Andy took a grateful sip of Guinness, his brain whirling from the demo at Sun. With an effort, he dismissed its wonders, and tried to concentrate on the large man who sat across the table from him. The man he hoped would put him in touch with the rebels. He grinned.
“It’s great to see you, Pete. How are you and Karen liking it here?”
“We’re keeping busy.” Pete tossed back a gulp of his own brew and lounged back on the small, fragile pub chair. It squeaked in protest, and his blue eyes danced with amusement as he returned Andy’s grin. “Karen’s job seems all right, and I’m getting on with my profs well enough. It’s a good program at Queen’s. Too bad you decided to stay at Oxford.”
Andy shrugged. “Also a good program.” He leaned forward, too distracted to stick with small talk. “Listen, I’m afraid I don’t have much time. I’ll have to grab dinner to take with me. I hope I can spend more time with you later, but I’m wondering if you can help me with something.”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“I have a friend who needs treatment for an injury.” Andy kept his hands on the table, and lifted one finger in caution. “I need a doctor who is willing to go off the grid.”
Pete’s eyes flickered in momentary seriousness, then his relaxed public expression was back, and he raised his glass for another sip. “It’s harder here, than in Oxford,” he said, his voice soft, but still loud enough so that it didn’t look like they were talking in whispers. “Security’s tighter. The risks are greater.”
“Please, Pete.” Andy covered his anxiety in his lifted glass. “This is important. Can you point me to someone?”
“I’ll have to ask,” Pete said. “Ask around, that is. How urgent is this? Life-threatening? Minor?”
“I don’t know for certain.” Andy stared into the dark depths of Guinness. “It’s not minor, I’ll say that. It doesn’t seem to be life-threatening yet. But I’m worried it could be.”
“If I get back to you tomorrow, is that all right?”
Andy nodded.
Pete’s forehead creased. “I assume it’s someone in Belfast. Do I know him?”
Andy hesitated. “It might be best if I don’t say.”
“To me? Come on, Andy.”
“For your sake. And Karen’s.”
Pete stared at him. Andy met his gaze with a twitch of his brows and another swallow of Guinness. Then he shook his head and raised his hand to signal the waitress to bring Pete another glass. “Wait,” he told Pete, “there’s more. I’m just not sure how to phrase this.”
Pete shrugged. “Any way you want. I can take it.”
Andy smiled at that. “The doctor needs to treat her off the grid, as I said. But she needs a safe place to stay. She can’t go back to Oxford.”
Pete shook his head, but said nothing as the waitress dropped off his new glass, took the empty, and brushed a cloth over the still-clean tabletop.
When she left, Andy jumped in before Pete could speak. “She’ll more than make up for the trouble, I promise. She can run circles around any physicist you pit her against, and she wants to help. This is essential, Pete. She needs to be someplace safe. You know what I’m asking.”
“Christ’s balls, Andy.”
“You have to help me, mate.” Andy allowed his desperation to show. “I’ll muck around by myself on the streets trying to find a contact, if you don’t. I can’t just do nothing, and I won’t rest until she’s safe. You’re my best bet.”
Pete rubbed at a scratch on the table, his mouth pursed in thought. When he looked up, he was smiling again. Andy couldn’t tell if it was the public act, or if Pete was really amused about something.
“You’ve always dabbled,” Pete said. The smile remained in place, but his voice was serious. “You’re on our side, and you’ve helped when you could. But you’ve always put your career first, refusing to go too far or do too much for us. Now you’re even working for Sun, when you know they’re behind every miserable mess in the world.”
He lifted his glass and tilted it in Andy’s direction. “If you ask for this, mate, you’ll have to pay for it. The girl too, whoever she is, especially if she’s as smart as you say. But you,” he paused for a drink, “you will have to make a choice. Once and for all.”
Andy had no doubt about his answer. “I’m in, Pete.” He met Pete’s gaze with a firm expression. “My life for hers. Whatever it takes.”
“That’s good, Andy. Because there are things happening at Sun, and they’re right up your alley.” Pete leaned over the table. “Start by telling me what you’ve been hired to do.”
~~~
Moira moved the hairbrush in slow strokes, her movements timed to keep the pain in her stomach to a minimum. It felt best when she did not move at all, but she was determined to look decent when Andy returned. She had shuffled to the loo, managing a careful shower while avoiding the glaring bruise that covered her midsection. Now, freshly clothed in her own sweat shirt and pants, she sat tailor-fashion on the bed and attempted to bring order to hair tangled by wind, and sleeping on trains and hotel pillows.
When the brush at last flowed unimpeded through her hair, she set it on the bed next to her, and with slow, ginger movements, shifted until she was leaning against the headboard, with a pillow held over her stomach by upraised knees. She didn’t dare check the Feinberger to see if her activity had increased the rate of bleeding. More pain medication would be nice, but Andy had said there was just one dose left. Best wait to see if he was able to get more. She might have to ration out what they had.
Distraction, that’s what she needed. Her Pad was within reach, so after taking a slow breath, she pulled it to her, letting it lay on the upraised pillow. She brought up Andy’s Belfast data and put herself to work.
She’d only been at it a few minutes when the beep of the door lock sounded. Her pulse sped up despite her pain as Andy entered, a bag of food in his hand. Whatever happened, she was here with him. She would never have dared dreamed of such a possibility.
He smiled, not quite hiding his anxious expression. “Are you feeling better?” He placed the bag on the nightstand, but remained standing, watching her with suppressed tension. She couldn’t tell if he was excited or anxious. Perhaps both.
“A little,” she said, not quite sure if that were true. “I could use more pain meds, but wanted to make sure you found more.”
He nodded, his fingers brushing a soft flutter on her forehead. He searched her face with concern evident in his eyes.”I picked up a few doses, but try to eat something first. I brought you some soup and crackers.” He pulled containers from the bag, removing the paper lid from a cup and handing her the soup and a spoon. The comforting aroma of thyme-scented broth told her that she was hungry, and she ignored her sore muscles to hold the cup and take a sip. Her stomach protested, so she waited before trying any more. Best take her time.
Andy took his own cup to the little desk by the door, turning the chair so that he faced Moira. He stirred the soup with moody thoughtfulness, not eating. Moira watched him.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
He glanced up as if he’d forgotten she was there, then shook his head. “Not wrong, exactly,” he said. “I’m just worried about you.” He finally lifted the spoon to his mouth, and Moira took another cautious sip of hers.
“At Oxford,” he said, “I knew people with connections to the rebels. I had one or two dealings with them myself, but nothing very big. I thought I’d be able to connect with someone here, but their security is tighter than at Oxford.” His jaw tensed as he gazed at her, his face creased with worry.
“That makes sense,” Moira said. “Oxford is a peaceful hamlet of learning. Belfast has been a hotbed of rebellion for centuries. They take it seriously here, and they know what they’re doing.”
“That’s true,” Andy said. “And with Sun headquartered here, they have to be even more careful. But we’ve got to get you over to them before we’re caught.” He tapped his spoon against the cup rim. “I have two good friends who moved to Belfast a couple of years ago. They did some work with the rebels in Oxford, and I’m sure they’re doing the same thing here. I was hoping to not get them involved, but they’re the best ones to help us. So I contacted Pete.”
“I don’t want to get more people in trouble,” Moira said, but her heart wasn’t in it. Her stomach was a constant dull ache, and she felt weak and tired no matter how much she slept. The Feinberger’s advice was right. She needed medical treatment.
Andy was ready to take advantage of her ambivalence. “I’ll do whatever I need to, Moira. You need help. I thought I could take care of you, but I can’t. Not alone. It won’t take long for hotel security to realize you’re here. Another day, perhaps two.” He gave a decisive nod. “I’ve already talked with Pete. That won’t look suspicious, in fact, it would look odd if I didn’t contact him. We grew up in the same village, we’ve been friends all our lives. I stood up with him when he married Karen.”
“Don’t tell them about me.” Moira blinked back sudden tears. She was so bloody tired. “You can try to hint about the rebels, but don’t let on anything about me. Please.”
“I agree. I told him nothing about you other than that you needed a doctor and a safe place to stay.” He moved to her side and patted her shoulder. “They don’t need details about anything. Pete will talk to his leaders and get back to me tomorrow.”
Relief warred with Moira’s worry, but she managed a small smile. “That’s good. If you trust him, then I’m sure he’ll be careful.” She handed him her cup. “I’ll eat more in a little while. I think I’ll take some meds now.”
He traded her soup for a patch from the medkit. “Do you feel up to some more work?”
“Yes. What did you learn?”
He sat on the bed and reached for her Pad. “May I? I’ll have to recreate it from memory.”
She nodded and he took the Pad, calling up a blank screen. “I had to sign several confidentiality statements, and I couldn’t bring anything out with me. So if you’re ever questioned, you don’t know anything about this, right?”
“Ignorance is my middle name.”
He chuckled. “You wish. As it turns out, Sun has been tracking neutrino behavior world-wide. The only unusual activity has been right here, but there’s been more of it than you and I saw. They’ve been suppressing it, just as we suspected.”
“You mean there have been more wormholes?”
“Yes.” He worked while he talked, writing with urgent strokes. “Several, in fact, over the last three months. The origin seems to be outside our own universe.” He stopped and glanced up at her, his face solemn. “I know how farfetched that sounds. But the woman I worked with today, Dr. Warner, assures me it’s true. They aren’t giving me all the details, of course. But starting tomorrow, I’m going to work with someone who knows all about it. I’m supposed to assist him with part of the project.”
Moira realized she was holding her breath. “To do what?”
“Don’t know.” He flipped the Pad, holding it out to her. “Have a look at it. While you’re doing that, I’ll work on recreating the rest of what I saw today. It’s amazing stuff.”
It was amazing, and Moira lost herself as she analyzed it, forgetting about her pain, and even the combined awkwardness and forbidden thrill of being in a hotel room with Andy Green. He described more of what he’d seen, and all that Dr. Warner had told him. Moira stroked the data further with each new piece of information, watching the patterns.
After two hours, Andy stopped her. “You need to try and eat more, then rest. You can look at this tomorrow, while I’m at work.”
She nodded, but didn’t relinquish the Pad. “I will. But this is really weird, Andy.”
“You mean, besides the obvious weird?”
She heard the teasing lilt, but didn’t respond to it. She could hardly get enough breath to say what she thought the data revealed. “There’s no doubt it’s an Einstein Bridge. But ... I think something came through it.”
Andy stared at her in silent astonishment. She shook her head. “No, wait. I don’t mean something came through. I mean, someone. Two human beings crossed between universes. And they are here in Belfast. Somewhere.”
~~~
After leaving Andy, Pete drove a lazy route to a warehouse on a dark street. The warehouse was the home of a legitimate delivery business, which Pete was not interested in. In the cavernous central room, he settled in front of an isolated computer and scanned the chip Dinnie Warner had given him the night before.
Hours later, he was joined by a skinny Irish-Chinese fellow, who took one look at the holographic data, raised both eyebrows, and began pacing behind Pete’s chair.
A short time later, Pete sighed, and turned to face him. “Hell of a thing.”
“Is it legit?”
“I suspect so.”
“Can your friend help us?”
“This is his bloody field, Ned.” Pete rubbed the bridge of his nose. “He told me as much as he knew about what he would be doing at Sun. It’s definitely this project, but he didn’t seem to know anything about travelers.”
“What did you tell him to do?” Ned pulled a chair over to Pete’s desk and straddled it.
“His job, but to keep his eyes and ears open. To tell me everything he learns and anything he suspects.”
Ned nodded. “Good.”
“Should I tell him about Warner? They can work together.”
“No feckin’ way.” Ned pounded a fist on the table. “They’re both amateurs. They’d just get each other killed.” He stood to leave. “Make arrangements to pick up your friend’s girl tomorrow. You’re sure he’ll cooperate?”
“Andy keeps his word. You’ll see.”
“He’d better. That girl’s his collateral.”
~~~
Dinnie Warner slouched in her favorite chair, shivering in the cold air of her flat. It was possible that some of the shivering was a result of the computer chip she held. Another fecking chip. She turned the thing over and over with her fingers, as if keeping it in motion absolved her of any crime of possession.
It was from her brother, delivered all unwittingly by their mum, who was waiting with tea and sandwiches when Dinnie got home. “He stopped by for just twenty minutes,” her mum said in answer to Dinnie’s surprised questions. Dinnie stood by her tiny fridge in quiet resignation, as her mother finished scrubbing the cutting board with bicarbonate of soda. Her mum always cleaned the cutting board, no matter how often Dinnie insisted she never used it. “Said one of his unit mates was killed in a training accident, and he’d been assigned to pay the army’s respects to the lad’s family. He’s already left to go back.”
Mrs. Warner gave the cutting board a violent shove with the scrubbing wool, gouging a strip of wood off as she muttered something about “the almighty Sun army couldn’t even let a boy have dinner with his mum once they’d sent him to town.” Dinnie thought it wise to stay silent, and after a frustrated “pfft!” her mum continued. “He said to give you that wee box.” She jerked her chin at an old Tupperware container on the kitchen table. “Said you’d know what to do with it.”
An interminable hour later, her mum had finally gone home, and Dinnie sat with the box’s contents on her lap. A deck of cards, three old American coins, and a wee plastic decoder ring like they used to play with when they were kids. The chip had been in the ring’s secret compartment.
Dinnie turned it over and over, and tried to understand. To her knowledge, Billy Warner was a loyal minion in Sun’s occupational army, deployed to assist in operations at the Galway spaceport. The chip hinted at subterfuge. Dinnie admitted the thought frightened her.
No, she wasn’t shivering from the cold.
Moving quickly in case she might change her mind, she grabbed her Pad and shoved the chip into the port. For two slow seconds, nothing happened, then the screen lit up to display a document. Brows knitting together in confusion, Dinnie thumbed through the file. Cargo manifests. Page after page of them. What the hell?
But soon she began to see the pattern. The cargo was for the space station, delivered over a period of several months. This kind of thing conceivably fell within Billy’s job description. But each manifest was altered, and the original work order was displayed alongside it.
Dinnie no longer shivered, having passed into terrified numbness. Each manifest showed a small amount of explosive material, hidden among innocuous cargo, and deleted from the official record. Each original order carried the approval signature of Albert Feldman. The official record was revised to show the signature of Ned O’M ..., something that ended in a scribble.
Ned O’Malley, the infamous rebel leader? Why would Mr. Feldman smuggle explosives up to NISS using O’Malley’s name? It looked like a setup.
Did it have anything to do with Sam Altair?
Don’t be daft, she told herself. Why would it?
Perhaps the explosives were part of Sun’s planned defense in case of interdimensional invasion. But in that case, why smuggle them aboard? Albert Feldman did not need to explain himself. If he wanted explosives stored on the station, he had only to say so.
Yet here he was, smuggling, and framing someone else for the deed. And her own dear brother had evidently not been recruited heart and soul into Sun’s paradigm. He wanted her to do what he had no opportunity to do: give the information to the rebels.
Bloody hell.
She wasn’t excited about another conversation with Phil and Pitcher Bloke. She couldn’t tell them what the explosives meant, only that it was happening. Billy didn’t know about the complication of time travelers, of course, but she couldn’t shake the idea that the two things were related.
Dinnie’s neck itched with her jumpy nerves. She ejected the chip and hid it back in its ring, her mind chewing on the clues and questions she had. She would wait. Keep her eyes and ears open for a hint of whatever Feldman was up to. Tomorrow, Andy Green was supposed to start working with Sam Altair. She’d read up on Andy Green and was impressed. After meeting him, she was even more so. He could make neutrinos dance and sing if he wanted to.
Although she was sure that whatever Albert Feldman wanted from Sam Altair and Andy Green, dancing neutrinos were not part of it.