.”
He started to swear, then told himself it was just a machine. “Specify impossible.”
“Impossible.”
“Stop!” he said sharply. “Are you malfunctioning?”
“Negative.”
“Thank God. Explain why you can’t link with Leon’s LOC. If you can’t identify Leon as yet, then link with the LOC on my right wrist. You can scan that, can’t you?”
“Negative.”
“Why not?”
“Negative.”
Alarmed, Noel pushed up his right sleeve. There was no bracelet of braided hair around his wrist, no bracelet of any kind. The other LOC wasn’t there at all.
Disbelieving it, he felt of his arm. He pulled off his coat, swearing under his breath as he struggled with the garment. He detached the lace ruffles at his wrist and looked inside his sleeve in case the LOC had fallen off. But there was no spare LOC to be found.
“LOC,” he said, his breath catching oddly in his throat. “Leon’s LOC, is it anywhere on my person?”
“Negative.”
“But it was. I mean, I did have it when I entered the time stream, didn’t I? I couldn’t have imagined that.”
“Affirmative.”
“Affirmative what? Did I have it when I entered the time stream?”
“Affirmative.”
He was sweating. Almost absently he pulled his coat back on over his vest and linen shirt. His hands weren’t steady. “Did I lose it in the time stream?”
“Other LOC detached in time stream…affirmative,” said his LOC.
“Can you scan for it? Is it here, somewhere? Can you find it?” he asked.
“Negative.”
“You can’t find it?”
“Negative.”
He tried very hard to keep his voice calm. “Would you mind elaborating on that response?”
“Specify.”
“Damn you! Why can’t you find it? You’re a LOC. It’s a LOC. If it’s in this location and time, you ought to be able to pick up its energy wave. After all, the seventeenth century isn’t exactly overrun with little computers.”
The LOC flashed for a few seconds in silence, almost as a rebuke for his sarcasm. He knew he was projecting human reaction onto the machine, which was foolish, especially since it lacked artificial intelligence. Before he could say anything, however, it answered.
“Within parameters specified, discovery is possible. Leon’s LOC is not activated. No energy wave can be detected.”
Noel stopped gritting his teeth and thought about that for a moment. “But once it is activated?”
“Scanning possible.”
“That’s more like it.”
But as swiftly as his spirits rose, they plummeted again. His LOC hadn’t said the other computer had materialized here. It just said it was possible. The only individual who could activate it was Leon, and if Leon wasn’t here, either, then…
He wasn’t going to worry about it just yet. He had to have hope in…
What? Blind luck?
If he failed to find Leon, he would be recalled back to the twenty-sixth century, and the distortions would start all over again. He would end up completely insane.
Noel sighed and looked up into the lavender-hued sky. Twilight had cast long shadows across the meadow and pooled them where he was crouching. The air lay still and close. He got to his feet.
He couldn’t search in the dark. He would get himself a room in the inn, some supper, and he would come up with a plan of action for tomorrow.
Somehow.
Chapter 7
The Horse and Crown was a sprawling inn constructed of timbers, stone, and brick. Morning glories blooming white and blue ran along the thatched roof. An enormous thorny rosebush grew in a great arch above the doorway. The musky perfume of roses filled Noel’s nostrils briefly before he ducked inside and was assaulted by the mingled odors of wood smoke, unwashed bodies, and ale.
The taproom was crammed with men of all classes clustered about the scarred wooden tables. Most of the customers had tankards in their fists. Numerous candles and the fire blazing on the hearth provided ruddy, uneven light. The windows were open to the evening air, but the room remained too hot for comfort. A pair of buxom serving girls hurried back and forth, their hair straggling about their flushed faces, their bare forearms as pale and firm as marble, their ample bosoms on display beneath a dewy mist of perspiration.
Somewhere, an ox was roasting.
The delicious smell of it almost made Noel swoon with anticipation. He found a place in the corner, keeping to the shadows away from the unnecessary fire, and took off his hat.
“Name yer drink, dearie,” said the serving girl wearily. She had a round, kindly face and blue eyes. The man sitting next to Noel gave her rump an affectionate squeeze, and she swatted him off the way she would a pesky fly. “We got ale, port, and stout. Burgundy will cost you—”
“I’d like dinner, please,” said Noel.
His request earned him a second look from her. She smiled. “Well, now, ain’t yer manners nice. Dinner’ll be cold mutton or a fine roast just finishing up this hour. We can serve the cold meat straightaway, but ye’ll have to wait on the roast a bit.”
“The mutton’s fine,” he said, ready to eat the table. “Anything, as long as it’s quick.”
“Peckish, are ye, sir?” She showed him a pair of dimples. “And to drink?”
“Ah…” He was afraid that as hungry as he was, any drink would send him skyrocketing. “Something mild—”
“Nothing like the home brewed,” said his neighbor, smacking his lips.
“Ale,” said Noel.
“Very good, sir. I’ll bring it right across.” She left with a swish of her generous hips.
The man next to Noel chuckled. “Fine sight, ain’t she? Our Becky’s a fine armful of a woman.”
“Yes,” said Noel, in no mood to become a drinking buddy to the man, who had a hooked nose adorned with warts, was missing most of his teeth, and hadn’t bathed in days.
Across the room, at a long trestle table, a company of men in vibrant garb lifted their glasses in a toast, then burst out with laughter.
“Stranger here?” said the man at Noel’s elbow.
“Um.”
“Thought so. Thought at first you were one of the actors at yon table. Got that look about you.”
Noel turned his head and looked at his companion, not certain how to take that remark.
The man grinned, displaying a few blackened stubs of teeth, and nudged Noel slyly in the ribs. “You know. The look of a gentleman and the speech of an educated man, without being either of those things.”
Noel frowned, and the man raised his hands quickly.
“No offense to you, sir. I’m known for speaking plain.” He smiled and laid his forefinger alongside his warty nose. “Ah, you’ve traveled a long road down to London, now, haven’t you?”
“You might say that.”
“Looking all done in with the road dust coating your throat and a great gnawing hole in your belly.”
Becky returned with a swish of her skirts and set a foaming tankard in front of Noel. She set one in front of the other man as well and gave him a sharp look.
“Now, Robert Mallory, none of yer sly ways tonight. There’s a hanging at Tyburn tomorrow. Let that be a lesson to ye.” She flashed her dimples at Noel. “The mutton’ll be out directly.”
He took a cautious sip of the ale, and found it surprisingly good.
Mallory clapped him on the shoulder. “Drink hearty! I told you it was good. Becky’ll keep your cup filled all night.”
Noel shifted to the far edge of his seat, trying to get upwind of the fellow. “One will do.”
“What are you? A Puritan? You
r pockets are flush. Why worry?”
A tiny alarm rang in Noel’s head. “What makes you think I’ve got money?”
Mallory grinned evilly and leaned so close his rank breath wafted into Noel’s face. “Why, sir, you ordered without asking the cost. A man who’s well before the world is a man who doesn’t care about prices.”
Noel kept his expression neutral, but inside he was spinning with questions. What kind of man was he sitting next to? A pickpocket? “I don’t think my finances, or lack of them, are any of your business.”
Mallory simply smiled and tapped his nose again. Finishing his ale, he reached for the refill Becky had brought and leaned back in his chair with a gusty sigh. “The finances of other men, sir, are always my business.”
Noel slid his hand into his pocket and wrapped his fingers about his pistol.
“No need for concern,” said Mallory idly. His gaze flashed down to Noel’s pocket, then back up to Noel’s face. His expression remained bold and steady. “I work the bridle-lay only, and only when it suits me.”
Noel’s translator made no sense of what he said. “Bridle-lay? What’s—”
Mallory laughed and rose to his feet. “Ah, you are a green one. Take care, sir, with your first visit to London town. You’re a ripe gull for plucking, and the sharps will have an eye out for you.”
Still laughing, he strolled away.
Glad to see him gone, Noel perked up as Becky arrived with a well-filled platter of meat and bread.
“Start yerself on that,” she said, breathlessly. One of the actors across the room shouted for service and banged his cup on the table. Their laughter had gotten progressively louder, and their jokes more ribald. “I’ll come back in a bit.”
Noel was already reaching for a piece of the meat. He glanced up and smiled at her. “They’re getting out of hand, aren’t they?”
“Oh, bless ye, no. They’re celebrating, that’s all. Tomorrow they’re going to perform for the king. It’s a wondrous honor.”
She hurried away before he could ask her what the bridle-lay was.
Long before she returned, he had polished off his plate. Still nursing his ale, he leaned back to digest his meal while he watched the room. To his surprise, he felt no more than mildly satisfied. Within minutes, he couldn’t tell that he’d eaten at all. When his stomach growled, he set down his tankard in alarm.
There was something seriously wrong with his metabolism. He needed to talk to his LOC about it. For that he needed a room. He was still feeling exhausted. Bed sounded like a wonderful idea.
Leaving his table, he went in search of the landlord and requested accommodations.
The man, garbed in an apron and holding a collection of pipes for rent in one hand, paused in the midst of giving orders to a wizened, bowlegged hostler. He frowned at Noel and shook his head. “I got space in two beds left. The actors have filled me to the rafters. Take your pick. You want to sleep with four other men or two?”
Noel blinked. “None,” he said rather sharply. “A private room, even if it’s a cot, even if it’s on the floor.”
The landlord shrugged. “Sleep on the floor if you like. The price is still the same. There are no private rooms.”
“But—”
“Look, we don’t cater to the gentry. No private rooms, no private parlor. If you want to try the White Swan down the road, then—”
“No. I’ll take the smaller room.”
“Our best. Mr. Tuptree and Mr. Osborne of the acting company will be your companions. Very good, sir. Tommy will show you up.”
Nodding his head, the landlord hurried off, and Noel was left to follow a scrap of a boy upstairs. The dark gloom was relieved only by the scrap of candle in the child’s hand. The stairs themselves were steep and uneven, and Noel’s legs ached as he climbed them. At the top, Noel found himself in a shadowed passageway with a ceiling low enough to brush the top of his hair. He kept a wary eye out for Robert Mallory, who might be lurking anywhere.
At the end of the passageway, the boy threw open a door and held his candle high. In the dim, flickering light, Noel saw a small room with a sloping ceiling and plastered walls. Besides the bed, it contained a table with a basin and ewer, a blackened, cold hearth in the corner, and not much else. A pair of small, much-battered trunks stood beneath the window. Boots, cloaks, and linen shirts lay scattered around in careless disarray, indicative of his fellow occupants. A stack of handbills had been tossed haphazardly on the bed, which looked lumpy and uninviting. Noel poked the mattress with one finger. It seemed to be filled with straw and was suspended on ropes tied to the bed frame. He frowned at it, thinking of a backache in the morning, thinking of lice and bedbugs, thinking of fleas and bubonic plague. He stepped back from the bed and wondered if the open field wouldn’t be more sensible.
The boy lit a solitary candle on the table for him and stepped back. “Extra candles cost—”
“Never mind. One will do.”
“And if you want your shoes blacked, it’s—”
“No, thanks.”
“There’s water in the ewer and a clean towel laid out this morning.”
Noel glanced at the washing table. The single towel lay crumpled where it had been tossed. Noel’s frown deepened. Asking for a bath seemed pointless in these conditions. If the boy was hoping for a tip, he could forget it.
Not bothering to conceal his impatience further, Noel said, “That’s all.”
The boy bobbed awkwardly and left. Noel closed the door with a sense of relief that changed to uneasiness when he found out it had no lock.
Well, there was no help for it. He might as well take a chance while he had a scrap of privacy.
“LOC, activate,” he said. “I need answers and fast.”
“Working,” replied the LOC tonelessly.
“My metabolism is off,” said Noel, pacing back and forth, his ears attuned to the least sound of someone approaching. “I’m constantly hungry, no matter what I eat. I’ve had muscle cramps, and my fatigue level is high. Scan and make a prognosis.”
“Scanning…heart rate is above normal, blood pressure is above normal, metabolism is burning calories at three times normal rate, lactic acid buildup in muscle tissue is above normal, red blood corpuscle level is lower than normal, with a count of—”
“Stop,” said Noel, in no mood for statistics. “So what is this? Anemia?”
“Red blood cell count is indicative of anemia. However, other data is contrary to—”
“So what’s wrong with me?”
The LOC hummed a moment. “Scanning.” It hummed yet longer. “Scanning.” After another pause, “Scanning.”
“Stop. Let me rephrase my question. Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“Negative.”
“Why not?”
“Data conclusions not within my programming.”
“You mean you’ve never encountered this combination of symptoms before?”
“Affirmative. Memory banks do not contain this information.”
“Speculation.”
“I am programmed to speculate on a limited basis only.”
“I know,” he said impatiently. “Speculate anyway. Did this weird metabolic change of mine occur during travel?”
“Affirmative.”
“Probable cause?”
“Unknown.”
“Speculate!”
“Unknown.”
“Damn!” Noel blew out an angry breath, then forced himself to calm down. He’d never been very good talking to computers, even those fitted with AI. The LOCs lacked artificial intelligence because that kind of programming didn’t survive time travel. Why travel didn’t scramble human intelligence was something the lab people were still researching. In the meantime, it meant that dealing with a LOC required compensating for its literal mind-set. And patience had never been one of Noel’s virtues.
“Okay,” he said at last. “I’ll speculate. You follow along. Can you do that?”
“Affir
mative.”
Someone was coming upstairs. Noel froze, his ears listening to the murmur of voices and the laughter. The footsteps went the other way along the corridor, however. He sagged in relief.
“The last time I traveled, the time when Leon was created, there were things…wrong…with him. I’m not sure about all of it. But from what I remember and from what he mentioned now and then, it seemed like he couldn’t eat or drink. Or if he ingested food, there was no taste to anything. When we were later in the emptiness of the New Mexico desert, we found out he had to be around crowds of people in order to exist. It was as though he were some kind of—not a gestalt creature—but one dependent on biological energy. He was almost symbiotic. He couldn’t live alone, couldn’t be a solitary entity.”
Frowning, Noel paced around the room again, sifting through his memories, trying to figure out where he was going with this line of thought. “On the island, when he’d been stabbed and was dying, he held my hand and got better. He drew energy from me. He nearly sapped me, but it brought him back. We were connected. If I got hurt, he felt my pain. But if he got hurt, I didn’t feel…that is, I didn’t feel his pain but I think I somehow knew about it.”
The LOC flashed steadily, its pale blue light casting more illumination in the room than the feeble candle.
“Twins,” said Noel. “But not twins in the ordinary sense. We were one person until the time stream separated us. We belong back together.”
“Is that a rhetorical question?”
“No.” As he faced his true worry, Noel’s brows knit together. “Maybe this is just a bad side effect of travel. It wasn’t conventional by any definition. I’m lucky to be here in one piece.”
“Affirmative.”
“But am I in one piece? How can I be if Leon is a part of me and he’s not here? Am I becoming like him? Is the reality of me, Noel Kedran, diminishing? Is Leon now the one who’s real in this dimension? And am I the ghostly one, dependent on him?”
“Unknown,” said the LOC. “To all questions.”
“Or is it because we’re not in the same time that I feel like I’m fading, bit by bit? Is that why I’m so tired?”
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