There Comes a Time

There Comes a Time-2

"SHOULD WE CONTACT SOMEONE? Husband? Relatives?" asked Lieutenant Merritt.

General Nancarrow shook his head. "She's single. No boyfriend. No close relatives. That's one of the reasons she was chosen. Less chance of her letting something slip." The two army officers were standing at Caris' bedside in a windowless hospital room.

"Okay, I'll ask the nurses to keep an eye on her so there's someone around when she wakes up."

"Thanks for taking over as her psych support at such short notice. We need to be careful. She'll most likely be groggy and disoriented. We can't risk her saying anything that sounds odd. You know what I mean. And we need her ready for debriefing as soon as possible. So stick around, is what I'm saying."

Merritt nodded and the general left. The lieutenant looked down at the unconscious figure on the bed. She had short hair and her thin face was bruised and scratched. She didn't look at all like his mental image of a time traveler—tough, exotic and strange. She looked very ordinary and vulnerable.

A screen was embedded on the wall next to the bed, and Merritt scrolled through the information. Twenty-six years old. Parents dead, one from a drug overdose and the other in a bank hold up, as the perpetrator. Foster care kid in numerous homes. Enlisted at sixteen. Exemplary record of active service. Prodigious technical talent. Merritt scrolled ahead to the psych evaluation. He scanned it, and went back to the personal history. Strange. Her psych score was nearly perfect, which was completely at odds with her upbringing.

He glanced down at Caris and started. Her eyes were open and watching him.

"See anything interesting?"

"Hi, Caris. Glad to see you're awake. I'm Lieutenant Merritt." He took out his ID and showed it to her. "I'm here to make sure you're okay. How are you feeling?"

"Like death."

Merritt drew up a chair and sat down. "It'll ease over the next few days, I expect. Time travel must be like an exaggerated version of long haul flights. You're experiencing a form of jet lag. Or time lag, I suppose I should say."

"Hmph. So ... you aren't a medic. You're the new psychiatrist?"

"Psych support officer. Hungry?"

"Nope. What happened to Lieutenant Norris?"

"He's in intensive care. Stroke. Thirsty? How about a drink?"

"That's for me, right?" Caris looked at the jug of water and tumbler on the table next to her bed. "I'll be okay." There was a silence. "Look, you don't have to hang around. I'm okay. I won't say anything to anyone, if that's what's worrying you."

Merritt stood up to leave, but hesitated.

"Really, I'm okay," said Caris. "I'm sure you have plenty to do."

Merritt leaned toward her and said in a low voice, "Caris, you've just been a hundred years into the future. Don't you want to talk about how you're feeling? You know, share? It must have been quite an experience."

Caris thought a moment then said, "No, I'm good."

Merritt tilted his head and smiled. The woman seemed perfectly calm and relaxed. He regarded her battered face. Gel coated the worst cuts, holding the edges together and healing them. In a few days' time, under the hospital's state-of-the-art care, she would be as good as new. And the physical effects of the first extended journey in time would have left as few effects on her body as it appeared to have left on her mind.

"You sure you don't need anything?"

Caris shook her head, smiled and gave Merritt a thumbs-up.

The next time he saw her was at the debriefing. She stood in uniform before an assembly of most of the highest-ranking military personnel in the country. Merritt scrutinized her facial expression and body language. She appeared entirely unfazed.

Nancarrow stood and turned to the other officers. "I propose we let Corporal Elliott tell us her account, then ask questions. Are we in agreement?"

Caris spoke for twenty minutes, giving each detail of her experience from start to finish, describing the physical geography, flora and fauna she encountered, the single, tumble-down building she had found, and the view of endless jungle she had seen. A tutting admiral interrupted.

"There's surely been some kind of error here. That sounds nothing at all like Stockbridge. Is there something wrong in the calculations, or a problem with the machine? We must have sent her somewhere different. We sent her to the sss, or some such other place."

Nancarrow stood again. "Can we wait for Corporal Elliot to finish?"

"General Nancarrow, I'm done. It was at that moment I was retrieved," said Caris.

"Right. Thank you, Corporal. Well, let's commence questions, then."

Merritt watched Caris. The officers fired off questions, interrupting one another and repeating themselves. The volume of noise in the room rose and petty squabbles broke out as each tried to make him- or herself heard. A heated argument on the possibility of global warming creating a jungle in the area broke out. Caris answered each question patiently, giving the same information over and over again. Merritt would have expected anyone else to experience frustration, but Caris only looked bored.

He took her back to the hospital for a final physical exam before she was discharged. The autocab whipped through the streets, equidistant from every other vehicle.

"Caris, I have a question for you about your experience, if you don't mind."

"Shoot."

"How did you feel about it?"

Caris sighed. "Look, I know you're just doing your job, but I'm okay. I'm not going to have a mental breakdown or anything. I'm not like that."

"I know. I'm your psych support, remember? I didn't mean that. I meant, what was it like, being there? A hundred years in the future. I mean, wow."

"Hmph." Caris watched the streets of Stockbridge fleeting past. Clean, neat, sharp-edged and modern. Glass-fronted stores glinted in the sunlight. The pavements were even, the signs bright. She thought back to the expanse of jungle that, as far as she could tell, would take its place in one hundred year's time. She turned to Merritt. "You know what? I felt great. It was beautiful."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. It was alive, you know? So alive. I've never seen anything like it. It was how it must have been before we took over the planet. It's kind of nice to know there comes a time when we return the Earth to a natural state."

Merritt tried to imagine.

"Hey, you're okay, you know," said Caris.

"Huh?"

"The rest of them, they didn't care. All they wanted to know was where all the people had gone. No one else tried to understand what it was like. How it felt to be there."

***