Dinosaur Beach

22

We spent the rest of the day making a methodical survey of the installation. It was four times the size of the Dinosaur Beach stations we had known in our previous incarnations; and 80 percent of it was given over to gear that neither of us understood. Mellia pieced together the general plan of the station, identified the major components of the system, traced out the power transfer apparatus, deduced the meanings of some of the cryptic legends at the control consoles. I followed her and listened.

“It doesn’t make much sense,” she said. It was twilight, and a big red sun was casting long shadows across the floor. “The power supply is out of all proportion to any intelligence-input or interpretative function I can conceive. And all this space—what’s it for, Ravel? What is this place?”

“Grand Central Station,” I said.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing. Just a forgotten building in a forgotten town that probably never existed. A terminal.”

“You may be right,” she said, sounding thoughtful. “if this were all designed to transfer bulk cargo, rather than merely as a communications and personnel staging facility…”

“Cargo. What kind of cargo?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t sound likely, does it? Any appreciable inter-local material transfer would tend to weaken the temporal structure at both transmission and reception points…”

“Maybe they didn’t care anymore. Maybe they were like me: tired.” I yawned. “Let’s turn in; maybe tomorrow it will all turn into sweet reasonableness before our startled gaze.”

“What did you mean by that remark? About not caring?”

“Who me? Not a thing, girl, not a thing.”

“Did you ever call Lisa ‘girl’?” This sharply.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“It has everythng to do with everything! Everything you say and do—everything you think—is colored by your idiotic infatuation with this… this figmentary sweetheart! Can’t you forget her and put your mind on the fact that the Nexx Timestem is in desperate danger—if it’s not irreparably damaged—by your irresponsible actions!”

“No,” I said between my teeth. “Any other questions?”

“I’m sorry,” she said in a spent voice. She put a hand over her face and shook her head. “I didn’t mean that. I’m just tired… so very tired—and frightened.”

“Sure,” I said. “Me too. Forget it. Let’s get some sleep.”

We picked separate rooms. Nobody bothered to say good night.