Killing Time

CHAPTER 43

My only remaining quandary was how much to tell the others about my conversation (if conversation it could be called) with Malcolm. I knew that all of them were immensely loyal to him, though each in a different way, and it was not my purpose to tamper with those relationships. But they had a right to know that his behavior and statements had been such as to make me question his sanity, and so I asked them to join me in my quarters, which they did at sunset. As I related my tale, I sat in the bay window that looked out over the little cove, the omnipresent flocks of seabirds keeping up a chatter during their evening feed that made it difficult for me to speak in the hushed tone that I could not help but feel the situation warranted. I tried not to be biased in my explanation, but I also tried to be frank and complete, stressing Malcolm's consistent refusal to accept any responsibility for the Moscow disaster and detailing in full his apparently genuine belief that he would soon be able to travel through time.

"Did he happen to say," Eli remarked, looking, to my surprise and dismay, very intrigued, "whose configuration he's emulating?"

I had to shake my head hard. «What?»

"Was it Gödel?" Eli went on. "Kerr? Or Thorne maybe?"

"Not Thorne" Jonah said dismissively. "Even Malcolm doesn't have the power to create a wormhole in his lab—"

"Eli? Jonah?" I was a bit dismayed and let it show. "You're not going to do any good by humoring him about this. It's a fantasy, and a potentially dangerous one, based in a lot of old and new psychological trauma—"

"Do you know that?" The tone was Malcolm's, but the voice belonged to Larissa. She was sitting near me but looking away, deep concern all over her face; she seemed to have known from the moment I'd begun speaking that she would shortly face a crisis of her own.

"If you do, Gideon," Julien threw in, "then you know more than many brilliant minds who have studied the subject for generations."

"Listen, I've read Einstein and Hawking," I countered. Then I added, with some embarrassment, "Well, I've read Einstein, anyway. But I've read about Hawking. And both said that the paradoxes inherent in the idea of time travel forbid it as a physical possibility."

"They forbid one type of it," Eli countered, adding, in terminology that matched Malcolm's, "closed timelike curves. But there are other ways to move through time, though they're not particularly appealing—"

"I think," Colonel Slayton said firmly, "that this is perhaps not the moment for an academic discussion of time travel." He eyed me sternly. "Gideon, I'm sorry to have to say this, but you could be seen as having personal reasons for calling Malcolm's judgment into question. You're aware of that, I trust — and aware of the fact that we're aware of it."

Julien, Eli, and Jonah looked away in evident discomfort; Larissa, however, moved closer to me. "That statement's a little out of line, isn't it, Colonel?" she said. "Gideon's never done anything to warrant suspicion — or disrespect."

"Gideon is fully aware of the respect I have for him, Larissa," Slayton replied. "But he also knows that I have to ask."

I nodded to Larissa, indicating that what the colonel had said was true but trying at the same time to silently thank her for coming to my defense. "I understand, Colonel," I said. "But believe me, no personal interest would ever make me misrepresent something like this. It's not just that it would be unethical — I've considered Malcolm a friend. And it's friendship that's making me warn you about this. There's nothing more I can do. I told him I can't participate in this undertaking anymore, and after a rather dicey moment he agreed that I should depart. So it won't be up to me to deal with the question of his mental health. But I had to tell you that in my opinion it needs dealing with — badly."

Colonel Slayton took this all in with a slow nod and a look that was, for him, very close to being emotional. Julien and the Kupermans, on the other hand, were quite openly saddened. "But," Eli said eventually, "where will you go, Gideon?"

I glanced at Larissa, who did not return the look. "I haven't really decided."

"There will be warrants out for you," Slayton advised. "The U.S. is certainly out of the question, and Europe will be dangerous, too."

"I know." For the first time since I had started to anguish morally over my participation in Malcolm's enterprise, I began to realistically consider leaving these people with whom I had shared so much in such a compressed time; and it tugged at me hard. "I suppose I'll head south," I went on, turning away from them. "Try to find someplace where no one's paying attention to any of this." I attempted to rally and smile. "If anybody feels like coming along, I wouldn't say no."

Slayton, Julien, and the Kupermans tried to return my halfhearted smile, but with as little success as I was enjoying: the moment had arrived for good-byes, and we all knew it. Slayton was the first to approach me, his strong hand extended. "One of us will get you over to Scotland in the jetcopter, Gideon. We've got an emergency reserve of various currencies, you can dip into that. And you'll want some alternate identity documents and discs. But be careful— we can adjust them to match your DNA for the average reader, but if anyone runs one through the universal database, you'll be in trouble. You'd better have a couple of sidearms, as well."

"Thank you, Colonel," I said quietly, shaking his hand.

As he studied my face, his eyes went thin, the one on his right pulling at the long scar that I no longer even noticed when I looked at him. "Try not to be too alarmed about Malcolm. He's exhausted. We'll look after him and make sure he recovers — and once he has, you may want to return, Gideon. I know there are aspects of this fight you don't like, but now that you've been part of it I think you're going to find readjusting to the world you used to know… difficult."

"I'm sure that's true, Colonel," I said. "But you shouldn't have someone on your team whom you can't rely on absolutely. And after — well… too many questions, that's all."

Slayton touched his scar briefly, then clasped my shoulder. "I suppose you're right. But I'm sorry to see you go, Dr. Wolfe." He began to walk slowly toward the door. "As for me, I've seen madmen burn cities before. Not on this scale, perhaps, but enough to know in my heart where the blame belongs. So take my word for it, Gideon— that's one thing you don't need to burden yourself with while you're on the run."

As Slayton's soldierly step began to resound on the stone walkway outside, Eli and Jonah came over to me together, Eli giving me the same generous smile he had when I'd first faced him in Belle Isle prison. "I owe you one jailbreak," he said. "So if they pick you up and you get a chance to make that phone call…"

I chuckled and shook his hand, then glanced from him to Jonah. "None of it bothers you two — the things I've said?"

"About Malcolm?" Jonah answered. When I nodded, he went on, "The colonel's right, Gideon. Malcolm's mental state is exceptionally intertwined with his physical condition — I think you can appreciate how and why as well as any of us. But we've known him since we were teenagers. He comes out of these episodes if he gets enough time and rest."

"But — this time travel business—"

"Fatigue and stress, Gideon, trust us," Eli answered. Then he cocked his head. "On the other hand—"

"On the other hand," Jonah finished for him, "I certainly want to be around just in case. Beats squabbling over tenure at Yale or Harvard." There being nothing left to say, both men removed their eyeglasses at almost the same moment, in the same gesture of uncomfortable emotion. "Well — good-bye, Gideon," Jonah said.

"And remember what Colonel Slayton told you," Eli answered as they turned to go. "Life out there may look awfully strange to you now — say the word, and we can bring you back."

They both waved as they passed out the door, still looking and apparently feeling very awkward. I turned toward Julien, suddenly taking note of a distinct lump in my throat. Fouché stood tactfully and held up a hand, nodding toward Larissa. "I shall warm the jet-copter, Gideon," he said. "It will be dark soon — a night flight always attracts less attention."

Once he was gone I turned to Larissa, who had her arms wrapped around her body as she stood staring out at the rocky cove. Ready to sweep her away with soft, irresistible imaginings about our future together, I smiled and began to approach her—

But just as I did I experienced, with dizzying suddenness, that same feeling that had hit me at the start of my final encounter with Malcolm: a swift loss of illusions that was as chilling and draining as a razor slash through a major artery. The mournful look on Larissa's face told me in the clearest and most brutal possible manner that if I forced her to choose between her brother and me I would lose and that the contest would be only an exercise in cruel futility. All my desperate fantasies had been made possible, I now saw, by a deliberate avoidance and denial of what I knew about their shared past, as well as about the extent not only to which he needed her but to which she needed to live up to their bond. It was that bond that had preserved both of their fragile, limited capacities for intimacy and commitment during their ravaged childhoods and that had kept those capacities alive during the years that had followed. I was therefore not simply being foolish in thinking that our feelings for each other could never supersede such an attachment; I was terribly wrong even to have hoped that she would betray both him and herself so fundamentally.

"It'll be dark soon," she said, looking at the sky. "There isn't much time." She tightened her hold on herself. "Thank God," she breathed, making clear the pointlessness of further talk.

Though it took every bit of my strength, I stayed several feet away from her. "If he gets worse, Larissa—"

"I'll know what to do."

I took a deep breath before continuing uncomfortably, "There was one thing I didn't want to say in front of the others — he made a reference to suicide. It may have been argumentative hyperbole, or it may have been sincere. He really has been worn down to almost nothing."

She nodded. "I'll bring him back. I always have."

The voice that spoke these few words was remarkable: utterly ageless, completely heartbroken. The young girl who had once schemed with the stricken but brave brother who had tried so hard to protect her was trying to crack through the hard, shell-like composure of the woman before me to say that though she could never leave him, she desperately wished I would not go. No sound came out of her, however, for several very painful minutes; and then, just when I thought that the composure would remain intact and the cry would go unvoiced, just as I was about to choke out a good-bye and force myself out the door, the break came. She spun around, rushed at me in emotional ruin and wrenching tears, and buried her face in my chest as she had often done. "No," she said, pounding on me with her fists as hard as she could manage. "No, no, no…"

I took her wrists gently in my hands, kissed her silvery hair, and whispered, "Please be all right, Larissa." Then I placed her fists by her heaving sides and fairly ran from the room, still able, it seemed, to hear her sobs long after I'd boarded the jetcopter and found myself once more cruising low over the icy North Atlantic.