"Gooshie and Tina and Verbeena,” Sam said, as if reading them back into his memory. He knew the names. He wasn’t quite sure what role each of them had at the Project. In any case it seemed that the roles involved were in flux. “And look for some way to find out what went wrong.”
And bring me home again.
He didn’t say it. He didn’t have to.
"So I go back.” Al’s voice was expressionless.
Sam looked at him carefully, aware of the weight and measure of his words, of what he was asking, aware that he had to ask it anyway. “Al, this sounds selfish, I know, but once I’m home, you might still be married to her. Or if you aren’t, you could marry her then.”
“It won’t be the same,” Al grumbled softly. It did sound as if this plan were wholly to Sam’s benefit, but on the other hand . . . there was no other hand. He couldn’t spend the rest of his life in the Imaging Chamber, watching Sam; even if he did, he still wouldn’t be with Janna.
“Ziggy does say you need to find a way to keep Bethica from going to that party, but since that’s when she talks Kevin out of killing Wickie, there’s a sort of conflict of interest going on.”
“Does Ziggy have any suggestions?”
“Not yet,” Al said, studying the handlink.
“Then maybe you ought to go help Ziggy find out what the connection is between Janna and this Leap,” Sam said softly.
Al met his eyes, his fingers poised over the handlink to send the code that would open the Door and end his relationship. He said nothing. His fingers touched the link. The Door opened, Al nodded once, sharply, and stepped through. The Door closed behind him.
“Good luck,” Sam whispered.
No one else came into the bar that afternoon. Sam finished cleaning up, mopped down the floor, dusted everything in sight. He’d expected Kevin, or someone fronting for Kevin, to come in and buy another keg, but no one came. He was spending more time alone on this Leap than he could remember in a long time.
He half wished Davey would come in so he could try again to teach him to play “Chopsticks,” even though he knew it would be a futile effort. He wondered if the boy compared himself to other people and felt bad about his own limitations, his irrational rages. They weren’t remotely his fault, but no one would ever be able to explain that to him. Eighteen or nineteen years ago, fetal alcohol syndrome wasn’t that well known anyway. He wondered when Rimae had found out that her adopted son was irreversibly retarded, and found himself flinching with sympathy at her reaction. Grief. Anger. And an overwhelming urge to protect her son, forever.
He had just closed down for the afternoon break when the telephone rang. He picked it up uncertainly.
“Polar Bar.”
It was Rimae. “Are you planning on picking up your paycheck or what? You better get on over here.”
A sudden vision of his first glimpse of Rimae flashed into his mind, and he said warily, “I could pick it up when I come in to work this evening, if you don’t mind. I’ve got some things I want to take care of.”
There was a long amazed silence at the other end of the line. “Are you feeling okay?”
“Oh, sure. I’m fine. I’ve just got, you know, errands to run.”
Rimae didn’t sound pleased. “You know what you’re missing, don’t you?”
Sam swallowed, dry throated. “Yes. But I’ll take a rain check, if you don’t mind.” He winced as he said it.
Rimae laughed. “Need to get some raincoats?”
Sam winced again. He didn’t like puns, unless he was the one making them. On purpose.
Rimae didn’t wait for an answer. “Well, we’re booked for a private party at eight—a bachelorette party for Suzie McAllister. So you’d probably need all your strength up anyway. I’ll bring the check. And stand by to protect you, if you like.”
Sam almost said, “Who’s going to protect me from you?” but considering the tales he’d heard about bachelorette parties, he reconsidered. “Okay,” he responded. “I’ll see you then.”
Hanging up the phone, he wondered if Al would be back in time. It was the kind of situation the Observer normally rejoiced in, watching his strait-laced friend writhing under the attentions of several dozen slightly looped females with sex on their minds. Al still might, he thought, even if he was happily married. Still happily married, that is.
It wasn’t selfish to want to go home, he reminded himself. It was the best thing for everyone. Al agreed. Everyone agreed.
Except, of course, for God, or time, or whatever had him Leaping to begin with.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Al stood still in the middle of the Imaging Chamber, not moving. His omnipresent cigar had burned out somehow. The walls of the Chamber were blank, white, empty. He could hear a high-pitched hum of power pouring through the walls, the ceiling, the floor—it was the Accelerator powering down, Ziggy returning the centering function to a restand-ready state. He was standing on a silver disk, beneath another silver disk; the two disks and his own attire, a dark red suit with a dark blue tie, provided the only color in the room. Even the handlink had gone blank in his hand.
Usually, at this point, he was asking Ziggy questions about some crisis Sam had gotten himself into, or at the very least asking about the status of the Project. He didn’t feel like asking this time. He’d have to eventually, he knew that, but for the time being he didn’t want to say anything. He didn’t want to go anywhere. He didn’t want to move.
He was remembering his wedding day, as if fixing those details firmly in his mind would make them real.
He remembered wrapping a napkin around a champagne glass—no, that was Ruthie. He remembered an arch of swords; no, that
