Time Travelers Never Die Read Online Free PDF

authoritative: “Dr. Shelborne? We’ll need to keep them a bit longer, I’m afraid.”
    “Would it be possible for me to look at them?”
    “It’s not part of the routine, Doctor.”
    “I’d be grateful.” He made up a story about looking for a lost phone number. “Put a guard on me, if you want. I’ll wear gloves. I’d just like to look at his Rolodex and note cards for a minute.”
    Another pause. Then: “Okay. Come on down. We’ll see what we can do.”
     
     
    THEY led him into a side room and, while one of the officers watched, he flipped through the cards until he found the one with Clemmie’s name. It was one of nine character groups on the card. But only two others consisted of seven characters. One was Oscar14 . The lone Oscar Shel knew of had been a pet parrot owned by his now-deceased Aunt Mary. He had no idea where the 14 might have come from.
    The final possibility was XX356YY . The digits sounded like someone’s batting average, and knowing his father’s passion for baseball, it wouldn’t have surprised him.
    He got up, thanked the officer, and left.
    Out on the street, he fished out the Q-pod. Both code words came back invalid.
    There’d been an aunt Eleanor, on his father’s side. He tried that. And got nothing.
    He drove home, made himself a scotch, and settled onto the sofa. It was a beautiful, warm day. Lots of kids playing across the street.
    He went to Clement’s for dinner, took the Q-pod along, and played with it while he waited for his meal. He entered various types of food and drink that his father had liked. Chablis. Hotdogs. Pancake. NYstrip. And some he didn’t like. Oatmeal. Lobster. They’d often eaten there together, so he tried clement .
    When the roast beef came, with mashed potatoes and coleslaw, he put the device away and concentrated on enjoying the food.
     
     
    HE was back at his desk Tuesday. He took the Q-pod back to the lab and showed it around to the engineers. Nobody could tell him anything significant although they offered to do an analysis. Shel wasn’t comfortable allowing that after his father’s insistence on destroying the things.
    That night, Dave picked him up for the show. He immediately asked whether there’d been any more news.
    “No,” Shel said. “They’re still looking.” He showed him the Q-pod. “Ever seen one like this before?”
    “I don’t think so. Maybe. I don’t pay much attention. What do you do? Play games on it?”
    “Yeah,” said Shel, as they set off for the theater.
    Dave confessed he’d been looking forward to the night’s show for months. Usually, the Disciples went over to nearby Bala-Cynwyd, where there was an amateur theater group. Tonight was special, though. A troupe of professionals were at Penn to perform Arms and the Man .
    They got there about twenty minutes before curtain time and took their seats. Dave told him he’d seen the group in rehearsal that afternoon. “They’re not bad,” he said.
    As is usually the case at a college performance, the auditorium was noisy as it filled up. Eventually, the houselights dimmed, the audience quieted, and the curtain went up. It revealed a young woman’s candlel it bedroom.
    The bedroom is, of course, Raina’s. She is standing out on the balcony when her mother enters, sees her, and sighs loudly with exasperation. “You’ll catch your death,” she says. But she brings news of a major victory in the war. The two embrace over their good fortune. They talk politics for a few minutes to bring the audience up-to-date. Then Raina is left alone. She selects a book and goes to bed. The audience’s attention is drawn back to the balcony. Something is moving out there. And they watch a male figure steal into the room.
    If Shel needed anything that night, it was Bernard Shaw. Chocolate works better than bullets, one of the characters observes. And he came very close to forgetting, for two hours, the world outside.
    When the show was over, and the players had taken