It was past history now. All past history, though he could remember that anguish still. He loved Beth to this day, more than any of his subsequent wives. He could still see her soft brown eyes filled with tears as she danced that last dance, never knowing she was dancing with her lost love who was giving her up of his own free will.
As he’d be giving up Janna when he walked through that door, whether they were still married in this version of the present or not.
The moments stretched out. He looked down at the cigar, rolling it back and forth between his fingers, the brown leaves crinkling under the pressure. All he had to do was ask Ziggy, and Ziggy would tell him. It would be simple, quick, and reliable, and he’d pass through the Accelerator airlock knowing exactly what he’d be walking into.
He drew a deep breath and let it go, shivering a little. The Imaging Chamber was cold. It had to be; the Project required massive amounts of power, and Ziggy’s components were even more vulnerable to heat than most computers. Ziggy was silent.
He took one more glance around, as if fixing the empty room in his memory, and stepped off the disk toward the airlock door. It purred open before him, slid shut again, and the other door of the airlock opened in its turn. He was standing at the top of the ramp down to the Control Room, and he paused, scanning, to see who was waiting.
No one. A pair of white-suited lab techs, working on circuitry normally hidden by the panel propped up against the wall beside them. No anxious congressmen wanting to know about budget, no security people, no Verbeena with news of something having gone wrong with the Visitor. No Janna, waiting to welcome him back. No one.
Perfectly normal, in other words.
He drew a deep breath, discarded the cigar butt in the receptacle provided at the top of the ramp (when did that get put there? he wondered), and started down and across the room toward the Waiting Room. He couldn’t help it. He had to meet the Visitor. It was long past time.
Wickie was by himself, doing a steady series of abdominal crunches eerily reminiscent of Sam’s, a few days—and thirty-some years—before. There wasn’t even anyone up in the Observation Deck. Al’s eyes narrowed. Someone was going to hear about deserting their station that way.
“About time somebody showed up,” the Visitor said, sitting up and wiping the sheen of sweat off his face with the towel hanging off the end of the bed. “They expect me to spend all my time reading books around here?”
“How long since someone was here?” Al asked, going over to a chair, turning it around and sitting in it backward.
Wickie leaned back in his own chair, one foot on the edge of the table, balancing on the two rear legs. “Dunno. Few hours maybe. I’m telling you, I’m getting awfully pissed off at being locked up so long. You keep telling me I’m not a prisoner, but you won’t let me go anywhere.” The other man studied Al thoughtfully. “If it weren’t for what I see in the mirror, I’d think I was in jail.”
Al nodded. “I can see how you’d think that way. But it’s like you were told—if you’re not here at the right time, you might never get back at all. We’re not sure. So we don’t want to take any chances.”
“I think I’ll go on buying that for about a day or two more,” Wickie said evenly. “Then I think I’ll go for a little walk.”
Al hid a grim smile. He had no doubt that Wickie would attempt to break out as promised, or that he might even get as far as the Control Room. But they’d beefed up their security after a few such scares—one in particular, when Leon Stryker, a serial killer Sam had Leaped into, actually got all the way out of the Project, stole a vehicle, made it into the nearest town—and he wasn’t particularly nervous about Wickie getting away from them. Besides, the Visitor wasn’t being belligerent about it. He had a good argument; it just wasn’t a risk the Project chose to take.
“Treating you okay otherwise?”
Wickie shrugged, the muscles of his shoulders—Sam’s shoulders—sliding under the brown T-shirt. “I could use a little companionship, if you know what I mean.”
“Sorry.”
Wickie smiled, an echo of Sam Beckett’s own rare, infectious grin. “Didn’t think you’d go for it.”
“Got a question for you,” Al said after a moment. He wished he could smoke here; he wanted a cigar in the worst way right now. He wasn’t carrying any with him, either.
“Shoot.” Wickie rocked back and forth.
“Do you know anybody named Janna?” What was her maiden name? For one panicked moment Al couldn’t remember. “Janna Fulkes.” That was it. Fulkes.
For a moment Al had been afraid he couldn’t recall his wife’s maiden name because she wasn’t his wife in this moment. But he knew it, and his memories of her were still solid. He’d have to ask Ziggy to be sure, but—
“Never heard of her,” Wickie said flatly. “Who is she?” “Are you sure? Maybe before you moved to Snow Owl?” The hazel-green eyes were amused. Wickie reached up to brush a stray lock of hair, brown with an incongruous white streak, out of his eyes. Sam needed a haircut. “Sure I’m sure. What about her?”
Al shook his head. “I was hoping you knew her.”
“I could tell. Who is she?”
“My wife.”
After a startled pause, Wickie burst out laughing, rocking forward to set all four legs of his chair on
