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“It yet kens not?” I looked at him, worried. “A high herald of hope and beauty?”
“You’d help if you could, wouldn’t you, boy?” I said. “It’s no wonder they call you man’s best friend. Faithful and loyal and true, you share in our sorrows and rejoice with us in our triumphs, the truest friend
we ever have known, a better friend than we deserve. You have thrown in your lot with us, through thick and thin, on battlefield and hearthrug, refusing to leave your master even when death and destruction lie all around. Ah, noble dog, you are the furry mirror in which we see our better selves reflected, man as he could be, unstained by war or ambition, unspoilt by—”
“No” I said finally. “Slowness in Answering,” she said into the handheld. “When’s the last time you slept?” “1940,” I said promptly, which is the problem with Quickness in Answering.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” Slowness in Answering or not, this question required some thought. Two was the most likely number, being easily confused with both three and one, but she might have chosen five to confuse me, and if that was the case, should I answer four, since the thumb isn’t technically a finger? Or might she be holding her hand behind her back?
It appeared to be a postal card of Oxford. Seen from Headington Hill, her dear old dreaming spires and mossy stones, her hushed, elm-shaded quads where the last echoes of the Middle Ages can still be heard, murmuring of ancient learning and scholarly tradition, of—
“Lady Schrapnell phoned him,” he said, and I dived for cover. “It’s all right,” Finch said, following me into the shop doorway I’d ducked into.
“I don’t need anything to read,” I said. “I’ll just sit here and eavesdrop along with you.”
In books and vids, those being eavesdropped upon always thoughtfully explain what they are talking about for the edification of the eavesdropper.
At the door she turned back, her rosy lips open to impart some final benediction, some last word to me perhaps of love and devotion.
“Advanced time-lag, sir,” Finch said. “Disorientation, difficulty in distinguishing sounds, tendency to sentimentalize, impaired ability to reason logically,” he said, emphasizing the last two words.
“Lovely creature,” I said. “A ministering angel, whose gentle hands have soothed many a fevered brow.” Finch and Mr. Dunworthy exchanged looks.
when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
That’s what wars and disasters do, put people in charge of things they’d never ordinarily be in charge of.
In vids, there is always a newspaper lying on the ground with a helpful headline like “Pearl Harbor Bombed!” or “Mafeking Relieved!” and a clock above it in a shop window thoughtfully showing the time.
Adrenaline is an extremely effective drug. It galvanizes the body into action and has been known to produce impossible feats of strength. And speed.
In books and vids there’s always a newsboy hawking papers with the date neatly
visible for the time traveller to see, or a calendar with the dates marked off with an X. There was no sign of a calendar, a newsboy, or a friendly porter who’d volunteer, “Lovely weather for June seventh, isn’t it, sir? Not like last year. We hadn’t any summer at all in ‘87.”
I was debating “The moon sets on Tuesday” versus the
more straightforward “I beg your pardon. Are you from the future?”
‘Fate holds the strings, and Men like children move but as they’re
led: Success is from above.’”
“A medium?” I said weakly. “Yes, you know, one of those persons who tips tables and dresses up in cheesecloth with flour on her face to tell you your uncle’s very happy in the afterlife and his will’s in the top left-hand drawer of the sideboard.
Oh, good, I thought, another one who makes no sense and spouts quotations. And in Latin.
“Translated ‘Non omnia possumus omnus’ as ‘No possums allowed on the omnibus.’”
“My housekeeper has just died, but I’ve propped her up on a kitchen chair, and she’ll be all right till I return.”
It is character, not populations, that affect history!’”
“Haunted?” Tossie said happily and gave a miniature version of a scream, a sort of screamlet.
It’s fated, like Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, Héloïse and Abelard.” I didn’t point out that all of the aforementioned had ended up dead or severely handicapped,
Infatuation was a lot like time-lag, an imbalance of chemicals, cured by a good night’s sleep.
“Wait!” I said. “Princess Arjumand!” and then remembered the proper command. “Stay,” I said firmly. “Stay.”
“Come, cat,” I said. “Heel.”
All right, look at the thing logically. The point of the scimitar had to be the part that went through the tin. And it had to go through the lid. Perhaps there was a specific place in the lid where it fit. I examined the lid for weaknesses. It hadn’t any.
“Come here, cat. You wouldn’t want to destroy the
space-time continuum, would you? Meow. Meow.”
Nothing in all those “O swan” poems had ever mentioned that they hissed. Or resented being mistaken for felines. Or bit.
I had to face it, the cat was long gone, to starve to death in the wilderness or be murdered by an irate swan or be found in the bulrushes by Pharaoh’s daughter and change the course of history.
Cyril stood up and waddled over to the bank side of the
boat, as if preparing to abandon ship.
There is nothing more helpful than shouted instructions, particularly incomprehensible ones.
But in a chaotic system, anything from a cat to a cart to
a cold could be significant, and every point was a crisis point.
It was no wonder Baine had taken to pet-drowning in his spare time. Clearly justifiable homicide.
The Victorian interior decorating motto was apparently “No stone uncovered.”
“No use worrying about things that didn’t happen,”
It had been put into a box in Schrödinger’s thought experiment, along with a doomsday device:
And he seemed to do variations on a theme—a low rumble, like distant thunder, a snore, an odd whuffling sound which ruffled his jowls, a snort, a snuffle, a wheeze.
One has not lived until one
has carried a sixty-pound dog down a sweeping flight of stairs at half-past V in the morning.
“Eating vile, unspeakable things,” I said.
