Chapter 20

Mack’s cave.

... Kathy reinstalled the battery while Mack refilled the canteens a little upstream from where she bathed. The suit wasn’t completely dry, though. After retrieving her undies, she hung the all-weather suit over an arm, and with Mack carrying both canteens, they started for the cave. Mack, with a little grunt, quickly stepped in front of her, causing her to smile. With her wearing only Thad’s shirt and her gun belt draped on a shoulder, she was well aware of what Mack would see should he be behind her as they climbed the steep slope, but to her, he had proven himself yet again. She was quiet as they climbed, following him to the entrance without comment, not realizing that his mind was a moil of conflicting thoughts. Near the entrance, she hung the suit, bra and panties on a bush so they would finish drying.

Inside the cave, Kathy put her gun belt beside her pack, retrieved another of the small pots from a pack and attached the bail. She had managed to retrieve the two cups that she and Thad had used, as well as the smallest of the pots that Mack had been using as a cup, but she had forgotten the pot hanging on the spit. She was glad that Thad had insisted they keep everything, not in immediate use, in a pack. Thad would scold her for losing the water jug, anyway. The sensors were also gone. The group would have to rely on their own senses and the security of the bars for any prowling animals. The sensors hadn’t done much good against the things that had attacked the little group. Maybe the alien, or whatever it was, had somehow realized it had tripped a warning device and began firing because of that. If that was so, then the picket devices had saved their lives after all.

Kathy checked the medkit, and it said its patient would remain sedated for approximately eight more hours. There was no fever. Healing was taking place at an accelerated rate, and the kit saw no reason for undue concern. “I WILL CARE FOR THE PATIENT,” was printed in bold across the bottom of the screen.

When she interpreted the writing for Mack, he asked, “Do you people program all your computers with a personality?”

Looking up at Mack, she said, “Unfortunately, all AIs do have a personality. But it isn’t programmed in, at least not intentionally; rather, I’m told it’s a function of intelligence. Once the programming is sufficient to give the artificial intelligence self-awareness, the personality is already started. As the AI learns, its personality develops with its knowledge. This one has a very specialized knowledge. I suspect it considers its knowledge to be something along the lines of How To Repair A Broken Human Being, and it’s good at it — and it knows it is good at it. Thus, the arrogance. Sorry,” she said, “I dropped into my lecture mode again. Thad is always teasing me when I do that.”

Mack stirred the smoldering fire and added a few pieces of wood before returning one of the pots to the spit and adding water from one of the canteens. Then glancing over at Kathy, he asked, “How long have you two been friends?”

Kathy chuckled. “A couple of weeks, I suppose,” she replied, as she sat on a rock and watched the small fire build. At Mack’s questioning look, she continued, “We always fought back at Temporal. Something happened when we came back to one million, though.” She paused for a moment before quietly saying, “I suppose the change was mostly me. I think I came to realize that Thad is a lot deeper person than he seemed to be around Temporal. Maybe I’m beginning to see his side of some things too. He still makes me furious at times, but most of the time, I think he does it to see what I’ll do or say. Maybe it’s part of what he sees as humor,” she added grimly. “But he’s been more serious back here — completely different. He’s not even arrogant — most of the time. He’s generally all business except for an occasional prod at me. If I do something wrong, he shows me the right way to do it, and he doesn’t gloat in the process — again, most of the time.”

Kathy moved to sit back against the wall, and Mack moved his favorite chair (another rock) a few feet from her, where he leaned back against the cave wall. “Why don’t you two get along at Temporal?”

“I don’t really know. All he seems to do is aggravate me, chase after Millie, and study for his next assignment.”

“Millie?”

“Thad’s girlfriend.”

Why am I pleased to hear that Thad has a girlfriend? Kathy isn’t anything to me. But still, the feeling was there. To change the subject, he said, “Why did you accept me so easily? Oh, I know about the tag, but you must have known I could have left at any time — at least after I was well enough.”

Kathy reached up to remove the towel she had wound around her wet hair, thus causing the shirt to ride up her hips. Her breasts were forced even more firmly against the damp shirt as well. She had turned partway away from Mack, and he really couldn’t see anything, but he had to consciously turn his eyes away to keep from staring. This woman would look good in a sack, he thought. She darned sure looks good in my borrowed shirt. She was still talking, and he forced his attention back to what she was saying.

“We didn’t know what to do. We expected almost anything except what you turned out to be. We thought you might be one of the Others, but somehow you just didn’t fit. Initially, we were very cautious with you, but we tried to be discreet about it. Thad tagged you for the computer while you were out, and you didn’t have any real weapons.” At Mack’s arched eyebrow, she added, “Well, you couldn’t use the bow anyway, especially in the beginning when you were hurt. Afterward, we had already heard your story, and we couldn’t think of any other logical explanation, so we found ourselves believing you.”

The sunlight shining through the gaps in the bars in the cave entrance caused deep shadows and brilliantly lit patches. The firelight added little light with which Mack could study Kathy’s face, but something just didn’t seem right. The silence dragged on, and when Mack made no comment, Kathy sighed. “I don’t lie very well, do I?” When Mack still made no comment, she sighed. “We set you up. We had the medkit give you a pain suppressant that has a side effect. It used to be used as a truth serum.”

Mack still didn’t answer for a time, then grinned and broke the tension. “I was beginning to think you people were naive.”

Kathy chuckled and said, “We had to find out if you were telling the truth, Mack...” Then after an embarrassingly long pause, “The drug isn’t one hundred percent effective as a truth serum, but we were fairly certain that you were telling the truth.”

Mack wasn’t sure what he thought about the pain suppressant either but decided against pursuing the subject any further. A glance at Kathy’s face as she rubbed her hair vigorously with the towel brought the feeling that she was uptight about what she had just said. He wondered what he had been asked. He thought he remembered everything that happened since he met Thad and Kathy, but would he realize there was a blank in his memory? For that matter, did the medication work that way at all? Maybe they had given it to him and just continued with the conversations he remembered — simply making sure he told the truth.

“I thought your medkit made up its own mind about what it did.”

Kathy stopped drying her hair and looked at Mack. “It has an override. As long as no harm will come to its patient, it will obey. Please think about it before you judge us. We had to know.”

“Yeah, well ... At least I know that you believe me.”

“I think I believed you intellectually,” she said at length, “but it’s quite another thing to experience the real thing. I’m used to the chamber,” she said but realized the incongruity of the statement. I was used to hearing about the chamber, she thought. “I puked my guts out on my first ride. Now, your version of time travel has me feeling as if I’m falling, and all I see is green. That hideous sound is beyond description.”

Mack grinned. “I think of it as God laughing.”

“Then you heard it too?” she asked.

“Sure. But you’ve got to realize there’s still a part of me that wonders if I’m completely sane. I could still be dreaming all this,” he said while gesturing around them. “Just think about the situation from my viewpoint. I’m a... was an engineer, a practical person. I built things. Sure, I used technology to do it, and I was even aware that there had been breakthroughs in remapping parts of the brain — always thought impossible. But then we got creamed by a drunk. My wife,” he cleared his throat to keep his voice from breaking, “was killed, and I got a blood clot in an inoperable part as well as some tearing in another inoperable part of my brain. I was going to die — period. Here was their chance. They went into my brain with a laser incorporated into the best computer system that hospital-millions could buy.

“They destroyed the clot, restored circulation to the damaged area, and proceeded to regrow and remap the restored parts of my brain using this program some genius came up with, combined with the new cell growth technology. I awakened months later, unable to remember anything after the accident. I thought I was going to be okay, though. After getting over my initial weakness from being in a hospital bed for so long, I finally returned to work, only to wake up back in the hospital again. They said I passed out at work. All I could remember was walking down the hall and the world starting to swirl around me — everything breaking into a rainbow. I kept having these ... kaleidoscope attacks, as I called them, until I got fired. Then I eventually found out that I’m a walking time machine. I’ve always prided myself on having a logical mind. Unfortunately, that logical part of me still isn’t completely convinced that I haven’t lost a screw or two somewhere.”

Kathy resumed toweling her hair. “Well, if you’re crazy, there are a couple of other people here who share the same affliction,” she said with a smile. ”But I can understand how you feel. And I am truly sorry about your wife. I wish I could do something to change things, but you heard what Thad said — not Temporal — not even you can change that timeline now. You can’t change anything that involves you in your own timeline, and now we’re part of it, so we can’t either.”

“It’s done?” he asked quietly.

Kathy shivered at his tone but solemnly nodded.

She hung the towel on the bars at the front of the cave, then with her still-damp hair hanging down her back, dug out the instant coffee and added some to the now boiling water. When both had cups of coffee sitting beside them, she began brushing her hair and asked, “What are we going to do, Mack? Do you think we’re safe from those things ... those beings?”

“Kathy, all I have to go on is what you and Thad have told me. You both said the barrier at one million prevented you from going through it with your chamber, and there was no reason for you to believe that these ... Others could move through time any better or faster than you could, at least as far as the barrier is concerned. I think we went a lot farther down-time from the barrier than I had from my time to the barrier. I’m fairly certain we’ll be safe, at least for a while. Maybe they won’t be able to follow us at all.”

“But what are we going to do? How are we going to get back to Temporal?” she asked, frustrated.

“We’ll figure a way,” he injected unequivocally. “But first, we have to get Thad well.”

Kathy took the cups and rinsed them with hot water before putting them on a small shelf Mack had previously dug into the cave’s wall. After opening the packs, she inventoried the few remaining supplies. “You said there was plenty of game on the plains. Our supplies are down — way down,” she said, motioning to the small pile, “and I’m sick of rations.”

Mack glanced up from contemplating the fire. “I’m sure there’s plenty of wildlife out there,” he said as he motioned to the outside, “but I didn’t have a lot of luck hunting in the daytime, at least with the bow.” While glancing at the rifle, he continued, “But it should be a different story altogether with that.”

Kathy returned their meager supplies to the packs before returning to her seat and saying, “I went through Temporal’s Op school — well, almost all the way. I basically know how to fire the rifle — point it and pull the trigger — but rifle qualification was something I missed.”

Mack picked the rifle up and examined the sighting mechanism. When he brought the weapon to his shoulder and pointed it between the bars, the holographic image generated by the weapon was crystal clear. He had used the rifle against the aliens, of course, but he had just snatched it up and fired it. He remembered the scene depicted in the sight suddenly enlarging when he tried to sight in on the last two aliens, but he couldn’t figure out what he had done to change the magnification.

He had refrained from asking to examine the rifle during the week before the attack, because he was sure that Thad and Kathy didn’t trust him completely, and he didn’t want to push things. Now, he would give it a more thorough examination. Surely he had proven himself to Kathy, and Thad was out of it.

Upon first glance, the rifle itself was something that would have fit right into a science fiction movie. Closer inspection only enhanced the strangeness of the weapon. Instead of the rounded barrel that he was accustomed to, this one was similar to a “V,” with a thicker area for the first one-third of what must be the barrel. There was a switch that could be engaged by the thumb of the right hand, and when activated, a faint whine sounded, and a sudden torque pulled on the weapon, suggesting a gyroscope. The power pack slipped into a recess in the stock and added to an already heavy weapon. The general outlines of the rifle were sleek, save for the slight bulge in the center that he would bet was the gyroscope.