“I’ve doubled the life-support supplies to accommodate you, Martha. All I personally require is electricity, of course, and information. But I thought Matthew might like some human company.”
“Thank you,” they said simultaneously, and a startled look passed between them.
“Before we go, though, the people—well, callthem people—who helped me design and build this, asked a favor in return. We know so little about everyday life in your worlds—especially yours, Martha—that it would be extremely valuable if you would consent to a day of being interviewed. ”
“I don’t have any problem with that,” Matthew said, and looked into Martha’s silence.
“Is it just answering questions? In my time there were ‘interviews’ that had serious consequences.”
“That’s all you have to do, answer questions. They will measure your reaction to each question as well as record your answer.”
“Lie detecting?” Matt said.
“A little more subtle than that. Truth detecting, I suppose. ”
“Okay,” Matt said. He looked at Martha, and she nodded slowly.
“Good. They’ll be here in the morning, about ten. I’ll meet you for breakfast before that.” She disappeared.
They looked at their reflections in the machine’s mirror skin. “Truth detector,” he said.
“There are things I’d never tell anyone,” Martha confessed. “Do you think they could . . . make me do that?”
“I don’t know. But what difference would it really make? Everyone we ever knew is thousands of years dead.”
“La will know. We have to live with her.”
“Like I say, she’s seen everything. I doubt that you or I have ever done anything that would make her blink.”
She hugged herself. “God’s seen everything, too, in me. So I don’t really have any secrets.” She turned away from the machine. “Go back to the garden?”
It took both of them to pull the heavy door closed. The garden was unchanged, flowers and candles and the slightest breeze.
She sat down in the middle of one of the benches, and Matt sat across from her.
“I was reading about Bathsheba in the Bible,” she said.
“I don’t know the Bible.”
“People didn’t undress in front of each other in your time, did they?”
“Under some circumstances, yes. But not generally.”
“I grew up in a tenement that was very crowded,” she said. “The only privacy anyone had was in the toilet, and you didn’t waste time there, dressing. So people learned not to look? It was the same at the MIT dorm, but of course we were all girls.”
“I understand.”
“So I’m sorry if I was tempting you. I don’t know much about things like that.”
“It’s not a problem. Nothing could be fartherfrom being a problem.” She didn’t react. “So what did Bathsheba do that was so horrible?”
“Well, all she did was take a bath. But King David was looking down from the roof of his castle, and saw her, and summoned her, and they wound up committing adultery, and she got pregnant.
“Her husband, Uriah, was a soldier off fighting in a war. King David didn’t want him coming back to find Bathsheba pregnant, so he ordered Uriah’s commander to put him in a place where he would be killed.”
“That’s pretty low. But all Bathsheba did was take a bath.”
“And commit adultery.”
“Sure, but with the king? What would he have done to her if she’d said no?”
“When we studied that account in school, the teacher said she should have defied him, even it if meant her death. He showed us a picture, by Rembrandt, where she doesn’t look at all unwilling.”
“Well, yeah. Rembrandt was a guy, King David was a guy, your teacher was a guy, and the guys who wrote the Bible were all guys.”
“God wrote the Bible, and He is not a guy.”
“Okay. But Bathsheba was probably just trying not to get her head chopped off. Did her child inherit David’s kingdom?”
“No. The Lord took its life in its first year.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
The irony slid off Martha’s armor. “But then her next son was Solomon, who was an even greater king than David.”
“So God killed the first one because it was conceived in sin.” He shook his head. “But then David had the husband killed, so it wasn’t adultery anymore, and he let that one be king.”
“If you put it that way, it doesn’t sound very good. But the Lord moves in mysterious ways.”
“There’s no mystery. It’s like a big boys’ club! The men get the women and the power, and all the women get is screwed!”
She smiled behind her hand. “I don’t know that word. But I know what you mean by it.”
“None of your teachers ever talked about that?”
“Not yet, nothing specific.” She was serious again. “One of those things we have to put off until after Passage. If you had showed up a month later, I’d know a lot more.”
He sighed and stared at the ground between them. “I’m sorry. I came blundering in and knocked your life apart. When you’ve given me nothing but kindness.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, almost lightheartedly. “I talked to God about it.”
“And he answered you?”
“Not in so many words—some people have that gift, but I don’t. Prayer just makes my mind clear and calm. I think He’s listening and guiding my thoughts.
“If you hadn’t come along, I would’ve had Passage next month, and probably been married a month after that, and be a mother next year sometime.”
“That’s the way it usually goes?”
“Usually. Unless a girl is really unpleasant or ugly, or ill.”
“No worries for you.”
“Probably not. But I have to say, and I told God, I wasn’t looking forward to it. That I didn’t feel old enough to be a mother. So you and your machine really were the answer to my prayers.”
“Are you crazy? I mean, no disrespect intended, but it might have been a little safer, getting married and settling down. We don’t know that we’ll ever find a way back.”
“We will, Professor. Matthew. You have to have faith.”
“You have enough for both of us.”
“But you said something when we were talking to Arl and Em. That you had evidence that somebody really had traveled back in time.”
“Circumstantial evidence.” She frowned at the term. “That’s something that provides an explanation, but without being actual proof.
“It was back in 2058. I was in trouble with the police—”
“Again?”
“Time travel does that to you. Anyhow, to get out of jail I needed an impossible amount of money, a million dollars. A lawyer I didn’t know showed up with it.
“I didn’t know anybody with that kind of money. But the lawyer said someone who looked somewhat like me had showed up at his office and given it to him, with instructions to come down to the courthouse and buy my way out.”
“So it was you, coming back from the future to save yourself.”
“It’s an explanation. But it requires backward time travel, which is supposed to be impossible.”
“That doesn’t sound very scientific, for a scientist. I’d say that the fact that you showed up with the money proves that backward time travel is possible—and it’s possible for you.” She stood up, excited. “And if you looked like you, now, we know it’s not going to take fifty years or something to find out the secret!”
“Or maybe it will take fifty years,” Matt said sardonically, “or a hundred, but traveling backward makes you look younger.” Her smile evaporated. “I’m kidding. Your logic is good. With that and your faith, how can we lose?”
“Thank you.” She dimpled again. “Are you hungry?”
“Starving. We should get something to eat, then rest. Sounds like a busy day tomorrow.” He looked around. “Mister Food Man?”
The valet appeared. “What may I do for you?”
“Can you do pizza?”
“Of course. New York or Chicago style?”
“New York. With pepperoni.”
He nodded and disappeared. “ ‘Piece of’?” Martha said. “Piece of what?”
“Pizza, with two zees. It’s from Italy.”