“Oh – oh, that is utterly I-impossible!” she snapped, and the blurry, milk-water oval rippled. A tallish woman dressed in a waistcoat, ruffle-necked blouse, long skirts, and ankle boots, carrying a carpet bag in her hand, stepped through the milky oval. She did so very carefully, making sure to not brush the wire-wrapped oval frames with anything, not even a stray bit of hem. “I’m glad I made the transduction ovals big enough . . . It is I-impossible, Mr Maddock, becauseIam moving into thefuture. I refuse to spend any more time living in the O-outmoded past.”
Her long brown curls, swept up at the top but left hanging freein the back, had auburn highlights. Her eyes were hazel green, and her chin was lifted in a stubborn, defiant tilt. Her declaration caught David by surprise, but his mind leaped swiftly through the variables of her claim.
“The future, my dear, is incredibly complex. First of all, you—”
“Don’t patronize me!” Elaine snapped, lifting her chin a little higher. “I may be a ‘mere’ woman, but I am clearly quite intelligent!”
“I amnotpatronizing you. I’m explaining certain facts, of which you need to be aware in order to live inthiscentury,” David countered patiently.I can see why I wrote myself a note; she’s a real firecracker. Brilliant, beautiful and bearing a chip on her shoulder. A Suffragette as well as a scientist, if I’m not mistaken.Glancing at the oval behind her, David saw the bluish-white glow beginning to fade. “Look, according to the notes I read, you will have five days in the future before the next thunderstorm rolls through and the machines can be linked again. Between now and then, I will show you the complexities of life in the twenty-first century. Butyouhave to promise me to keep an open mind, and not prejudge me, thinking I’ll treat you like a nineteenth-century man. I am not one.”
Her hazel eyes glittered with wariness. “Go on . . .”
“First of all, you don’t have an identity established with the government. If you don’t have an identity, you’ll find integrating yourself into the future to be very difficult. And if you claim to be from a hundred or so years in the past,” David explained patiently, remembering to pick words she would understand, “they’ll lock you up in a sanitarium, and throw away the key. I’m sure that’s hardly the sort of future life you’d want to lead. Going back into the past – for select periods of time – will allowbothof us to help establish an identity for you which you can use here and now in the future. But it must be timed and targeted just right.
“I could easily step into the past and establish myself as . . . David Cuttleridge. Or Marvin Melmack. Or James Earl Jones. And no one would gainsay my identity,” David pointed out. “The government did not have the ability to gather and process information at the turn of the twentieth century that it has in the twenty-first century, so I could get away with establishing an identity in the past. For you . . . it will be a lot more difficult. Not insurmountable, but hard all the same.
“And there is another reason to go back into the past, and maintain ties to the past. A couple of reasons,” David amended.
Setting her carpet bag down, Elaine folded her arms across her breasts. “What reasons?”
Trying hard not to think of her baring her breasts, David outlined his reasons. “First of all, this house needs to be kept intact and in good shape. If you abandon it completely to the future . . . who will inherit it, what will they do with it and wouldn’t somestrangerdismantle all of your equipment, utterly ruining your temporal experiment?BecauseI found out all of the information I needed to know to make sure the machine was in working order, Iknowthat you – and I myself – went back into the past, and probably did so several times, to ensure the sanctity of this house and its equipment.
“Anothervitally important reason is funding,” David added. This one, he had thought about quite a lot over the last few months, though not quite in these terms. “Maintaining a house for that long is an expensive proposition. Not to mention the funds we’ll need to create the illusion that you do actually exist in the government records of this day and age. Money is a serious concern these days, because of inflation rates. A hundred dollars is a lot of money in your day, but in mine, it would barely feed a family of four for a week, if they were frugal.”
“I see . . . so you’re proposing usingyourknowledge of the future to make sound financial investments in the past?” Elaine asked.
“Why not? These investments would benefit both of us,” he pointed out. “You ’d need my help just tofindthe right information. Yours may be the Industrial Age, but mine is the Information Age, and our methods of storing and retrieving data are quite complex. I could be quite valuable as a partner.”
“Why should I trustyou? Why not someone else?” she asked.
Lightning flashed in the distance . . . and the lights in the attic blinked out. David heard her gasp, and moved back a few steps to the desk. Fumbling, he found the flashlight and switched it on, hearing her gasp a second time. “The power has gone out. It’ll be back on in just a few minutes. In the meantime, I have a note from you, which is addressedtoyou, to be given to you when the power goes out. Which it has. I suggest you read it.”
Playing the light over the pigeonholes, he found the little flatdrawer underneath one side and slid it open. He heard her move closer and extracted the wax-sealed letter. Turning, he found her right at his side, her head level with his own. She must have been quite tall for her era, a corner of his mind observed. She was also still quite lovely, even with her face lit from below by the flashlight’s reflected glow. For a moment, all he could see were the curves of her lips, which he wanted to kiss.
The lights came back on. Shaking himself mentally, David handed her the envelope. He watched her break open the yellowed packet and read the writing folded within. This close, he could see the blush staining her cheeks and the widening of her eyes. It made him wonder if he should have tried to read the letter himself in spite of its wax seal.
She flipped through the pages, gasped and covered her mouth, then flicked back and reread whatever it was she had written to herself. Twice, she darted a sharp look his way. David kept his expression polite, interested and mildly curious, despite his livid itch to know what her future self had written in the past.
Finally, she folded the slightly yellowed sheets and faced him. “According to this, you and I shall become quite the pair. Leading double lives, and doubled lives. Apparently our life spans will lengthen and our aging will slow, simply by travelling through the vortex . . . and we will need to carefully note the exact times whenever lightning strikes the house, record it for our future selves and have our future selves send it back into the past. Plus, apparently, I figure out a way to target specific time-storms, if their exact dates and times are known. All except for these first two strikes, when I got my machine started, and when it connected to yours, precisely one hundred stellar revolutions into the future.
“My letter to myself A-also says that . . . well, that you are a sensuall over, a bit of a libertine and an R-rabid E-equalist. Even more so than your contemporaries,” Elaine added, lifting her chin a little.
Mindful of his note to himself, David shrugged. “Why shouldn’t I be? Actually, if you don’t mind a bit of vulgarity, there’s a poem I once heard which describes my feelings exactly.”
Lifting her brows, Elaine folded her arms across her chest. “Go on . . .”
“‘There is no difference ’twixt you and ’twixt me, save that one stands and one sits when we pee’,” he recited.
Her mouth twitched. A snort escaped her, evolving a moment later into a giggle. Covering her mouth, she muffled her laughter, then gave up and dropped it, tipping back her head. Pleased he had amused her, David swept her a bow.
“Well, at least you are A-amusing, Mr Maddock,” she admitted, dipping him a curtsy. “I think we might be able to get along in the days to come.”
“David, please. If I may call you Elaine?” he asked, mindful of the old customs he had read about. “It’s the modern way of things.”
“Of course,” she murmured. Stooping, she picked up her carpet bag. “So. Five days, you said?”
“According to what I’ve read, yes.” A glance at her machinery showed it was now quiescent. Moving to the pillar, David lifted the switches so that any further lightning strikes would be diverted around the old building. “Now, let me show you the rest of the house,” David offered, gesturing towards the stairs, “and all the improvements that have been made to modern life since your century.”
The only thing good about his entire day was coming home. Otherwise, today had been very much a Monday. All he could think about was relaxing in front of the television with a good old movie. A comedy, maybe even a Charlie Chaplin classic.
