Prologue (8 page)

If her host were disappointed at her attendance he hid it well. “Miss Nikitin!” he beamed upon spotting her.
“Nice of you to come.”

He turned and introduced Natasha to his wife and daughter. Natasha estimated Grace to be about 16 years old. Valerie deVere, a tall, thin blonde, looked Natasha up and down before coolly offering her hand. It was a look Natasha recognized.

Natasha shook the woman’s hand and smiled. No, bitch. I’m
not
sleeping with your husband.

Nigel ushered her through the house and out the rear kitchen screen door to the back yard. Natasha would have preferred to see the rest of the house-especially deVere’s study-but Nigel’s encircled arm was insistent.

“Yes, I do believe that I’ve met Dr. Arnold,” Natasha said in response to the introduction.
Arnold
was a squat, balding man with a large head, a former professor who had drifted into some administrative position at the University and who no longer dealt with students. The students were likely pleased. And, according to his file,
Arnold
was pro-Soviet. Natasha sighed and wondered why it seemed to be the ugly ones who were pro-Soviet.

Professor Phyllis Fletcher stood with drink in hand, chatting with a lanky grad assistant Natasha didn’t recognize. She made a point to pass close to them on the way to the picnic table and heard the grad assistant mutter something about “sine wave reductions.” Natasha kept moving.

At the picnic table Lewis Ginter stood with one foot on the bench, facing off with Judith Wolfe.

“I’ve never seen that,” Wolfe was protesting. “Are you sure?”

Ginter took a sip from his beer and shook his head. “You’ve got a goddamn PhD. Didn’t they teach you anything at
Columbia
?”

Natasha turned her back to them and deliberately filled a plastic cup with ice.

“I just haven’t seen it,” Wolfe slurred.

“Well, then watch.
I’m telling you, every single time. Two strikes, doesn’t matter how many balls. With two strikes he always chases the outside curve ball. With one strike or none he knows enough to
lay
off but with two strikes he’s got this goddamn protect-the-plate-at-any-cost mentality, and he always, always chases it.”

Natasha finished fixing her drink and moved off, leaving Wolfe shaking her head.

“Nice grounds, huh?” Nigel had reappeared at her side.

“It’s beautiful
,“
Natasha said, and meant it. The yard sloped slightly downhill to the woods 100 feet away. Two paths, approximately 50 feet apart, led into the trees.

“Those woods are so beautiful,” Natasha gushed.
“And the house.
It must have been expensive.”

“You know, a full professor at MIT makes good money.” Nigel moved closer. “I expect to be a full professor soon.” He indicated the back yard. “Something like this will certainly be possible.”

Natasha ignored the bait. “Whose woods are those?” she asked. “Does he own them?”

“No, we don’t.”

Natasha turned back quickly. She hadn’t heard her host approach.

“Oh, Professor,” she stammered. “I was just admiring your yard.”

“It only extends to the wood line. That’s a nature preserve back there.” DeVere pointed straight ahead.

“And the paths?”
Natasha asked. “Do those two paths lead through the preserve?”

“The one on the left leads down to an old stone icehouse near the pond.
The icehouse is still there. Rumor has it that Thoreau stayed down there in a cabin at the end of the path.”

“That’s
Walden Pond
back there?” Natasha asked incredulously.

DeVere chuckled. “No, it’s not. It’s Warner’s Pond. But the story is that while waiting to move into his cabin on
Walden Pond
he stayed there for a few weeks. Or something
like
that. We call it our own
Walden Pond
. It was probably just a realtor’s marketing lie.”

“I see,” Natasha answered. “And over there, where does that other path lead?”

“Nowhere in particular,”
deVere
answered hurriedly. “It just loops around and joins the other path on the far side of the icehouse.”

“Giving the tourist riff?” Lewis Ginter joined the trio.

“Good evening Nigel, Miss Nikitin,” he added. “Surprised to see you here,” he said coolly, addressing the intern.

“Oh, Professor Ginter,” Natasha blushed. “I get out once in a while. Nigel was kind enough to invite me.”

Ginter smiled blandly at the junior professor. “I’ll bet he was.”

“Well,” deVere interrupted. “Please make yourselves at home. There’s plenty to drink and I’m told the burgers will be ready soon. Not that we need hot food this evening.”

“Thank you, Professor,” Natasha said as Ginter and deVere moved off. She turned to her companion. “Nigel, would you please get me another drink?”

As Nigel moved off toward the picnic table, Natasha turned and let her eyes wander over the grounds. Between the house and the woods, a series of iron posts supported lines from which were strung Japanese lanterns. Their light provided a warm glow over the yard. The impression was fantasy-like and Natasha was reminded of a scene from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. It was amazing how much brighter everything seemed in the Northeast District. Back in Yeltsengrad on any given night half of the city could be without electricity. Yeltsengrad’s power grid was structured to take power from poor neighborhoods first,
then
inessential public consumers such as schools and hospitals, then from low-security police precincts, then prosperous neighborhoods–the ones with higher percentages of high Party officials were carefully noted–and few power outages had gone beyond that.

A few feet away Ginter whispered to deVere, “I don’t like her being here.”

“Who, our Miss Nikitin?
Relax, Lewis. Nigel is single and obviously interested in our young intern.”

“And you think she’s here because she loves warm summer evenings and barbecues in
New England
? Or is Nigel more charming than my eyes can see?”

“Who knows?” deVere asked. “Maybe with enough burgers she’ll get co-opted.”

At the edge of the woods the pair halted and glanced back up at deVere’s yard. The moon had risen. The mosquitoes were not yet out in full force. When they arrived they’d drive the guests inside.

Ginter turned and ducked onto the path with deVere in quick pursuit.

“I did it,” Ginter said as soon as the two had stepped onto the path.

“And?”

“I don’t know.” The pair continued down the path for several minutes without speaking until they came upon a windowless stone building approximately 20 feet by 12 feet. A rusty iron door hung ajar at one end.

“I found a wormhole from this afternoon to a spot in the
New Mexico
desert in 1846.
March 3, 1846
to be precise.
Return wormhole was one second later. I used a rat.”

“And?” deVere asked anxiously.

Lewis shook his head. “Like I said, I don’t know. It worked all right. The rat went back to 1846 and returned. But when the rat returned it had collapsed.”

“Dead?”

“No, it revived after a minute or so.”

“Injured?”

Ginter shrugged. “I don’t know. Nothing I can find. But I’m not a goddamn veterinarian. And we can’t exactly ask one.”

“How do you know the rat really went back? The time of departure on these wormholes is the same instant as the time of arrival on the return wormhole, so how do you know the rat ever left?”

“One moment it was standing on its hind legs, the next moment it was lying collapsed. It never fell. Just at one point standing and then instantly collapsed. I can show you the video.”

DeVere nodded. “Could something have attacked it in the dessert? Bitten or stung it?
A snake or other animal?”

“I thought of that before I sent it back. That’s why I chose a wormhole with a one second span between arrival and return.
To keep anything from getting it.
And to prevent it from wandering out of the spatial window.
There wouldn’t have been enough time for anything to have gotten it at the other end. And there were no visible injuries.”

“Where’s the rat now?”

“Back at my house.
Seems to be O.K.
I’ll keep watching it.”

“We need to try this on a person,” deVere suggested after a moment.

Ginter shook his head forcefully. “No, we can’t risk discovery. When we go back, we go back. We’ll take the risk then.”

DeVere started to respond when Lewis Ginter raised his hand and forcefully placed it on deVere’s chest. DeVere stopped in mid-sentence. Lewis slowly turned and calmly called out, “Why Nigel, what brings you to the icehouse?”

“What? Oh sorry,” Nigel stammered from behind a lilac bush. He stepped out. “I was just looking for Natasha. Have you seen her?”

“The last time I saw her,” deVere answered evenly, “was back where she was waiting for you to bring her a drink.”

“What? Oh, right. I’ll go back.” Nigel turned and headed back up the path. DeVere and Ginter watched him disappear back into the trees, his feet crunching the leaves and twigs.

“You think he heard anything?” deVere asked nervously as Nigel moved out of earshot.

“I’m more concerned with why we didn’t hear him approach,” Lewis replied. “Let’s get back to the party.”

At the top of the path Lewis Ginter spotted Christine Worbly speaking with Dr. Fletcher. Dr. Fletcher headed into the house, Lewis following close behind.