Time Travelers Never Die Part 53

No one spoke.

He set the cup on the table. "It is time," he said.

The rest of the company, reluctantly, one by one, following Helen's example, got to their feet.

Socrates gave a coin to the jailer, squeezed his hand, thanked him, and turned to look at his friends. "The world is very bright," he said. "But much of it is illusion. If we stare at it too long, in the way we look at the sun during an eclipse, it blinds us. Look at it only with the mind." He picked up the cup. Several in the a.s.semblage started forward, but were restrained by their companions. Someone in back sobbed.

"Stay," a woman's voice said sternly. "You have respected him all your life. Do so now."

He lifted the cup to his lips, and his hand trembled. It was the only time the mask slipped. Then he drank it down and set the cup back on the table. "l am sure Simmias is right," he said. "We shall gather again one day, as old friends should, in a far different chamber."

SHEL swallowed Helen with his eyes. "I did not expect to see you again," he said. swallowed Helen with his eyes. "I did not expect to see you again," he said.

She s.h.i.+vered. Peered intently at him. "Shel."

A smile flickered across his lips. "It's good to see you, Helen." He stood silhouetted against the moon and the harbor. Behind them, the waterfront buildings of the Piraeus were illuminated by occasional oil lamps.

"Where have you been?"

"To more places than you might easily imagine. But if you're asking where I live, I'm in Center City, Philadelphia."

"Why didn't you contact us?" demanded Dave.

"Not your your Philadelphia. A more distant one." He still looked like a man in pain. "Dave, you seem to have become my dark angel." Philadelphia. A more distant one." He still looked like a man in pain. "Dave, you seem to have become my dark angel."

Dave stared back at him. "I'm sorry you feel that way."

A gull wheeled overhead. "Socrates dies for a philosophical nicety," said Shel. "And Shelborne continues to run from his a.s.signed fate. Right?"

Helen was trembling. "I'd do the same thing," she said.

"As would we all. Isn't that right, Dave?"

"Shel." They shook hands. Embraced. While Helen kept her distance. "I suspect we would. But you don't have to run any longer."

Shel managed a smile. If only it were so.

"It's true," said Helen.

"What do you mean?"

"The grave has been filled, Shel. It wasn't you."

CHAPTER 44.

A friend is a second self.

-CICERO

DAVE'S first act, when he got back, was to return the converter Helen had used to the sock drawer. first act, when he got back, was to return the converter Helen had used to the sock drawer.

He came back without her. Shel invited her to go home with him. He didn't say where home was. But she'd gone. He had a new, improved model of the converter, and it had carried them both off. A few days later, Dave heard that Helen had canceled her members.h.i.+p in the Devil's Disciples. That same afternoon, word came that she'd closed her medical practice.

When he tried to call her, a recorded voice informed him that the number was no longer in service. She'd moved out of her condo, which had gone up for sale. There was no forwarding address.

Then one afternoon in November he came home to find a greeting card on his dining-room table. The card showed a pterodactyl in full flight, with the inscription MISS YOU. He opened it: Dear Dave,

Shel and I are having a wonderful time. We have a penthouse on the Parkway near the end of the 21st century. He's talking about going on a grand tour. Maybe we will live near the Parthenon for a while, or possibly Paris during the 1920s. I have never been so happy. And I wanted to thank you for making it possible.

I will never forget you, Dave.

Love, Helen P.S. We left something for you. In the wardrobe.

They'd left the Hermes Hermes. They had positioned it carefully under the light, to achieve maximum effect. It looked good.

He stood a long time admiring the piece. But it wasn't Helen. The house filled with echoes and the sound of the wind. He hadn't realized how much he'd miss her.

DAVE suspected that his friends.h.i.+p with Shel largely grew out of the fact they'd been opposites in so many ways. Where Shel was cautious, Dave could be reckless. Dave was not the guy, he'd once said, who would keep his mouth shut while Hitler was speaking. The difference in their sizes was striking. When they traveled together, Helen had once commented, they looked like a comedy team. While Dave got emotionally connected with every woman in his life, Shel was an all-or-nothing guy. The woman on his arm was either simply someone to keep him company or the love of his life. suspected that his friends.h.i.+p with Shel largely grew out of the fact they'd been opposites in so many ways. Where Shel was cautious, Dave could be reckless. Dave was not the guy, he'd once said, who would keep his mouth shut while Hitler was speaking. The difference in their sizes was striking. When they traveled together, Helen had once commented, they looked like a comedy team. While Dave got emotionally connected with every woman in his life, Shel was an all-or-nothing guy. The woman on his arm was either simply someone to keep him company or the love of his life.

Dave fell in love with everybody.

Another area in which they differed: Shel was perfectly content using the converter and traveling alone across the centuries. Dave had been along because of his language skills, and because a second person served as a safety factor. Shel had never said that, of course, but there was certainly some truth to it. Dave, on the other hand, could have been talking with Marcus Aurelius, but he wouldn't have enjoyed it nearly as much had Shel, or someone someone, not been there to share the experience. Consequently, with Shel and Helen both gone, he decided his time-traveling days were over.

He hadn't been satisfied simply carrying a conversation with Hem ingway. He'd wanted to ride in the ambulance with him, to go chasing German submarines with him at the outbreak of World War II. But he didn't want it badly enough to actually do do it. At heart, Dave was shy. He would never have gone to say h.e.l.lo to Tom Paine and Ben Franklin and Molly Pitcher and the rest of those people. it. At heart, Dave was shy. He would never have gone to say h.e.l.lo to Tom Paine and Ben Franklin and Molly Pitcher and the rest of those people.

He got bored with his career as an art dealer and started looking for a new line of work. The State Department was interested in employing him as a translator, and the CIA contacted him about coming on board. They wouldn't tell him what they wanted him to do, other than that they would put his language skills to good use. He never found out how they knew he was available.

He discovered he couldn't just sit on the front porch. But none of the jobs appealed to him. He didn't want to spend the rest of his life parked in an office. It was hardly an appropriate career for a man who had talked with Voltaire and challenged Cesare Borgia.

In the end, he told Katie. Told her everything. And he needed to take her somewhere to provide proof.

So Katie showed up, and he took her to Ambrose, Ohio, as he had Helen. At eleven o'clock on a beautiful September morning in 1906. She loved the place. They hung out there much of the day, watching the trains roll through, drinking coffee at Sadie's cafe, and sitting in the town square.

"Where would you like to go next?" he asked. "What would you like to see?"

At first, she was reluctant to move out of the twentieth century. They watched Abbott and Costello perform in a vaudeville show, took in a Fred MacMurray comedy during World War II in downtown Philadelphia, and hit some of the pubs during the Jazz Age. Katie came immediately to love the experience. "Oh, Dave, look at the trolley car." "Dave, if we're going to come here, I'm going to have to expand my wardrobe." "Dave, I love love Benny Goodman." Benny Goodman."

Their first trip outside the safety zone was to Tombstone, Arizona, in 1881, where Dave got lucky and ran into Calamity Jane again. Katie lit up Wyatt Earp's life for a few days. They met Virgil Earp and Doc Holliday, and rode a stage coach from Fayetteville to Fort Smith. After that, there was no holding Katie down.

BUT, for Dave, there was still something missing. And eventually he figured out what it was. for Dave, there was still something missing. And eventually he figured out what it was.

At the end of a long night in Tiberius's Rome, they'd decided to try a Roman bath. It became a fairly risque experience for two people from Philadelphia. The bath grounds were home to a statue of a female warrior, which they'd paused to admire on the way out. She was complete with helmet and sword. It was well past midnight when they stood before it beneath a full moon. "It's magnificent," said Katie.

"It's Minerva."

"I'll bet," she said.

When they reappeared at Dave's place, Katie commented that Americans had lost the ability to enjoy themselves.

"We watch television," Dave said.

Her eyes were s.h.i.+ning. "So what's for tomorrow night?"

"You make the call, Katie."

"Me? I don't know what's out there. If you want, I'd be content to go back to the bath."

"What would your mother say, love?"

"I think she'd want you to produce another one of those Q-pods." She squinted at him. "You okay, Dave? That wasn't too much for you, was it?"

"No. I'm good."

"So why-?"

"Why what?"

"You don't seem very turned on by the evening."

"Yeah." He sat down, and she dropped onto the sofa beside him.

"What's the problem?"

Dave still wanted to tell the world. Conversations with Caesar. An evening with Attila. (Well, no, that had never really happened.) Lunch with Abner Doubleday.

"Lunch with who who?"

"Never mind. Look, Katie, it kills me to have done all this stuff and not be able to do anything with it."

"I know," she said. "I'm sorry. I don't know what to advise."

"I've been thinking about it."

"And?"

"The only thing I can think of is to use the material. But put it in novel form. Tell the story. The whole whole story. As if it were fiction." story. As if it were fiction."

"That's not a bad idea, Dave. Can you write write a novel?" a novel?"

"With what I've seen? Are you kidding?"

"Then do it," she said. "Otherwise, you'll never have any peace. Do you have a t.i.tle?"

"I thought maybe Time Travelers Never Wait in Line Time Travelers Never Wait in Line."

"That's cute."

"It's true."

"I suppose it is."

"But you don't like it?"

She shrugged. "It's cute cute. I don't especially like cute cute."

"You have a better one?"

"Ummm. If I were doing it-"

"Yes?"

"I'd call it Minerva by Moonlight Minerva by Moonlight." She sat for a minute, waiting for a reaction. But none came. "Is there something else?" she asked.

"Yes," he said. "I have a promise to keep."

CHAPTER 45.