systems.”
Dabney nodded. “December weather in Virginia is unpredictable. The previous winter had been a brutally severe one, and the one we’re going into is believed to have been not much better. And we’re arriving just after dawn.” Nesbit looked alarmed and hastily put on his gloves. They all mounted the stage, while Rutherford and Chantal turned and walked toward the transparent-walled mezzanine that overlooked the control center. Then they waited, as the countdown crept toward zero and a harshly buzzing rumble of power transmission could be heard as the great antimatter reactor prepared to provide a prodigious energy surge.
But when it came, temporal displacement provided no spectacular “special effects” from the standpoint of the time travelers. It wasn’t even a matter of the interior of the dome being instantly replaced by a new setting. Instead, in a timeless instant, the dome was gone without them having any recollection of it going, as though it was a dream from which they had awakened, rapidly receding from memory, leaving them with the usual bewildering adjustment that accompanies awakening from a very believable dream.
In this case, though, the transition was sharper than most, for the first thing of which they were clearly aware was the chill that abruptly bit into them through their heavy uniforms and the long underwear beneath. That, and the fact that they were all experienced—even Dabney and Nesbit had been through this once before—enabled them to recover their equilibrium more quickly than usual. After only a few moments of disorientation, they were able to look about them at the scene revealed by the sun that was only just clearing the eastern horizon and laying a molten trail on the James River as it flowed toward Hampton Roads and the sea.
The young day was actually a mild one, even for these latitudes; Jason estimated that it was in the upper thirties (although it seemed colder after their transition), and there was only a light frost on the ground, melting almost as fast as the sun’s rays touched it. But of course the leaves were long since off the deciduous trees; there were none of the glorious autumn colors that had clothed this land a couple of months before. As hoped, there was no one in sight, and they stood on a dirt road south of the James with the roofs of the suburb of Manchester visible to their left as they looked northward in the direction of the city.
“Let’s go,” said Jason as soon as he was sure everyone had recovered. “Before people start to get up and about.”
People were in fact stirring by the time they skirted the northern edge of Manchester, but no one paid them any attention; as Rutherford and Dabney had foreseen, Confederate uniforms were no novelty here. This was especially true around the field fortifications that guarded the Richmond & Danville Railroad. They passed a detail of gray and butternut clad infantry whose lieutenant saluted Jason. They drew a few quizzical-seeming glances from the men which caused Jason to worry if something unforeseen had gone wrong. Then he heard Dabney mutter something under his breath.
“We’re all simply too well-fed-looking,” the historian explained in an undertone. “By this point in the war, the South was starving. Malnutrition was becoming common in the army.”
“They do look like scarecrows, don’t they,” said Jason, glancing back at the men who had passed. “Well, there’s no help for it. If anybody asks, our regiment captured a Yankee supply train or something.”
Then they passed through a cut in the bluffs s and set out across the Mayo Bridge. To the north, across the river, the city stood spread out before them.
Rutherford sometimes took prospective time travelers on tours of their target locales in the twenty-fourth century. In this case there would have been no point. Richmond, after first being burned in 1865 and later swamped by urban bloat in the Great Crowding of the twentieth and
Dabney nodded. “December weather in Virginia is unpredictable. The previous winter had been a brutally severe one, and the one we’re going into is believed to have been not much better. And we’re arriving just after dawn.” Nesbit looked alarmed and hastily put on his gloves. They all mounted the stage, while Rutherford and Chantal turned and walked toward the transparent-walled mezzanine that overlooked the control center. Then they waited, as the countdown crept toward zero and a harshly buzzing rumble of power transmission could be heard as the great antimatter reactor prepared to provide a prodigious energy surge.
But when it came, temporal displacement provided no spectacular “special effects” from the standpoint of the time travelers. It wasn’t even a matter of the interior of the dome being instantly replaced by a new setting. Instead, in a timeless instant, the dome was gone without them having any recollection of it going, as though it was a dream from which they had awakened, rapidly receding from memory, leaving them with the usual bewildering adjustment that accompanies awakening from a very believable dream.
In this case, though, the transition was sharper than most, for the first thing of which they were clearly aware was the chill that abruptly bit into them through their heavy uniforms and the long underwear beneath. That, and the fact that they were all experienced—even Dabney and Nesbit had been through this once before—enabled them to recover their equilibrium more quickly than usual. After only a few moments of disorientation, they were able to look about them at the scene revealed by the sun that was only just clearing the eastern horizon and laying a molten trail on the James River as it flowed toward Hampton Roads and the sea.
The young day was actually a mild one, even for these latitudes; Jason estimated that it was in the upper thirties (although it seemed colder after their transition), and there was only a light frost on the ground, melting almost as fast as the sun’s rays touched it. But of course the leaves were long since off the deciduous trees; there were none of the glorious autumn colors that had clothed this land a couple of months before. As hoped, there was no one in sight, and they stood on a dirt road south of the James with the roofs of the suburb of Manchester visible to their left as they looked northward in the direction of the city.
“Let’s go,” said Jason as soon as he was sure everyone had recovered. “Before people start to get up and about.”
People were in fact stirring by the time they skirted the northern edge of Manchester, but no one paid them any attention; as Rutherford and Dabney had foreseen, Confederate uniforms were no novelty here. This was especially true around the field fortifications that guarded the Richmond & Danville Railroad. They passed a detail of gray and butternut clad infantry whose lieutenant saluted Jason. They drew a few quizzical-seeming glances from the men which caused Jason to worry if something unforeseen had gone wrong. Then he heard Dabney mutter something under his breath.
“We’re all simply too well-fed-looking,” the historian explained in an undertone. “By this point in the war, the South was starving. Malnutrition was becoming common in the army.”
“They do look like scarecrows, don’t they,” said Jason, glancing back at the men who had passed. “Well, there’s no help for it. If anybody asks, our regiment captured a Yankee supply train or something.”
Then they passed through a cut in the bluffs s and set out across the Mayo Bridge. To the north, across the river, the city stood spread out before them.
Rutherford sometimes took prospective time travelers on tours of their target locales in the twenty-fourth century. In this case there would have been no point. Richmond, after first being burned in 1865 and later swamped by urban bloat in the Great Crowding of the twentieth and
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