As they ran towards the barn, Cordelia wished she knew where the agents' STAR was hidden. That had to be a more potent model than her own. Having that would make recharging and probably many other things a lot easier. Getting away from here however was her main concern, and she felt a lead ball in her stomach over the fact that David was with her. And how had these agents found her?
"David, you should stay here," she said as they entered the barn, panting from the run. "This is not your problem, it's mine."
"No. Whatever your problem is, it's mine too. Tell me more."
"First we'll have to leave here, and I can't promise when you will see your family again..." Cordelia felt a thousand kinds of guilt wash over her.
"I don't care. You are more important to me."
She knew there was no more time to talk. The stunner-charge had worn off and the agents were probably heading this way. She opened the door to the STAR and they got in. Without another word, David sat down and held the straps.
"Norbert, we have to get out of here fast." The system came online fast. Thirty seconds later they were in the cellar in Newcastle and she shut down the systems. "I hope they didn't develop a way to trace STAR signatures through space," Cordelia told Norbert. "If they did, we're screwed."
She turned to David and told him what had happened back in Lexington just now. "These people were after me. I don't know how they tracked me down but they were there to pick me up and take me back to 2251, I'm sure of that. And all that because of an accident."
"That man who died by falling." David nodded, remembering the story.
"That one, indeed."
"He was important, wasn't he?"
"He owned the factory that makes the STAR units." Cordelia got up. "Let's hope they can't track us here." She wondered again how the agents had located her. They had probably just made a lucky guess. Unless...
"What are you thinking?" David had gotten up as well and he studied her face.
"I wonder how they found me. And maybe they just went back in time day after day and looked around Lexington. I told you I am from there. Perhaps they assumed I would stay close to there. They must have found my STAR's signature today. I wonder if there is a way to mask that, or to even hide it."
David looked puzzled. The handful of words she had said mostly to herself clearly didn't mean anything to him.
"Let's not worry about that. We should go upstairs and make ourselves comfortable." She wondered how to go about things if there was a message from the government that she was indeed needed to hide the Duke of Northumberland, and David was around...
~
"Do you feel hungry?" Cordelia asked. They had barely had a chance to eat at the picnic in Lexington.
"I don't want to make things difficult for you," David calmly said. He looked hopelessly out of place in her living room, wearing his rural American outfit. She knew that had to change as quickly as possible, but how? She hadn't planned to leave the house on Monday or Tuesday, as the Duke might require a safe place to stay for a while, but Grimwald & Wilson were closed today and Cordelia didn't have any clothes he could wear.
"With two agents from my past on my ass, things can't get much more difficult, sweetie," she said as she sat down next to him to think. "And to think I wanted to ask your parents for some coffee because I don't have any here. Hmm. I think I have an idea."
"For coffee?" David looked at her, his face more and more confused, as if he was catching up with the situation now.
"No. For food and something for you to wear. I'm really sorry, David, but you can't go out into the street dressed like that. But we can go to Manchester tomorrow, eat something after finding you some clothes, and come back here so we can wait for..." Cordelia hesitated. She hadn't told him about the whole government affair yet. "Okay, one thing at a time. I have to tell you something before we go..."
David listened and his surprise and confusion only increased, but Cordelia thought he was dealing well with everything she told him. "So you may have to take a nobleman from England and take him somewhere tomorrow or the day after."
"Indeed. And that is why we have to stay here for the next two days, in case my contact shows up with any news."
"But you said we would go to Manchester tomorrow."
"Ah, good, you listened, but you missed something, David. I said we can go to Manchester tomorrow. Because we won't go to Manchester tomorrow."
"But..."
"Poor David." Cordelia put an arm around him. "In the beginning, it's difficult to think like a time traveller. We'll be here tomorrow, right? So tomorrow we won't go to Manchester. But I have a STAR. We can go to Manchester tomorrow without the risk of running into ourselves there, which theoretically can be dangerous."
David worked hard to process that information. "But what you say means that we will be in Manchester tomorrow," he said. "Because people there will see us there tomorrow. Which is strange because..." He frowned and decided he would simply go with her and stop wracking his mind over those temporal inconsistencies.
"You just have to stop thinking about time in a linear way," Cordelia said. "Come, get up. We're going to Manchester. Well, I will first put on more local clothes and then we go to Manchester."
"Tomorrow," David said.
"The very tomorrow," Cordelia said. She bent down and kissed him on the cheek. "Won't be long..."
~
They were inside the STAR. David looked at the monitors and how Norbert displayed maps of old Manchester as Cordelia decided where they could arrive the next day. They had to hide the STAR in a convenient spot.
"That looks like a place," she said, pointing at a large object. "What do you know about that?"
"Nothing," said David who wasn't used to Cordelia's 'friend' Norbert.
"It is a good choice, Cordelia. It is an abandoned factory building which will get back in use in six months."
"Great. Looks like we have a landing spot. Sit down, sweetheart, and hold on. We're going to Manchester." Cordelia set the location coordinates and decided that arriving there just after one in the afternoon would be good. Most restaurants would be open, as would clothing stores. "And here we... Go."
The journey was quick. After arriving in the factory hall, Cordelia quickly shut down the STAR. It did make some sound while the systems were running and she didn't want curious people coming in to find out what caused that sound. She slipped a portable navigation module into her purse. The last thing she wanted was to get lost in Manchester and no safe way to find their way back here.
"This keeps amazing me," David said as they left the time-machine. He looked around at the junk that the previous owner of the factory had left behind.
"You'll get used to it. Now let's find a way to get out of here without attracting attention..."
The way out consisted of a dented, metal door that David pushed open with ease. They did attract a little attention as they walked into the street but Cordelia attributed that mostly to David's unlikely clothing. That was something she wanted fixed quickly. She asked a few times for directions, which helped them get to the main street where they found many shops.
"It looks so different from Lexington," David commented as they passed through the streets. "As if America still has a lot of catching up to do."
"It does, but it will do so quickly." Cordelia felt it was safe to tell him. He was with her now, ripped out of his normal life. He might as well learn as much as possible. You could never know when that would come in handy.
Cordelia selected one of the shops. "This one."
"This looks very expensive, Cordelia."
"It's not. We passed some that did. This is a decent shop, trust me." It pained her that she couldn't shop at Grimwald & Wilson's but she didn't want to jump through time in Newcastle, where they might walk around and be seen in two places at the same time. Cordelia didn't want to talk herself out of that one. She wanted to go in but David held her back.
"I don't feel this is correct," he said. "I don't want you to pay for my new clothing. It just isn't right."
Cordelia wanted to give him a piece of her mind but stopped her tongue just in time. He was raised like this. She took her purse and slipped the money she had in there in his hand. "Here. I guess you're right. This is so different for me as well as for you."
He stared at the money. "That is a lot."
"It's enough. Don't worry. Now come and let's go inside. People are staring." They weren't but Cordelia wanted this done so they could move around without him standing out the way he did now.
The shop-assistants were very helpful and did their best to find suitable clothing for David. Cordelia asked him to try on several suits and in the end they had two that she approved of. He was quite tall, which limited the options severely. The assistants offered them to wait a little so their tailor could make a perfect suit, but Cordelia really wanted her favourite tailors to do that.
David wore one of the new outfits. They arranged that the shop-assistants would keep the other suit and David's old clothing for them until they were done having lunch.
Lunch was nice and it didn't involve any fighting, for which they both were very grateful. After taking their time to eat and talk, they had a stroll through a nice part of Manchester where they avoided the sight of chimney stacks of factories and cotton-processing plants.
"I think we should go back home now," Cordelia said. They had been walking for a while already and she noticed that several shops were already closing. They still had to pick up David's other clothes. He agreed, so they made their way back to the clothing shop and from there they returned to the old factory. Cordelia was glad she had brought the navigation module; without it, she would have seriously gotten lost.
Cordelia couldn't help but smile when she saw David's face after returning to the STAR. She thought he looked like a happy little boy who had just been on a tremendous adventure. "Let's go back," she said. "Enough excitement for one day, don't you agree?"
"I agree. Your life is so different from mine," he said as he reached for the straps to hold on to.
"Usually it's not like this," she said. "And I'm grateful for that." She switched on the main systems and took them to her cellar the previous day.
~
"Such an amazing contraption..." David looked at the STAR's hull, which wasn't much to look at since it had never been finished. He ran his fingers over the smooth, white paint of what basically looked like a huge, metal shipping crate. "And you can operate it."
"And do small repairs," Cordelia added. "I could do larger repairs too, but there are no parts for it in this time-period, so I'm glad it's made well." That was a constant source of worry for her. A small one, but it was always around. "At some point I will teach you how to operate it as well. That would be a good thing."
David looked at her. "I would not be able to. There are too many..." he made his fingers fly, pretending to use a keyboard, "...too many things in there."
"Don't worry, my love. You'll learn. We have time." Cordelia stood close to him and felt good. Even though it had been a bad thing that she had dragged him away from his family, it felt good to her that she wasn't alone any more. That had been hard on her, those past three years. She did however worry about the two agents who had shown up in Lexington earlier that day. That might become a problem. For now they were safe, though.
They left the cellar. Cordelia wondered if he would like to have his own room so she asked him. "I have plenty of rooms if you want one," she said, "but you are welcome to share mine if you feel like that."
It didn't take long for them to assign a room as David's 'storage room'. He wouldn't need a separate bedroom.
"This is strange," David said as he studied a clock in the living room. "We were gone for many hours, and that time passed here as well. You told me you can return to any time you want, or did I misunderstand that?"
"You're very observant!" Cordelia felt good about that. She explained that she had brought them back to Newcastle in the evening. That way they had spent nearly as much time in Manchester as they would have here. "There is a reason for that. Suppose we were in Manchester for four hours, and we would live those same four hours here as well, then we'd be four hours older than we should be. And I know what you are going to say: it's only four hours. But what if you do that a few times per week? You'd be aging 2 more days per week, or a hundred days a year. That is over three months each year if you don't pay attention, and that way you would get old faster." It was something all students in the temporal field were told hundreds of times.
"I understand. Going one year back in time does not make you a year younger." David nodded. "Which makes sense. Otherwise you could not be here because you were born in the far future." He frowned. "No, that sounds wrong."
Cordelia laughed. "That is indeed wrong. I will have been born in the far future." She warned him not to think about that too much because it would only give him a headache. He asked what they would do the next day. "Tomorrow we wait for a messenger that may not come."
That was a part of her business she didn't like. Often she couldn't go out because someone could come to her door for a drop-off or pick-up. Like tomorrow. If Mr Barting showed up tomorrow, it was Duke-time.
"But that is tomorrow. We can do something much more interesting until then..." Cordelia took his hand and pulled him along. David didn't need much pulling.
~
The next morning they were out of bed far too early, Cordelia thought, but that was the risk of her unique occupation. There was no way of telling when someone like Mr Barting would show up, if he did at all.
To pass the time, she showed David around in her house. He was very interested in her library. He knew how to read and he was intrigued by the many strange books she showed him. They were books she had picked up in the relative future, often simple one-dollar paperbacks that wouldn't have a big impact on history.
After lunch, a very simple meal, Cordelia was fed up with sitting inside and waiting, so she and David went outside. They walked down the street and back to the front door of her house, just to have some fresh air.
"Do you think this man will come today?" David asked as they went inside again. "This is a boring occupation. Do you wait like this often?"
"Not often. Sometimes it's unavoidable, when a shipment is going to be delivered but the sender can't be certain when it comes." Cordelia had told him a few things about some of her 'clients'.
"I understand. When they have to be careful to arrive by avoiding attention of the police force." David nodded. "But that work puts you in danger as well, doesn't it?"
"You'd think so, but the messengers and delivery people are extremely careful to keep me out of the line of fire," Cordelia explained. "Because everyone knows they won't get their stuff back if they chase me off. And through the years I have put away lots of their stuff." She smiled. "No need to worry, David. You know, maybe we should go to the cellar, so I can show you a few things you should know about the STAR. Norbert will let us know if someone is at the door."
At that moment someone knocked on the door. The rhythm was Barting's and it sounded urgent.
"Oh no. Don't tell me it's showtime."