“That means only one thing.” Stephen looked worried. “Second Barrier, Barrier you telled us of, John, must be successful.”
“The hell it will be. Come on, Alex. I’m getting restless. When can I start?” Alex smiled. “Tomorrow. I be ready at last.”
“Good man. Among us, we are going to blow this damned Stasis back into the bliss of manly and uncertain striving. And in fifty years we’ll watch it together.” Krasna was waiting outside the room when Brent left. “I knowed you willed be talking about things I doedn’t understand.”
“You can understand this, milady. Alex has got everything fixed, and we leave tomorrow.”
“We?” said Krasna brightly, hopefully.
Brent swore to himself. “We, meaning me and the old lady. The machine carries only two. And I do have to take her back to her own time.”
“Poor thing,” said Krasna. Her voice had gone dead.
“Poor us,” said Brent sharply. “One handful of days out of all of time . . .” For one wild moment a possibility occurred to him. “Alex knows how to work the machine. If he and the old—”
“No,” said Krasna gravely. “Stephen sayes you have to go and we will meet you there. I don’t understand . . . But I will meet you, John, and we will be together again and we will talk and you will tell me things like first night we talked and then—”
“And then,” said Brent, “we ll stop talking. Like this.”
Her eyes were always open during a kiss. (Was this a custom of Stasis, Brent wondered, or her own?) He read agreement in them now, and hand in hand they walked, without another word, to the warehouse, where Alex was through work for the night.
One minor point for the Stasis, Brent thought as he dozed off that night, was that it had achieved perfectly functioning zippers.
“Now,” said Brent to Stephen after what was euphemistically termed breakfast, “I’ve got to see the old lady and find out just what the date is for the proposed launching of the second Barrier.”
Stephen beamed. “It bees such pleasure to hear old speech, articles and all.” Alex had a more practical thought. “How can you set it to one day? I thinked your dial readed only in years.”
“There’s a vernier attachment that’s accurate—or should be, it’s never been tested yet—to within two days. I’m allowing a week’s margin. I don’t want to be around too long and run chances with Stappers.”
“Krasna will miss you.”
“Krasna’s a funny name. You others have names that were in use back in my day.”
“Oh, it bees not name. It bees only what everyone calls red-headed girls. I think it goes back to century of Russian domination.”
“Yes,” Alex added. “Stephen’s sister’s real name bees Martha, but we never call her that.”
John Brent gaped. “I . . . I’ve got to go see the old lady,” he stammered.
From the window of the gray-haired Martha-Krasna he could see the red-headed Krasna-Martha outside. He held on to a solid and reassuring chair and said, “Well, madam, I have news. We’re going back today.”
“Oh, thank Cosmos!”
“But I’ve got to find out something from you. What was the date set for the launching of the second Barrier?”
“Let me see— I know it beed holiday. Yes, it beed May 1.”
“My, my! May Day a holiday now? Workers of the World Unite, or simply Gathering Nuts in May?”
“I don’t understand you. It bees Dyce-Farnsworth’s birthday, of course. But then I never understand . . .”
In his mind he heard the same plaint coming from fresh young lips. “I . . . I understand now, madam,” he said clumsily. “Our meeting—I can see why you—” Damn it, what was there to say?
“Please,” she said. There was, paradoxically, a sort of pathetic dignity about her. “I do not understand. Then at littlest let me forget.”
He turned away respectfully. “Warehouse in half an hour!” he called over his shoulder.
The young Krasna-Martha was alone in the warehouse when Brent got there. He looked at her carefully, trying to see in her youthful features the worn ones of the woman he had just left. It made sense.
“I corned first,” she said, “because I wanted to say good-by without others.”
“Good-by, milady,” Brent murmured into her fine red hair. “In a way I’m not leaving you because I’m taking you with me and still I’ll never see you again. And you don’t understand that, and I’m not sure you’ve ever understood anything I’ve said, but you’ve been very sweet.”
“And you will destroy Barrier? For me?”
“For you, milady. And a few billion others. And here come our friends.”
Alex carried a small box which he tucked under one of the seats. “Dial and mechanism beed repaired days ago,” he grinned. “I’ve beed working on this for you, in lab while I was supposed to be re-proving Tsvetov’s hypothesis. Temporal demagnetizer—guaranteed. Bring this near Barrier and field will be breaked. Your problem bees to get near Barrier.”
Martha, the matron, climbed into the machine. Martha, the girl, turned away to hide watering eyes. Brent set the dial to 2473 and adjusted the vernier to April 24, which gave him a week’s grace. “Well, friends,” he faltered. “My best gratitude—and I’ll be seeing you in fifty years.”
Stephen started to speak, and then suddenly stopped to listen. “Quick, Krasna, Alex. Behind those cases. Turn switch quickly, John.”
Brent turned the switch, and nothing happened. Stephen and Krasna were still there, moving toward the cases. Alex darted to the machine. “Cosmos blast me! I maked disconnection to prevent anyone’s tampering by accident. And now—”
“Hurry, Alex,” Stephen called in a whisper.
“Moment—” Alex opened the panel and made a rapid adjustment. “There, John. Good-by.”
In the instant before Brent turned the switch, he saw Stephen and Krasna reach a safe hiding place. He saw a Stapper appear in the doorway. He saw the flicker of a rod. The last thing he saw in 2423 was the explosion that lifted Alex’s head off his shoulders.
The spattered blood was still warm in 2473.
Stephen,
