“We could give her something to make her sleep,” Jack said.When both women turned to look at him, he added defensively, “Just until we find out what the heck went wrong.”
“Something always goes wrong,” Mel said, knowing she sounded both wry and resigned.“I don’t think Con would betray us.”
“Maybe he didn’t have a choice,” Alice suggested.
Mel gave a half nod.Alice hadn’t had much choice when she’d arrived in the future.But had that girl arrived in the future?Or was this place her past?She didn’t look like the opposition, but looks could deceive, as Mel well knew.
None of the guys she’d met back in 1941 had expected her to know so much physics.She half grinned at the memory of those physics lessons.
Or it could all just be a weird coincidence, one of those that life liked to play on people right when it would be the most annoying.
They’d been preparing for some move by the opposition, but this wasn’t what they’d been expecting.It was the unexpected that always got you, Mel reminded herself.
They hadn’t rigged Ty up with a headset because they’d been expecting a high-tech move.Not a vintage plane and a girl.
“She’s probably got a recall device,” Mel observed.They’d turned the shack into a Faraday cage, but that still gave the opposition a window of opportunity.It all depended how well they could track devices through time.
Con and Ty both leaned against the plane, their aspects relaxed.Mel couldn’t see their eyes.She bet they were giving each other stand-off stares.
Ty was usually pretty easy-going, but Con had put Alice at risk with this move.
The woman hadn’t come out of the shack.That might be the only bright spot.But why would she come out?It had water, sodas, and air conditioning.
Of course, that was a giveaway she wasn’t in 1947 anymore, but they’d made sure there was nothing time line specific in there.Each item, each piece of furniture, had been chosen to not go together.
Mel switched her view to inside the shack.Unlike Ty, it was rigged for sound, but she wasn’t talking.She was moving slowly around the room, examining everything and taking sips from her water bottle at random intervals.
Then she stopped and held the bottle up to the light.
“Oh yeah, she’s not from here,” Mel said.Those bottles had dates on them.
“She looks exhausted and worried,” Alice observed.
Time travel did have that affect on one, Mel thought a bit wryly.
“Should we be bracing for incoming?Have we been exposed?”Mel asked now.
As one, the three of them turned to look at the bulletin board that was supposed to track Con’s movements through time.And hadn’t done a great job at it.
Not even a wiggle of horizon displacement at the edges.The last time they’d been in danger, it had gone postal on them.
“I wonder what it means?”Mel murmured.
Alice looked at her, then Jack.“You don’t know?”
“We don’t know a lot of things,” Jack said, with no trace of guilt.“Time is…”
“…complicated,” both women finished for him.
“Well,” he grinned.“It is.”
He appeared to think for several seconds.“Okay,” he said, “let’s try this.I’ll go talk to Con and…” His gaze studied the two women.“One of you can go talk to her.”
“Tell her what?”Mel’s brows arched.
Jack looked alarmed.“No.Just visit, the way you women do.”He waved a hand vaguely.Then he looked hopeful.“Maybe she needs a bathroom?Don’t you all talk there?”
“I’m getting a headache,” Mel said.Okay, there was truth in it.Women did sometimes bond in the bathroom while fixing their makeup, but not while they were peeing.And the bathroom in the shack was a one seat.
