The Armageddon Blues | Page 6

few steps, eyes still locked to it; then, reluctantly, turned and began the long run back to the Clan House. She would be home nearly a twelfth-day before she would be needed for the Ceremony meal, but that was of no account. When she told Ralesh what she had done, she would be badly punished, perhaps even ceremonially scarred; but Jalian's mother would do something about the tall, thin building that had grown up on Jalian's Big Road.
Jalian d'Arsennette had no way of knowing that the "building" was a starship.
Dateline 1968 Gregorian.
Georges Mordreaux sat behind the wheel of a green ‘66 Camaro. He was traveling north on the Pacific Coast Highway. Georges Mordreaux was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with cheerful nondescript features, light blue eyes and light brown hair. He smiled a lot.
The Camaro ran smoothly, with the sort of leashed power that a jet pilot might have recognized, but which was utterly out of place in a green 1966 model Camaro. (Or any other color Camaro.) Both the passenger and driver's windows were down, and wind was blasting through the car. The air conditioner was on. So was the heater.
The machine ran ... well, better than new was the term that came immediately to Georges' mind. Georges did not think that the car would break the sound barrier, even if he pushed it. The car was too aerodynamically inefficient.
Georges had owned the car for two weeks now. He'd bought it from a used-car dealer in New Jersey who swore that it had been driven by a retired couple who simply liked Camaros. Georges had not put gasoline into the car once on the way west.
"Better than new" was probably the correct term.
Georges whistled as he drove. He was not very good at it, and besides, the car radio was competing; the Beatles were singing "I Want to Hold Your Hand." Georges was whistling "Marseillaise." It did not occur to him to turn the radio off. (To be fair, it is not likely that he could have turned the radio off.)
Georges whistled, driving north. The Pacific Ocean sparkled in the sunshine off to his left. He smiled quite a lot.
How likely is it that the world's only time traveler would encounter Georges Mordreaux?
Not very. But then, there are things that are more improbable. That an object should spontaneously gain more energy, assume a more orderly pattern, is vastly more unlikely--and yet, still possible. In a world ruled by quantum mechanics, there are no certainties; entropy is a function of probability theory.
One might best consider Georges Mordreaux as an improbability locus.
There.
Dateline 1968 Gregorian.
Forty miles north of San Luis Obispo, Georges Mordreaux saw a hitchhiker, walking briskly along the right shoulder of the highway. A second closer look altered his impression slightly. Walking along the roadside, yes; but she was not a hitchhiker. She paid no attention to the cars skimming by her on the freeway.
The drivers passing her certainly paid attention to her; they were almost unable to do otherwise. She stood out from her surroundings like a Corvichi fusion torch at night. She was dressed in a white jumpsuit, and carried a light blue satchel on one shoulder. Her hair hung to the small of her back, long and straight and undeniably white, reflecting the sunlight brilliantly. Her skin, where the rolled-up sleeves of the jumpsuit showed the flesh of the arms, was bleached-white, with little pink in its makeup. The jumpsuit legs were tucked into the tops of calf-high black boots.
Georges smiled to himself absently, and brought the Camaro to a halt next to the girl. He leaned over and called out through the right-hand window.
"Do you need a ride, miss?"
The girl continued to walk when he stopped the car; she did not turn when he spoke to her, in a voice that held faint traces of a French accent.
Georges called, "Miss?" a bit more loudly.
Jalian d'Arsennette y ken Selvren turned around, intending to inform this stranger that she was quite content walking. She would do so in the iciest tone of voice of which she was capable, which was considerably so
/light blue eyes smiling at me and there is power that shines on him and pours from him broad shoulders plain face and the power the power he is smiling at me .../
/silver eyes .../
when something strange happened.
"Freeways," said Jalian d'Arsennette, in an accent that Georges had never heard the like of before, with a voice so soft and clear that it sounded like running water, "were made to be walked upon."?
Georges got out of the car, and Jalian watched him, waiting; not unsure or confused or wondering, simply waiting for what would happen next.
Georges Mordreaux stood at the side of the still-running green Camaro, looking at the girl who stood at the edge of the cement, on