The warlock unlocked Read Online Free PDF

results will be most frustrating.” If Father Al arrived at Luna to catch the Centauri liner at 15:20, of coursethe liner would liftoff at 15:21!
    He sighed, and went looking for a seat. There was no fighting Finagle, nor any of his minions—especially since they were all just personifications of one of humankind’s most universal traits, perversity, and had never really existed. You couldn’t fight them, any more than you could fight perversity itself—you could only identify it, and avoid it.
    Accordingly, Father Al found a vacant seat, sat down, pulled out his breviary, and composed himself to begin reading his Office.
    “Gentleman, Iwas sitting there!”
    Father Al looked up to see a round head, with a shock of thick, disorderly hair, atop a very stocky body in an immaculately-tailored business coverall. The face was beetle-browed and almost chinless, and, at the moment, rather angry.
    “I beg your pardon,” Father Al answered. “The seat was empty.”
    “Yes, because I got up long enough to go get a cup of coffee! And it was the only one left, as you no doubt saw. Do I have to lose it just because there was a long line at the dispense-wall?”
    “Ordinarily, yes.” Father Al stood up slowly, tucking his breviary away. “That’s usually understood, in a traveller’s waiting room. It’s not worth an argument, though. Good day, gentleman.” He picked up his suitcase and turned to go.
    “No, wait!” The stranger caught Father Al’s arm. “My apologies, clergyman—you’re right, of course. It’s just that it’s been a bad day, with the frustrations of travel. Please, take the seat.”
    “Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.” Father Al turned back with a smile. “No hard feelings, certainly—but if you’ve had as rough a time as that, you need it far more than I do. Please, sit down.”
    “No, no! I mean, I do still have some respect for the clergy. Sit down, sit down!”
    “No, I really couldn’t. It’s very good of you, but I’d feel guilty for the rest of the day, and…”
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    “Clergyman, I told you, sit down!” the man grated, his hand tightening on Father Al’s arm. Then he caught himself and let go, smiling sheepishly. “Will you look at that? There I go again! Come on, clergyman, what do you say we junk this place and go find a cup of coffee with a table under it, and two seats? I’m buying.”
    “Certainly.” Father Al smiled, warming to the man. “I do have a little time…”
    The coffee was genuine this time, not synthesized. Father Al wondered why the man had been waiting in the public lounge, if he had thiskind of expense account.
    “Yorick Thai,” the stranger said, holding out a hand.
    “Aloysius Uwell.” Father Al gave the hand a shake. “You’re a commercial traveller?”
    “No, a time traveller. I do troubleshooting for Doc Angus McAran.”
    Father Al sat very still. Then he said, “You must be mistaken. Dr. McAran died more than a thousand years ago.”
    Yorick nodded. “In objective time, yes. But in my subjective time, he just sent me out in the time machine an hour ago. And I’ll have to report back to him when I get done talking to you, to tell him how it went.”
    Father Al sat still, trying to absorb it.
    “Doc Angus invented time travel back in 1952,” Yorick explained. “Right off, he realized he had something that everyone would try to steal, especially governments, and he didn’t want to see what that would do to war. So he didn’t file for a patent. He made himself a very secret hideout for his time travel lab, and set up a research company to front the financing.”
    “There’s not a word about this in the history books,” Father Al protested.
    “Shows how well he keeps a secret, doesn’t it? Not quite well enough, though—pretty soon, he found out there were some other people bopping around from advanced technological societies, cropping up in ancient