In any case, before they could blink, they were standing in the middle of a huge intersection, surrounded by tall buildings covered in luminous signs. The air was thick with strange smells—exhaust fumes, hot pretzels, something that might have been roasted nuts—and noise. So much noise. Horns honking. Engines rumbling. People shouting. A constant, overwhelming assault on the senses.
The Disruptors in their hands were silent. Not a peep.
Ham Duo shook his. "Hello? Did we break them?"
"Maybe they're sulking," Bill offered. He wasn't complaining. After the Disruptor's constant chatter during their last trip, the silence was almost peaceful. It gave him a chance to look around.
He'd never seen anything like this.
The buildings stretched impossibly high, their surfaces covered in bright colors and moving images—pictures that changed, words that flashed, lights that blinked in patterns he couldn't follow. Giant screens showed people selling things, people dancing, people looking happy in ways that seemed vaguely threatening. Below them, thousands of humans moved in every direction, dodging wheeled vehicles that honked and growled and belched fumes.
The city immediately appealed to him.
The stink in the streets was incredible—a complex mixture of garbage, exhaust, and something sweet he couldn't identify—but after the recycled air of spaceships and the artificial scents of computer simulations, it felt almost honest. Real. People here lived in their own filth and didn't pretend otherwise. He respected that.
What he didn't like were the numerous little piles left by dogs. He discovered this approximately three seconds after stepping in one. He spent a full minute scraping his boot against a concrete edge, muttering things that made a nearby woman cover her child's ears.
What he did like was how people dressed. Nothing flashy. No one-piece elasticized jumpsuits in avocado and cocoa. Just simple fabrics, dull colors, practical designs. And the hats! Men in fedoras, women in things he couldn't name but admired anyway. A nice retro style. Very sensible.
The bars, though. The bars were the best part. He could see at least four from where he stood, their neon signs flickering invitations. After months of military rations and simulated food, the promise of real alcohol from an actual bar was almost enough to make him forget why they'd come.
He might have forgotten, except that Chewgumma chose that moment to be noticed.
The Kookie stood seven feet tall, covered in thick brown fur, with small red eyes and a face that no amount of anthropological training could make look human. He was, in every possible way, the wrong creature to materialize in the middle of Times Square.
A woman saw him first. She screamed. Her groceries—actual physical groceries, in paper bags—hit the sidewalk with a sound like hope dying. Apples rolled everywhere.
Then a man shouted, "Holy shit, it's a bear! A bear! Run!"
"Bear!" someone else echoed. "Bear in the city!"
Chewgumma looked at Bill. "Kookie is not bear. Kookie is Kookie. These humans are stupid."
"Just—" Bill started, but Chewgumma was already moving. Not toward the humans, thankfully, but away from them. The Kookie bolted down a side street, his furry form disappearing between two buildings with surprising speed for something his size.
Bill took a step to follow.
Splock's hand on his arm stopped him. "No."
"But—"
"Look." Splock gestured at the crowd. People were pointing, shouting, pulling out devices and pointing them at the alley where Chewgumma had vanished. More were gathering. A few had already produced rectangular objects and were speaking into them urgently.
"We've attracted sufficient attention," Splock observed. "Following would only compound the error."
Bill wanted to argue, but Splock was already doing something else. He'd produced a thin, flexible tablet from somewhere inside his jumpsuit—a device Bill had never seen before—and was holding it up, his long fingers moving across its surface.
"Local electromagnetic spectrum," Splock murmured. "Fascinating. So much noise. Radio waves, television signals, early digital data streams—primitive, but abundant."
The tablet crackled. Through its tiny speaker, a sound emerged. A rhythmic pulse, accompanied by electronic tones and a voice:
"Well I know five years is a long time and that times change. But I think that you'll find people are basically the same."
Bill stared. "What in the nine hells is that?"
Ham Duo cupped a hand to his ear. "Music? Maybe? Or a drunk spacer fell asleep on a transmitter keyboard. Hard to tell with primitive cultures."
Splock's ears twitched. "The rhythm is consistent. The harmonic structure suggests intentional composition. It could be—" He paused, listening. "—a code. Or an attempt at art. I cannot determine which."
The music continued, oblivious to their confusion. More people were staring now, attracted by Chewgumma's appearance and the three strangely dressed figures in their midst. Bill noticed that their jumpsuits, so normal on a spaceship, were attracting exactly the wrong kind of attention. A man in a blue uniform was pushing through the crowd, one hand on a weird device at his belt.
The device made a noise. A high, piercing wail that cut through everything.
"Move," Bill said. He'd been in enough military situations to recognize an alarm when he heard one. He grabbed Splock's arm and pulled him toward a set of stairs leading down, where a stream of people was disappearing into a brightly lit hole in the ground.
The subway.
Duo followed, muttering something about how this was not how he'd imagined his first visit to twentieth-century Earth.
Behind them, the policeman's whistle shrilled again, and more shouts joined the chaos.
They clattered down the stairs into the underground cavern, following the flow of people. The noise from the surface faded, replaced by echoes and the rumble of unseen machinery. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, casting everything in a sickly yellow glow.
Bill was furious. Not at Chewgumma—well, a little at Chewgumma—but mostly at the situation. Four minutes on twentieth-century Earth and they'd already lost a seven-foot-tall furball, attracted police attention, and been forced underground like sewer rats.
"We need to move faster," he snapped, pushing past a group of teenagers who gave him strange looks. "They'll be searching. We need to get lost in this—whatever this place is."
"Subterranean transit system," Splock offered, his tablet still glowing with stolen electromagnetic data. "The locals call it the subway."
"Don't care what it's called. Just keep moving."
Ahead, Bill saw a row of metal barriers with spinning arms. People were approaching them, inserting small objects into slots, and pushing through. The arms rotated, letting them pass one by one.
Bill didn't hesitate. He'd dealt with military checkpoints, computer security programs, and actual alligators. A spinning arm wasn't going to stop him.
He grabbed the top of the barrier and tried to vault over.
The arm caught him exactly at crotch level.
The pain was immediate and profound. His legs kept going forward while his upper body stayed roughly in place, and for a moment he hung there, suspended, wondering if he'd ever have children. The arm rotated slowly, grinding against him, and deposited him on the other side in a heap.
He lay on the filthy concrete, gasping.
Two men in blue uniforms appeared above him. They had shiny badges and expressions of weary amusement.
"Well, well," one said. "Got ourselves a live one."
"Drunk," the other observed. "Early too. It's not even noon."
Bill tried to stand. His legs didn't want to cooperate. "I'm not—I'm fine—just trying to—"
"You need a token, pal." The first cop held up a small metal disc. "See? Token. Put it in the slot. That's how you get through."
Bill stared at the disc. Token. The word bounced around his skull. Token. Talking. Token. Talking.
"I don't need talking," he managed. "I need moving. My friends—"
"He thinks it's talking," the second cop said, and laughed. "Yeah, buddy, it talks. Says 'put me in the slot or I'll bite your crotch again.'"
The first cop grabbed Bill's arm and hauled him upright. "Come on. Let's get you some air. Maybe a coffee. You're gonna feel this one tomorrow."
They marched him toward the exit. Bill caught a glimpse of Splock and Duo watching from behind a pillar, their expressions carefully neutral. Traitors.
Ham Duo waited until the cops had dragged Bill up the stairs before muttering, "Well, I'm not as stupid as that space GI." He said it quietly, just loud enough for Splock to hear. "Time to do this properly."
He approached a small booth near the barriers where a tired-looking man sat behind glass. A sign advertised newspapers, magazines, and something called "gum." Duo leaned toward the small opening in the glass.
"Information," he said, trying to sound authoritative. "I'm looking for a law firm. The Yorks. Attorneys at law."
The man behind the glass squinted at him. "What?"
"Yorks. The Yorks. Lawyers."
The man cupped a hand to his ear. "Jerks? You looking for jerks? Son, you're in New York. Half the people here are jerks. You gotta be more specific."
Duo's eye twitched. "Not jerks. Yorks. Family name. Attorneys."
But the man had already moved on, his face lighting up with the particular enthusiasm of someone about to discuss their favorite subject. "Jerks, jerks—you know who's not jerks? Depeche Mode. You heard their new album? A Broken Frame? Just came out. Hot off the presses. You wanna hear some real music, you go to that record store on 42nd—"
"A broken frame?" Duo's hand went to his own face. "What's that supposed to mean? Nothing's broken on me. I'm perfectly intact."
The man stared at him. "The album, son. A Broken Frame. The album. By Depeche Mode."
"I don't have a broken frame! I'm symmetrical! Proportionate!"
Splock appeared at Duo's elbow, his expression unreadable. "We're leaving now."
"But he said—"
"He's discussing music. Primitive audio recordings. Nothing to do with your physical structure. Come."
Duo allowed himself to be led away, still muttering about how there was nothing wrong with his frame, thank you very much.
They found Bill outside, leaning against a wall and trying to look like he hadn't just been ejected from a subway turnstile by police officers. His face was red.
"We have the address," he said through gritted teeth. "St. Francis Orphanage. We go there, we find records, we find the family."
"How?" Duo asked. "We don't know this city. We don't know how to get anywhere."
"Hitchhiking," Bill said.
Splock raised an eyebrow. "Hitchhiking."
"It's what people do on planets. Stick out your thumb, someone gives you a ride. I saw it in a movie once."
The movie in question had been a training film about primitive Earth cultures, and Bill was reasonably sure it had been accurate. Reasonably.
They found a street corner and stuck out their thumbs.
Cars passed. And passed. And passed. Drivers stared at them—at their jumpsuits, at Splock's ears, at their general appearance—and drove faster. One woman actually locked her doors as she approached.
After twenty minutes, Duo lowered his arm. "This isn't working."
"Maybe we're doing it wrong," Bill said. "Maybe we need to look more... local."
A large yellow vehicle approached. It was boxy, slow-moving, and had what looked like children's faces pressed against the windows.
"That looks friendly," Bill said. "And slow. We can catch it."
They ran alongside as the vehicle stopped at a corner. A door opened. Children spilled out, laughing and shouting. Bill climbed in without hesitation, Duo and Splock behind him.
The driver was a large woman with hair like a helmet and an expression that could curdle milk. She took one look at them—really looked—and her face went through several stages: confusion, disbelief, and finally, a kind of resigned fury.
"Get out of my bus."
"We just need a ride," Bill said. "To an orphanage. St. Francis?"
"Out."
"We can pay." Duo held up something from his pocket—a shiny object that might have been valuable in the 90th century but looked like random scrap metal here.
"OUT."
They got out.
The bus doors closed with a pneumatic hiss. Through the window, they could see children pressing against the glass, pointing and laughing. One of them made a gesture that Bill assumed was friendly, though something about it felt off.
They stood on the sidewalk, watching the yellow vehicle disappear into traffic.
"So," Duo said. "That didn't work either."
Bill looked around. The city stretched in all directions, endless and unknowable. Somewhere in this maze of concrete and noise was an orphanage, a family, a little girl who didn't know she was carrying the future.
"We walk," he said. "We find it ourselves."
"Walk?" Duo stared at him. "In this?"
Bill was already moving. "You got a better idea?"
"I have an idea," Duo announced suddenly.
Before anyone could ask what kind of idea, he'd darted to a small booth on the corner—a flimsy thing made of metal and glass, stuffed with colorful papers and magazines. The vendor was arguing with a customer about something called "change." Duo reached in, grabbed a large folded sheet, and was back on the sidewalk before the vendor even noticed.
"Hey!"
They ran.
Three blocks later, ducked into an alley, Splock unfolded the stolen item. "It's a map," he said, his voice carrying the faintest trace of approval. "A cartographic representation of the local geography. Remarkably primitive, but serviceable."
He spread it against a wall. The others crowded around.
"Here," Splock said, tapping a spot. "This is our current location, based on the street signs and my internal dead reckoning. And here—" his finger moved across the paper, "—is Brooklyn. Where the orphanage is located."
Duo squinted at the lines and colors. "How do we get there?"
Splock opened his mouth to deliver what would undoubtedly have been a lengthy lecture on optimal route calculation, optimal transfer points, and the statistical probability of each option.
Bill pointed. "That way."
He was pointing at a broad road, flooded with sunlight, where crowds of people moved in a steady stream. Cars honked. Buses groaned. Life flowed in one direction like a river of humanity.
"People are going that way," Bill said. "Lots of them. Wherever it is, it's probably important. And we need to move fast before—"
He looked back.
The vendor had left his booth. He was pointing at them. And next to him stood a man in a blue uniform, already moving in their direction.
"Run," Bill said.
They ran.
The road was wide and straight, lined with stores and restaurants and the kind of establishments that made Bill's stomach growl even while his legs pumped. They dodged pedestrians, jumped over curbs, wove through crowds that parted with shouts of surprise.
And then Duo spotted the sunglasses.
A street vendor had set up a folding table covered in cheap merchandise—watches that probably didn't work, bags that would fall apart, and rows upon rows of sunglasses. Dark lenses. Reflective lenses. Lenses in every color and shape.
Duo grabbed a pair mid-stride. Black plastic frames, lenses so dark they looked like holes in his face. He put them on.
"Now I look local!" he announced.
The vendor's shout joined the others behind them.
The crowd of pursuers had doubled.
"You idiot!" Bill yelled, pumping his arms harder. "Now we've got two vendors and two cops!"
"Worth it," Duo called back, adjusting the sunglasses. "These are quality. Feel the build."
"I'll feel your build when I—"
Bill's foot came down on something that should not have been on the sidewalk. His legs went out from under him. The world tilted. He hit the ground hard, grass—actual grass—cushioning his fall.
He lay there, staring at the sky, wondering what ancient deity had decided to make him the universe's permanent punching bag.
Splock and Duo stopped. They stood over him, breathing hard.
"You okay?" Duo asked.
Bill sat up. Spat out a piece of grass. Looked around.
They were in a small park area, separated from the sidewalk by a low fence. Beyond the fence, across a stretch of lawn, stood an imposing building. Institutional. Official-looking. The kind of place that housed records, or orphans, or both.
And there, at the entrance, stood a couple.
Man, dark-haired, wearing a suit that screamed money even to eyes from the future. Woman, chestnut hair, similarly well-dressed, holding a baby in her arms. Both looked to be about thirty-four years old by Earth standards. Healthy. Prosperous. Exactly the kind of people who might adopt a child from an expensive private orphanage.
Splock stared at them. His ears twitched.
"According to Frobisher's Law of Temporal Proximity," he said, "when searching for a specific family unit in an unfamiliar time period, the probability of encountering them within the first hour of arrival increases exponentially with the amount of running and chaos involved. The Jenkins studies of 8304 confirm this, as do the later works of Vreenak on probability fields. Additionally, the Corwyn-Malachi principle states that if one observes a family with an infant immediately after falling into a patch of grass, that infant is almost certainly the temporal vector we seek. The statistical correlation is—"
Bill grabbed his arm. "Splock. Shut up."
Because Bill was looking at the man's face. The shape of his jaw. The way he stood—that particular posture, that particular confidence.
He'd seen it before. On a ship called the Counter-Gumption. Wearing a two-tone jumpsuit in puce and mauve.
"Counter-Dirk," Bill breathed.
Splock's monologue died in his throat. He stared at the man. For once, his expression showed something—confusion, perhaps, or the organic equivalent of a system error.
"That's impossible," he said. "I was there when we defeated him. Captain Dirk and I. We fought for Charlemagne and Christianity. Counter-Dirk fought for the Sultan and Islam. It was a fair battle. We won. He was—" Splock paused. "He was defeated. I assumed destroyed."
"Assumed," Duo repeated. "You assumed."
"He doesn't look destroyed," Bill observed. "He looks like he's adopting a baby."
Splock's ears twitched rapidly, a sign of intense cognitive processing. "This is... unexpected. Logically, he should not exist in this timeline. Unless—" He stopped. "Unless the Alien Historian retrieved him. Used him. Repurposed him."
The three of them crouched behind a bush, watching.
From the building's entrance, another man emerged. He carried a leather case—a briefcase, Bill's training films identified—and walked toward the couple with the easy confidence of someone who belonged there. He shook hands with the man. Nodded to the woman. Reached for the baby.
The woman hesitated, just for a moment, then handed the infant over.
The man with the briefcase held the baby with practiced ease. He examined it—really examined it, turning it slightly, looking at its face, its hands, its tiny feet. His movements were smooth. Professional. And slightly wrong.
Splock leaned forward. "Observe the articulation of his joints. The economy of motion. That's not organic. That's mechanical. Or—" He paused. "Programmed. He's following instructions. Precise instructions."
"One of the Historian's people," Duo whispered. "Has to be."
Bill nodded. "He's checking the merchandise. Making sure the—whatever they put in her—is still there."
The man finished his examination. He handed the baby back to the woman. Reached into his pocket, produced something small, and pressed it into the man's hand. Money? A token? Too far to see.
Then he turned to leave.
Bill stood up too fast.
His foot slipped on something—a discarded piece of fruit peel, yellow and brown, lying innocently on the grass. His arms windmilled. The world tilted again. And he hit the ground face-first, the impact driving the air from his lungs and sending something small and metallic flying from his pocket.
The Disruptor.
It skittered across the pavement, spinning like a coin, and came to rest exactly at the feet of the man with the briefcase.
Bill watched through a haze of pain and humiliation as the man bent down. Picked up the device. Turned it over in his hands. Looked at it with genuine curiosity—the expression of someone who'd just found something interesting but had no idea what it was.
Then he smiled. Pocketed it. Walked to a sleek, expensive-looking vehicle parked at the curb.
The couple followed. The man opened the door for his wife and the baby. Got in himself. The man with the briefcase slid into the driver's seat.
The vehicle pulled away. Turned a corner. Disappeared.
Bill lay on the grass, face pressed to the earth, watching the spot where their future had just driven off without them.
He tried to stand. His body wouldn't cooperate. Something was wrong—a heaviness in his limbs, a fog descending over his thoughts. He'd felt this before, back at the campfire when Duo had collapsed.
Oh no.
"Guys," he managed. "I don't feel—"
Splock and Duo were at his side, but their voices sounded distant, muffled, like they were speaking through water.
"Find—" Bill's tongue was thick. "Find their house. The—the address. Follow them. Don't let—"
His eyes were closing. He couldn't stop them.
"—him get away with—"
A yawn overtook him, vast and irresistible. He used the last of his strength to make the request sound as urgent as possible, putting everything into that final syllable.
"—it."
And then he was falling, not onto grass but into darkness, his last conscious thought being that unlike Ham Duo, he wasn't covered by the Blue Nebula Health Plan with its generous provisions for Major Medical. And even if he had been, its benefits almost certainly didn't extend to this godforsaken century on this godforsaken planet where people threw fruit on the ground and men in suits stole time machines from space troopers who really should have known better by now.
An eternity passed. Or three hours. It was impossible to tell with Interspacial Sleeping Sickness, especially in a distant past on a planet where no one had ever heard of it, let alone knew how long it lasted. The sickness didn't care about primitive Earth timekeeping. It took what it took.
Bill opened his eyes to find himself on a wooden bench in a small park. Trees overhead. Pigeons cooing. The distant sound of traffic. And sitting on either side of him, like mismatched bookends, were Splock and Ham Duo.
Splock had his arms crossed in that particular way that suggested he'd been waiting patiently and intended to make sure you knew it. Schoolteacher face. Disapproval barely concealed. The whole package.
Duo, on the other hand, was grinning. Grinning like a man who'd just won a bet. Something was different about him. Bill's sleep-fogged brain struggled to identify what.
The sunglasses.
They were gone.
Bill sat up so fast his head spun. "Your glasses! The—the ones you stole! They're gone!"
Duo's grin widened. He didn't say anything. Just sat there, basking in whatever joke Bill wasn't getting.
"What happened? Did the cops catch you? Did you lose them in a fight? Did—"
Bill's mouth kept moving, but his brain had already moved on to the more important question: what else had he missed while unconscious? He took a breath to ask—
"The Disruptor you were carrying," Splock interrupted, his voice carrying the weary patience of someone who'd already explained this twice and was prepared to explain it a third time, "is no longer in your possession. You lost it during physical contact with a fruit peel."
"Fruit peel? I fell on a garden tool! There was a rake, I think, or maybe—"
"The object was clearly organic in origin. A rake is a tool. You stepped on a peel."
"It felt like a rake."
"Your sensory perception during moments of high-velocity impact is not a reliable data source. It was a peel. I have three witnesses."
"Who? The trees?"
Duo raised a hand. "I'm with Splock on this one. Definitely a peel. Banana, I think. Very slippery."
Bill glared at him. "You're enjoying this."
"I'm enjoying everything. I'm conscious, I have my Disruptor—" he patted his pocket, "—and I'm not the one who woke up with grass in his teeth."
Splock continued, unperturbed. "Item two: my Disruptor remains functional. Item three: Chewgumma's Disruptor is also functional, but Chewgumma is no longer with us. He fled approximately four minutes after our arrival and has not been seen since. The device is presumably still in his possession, assuming he hasn't eaten it."
"Kookies don't eat electronics," Duo said.
"They don't?" Bill asked.
"Not intentionally. Sometimes by accident if you leave them in the food storage area. But Chewgumma's careful. Mostly."
Bill rubbed his temples. "Okay. Okay. So we've got two Disruptors, one missing Kookie, and zero leads on—"
Duo cleared his throat. Loudly.
Bill looked at him. Duo pointed at his own face. At the place where sunglasses had been. He raised an eyebrow.
"Later," Bill said. "Tell me later. Right now we need to figure out—" He stopped. "Wait. The house. The parents. You found them, right? Like I asked? Before I passed out?"
Splock's ears twitched. "We did. While you were unconscious—which lasted approximately three hours, seventeen minutes, and—"
"The house, Splock."
"Yes. We located the residence. However, as I pointed out to Duo during your recovery period, locating the house is not the same as locating the inhabitants. The house is merely a structure. The inhabitants are the targets of our investigation."
Bill stood up. Too fast. The world spun. He grabbed the bench. "The point is you found where they live. That's something. That's more than we had when I passed out."
"The point," Splock said, "is that we must now determine the optimal approach to—"
"Splock. Focus. Tell me about the family. What did you find out?"
Splock straightened, clearly pleased to be asked. "The adoptive father presents a fascinating ambiguity. He bears a striking resemblance to Counter-Dirk, the temporal duplicate we encountered during the Charlemagne incident. However, I cannot state with absolute certainty that he is, in fact, Counter-Dirk. He may simply be a genetically similar individual. Temporal mechanics allow for such coincidences, though the probability is—"
"Is he or isn't he?" Bill demanded.
"His name is Gene," Splock said. "A diminutive of Eugene. The name itself is suggestive—derived from the Greek 'eugenes,' meaning 'well-born.' The etymological connection to eugenics, the practice of selective breeding to improve hereditary qualities, is difficult to ignore. If this individual is indeed Counter-Dirk, his very name announces his purpose: to cultivate a superior being from the embryo of Alexander the Great. To breed, as it were, an—"
"An anti-what?" Bill interrupted. "You said something earlier—anti-something. I forgot."
"Antichrist," Splock supplied.
"Right. That. I still don't understand what that means."
"Your theological education, or lack thereof, is noted. We may return to it later." Splock pressed on. "The adoptive mother is named Karen. She is, according to our observations, approximately thirty-four years of age, employed as an attorney, and—"
Duo interrupted, grinning. "Go on, Bill. Guess. What kind of woman do you think she is?"
Bill considered. "Mid-thirties. White. Probably the type who complains to managers. Demands to speak to supervisors. Racist undertones. The kind who'd threaten to call a lawyer if things don't go her way."
Duo clapped his hands. "Beautiful. And here's the kicker—she and her husband are lawyers. So who does she call? Herself?"
"A fascinating paradox," Splock acknowledged. "But the most critical information is this: the daughter—the child we are seeking—has been named Delia."
Bill stared at him. "Delia?"
"Yes."
"Like... delicious? Delia-cious?"
"I fail to see the connection."
Bill's face went through several contortions. "Counter-Dirk. He's a cannibal. First he wanted to torture me with antelope prods and a cauldron of fried chewing gum, and now he's naming his adopted daughter after food. He's going to eat her. Or the baby inside her. Or both."
"That is not—" Splock started.
"Delia. Delicious. It's right there. The man's a monster."
"Delia is an epithet of the goddess Artemis," Splock said flatly. "It refers to her birthplace on the island of Delos. The child's mother chose the name. In honor of an aunt who was, according to the documents, a politician. The father's involvement in the naming process appears minimal."
Bill deflated. "Oh. So the name thing—we were wrong about Cynthia and Phoebe and Diana?"
"It appears we were operating with incomplete data. The name Delia was not in the corrupted files. Which suggests—" Splock paused significantly, "—that the original operative who compiled our intelligence was not entirely incompetent. The surname, incidentally, is York. The intelligence we received was correct on that point. The operative's filing error—confusing the family name with the city—did not, in fact, compromise the data. The Historian chose a family whose name could be mistaken for their location. It was a deliberate obfuscation, and we fell for it."
Duo whistled. "That's devious."
"It is." Splock's ears twitched. "The physician who examined the child—the one who now possesses Bill's Disruptor—is the family doctor. His surname is Hastings. That surname derives from the Old Norse 'Hastein,' a Viking chieftain who raided England in the ninth century. The name means 'descendant of Hastein.'"
Bill waited. "And?"
"And that is the information available."
"That's it? That's all you got?"
"The name's etymology is significant. It indicates—"
"I don't care about some dead Viking!" Bill threw his hands up. "I care about the guy who stole my Disruptor! Is he dangerous? Is he working for the Historian? Does he have a beard? What?"
Splock's expression suggested he was reconsidering his career choices. "The name Hastings indicates ancestry. It does not indicate that the individual himself is a ninth-century raider. He is unlikely to appear with an axe. Unless—" Splock paused, considering. "The Historian does have a penchant for unexpected temporal insertions. It is theoretically possible that—"
Duo interrupted. "Hey, maybe we should tell Bill how we found all this out?"
He winked.
Splock drew himself up. "I employed a modified version of the Thurlow-Yonce observational methodology, as refined by the Vrexlian Academy of Temporal Ethnography. The technique involves passive data acquisition through localized electromagnetic monitoring, cross-referenced with—"
Bill's eyes glazed over.
"—and of course, the Jenkins Correlation for non-participant surveillance, which accounts for the observer effect in pre-bloater-drive civilizations. The results were then validated against the standard deviations established by the Farthingale Protocols, which—"
"Get to the point," Bill said.
"The point is that we have sufficient intelligence to proceed. However, there is a complication." Splock's ears flattened slightly. "Local law enforcement is actively seeking three individuals matching our descriptions. The earlier incident at the subway, combined with Ham Duo's acquisition of the sunglasses, has generated what might be termed 'unwanted attention.'"
"Wonderful."
"Therefore, I propose a division of resources. I will remain here to continue surveillance of the York residence. You and Ham Duo will locate Chewgumma and retrieve his Disruptor."
Bill shook his head. "No. No way. I'm not going to catch some dumb Kookie while you're doing the fun stuff. I want..."
Splock held up a hand. "There is considerably more to learn. Dr. Hastings appears to reside in the York household—at least, he has not left the premises since our observation began. He may be living with them, or simply staying for an extended visit. I attempted to approach the residence for closer inspection, but—"
He paused. His ears twitched.
"My auditory appendages attracted attention from neighboring juveniles. They shouted what I initially perceived as a racial epithet, but subsequent analysis revealed a more complex cultural reference."
Bill leaned forward. "Shouting what?"
Splock's expression shifted—the closest he ever came to discomfort. "They shouted 'erph.' Repeatedly. At first I believed it was a primitive slur directed at my Nocturnian heritage. However, upon reflection and subsequent research using intercepted broadcasts, I have determined that 'erph' refers to a fictional character from a series of—" he paused, "—artistic works."
Duo snorted. "Artistic works?"
"Two—or possibly four, depending on whether one follows the publication chronology or the internal narrative logic—haiku composed by L. P. P. Spellkin, a Brazilian sanitation worker. These haiku inspired six pornographic films directed by a Scotsman named Peeler Snackson." Splock's voice carried a note of genuine affront.
Bill stared. "Children were shouting porn at you?"
"I cannot confirm that they viewed the source material. However, the cultural reference suggests a disturbing level of exposure to inappropriate media. The children of this era are... poorly supervised."
Bill buried his face in his hands.
"You're telling me you got distracted by—"
"I was not distracted. I was gathering intelligence. The hostility of the local juvenile population is a relevant factor in surveillance planning."
Duo was openly laughing now.
"There is more," Splock said. "I attempted to record the license plate of Gene York's vehicle—a necessary step for any thorough surveillance operation. However, a radio transmission from the vehicle's audio system distracted me. The melody, produced by an early electronic synthesizer, was accompanied by lyrics that I found... momentarily resonant."
Duo perked up. "What lyrics?"
"A male voice, somewhat affected in tone, singing: 'You don't understand, this is a demand, and I think that I have to show you, try to look inside...'" Splock's ears twitched. "The rhythm and the text aligned momentarily with my own intentions—to 'look inside' the house. The coincidence was sufficient to cause a momentary lapse in attention. During that lapse, a vehicle belonging to what I believe is a municipal towing service arrived and removed the York automobile. I was unable to record the license plate."
Bill stared at him. "You missed the license plate because of a song."
"A song whose lyrics resonated with my immediate objectives. The statistical improbability of such synchronicity is—"
"Unbelievable," Bill muttered. "Absolutely unbelievable."
Duo was grinning again. "The universe has a sense of humor, soldier. You gotta roll with it."
Bill looked from Duo's smug face to Splock's earnest confusion. At his crappy jumpsuit.
He had just listened to a report from some asshole alien with a hatchet-face and ears like a pregnant kangaroo, a report so full of useless details—sunglasses, banana peels, quantum residue, haiku-based pornography, and songs about demands—that they still had absolutely no idea what was actually happening inside that house, and this was apparently supposed to be progress.