Committed suicide eight, maybe nine years from now, just weeks before the new neural mediators came on the market. Ironic, hey? So when they learned they were coming back, the husband got hold of a few pills and the wife popped them into an envelope along with a letter to her younger self, and… well, what you saw.”
Leyster stared hard at Monk. “When did you have the time to learn all this?”
“This isn’t my first trip. People gossip. I told you that before.”
“You son of a bitch. You knew. You knew this would happen, and you did nothing to prevent it.”
“Hey. I couldn’t, remember? That would have created a paradox.”
“You could have told Bill. Just a word in his ear: ‘Griffin knows what you’re planning.’ ”
“Yeah, that would’ve worked just fine. It would’ve stopped them and the whole goddamned project as well! Do you want that? I sure as hell don’t.”
Leyster spun on his heel, and went into the bar.
The bartender poured him a single malt, and he carried it into a dim booth in the back. He thought about the Metzgers, and he thought about Monk. He thought about his own culpability. Finally, to keep himself from thinking about those things any more, he got out a pen and started to write words on the napkin. Burning Woman. Predators. Cretaceous. Death.
A woman slid into the booth opposite him.
It was Gertrude Salley. She was more than two decades older than he, but he couldn’t help thinking what a good-looking woman she was. The gloom was kind to her.
“You’re trying to think of a title for your book.”
“How did you know that?”
Her eyes were piercing, flatly lustrous, like a hawk’s. Amazing eyes that told him nothing about that hard intelligence burning within her skull. “I know quite a lot about you. I’m not permitted to tell you how.” She put an ironic spin on the word permitted, to let him know how little hold such rules had on her. “Nor who we were—or will be—to each other.”
“Who are we, then?”
There was a small silver scar, shaped like a crescent moon, by the corner of her mouth. It rose and fell with her predatory smile. “A week from now you’ll go back for the first time. I envy you that. The excitement of starting from scratch, of knowing that everything you see, everything you discover, is new and important.”
“Is it…” He couldn’t quite put his question into words. It wouldn’t come out right. “…as good as I want it to be?”
“Oh, yes.” She closed her eyes briefly, and when they opened they were amazing all over again. “The air is richer and the greens are greener and at night there are so many stars in the sky that it’s terrifying. The Mesozoic swarms with life. You can’t appreciate how thinned-out and impoverished our time is until you go back. Rain forests are nothing. They’re not even in the running. Stretch out your arm.”
He obeyed.
“With my own eyes, I have seen a plesiosaur give birth. This hand”—she held it up to show him, and then reached out to slowly stroke the length of his arm—“stroked her living neck as she lay quivering in the shallows afterward.” She offered her hand to him, palm upward. “You may touch it, if you wish.”
Almost jokingly, he touched her palm with his fingertips. She closed her hand around them. Her knee brushed against his, and for a second he thought it was an accident.
“Touch my face,” she said.
He touched her face. Her flesh was softer than a young woman’s, not near so taut. She raised her chin and moved her head against his palm, like a cat, and he felt himself harden. He wanted her.
Salley smiled. Those wide lips moving up in slow synchronicity with the lidding of her eyes. He felt the passion radiating from her like heat from a flame. He wanted to look away. He could not look away.
“Who are we to each other? Are we—?”
“Shhh.” The sound was so soft and low as to be a caress. “You always ask too many questions, Richard.”
“I need to know.”
“Then find out,” she said. “Come to my room. I know what you like. I know where to touch you. I know I can make you happy.”
As if in a dream, he left the bar with her. They went up the elevator together, fingers intertwined, bodies not quite touching. They drifted hand in hand down the hall to her room. The difference in their ages added a touch of perversity to the whole thing which, strangely enough, he found himself liking. Leyster was not a sexual adventurer. He had summer affairs when he was in the field, and videotapes to get him through the winters. This was utterly unlike anything he’d ever done before.
How serious was their relationship, he wondered, in the shared time that lay in his future and her past? It was serious enough for her to go into her own pre-history in search of him. Maybe they were married. Maybe she was his widow. He wanted it to be real. He wanted everything from her.
At the door Salley released his hand to get out her key. He seized her and spun her around. They kissed, his tongue in her, and then hers inside him. Her body was soft and matronly; she ground it hard against his. He touched her face, that magical silvery moon of a scar. She did not close her eyes, not even for an instant.
He saw how she looked at him. It took his breath away.
At last, with a contented sigh, she pulled away. “I have a gift for you.”
“Mmmm?”
“The title for your book. I brought along a copy of it.”
She opened the door.
A small table had been set up so that it would be the first thing he saw on entering the room. A light shone down upon the book set on end upon it.
First he saw his name, and then he saw the strip of black electrician’s tape covering the title. Then he saw the man in the chair behind it.
It was Griffin. He looked considerably younger than he had that morning.
Three security men materialized in the hall behind them. Two took Salley by the arms. The third pushed Leyster into the room and pulled the door shut behind them both.
“Once again, Mr. Leyster, you’ve made a terrible mess of things.” Griffin tipped the book over, and stood. “Leaving it for others to clean up after you.”
Muffled by the door, Salley’s angry voice dwindled down the hall. “What are they going to do with her?” Leyster demanded. He made a move toward the door. But the security man stood between him and it, sad-eyed and competent. Leyster had never been much of a brawler. He turned back to Griffin.
“Nothing bad. A limousine has been called to take her back to the Pentagon. They’ll return her to her proper time, and that’s it. Oh, a reprimand will be placed in her file for trying to leak information back in time. But Ms. Salley doesn’t much care about that.”
“You had no right!” Leyster found he was quivering, with shock, with fear, with anger. “No right at all.”
“You, sir, are a fucking idiot.” Griffin reached into his jacket and took out a folded sheet of paper. “A woman twice your age tells you a couple of lies and you waltz right up to her bedroom. You think Dr. Salley is your friend? Well, think again.” He unfolded the paper and thrust it at Leyster. “Read it and weep.”
It was a photocopy of a page from Science, dated April 2032. At the top of the page was the title, “A Re- Evaluation of the Burning Woman Predation Site.” The paper was authored by G. C. Salley.
Leyster read the abstract, disbelieving, and as he read, the room grew unsteady around him. There was a roaring noise in his ears, as if all the universe were laughing at him.
“That paper is the single most virulent refutation of your book ever printed. And the woman who wrote it almost got to screw you twice. You can open the door now, Jimmy.”
