A matter of time

Luckily, the fusor didn't go, didn't take out the agency's headquarters. Instead, it just died.

Major Votruba arrived as fire began gnawing at the cabinets containing the master programming disks. They, and the Zumstegs, were beyond salvage.

For an instant he forgot everything the State had taught him. 'Mother of God!' He crossed himself.

For the first time in seventy years the State and agency would have to meet the future head-on, without foreknowledge.

Despair soon gripped the Party hierarchy.

IX. On the Y Axis;

1975

Cash arrived early, but found John in ahead of him. Harald looked as though he hadn't gotten much sleep.

'What'd you get?' Cash asked.

'Christ. I fought it out with a whole battalion of clerks down there, for almost nothing.' He opened his pocket notebook. 'About the house. They started building it in 1868 or 1869, depending on who you ask, for two guys named Fian and Fial Groloch. Brothers? Anyway, these guys contracted the whole thing from New York. Never even came out to look at the land. Nobody knows for sure how they got Mrs. Tyler to let them build on her estate. Some people think that Henry Shaw arranged it, that he met them in Europe. If you want, I'll dig into that. Shaw's pretty well documented. Fian Groloch came out in sixty-nine to move in. He brought a man named Patrick O'Driscol with him. O'Driscol may have been wanted both in Ireland and New York. He seems to have been a Fenian, and a draft dodger during the Civil War, as well as hooked up with some shady people in New York. Fian also brought either a daughter or niece named Fiala…'

'Where the hell did you get all this?' That wasn't the sort of information kept in city records.

With a sarcastic stress on the O in official, he said, 'From the official historian of the Shaw Neighborhood Association. Old dingbat named Mrs. Caldwell. 'Virginia, if you please.' You might know her. She lives on Flora too. Her old man, a doctor, died in fifty-nine, left her a bundle. Keeping track of this kind of stuff is all she does. She's got about three hundred diaries and a ton of papers and letters. Thrilled as hell when I showed up. The way she talks, she's got enough to tell us every time a Groloch farted. She's going to dig it up for us. They were great Groloch watchers in the old days. But don't go to her house unless you got a good excuse to get the hell out again quick. She'll drive you up the wall. Thinks she's still nineteen…'

'What else?'

'Taxes are current. Paid in cash every year. I had a hassle with the IRS, but they did break down and admit she's up to date with them. Pays quarterly estimates, by money order, on stock dividends that come to around twelve grand a quarter.'

Cash whistled softly.

'Yeah. Sweet. That's about it, except they said she doesn't collect Social Security. I'll try to get a handle on her finances next. Banks and brokers. Utilities. Stuff like that.'

He flipped his notebook shut, stared into space for a moment. 'One other thing. O'Brien wasn't the first disappearing Irishman.'

'Eh?'

'O'Driscol. He and Fiala had a thing going on for years, then he disappeared. I'm not sure this's the same Fiala, by the way. Maybe her mother. I hope. Mrs. Caldwell didn't say.

'And what about this Fian, you ask? Just dropped out of sight, apparently sometime in the eighteen eighties. And a guy named Fial apparently never made it out from New York.'

Cash had the feeling he had ridden the carousel too many times around. 'Railsback put a hold on the corpse.'

'Yeah? So?'

'So I thought we'd take her down. Spring it on her. While she's off balance, we hit her with questions about the prints.'

He hadn't heard. Someone had slipped up. Or maybe not. It was Railsback's style to play games. 'The doll. They got a matching print.'

'Oh, shit.' The vinegar went out of Harald. He dropped into the chair Railsback had used the previous afternoon, gripping its arms like an old person flying for the first time. Like me, Cash thought, screaming inside all the way, It's going to crash, it's going to crash. His face grew pale. His lips trembled. 'That old. And now prints.'

He changed. 'Norm, somebody's set this up. Somebody's gone to one hell of a lot of trouble to cover a trail.' He had reached the limit of his credulity. His features became set. He wanted an alternate theory. Cash suspected that from now on he would edit all the facts to fit one he liked.

That had to be aborted. The attitude could leak over into more mundane cases.

'You were the guy who brought up the science-fiction angle to begin with.'

'Yeah. Yeah. But I never thought we'd get backed into a corner where it was the only explanation left.'

'It isn't. Not yet. That print just proves she knew the guy. Hell, it doesn't even prove that, really. It just proves that something he touched ended up in her wardrobe. He could've been a burglar. But it is circumstantial evidence that she hasn't told us everything. Hey! Here's an angle. Suppose he really is a descendant of the original Jack O'Brien? Say he came back to check on Grampa's old flame?' The possibility had occurred to him on the way to work. 'Or, if you want it bizarre, he could be her son and she's kept him locked up since he was born.'

'Come on, Norm. She's fruity, but that'd take a genuine National Enquirer basket