trembling hand, offered them to Kit. “Would you read it to me, please?”
Taking the loose sheets, Kit scanned the top one quickly on both sides. It was merely the title page—torn hastily from the spine, it would seem, judging from the ragged edge; the reverse contained part of an acknowledgement by the author. “You want me to read this?”
“Please,” replied Thomas Young, removing his glasses and closing his eyes.
Kit cleared his throat and began: “A Course of Lectures on Natural Philosophy and the Mechanical Arts, by Thomas Young, MD. A new edition with references and notes by the Rev. P. Kelland, MA, FRS. London and Edinburgh. Printed for Taylor and Walton, Upper Gower Street. 1845.”
Kit glanced up at his audience. Young was sitting very still, his eyes closed. Kit turned the page over and continued reading: “Having undertaken to prepare a course of lectures on natural philosophy to be delivered in the theatre of the Royal Institution, I thought that the plan of the institution required something more than a mere compilation from the elementary works at present existing, and that it was my duty to digest into one system everything relating to the principles of the mechanical sciences that could tend to the improvement of the arts subservient to the conveniences of life.”
He paused for breath and waited. In a moment Thomas nodded, and Kit resumed: “I found also, in delivering the lectures, that it was most eligible to commit to writing, as nearly as possible, the whole that was required to be said on each subject, and that even when an experiment was to be performed it was best to describe that experiment uninterruptedly and to repeat the explanation during its exhibition. Hence it became necessary that the written lectures should be as clearly and copiously expressed and in a language as much adapted to the comprehension of a mixed audience as the nature of the investigations would allow . . .”
The doctor gave out a groan, and Kit broke off. Thomas Young sat still as a sphinx, eyes closed, outwardly composed. The only sign of an internal struggle was to be seen in his hands, which were clasped so tightly together the knuckles were white.
“Would you like me to continue?” asked Kit, his voice breaking into the intense reverie of the man behind the desk. “Is everything all right?”
“No,” breathed the physician. “Nothing is right.” He opened his eyes and looked at Kit with an expression of wonder and despair. “It is from a book—my book. That is what your Wilhelmina has brought me as proof of her assertions.”
“Yes, so I gather, but—”
“That is the trouble.” Thomas stretched a finger towards the page in Kit’s hand and gestured mutely at it as if at the certificate of his own death. “This book is not yet published. In fact, it is not even finished.”
Kit could imagine how that might be a problem. “Oh,” he said, trying to sound sympathetic. “I see.”
Thomas’ glance became sharp. “Do you?” he demanded. “I submit that you do not see the half, sir! This—” He snatched the page from Kit’s grasp. “This scrap of paper comes to me from another world and a future not my own, a world where all I have thought and done is already past—where I am dead and buried and the things I see before me, now worn with age, are yet to be.” The doctor shook his head again. “Do you see it yet? Time is out of joint, and reality merely a delusion. All I have believed about the world is a mirage, a chimera, a fantasy. My work, my science . . . worthless. How,” he asked, his voice falling to a lament, “how am I to live in light of that?”
PART THREE
Coming Forth by Day
CHAPTER 15
In Which an Apprenticeship Is Begun
Xian-Li thrust her hand into the bowl cradled on her hip. She smelled the dry, sweet, floury scent of the cracked corn as she filled her palm, then flung the handful in a wide, generous arc around her. The chickens, already flocking to her, squawked and fluttered as they scurried to snatch up the kernels she had scattered. She watched their sleek heads bobbing as they pecked at the corn. A simple chore, feeding chickens, yet she took great pleasure in it—knowing that it was something her mother and grandmother had done all their lives. The uncomplicated act linked her to generations past and present and yet to come, and that gave her a