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Authors: Neve Maslakovic

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BOOK: The Far Time Incident
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“Let’s hold off on that. I don’t want to call in Dr. Little just yet.” The security chief circled STEWie’s basket, causing the zebra tilapia to mimic his movements and thinking out loud in short, choppy sentences as he paced. “Clothes folded onto a
chair. Personal effects placed in the locker. Office undisturbed… Why do all of that? To mislead us into thinking Dr. Mooney went willingly?”

“His didgeridoo is missing,” I said.

“I beg your pardon?” the security chief stopped and turned his square jaw in my direction.

“Aboriginal Australian musical instrument, traditionally made from a eucalyptus tree hollowed out by termites,” I explained. “About four feet long. Makes a deep, rhythmic drone when blown into. Traditionally played by men. Xavier was given one as a present on one of his journeys to far-time Australia—he had a talent for finding nooks and crannies in History where he could interact with locals. He’d been practicing in his free time, and he got quite good. He played for us at the Thanksgiving party, remember that, Dr. Rojas?”

Officer Van Underberg was penciling down
didgeridoo
but had some trouble with the spelling.

“And it’s missing?” Chief Kirkland prodded me.

The implication hit me suddenly. “You think someone struck Xavier on the head with the didgeridoo and tossed both it and him into STEWie’s basket? And left his wallet and other things behind to make it look like the professor went willingly?” An unwelcome image entered my mind. Had someone made the professor disrobe before making him climb into STEWie’s basket? I found the thought very disturbing.

“I’m afraid that’s exactly what I think may have happened,” the chief said grimly.

It was my turn to think out loud. “We’ve had problems with people outside the school who believe STEWie is dangerous, that it can change history in unexpected ways—which, as Dr. Rojas has pointed out, it can’t. Rarely does a day go by when the dean’s office doesn’t receive a letter or phone call or fax or
e-mail or text message insisting that the program be shut down. Sometimes they come by in person to tell us these things, though not often—one benefit of being rather out of the way.” I added, “We also get the opposite—people who want to go into the past to stalk their favorite historical figure. We try to discourage them as gently as we can. Popular historical figures are often the most difficult to get near, anyway—remember, Dr. Rojas, the time Kamal tried to get close enough to talk to Gandhi for a class project? He couldn’t get within a mile of him. It was almost like Gandhi was more aware of the people in his surroundings than the average person—the good guys tend to be that way.” I went on. “We also get the occasional enthusiast with a pet theory, like that aliens built the pyramids or that the
Titanic
was sunk by an errant torpedo or that the Moon landing never took place, that kind of thing.” (For the Moon landing hoax, I liked to turn them away by quoting Dr. Tyson, astrophysicist and director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium: “Atop three thousand pounds of rocket fuel, where
else
do you think they were going?”) I added, “But it’s not likely a stranger would have managed to get past Oscar. Plus they would have needed the security code to get into the TTE lab.”

“So it’s impossible to change the past,” said Chief Kirkland, emphasizing the last three words, “even if someone hijacked STEWie for their own ends? You’re sure about that?”

“Not that it hasn’t been tried, mind you. We tried it ourselves, in fact.” Dr Rojas sighed. “We made an attempt to rescue the scrolls from the Library of Alexandria and the Mayan books burned by the conquistadors, but for the most part failed miserably. We were only able to make a few photographic copies. For good or bad, the burning of those books had deeply impacted history and could not be reversed.”

“I’d like to get a feel for how it works,” Chief Kirkland said.

“History?” Dr. Rojas asked.

“STEWie.”

“You mean you want to see a test run with the zebra tilapia? I suppose we could do that, it’s just that all the test runs are getting expensive, what with the power drain by the cooling equipment—and I’ve used up so much thorium already—not to mention that the floor is getting wet and slippery—”

“Is it safe?”

“Oh, yes.”

“For people, too, not just fish?”

“Oh, it’s safe.” Dr. Rojas waved any concerns aside. “No reason not to return the tilapia to the Genetics Department and bring STEWie back online. We can restart runs tomorrow.”

“Dr. Baumgartner has the first slot on the roster,” I said. “I can ask her if she’d be willing to let you observe her run, Chief Kirkland, though there’ll be a blogger coming to do just that, so it might get a bit awkward if you still want to keep the story from getting out.”

In its tank on the platform, the zebra tilapia was suddenly looking rather dark bluish and swimming around in an angry burst of activity. I realized why. The squeak of the doors had announced Abigail and Kamal’s presence; they’d ambled over to the tank without offering to share any of their not-very-nutritious lunch of popcorn with the fish. They were pretending not to notice us, though I suspected Jacob Jacobson had passed on the news that something unusual was going on in the lab.

I cleared my throat. Abigail and Kamal turned in unison, pretending to be surprised to see Chief Kirkland, Officer Van Underberg, and me in the lab talking to Dr. Rojas. Abigail offered us her popcorn.

“No, thank you, miss,” Officer Van Underberg said in a serious tone, though his caramel mustache crinkled a bit. “I’m on duty.”

I accepted some popcorn (the ham sandwich hadn’t been very filling, not with all the exercise I’d gotten trekking around the science buildings with the budget forms) then sent Abigail and Kamal back to the grad student office. They had a right to know what was going on, but not yet. Chief Kirkland’s gaze followed the students as they filed out. I hoped he didn’t suspect them of any wrongdoing.

After the lab doors creaked shut behind Abigail and Kamal, the security chief spoke into the room over the sound of a science dean’s assistant trying to discreetly crunch popcorn.

“You misunderstood me before,” the chief said to Dr. Rojas. “I wasn’t suggesting that I observe a run. I’d like to go on one.”

I quickly swallowed a mouthful of popcorn, almost choking on it.

“You want to go on a test run, Chief Kirkland?” Dr. Rojas asked, raising two thick, graying eyebrows.

“I want to go, too,” I heard myself say.

7

I felt my cheeks grow hot. I don’t know what had gotten into me, where that had come from. I disposed of the last of the popcorn in the trash can, wiped my palms against each other, then turned back. “Sorry. What I meant to say was this. Dean Sunder has requested that I accompany Chief Kirkland on his investigations. I interpret that”—I coughed, perhaps because of a popcorn kernel stuck in my throat—“as including STEWie’s basket and anywhere it happens to go while Chief Kirkland is in it.”

Chief Kirkland raised a hand. “There has already been one incident. It might not be safe, Ms. Olsen—”

“Nonsense,” I said briskly. “You heard what Dr. Rojas said. It’s perfectly safe. Besides, you’ll need a team to go with you. We can hardly send students along on an official investigation.”

“I volunteer,” Kamal said from behind me.

“Me, too,” said Abigail.

“And I do, too,” said Jacob, “though I haven’t been on a run yet, so I don’t know what use I’ll be.”

“Didn’t I send you all back to your office?” I asked, a bit exasperated. Apparently the sound of the creaking door had signaled Jacob’s reentry, not Abigail and Kamal’s departure. We’d been too preoccupied with the chief’s unexpected request to notice.

“Julia, we want to help find out what happened—”

“Dr. Mooney was my advisor—”

“Not mine, but he welcomed me to the lab—”

It was Dr. Rojas’s turn to raise a hand. “Hold on, everybody. Even if we get Dean Sunder’s approval for this—I leave that to you, Julia—there are still protocols to be followed. No one, not even campus security, can climb into STEWie’s basket without adequate training.”

“When do we start?” Chief Kirkland asked.

Dean Sunder did not like the idea at all.

“Why does he want to go?”

“Chief Kirkland said,” I explained, handing the dean a guest list for the wine-and-shrimp afternoon fundraiser he was about to attend, “that the only way to solve a crime is to feel it, to get under its skin, so to speak.”

(More precisely, Chief Kirkland had said, “If a wallet is stolen, I like to know its color, thickness, whether it was leather or man-made, carried in the left back pocket or the right or in a bag… It gives valuable insight into both the victim and the perpetrator. I try to imagine how it feels to rifle through another person’s belongings, to take what you wish. Since Xavier Mooney was lost to time, then I must find out all I can about STEWie: who had access to the machine, the knowledge to program it, the impulse and the need to use it as a weapon. In other words, I need to know everything, which includes getting into STEWie’s basket and trying it out myself.”)

Dean Sunder ran a practiced eye over the guest list I’d handed him for the fundraiser. It was being held at the observatory. “Anything I should be aware of?”

“Don’t mention STEWie to Mrs. Butterworth. I don’t think she’s ever forgiven us for proving that Shakespeare did write his plays by snapping a photo of the bard penning—or would it be
quilling
?—
Romeo and Juliet
, given her firm conviction that it was actually Sir Francis Bacon.” I added, “Since she also has an interest in astronomy, perhaps a private viewing session this evening with one of our researchers?” That sounded vaguely inappropriate, so I amended the statement. “A viewing session of the night sky at the observatory for Mrs. Butterworth and the other members of the Butterworth Supporting Science Foundation. That’s always popular. By the way, Ewan Coffey’s assistant called to say the donation check for the new STEWie generator is in the mail.”

“Excellent, especially since my meeting in St. Paul yesterday didn’t bear any fruit. The donor had heard about the accident in the TTE lab.” The dean added, “I have to say, I’m not convinced that someone did this on purpose and I plan to tell the board that.” The dean’s conference call with the Board of Trustees and Chancellor Jane Evans was set for 6:00 p.m. “I think Chief Kirkland put the idea into Gabriel’s head by hanging around the lab, asking all those questions. I hope he’s not spreading the story around.”

“Chief Kirkland asked that we keep things under wraps for now. He’s still calling this an accident inquiry.” The trustees would have to be told, of course. There were legal and other ramifications to consider.

“Still, these things have a way of getting out.” He folded the guest list into his pocket, adjusted his cuff links, and reached for his coat. “There hasn’t been a murder on campus in twenty years, certainly not in the short time he’s been security chief here. Where did Chief Kirkland get so much experience with serious crime that he sees it everywhere? In the parks?”

I had wondered about that myself. The chief hadn’t been very forthcoming with the details of his years at the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), with its thousand small lakes near the Canadian border, or why he had left the Forest Service, where he had been a member of law enforcement. (I’d once asked my soon-to-be-ex, Quinn, what he and the chief talked about when fishing. “Fish,” he had said.)

“Should I tell Chief Kirkland that he can’t go on a run, then?”

Dean Sunder cocked his head. “No. I still don’t like the idea, but I suppose we’ll have to let him have his test run.”

I took that to mean that it was okay for me to tag along, too.

The dean added as I followed him out, “If it was murder, let’s hope the chief finds whoever is responsible quickly and that it leads away from the school. See if you can help him in any way. And Julia?”

“Yes?”

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that the story will stay under wraps for long, but let’s do what we can.”

One question about this whole incident had been nagging at me. I returned to my office, spoke with Ingrid, the caterer, who reassured me that all was well for the observatory fundraiser, and had just reached for the phone again when it started ringing. A penetrating, insistent voice came over the line. I knew the type at once.

BOOK: The Far Time Incident
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