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Godforsaken tundra?
They couldn't mean it. He didn't stand a chance, back in the world he had come from. He was no
longer fitted for it. He no longer had any of the skills that a Neanderthal needed to have, and in their
place he had acquired a great many new skills that were absolutely worthless in the Neanderthal world.
He would die there, she thought.
No.
Timmie, Miss Fellowes told herself with all the ferocity that there was in her soul, you will not die.
You will not.
Now she knew why Bruce Mannheim had given her his telephone number. She hadn't understood it
at the time, but obviously Mannheim had been thinking ahead. Something was going to come up that
would jeopardize Timmie. He had seen it, and she hadn't. She had simply blinded herself to the
possibility. She had carefully ignored every obvious clue that pointed to the blunt realities Hoskins had
just been explaining to her. She had allowed herself to assume, against all the evidence, against all
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reason--that Timmie was going to be spending the rest of his life in the twenty-first century.
But Mannheim knew it wasn't so.
And he had been waiting all this time for her to call him.
"I need to see you right away," she told him.
"At the Stasis headquarters?"
"No," she said. "Somewhere else. Anywhere. In the city somewhere. You pick the place."
They met at a small restaurant near the river, where Mannheim said no one would bother them, on a
rainy midweek afternoon. Mannheim was waiting for her when she arrived. It all seemed terribly
clandestine to Miss Fellowes, vaguely scandalous: lunch with a man who had made all sorts of trouble for
her employer. And--for that matter--lunch with a man. A man she scarcely knew, a young attractive man.
Not like Edith Fellowes at all to be doing things like this, she told herself. Especially when she thought of
that dream she had once had, Mannheim knocking at her door, swooping her off her feet when she
answered--
But this was no romantic assignation. The dream had only been a dream, a fugitive fantasy of her
unconscious mind. She felt not the slightest shred of attraction for Mannheim. This was business. This
was a matter of life and death.
She fidgeted with her menu and wondered how to begin.
He said, "How's Timmie doing these days?"
"Fine. Fine. You wouldn't believe the progress he's been making."
"Getting big and strong?"
"Every day. And now he can read."
"Really!" Mannheim's eyes twinkled. He has a very nice smile, Miss Fellowes thought. How could
Dr. Hoskins have thought he was such a monster? "That's an amazing step forward, isn't it? I bet the
anthropology boys were startled when they found out about it."
She nodded. She turned the pages of the menu as though she had no idea what it was. The rain
intensified outside; it drummed against the window of the little restaurant with almost malevolent force.
They were practically the only customers.
Mannheim said, "I like the chicken in red wine sauce here, particularly. And they do some fine
lasagna. Or maybe you'd like the veal."
"It doesn't matter. I'll have whatever you're having, Mr. Mannheim."
He gave her an odd look. "Call me Bruce. Please. Shall we get a bottle of wine?"
"Wine? I never drink wine, I'm afraid. But if you'd like to get some for yourself--"
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He was still looking at her.
Over the drumbeat of the rain he said, "What's the trouble, Edith?"
(Edith?)
For a moment she was unable to say anything.
(All right, Edith. Pull yourself together, Edith! He'll think you're a gibbering idiot!)
She said, "They're going to send Timmie back."
"Back? You mean back in time?"
"That's right. To his own era. To Neanderthal times. To the Ice Age."
A broad smile spread across Mannheim's face. His eyes lit up. "Why, that's wonderful! That's
absolutely the finest news I've heard all week!"
She was horrified. "No--you don't understand--"
"I understand that that sad little captive child is finally going to be returned to his proper people, to his
mother and father and sisters and brothers, to the world he belonged to and loved. That's something to
celebrate. Waiter! Waiter! I'd like a bottle of Chianti--make it a half-bottle, I guess, my friend won't be
having any--"
Miss Fellowes stared at him in dismay.
Mannheim said, "But you look so troubled, Miss Fellowes. Edith. Don't you want Timmie to return to
his people?"
"Yes, but--but--" She waved her hands in a helpless gesture.
"I think I see." Mannheim leaned across the table toward her. He glowed with sympathy and
concern. "You've cared for him so long that you find it hard to let go of him now. The bond between you
and Timmie has become so strong that it's a real shock to you to hear that he's being sent back. I can
certainly understand how you feel."
"That's part of it," Miss Fellowes replied. "But only a very small part."
"What's the real problem, then?"
At that moment the waiter arrived with the wine. He made a great show of displaying its label to
Mannheim and of pulling the cork, and poured a little into Mannheim's glass to taste. Mannheim nodded.
To Miss Fellowes he said, "Are you sure you don't want any, Edith? On a foul rainy day like this--"
"No. Please," she said, almost in a whisper. "Go ahead. You drink it. It would only be wasted on
me."
The waiter filled Mannheim's glass and went away.
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"Now," he said. "Timmie."
"He'll die if he's returned. Don't you see that?"
Mannheim set down his glass with such abruptness that the wine brimmed over and splashed the
tablecloth. "Are you telling me that a return trip in time is fatal?"
"No, that isn't it. Not as far as I know, and I don't think it would be. But it would be fatal for Timmie.
Look, he's civilized now. He can tie his shoelaces and cut a piece of meat with a knife and a fork. He
brushes his teeth morning and night. He sleeps in a bed and takes a shower every day. He watches
picture tapes and now he can read simple little books. What good are any of those skills in the Paleolithic
era?"
Suddenly solemn, Mannheim said, "I think I see what you're getting at."
"And meanwhile," she went on, "he's probably forgotten whatever he knew about how to live under
Paleolithic conditions--and very likely he didn't know a lot to begin with. He was only a little child when
he came to us. His parents, his tribal guardians, whoever, must have still been taking care of him. Even
Neanderthals wouldn't have expected a boy of three or four to know how to hunt and forage for himself.
And even if he did know a little bit at that age, it's been several years since he was exposed to those
conditions. He won't remember a thing."
"But surely if he's returned to his own tribe, they'll take him in, they'll re-educate him in tribal ways--"
"Would they? He can't speak their language very well any more; he doesn't think the way they do; he
smells funny because he's so clean. They might just as readily kill him, wouldn't you say?"
Mannheim gazed thoughtfully into his wineglass. Miss Fellowes went on, "Besides, what guarantee is
there that he'll return to his tribe at all? 1 don't understand a lot about how time travel works, and I'm not
sure the Stasis people really do, either. Will he go back right to the exact moment when he left? In that
case he'll be three years older and from their point of view he'll have changed tremendously in a single
instant--and they won't know what to make of him. They might think he was a demon of some kind. Or [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]