I grabbed her, eased her from the chair, got my arms under her. She couldn’t have weighed ninety pounds. Mellia met me at the mouth of the corridor. She stopped dead and put a hand over her mouth, then remembered her Field Agent’s training and smoothed the look off her face.
“Ravel—who—”
“Dunno. She was here when I woke up; thought I’d come to rescue her. She started to tell me something, and fainted.”
Mellia stepped back to let me pass, her eyes on the old woman. She stiffened; she caught my arm. She stared at the withered face.
“Mother!” she gasped.
24
I let a few long seconds slide past. The old lady’s eyes fluttered and opened. “Mother!” Mellia said again and grabbed for her hand.
The old lady smiled rather vaguely. “No, no, I’m not anyone’s mother,” she said. “I always wanted . . . but . . .” She faded out again.
I took her along to an empty room and put her on the bed. Mellia sat beside her and rubbed her hands and made sure she was breathing properly.
“What’s this about your mother?” I said.
“I’m sorry. She’s not my mother, of course. I was just being silly. I suppose all elderly women look alike . . .”
“Is your mother that old?”
“No, of course not. It was just a superficial resemblance.” She gave me a small apologetic laugh. “I suppose the psychologists could read all sorts of things into it.”
“She said she was expecting us,” I said. “Said the instruments predicted it.”
Mellia looked at me. “Predicted? There’s no such instrument.”
“Maybe she’s slipped her clutch. Alone too long.”
The old lady sighed and opened her eyes again. If Lisa reminded her of anyone, she didn’t say so. Mellia made encouraging noises. They smiled at each other. Love at first sight.
“Now I’ve made an old fool of myself,” the old lady said. “Fainting like that . . .” Her expression became troubled.
“Don’t be silly,” Mellia said. “It’s perfectly understandable. . . .”
“Do you feel well enough to talk?” I said, in spite of the dirty look Mellia gave me.
“Of course.”
I sat on the side of the bed. “Where are we?” I asked as gently as possible. “What is this place?”
“The Dinosaur Beach Timecast station,” the old girl said, looking just a little surprised.
“Maybe I should say when are we . . .”
“The station date is twelve thirty-two.” Now she looked puzzled.
“But—” Mellia said.
“Meaning we haven’t made a Timejump after all,” I told her, as smoothly as you can say something as preposterous as that.
“Then—we’ve jumped—somehow—to a secondary line!”
“Not necessarily. Who’s to say what’s primary and what’s secondary, after what we’ve been through?”
“Excuse me,” the old lady said. “I get the impression from what you say that . . . that matters are not as well as might be hoped.”
Mellia gave me a troubled look. I passed it on to the old lady.
“It’s quite all right,” she said. “You may speak freely to me . . .I understand that you are Timecast agents. That makes us colleagues.” She smiled faintly.
“Field Agent Mellia Gayl, at your service,” she said.
25
I happened to be looking at Mellia—my Mellia; her face turned as pale as marble. She didn’t move, didn’t speak.
“And who are you, my dear?” the old lady said, almost gaily. She couldn’t see Mellia’s face. “I almost feel I know you.”
“I’m Field Agent Ravel,” I spoke up. “This is—Agent Lisa Kelly.”
Mellia turned on me, but caught herself. I watched her smoothing her face out; it was an admirable piece of work.
“We’re happy to meet . . . a . . . a colleague, Agent Gayl,” she said in a voice with all the color washed out of it.
“Oh, yes, I led a very active life at one time,” the old lady said, lightly, smiling. “Life was exciting in those days, before . . . before the Collapse. We had such high ambitions, such a noble program. How we worked and planned! After each mission, we’d gather to study the big screen, to gauge the effects of our efforts, to congratulate or commiserate with each other. We had such hopes in those days.”
“I’m sure you did,” Mellia said in a lifeless whisper.
“After the official announcement, of course, things were different,” the elderly Miss Gayl went on. “We still tried, of course; we hadn’t really accepted defeat, admitted it; but we knew. And then . . . the deterioration began. The chronodegradation. Little things, at first. The loss of familiar articles, the memory lapses, and the contradictions. We sensed life unraveling around us. Many of the personnel began dropping off, then. Some jumped out to what they hoped might be stable loci; others were lost in temporal distortion areas. Some simply—deserted, wandered away. I stayed on, of course. I always hoped—somehow—” She broke off abruptly. “But all that’s neither here nor there, of course—”
“No—please. Go on,” young Mellia said.
“Why—there’s little more to tell. The time came when there were only a handful of us left at Central. We agreed it was impossible to attempt to keep the transmitters in operation any longer. We’d made no personnel retrieval for over a year, the equipment was chronodegrading at an accelerating rate, there was no way of knowing what additional damage we might be doing to the temporal fabric with our improperly tuned gear. So—we shut down. After that, matters swiftly deteriorated. Abnormal manifestations increased. Conditions became—difficult. We out-jumped, and found matters in an even worse state elsewhere—and elsewhen. I’m afraid we panicked. I know I did. I admit it now—though at the time I told myself I was searching for a configuration where I might attempt to rally stablizing forces—but that was mere rationalization. I jumped out—and out. At last—I arrived here. To me it seemed a haven of peace and stability. Empty, of course—but safe. For a while I was almost happy—until, of course, I discovered I was trapped.” She looked up at me and smiled a frail smile.
“Twice I tried to escape,” she whispered. “Each time—after horrifying experiences—I ended back here. Then I knew. I had entered a closed loop. I was caught—until someone came to set me free. So—I . . . settled down to wait.” She gave me a look that made me feel as if I’d just kicked a cripple down the stairs.
“You seem to be familiar with the equipment,” I said, just to fill the conversational gap.
“Oh, yes, I’ve had ample time to explore its capabilities. Its potential capabilities, that is to say. Under the circumstances, of course, only minimal environmental monitor functions are possible—such as the forecast vectors that indicated that one day help would come.” The smile again, as if I was Lindy and I’d just flown an ocean, all for her.
“The screen you activated,” I said, “I’ve never seen one just like it. Is it the one that, ah, foretells the future?”
“Screen?” she looked puzzled. Then recollection came; she gasped and sat up suddenly. “I must check—”
“No, no, you need to rest!” Mellia protested.
“Help me up, my dear. I must confirm the read-out!”
Mellia started to argue, but I caught her eye and together we helped our patient to her feet, along the corridor.
The lighted screen was still the same: a rectangle of green luminosity with a ragged edge that rippled and danced on the extreme right. The old lady gave a weak cry and clutched our hands.
“What is it?” MeIlia asked.
“The Maintrunk forecast carrier!” she quavered. “It’s gone—off the screen!”
“Maybe an adjustment—” I started.
“No! The reading is true,” she said in a voice that suddenly had a faint echo of what had once been a snap of authority. “A terminal reading!”
“What does it mean?” Mellia asked in a soothing tone. “Surely it can’t be that serious—”
“It means we’ve come to the end of the temporal segment we’re occupying. That for us—time is coming to an end.”
“You’re sure of this?” I asked.
“Quite sure.”
“How long?”
“It may be hours, or minutes,” the old Mellia said. “I think this is a contingency the makers of the equipment never anticipated occurring.” She gave me a calm, self-contained look. “If you have transfer capability to any secondary trunk, I suggest you use it without delay.”
I shook my head. “No, we shot our final bolt getting here. We’re stranded.”
“Of course. At infinity all lines converge at a point. Time ends; so must all else.”
“What about the station transfer facilities?” Mellia asked. Agent Gayl shook her head.
“I tried; it’s fruitless. You’d endure needless horrors—for nothing.”
“Still—”
“She’s right,” I said. “There’ll be nothing for us there. We need another approach. All this equipment—isn’t there something here that can be used—converted, maybe—to crack us out of this dead end?”