A Question Of Time by Fred Saberhagen (best electronic book reader TXT) 📗

      Nothing really helpful about Edgar, though. What helpful news could there ever be about him? The only helpful news would be, perhaps, that he was dead; sooner or later the true death came for all, even the nosferatu. But in Edgar’s case, in the case of a man who so often did tricks with time—or perhaps, one with whom time so often played its own tricks—not even a confirmed report of death would guarantee that he could henceforward be considered harmless.

      Sarah shuddered.

      She had never really understood the work to which her husband had devoted his life. The research, the art—whatever the right name for it was—which had fascinated her husband and evidently still obsessed him, beyond all the attractions to which normal humans could be subject.

      Sarah had never understood his work. But she had learned to fear it terribly.

* * *

      Joe, re-entering his hotel room, said to the waiting Brainard: “They’re gone for now.”

      “Thanks.”

      “Por nada. I don’t think they’ve gone very far.”

      “I know it.”

      “But I’ve at least given them something to think about. I can get in touch with some people I know, try and see if these guys are wanted for anything.”

      “A temporary expedient. I appreciate it, but…”

      “You’re right.”

* * *

      Maria Torres, roused from a reverie by someone’s voice calling her name, found herself leaning over a balcony at the Tyrrell House, contemplating the depths. Something very alluring was down there…

      Daydreaming. She was daydreaming on the job. Maybe this was just the kind of thing the Canyon did to people.

Chapter Eleven

      Half an hour after sunset, on the day after Jake’s abortive attempt to start a fight with Edgar, the two of them were in the workshop-cave together, talking calmly and unhurriedly about the job. Jake’s right arm still ached when he moved it in certain ways, but other than that it was almost as if yesterday’s scuffle had been forgotten.

      Edgar was inspecting the day’s work Jake had just accomplished. Basically the boss’s comments were favorable, though now and then he pointed out some detail with which he was not completely satisfied.

      Jake had spent the day mining the deep Vishnu schist in the bottom of the cave for small white nodules. Edgar kept a sizable collection of these on his long workbench and in bins just below it. He used some of the nodules for his carvings. Jake had seen him carry others back toward the secret rear chamber of the cave, putting them down on the floor of the cave just in front of the crevice, as if sooner or later that would be their destination.

* * *

      The mining itself, working hard rock with nothing but hand tools, had gone very slowly today. To Jake’s relief, Edgar didn’t seem to care that the process was a slow one, only that the search for nodules should be thorough and that Jake should occupy himself with it during most of the daylight hours. Every time he discovered one of the lumps of peculiar white stone, he had to excavate it carefully, undercutting to free it at the bottom. Then he carried it to the workbench, where he sorted all nodules by shape and size.

      The bench was a long, crudely built but well-lighted wooden table, running along one wall of the cave beside the entrance. Here a dozen or two of the white nodules of modest size were scattered, a couple of them fixed to the bench in jigs and clamps, obviously in the process of being carved into the likenesses of living things. The white stuff was stone—at least Jake wouldn’t have known how else to classify it—but in its feel and texture unlike any other material that he had ever handled.

      Edgar told Jake that he, Edgar, had gathered some of the nodules already on the workbench, from the local rapids in the Colorado. Edgar also cautioned him—quite unnecessarily—that such methods of collection were not something that either Jake or Camilla could undertake and expect to survive.

      Actually there seemed to be plenty of white nodules here now, as Jake could see for himself. He wondered momentarily whether Edgar really needed or wanted more of them, or if he just wanted to keep Jake busy and out of mischief. Camilla’s warning that Edgar really wanted something else from both of them came back to Jake now.

      Most of the day Jake had worked with his shirt off, sweating like a pig. The cave was a little cooler than the sunbaked canyon outside, but not much. He took frequent breaks, and at intervals during the hot hours Camilla brought him cold lemonade. He had had the electric lights turned on for part of his workday; he needed them if he really wanted to get a good look at what he was doing, unless the sun was coming in the entrance at just the proper angle. They were still on now, of course. Jake noted that Edgar’s vision seemed to be extremely good. The old man could see small details from a distance, and he wore no glasses.

      On the job Jake used hammers and pry bars and chisels. Edgar had explosives on hand—Jake had seen the little locked-up shed, just outside the mine—but said he rarely employed them.

      Edgar was saying to him now: “I’ve tried dynamite, but this is a ticklish place to try to blast; much better to dig out what’s wanted carefully, with hand tools. That’s where you come in.”

      Jake nodded. The old man today was taking such a reasonable, businesslike attitude that Jake couldn’t help getting the feeling, in spite of everything, that there was some chance this would turn out after all to be a decent, acceptable job. It was a crazy attitude, he realized whenever he stopped to think about it; but somehow when Tyrrell was talking so reasonably it seemed only natural.

      “What’s back there?” Jake inquired, nodding toward the almost completely blocked chamber at the rear of the cave. Things