Gordon Dickson - Time Storm

“There’s two chances that might help protect Marie and the others,” I said. “One’s that when Paula’s soldiers arrived and found the country changed where we’d been, they figured I’d magicked everybody safely forever beyond their reach, and Paula bought that idea when they told her—”

“Do you really think she would?”

I hesitated.

“No,” I said. “If she was completely normal, mentally, I’d think she might. But part of her mind is never going to rest, where I’m concerned; and sooner or later, word is going to reach her of people who’ve met and recognized some of our people who stayed behind. Then her hunt’ll be on again. All we can really hope for is a delay.”

“What’s the other chance?”

“That’s the long one. If I ever do get into contact with the time storm fighters here and get to work with them, maybe I can learn some way to go back and make Marie and the rest permanently safe from Paula—maybe by shifting Paula herself to a different time.”

Ellen said nothing. There was a little silence between us; and a fly that had discovered the empty wine bottle circled it, droning.

“God help her!” I said; and the words broke out of me, all of a sudden. “God help them all!”

“It was her decision,” said Ellen.

“I know,” I said. “But I-”

I looked at her.

“How much did Paula have to do with her going?” I asked.

“Not much,” said Ellen.

“You both knew how I reacted to—to Paula. Believe me, I didn’t even know it myself. I didn’t even realize it until after I caught on to what she actually was, headwise, and then I knew I had to get out of there.”

“Paula wasn’t that important to Marie.”

“You say that? If it hadn’t been for Paula and how I felt about her, we’d still have Marie and Wendy with us.”

“I don’t think so,” Ellen said.

“How can you say you don’t think so? Marie never talked about leaving before.”

“Not to you. She did to me, lots of times.”

I stared at Ellen.

“She did? Why?”

“She told you why, when she left. Marc,” Ellen said, “you don’t listen. That’s one of the reasons she went.”

“Of course I listen!”

She said nothing.

“Ellen, I loved Marie!” I said. “Why wouldn’t I listen to someone I loved? I loved Marie—and I love you!”

“No.” Ellen got up from the table, picked up the empty plates and silver and started in toward the house. “You don’t, Marc. You don’t love anyone.”

“Will you come back here!” I shouted after her. She stopped and turned. “For once will you come back and say more than three words in a row? For Christ’s sake, come and sit down and talk to me! There’s something here, in the air between us. I can feel it. I bump into it every time I turn around. And you ’re telling me that there was something like that between Marie and me and I didn’t know about it. Come back and tell me what it was. Come back and talk to me, damn it!”

She stood facing me, holding the dishes.

“It wouldn’t do any good.”

“Why not?”

She did not answer.

“Do you love me?” I said.

“Of course. So did Marie.”

“She loved me and she wanted to leave me? I didn’t love her and I want to keep her? What kind of sense does that make? If you loved me the way you say you do, you’d explain it to me, so I could do something about it, about me, or whatever was necessary.”

“No,” she said. “You’ve got things the wrong way around. I love you without your doing anything.”

“All right, then!”

“But you’re asking me to change. Talk doesn’t come easily to me. You know that. If I have to talk before you can love me, then you don’t love me. You wanted Marie to change, too, but she couldn’t. I can, but I won’t. It’s up to you, Marc, not me.”

I stared at her; but before I could say anything more, a stranger walked around the corner of the summer palace and came up to us. He was a startling figure, a good four inches taller than I was, completely bald, and wearing only a sort of kilt of white cloth around his waist. Even his feet were bare. His features looked something like those of an Eskimo’s but his skin was brown-dark, and the muscles stood out like cords under the skin. He looked as if he had spent his lifetime exercising, not with barbells, but on the parallel rings and other gymnastic equipment. He came up to me.

“Marc Despard?” he said. He had no accent that I could put my finger on, but the timbre of his voice was somehow different from that of any other human voice I’d heard. “My name’s Obsidian. Sorry we took so long to come forward and meet you, but we had to study you for a while, first”

He was offering his hand in ordinary fashion. I took it and shook it automatically. I had been expecting him, or at least someone like him; but the delay had been long enough, and he had appeared so suddenly that he had managed to knock me off balance with his appearance, in spite of all my expectations. I found myself going through the social routine... my wife, Ellen.”

“Ellen,” and he shook hands with Ellen, “my name’s Obsidian.”

He had a round, friendly face, a little flat-looking and mongoloid; and this, with the hairless skull, gave him something of a tough look.

“Hello,” said Ellen. “Where did you come from?”

“We’re perhaps two hundred miles from you.”

“Just a couple of hundred miles away?” I echoed.

“We had to keep you from finding us while we were studying you,” he answered. “You have to understand that we had to gather a lot of data on you in order to work out your language and customs. And, of course, we wanted to collect data toward understanding the accident that brought you here.”

“Accident?” I said. “We came here deliberately.”

He stared at me for a long second.

“You did?”

“That’s right,” I said. “I’d probably better take you down to see the lab and Porniarsk. Sorry, maybe I’m getting the cart before the horse. But after expecting you every day from the moment we landed here, and not having you show up until now—”

“Expecting me when you arrived?” Obsidian said.

We seemed to be talking at cross purposes.

“That’s right,” I said. “We came here because I wanted to contact you people who were doing something about the time storm—”

“Just a moment,” he said. “Excuse me.”

He disappeared.

He did not come back in a moment, either. He did not come back the rest of that day, nor the day after. It was nearly a week later that I stepped outside from the door of the summer palace that opened onto the parking area, and found him standing there, bright with the morning sun on his bare shoulders. Ellen stepped out just behind me.

“Excuse me for not getting back before this,” he said. “But possibly I got off on the wrong foot when I first visited you. I’ve talked the matter over with a number of others, and we’ve decided that our data was much more insufficient than we thought. Would you be willing to sit down with me and tell me the whole story of how you came to be here, so that we can have that information to work with?”

“I’ll be glad to,” I said, turning back toward the door. “Do you want to step inside?”

“No. If you don’t mind, no,” he said. “Later on, I’d like very much to have the chance to look inside your summer palace, but not just yet. Can we talk out here?”

“Certainly.”

“Good.” He dropped into a sitting position, cross-legged on the grass.

“If you don’t mind, I’ll use a chair,” I said.

“I don’t mind,” he said. “I’m very interested. Is it actually comfortable for you, sitting on that piece of furniture?”