God or Fate or Chance, Time or Whatever, he had long since decided, didn’t want him to get any closer to Leaping than he already had. If he’d given it more thought he would have concluded that Whatever had run him through the wringer often enough, thank you. His job on this adventure was to be the Observer, to coach, to supply information, to provide moral support. Not to burden the Leaper with his personal problems, any more than a good commanding officer burdened his troops. He’d already said too much to Sam. It was time to go back to business as usual.
The room was plain white, with panels set in the walls, a disk in the middle of the floor and a matching disk hanging in the air overhead. The lighting gave the room a blue cast, made it feel cold. Al paused to light his cigar, a personal gesture of self-fortification, and, pressing the power switch on the handlink, he stepped onto the floor disk. “Ziggy. Center me on Sam.”
Around him, the room began to blur and spin, and he shut his eyes briefly. The sound of a Door opening was his signal. He looked up to see Sam, standing behind a bar, against which a dozen women crowded.
They were laughing, teasing, munching peanuts and bar mix. Sam was looking frazzled and frantic.
Sam never did know how to appreciate a golden opportunity, Al thought. He stepped “forward”—some part of him knew he was still in the Imaging Chamber, still standing on the disk, but he’d long ago stopped worrying about that— walked through the bar, and leaned over Sam’s shoulder.
“Too much vermouth in that gin,” he advised.
Sam shared a sickly grin between Al and the middle-aged, overweight woman who’d ordered the martini with double onions just as she added, “I think those two little balls are just so cute.”
Al did a double take. “Uh-oh. Sam, when women turn into party animals, things can get out of control.”
“I know,” Sam muttered frantically. The overweight woman was yelping with laughter.
“I want a screwdriver,” another woman announced. “C’mon, Wickie, make me a screwdriver.”
“Um, uh, sure.”
The level of uncertainty in Sam’s voice pulled Al’s attention away, at least temporarily, from the buxom brunette’s cleavage. “You do know how to make a screwdriver, don’t you?” he asked.
“Of course,” Sam snapped, reaching for a bottle of vodka.
Al grinned. “Of course, it can be a lot of fun when they go out of control, too. . . .”
“I think I’ll have a Handyman’s Special,” someone else said. “I hear you’re really handy, Wickie!”
“We know why you’re the bartender, honey. You want to keep that bar between you and us!”
“Aw, look, he’s blushing! I never knew Indians could blush!”
Sam muttered something about ignorance under his breath. One of the women at the bar said, “What was that, Wickie love?”
“It was the Indian Love Call,” someone else cracked.
Sam bit his lower lip. Al could see him about to snap at the woman; instead he said politely, “You ladies will have to excuse me a minute,” and headed for the men’s room, followed by catcalls and offers of help.
Al followed him in, to find Sam leaning back against a sink, staring at the ceiling. Al looked around. The men’s room at the Polar Bar was considerably cleaner than many of its kind.
“Classy place,” he remarked.
“Yeah, it’s a shame the clientele isn’t classy too. Do you have anything?”
Brought back to reality, or at least to the here and now, Al looked at the handlink. The light patterns translated themselves into information; how, he wasn’t sure. That was the techie stuff. It was Sam’s department. All Al cared about was whether it worked.
He didn’t much want to answer the question, either. “Er, no. We’re working on another angle. What’s the party here for?”
“It’s a bachelorette party,” Sam said grimly.
Now that was the sort of distraction a man could do something with. Al chortled. “Are you going to be jumping out of a cake later in the evening?”
If looks could kill, Al would have been dead several Leaps ago; he’d developed ignoring Sam’s glares into a fine art.
“No, I am not jumping out of a cake.” Each word was spaced out. Seeing the Observer’s incorrigible grin, he gave up and returned to the most pressing issue. “If I’m supposed to keep Bethica from being crippled in a car wreck, though, I think I’ve figured out how to do it.”
Al arched his eyebrows high. “Hey, I thought I was the one with the key to the future.” He brandished the handlink in Sam’s direction. “What, are you trying to do me out of a job here?”
“Kevin’s having a party later night, and he’s coming by to pick up the liquor. And I’m not going to give it to him. Case closed.”
“Except, of course . ..” Al prodded.
“Except I haven’t Leaped,” Sam admitted. “Something’s going to go wrong, isn’t it?”
“Naturally.” Al took a deep drag on his cigar and exhaled a thunderhead of blue smoke. “I dunno what yet, but something. There’s always the little detail that Bethica has to go to talk him out of trying to kill you.”
Sam studied him quizzically. “You’re more cheerful than you were the last time,” he remarked. “I don’t know why that doesn’t seem particularly comforting.” He’d straightened up, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t think Kevin would really do it, anyway. He’s just a kid.”
Al punched keys on the handlink. “But he’s a mean kid, Sam. Ziggy says not only does Bethica still go up there, but. . . what?” He slapped the recalcitrant piece of hardware. “Okay. There’s still a sixty-seven-percent chance Bethica’s going to end up in a wheelchair, and there’s a ninety-four-percent chance he runs you off the road.”
Sam absorbed this news silently. At last he said, “But Bethica’s odds are getting better,
