Saskia folded her arms. Below them was the larger of the two centrifuges. “But I am completely safe. I have been seen at the age of forty.”
Michaels paused over a computer terminal. He gave her a sympathetic smile. “I didn’t say that you were at risk of losing your life. Risk comes in many forms.”
“But if Hartfield does go back in time and change it, then he will have removed the reason for his future self to go back…”
“Exactly,” David said. “For some reason he thinks he can avoid a time paradox.”
“I know why,” Saskia said. “He hasn’t got all his cups in the cupboard.”
There was silence for a while as Jennifer and the professor busied themselves with the time machine. Saskia and David waited to one side. The control centre was a cluster of computers on a raised dais. A ramp led up from the road and another led away to the lip of the wall that surrounded the large centrifuge. At the end of the gantry was the open gondola. David reached over and squeezed Saskia’s hand. She smiled. Perhaps, when she returned to the West Lothian Centre, she would meet him as a twenty-three-year-old researcher.
“We have no time for explanations,” Michaels announced, though none had been demanded. “The huge centrifuge has little to do with the time travel process itself. It is merely a device designed to throw you, at some speed, through the worm hole we create over there.” He pointed vaguely towards the other centrifuge. Saskia could see a channel linking the two sections of the machine. “The second centrifuge also has little do with the process. It is merely designed as a convenient method of catching the object when it returns.”
“Why does that part need to rotate?” asked David.
Jennifer opened Pliny’s cage. She said, “It’s just a way of having a vat of water oriented at ninety degrees to catch the returning object.”
Pliny jumped into her arms. He looked sadly at Saskia, who rolled her eyes towards the distant sky. First Michaels, then David; now she was getting sympathetic looks from the chimp. “So an object can be returned?” she asked hopefully.
Michaels stopped his preparations and approached her. “Let’s be clear on this, Saskia. This multi-billion dollar machine is nothing more than a slingshot. It tends to fire things where we want them to go, but it is always a one-way trip. So far the destination has always been the same place, more or less, but a different time: the bucket of water on little brother.” He rubbed his chin. “Getting you back here would require a time machine at the other end.”
When Saskia said nothing, he clapped his hands briskly. “To business. You need to put on Pliny’s flight suit. Last time now: are you sure you want to go through with this?”
She closed her eyes. Jobanique: the man who had taken the life of Kate Falconer while giving life to Ute Schmidt. His golem, Saskia Brandt, was going to return and stop him. Could she kill him? Ute Schmidt could. She was not sure about Saskia Brandt.
Together we are two, the letter had said, but we make a third: a combination.
She could not explain to Michaels what it meant to be controlled. He would never know rape or domination. That was her first motivation to stop Hartfield. As for the second, perhaps he would appreciate Bruce’s parable. In truth, she did not know if she was real or not. She only knew that she felt real. She wanted to live. If Hartfield succeeded, thousands like her would die unborn.
So one reason was a principle. It represented her mind.
The other was emotional. It represented her body.
In combination they were irresistible.
“Yes.”
The chimpanzee was a good deal shorter than Saskia, but his flight suit was adjustable. The legs felt like orthopaedic stockings. The shoulders pulled her arms back and her chest out. There were rubber pads at the knees and elbows. The suit was black. Along her left forearm was a computer display. It showed a map of the West Lothian Complex. In her right arm was a satellite transceiver. There were no Galileo satellites in 2003, so it would patch into the American military’s Global Positioning System.
The suit had a hood that was stowed in the collar. It also had a waste recycling system. Not only was she about to travel in time, but she would get to drink her own urine too.
Jennifer finished tightening the straps around the ankles. “Owah,” Saskia said.
“Sorry.” She pulled the last one tight and patted the connection. It melted to leave a flush finish. “One more thing. The red button on your sleeve will lower the refractive index of the suit to zero.”
“What does that mean?”
“The suit will become invisible. Well, not truly invisible. You’ll look like a clear plastic bag underwater. Treat it like instant camouflage. The suit was designed to protect and conceal pilots who’ve crashed behind enemy lines.”
“I see. Right.” Saskia nodded thoughtfully.
“Saskia, are you sure you want to do this?”
“No,” she replied. She smiled to show that she was joking. Half-joking.
“My…my mother is in that research centre. Was. She died in the bombing.”
Saskia caught her eye. “You want me to give her a message.”
“No. I just want you to make sure you don’t die too.”
Jennifer hugged her. Saskia stroked her hair. “Jennifer, I’m not going to die. I can’t die. You could shoot me right now and the bullet will
