“Petty?” He ran his hands over his body, rumpling his suit worse than hurry and weather had already managed.
“The Yith apparently take a long view of history,” said Charlie.
Spector retrieved his tea. “I can see why you were reluctant to explain.”
I took a deep breath. “Along those lines … you were quite eager for us to leave you to your ‘private errands.’ And then, on our return, we were besieged by soldiers. What did you do?”
His shoulders tensed, and he stared down at his cup. “I assure you, I didn’t mean to do this. Upton’s suggestion that others were looking into the body theft spell worried me, and I called in to request help following up. What I wanted was a warrant that would let me examine the asylum records in more detail, and a report on any anomalous tips from the area around that time. What I got … I’m afraid we’ve run afoul of…” He put down the cup and straightened. “Not everyone in the federal government agrees on how we should handle supernatural issues. My superiors think, as I do, that we need a better working relationship with those who already have long experience with magic. Others agree that the … the purges … of the ’20s were a mistake, but disagree on the appropriate response. The task force that you just encountered is, uh, symptomatic, of those who think we ought to build a more trustworthy understanding of magic from the ground up, without being bogged down by what they see as ancient history and superstition.”
Trumbull cocked her head, and a slow smile spread across her face. “That’s mad.”
“And dangerous,” I said. I didn’t feel nearly as amused—though I supposed that by her standards, we were all stumbling along, trying to reconstruct what the Yith well understood.
“I agree.” Spector pushed himself out of the chair and paced. “In any case, they got wind of my ‘difficulties,’ and managed to talk some Bureau supervisor into letting them try their methods, since mine were working so slowly. And promptly treated the whole campus like a crime scene, as if they were dealing with some ordinary criminal who could be penned in by barricades. Come Monday, they’ll try to turn their arrest of my team into proof of my mistakes.” He paused by the wall, and reached up to straighten one of the abstract paintings. “I’m sorry, you don’t need the spillover from our internecine politics. But I’m afraid they’ve made it your business.”
“Do you know what they intend to do,” asked Caleb, “aside from accost people at the campus gate?”
“I don’t,” said Spector. “Officially they’re here for the same reason I am. But their roadblock is so visible that any spies or traitors still here when we arrived will be gone by tomorrow—unless they’re very confident in their ability to stay hidden. Either Barlow thinks he can convince our body snatcher to panic, or they’re looking for a chance to practice something in the field that they can’t do back in D.C., or they’ve decided that some of the ‘old-fashioned’ resources at Miskatonic are worth their time. Or all those things at once—George Barlow isn’t a man who does things for only one reason.”
We discussed further—but in frustrating fact, this didn’t change any of our plans. We didn’t know enough to make such changes. Even though it was increasingly unclear to me what we could do about our books, other than continue to read them as they were doled out to us. Even though it made the tea turn bitter in my stomach that to get to and from Hall, even to wander the streets of Arkham, we must again risk Miskatonic’s self-appointed guards.
“Are they going to eat dinner in the faculty spa?” I asked abruptly.
“I don’t know,” admitted Spector. “I don’t know for sure who arranged for their presence here, but I think it may have been Dean Skinner. They called him to say they had Professor Trumbull, and apparently—I’m sorry, ma’am—he didn’t sound surprised. He said you could cool your heels for a while. Made reference to the rest of you as well. Dawson overheard, and called me right away, but it was the first she knew of the team’s presence.”
I leaned back and closed my eyes. “Maybe I’ll skip dinner tonight.”
“Eggs?” offered Neko.
“How many do we have?” asked Caleb.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Spector. “I hope they won’t give you trouble again so soon, but I know they won’t take that risk with me. It’s still early—I’ll go into town and get something that isn’t eggs, and you can eat in tonight. If the professor doesn’t mind.”
Trumbull shrugged, but said, “Frankly, I don’t care to encounter them again today either.”
“We could cook,” said Neko dreamily.
I nodded with real enthusiasm. “Do you know where there’s a fish market?”
Spector bore the transformation of nervous relief into shopping list with good grace, and departed with the promise that Trumbull’s kitchen would soon be better stocked.
*
Trumbull went upstairs to work on her notes—whether documenting the afternoon’s events, or recording what the elders had told her, I didn’t know. Perhaps I ought to have written down my own experiences for her collection, as she’d suggested.
I suspected us all in need of private conversations, and not quite ready for them. Caleb and Neko found a checkers board and settled into a game with one of their many sets of variant rules. Charlie and I drifted to the bookshelf.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
He shrugged, winced, leaned more heavily on his cane. “My shoulders hurt. My knee hurts. I feel like an idiot for being so angry about what happened.”
“Anger … seems like a pretty reasonable reaction.”
He pulled out a copy of Exercises in Descriptive Geometry. After a moment I took it, and held it open so that he could examine the pages with one hand. “With all that happened to you, and to your brother and Miss Koto—I can hardly complain over losing an afternoon.”
Careful diagrams showed warped planes intersecting to produce ever-stranger shapes. “Is that really what’s angering you? The time it took?”
He shook his head, traced one of the diagrams with a thick finger. “I think it’s the power that they have. The way they used it. I could tell”—he checked the game over his shoulder—“they were upsetting you, and her, and if anything they thought it was funny. Humans are awful people.”
I could neither argue nor agree. “It’s a big universe,” I said instead. History was long, and life short, and if I took comfort in the fleeting existence of our momentary captors, I must remember that Charlie too, and Neko and Audrey and even Spector, were ephemeral.
Charlie put the geometry text back, and pulled down a leatherbound edition of Plato’s Republic. “This one’s always good for a distracting argument,” he suggested.