Timothy Zahn - Time Bomb And Zahndry Others

Griff swore under his breath as he scooped up the phone and punched at the buttons. "Get me Shaeffer... Mr. Shaeffer? This is Griff. Adam's awake, and we've got a hell of a problem.... Okay, and if you've got more of those maps maybe you'd better bring them... Right."

He hung up and looked back at me. "You think you'll be able to locate the exact spot where he went down?"

I shivered again. "With that town sitting practically beneath him? Of course I can."

He pursed his lips and fell silent.

Shaeffer arrived a couple of minutes later, a stack of his fine-detail maps in his arms. "Glad to see you awake," he said shortly, his mind clearly on other things as he all but pushed Griff out of his chair and sat down, laying the maps across my chest. "Show me."

I propped myself up on my elbows and began sorting through them. Someone had sketched out the plane's trajectory across the maps in red, and it took me only a minute to find the one I needed. "Here," I said, tracing a circle around the spot with my finger. "He came down about here."

Shaeffer's eyes were shining as he glanced at the number in the map's corner and then at the spot I'd indicated. "All right," he breathed. "All right. Important point, now: did you notice whether or not he had an orange emergency pack attached to his parachute?"

"No, he didn't. In fact, I think I saw it on the floor just before he jumped out. It must have come off while he was getting into the chute."

Shaeffer grunted. "Good. I guess. Eliminates the problem right away of why there wasn't a transponder for the search team to tag onto. Unfortunately, it also means he didn't have any food or water with him, either. Any chance he could have had trouble with the landing itself? Would another Jump be a good idea?"

I sighed. "I don't know. Shaeffer... what about that town down there?"

"What about it?"

"Well, it's there—right in the most obvious path for him to have taken. But it's been twenty-five hours now since he landed, and..." I shrugged helplessly.

"Maybe he's been smarter than all of you gave him credit for," Shaeffer said. "Maybe he realized that you were from the future and knew to wait until we came looking for him. Or maybe he didn't notice the town at all on his way down, in which case staying near his landing site was the only rational thing to do." Abruptly, he got to his feet. "Whichever, there's one easy way to find out."

"You going to send out the searchers right now?" Griff asked.

Shaeffer arched his eyebrows. "As Mr. Sinn just pointed out, he's spent approximately twenty-five hours in the Colorado Rockies. It would be rather a waste of effort to have gotten him out of the plane and then let him die of exposure, now, wouldn't it?"

I took a deep breath. "I want to make another Jump first."

They both looked at me. "Why?" Shaeffer asked.

"I just... want to see what happened after he landed."

"In an hour or two we'll be able to ask him what happened," Shaeffer said scathingly. "Besides, you need more rest before you can Jump again."

"And besides, if I don't know what happened, I won't be taking any further risk of changing the past?"

Shaeffer's lip twitched. "Something like that," he said. "Look, I don't have time for this. The past is secure, Mr. Sinn—the fact that we're still here and all our memories are still intact proves that. Right? The important thing now is to go out there and bring him home. There'll be plenty of time later for speculation and back-patting." With a nod to Griff, he pulled open the door and left.

I looked at Griff. "Griff...?"

He shrugged. "I don't know, Adam," he admitted. "Everything certainly feels okay. Though if our memories are also malleable I suppose feelings aren't necessarily a good indication." He locked eyes with me. "I don't think it's necessary... but if you want to do another Jump, I'll okay it."

I hesitated; but Shaeffer was right. Whatever had happened, the very fact that Jeffers was still lost out there implied that what we'd done hadn't significantly altered the known past. "No, that's all right," I sighed. "I guess I can wait until Jeffers tells us himself what happened."

"Okay," Griff said softly. "In that case, you'd better concentrate on getting some rest."

"I think I can manage that," I agreed, closing my eyes.

The lights went out, the door opened and closed, and I was alone. So that's it, I thought. Looks like all the worry was for nothing...

The opening of the door snapped me out of the doze I'd been drifting into, and I opened my eyes to see Morgan framed in the doorway. "Adam?" he whispered. "You awake?"

"Yeah," I told him. "Come in, but leave the overhead light off if you don't mind."

"Okay." He closed the door behind him and groped his way to the bedside, where he flicked on the small lamp there. "So," he said, eyeing me closely. "You did it, huh?"

"Shaeffer seems to think so. He tell everyone already?"

"Not really, but when Hale and Rennie and me were let outta our rooms, it was a pretty good clue. So tell me what happened."

I gave him all of it, and when I'd finished he sat silently for a long moment. "Well?" I prompted. "What do you think?"

"I don't like that town bein' there so close. Worries me pretty bad, if you want to know the truth."

"It worries me, too," I admitted. "But since Jeffers never showed up there everything must be safe—"

"It must, huh? S'pose the only reason nothin's happened yet is 'cause we can still change it?"

"I... don't follow you."

He took a deep breath. "We still got somethin' like forty six hours to go back and try to get the President to do somethin' we want 'fore that slot's closed, right? Well, maybe we're s'posed to do somethin' else to him... and maybe if we don't, it'll suddenly happen that he did get to that town after all, and that he was picked up twenty hours ago—"

He broke off, and as I looked into his eyes I shivered. A temporarily shattered but still-fluid past sitting there on hold was a possibility that hadn't even occurred to me. From the expression on Morgan's face it was clear he didn't care for the idea at all; I knew it sure had me scared. "What do you think we should do about it?" I asked.

He snorted. "It's not we, Adam: it's you. Shaeffer let us out of our rooms, all right, but he ain't gonna let us downstairs anytime soon, leastwise nowhere near the couch."

"So what do you think I should do about it?" I growled.

His eyes held mine. "Go back there," he said bluntly. "Go back there and... stop him."

"Stop him how? Put out my foot and trip him?"

He didn't even notice the sarcasm. "You're the guy that got him outta the plane—I figure he'd follow you anywhere you took him. So... lead him off to a ravine somewhere and get him to fall in."

I stared up at him, not believing what I was hearing. "Are you crazy?" I said at last.

"It's the only way," he insisted. "You pick the ravine right and you can make him walk miles out of his way 'fore he can get out."

"And if I pick the ravine wrong and the fall kills him?" I snapped. "That would fix things up good, wouldn't it?"

His eyes dropped away from my gaze. "He was dead once already, Adam," he said quietly. "All you'd be doin' is puttin' the universe back like it was s'posed to be."

"No," I bit out. "That's not all I'd be doing. I'd be committing murder."

"Then get him lost or somethin'. Lead him away from the town, so far off he couldn't find his way back."

"Morgan, that town's barely a mile away—and I'll only have an hour back there before I have to end the Jump. How can I get him that lost that fast?"

"Then droppin' him into a ravine's your only shot. Our only shot." He took a deep breath. "I know it's risky. But you're just gonna have to take that risk."