“Seen enough?” Jeff asked Alida.
She nodded. “It doesn’t solve anything. It just raises more questions.”
“It certainly does that,” the detective said. “Who were they, where did they come from, and what did they want?”
In the new workroom, the day was spent committing acts of theft. The large len was shifted to Buffalo and focused on the men’s clothing section of a department store. When there seemed to be no one watching, Inskel snatched packaged shirts, underwear, pajamas. Egarn and Arne tried them on; then Inskel snatched again, from adjoining displays, until they were properly fitted. Trousers, sportcoats, and raincoats were a problem—their hangers were difficult to pull from the rack—but after a few tries he managed it. Shoes and slippers, with both members of a pair fastened together, were easy to steal, but it was difficult to find correct sizes.
When they were completely outfitted and supplied with all the spares they needed, he stole a suitcase for them to put the extra clothing in. Then, with Egarn directing him, he ranged through the store sucking up anything Egarn thought they might need: An electric razor, wallets for both of them, wrist watches, handkerchiefs, socks, neckties and tie pins, ball point pens and pocket-sized memo pads, a traveler’s alarm clock— anything a traveler might carry with him. They saw no money belts, so they snatched some cloth and sewing supplies, and Garzot made two of them by hand.
Money posed a special problem. Roszt and Kaynor had needed a huge sum that would support them indefinitely and allow for expensive purchases like automobiles. Egarn and Arne could do with considerably less, but they couldn’t risk running short. Egarn decided to take the money from banks located as far from the scene of their activity as possible just in case there were records of the serial numbers on bills they stole.
They switched to the West Coast, found a large city Egarn didn’t bother to identify, and created mysterious shortages in several of its banks.
Finally they had every necessity Egarn could think of, they were packed, they were ready to go. Egarn used the new razor; Arne refused to. He had seen an occasional beard in 20th century society, and he was determined to keep his. While Inskel tried to focus on the time and place chosen for their landing, and Egarn rested, Arne had a last minute errand of his own to perform. With instructions from Inskel, he used the small len to scan the remnants of the war in the east.
His direst predictions had not been fulfilled—yet. Inskor had spread destruction across Lant, burning Lant Court, destroying mills, wrecking roads and bridges, laying waste to the countryside, even raiding the peer’s prized stables and seizing her horses. Her people, especially her one-namers, would be suffering greatly, but the only damage the peer suffered would be to her pride. And now Inskor was in trouble, slipping out of one trap after another.
As for the trek south, it was far behind schedule. Inskor had enlarged the military escort after hearing Arne’s warning, and the column was still intact. Arne recognized Bernal, so the scout had reached it safely with the train of supplies and the reinforcements. No doubt both had been desperately needed. Now food was in short supply again, Arne’s caches were too far apart for the group’s slow progress, and it certainly could not reach the south before winter. As a harbinger of things to come, the Peer of Easlon was dead—perhaps killed leading the column, which would have been like her. Arne knew this because the former prince now received a peer’s obeisance. Her leadership was certain to be as bold and resourceful as her mother’s—but the march was doomed.
When Inskel called them, Arne had seen enough, and he knew would never have the slightest desire to look again. He said nothing to the others about what he had seen, and none of them asked him. As Inskel had already said, there was no way they could help, and worrying about it would interfere with their work.
Egarn and Arne were launched into the past almost without ceremony. There had been no wine since Roszt and Kaynor left; there was no longer a team to see them off. They clasped Garzot’s hands and then Inskel’s, and then, one after the other, they stepped under the large machine. Inskel put them down in a deserted section of Mount Hope Cemetery shortly after dark. They strolled past the Civil War graves and exited through the same hole in the fence that Roszt and Kaynor had used coming in the other direction. They went down the residence hall path, across the parking lots, and through the campus to Joseph Wilson Boulevard, which they followed along the river.
Egarn was unaccustomed to walking, and by the time the street curved eastward to intersect Mount Hope Avenue, he was exhausted—but this was not even a problem. They hailed a cab, and he told the driver to take them to the Sharber Motel. As he registered for himself and Arne, he carelessly displayed a well-filled wallet to the desk clerk and wondered whether it would be possible to have the same room he’d had several years before. Eying the wallet, the clerk thought it would be no problem at all if the room wasn’t occupied, and it wasn’t.
In this simple fashion they found themselves installed in the room Roszt and Kaynor had used for so long. They wistfully hoped the two men had left behind something that would be useful—records, notes, documents— but the chambermaid had cleaned thoroughly, and the safe under the bed was unlocked and empty.
“We will have to get along with what we already know,” Egarn said. “At least we have arrived safely, and we are ready to to work. Now if this scientist who was trying to study the len has a telephone listing—”
He did. The address was in Penfield, an affluent Rochester suburb, and the street number matched the one they had read on the mailbox. “We will go there now,” Egarn told Arne. “If he seems sympathetic, and if I like his looks—and if he will listen to me—I just might tell him the whole story. It will be dangerous, but he is the one person who may be able to understand what we are trying to do, and we will need help—especially now that the Lantiff are interfering.” He took two steps toward the door and collapsed.
Arne lifted him onto the bed. His old heart was racing wildly; his face was pale and moist with perspiration. He muttered, “I can’t do it. I waited too long.” He stared at Arne wildly. “And you can’t even speak English. You would be helpless.”
“Rest until you are feeling better,” Arne suggested. “Then you can make telephone talk with the man.”
“No. He would consider it a crank call. We can’t do anything unless we are taken seriously.”
“Then rest until you are able to write a message. Invite him to come here. I will take it to him.”
Egarn shook his head. “No. You wouldn’t be able to say a word. He would think you were a mental case and notify the authorities. Even with me there to explain things, this will sound preposterous. I will have to talk fast to keep us from being thrown out.”
“I can show him this,” Arne said. “Then he will take me seriously.”
He held up one of two small tubes he carried in his pocket. Egarn’s weapon.
“Yes,” Egarn agreed. “Yes—that is what you must do. He has already seen the end the girl broke off Kaynor’s. He is a scientist. If I offer tell him what it is, and where it came from, and how it works, he certainly will come. Yes. Let me rest for a moment, and then I will try to write.”
He wrote a letter on the motel’s stationery. Then he read it over and carefully rewrote it. A lifetime had passed since he composed anything in English, and he had difficulty thinking of words. On a separate sheet he wrote the scientist’s address in Penfield for Arne to show the cab driver. He also gave Arne a blank sheet of stationery with the motel’s name and address so Arne could show it to another cab driver if he had to return alone. If that happened, they would have to go into hiding until they found out whether the scientist had alerted the police.
After listening patiently to a long lecture about what he must and must not do, Arne put Egarn to bed, saw that he was resting comfortably, and slipped quietly from the room.
He was enormously worried about the old man. At that very moment, the six Lantiff might be leaving their retreat by the river bank and trekking toward the center of the city, and they would find Egarn exhausted and helpless—as they had found Roszt and Kaynor.
But Arne had no choice. The quest had become his.
He told the cab driver, “Penfield.”
“What was that?” the driver demanded.
Arne repeated the word twice while the driver, twisting his body so he could stare into the back seat, scrutinized him severely. The driver saw a decently dressed young man with long hair and a beard, apparently sober, probably not an addict. He talked like a foreigner, in which case he was harmless and likely to tip well.
