“Blood pressure’s high. Pulse rate’s racing overtime.”
“That’s to be expected. Keep an eye on the lower numbers. If they go up another ten points, let me know. They should be dropping soon.”
“Negative on the drop, sir. Top and bottom are climbing to the rafters.”
“Dammit. He’s going into cardiac arrest. We need the cart!”
“Can we contain him?” a new voice, smooth, polished, asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I said, can we contain him?” It was no longer a question, but a blunt statement of fact, an order phrased hi the form of a query.
“I’m trying. We’re trying.”
“This is the first successful trawl of a human subject, a subject we chose most carefully. This is no unthinking fool plucked randomly off the street. We have plans for this man.”
“So what if he dies, anyway? We can always start over.”
“Meaning?”
“Look, you muddle-headed dolt,” a voice said with exasperation, “what we are dealing with here is time travel, pure and simple. Correct?”
“Time travel of a sort, yes.”
“So if this goes south, we go back a day or an hour or a week and we activate the mat-trans and bring the quantum interphase on-line with the trawling guide and use the same coordinates to lock onto his form. Then we bring him here again. Tanner’s still there in Omaha, alive, back in past time. We fetch him a little earlier and there’s no problem, okay? Try and think.”
“I am thinking, and let me correct you on your misguided understanding of time trawling. There are no second chances. The variables are too great to allow us to make another attempt, no matter how much earlier we go back within the time line.”
The conversation had lost some of the urgency, growing more complicated and outlandish. Deciding he’d like to have a look at just who was parceling out the commentary on his fate, Tanner opened his eyes and saw he was surrounded by phantoms. Ghosts. Figures of white in white, as viewed from behind a distorting pane of glass. And that damnable breathing, his own breath, rasping in his ears like a blacksmith’s bellows.
Never a religious man, Tanner suddenly found himself in the presence of what appeared to be an- gels, and their presence fascinated him as much as it terrified him, for while the part of his magnificent mind that dwelt with philosophy took solace, the coldly scientific section of his brain was frightened. Angels were something he couldn’t even begin to comprehend or explain. He closed his eyes tightly.
Heaven or hell? He didn’t feel the kiss of hellfire, but he was at a loss how it was supposed to feel, anyway.
Regardless, he decided it was time to face his fears, and so Dr. Theophilus Algernon Tanner opened his eyes once more and found his vision blurred with tears.
“He’s awake again.”
“About time.”
A man leaned over into Tanner’s field of vision, a portly man with a wide face and a well-groomed black mustache. The eyes peering down were so dark they appeared to be the same color as the man’s jet-black hair.
The mouth beneath the mustache opened, casting forth a smell of garlic and tomato, as if the man had just eaten a particularly tangy salad and dressing.
“Hello, Theo. How do you feel?” he asked gently.
“Do not,” the figure on the hospital bed rasped, the interior of his mouth dry. The comers of his mouth were spotted with dried blood where his lips had cracked from lack of moisture.
“I’m sorry?”
“Do not call me that,” Tanner said, enunciating each word as precisely as his dry mouth and throat would allow.
“Theo?” the man said, puzzled. He consulted a black notebook, not turning beyond the first page. “It’s your name, isn’t it?”
“Only…only my beloved Emily calls me that,” Tanner stammered, wondering what had happened to his voice.
The man frowned as he flipped pages in the compact book. “Emily…Emily…help me here, somebody. Is she the wife? Mother? Child?”
“Wife…wife. My wife. What has happened to me? To her?” Tanner asked, struggling to come to terms with what his memory was telling him-a great sucking sound and the eye of God opened and the wind and blood, so much blood before being lain to rest amongst the angels.