Chapter 5

Shell was as good as her word, proposing the idea to the brass and faithfully promising to chaperone Titus on horseback. With the lure of returning to the saddle before him, Titus tolerated all the silly physical and cognitive tests he had to go through. He plodded on futuristic treadmills, submitted to needles and tubes, and allowed nurses to tape bits of metal to his chest. He was learning to sort out what had to be understood in this new era from what could be safely ignored. And all this difficult medical and time-travel stuff was absolutely in the “pass” column.

It was with unspeakable delight that Titus walked with Lash and Dr. Trask to the stable for the first time. The day was muggy and grey, pregnant with rain, but to Titus the sky was blue. “Who are these people that Shell rides with?”

“It’s a therapy group,” Lash said. “Handicapped children find it empowering to work with animals.”

“With some of them frankly it’s hard to see any result,” Dr. Trask said. “But Shell says Miranda loves it, so somebody is doing something right.”

“Miranda...” Titus racked his memory. “Do I know a Miranda?”

“You’ve never met her,” Lash said patiently, “but surely you’ve heard Shell speak of her daughter.”

Titus caught his mouth from dropping open. “Daughter? Shell is married?”

“Well no, not at the moment. I believe the divorce was in ‘40. Miranda must be eight years old now.”

“A divorcee...” Titus tried to speak casually. Why, the poor creature! Only a blackguard would subject a woman to divorce proceedings. “I’ve never met a divorcee before.”

Lash smiled. “You’ll find that it’s a far more common state these days than it was in your time. I’m on my second marriage myself. And what are you up to, Sabrina?”

“Lordy, I don’t keep count.” Dr. Trask pretended to think. “Must be three or four now at least.”

Deprived of speech, Titus concentrated on keeping his pace steady. What kind of world was this, with everyone round him a product of immoral miscegenation and depraved unions? Then it came to him — could it be that his instinctive tut-tuttery had an element of envy about it? He had never married, hadn’t even seen a female after November 29, 1910 when the expedition departed for the southern continent. And all this time, if one could think of time in that way, the natives of the 21^st century had been leaping like spawning salmon in and out of each other’s arms. It seemed horribly unfair, yet still repulsive — attractive but something he didn’t want to probe.

Thank Heaven, at this moment he didn’t have to. From the large building they were walking past came a most delightful odour of horse manure. Titus sniffed, grinning so widely his cheek muscles hurt. “Wonderful!”

“This is where the real cultural gap comes in for me,” Lash said, blowing his nose. “To me, that is a stench.”

“You’re a city boy, Kev,” Dr. Trask said. “There must be millions of rural people who aren’t bothered.”

“Well, it’s no rose garden,” Titus conceded magnanimously. “Come along, step lively then — where’s the door into this place?” Only the smell spoke of animals; the structure was otherwise utterly unstable-like, a city building like every other on the street.

Dr. Trask pointed. “There’s a courtyard on the Central Park side where they tack up and load the kids on.”

She directed them round the corner and through a gateway into a yard paved with grimy and much-patched concrete, and milling with people and horses. Shell came pushing through to them, towing a chunky child with long dark pigtails sticking out from under her black-velvet helmet. “This is Miranda,” she said. “Miranda, this is Titus.”

It was Shell’s clear enunciation that warned Titus. He looked warily down into the child’s round stolid face. Her gaze was averted, the sloe-black eyes fixed on some point over his left shoulder. Definitely there was something wrong with the child, and he remembered they described this group as handicapped. He nearly blurted something tactless like, “What’s wrong with her?” But thankfully he caught the words back in time. After a pause that felt an hour long he resorted to the safety of convention: “How do you do, Miranda?”

He held out his hand, and after a prompting nudge from Shell the child responded. Her hand was damp and clammy in his large strong one. “Do you feel up to joining us, Titus?” Shell asked.

“Of course. I only wish I had proper boots.” He stared enviously at Shell’s tall brown-leather boots. His own brogans laced on firmly and had heels adequate for stirrups, but that was all that could be said for them.

“Later,” Dr. Lash said. “They’ll authorize the expenditure if you do all right today.”

“I shall.”

“You’re not going to gallop off by yourself into the sunset,” Dr. Trask said. “You’re going to let Shell hold onto your leash or rein or whatever you call it. Right, Shell?”

“We’ll pony along, I promise.”

“We shall not! I absolutely will not be ponied!” On this Titus knew he was on firm ground. “I’m a cavalry officer, captain in a crack dragoon regiment. I’ve been a dab at riding since I was a boy! And, unless I’m very much mistaken indeed, your mounts are going to be screws and hacks, with no more spirit than dishwater!”

Dr. Trask’s sunny smile evaporated. “If you break your nice new limbs, Titus, I’ll strangle what’s left of you.”

“Not on your first horseback outing, Titus, please!” Dr. Lash pleaded. “Of course you know all about it. But you’re still not fully recovered!”

“Well, I have a perfect solution,” Shell said with pardonable pride. “We’re short one adult, and some of these children really do need close supervision. So my idea is, Titus will lead Miranda. Or Miranda will lead Titus, depending on how you want to think about it.”

“I’ll take good care of her,” Titus said quickly.

“You’ll take good care of him, won’t you, Miranda?” Dr. Trask bent to address Miranda face to face, and to Titus’s annoyance the child nodded solemnly.

“Can she really manage such a big responsibility?” Dr. Lash fretted. “Both her own horse and his? Supposing one of them runs away?”

“I can manage my own mount,” Titus snapped.

“Don’t worry,” Shell said. “I’m afraid Titus is right. The mounts they use for this class are the slowest, safest, tamest horses in the stable. There’s no question of running away — in fact the problem usually is keeping them moving.”

“Thank God nobody I know will see me,” Titus couldn’t help exclaiming.

His cri de coeur went unheard as the horses were led out. Titus silently assessed the beasts as old and tired, with all the fire of a rocking horse, undeniably safe for children and cripples. And coloured browbands were vulgar — horse furniture should never be anything but severe!

“I’ve spent too many years in New York,” Dr. Trask remarked, retreating. “These things are too big, and too animal, and not sanitary. They smell! And they had better be safe, Shell.”

“Don’t be such a noodge, Sabrina,” Shell said. “I’m on it.” She checked the fastening on Miranda’s riding helmet, and passed a larger white plastic one to Titus. He put it on — it was obviously the mode, since every rider here wore similar headgear. The unfamiliar plastic chin clasp utterly defeated him however, and Dr. Trask had to fasten it for him.

Shell gave the waist of her daughter’s riding breeches a final tug. “All right, darling, ups-a-daisy.” The stable hand led an ancient pinto pony up.

“Allow me.” Titus held the bridle while Miranda stepped up onto the mounting block and from there into the saddle. Not a sidesaddle, he noticed — ladies rarely rode astride in his day. The pony was a riding-school job if he ever saw one, as much of a crock as the Siberian ponies they’d used in Antarctica: bony, sleepy, and old as Methuselah. Titus patted its lank neck. “What a beauty you are,” he told it — a bald lie, and yet the truth of his heart.

Miranda spoke so suddenly and loudly it made him jump. Her voice was unchildlike, deep and hoarse and toneless. “Like him.”

“Er, yes. Yes I do. I love horses.”

Shell said, “Here you go, Titus. Do you need the block?”

For answer Titus swung straight up onto the back of his mount, a tall overweight bay gelding nearly asleep on its hooves. When he took the reins in his hands the thrill of the creature’s mouth on the bit ran all the way up his arms. Automatically he settled into the saddle, checking the length of his stirrups and arranging the reins through his fingers. The gelding noticed it had a no-nonsense rider up, and chirked up a bit. “Acquit yourself well and you shall have a piece of bread,” Titus told the beast — he had pocketed a piece from breakfast for precisely this purpose. Unfathomably, sugar bowls were no longer filled with cubes, but with sugar in paper packets unsuitable for feeding to horses.

Only then did he notice Shell, in company with a number of the other stable people, watching him closely. He would have done the same if he were lending a horse to an unknown rider, so he suppressed his irritation. They certainly had no loophole for criticism. He knew without false modesty that his seat and posture were beyond reproach, that every line of his back and movement of his fingers exhibited complete mastery. He grinned down at them with sardonic joy. “Should you like an all-round view?” A curvet or levade was as beyond this sausage as winged flight, but he was able to nudge the beast into motion and use reins and leg aids to spin round in a tight figure-eight. Everyone looked surprised, not excluding the horse, and Shell shot a triumphant smile at Dr. Trask.

The knowledge rose into his head like wine, that it was in his power to collect this beast, awaken its interest, and gallop away. His personal proverb was that a man and a horse can go anywhere. Liberty and power were his, as long as he was on horseback! Before he could act, Shell clipped a lead rope onto his mount’s bridle. “We’re always careful until we’re across the street and safe on the trail.”

This common sense brought him back to earth. He had a job to do. These children had to have a safe ride. He thought of the surging city traffic, the taxis and cars barreling heedlessly along, and knew this was no small responsibility. Every child was in the charge of an adult, either mounted or walking alongside. Shell herself was up on a fat pony and leading another. One of the stable people stepped out into the street to hold the cars back for them to cross. Dr. Trask waved — Lash was sneezing into a tissue — and Titus replied with a cavalry officer’s salute. The horses walked in a sedate line past the waiting traffic, their heads nodding sleepily with each stride.

Then peril was past, and they were safe in the park. In a long file, two and two, they walked along the riding trail. Tall on his tall horse, Titus had to duck his head under the occasional low branch, but the children had no difficulty. It was the tamest ride imaginable, and it filled his heart with joy. Merely being on a horse was enough to make his troubles fall away. When Shell looked over her shoulder at him he grinned and waved.

The trail looped back far too soon. “Can’t we go further?” he called to Shell.

“Not today, sorry.”

“Tomorrow,” Miranda asked loudly, startling him.

“We’ll see. You have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow, sweetie.”

“Want tomorrow,” she insisted.

“I also,” Titus chimed in, quickly aligning himself with this new ally.

The child looked at him, expressionless. “We both ride,” she announced.

Harassed but laughing, Shell said, “I’ll find out if there’s horses free, all right?”

“Ah! That gives me time to get some proper riding gear,” Titus said.

oOo

He felt quite the old hand that afternoon in the taxi, carefully not touching the handles and latches but pressing the button to extrude his seat belt. Then he noticed the empty front seat. “Bloody hell! Where’s the driver?”

“An autopilot, dear fellow.”

“Is that safe? In all this traffic?”

“As houses — would you like to hear how it works?” Titus nodded, relaxing onto the plastic seat with an effort of will. It must be safe — now that he came to notice it, many of the vehicles on the road were unmanned! Lash obligingly discoursed on the automated highway system, human versus driverless taxi metering, and modern traffic management, all the way to the riding-tack shop.

Once inside, Titus took charge. “Black calfskin, English style, nineteen inches in the leg...” He examined the riding boots on offer, rejecting one after the other as too shoddy or of repellent design.

Lash peered at a price tag and flinched. “Perhaps Manhattan is not the place to buy this sort of gear.”

Money had never made a habit of sticking to his hands, and it was astonishing now how the purchases mounted up — boots, riding breeches, boot-trees and polish, socks, a proper helmet, a hacking jacket, all the little oddments that one simply had to have. Lash called a halt before he began choosing his own saddle. “We can’t afford any more, Titus. I’m on a very tight budget! And this may just be a passing hobby for you. You may become drawn into other activities.”

“More up-to-date ones, you mean? No Lash, I believe you’re mistaken. I’ve always ridden, always will. If I have to, I’ll sign on as an equestrian nanny for handicapped children, and pony tots through the park for the rest of my life.”

The picture made Lash wring his hands. “Only the other day you were talking about going to Tau Ceti with the Fortie Expedition! Titus, I cannot believe you’d be content for the rest of your life with Central Park.”

Titus couldn’t either. For a moment his mind’s eye saw the endless white vistas of the Antarctic, a wilderness unvisited by man — except for those confounded Norskies — stretching bleakly towards every horizon. After this, would any tame citified existence suffice him?

The clerk helped them to carry all the parcels out and load them into the vehicle. Titus noticed that Lash paid no fare, but merely passed his hand across a glassy panel. He’d have to practice and master the nuances of this chip system. But there were no directions posted in the interior of the vehicle, nor for that matter on the pillar-box water fountains. Perhaps everyone picked up this knowledge in childhood, the way one learned to manage doorknobs and commodes. And how did one hail a driverless taxi?

Titus was still musing on this when the taxi halted at the corner in front of the TTD building. A porter with a rolling cart came out to help with the parcels. Signaled in the same way that Lash had hailed the taxi? It was dashed uncanny, how rapidly people communicated in this era. As they fussed with the load Titus considered the water fountain at the kerb. Perhaps a bit of practice? He lounged over and casually passed his wrist in front of the thing. Nothing. Perhaps this was the wrong side. Round to the other blank white face of the structure, and again. This time the hatch dropped open as it ought.

“Aagh!” Just at that moment a passing woman dropped her bag, one of many piled in her arms. Bits of feminine paraphernalia spilled tinkling across the pavement. Titus’s reaction went far deeper than thought — pretty young women in distress always received assistance. Abandoning other concerns, he stepped up to help.

In the instant he turned away from the water fountain, it burped or coughed. Something, a projectile or a dart, shot out from the hatch and passed under Titus’s elbow, bowling a passerby beyond him right over. All that Titus saw was that an older gentleman fell over with a cry of pain.

“Get him inside!” Lash cried. Titus moved to give the sufferer a hand and was astounded when Lash and the porter grabbed him instead, haling him right through the glass doors and into the TTD lobby.

“Wow, those Doomsters don’t quit!” the porter marveled. “I’ve buzzed security, doc. Maybe you want to get him upstairs.”

“What the hell?” Titus dug in his heels as Lash tried to cram him into the elevator.

Lash had become noticeably rattled, almost grey with it. “I’m sorry, Titus, but we must get up to safety!”

“Safety?” Something important was happening. Delay was his only chance of seeing the fun. “If you think I’m abandoning my boots — “

“They’re not important, Titus!”

“You were complaining they cost the bloody earth.”

“That’s true,” Lash moaned. “All right, I’ll be right back — stay here!”

As Lash darted out again Titus took refuge behind a large potted palm. The scene was plainly visible through the glass doors. Blue-clad officials had sprung up as if from sown dragon’s teeth, clustering around the water fountain. A contingent of white-coats were carrying the fallen man away on a stretcher. Lash was drawn into the maelstrom to argue with an official about the parcels. The woman with the bag had burst into tears. It was all entirely mysterious. Titus could make nothing of what the excitement was about.

“What are you doing here?” Dr. Trask peered indignantly through the palm fronds. “How come you aren’t safe upstairs? Kev buzzed me — where is he?” Without pausing for an answer she grabbed his shirt sleeve and tugged.

Titus sat down on the broad edge of the plant pot. Was he a spaniel, to be hauled hither and yon by the scruff? “You’re just the person I wanted to see, doctor,” he lied unblushingly. “What’s all the hubbub out there?”

“Shell, help — we’re in the lobby! Titus, it has nothing to do with you personally, okay? We’re delighted to have you, we adore the idea of learning more about you. These people are a misguided fringe element, so full of it their eyes are brown.”

Titus passed over everything he couldn’t understand. “Do you know, it sounded just there like you were praying aloud to Shell,” he remarked, idly crossing his legs. “What was it really?”

With an air of teeth-clenching patience Dr. Trask held out her machine. “We’re linked, okay?”

“Explain some more. What is linked?”

Before the steam could actually start pouring from Dr. Trask’s ears, Shell came barreling through the plaza-side door. “There’s no place to sit in this lobby,” she greeted them without the slightest preamble. “I don’t think it’s fair, Titus, that you have the only possible perch. My feet hurt. Let’s go have some tea — the books say that afternoon is the time for tea.”

Titus was almost but not quite certain that she was joking, and the doubt brought him slowly to his feet. “You poor benighted nation of heathens! You know of tea-time only from books?”

“There was a lovely cookbook about the institution of afternoon tea published ten years ago, and Kev loaded it into the kitchen program,” Shell replied. “Let’s go see how well it works — there’s muffins and something called sugar scones.”

“If this is the device in charge of the cat-lap I get for breakfast, I can’t be optimistic.”

“You can tell us exactly what’s wrong with it,” Shell promised, shepherding him along.

“I’m hungry too.” Dr. Trask leaned on the elevator button, almost dancing with impatience. “C’mon, Titus, please!”

Titus eyed the two jittering medicos with the gravest suspicion. He detested the managing sort of woman. But on the other hand he was pretty peckish, and it went against the grain to resist any overt appeal from a female, and the activity out on the sidewalk was not going to become any clearer from here. “Tea, from books,” he said with disgust. “And you two are going to tell me what’s going on out there, over and over again if necessary, until I understand it.”

“Yes, yes, anything!”

The elevator doors parted and he let them usher him in. Both doctors sagged with relief as the doors slid shut. “Well?”

Dr. Trask stared appealingly at Shell, who took a deep breath. “Titus, this is just an idea we’ve got. But it could be that someone’s just tried to off you. Dammit — eliminate. Ace. Rub out. Murder. Kill.”

“Me?” His mouth open, he stared at her until the doors slid open and the mechanical voice announced their floor.

“Food,” Dr. Trask said firmly, and Shell nodded agreement. Stunned, he trailed after them down the hallway, past his own small room and the offices beyond. Round a final corner, the hall opened out into a sort of common area. Big windows let in a flood of cheery light and gave a fine vista over the rooftops. They sat down at one end of a long table, where an eclectic selection of crockery was laid out. Titus automatically held a chair for Shell, who suggested, “That’s nice, Titus, but you don’t have to keep doing that.”

“ — not us,” Dr. Trask was saying. “Honestly, I don’t understand these people. Yahoos! They don’t have any grasp of the scientific method, is the problem. The idea that you propose a hypothesis and then discuss the pros and cons is just alien to them — “

“Take this, Sabrina,” Shell interrupted, taking platters and plates from a hatch. “Titus, show us how it’s done.”

Mechanically Titus took the china pitcher which was doing duty for a teapot. He added milk and sugar to a teacup, and poured. “Been stewing far too long, and made with water that’s come off the boil,” he said. “And why the devil should anybody want to murder me? I haven’t been here long enough to mortally offend anyone.”

When Dr. Trask took a tiny sip of the bitter brew her eyes grew round as a doll’s. “Kev said he explained this to you, about the big danger of time travel.”

He took two muffins and a scone. “Danger? No, he didn’t think to mention it, the skiver. What danger?”

“Not for you. For us.” Her mouth stretched wide as Shell took a bite of her muffin. “We had to be careful changing the past, because the past is the foundation for the present. We didn’t want to accidentally revise the world.”

“All our effort,” Dr. Trask grumbled. “Years of it. You can’t please some people.”

“Yes, there’s a bunch of folks who just wouldn’t believe time travel could be safely done,” Shell said. “And who still don’t believe it, even after you arrived here and everything was fine.”

“What was supposed to happen, is what I’d like to know,” Dr. Trask said. “Did they look for the universe to dissolve into electrons, or what?”

The effort to understand this made Titus’s head feel full and hot. “And their solution to the danger is to rid the cosmos of me.”

Shell helped herself to a second muffin with plump fingers, and tipped another onto his plate in a casual manner that must be American, because it certainly wasn’t what his nanny had inculcated into him. “Doesn’t it just drive you nuts?”

“That’s not precisely how I’d put it. But I do have rather a personal view!”

“Those people are a minority,” Dr. Trask assured him. “A tiny bunch of malcontents. Interstellar travel is kind of dicey in the polls, but rescuing Captain Lawrence ‘Titus’ Oates has a ninety-four percent approval rate. You’re our poster boy, if you know what that is.”

Titus did not, but he grasped that a poster boy might draw unfriendly fire. He downed the revolting tea at a gulp and poured himself another cup. He wasn’t precisely nervous, but there was a cold prickle on the nape of his neck. He had to combat the impulse to shift his chair so that his back could be in the corner. “It doesn’t matter if it’s a mucking thousandth of a percent. All it takes is one sniper with a rifle. Was there someone watching for me to approach that water fountain?”

“The police will tell us all about it,” Dr. Trask said. “But I’ll bet it was keyed to your chip.”

“The chip? Jesus bleeding Christ! Are you going to remove it?”

“Wouldn’t help — it’d better to nail the bastards.” Shell patted his clenched hand. “Look, Titus, don’t brood too much, all right? It’s scary at the moment, and we’ll have to be careful, but the Doomster movement has no foundation. You jerked the rug out from under them, just by appearing here safe and sound a year and a half ago. They’re desperate, at their wits’ end — on a par with the millennialists who were stocking up on beef jerky and dried lentils fifty years ago.”

“At some point the last remnant will wake up and realize that the universe is fine, and then it’ll be all over,” Dr. Trask said soothingly.

“Of all the yellow-bellied capers — at least when the Boers shot at me I could shoot back! Cowards like that shouldn’t be given an inch.” Anger was better than fear. Titus set his cup down with a clatter and scowled at Shell. “You’d set it up for riding tomorrow, hadn’t you? Don’t dare alter a thing.”

“Bad idea,” Dr. Trask protested. “Not the very next day, come on! At least keep a low profile for a little while!”

“Absolutely not. Besides, Miranda would be sadly disappointed.” He watched Shell, gauging the effect of his words.

To his relief she shook her head at Dr. Trask and sighed. “It’s probably safer tomorrow than any other time, Sabrina. The police will be breathing down the Doomsters’ necks for days. They won’t dare try again.”

Copyright © 2008 Brenda W. Clough