Four Past Midnight

kissed a girl, and it was great. He could spend the whole trip back in a lip-lock with this girl and never worry about a thing.

'Thank you,' she said, and put her head on his shoulder. 'I needed that.' 'Well, if you need it again, just ask,' Albert said. She looked up at him, amused. 'Do you need me to ask, Albert?' 'I reckon not,' drawled The Arizona Jew, and went back to work.

7

Nick had stopped on his way to the cockpit to speak to Bob Jenkins - an extremely nasty idea had occurred to him, and he wanted to ask the writer about it.

'Do you think there could be any of those things up here?'

Bob thought it over for a moment. 'Judging from what we saw back at Bangor, I would think not. But it's hard to tell, isn't it? In a thing like this, all bets are off.'

'Yes. I suppose so. All bets are off.' Nick thought this over for a moment. 'What about this time-rip of yours? Would you like to give odds on us finding it again?'

Bob Jenkins slowly shook his head.

Rudy Warwick spoke up from behind them, startling them both. 'You didn't ask me, but I'll give you my opinion just the same. I put them at one in a thousand.'

Nick thought this over. After a moment a rare, radiant smile burst across his face. 'Not bad odds at all,' he said. 'Not when you consider the alternative.'

8

Less than forty minutes later, the blue sky through which Flight 29 moved began to deepen in color. It cycled slowly to indigo, and then to deep purple. Sitting in the cockpit, monitoring his instruments and wishing for a cup of coffee, Brian thought of an old song: When the deep purple falls ... over sleepy garden walls ...

No garden walls up here, but he could see the first ice-chip stars gleaming in the firmament. There was something reassuring and calming about the old constellations appearing, one by one, in their old places. He did not know how they could be the same when so many other things were so badly out of joint, but he was very glad they were.

'It's going faster, isn't it?' Nick said from behind him.

Brian turned in his seat to face him. 'Yes. It is. After awhile the 'days' and 'nights' will be passing as fast as a camera shutter can click, I think.'

Nick sighed. 'And now we do the hardest thing of all, don't we? We wait to see what happens. And pray a little bit, I suppose.'

'It couldn't hurt.' Brian took a long, measuring look at Nick Hopewell. 'I was on my way to Boston because my ex-wife died in a stupid fire. Dinah was going because a bunch of doctors promised her a new pair of eyes. Bob was going to a convention, Albert to music school, Laurel on vacation. Why were you going to Boston, Nick? 'Fess up. The hour groweth late.'

Nick looked at him thoughtfully for a long time and then laughed. 'Well why not?' he asked, but Brian was not so foolish as to believe this question was directed at him. 'What does a Most Secret classification mean when you've just seen a bunch of killer fuzzballs rolling up the world like an old rug?'

He laughed again.

'The United States hasn't exactly cornered the market on dirty tricks and covert operations,' he told Brian. 'We Limeys have forgotten more nasty mischief than you johnnies ever knew. We've cut capers in India, South Africa, China, and the part of Palestine which became Israel. We certainly got into a pissing contest with the wrong fellows that time, didn't we? Nevertheless, we British are great believers in cloak and dagger, and the fabled MI5 isn't where it ends but only where it begins. I spent eighteen years in the armed services, Brian - the last five of them in Special Operations. Since then I've done various odd jobs, some innocuous, some fabulously nasty.'

It was full dark outside now, and stars gleaming like spangles on a woman's formal evening gown.

'I was in Los Angeles - on vacation, actually - when I was contacted and told to fly to Boston. Extremely short notice, this was, and after four days spent backpacking in the San Gabriels, I was falling-down tired. That's why I happened to be sound asleep when Mr Jenkins's Event happened.

'There's a man in Boston, you see ... or was ... or will be (time-travel plays hell on the old verb tenses, doesn't it?) ... who is a politician of some note. The sort of fellow who moves and shakes with great vigor behind the scenes. This man - I'll call him Mr O'Banion, for the sake of conversation - is very rich, Brian, and he is an enthusiastic supporter of the Irish Republican Army. He has channelled millions of dollars into what some like to call Boston's favorite charity, and there is a good deal of blood on his hands. Not just British soldiers but children in schoolyards, women in laundromats, and babies blown out of their prams in pieces. He is an idealist of the most dangerous sort: one who never has to view the carnage at first hand, one who has never had to look at a severed leg lying in the gutter and been forced to reconsider his actions in light of that experience.'

'You were supposed to kill this man O'Banion?'

'Not unless I had to,' Nick said calmly. 'He's very wealthy, but that's not the only problem. He's the total politician, you see, and he's got more fingers than the one he uses to stir the pot in Ireland. He has a great many powerful American friends, and some of his friends are our friends . . . that's the nature of politics; a cat's cradle woven by men who for the most part belong in rooms with rubber walls. Killing Mr O'Banion would be a great political risk. But he keeps a little bit of fluff on the side. She was the one I was supposed to kill.'

'As a warning,' Brian said in a low, fascinated voice.

'Yes. As a warning.'

Almost a full minute passed as the two men sat in the cockpit, looking at each other. The only sound was the sleepy drone of the jet engines. Brian's eyes were shocked and somehow very young. Nick only looked weary.

'If we get out of this,' Brian said at last, 'if we get back, will you carry through with it?'

Nick shook his head. He did this slowly, but with great finality. 'I believe I've had what the Adventist blokes like to call a soul conversion, old mate of mine. No more midnight creeps or extreme-prejudice jobs for Mrs Hopewell's boy Nicholas. If we get out of this - a proposition I find rather shaky just now - I believe I'll retire.'

'And do what?'

Nick looked at him thoughtfully for a moment or two and then said, 'Well ... I suppose I could take flying lessons.'

Brian burst out laughing. After a moment, Mrs Hopewell's boy Nicholas joined him.

9

Thirty-five minutes later, daylight began to seep back into the main cabin of Flight 29. Three minutes later it might have been mid-morning; fifteen minutes after that it might have been noon.

Laurel looked around and saw that Dinah's sightless eyes were open.

Yet were they entirely sightless? There was something in them, something just beyond definition, which made Laurel wonder. She felt a sense of unknown awe creep into her, a feeling which almost touched upon fear.

She reached out and gently grasped one of Dinah's hands. 'Don't try to talk,' she said quietly. 'If you're awake, Dinah, don't try to talk - just listen. We're in the air. We're going back, and you're going to be all right - I promise you that.'

Dinah's hand tightened on hers, and after a moment Laurel realized the little girl was tugging her forward. She leaned over the secured stretcher. Dinah spoke in a tiny voice that seemed to Laurel a perfect scale model of her