First Flight - By Mary Robinette Kowal Page 0,3
dancing around in her presence. “I can do both.”
They stared at her again, but she only looked at Mr. Barnes. “Can’t I? There’s no reason I can’t go back to the same time twice, is there?”
He shook his head, slowly smiling. Oh, but he was completely on her side, wasn’t he. Louise beamed at him.
“Well, then, why don’t you send me back for twenty minutes to talk to Homer to see how he took it. Twenty minutes. That’s all and then I’ll come back to the present and tell you how the conversation went. If Homer believes me, then I can hop back to the same spot and he can give me a ride to Huffman Prairie. I’ll get there about the same time as I would have walking. If it doesn’t, then you can send me to the B point and we’ll have tried.”
Slowly in the screens heads began to nod. Dr. Connelly scowled and threw her hands up. “That’s two set-ups. Do you people know how much that costs? Just the transformer delay is cutting into our return. I can’t conscience this. We’re contracted to deliver footage of the Wright Flyer III, and you, madam, are contracted to do that for us.” She pointed at Mr. Barnes. “If she can go to the same time place twice, then send her to the same place she went today, but after she met the boy. We’d built in extra time for the walk, right?”
Louise prayed that the Good Lord would grant her patience and give her strength to forgive this woman. And then Louise added a prayer that He would forgive her for being devious. “That should be fine.”
Mr. Barnes shook his head. “He’ll still be there unless we send you too late to get to the field.”
Never in her life had Louise wished for someone to lie, but she was beside herself wanting Mr. Barnes to be quiet. She was hoping that Homer had stuck around; in fact, she was counting on it so she could explain things to him.
Dr. Connelly rolled her eyes. ”Not you too. You haven’t even met the boy.“
”No, but on the video he reminds me a lot of myself and, well, I’d still be there.” Mr. Barnes shrugged. “Can you imagine being twelve and seeing someone vanish?”
“Anyone with sense would high-tail it out of there so whatever got her wouldn’t get them, too.” Dr. Connelly rolled her shoulders with blatant aggravation. “All right. Let’s say he’s more like you and still there. Send her back earlier so she can clear the site before the boy comes along. How much extra time will you need?”
The teeth Louise had left all hurt to answer civilly. “It doesn’t take me but thirty minutes to get down the road to Huffman Prairie.“
Dr. Connelly narrowed her eyes. ”I trust that you won’t try to wait and contact the boy instead of performing your contractual obligations.
Louise sucked in her dentures and set her jaw before answering. “I said I’d get you photos of that Wright Flyer and I plan to do so.”
“That’s not the same. I’ll need your word, Louise.”
“Dr. Connelly. You have my word that I will not wait for Homer. But I want you to understand that I think this is a terrible thing.”
“Noted.” She turned her attention to Mr. Barnes. “Given the trial runs, what’s the shortest amount of time she’ll need to be out of sight?”
“There’s a bend in the road that she should reach in about ten minutes.”
“Let’s set her down fifteen minutes early, then.” She surveyed the board. “Unless there are objections?”
Nobody but Louise seemed to care, and she kept her mouth shut before she could say something not very Christian.
* * *
When the steel booth vanished this time, the field looked exactly as it had before, save that the sun hadn’t risen quite as high in the sky. The dust kicked up around her shoes as she walked, and it smelled of the mud pies she used to make as a child. She passed the knotted fence about where Homer had picked her up and kept on to where she thought they been when she vanished. The trees came down almost to the edge of the road and made a place to hide. Oh, but wasn’t she tempted to turn off and rest, waiting for Homer to turn up. There was even a natural bench where a tree had fallen.
But even if she hadn’t given her word, they’d know if she waited because