Courtney read the letter once, then twice. When she got through it a third time, she put it down and closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure if she should cry, or laugh. She had been beating herself up over what happened on Eelong for a long time. For years. After reading Gunny’s letter, she didn’t feel any better about Kasha having died, but she felt a little more secure in knowing the decisions they’d made were smart ones. Eelong was a very big victory and that helped to ease the pain a little. Maybe more than a little.
Once again it made her miss Mark.
According to Gunny’s letter, he felt that mixing the territories in some cases was okay. Eelong was proof of that. But he hadn’t seen the negative results of what could happen when the territories were mixed. The destinies of four territories had been altered, with the threat of more to come. She was happy for Eelong, but it didn’t take away her fear of what might be in store for Halla. As Bobby said many times, it wasn’t about winning battles, it was about winning the war. Eelong was a battle that was won. The war was far from over.
After leaving Courtney alone with her thoughts, Dodger cleared his throat. “Like I said, I know what’s going on.”
Courtney folded the note and gave it to him. He placed it back in the strongbox.
“You know a lot,” Courtney said. “Not everything.”
Courtney filled Dodger in on all she knew, starting with their lives on Second Earth before Bobby left home to become a Traveler. From there she filled in all the gaps of the story he wouldn’t know about, because Gunny didn’t know. She told Dodger about Denduron and Cloral, Lifelight on Veelox, the battle for Zadaa, the games of Quillan, and most important, the way Saint Dane had been a part of their lives as Andy Mitchell since they were little kids. She told him all about the Sci-Clops science club, and the Stansfield school where Saint Dane had turned himself into a boy that Courtney developed a crush on. It was a crush that nearly killed her. She finished by talking about the death of Mark’s parents, and about Forge technology that led to the creation of dados, the lifelike robots that had changed the course of history on Earth and on Quillan. Finally, Dodger read the letter from Patrick telling of Mark’s voyage on the Queen Mary, and his disappearance.
It was a lot easier to explain it all than Courtney thought it would be. Dodger had already accepted the concept of Halla and territories and the Travelers and, of course, Saint Dane. All she did was add to the story and bring it to where they now stood.
Dodger took it all in, then said, “So you want to find Mark and stop him from bringing this future gizmo into our time.”
“That,” Courtney said. “And save him from the danger he’s in. I believe Saint Dane’s plan for Second Earth started when we met Andy Mitchell back in kindergarten. It was all a devious plan to steer Mark into creating Forge, gain his trust, and get him to spring it on the other territories. Once that happens, I think Mark won’t be needed anymore and—”
Courtney didn’t finish the sentence. Dodger whistled in awe. “Does Saint Dane think that far ahead?”
“Time means nothing to him. He bounces back and forth between territories like we walk across the street. Saint Dane keeps talking about this thing called the Convergence. Bobby thinks that whatever it is, it’s the mother of all turning points. The turning point for Halla. By mixing the territories, Saint Dane is making sure it goes the way he wants it to. It’s not about individual territories anymore. Maybe it never was. He’s lining up the dominos. We’ve got to knock some of them out of line.”
Dodger stared at Courtney, wide eyed. “I liked it better when I thought you were from Pluto.”
Courtney grabbed a newspaper from the bed. She’d bought it when they got back to the hotel because of the big picture on the front page. It was a shot of a large ship docked in lower Manhattan.
“RMS Queen Mary,” Courtney said, staring at the picture. “Big ship.”
“The biggest,” Dodger added. “The hotel’s always lousy with passengers after they make a crossing. They say it’s the cat’s meow.”
“The what?”
“It’s a nice ship. Like a fancy, floating hotel.”
Courtney stared at the picture. “According to the database on Third Earth, Mark Dimond was on board when she sailed for England on November seventh. He never showed up in England.”
“And you think his body washed up in Jersey a few weeks later?”
“That’s what Patrick thinks. It makes sense.” She dropped the paper and paced, thinking out loud. “Mark filed his Forge technology application with the US Patent Office in October. He had a meeting scheduled with a company called ‘KEM Limited’ in London on November thirteenth and booked passage on the Queen Mary. He boarded the ship but never showed up at that meeting, and was never seen again. A few weeks later the body of a passenger in a tuxedo washed ashore in New Jersey with a spoon from the Queen Mary in his pocket. He was killed by a bullet. The body was never identified.”
“And nobody filed a missing-person report,” Dodger added.
“Because nobody knew Mark here. I think it all fits.”
“Except for one thing,” Dodger cautioned. “You’re saying all this like it’s history.” He picked up the paper and pointed to the headline. “It’s November second. The Queen Mary doesn’t sail for five days. None of that happened yet.”
“Exactly!” Courtney exclaimed. “On November seventh Mark is going to board that ship.”
“Unless we stop him.”
“Unless we stop him,” Courtney echoed.