Chapter 27: Temporal

As they entered the administrator’s office, Kessler was speaking with someone on the com. He did something, and they could no longer hear his end of the conversation, but he motioned for them to be seated. Mack did, but Kathy paced until Kessler ended his conversation. Eventually, he leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on his desk. “You seem stressed, Kathy.”

Turning toward him, she said, “I suppose I am. I’ve been thinking...”

“Sometimes that can be dangerous,” he kidded.

Kathy, frustrated, started again. “I heard you setting up security for the time chamber last night, and I fully agree, but what if these aliens just send us a bomb?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. Do you have any ideas?” Turning to Mack, Kessler said, “Sorry, Mr. Tyler. I didn’t mean to ignore you. Kathy and I have known each other for quite a while. She was, by far, the best assistant I ever had. I suppose I didn’t fully realize that until she went on the trip.”

Kathy’s face began to flush, and her jaw set. Uh oh, here it comes. Mack thought, remembering how angry Kathy had been about being sent downtime with Thad.

Kessler knew what was about to happen. Turning back to Kathy and interrupting her just as she opened her mouth to speak, he said, “You were the best assistant I ever had, Kathy — probably ever will have,” he sighed while pointedly looking toward the front office.

“Don’t look at me with that look of yours,” she quickly said. “I’ve seen you use it on others numerous times, not to mention that you’ve used it on me any time you needed me to do something that you knew I wouldn’t enjoy doing.”

“What look?” he asked, seemingly genuinely puzzled.

“I have seen people come in this office practically spitting fire they were so mad, and in ten seconds you had them talking about something else or even laughing. You are not going to do that to me. You sent me to one million B.C. on my first time trip. No preparation, no warning — nothing. Something happened to the equipment — I know it did. I was so sick I puked all over myself. Then I almost got eaten by that monster...”

“Almost? What stopped it?” Kessler interjected.

“I shot it. Or at least I shot a dead carcass. Thad shot it before I could pull the trigger.”

“That’s not exactly the way he tells it.”

As Kathy hesitated, Kessler continued. “I talked with Thad early this morning, and he gave me a bare-bones recap of the trip. He said you were smart. ‘Scary smart,’ I think his exact term was.”

Kathy hesitated. “That’s exactly what I was talking about. You change the subject and get the person to thinking about something else. But you sent me on that trip without even giving me any warning. I felt like an idiot walking into that time lab wearing a weapon and carrying a pack.”

“Did you feel that way when you returned?” Kessler quietly asked.

“No,” she admitted, frustrated. “I was too worried about Thad.”

“You still had your gun on when I saw you at the hospital, and now,” he said while nodding to her weapon, “you don’t seem self-conscious about wearing it.”

“You ordered everyone who had been trained to wear one,” she reminded, exasperated. “And besides, you’re wearing one also.”

“Well, the order did say for everyone who was qualified,” he pointed out.

“Not the point. What I was referring to was the ease you now exhibit. When you left, you were acting as though the gun was going to go off in its holster, but now, I imagine that you’re not even aware of it.”

“Mr. Kessler,” she said, “don’t belittle me. I was scared to death, and that was before I walked into that chamber. Then we arrived, and I was sicker than I’d ever been in my life. I thought I was dying.”

“But you were okay,” Kessler insisted. “Thad told me about how sick you were, and Kathy, there was a reason for that. We finally realized that someone had sabotaged the chamber. The instruments said that the chamber didn’t exit properly, which would have meant that both of you were dead. But Jamison insisted that you had made it. You almost died because of some ass screwing with the chamber.

“We thought we had it repaired, but it went down again. It took all this time to trace the second problem. Hell, we practically rebuilt the chamber’s circuits again, and we’re still in the process of reassembling the thing.”

“Can’t you just ask comp who did it?” Kathy asked reasonably.

“I didn’t think it could be done, but someone must have altered comp’s memory because there is no record of anyone doing anything that would cause the malfunction.”

Kessler crossed his feet on the desk before staring at Kathy. “I’ll bet you gave some of these people around here hell, just to make my life easier, didn’t you, Kathy?”

“There you go again. Maneuvering me away from what I’m talking about. I imagine that you and Thad were laughing about me this morning while discussing some of my blunders at one million.”

Kessler put his feet down on the floor and leaned toward Kathy. “Thad did not laugh at you or anything you did, nor make fun of you, for that matter. He was dead serious. He said you will be one of the best Ops we have in a very short time. He said you did better than he did on his first trip, and he had a year’s worth of field training before he started out. Kathy, you outgrew your job here, and it was time to send you out. And believe me, with Mettling after my butt and my job, it was not a light decision to break in a new assistant.”

“Thad didn’t make fun of me?” she asked weakly. “He didn’t laugh about my terror when that beast was trying to get to us? Or how squeamish I was about touching it? He didn’t tell you about my sleeping practically all night instead of taking my watch shift? Or his having to carry my pack for me all afternoon after I had been sick?”

“Kathy ... Thad said he would go on any mission with you as his partner. He, shall we say, strongly suggested that I have you complete your Op training and quit ‘wasting’ you as my assistant. You formed an opinion of Thad over the last years based on your bantering with each other and probably his chasing after Millie. Have you ever stopped to think that she is a female version of Thad and that the two of them probably love each other? I haven’t seen either of them with anyone else in years.” Kessler laughed and propped his feet back up on the desk again. “Hell,” he said, “they are both so obnoxious, pig-headed and arrogant that no one else can stand them. They are also the best Ops, by far, that I have.”

Without thinking, Kathy said, “Thad isn’t obnoxious, pig-headed, or arrogant while on assignment.”

“Exactly,” Kessler said. “I generally’ send him on assignments that I think no one else can handle or are damn near impossible. He always comes through. And the harder the assignment, the more obnoxious he is when he gets back. I’m always waiting to see what he is going to do to you next.” Kessler studied Kathy for a moment, causing her to become self-conscious. Just before she said something, he continued. “He says that once you have the training and more experience, you will be as good as he is, and that is high praise indeed.”

Kathy sat, stunned. After she had been on the trip for a while, she had almost decided to remain an Op when she got back to Temporal. Although she hadn’t fully made up her mind, she had tentatively considered walking in here and blistering Mr. Kessler’s ear before graciously accepting her assistant’s job back — with stipulations. Now she didn’t know what to say. Thad said those things about me? Thad? What had Mr. Kessler said, ‘scary smart’? Me? And I would be as good as Thad?

“Thad was on medication when you talked to him...” Kathy tentatively began.

“He was as lucid as any of us in this office,” Kessler insisted.

Mack had remained silent throughout the interchange but with a somewhat embarrassed half-smile on his face. He was not about to put his thoughts into this conversation.

Apparently remembering Mack, Kessler turned to him. “Mr. Tyler, I would like you to do two things for me this morning. And,” he continued, “I realize that I’m not your boss, but would you please get a Temporal blurp? You need the blurp for obvious reasons that I’m sure Kathy has already mentioned to you.”

“I told him that I had made arrangements for a Temporal blurp this morning after we talked with you,” Kathy said.

Kessler winked at Mack. “See what I mean about my assistant,” he said with a chuckle. “Most of the time, she knew what I was going to do before I did. Now, you two get out of here. And Kathy, Mr. Tyler and I need to have a long conversation when he is up to speed.”

“By the way, Mr. Tyler, I was so rushed last night that I didn’t get around to fully expressing my appreciation for what you did for Kathy as well as Thad and everyone here at Temporal. I appreciate everything you have done for us, more than I can say. And I particularly appreciate your bringing Kathy and Thad back alive. We all know what would have happened if you had not intervened.”

Mack didn’t know what to say, so he just said, “We helped each other, Mr. Kessler, and the name is Mack.”

“Well, except for Thad getting hurt, it looks like things could not have worked out any better than they did, Mack,” Mr. Kessler said, ending the conversation.

As Mack followed Kathy through the maze of corridors, she commented, “I talked with Billings first thing this morning, and he is expecting us about now for your Temporal blurp.” After a pause, she went on, “I suppose that you have noticed that he is a rather ... unique individual. As before, you should expect him to ask questions so he can determine if the blurp took sufficiently. Sometimes, his choice of test questions can be as unique as he is.”

“He did seem a bit unusual when he gave me the language blurp, but unless I miss my guess, he’s an extremely intelligent individual.”

“Rumor has it that he’s a genius, but also according to rumor, he denies it.” She shrugged. “He is like several other people around here who are geniuses in their particular fields. Plus, he has a gift that I touched on before. As I said before, most of us will start to lose parts of a language given to us by blurp fairly quickly if we don’t use it regularly. But Billings remembers practically everything from every blurp he has ever had. I can’t even begin to imagine how many languages and dialects he is totally fluent in. He’s also responsible for developing new blurps. The tiniest nuance in a language is fascinating to him, and he remembers everything, not just the blurps. He can quote your conversation verbatim from years ago. He will ask you questions after the blurps — hard, involved questions that test how well the blurp took. Most times, you get everything the first time, but sometimes he will have to adjust the equipment and give you the blurp again.”

“How many have you had?”

“Actually, only a few. They leave me feeling a little weird for a while, but they work just fine. Every now and then, Thad has to take one twice, and it makes him angry that it didn’t fully work properly the first time.”