“Drink something,” the cop says. He nudges a water bottle across the table toward me.
I wipe vomit from my face with a sleeve. The shirt reeks of smoke. I swish out my mouth with a swig of tepid water. There’s nowhere to spit, so I swallow.
“They recovered two bodies from what’s left of the warehouse,” the cop says. “We’re talking murder charges, not just arson.”
Past the memory storm, I almost don’t hear him. I say nothing.
“One was a big man, pretty clearly the renter, Dr. Gorski. You hated your boss that much, Bitner? To burn him alive?”
I didn’t hate Jonas, not that I intended to explain. Not that I will speak at all. Any word out of my mouth would make the next word easier.
This Jonas had died in an instant, but another Jonas was dying horribly of doomsday plague. Or would, or will, or already had. I’d seen the photo.
A miserable, repentant Jonas.
At the end he had seen that meddling with the timeline must stop. I was sure of it. Because Jonas could have jumped ahead, then sent a note to himself months before now. A simple note: Fire Peter. He’ll cause trouble.
He hadn’t sent such a note, or I wouldn’t be here, now, blamed for his death.
Or, there was no future transceiver to which he could have escaped, because I’d destroyed it. Unless curious former colleagues, inspired to reconsider Jonas’s theories, should reinvent the technology....
I dare say nothing that might attract their attention.
The cop studies my face. “So,” he says, “who was the second guy at the warehouse? You might as well give me that. The ME will tell us soon enough.”
Trying to stay expressionless, I take a sip of water. And worry that the medical examiner will find useable fingerprints on my other self. That he’ll find my prints.
If TV crime shows were to be believed, not even identical twins have identical fingerprints. And anyway, I don’t have a twin. Not even a brother.
I hope: Let the detectives imagine clones. But Jonas was a physicist, not a biologist. Would anyone suspect that one of me came from a different time?
I could see nothing to do about that—beyond offering no hints.
“Answer, damn it!” the cop shouts, slamming a fist on the table.
My water bottle jumps, falls over, spurts out glug-glug-glug into my lap. I keep my reaction to a tic.
They can’t make me talk, I assure myself. They can only send me to jail. Or put me in an institution, if they decide I’m crazy. The universe has done its worst.
Once again, I am wrong.
~~~
“What is it?” Victoria asks, tears streaming down her face. “I know you. I know you wouldn’t hurt anyone. Why won’t you defend yourself?” And plaintively, “Why won’t you talk to me, Peter?”
I am mute, above all, for her. I don’t make a sound, though the longing to explain consumes me. I don’t even move, though my need to hold her is overwhelming.
Instead I focus my mind on Jonas, the flesh sliding off his face.
How is it I can remember a future that’s been undone? And how undone, when I died in the fire without ever having come downstairs to discover an earlier Jonas’s deception and plans—
All of which I do remember, with painful clarity.
But there’s no use asking how, just as there is no one to ask. It must suffice to know that between us, Jonas and I had twisted and knotted, tangled and raveled the timeline. And, just possibly, we had mended it.
If I can keep it intact.
Victoria takes my hand. “If you ever felt anything for me, you’ll explain.”
Four billion dead: an inconceivable number. An incomprehensible abstraction. Victoria struck down? That’s all too believable, and I cannot bear the idea. And so I peer into space, avoiding her gaze.
What will my love think when the body from the warehouse—my body—is identified?
Far more difficult than seeing myself die, I say nothing.
At last Victoria tires of waiting. She stands to leave, shoulders quivering, eyes red and puffy. As the interrogation room door sighs closed behind her, I think about what we might have had together.
And of grandfatherless grandsons.
And the fluttering wings of butterflies.
And the crazily spinning wheel of a whirligig.
[“Time Out” first appeared in Analog (January/February, 2013).]
~~~
Why did this particular story merit not only a slot in the collection, but also the lead position? Because I began assembling this collection during the COVID pandemic? I don’t think so. The simple truth is I like this story. A lot. Maybe that’s because—unlike most things I’ve written—I haven’t a clue where “Time Out” came from.
But it’s not just my opinion. Beyond being an Analog reader poll favorite, a best-novella finalist for its year, “Time Out” is the lead story in a popular time-travel reprint anthology. It also won a spot on popular short-fiction-review website Tangent Online’s recommended reading list for the year (along with, as it turns out, a second novella in this collection, “The Matthews Conundrum”).
Soon after “Time Out” first saw print, a small-press publisher expressed interest in re-releasing the novella as a chapbook. He had a request, though: that we rename the story. Truth be told, “A Time Foreclosed” is a better title.
And (hat tip to Jean Luc Picard), we made it so.