Read Online The Time Travel Chronicles by Robert J. Sawyer, Stefan Bolz, Ann Christy, Samuel Peralta, Rysa Walker, Lucas Bale, Anthony Vicino, Ernie Lindsey, Carol Davis, Tracy Banghart, Michael Holden, Daniel Arthur Smith, Ernie Luis, Erik Wecks - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Robert J. Sawyer, Stefan Bolz, Ann Christy, Samuel Peralta, Rysa Walker, Lucas Bale, Anthony Vicino, Ernie Lindsey, Carol Davis, Tracy Banghart, Michael Holden, Daniel Arthur Smith, Ernie Luis, Erik Wecks
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road.
Instead, we jumped in near a tavern and booked rooms at the inn in Little Rest. That village will morph into Kingston in a few decades, then South Kingston, with two or three other mergers and name changes along the way until the whole area is gobbled up into the Greater Boston district of the EC in the 2200s.
Katherine sniffs the air. “How can they not tell that’s smoke?”
I wish she’d go back to being too shy to ask questions. “It’s only a faint trace. Could you pick it out, if you didn’t know?”
By this time tomorrow, the sky will be nearly black. The residents of Little Rest are already edgy from the strange weather, but tomorrow it will tip to full-fledged panic. They have no way of knowing the darkened sky is due to low-lying clouds combined with smoke from a massive forest fire in an uninhabited region of Ontario. Scientists won’t figure it out for over two centuries. In this era, people simply flail about and search for some way to appease their gods.
Their reactions don’t interest me, although I’m a little curious about what Jemima thinks. Does she really believe in prophecy? Or is she the clever con artist her enemies depict?
The girl’s voice breaks into my thoughts. Dear God, she’s actually reciting the poem .
“ 'Twas on a May-day of the far old year
Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell
Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring
Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon,
A horror of great darkness, like the night
In day of which the Norland sagas tell,
The Twilight of the Gods.”
Katherine grins when she reaches the end of the stanza. “And we get to see it! To be here right in the middle of it, when people are rushing about worried that it’s the end of the world. Even Whittier didn’t have that advantage. He had to write his poem based on someone else’s account.”
She ignores my eye-roll and skips ahead a few steps, then turns back to face me. “Laugh all you want. It’s my first apocalypse, Saul Rand. And yes, I know being excited is the hallmark of a time travel virgin, but I’d rather be young and eager than a jaded old man.”
When I don’t respond, she arches an eyebrow and says, “What? Hast the cat thy tongue?”
Truth be told, I’m pissed off at the old man remark, but I’m certainly not going to admit that. “No. I’m still back on the bit about you being a virgin.”
Her blush comes rushing back.
And that means I win.
∞
The servant, a middle-aged black man, slides the silver tray onto the low table in front of us. The two glasses are filled with a pale, cloudy liquid. “The Friend begs thy pardon, John Franklin, and that of thy wife. Susannah is still restless and the Friend does not wish to leave her side. She hopes to speak with thee soon.”
“Thank you, Caesar.”
We’ve been waiting here for an hour already. I have no doubt the delay is connected more to Jemima’s sense of self-importance than to Susannah’s illness.
Once we’re alone, Katherine whispers, “He’s very direct, even for a Quaker slave. He used your name—well, your cover name—without any sort of title. The same for Potter’s daughter, Susannah. And wasn’t Caesar one of the names on the manumission documents?”
“Could be.”
“If he’s free, why is he still here?”
I shrug. “Maybe he didn’t have anywhere to go.”
A brief silence and then she speaks up again. “Susannah, the daughter who dies tomorrow. What’s wrong with her?”
“Typhoid, most likely.”
I sincerely hope that guess is right, otherwise the wide-spectrum antibiotic I’ve brought with me won’t do much good. Even then, there’s a chance that “The Friend” will resist, or do something else to botch this test as badly as she botched predicting when the sky would go dark. It’s looking more and more like this jump will be a colossal waste of effort.
Katherine is looking at me oddly
Instead, we jumped in near a tavern and booked rooms at the inn in Little Rest. That village will morph into Kingston in a few decades, then South Kingston, with two or three other mergers and name changes along the way until the whole area is gobbled up into the Greater Boston district of the EC in the 2200s.
Katherine sniffs the air. “How can they not tell that’s smoke?”
I wish she’d go back to being too shy to ask questions. “It’s only a faint trace. Could you pick it out, if you didn’t know?”
By this time tomorrow, the sky will be nearly black. The residents of Little Rest are already edgy from the strange weather, but tomorrow it will tip to full-fledged panic. They have no way of knowing the darkened sky is due to low-lying clouds combined with smoke from a massive forest fire in an uninhabited region of Ontario. Scientists won’t figure it out for over two centuries. In this era, people simply flail about and search for some way to appease their gods.
Their reactions don’t interest me, although I’m a little curious about what Jemima thinks. Does she really believe in prophecy? Or is she the clever con artist her enemies depict?
The girl’s voice breaks into my thoughts. Dear God, she’s actually reciting the poem .
“ 'Twas on a May-day of the far old year
Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell
Over the bloom and sweet life of the Spring
Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon,
A horror of great darkness, like the night
In day of which the Norland sagas tell,
The Twilight of the Gods.”
Katherine grins when she reaches the end of the stanza. “And we get to see it! To be here right in the middle of it, when people are rushing about worried that it’s the end of the world. Even Whittier didn’t have that advantage. He had to write his poem based on someone else’s account.”
She ignores my eye-roll and skips ahead a few steps, then turns back to face me. “Laugh all you want. It’s my first apocalypse, Saul Rand. And yes, I know being excited is the hallmark of a time travel virgin, but I’d rather be young and eager than a jaded old man.”
When I don’t respond, she arches an eyebrow and says, “What? Hast the cat thy tongue?”
Truth be told, I’m pissed off at the old man remark, but I’m certainly not going to admit that. “No. I’m still back on the bit about you being a virgin.”
Her blush comes rushing back.
And that means I win.
∞
The servant, a middle-aged black man, slides the silver tray onto the low table in front of us. The two glasses are filled with a pale, cloudy liquid. “The Friend begs thy pardon, John Franklin, and that of thy wife. Susannah is still restless and the Friend does not wish to leave her side. She hopes to speak with thee soon.”
“Thank you, Caesar.”
We’ve been waiting here for an hour already. I have no doubt the delay is connected more to Jemima’s sense of self-importance than to Susannah’s illness.
Once we’re alone, Katherine whispers, “He’s very direct, even for a Quaker slave. He used your name—well, your cover name—without any sort of title. The same for Potter’s daughter, Susannah. And wasn’t Caesar one of the names on the manumission documents?”
“Could be.”
“If he’s free, why is he still here?”
I shrug. “Maybe he didn’t have anywhere to go.”
A brief silence and then she speaks up again. “Susannah, the daughter who dies tomorrow. What’s wrong with her?”
“Typhoid, most likely.”
I sincerely hope that guess is right, otherwise the wide-spectrum antibiotic I’ve brought with me won’t do much good. Even then, there’s a chance that “The Friend” will resist, or do something else to botch this test as badly as she botched predicting when the sky would go dark. It’s looking more and more like this jump will be a colossal waste of effort.
Katherine is looking at me oddly
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