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it against the actual date supplied by the machine that it materialized in.
When the two dates matched, the program would stop retransmitting itself,
activate the printer, and output Murdoch's message.
"It's all right," Anne said, scanning down the screen. "We're ready to go. It
just needs a couple of simple changes now. You'd better bring the transmitter
on-line." Murdoch was already flipping the switches beside her to make the
system fully operational. He ran through a few switch checks and noted the
readings on an auxiliary readout: The interference level was high, but not yet
critical.
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Murdoch looked down at the long, dark hair falling over Anne's shoulders as
she leaned forward toward the console, at her slender arm stretching out over
the touchboard, and thought that she had never seemed more beautiful than at
this moment. He bit his lip silently and gripped the back of the chair with
whitening knuckles.
She had forgotten.
She was so intent on her task that she had forgotten what it would mean to
restructure a whole timeline. Events would shape themselves into completely
new universes along the new timeline that would result. Everything connected
with Storbannon and Burghead, and eventually places far removed from these,
would be changed. Everything that he and Anne remembered doing together would
be changed -- for better or worse. There was no way of telling.
There was no way of being sure even that they would still be together.
Or even know that such a universe had ever been, or could have been.
That was what frightened him.
"The linkages are complete," Anne said quietly, turning her head to look up at
him. "It's ready." Something vast and hollow opened up somewhere in the pit of
Murdoch's stomach. He felt his body shiver but was unable to control it. There
was nothing to decide, he told himself. Everything was already decided. If he
didn't do it now, he'd never be able to do it. He leaned forward and stretched
out an arm for the Transmit key; at the same time his other hand slid onto
Anne's shoulder and brushed against the softness of her hair and her cheek. He
froze as his finger touched the cold surface of the key; conflicting emotions
tore at each other inside him. Anne's hand came up to her shoulder, found his,
and squeezed it reassuringly. He swallowed hard and pressed the key firmly.
Somewhere back in time, binary digits were already materializing out of an
intangible realm of existence and assembling themselves together before
consolidating, and hurling themselves back yet further again a hundred times
over. At the end of the chain, causes had already come into being whose
effects were rushing back down the timeline toward the present moment,
demolishing the universes that lay in between and reforming new ones from the
same elements like the patterns in a kaleidoscope.
How long...?
Anne got up from the chair and turned to slip inside Murdoch's arm. He could
feel the warm curves of her body flattening against him as she pressed herself
close. His arm tightened, and she looked up into his face. His mouth fell open
as he saw that her eyes were brimming with tears that she had been holding
back for a long time, and he read what was written in them. He shook his head
in mute protest.
"I hadn't forgotten," she said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
"It looks pretty busy," Lee observed as he looked out of the car at the crowds
of shoppers threading their way along the snow-cleared sidewalk of the town's
main street. He looked along the line of parked vehicles beside them. "You're
gonna have problems finding a space here."
"It just needs patience," Murdoch said, slowing the car to a crawl. "Ah, what
did I tell you -- there's one." He brought the vehicle to a halt just ahead of
an empty space, checked behind them, and reversed into it.
"They don't exactly have a surplus of parking lots in this town," Lee
observed, looking around.
"What would you pull down to make some more?" Murdoch asked him.
"Mmm, okay, point taken. Where to first?"
"Well, if you still want a beer, why don't we do that now. Then we won't have
to carry
file:///F|/rah/James%20P.%20Hogan/Hogan,%20James%20P%20-%20Thrice%20Upon%20A%2
0Time.txt (85 of 130) [2/4/03 10:54:36 PM]
file:///F|/rah/James%20P.%20Hogan/Hogan,%20James%20P%20-%20Thrice%20Upon%20A%2
0Time.txt lots of junk all over town. There's a place you'd like just around
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the corner, all oak beams and stuff. Must be three hundred years old."
"Sounds fine."
Murdoch climbed out into the road and closed the car door, Lee opened the door
on the other side, then paused for a moment to check his pockets for the list
of things he needed to buy, and got out.
Inside a volume of space that extended for millions of miles around, a
whispering disturbance materialized out of another realm, perturbing quantum
states of energy and juggling with the interactions of a billion
submicroscopic uncertainties.
As Murdoch came around the car and climbed over a pile of snow onto the
sidewalk, he caught the eye of a girl who was coming out of one of the stores,
carrying an armful of packages.
She had long, dark hair, and was wearing an expensive-looking sheepskin coat
with knee-length suede boots. For an instant he found himself staring. Then he
realized that she had stopped, and was looking at him curiously with a faint
half-smile playing on her lips. She nodded her head toward the rear end of his
car.
"Is that your kitten down there?" she asked. Her voice was precisely
cultivated and melodious, sending a strange tingle of excitement down his
spine. He and Lee both turned together and looked back. A familiar
black-and-white, whiskered nose was peering out from behind the rear wheel of
the car, transfixed by a crumpled ball of paper that was fluttering against
the base of a lamppost, pinned there by the breeze.
"Christ, it's Maxwell!" Lee exclaimed. "How in hell did he get here?"
"Must have hitched a ride," Murdoch said. He moved back to the car and stooped [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]