The Mammoth Book of Time Travel Romance (29 page)

“You and me both,” Merritt said. The sooner he got off this rock and back to civilized space – well, the sooner he would be back to dodging the police and trying to hustle a living. He remembered the key and opened his glove. With a sudden surety that took him by surprise, he said, “I think this is yours.”

She stared at it in the faint light from the stars. It lay in his glove, flat and heavy, and he waited patiently. She took it finally, and through the extra sensitive material of the glove he felt the gentleness and warmth of her fingers. He turned and began to walk down the road.

In the warm light of the kitchen, her heart still pounding, Edith began to dial 9-1-1, then hung up before the call connected. What the hell was Sam up to? If he had put this guy up to it, what could he want? To make her sound crazy when she called the cops and said there was an astronaut in her barn? She got up and paced.

What if Sam wasn’t behind it? What was crazier, that there was a guy
pretending
to be a spaceman in her barn –

– or that there
was
a spaceman in her barn?

Her gaze fell on the key. It was an old-fashioned skeleton key. A shiver ran down her spine. The farmhouse had been modernized more than fifty years ago, but before that, it had a key very much like this one. And that key had been lost for generations, she knew that for a fact.

She should have called the cops on him. She could still call the cops. She looked over at her phone, but she didn’t call.

Crazy guy hides out in my barn wearing a spacesuit, pretends he’s an ET who doesn’t know what a horse is. Yeah, she should have called the police.

Except. She remembered the sound coming from the tack room. That hadn’t sounded like anything she had ever heard. And he was terrified when she pushed the door open.

And then there was the feel of his gloves when she reached out and took the key. Thick gloves, yet so sensitive that she could feel his hand beneath them. Her hair rose at the memory, even as she scoffed.

So, you are out here in the back end of nowhere, making a living at a centuries-old craft. What do you know about new technology?

Edith got up. She went around her house, closing windows and turning locks. She went upstairs to bed, and looked out of the window at her barn. The building was dark and peaceful, the small glow from the night light a comforting sight. For the first time she was unsettled by the loneliness of the mountain.

It took her a long time to fall asleep.

One-gee normal, his suit told him, and Merritt could feel every bit of it as he trudged down the mountain road, helmet in his hand. The cool mountain air felt good against his face. As the road curved down the mountain he could glimpse the lights of a small settlement in the valley below and, further away, a much larger city. There was no sign of an air-transport grid though, and surely he’d be able to see port gantries from here. He craned his neck to look up at the stars again. Through the trees he could see a tiny, fast-moving point of light. Too small to be a space station though. Most planets were orbited by the wheel-and-spoke standard stations that could be seen even in daylight.

Wouldn’t that be his luck, to come out of D-space on one of the lost worlds?

Merritt stopped. He wiped sweat from his eyes. Night noises rose up around him. A faint wind rustled through the leaves, and in the distance he could hear hooting, a rippling cry, and a rhythmic call. Animals, he told himself nervously. Just basic animals. He didn’t get dirtside on too many worlds, but most terraformed planets were rife with flora and fauna. This one looked like it was pretty well along in the process. Merritt checked his sidearm. It was fully charged.

The sound of an engine caught his attention. Merritt looked down the road. Someone was coming up in a groundcar, and whoever it was wasn’t running their lights.

Had the woman called for reinforcements after she sent him on his way? Merritt melted back into the woods, and touched his suit controls. The suit obligingly made itself match the shadows in the woods. The smell of low-tech fuel made him gag. Internal combustion? What the hell?

When the car was swallowed up into the night he played back the recording made by the suit.

A cargo vehicle much like the one he saw at the woman’s house. The man driving it was shaggy, bearded. Angry. Obviously racing up the mountain to help out a friend who was in trouble.
I better get the hell out of here before he comes looking for me on the way back.

Still, Merritt hesitated. He stopped the video, zoomed in on the truck. There was lettering – his suit chittered as it ran itself through standard transliteration modes and finally settled on one he recognized.

Grenady Construction.

Did Sam Grenady send you?

Merritt cursed under his breath. The last time he tried to help someone, he had gotten kicked through D-space to a lost world and would likely never see his ship again. Forget it. She could handle herself. He actually took two steps down the mountain, when he stopped, swore again, and charged back up the road.

The sound of breaking glass jolted Edith out of her uneasy sleep. She sat upright. There was another crash of glass, and Edith threw aside the covers. She grabbed for her phone and remembered. The guy in the tack room had taken it. Edith ran down the stairs in her T-shirt and shorts, getting into her boots along the way. She hit the light switch and flooded her front yard with light. Sam stopped only for seconds and looked towards the house, then took another swing at her truck, battering the hood.

“I’m calling the police!” she screamed. “I see you, Sam Grenady! You will go to hell for this!”

“Screw you, bitch! I’m just giving you what you deserve!”

He swung the sledgehammer once again into her windshield. Edith ran for her kitchen phone. Nothing. No dial tone. Son of a bitch, she thought. He cut the wires. She would have to stop him herself.

Sam was sledgehammering at the back of her camper shell and had gotten the door open. He pulled out her tools and supply of keg shoes and then began to dump gasoline all over them. Dear God, nothing would stop a fire that caught up here. Her house, her barn. Her horses. She burst from the house with a wild scream, brandishing the fire extinguisher.

“Get away from my house!”

He looked up just as she sprayed him full in the face. He staggered back, scraping foam from his eyes. Then he roared, and swung the gasoline at her. It spattered over her, and she stumbled backwards, the smell of gas overwhelming. She kept spraying at him until the fire extinguisher was out and she threw the empty canister at him, screaming a wordless war cry to meet his howls of rage.

“Hold it!” came a voice from outside the pool of light. They looked up into the darkness, Sam with blood and foam cascading down him, Edith wild-eyed, reeking of gasoline. A glowing red light began to gather to a point. It was her spaceman, and he had his raygun.

“Don’t move!” he ordered and came into the light.

With a curse Sam grabbed Edith and threw her at the man, and bolted for his truck. The man pushed Edith away and ran after him, but Sam was lost to the darkness. An instant later they heard the engine roar and he peeled out down the mountain. Edith looked at the destruction of her truck. Her yard was full of glass and tools, and her truck listed to the side.

The spaceman came back. “He’s gone,” he said, his voice grim. “I couldn’t get off a clear shot.”

Edith turned to him. She ached and stung all over. Adrenalin was fading, leaving her with anger. She looked at him and shook her head and then slapped him as hard as she could. He staggered back, shock turning to anger, but she didn’t care.

“You stupid –” she said, her throat so thick she could hardly get the words out. “You took my phone.”

The police came, their blue and red flashing lights washing over her yard and the damaged truck. They jotted down her account and took pictures, and promised they would look for Sam, though at least two of the cops were related to him. Yeah right, thought Edith, bitter and cynical now. One of the cops looked at the spaceman. He was no longer in his suit. He had hidden it and his gun inside the house, upstairs in her bedroom. Now he just looked like a normal guy, though his shorts and T-shirt were made out of an odd material that she almost wanted to touch, just to see if it felt as strange as it looked.

She hadn’t wanted to cover for him, but if the police thought he was a crazy spaceman, they might be distracted from going after Sam. Better not to confuse things.

“How are you involved?” the cop said.

“He’s a friend,” Edith put in. “He’s here visiting.” The man nodded, his expression showing no surprise at her explanation, like he was used to lying about who he was and what he was doing. She hoped like hell they didn’t ask her for his name.

“He can talk for himself, can’t he?” the cop said. “You have a name?”

The man raised his head. “Merritt Crane.” His voice was cautious.

Edith tried to keep surprise off her face. What was he playing at? The cop caught it too.

“So let me get this straight – you a friend or a relative?” he asked, suspicious now.

“Friend,” she hastened. “Just a coincidence.”

Now the man looked at her, his expression guarded. Secrets, she thought. There are too many secrets for one front yard to handle.

The cop went on. “So you were here for the attack?”

Merritt nodded, a helpful easy attitude. “I just went for a walk down the road a bit, to stretch my legs. I saw him drive up in his ground vehicle, and thought that looked suspicious. Especially after – my friend – here said she was worried he’d try something.”

Ground vehicle. My friend. The cops looked from one to the other. “Right,” one said. “All right, that’s it then. We’ll keep up patrols for the rest of the night. We’ll find him. He won’t go far.”

Edith sat back in the kitchen chair and looked at the stranger. She was exhausted. She smelled of gas and she was covered with bruises. Tears bubbled up just under the surface and with the last of her effort she kept from breaking down into sobs.

“Won’t this night end?” she said. “I don’t think I can take any more.” She looked at him, the crazy stranger who wasn’t so crazy any more. He watched her with concern. She got a good look at him, finally, in the light. Handsome, with a lean face and dark eyes, short dark hair. He looked like he was around her age, early thirties. Her voice shook a little as she asked: “Who are you? Is your last name really Crane? What are you doing here?”

He hesitated and then said, “Yeah. I’m really a Crane. As for what I’m doing here – I don’t know.”

“Why did you come back?” she said.

A muscle twitched in his cheek. “Something didn’t feel right.”

If he hadn’t come . . . if Sam hadn’t been outnumbered . . . The tears came at last and she covered her face and sobbed, her shoulders heaving. He reached out and put his hand over hers, and squeezed.

“Hey,” he said. “Glad I could help. You did good by yourself.”

“My livelihood – my truck. I don’t know how I can repay you.”

“You don’t have to repay me,” he said, but it sounded as if he had to force the words out. “You just need to tell me. What world is this?”

She was silent for a long time, the ticking of the clock the only sound in the kitchen. If she answered his question, it meant she took him seriously. Edith shook her head. She was too tired to second-guess any more.

“It’s Earth,” she said. “You’re on Earth.”

She watched as comprehension dawned – comprehension and something else. Wonder. Disbelief. Fear. She expected him to say something but he only said, gently, “Go clean up. I’ll keep watch.”

“Aren’t you tired too?” she said.

He smiled, and it lightened his expression. “The suit’s been keeping me awake. I can push it for a few more hours.”

She couldn’t even protest, just got up and pushed herself away from the table. Then she stopped, remembering something. “Merritt. I’m really sorry I hit you.”

He gave a rueful grin and rubbed his cheek. “I’m sorry I sat on you.”

She laughed despite herself. “Even then.”

“Even.”

Earth. He was on Earth. The Earth Merritt knew was a wasted planet, with seas of glass and dead cities, its oceans boiled away, the losing side in a war with an unstable sun that had gone from even-tempered to angry giant in the cosmic blink of an eye. The arks had left Earth for other star systems aeons before. There were about twenty planets that called themselves Earth, but he didn’t think she meant one of those. She meant
Earth
.

First things first, he told himself. Secure the house. Merritt started on the top floor, making his way up the narrow wooden stairs. There were two rooms. He opened the door to the first one. It was a sleeping room, neat and tidy, sparsely furnished, its ceiling slanting down over the window. Edith had thrown his suit and helmet up here. Merritt got himself his gun and checked the charge. Still full. He looked into the second room. This was where she slept. The bed was untidy, the covers thrown back. Clothes were piled on a round-armed chair under the window, and there was a closet full of more clothes, its door ajar. The room smelled of her, warm and clean.

He went down the stairs, hearing the water running as she washed up in the bathroom. He imagined himself in there with her, grinned and shook his head. Need to keep my mind on what I’m doing, he thought. The downstairs held two rooms in front and the kitchen in the back of the house. He figured out the controls for the lights and he flipped the switch. Light came on to show another tidy room, not used very much. A word came to him, dredged up from distant memory. This was a “parlour”, for guests.