The Siege of Eternity

He gave her a weary shake of the head. "It wasn't me that done it, Hilda," he said. "But that's a really long story."

CHAPTER EIGHT

The situation wasn't that Pat Adcock-the real Pat Adcock, or so she couldn't help thinking of herself-had nothing to say to these three new selves. It was the other way around. She had too much. She had so many questions to ask and so many things she needed to express that she didn't know where to begin.

The real shocker was that one of her was actually getting ready to have a baby. That took a lot of getting used to. Pat Adcock had never been pregnant, had never really wanted to be-oh, sure, maybe now and then there had been a fleeting wistful notion, quickly gone away. Who had the time for bringing up a child? So now she sat mute in the bus while they waited to be told what to do, then stood mute in the doorway of the deputy director's plane while the D.D. and five or six others wrangled over Jimmy Lin. This Jimmy Lin. The one who had just returned from somewhere in space. The one who now was adamantly refusing to go anywhere at all until he had a chance to talk to the Chinese consul in Vancouver. The one, most amazingly of all, who turned out to be the father of this other Pat's child.

That was really hard to believe.

Down on the ground voices were raised in anger. The argument seemed to be between the deputy director and the RCMP officer, and the deputy director was losing. The Mountie was shaking his head firmly. Significantly, a dozen other Mounties were standing silently behind him.

Clearly the deputy director didn't want a major confrontation. He turned and stormed up the steps. "Canadian bastards," he was muttering. "First they take the old lady away from us, now it's the Chinese. Well, it isn't worth a war." More loudly, to the people in the doorway: "Get your asses on board. We're going home."

As soon as they were airborne it started. The agents unstrapped themselves, heedless of the fact that the "Fasten Seat Belts" lights were still on. Colonel Morrisey reseated herself at a little desk by a window and pulled out a keypad. She tapped swiftly, then nodded to the other spook. "Recording has commenced," she said.

"Right," said the other female spook. "I'm Vice Deputy Director Daisy Fennell. I don't think we met before, because I flew in on the director's plane, but now I need to ask you some questions. You first, Agent Dannerman-" turning to the Dannerman with the beard. "I want you to begin at the beginning, starting with your launch to the Starlab satellite-"

But the new Dannerman was shaking his head. "First we have to eat," he said.

The vice deputy raised her voice and lowered its temperature. "Agent Dannerman," she began frostily, "you will do as I-"

He stood his ground. "Have a heart! You don't know how it is with us. We've been eating crap for months and we are damn starved."

The vice deputy opened her mouth to speak again, but Colonel Morrisey stood up quickly. She murmured something to the other woman, then said, "I'll take care of that. But you start talking while you're waiting for the food, Danno."

"That'll be fine," he said, "if it's not too long." The look Hilda Morrisey gave him as she left was reproachful, but also amused, Pat thought.

"Begin," the older woman commanded. "You approached the satellite in orbit."

Dannerman nodded. "The first thing we saw was that there was some kind of blister on the side of the satellite that didn't belong there, and-"

Pat couldn't help herself. "But we didn't! I was looking for it; I'd seen it on the remote, and it just wasn't there."

"That'll do," Vice Deputy Fennell cut in. "You'll get your chance to talk later; now I'm taking Agent Dannerman's statement."

The new Dannerman looked at Pat quizzically, then went on. As soon as they entered Starlab, he said, they'd seen at once that it had been changed radically. New machines. Big ones. Strange ones. "The orbiter was full of them," he said, "and all the time we were there I had the feeling we were being watched. ..."

It went on and on, Dannerman telling these incredible stories-these untrue stories, by Pat's own recollection!-while the three other Pats nodded agreement. But it hadn't happened that way!

Or had it? Had something gone really wrong with her own memory?

She hardly noticed when the food began to arrive, but all four of the returned people leaped at it.