on you really fast eventually. I don’tknow how much longer I’ll be able to live outside the bubble, but it’ll be longerthan if I remain inside with you.’
‘If you did stay?’
‘Stayed with you…
Maddy bit her lip. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ He smiled weakly. ‘It goes with being an operative. I wastold early on, when I first started out and I was a fit, young lad, that being a TimeRiderwould eventually kill me.’
‘But you carried on regardless?’
‘Given all the wonderful history I’ve seen, Maddy, all the history I’vetouched, smelled, tasted, all the experiences I’ve had, the things I’ve learned?Jesus… I’d do it all again. I really would.’
‘You were given the same choice that you gave us? Join up or go back and face yourpredestined death?’
‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘and I don’t regret a moment of it.’
‘So, what about Liam?’
Foster pursed his lips in thought, then eventually, reluctantly, he nodded. ‘Yes,I’m afraid Liam will end up like this. Time travel will age him faster than you or Sal.Time travel will sooner or later kill him… riddle his body with cancers.’
She shook her head and looked down at her coffee and her muffin; all of a sudden she had noappetite for either.
It was going to be down to her, as the team leader, to tell him some time, to let him knoweach occasion he stepped through a displacement window and was sent back into the past thatthe cells of his body were going to become more and more corrupted, until finally they turnedon themselves and became tumours that would eventually eat him up from the inside.
‘So,’ she said after a while, ‘where will you go?’
‘I don’t know.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess I wouldn’t mind feelingthe sun on my face whilst I enjoy a good hotdog.’ He grinned. ‘Make the most ofwhatever time I’ve got left.’
‘Will you stay in New York?’
‘They say it’s the city that never sleeps… and, as somebody once told me,you can do all the sleeping you want when you’re dead. So I guess New York’s theplace for me.’
They both laughed. A dry, sad noise that filled the space between them.
He finished the last of his coffee. ‘Anyway, it was always my plan tovisit New York and see the sights. I just got waylaid for a little while.’
He reached for a bag at his feet, a small overnight bag with a few personal keepsakes andmementoes.
‘Foster, wait,’ said Maddy. ‘I’m not sure I can do this. I’mnot sure we’re ready to cope on our own.’
‘You’re more than ready. I
‘How can you
‘I know,’ he said firmly as he rose from his seat slowly, painfully, grimacingwearily from the effort.
‘Will we see you again?’
‘You have all the information you need, Maddy. It’s there in your head, in whatI’ve told you, what you’ve learned, what you’ve experienced. Anything youdon’t know… Well, there are notes on the computer’s database, answers to allthe questions you’re ever likely to ask.’
‘How do you
He winked. ‘This is time travel, Maddy;
She cocked her head, confused by his cryptic answer. ‘Yes, but if I needed yourhelp… could I find you out here somewhere?’
His frail, liver-spotted old hand squeezed her shoulder lightly. ‘You’ll do justfine, Maddy, so you will.’
He turned away and shuffled towards the glass front of the coffee shop with his overnight bagslung over one shoulder. He looked like the world’s oldest traveller, pulling the dooropen and stepping out on to the busy Manhattan pavement. She stifled an urge to call out, tochase after him and beg him to stay on a while longer with them.
But then he was gone from view, lost amid the busy pavement traffic. For awhile she watched the bustling street outside, pondering all the things Foster had told her.Wondering how much of that information she ought to share with the others, how much of it wasbest she keep to herself. Already she was beginning to feel the burden of responsibilitysettling all too heavily on her narrow shoulders.
‘Top you up?’
Maddy looked up at the Starbucks waitress standing beside her booth holding a decanter ofsteaming coffee in her hand. A girl the same age as her. For a moment she wondered whattroublesome dilemmas kept
…
‘Top you up?’
Maddy nodded, distracted. ‘Sure… yeah, please, fill me up.’
The waitress poured till the cup was filled and she moved on to the next booth to ask thesame question.
Maddy watched her go, envious of what she supposed was an untroubled life of petty decisions.She realized right then that if she could wave a magic wand and swap places with the waitress- she could pour coffee and Miss Starbucks Waitress could go and worry about keepinghistory the way it is — she’d do it in a heartbeat.
But, she realized, rubbing her tired eyes and thinking she needed to get a new pair of specs,someone’s got to do it, you know? Someone’s got to keep an eye on the time.
