Dragon Sword (3 page)

“
Why?” Mom asks.

“
Because we’ve been called in for
an emergency briefing. They’re worried there’s a chance of —” Then
his eyes narrow, and he looks at me again. “Where did you say he
was from?”

“
Valley of the Moon, near Sonoma,”
I tell him, a little indignantly.

“
Well, that’s close. There
shouldn’t be any blizzards there,” he says to my mom. “This boy’s
parents should be here anytime. Anyway, get your things on and meet
me downstairs. They’ve sent a car for us.”

He heads for the door. “I’m going
downstairs to read Stubin a little of the riot act. But don’t meet
me in the Venetian Room. It’s too public. Meet me around the side
entrance. I don’t want the whole band to know.”

“
Isn’t it a little too late,
Samuel? The way you came up here, and with all this
shouting?”

“
The Nazis can know that we’re on
to them. I don’t mind that.”
I
mind that Gravlox shot me
another look when he said that. Can’t Mom just tell him who I am?
“But we don’t have to let the world know what we’re going to do
about it. I haven’t told any of the others. They just want both of
us out there, first. Dan doesn’t know, either.”

“
Dan?” Mom suddenly looks a little
pale.

“
You don’t mind?”

“
Why should I?” she
says.

“
Just asking. See you downstairs.
Are you sure you trust this boy?” He points right at me.

“
Absolutely.”

Gravlox faces me again. I guess
that’s better than having him talk about me like I’m not even here.
“There’s a war on, young man. We’re all in on it. There’s no such
thing as ‘too careful’ anymore. Tell that to your parents when they
get here.” Then he pauses, and with his back to me says, “On second
thought, don’t tell them anything.” He closes the door, and his
steps fade away on the hotel carpet.

“
It’s a little too late for that,”
I say quietly. “You’re not really going with him, are
you?”

“
Eli ...I have to.”

“
Why?”

I can see her thinking about what
she’s going to say next. “Samuel knows I’m from another time.” She
reaches for her coat.

“
He does?”

“
It was his lab I…fell into. I
collapsed into it, out of the time stream, after being exploded out
of the laboratory your father and I had. Samuel’s a mathematician
at the university across the bay, in Berkeley. He’s working on time
travel, too. He created a crude device…based on atom
splitting.”

“
But, Mom, they don’t time-travel
now. It’s not invented yet.”

“
I know.” She’s putting on her
scarf.

“
I mean, Dad barely has it invented
in our own time.”

“
I know.” A mitten slides onto her
hand.

“
So then why do you have to go to
this meeting? And why is somebody spying on a bunch of
musicians?”

“
Because, hon, the band is just a
cover. For quite a few of us.”

Now I’m confused. I thought I was
going to have some cocoa with my mom, then take her home. “So what
is it you really do?” I ask. “Is it the teaching?”

“
Samuel helped get me that job,
too. I teach art, of all things.” She lets a quick smile break out.
Now that she’s taken her coat, the drawings of me are exposed again
on the table. “But that’s not what Samuel was here about,” she
adds.

“
So what was it?”

“
He thinks I’m working with him and
a team of other scientists to help perfect his time-travel device,
so he can use it to help the Allies win the war against Germany and
Japan.”

“
Are you?”

“
I’m not sure.” I get another kiss.
“I’ll tell you everything when I get back. Stay right here. Listen
to the radio. Take a nap. Order room service if you want to. But do
not leave this room — not even to go downstairs. And merry
Christmas, Eli. I love you.”

“
I love you, too. Even if no one’s
supposed to know I’m you’re son.”

“
No, they’re not. If Samuel thought
there was another time traveler here, his hair would turn even
whiter. And they might not let you go home, either. Bye-bye,
sweetie.” She heads for the door but turns around to look at me
again before she leaves. “I really can’t believe you’re here.” The
door closes, and now her footsteps fade away, too.

I’m alone on Christmas Eve,
sixty-six years before I was born.

Where’s that cocoa?

I start looking around on what I
guess are Mom’s kitchen shelves — small planks of wood near her
sink — but all I see are Saltines, a half- eaten loaf of sourdough
bread, a little block of cheese, and a tin of coffee. I guess
finding rice milk to heat up with the Ovaltine is out of the
question.

That’s when I notice the present.
Again. Mom left it on the table, near the drawings. It’s wrapped in
green paper, with a bright red ribbon; and her name, written in ink
that’s bright red, too, is on a little white tag:
Margarite
.

I wonder who it’s from.

She’s had a whole different life
here these last five years, one I don’t know anything
about.

Who does she celebrate Christmas
with now? A little corner of the package is ripped, and

I can see something that looks
like…

It is. A picture. Not a changing
digital display, but a single, flat picture in a frame. One of
those old photos.

But like the “antique” chair, this
one isn’t old yet, either. I pick it up and hold it near the light.
It looks like Mom’s face inside. Maybe I can see a little more of
it if I pull the paper and peek…

It’s ripped. I tore the wrapping.
Well, since I’m gonna have to retape it anyway, I might as well
see…

It’s Mom, all right. With some man.
She’s in the orchestra, standing up, sharing a duet with a guy in a
suit, with slicked-back hair. She’s on her flute, and he’s playing
some kind of jumbo clarinet. The whole thing might not be such a
big deal, except that the photo is signed:
Here’s to more great
music together! Dan the Oboe Man.

Dan the Oboe Man. Dan the Oboe Man.
There’s an envelope stuck in the frame. On the outside, in the same
handwriting as the inscription on the photo, is another note:
I’m playing chamber music. Meet me there. I’ll send a car. It’ll
be fun.

Oh,
will
it?

Inside is a fancy invitation to
some kind of art show:

A Christmas Eve benefit at the de
Young, for the museum and for war bonds!

You’re invited to preview the new
exhibit, “Myths, Legends, & Truths:

Fantastic Objects from
History.”

A festive night with an ancient
Yuletide theme!

Merry flippin’ Christmas. This guy
wants a date with my mom.

Then something else occurs to me:
How do I know he hasn’t already had one?

I forget all about the
Ovaltine.

A few minutes later, the phone
starts to ring. It takes me a little while to figure out that it is
a phone — the ringing seems too loud, and it’s coming from this
small-but-heavy appliance on the table by the bed. Plus it’s wired
to the wall. Then I remember that phone Dad and I saw in the motel
in Vinita, Oklahoma, the one he thought belonged in some kind of
museum. This lunky thing is a lot like that one.

Maybe it’s Mom. “Hello?”

There’s a muffled reply. I’m
speaking into the wrong end. I turn the hand piece around.
“Hello?”

“
Ma’am?”

“
Who’s this?” I don’t sound like a
ma’am, and I’m not in the mood for anyone to play jokes on me on
some olden-day Christmas Eve when I’m trying to figure out if my
mom has a secret life.

“
This is the front desk. Is
Margarite Franchon there?”

Franchon?
That’s her
unmarried name. “I can take a message.”

“
Please let her know her car is
ready.”

“
What car?”

“
Her cab. The driver is here to
take Miss Franchon to the museum.”

Miss?

“
Ma’am?”

I don’t reply to that.

“
Did you get the message?” I got it
all right.

I slam down the phone.

Oh, yeah, I got it. My mom’s head
got all screwed up in the time blast that sent her back here, and
she’s not sure who she is. She’s not sure what’s real.

The picture she drew of me, of what
I might look like at fifteen, is staring back at me, next to the
photo of her and Dan the Oboe Man.

I’m not sure what’s real anymore,
either. But I’m gonna go downstairs to find out.

Chapter Three

Thea: My New School

10,271 S.E. (Second Epoch, Saurian
Time)

It’s quite a magical night here on
Saurius Prime. It reminds me of one of our festival nights in
Alexandria — perhaps a summer celebration of a lunar eclipse, with
lanterns in the streets and people wandering the boulevards with
cups of spiced wine or lemon juice sweetened with honey.

Mother would let me stay up very
late on such nights. I miss her so much. But I carry her here in my
heart.

And I am quite far from Alexandria,
while Alexandria is quite far from being able to celebrate anything
in her streets. The last time I saw those streets, they were on
fire. I escaped with my two time-traveling friends, Eli, from
Earth’s future, and K’lion, the lizard man — “dinosaur” in Eli’s
language — whose home is here on this planet, Saurius
Prime.

I’m not sure where in the cosmos we
are. I’ve tried to map it out with the telescopes that have been
provided for me, and though I seem to recognize many of the
constellations, I wonder if it’s a trick of my eyes. Or my
emotions. This can’t be Earth.

Can it?

Soon, however, I plan to get back
to more familiar night skies.

“
Thea-chick?”

It’s Gandy. She looks after me now.
She’s a bit rounder than K’lion, and older. She wears two circular
lenses in front of her eyes — she calls them simply “glasses”— to
help her see, and she clucks over me like an aunt. Which is sweet,
as Mother had no siblings, and I never had an aunt. Especially not
one the size of a small tree. Her skin is the most marvelous
speckled green and blue.

“
Thea?”

“
I’m writing in my journal, Gandy.
Another moment.”

“
You are always writing,
nest-
T-TT-TT
-ling.” The Saurians have been gracious — and
curious — enough to learn my tongue and speak it to me, even though
they can’t help but add sounds and ticks of their own. But I’m
glad, for I doubt I shall ever learn to speak

Saurian.

“
I’m a scientist, Gandy. I keep
records.” I am apparently a curiosity, too — a mammal who has
evolved to sentient form. The Saurians still scarcely believe it,
since their experience of mammals until now has been one of trying
not to step on the small furry creatures who scamper underfoot here
on this humid jungle planet of theirs.

“
Yes, moonleaf, but surely there
can’t —
tk!
— be many other mammals who
read
?”

I would remind her that it was the
Saurian Science Academy who asked me to keep a record of my
experiences here. They’ve been studying me, and I’ve been studying
them, writing in these fresh scrolls that they’ve generously
provided. Though the words
writing
and
scrolls
may
not be quite accurate.

The “scrolls” are long, gossamer
sheets with thin filaments running through them, similar, they tell
me, to the apparatus provided to K’lion to record his schoolwork
while on his journey.

There is a stylus you can use for
the traditional type of writing that I, of course, am used
to.

However, the stylus can also keep a
record of one’s voice and translate it immediately into writing on
the scroll sheet itself. Mine comes with what they call a
“lingo-spot” so that my scroll may understand me.

But no matter how strange the
devices provided to me by the Saurians, I suspect
I
strike
them as stranger still. How could it be otherwise?

Gandy, though, does use the Saurian
endearment “moonleaf” with me, and has always made sure I’ve had
warm bedding at night and plenty to eat. The Saurians are
especially enamored of a stew made, I gather, from some of those
scurrying mammals native to this planet, wrapped in broad green
leaves and served hot. I’ve yet to develop a taste for
it.

But they have fed me in other ways:
When K’lion sent me here in his time-vessel, he was able to rescue
several scrolls from the flames of the library at Alexandria —
where my mother, Hypatia, was the head librarian and principal
lecturer. She was killed by a bloodthirsty mob, followers of a man
named Brother Tiberius. He was a monk who feared the unauthorized
knowledge to be found in our library. It was his fear that filled
him with so much rage.