”How did you do that?”
”Do what?” He sounded American again, as American as Minnesota winters.
”Sound British? I thought you were American.”
Malcolm grinned. “Good. I’ve studied hard to sound like that. Heading down time to Denver with an English accent isn’t a good idea. Fortunately I have a quick ear and years of practice. But I was born in England.” He cleared his throat and glanced away. “I survived The Flood, actually.”
Margo said breathlessly, “The Flood? From The Accident?”
Malcolm rubbed the back of one ear. “Well, yes. I was just a kid. We lived in Brighton, you see, near the seaside. We ran a little tourist hostel during the summers. My family was lucky. We only lost my elder brother when the house caved in.”
Margo didn’t know what to say. The English coast had been wiped out by tidal waves. All the coastlines of the world had been hit hard. Several dozen cities had been reduced to rubble and the ensuing chaos, rampant epidemics, and starvation had reshaped world politics forever. Margo hadn’t been old enough to remember it. She forgot, sometimes, that most of the people on this time terminal did remember the world before the time gates and the accident which had caused them.
She wondered quite suddenly if that was why her father had been the way he was. Had he blamed himself all those years ago for her brother’s death, then found himself unable to cope with the changed world? She shivered, not wanting to sympathize with him, but something in Malcolm’s voice had triggered memories of her father during his more sober moments. The look in her father’s eyes during those moments echoed the desperate struggle not to remember she saw now in Malcolm’s dark eyes.