“Say hello for me,” he said lamely.
“I will if she’s there,” Al said evenly. He moved into the Door and glanced back at Sam, took a deep breath, and added, “Good luck.”
The whirling of time stopped, the lights on the handlink faded out, and Al stood alone in the Imaging Chamber, listening to the humming of the air circulator and the power that kept the Project going.
Clearing his throat, he said tentatively, “Ziggy?”
“I’m here, Admiral.” As if the computer would be any-where else.
“What’s the situation, Ziggy?” His voice was stronger now. He was used to asking for situation reports, after all. He’d done it for years, and sometimes the situation was more desperate than this.
“There is no change insofar as your relationship with Mrs. Calavicci goes. However . .. you may wish to meet with Dr. Beeks to review the additional data I’ve devel¬oped.”
When would it be over, he thought. When would “good-bye” finally be “goodbye”?
“O . . . kay.” He squared his shoulders and left the Imag-ing Chamber.
“No change. My projection is that because of her discussion with Kevin about the fight with Wickie, she’ll be sufficient¬ly distraught that she’ll lose control of her vehicle and crash, resulting in a non-fatal accident which severs her spine. She’ll also,” the computer added as an afterthought, "lose her child in the process.”
“She’s pregnant?” Al was startled out of his grim focus.
Verbeena winced. “Oh, that poor baby!” It wasn’t clear to any of them whether she was referring to Bethica or to her baby. She got up and poured herself a cup of coffee from her office dispenser.
“At the moment,” Ziggy advised.
Al opened his mouth, closed it again. He tried again. “Ziggy, did you happen to trace that kid when you were trying to figure out the connection with—”
Ziggy was fast. “I have now, Admiral. Bethica’s child is, indeed, the connection.”
“She is?” Verbeena said. “Then we’ve got it figured out! That’s great!”
Al schooled himself into impassivity. “How?”
“If the child is bom, she’ll grow up and apply to col¬lege. She has an excellent relationship with her guidance counselor, one Janna Fulkes, and asks Ms. Fulkes to accom-pany her on her orientation visit to Yale. Ms. Fulkes agrees, even though it delays her reporting to her new job in the personnel department of Project Quantum Leap until June twentieth, 1993. By which time you will already be involved with Tina Martinez-O’Farrell.”
Verbeena glanced at him and looked discreetly away.
Despite himself, Al sighed, a small weary tobacco-tinged breath escaping between his lips. “It’s my own fault, isn’t it?”
“It was a choice you made.” Ziggy’s tone was neither accusing nor approving. Its very neutrality was almost more than Al could take.
“So she’s still there, but as soon as I go tell Sam and he figures out how to fix things for the kid—”
“There’s a ninety-eight-percent chance that this present will disappear.”
“Why did it appear to begin with?” Al demanded. “Why did I have this, at least for a while?”
“When Dr. Beckett Leaped in, there was no resonance at all. As soon as he arrived, the ripple effect started as a result of minor changes, which in turn gave rise to the child never being bom, or never applying to Yale, or any of a dozen other possibilities. In each case the future proceeded as you can see.”
Al considered. He wasn’t in the same class as Sam Beckett, but he was very far from stupid. “That’s a logical impossibility, Ziggy. You’re saying that origi¬nally, there was no accident, the kid lived, Janna was late, I got together with Tina and never married Janna. But Sam arrived, so as a result Bethica gets into an argument that incidentally causes the kid to die, so Janna’s on time to get her job, I meet her, and we get married?”
“Are you telling me that child is supposed to die?” Verbeena snapped.
“I doubt that,” Ziggy said, dissatisfied. “As soon as he arrived, things changed.” The computer paused. “I can only assume that in the greater order of things, this child was supposed to live. And God or Fate or Chance or Time or whatever causes Dr. Beckett to Leap is just getting around to putting this particular second-order error right.”
“But wait a minute,” Al protested, “if that was the case, I should have been married to Janna all along, and my getting involved with Tina should be the ripple effect.” He got up and crossed over to the markerboard. The stink of the marker filled Verbeena’s office as he twisted off the top and began to try to illustrate it with blue Venn diagrams.
Verbeena looked understandably confused, so he tried again. “Look. No Sam”—a circle with a smiley face and a slash through it—“equals no fight”—a mass of squeaking Xs—“equals baby okay”—a smaller smiley face, unmarred—“equals Janna late”—a frowning face— “and I’m with Tina.” Tina was represented by a squiggly hourglass. “Everything’s copacetic.” He paused to look at the board, couldn’t figure out how to illustrate copacetic, and continued.
“Sam Leaps in, his just being there—Sam being Sam— guarantees a fight, Bethica’s in an accident, there's no baby. The future changes. I’m married to Janna.” The board was covered with arrows, circles, slashes, Xs. He took a moment to make sure he had everything right. “Sam couldn't have Leaped in to make sure Bethica didn’t get hurt in the acci-dent; she never had an accident until he showed up. What-ever he has to put right, that isn’t it.”
“But now he has to fix that too,” Verbeena said, thinking the board looked like a particularly messy football play diagram.
Unwillingly, Al nodded.
“Then we still don’t know what Sam’s supposed to put right,” Verbeena said thoughtfully. “Ziggy?”
“I have no idea,” the computer admitted.
“Well, you’d better figure it out pretty soon,” Verbeena pointed out. “Didn’t you say he was going up there when you left them? And wasn’t Kevin going to try to kill Wickie?”
“That’s correct, Dr. Beeks.”
Verbeena looked inquiringly
