Times Change Read Online Free PDF Page A

on to boil, he wandered over to the white enameled sink and turned a clunky chrome dial. Water hissed out of the wide-lipped faucet. Holding a finger under the running stream, he discovered it was ice-cold. When he touched the tip of his tongue to his damp finger he detected a faint metallic flavor.
    Completely unprocessed water, he decided. Amazing. They drank it exactly as it came out of the ground. Forgetting Sunny, he stuck his finger under again and found that the water had heated enough to make him jolt. Satisfied for the moment, he turned the water off. When he turned back, he saw that Sunny was still standing by the stove. She was staring at him.
    There was no use cursing himself, he decided. He was simply going to have to control his curiosity until he was alone.
    “It’s very nice,” he offered.
    “Thanks.” Clearing her throat, she kept facing him as she reached behind for the mugs. “We call it a sink. They do have sinks in Philadelphia, don’t they?”
    “Yes.” He took a chance, depending on his research. “I’ve never used one quite like this.”
    She relaxed a little. “Well, this place is a throwback.”
    “I was thinking exactly the same thing.”
    As the kettle began to sputter, she turned to make the tea. As she worked, she carelessly pushed her sweater up to her elbows. Long, limber arms, he noted. Deceptively fragile in appearance. He rubbed his own forearm. He’d already had a sample of their strength.
    “Maybe Cal didn’t tell you that my parents built this place in the sixties.” She poured steaming water into cups.
    “Built it?” he repeated. “Personally?”
    “Every stone and log,” she told him. “They were hippies. The genuine article.”
    “The 1960s, yes. I’ve read about that era. It was a counterculture movement. Youth against the establishment in a political and social revolution that involved a distrust of wealth, government and the military.”
    “Spoken like a true scientist.” A weird one, she added silently as she brought the mugs to the table. “It’s funny to hear someone who was born during that time talk about it as if it were as far removed as the Ming dynasty.”
    Following her lead, he sat down. “Times change.”
    “Yes.” Frowning, she watched as he rubbed a fingertip over the table’s surface. “It’s called a table,” she said helpfully.
    He caught himself and picked up the mug. “I was admiring the wood.”
    “I’m pretty sure it’s oak. My father built it, which is why there’s a matchbook under one of the legs.” At his blank look, she laughed. “He went through a carpentry phase. Almost everything he built in this place wobbles.”
    He could barely imagine it. Oak split from an actual tree and formed into a piece of furniture. Only those with the highest credit rating could afford the luxury. Even then they were limited by law to a single piece. And here he was, sitting in a house made entirely of wood. He would need samples. It might be difficult with her watching him, distrusting him, but it wasn’t impossible.
    Thinking it over, he sipped the tea, stopped, then sipped again.
    “Herbal Delight.”
    Sunny lifted her mug in salute. “Right the first time. We could hardly drink anything else without risking a family crisis.” With a shake of her head, she studied him over the rim of her mug. “It’s my father’s company. Didn’t Cal tell you that, either?”
    “No.” Baffled, Jacob stared into the dark, golden tea in his mug. Herbal Delight. Stone. The company, one of the richest and most expansive in the federation, had been established by William Stone. The myths about his beginnings were as romanticized as those about the nineteenth-century president who had been born in a log cabin.
    No, not a myth, Jacob thought as the fragrant steam rose from the cup. Reality.
    “Just what did Cal tell you?”
    Jacob sipped again and struggled for patience. He wanted to record all of this as soon as possible. “Just that he