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Ten drops and retrievals a day. If you ask me, there are entirely too many historians going to the past. We’ll be crashing into each other soon. I hope they postpone my drop. I’ve still got masses of things to learn. You wouldn’t know anything about foxhunting, would you?”
    “Foxhunting? I thought you were going to Singapore.”
    “I am, but a good many of the British officers there were apparently County and spent all their time discussing their foxhunting exploits.” He picked up the dress whites Michael’d slung over the chair. “This is a naval uniform. What was the U.S. Navy doing at the Battle of the Bulge?”
    “Not the Battle of the Bulge—Pearl Harbor,” Michael said. “Then the second World Trade Center bombing,
then
the Battle of the Bulge.”
    Charles looked confused. “I thought you were going to the evacuation of Dunkirk.”
    “I am. That’s fourth on the list, after which I do Salisbury and El Alamein.”
    “Tell me again why you’re going all these extremely dangerous places, Davies.”
    “Because that’s where heroes are, and that’s what I’m observing.”
    “But aren’t all of those events tens? And I thought Dunkirk was a divergence point. How can you—?”
    “I’m not. I’m going to Dover. And only parts of Pearl Harbor are a ten—the
Arizona
, the
West Virginia
, Wheeler Field, and the
Oklahoma
. I’m going to be on the
New Orleans.”
    “But do you actually have to be
on
the boat with Lord Nelson or whoever it is? Couldn’t you observe him from a safe distance?”
    “No,” Michael said. “One, the
New Orleans
is a ship, not a boat. Boats are what rescued the soldiers from Dunkirk. Two, observing from a safe distance is what historians were stuck doing
before
Ira Feldman invented time travel. Three, Lord Nelson was at Trafalgar, not Pearl Harbor, and four, I’m not studying the heroes who lead navies—and armies—and win wars. I’m studying ordinary people who you wouldn’t expect to be heroic, but who, when there’s a crisis, show extraordinary bravery and self-sacrifice. Like Jenna Geidel, who gave her life vaccinating people during the Pandemic. And the fishermen and retired boat owners and weekend sailors who rescued the British Army from Dunkirk. And Wells Crowther, the twenty-four-year-old equities trader who worked in the World Trade Center. When it was hit by terrorists, he could have gotten out, but instead he went back and saved ten people, and died. I’m going to observe six different sets of heroes in six different situations to try to determine what qualities they have in common.”
    “Like an aptitude for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Or owning a boat?”
    “Circumstance is one factor,” Michael said, refusing to be baited.
    “Also a sense of duty or responsibility, physical disregard for personal safety, adaptability—”
    “Adaptability?”
    “Yeah. One minute you’re giving a Sunday morning sermon and the next you’re helping pass five-inch shells up to the guns to shoot at Japanese Zeroes.”
    “Who did that?”
    “The Reverend Howell Forgy. He was getting ready to do Sunday morning services on board the
New Orleans
when the Japanese attacked. They fired back, but the electricity to the ammunition hoists had been knocked out, and he’s the one who organized the gun crews—in the dark—into a human chain to pass the shells up to the deck. And he’s the one who, when one of the sailors said, ‘You didn’t get to finish your sermon, Reverend. Why don’t you finish it now?’ answered, ‘Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition.’”
    “And you’re certain being fired at by Japanese Zeroes isn’t a ten? I still can’t see how you persuaded Dunworthy to approve a project like that.”
    “You’re
going to Singapore.”
    “Yes, but I’m coming back before the Japanese arrive. Oh, that reminds me, someone phoned for you earlier.”
    “Who was it?”
    “I don’t know. Shakira took the message. She was here