I told myself I couldn’t have saved him. He was dying anyway. And after what he’d done to Sussman, it was a kind of poetic justice. And justice for Jamie Cameron and Big Dave Murdoch and all the other members of St Mary’s, past and present, whom he’d killed over the years. I felt no regret for the end of Clive Ronan.
It was the end of his pod too, sadly. When my hands finally stopped trembling, I removed the front of the console. The first board was almost completely destroyed. And the second. And the third. This puppy was never going anywhere again.
And by extension, neither was I.
So, this was how my life ended. I should have known I’d go to the Cretaceous one time too many. I sat in the chair and stared blindly at the blank screen. There was no hope of rescue. No one even knew I was here. Probably I’d not even been missed yet at St Mary’s. I always imagined my final resting place would be in the little St Mary’s churchyard, with Tim on the one side, then Kal, then Helen, with Ian on the end to keep us all in order. It had been an oddly comforting thought, spending eternity amongst my friends.
I rubbed my face with my hands and tried to think. Searching around the pod, I could find no food, no water. The cells were nearly empty. The toilet was unspeakable. Nothing worked. I could die inside the pod or outside the pod. It was just a case of choosing the least unpleasant option.
I sighed.
Taking a deep breath, I hit the manual door switch again. That and the emergency light over the door were the only things in the entire pod that still worked. But not for long. Not once the battery ran out.
The clearing was empty. No sign whatsoever of Clive Ronan. Not even a bloodstain. The Deinonychus had disappeared. Probably because of the weather. Because things just weren’t bad enough, were they? I could hear the wind rising and the sky was one, long, endless bruise.
I’d experienced a tropical storm during my first visit to the Cretaceous. It had lasted two days and been pleasantly spectacular when I was snug inside with plenty to eat and drink. This one would be different. I wondered if this was an occasion when I could legitimately feel sorry for myself,
Even as I looked, the sky grew even darker. Clouds boiled. The wind gusted more strongly. Dust, leaves, and small branches whirled past. It was like that scene from the Wizard of Oz. I kept looking for the cow. And then the witch on the bike.
This was going to be a big one. At least I was going out in a blaze of glory.
Fighting down a mounting panic, I made myself remember I was an historian. First and last, I was an historian. Keep busy. There was a job to do here. I found a few pages in a stained and wrinkled scribblepad and started a final report. I worked away, trying hard to lose myself in the task in hand. Not very successfully, because dying alone in the Cretaceous period was not really how I wanted to end my days. I lost my train of thought, couldn’t find the right word, gave it up because I couldn’t see properly anyway, and laid my head on the battered console. Apart from the odd buffet of wind, the inside of the pod was completely silent.
And then someone knocked at the door.
I didn’t move. I’m not sure what I thought. That Ronan was reincarnated? Or regurgitated? That I’d gone mad? That it was debris picked up and slamming against the pod? That I was so desperate I was imagining things? I don’t know. But since none of these was good, I didn’t move.
The knock came again. A definite rat-a-tat-tat this time. Since things couldn’t get any worse, I got up and opened the door.
And there stood Leon Farrell.
Chapter Seventeen
There really aren’t supposed to be any long-term mental problems with leaping up and down the timeline. Helen says so. We get the odd bit of timelag every now and then, but a stiff drink and a nap usually sorts that out. Occasionally someone mutters about radiation hazards, but, as far as I know, no one has ever reported hallucinations before.
Not that I was complaining. Of all the things in my life that I could be hallucinating, this was top of the list. So shut up, Maxwell, and enjoy the view. You can work out what’s going on later.
He was younger than I could ever remember seeing him, and whip-thin. His hair flopped over his forehead in the shaggy, historian style. He wore woodland greens, body armour, and carried one of the big blasters.
There were no words I could say. I just stared. Around me, the sky darkened further and the wind howled. A heavily leafed branch cartwheeled past.
He said politely, ‘Can I be of any assistance?’
He didn’t know me. He had no idea who I was. I stepped back and let him in. The door jerked closed behind him, abruptly cutting off the noise of the storm outside.