Georgette Booker looked up at the clock and saw that it was almost time to quit. Good. Dave was taking her out again tonight, which meant that he would propose again. He was so sweet. She might even marry him, but not now. Life was too relaxed, too much fun, and she enjoyed people. Marriage was always there when you wanted it, but right now she just didn't want it. She smiled. She was quite happy.
Sharm smiled and ate another piece of the ring-shaped roll. "Top-pit," he said. "Really good. What is it called?" "A bagel," his wife said. "You're supposed to eat them with smoked salmon and white cheese. I found it in this old cult-food book. I think they're nice."
"I think they're a lot better than nice. We're going to bake a whole lot of them, and I'm going to sell them in New Town because they got bread tastes like wet paper there. People will love them. They have to love them. Because you and I are going to move to New Town. They are going to love these bagels or something else we are going to sell them. Because you and I, we are going to live in that new place."
"You tell them, Sharm."
"I'm telling them. Old Sharm is going to get his cut of that good life, too."
Low clouds rushed by overhead in the dusk and there was a spattering of sleet in the air. When Dr. Lanning opened the cab door of the truck the wind pounced on him. Fresh from the Arctic, hurtling unimpeded across Salisbury Plain. He buried his chin in his collar and climbed down; Barker followed him out and tapped on the door of the office nearby. There was no answer.
"Not so good," Lanning said, opening the rear door of the truck and gently sliding the bulky wooden box down to the ground. "We don't leave our national monuments unguarded in the States."
"Really," Barker said, turning and striding to the gate in the wire fence. "Then I presume those initials carved in the base of the Washington Monument are neolithic graffiti. As you see I brought the key."
He unlocked the gate and threw it open with a squeal of unoiled hinges, then went to help Lanning with the case.
In the evening, under a lowering sky, that is the only way to see Stonehenge. Without the ice cream wrappers and clambering children. The Plain settles flat upon the earth, pressed outward to a distant horizon, and only the gray pillars of the sarsen stones have the strength to push up skyward.
Lanning led the way, bending into the wind, up the broad path of the Avenue.
"They're always bigger than you expect them to be," he said, and Barker did not answer him, perhaps because it was true. They stopped next to the Altar Stone and lowered the case. "We'll know soon enough," Lanning said, throwing open the latches.
"Another theory?" Barker asked, interested in spite of himself. "Our megaliths seem to hold a certain fascination for you and your fellow Americans."
"We tackle our problems wherever we find them," Lanning answered, opening the cover and disclosing a chunky and complicated piece of apparatus mounted on an aluminum tripod. "I have no theories at all about these things. I'm here just to find out the truth — why this thing was built."
"Admirable," Barker said, and the coolness of his comment was lost in the colder wind. "Might I ask just what this device is?"
"Chronostasis temporal-recorder." He opened the legs and stood the machine next to the Altar Stone. "My team at MIT worked it up. We found that temporal movement other than our usual twenty-four hours into the future every day— is instant death for anything living. At least we killed off roaches, rats, and chickens; there were no human volunteers. But inanimate objects can be moved without damage."
"Time travel?" Barker said in what he hoped was a diffident voice.
"Not really, time stasis would be a better description. The machine stands still and lets everything else move by it. We've penetrated a good ten thousand years into the past this way."
"If the machine stands still that means that time is running backwards?"
"Perhaps it is — would you be able to tell the difference? Here, I think we're ready to go now."
Lanning adjusted the controls on the side of the machine, pressed a stud, then stepped back. A rapid whirring came from the depths of the device: Barker raised one quizzical eyebrow.
"A timer," Lanning explained. "It's not safe to be close to the thing when it's operating."
The whirring ceased and was followed by a sharp click, immediately after which the entire apparatus vanished.
"This won't take long," Lanning said, and the machine reappeared even as he spoke. A glossy photograph dropped from a slot into his hand when he touched the back. He showed it to Barker.
