Myths of the Modern Man (2 page)

The three stood, expectant and awkward for a moment, then Eleanor took the lead and proceeded down the hall to her laboratory. They passed the department administrative office where a small, tight unit of secretaries, librarians and transcriptionists, and her own administrative assistant, Milly, eyed them as if they were celebrities. Eleanor always enjoyed that, and knew that in his quietly egocentric way, Dr. Ford did, too. Dr. L’Esperance smiled and nodded at them all, not seeming to understand that taking notice of them should have been beneath her. Eleanor hustled her along lest she pause to make new friends with her unique way of saying hello. They waited in the anteroom to swipe their ID cards, and receive verification through retina and fingerprint analysis before the doors would open to this sector.

“
Briefly then,” Eleanor began, wanting to crush the leaden silence between them as they were being processed, “Colonel Brian K. Yorke is the far superior of the two in terms of testing and personal service record, as well as physical fitness. However, it would be his first mission. Colonel Moore has been with us since the inception of this project, though despite his experience, has a tendency to become an anomaly at times.”

“
He is quite resourceful and creative in his own way,” Dr. Ford said to defend him, “but one almost senses that he loses his detachment too easily.”

“
Yes.” Eleanor said, glad they agreed on something.

“
Do you mean to say he becomes involved with the story line?” Dr. L’Esperance asked.

“
The problem is,” Eleanor responded as the doors opened for them, “Colonel Moore always thinks the story is about him.”

CHAPTER 2

Colonel John Moore’s narrative:

I sneaked a peek at the report on my emotional instability. It was written in the typically terse and sterile verbiage of Dr. Eleanor Roberts, dictated into a hand-held recorder and transcribed the next day by her administrative assistant, Milly. It didn’t make for very good reading, but then Eleanor was not good with a yarn. She was, I sensed, almost intentionally boring. All animals have their modes of protection.

Milly slapped the folder shut in my face and frowned at me for invading her turf. Still, she was on my side. Milly did not like Dr. Roberts. Milly told me so on several occasions, by her body language, which included some vulgar hand gestures when Dr. Roberts’ back was turned, and also by some indirect, tearful threats to either quit, complain to somebody higher up, or just plain kill her some night in the parking lot. It seemed comical to me that such a tall, rugged-looking young woman like Milly could be so bullied by such a tight-assed little shrimp like Eleanor. Eleanor had that presence, I guess. A personality like the strong scent of musk, and she marked her territory with directives. Milly was physically strong but emotionally weak, and Eleanor was just the opposite.

I laughed, patted Milly’s hand with her strong typist’s fingers and told her to just punch Eleanor in the face the next time she wanted a week’s worth of work in three hours. Milly smirked, exhaled in relief that somebody understood her, and that was all she really wanted. She giggled and waved me away. She never realized I meant it.

My own run-ins with Dr. Roberts were more even-handed. Eleanor needed me. I was her pet project, the time-traveling astronaut on whom so much faith, energy, planning, and trillions of dollars were invested. I reminded her of this fact when she most disgusted me, which was happening a lot lately.

Dr. Ford walked into the lab in an expensive pair of very shiny shoes and set down his constant companion, a cup of coffee. He sat on the metal stool by the lab table and rubbed his eyes. Dr. Roberts turned from her notes and gave him a prolonged glance of concern. Concern? Anxiousness? Tenderness? Desire? I could never tell. I always wondered, but I could never really tell.

“
It’s Colonel Moore, or nothing,” he said at last, looking up at her with his habitual rueful smile. She probably found that smile boyish and charming. She was that unimaginative.

“
That’s what they said?” Dr. Roberts looked close to a pout.

“
That’s what they just released to the press.”

“
Even before confirming it with us?”

“
General English made the move.”

Dr. Roberts turned back to her digital note pad, refusing to share her disappointment with us just as she shut us out of her thoughts. I could sense, rather than see, the sharp frown working on her delicate features, a kind of benign budgerigar ferocity in her pale blue eyes, eyes so pale as to give the impression of having faded from some more brilliant former color.

Brian K. Yorke sat opposite me in the same coarse trousers, tunic and neck torque of the ancient Celtic warrior as me, our hair now grown to shoulder length. We gave up haircuts when we were assigned to prepare for this mission. During months of physical training and education on the ancient Celts, Gauls and Romans our hair grew freely, which was the easiest part of the assignment. His hair was jet black, thick and curly, and mine was still partly brown where it had not already turned gray. Even with the bruises from the fight, he looked like Hercules at twenty-eight. I looked like a vagrant, and much older than thirty-eight. They chose me.

Brian K. Yorke bit his lip, jerked his head down into his lap for a split second of wounded pride, the picture of an athlete in defeat as he might have been captured in a Michelangelo sculpture, then looked up, flexing his neck muscles in brave resignation at his fate. He looked at Dr. Roberts with rigid, square-jawed respect, like he was pledging allegiance to the flag, but she looked away. She was as uncomfortable with his display of dignity as she was with expressions of her own disappointment that he had not been chosen.

Then Yorke stood, stepped smartly over to me and shook my hand.

“
Congratulations, Colonel Moore.” I think he would have added “happy hunting” or “happy landing” or some such lucky charm, but there was none for time travel. Not yet. After a few experiments in the lab, the only successful mission of note in time travel was last year when I was catapulted back to the Hundred Years War, rode shotgun for Joan of Arc, hung out at her immolation, and was pulled back through the tenacious, greedy fingers of gravity back here, back to the late Twenty-First Century with a smoldering banner in my hand and a case of emotional ecstasy and terror that drove me into the psych ward for a few weeks while Dr. Roberts and Dr. Ford debriefed me, Eleanor muttering her thoughts into her voice recorder. Milly, faithful transcriptionist, knew all about my supposed new-found if still tenuous religious faith after having seen a saint in action. It was all the talk of the agency commissary, but she took that in stride, as she did the whole crazy business of the time travel study. Her previous position was transcribing for an orthopedist with a lisp. It was all the same to her.

Which is more than I can say for the rest of us. Dr. Roberts and Dr. Ford took it all too seriously, and General English, who figure-headed the mission and ran end-runs around the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was playing like a codger in his dotage. Not a man of science but a survivor of deep cuts in military spending, the General enjoyed the press junkets more than anybody, and oddly enough courted the press in a way which would have made him blanch earlier in his career, when all a military man had to do was participate in strategic exercises, mistrust and revile the press, and wait out his hitch.

On the last point, our long peace and the absence of the old Cold War of the previous century, not to mention the era of terrorism that had finally faded away in its repeated failure to achieve anything -- all this gave way ironically to more pressing environmental problems mankind suddenly discovered we all suddenly shared. The lack of conflict made us warriors atrophy a bit. It was partly why I left Navy flying and joined the space program. I never had any idealism to speak of, which made enduring three years in a capsule alone, and a press circus when I got back a lot easier. As far as I was concerned, there was little left to care about my work or my life or this earth.

But, these Time Dimension studies were getting to me. I had lost a great deal of my skepticism, and that scared me. Like I said, all animals have their modes of protection.

They blasted me alone to the era of choice, to witness mankind’s previous mistakes in the flesh, like having a repeating nightmare. A sickening little game, really. I was a little afraid of going back in time again. It played hell on you in a thousand perverse ways. I couldn’t make them understand that. Maybe I didn’t try. I can be a smart-ass sometimes.

Brian K. Yorke, poster boy for sincerity, turned at the door, saluted everybody, turned on his heel and left, probably to get a haircut. I wondered what his place in history would be. It wouldn’t be mine. Not today.

Eleanor had not even bothered to acknowledge his stiff upper lip. Like a little boy waiting to be noticed by the teacher on whom he has a crush, I think he was waiting for that. She couldn’t even give him her notice, or say, “I’m sorry.”

I started to feel worse for Yorke than when I beat him up.

Dr. Roberts stood, turned around to face us again now that Yorke had gone. She dragged two fingers through her thin, blonde hair, and stuffed her thin, cold white hands into her lab coat. She looked at me without speaking for a moment, like someone deciding on the merit of a consolation prize.

“
Welcome aboard again, Colonel Moore,” she said in a soft voice, devoid of sincerity. She was no Brian K. Yorke. Everything was so tiresome to her. Sometimes, the thought I ever wanted her sickened me.

“
Sorry Eleanor. I know you wanted the boy.”

“
I wanted the best man for the mission.”

“
I guess you got stuck with me. You know, I think that’s a real shame. You two ought to go.”

Dr. Ford smiled and Eleanor tried to interrupt, but I wouldn’t let her.

“
Isn’t it odd that I’m the only one of us who can be shot through the cannon? All I have is a few space missions under my belt, some G-force tremors left from long ago, and the ability to fight with a knife. Ford, you know more about history and the lives of everyday people back then, but you can’t blend in as easily where I’m going because you’re not white-skinned. Also you’re probably squeamish at the sight of blood. Eleanor can’t go to prove her own theories because she is a woman, a woman who is unprepared to risk rape, and I think she thinks that’s all she could possibly have waiting for her back there.”

“
Colonel Moore….”

“
You should try it and go sometime, Eleanor. I think time travel would open your eyes. I think you need to get out of this lab more and take a walk in the past. It’s not a theory. It’s a real place. It’s a fascinating, sickening, dangerous place.”

“
I’m glad to know you take some part of these missions seriously, Colonel Moore.”

“
Cut the crap and talk to me, Eleanor.”

“
If the council and General English are confident that you are the person for the assignment, I am confident as well.” She said, shooting a look to Dr. Ford, who clasped his hands over his knee. I don’t think he cared who went; astronauts were all loose cannons as far as he was concerned. He had little use for adventurers. He would have rather had a sedate and responsible historian be shot through time, somebody who knew how to analyze, ask questions, and take notes, but somebody other than him.

“
When do we meet the press?” I asked.

Dr. Roberts smirked and gave me her disapproving expression again.

“
We do not. General English is handling the press conference alone this time. He believes the process will be carried out in a more expedient fashion than having us all put on display.”

“
Still upset about the last press conference, aren’t you?”

“
You insulted the media, broke a reporter’s finger simply because he pointed it at you, and started a riot. Let’s just say it was a tough day.”

“
I did apologize at some point. It was in the press kit.”

Dr. Ford smiled for the first time.

“
Colonel Moore,” he said, “I’d like to offer my congratulations, too. And a hope for the best possible outcome.”

“
What would that be?”

“
Just getting you home alive.”

“
There’s a bit more to it than that, Dr. Ford.” Dr. Roberts interjected, but Ford continued.

“
Don’t worry so much about fact gathering. You’re not a detective, you’re an official observer. Just use your skills to observe….”

“
Without getting involved…” I echoed the mantra they practically embroidered across my underwear.

“
Oh you’ll be involved, whether you like it or not. These people may kill you. They’ll try.”

“
Then you can bring back my molecules and put them in a jar for study.”

“
I’m not sure what we’ll be able to do, and I don’t think Dr. Roberts is either. And when I say skills, I don’t mean as a scientist or technician, I mean as a survivor. Just survive. That’s all you have to do. We’ll take care of the analysis when you get back.”

I shook his hand. He clapped me on the shoulder. He nodded to Eleanor with absolutely no meaning that I could discover, and then he left us alone.

Dr. Roberts turned her back to me again and re-checked her instruments.

“
Do I sense contention in the utopian lab?” I asked, sliding off my stool.