"He wants to see if I turn into a toad," she said.
"Well," said Marrity in a tone he tried to make sound defensive, "it's like tasting food. If it's poisoned, better if just one person tries it."
"You also serve who only stand and watch," she said, and Marrity could hear the amusement in her voice as she went on copying the figures. She was already on her third match. Belatedly Marrity recognized the tune she'd been humming — it was "Bye Bye Blackbird."
"We'll talk to both of you at length this evening," said Mishal, "in a safer place, but right now — where are they now, the people you were with until today?"
"In Palm Springs; on their way there, anyway." Charlotte was biting her lower lip as she moved her eyes up and down — which was just for show, Marrity realized. "There's a thing my pal's greatgrandfather made, there — I don't know the whole story, but allegedly you can twist somebody's lifeline right out of existence with it. It uses some energy — having to do with the great-granddad's cosmological constant? It's way bigger in other dimensions, which is why it measures nearly zero from here, to us. Like a big beachball has a footprint that's only the size of a dime on a two-dimensional sheet of paper. The old guy said it was the worst mistake of his life, figuring it out."
Marrity heard old Mishal shift in his chair. "Do you mean," Mishal said, sounding interested for the first time, "they can make someone never have existed at all? No record or memory of that person?"
"Yep." Charlotte finished the final circle and dropped the last match onto the glass tabletop. She turned to Marrity and spread her hands. "No ill effects!" she said cheerfully, though Marrity thought her voice was shriller than she had meant it to be.
"And this is located, somehow, "said Mishal impatiently, "this… tap for the vacuum energy? "
"Yes," said Charlotte. "One of my employers said it was 'a singular object.'"
Lepidopt had struck several more matches, and Marrity picked one up and began copying figures onto his own sheet of paper. He was pleased to see that his scraped palm wasn't leaving blood on the paper — God only knew what effect that would have.
Mishal nodded. "I imagine he said 'singularity.' Einstein made a few oblique references to a thing like this in his notes, and we've wondered for years whether it might have been something he actually figured out. We have to look into this — though I wonder if even I have the math for it." He squinted at Charlotte. "Have they ever used it?"
Charlotte shrugged. "Who'd know?"
"Of course, of course. Where is it, where in Palm Springs?"
"Well, that's my bargaining chip, telling you that," she said. "I'll tell you, in exchange for use of the time machine. We — they — know you've got it. One of their guys got shot this afternoon when you took it out of Frank's grandmother's house."
Marrity was glancing at Lepidopt as she said this, and he thought Lepidopt's eyes narrowed slightly — in satisfaction?
"You said you've proposed a deal to them," said Mishal, "and that you'll go through with it if you can't make a deal with us. What did you propose to them?"
"They want to negate Frank's daughter, so that she won't have burned up their movie and generally made a hash of their plans. But Frank and Daphne have a psychic link, like mental Siamese twins, so these people can't isolate her and erase her while Frank is still alive. Of course they'd like to just kill Frank and get on with it, but the deal I proposed to them is that they negate me, instead."
Marrity had paused from his copying to look at her. She was staring across at Mishal, so Marrity could see her eyes behind the sunglasses; but when he noticed the glitter of tears on her lower lashes, and her impatient blink, he quickly looked back down at his paper.
She went on, "I screwed up their operation badly enough so that if I never existed, they'd have got the time machine, not you fellows. I've proposed a trade — me for Daphne."
"But that won't do," said Mishal, shaking his head, "if this singularity is real. If you're negated you'd never have told us about it."
Lepidopt leaned forward, frowning. "Miss, uh, Webb," he said. "You proposed that they erase your existence? No one remember you, nothing you've ever done leaving any slightest mark — this would be worse than death."
"Or better," said Charlotte. "But if you'll let me use the time machine, then I won't have to follow through with it."
"There's something you did," said Lepidopt quietly, "that needs to be undone."
Marrity had finished his copy of the strange diagram. Mishal took it and Charlotte's and frowned critically over them.
"You can't use the time machine," Mishal said absently. "But if, after I've done some math, this singularity looks plausible — and if the time machine works and we get our priority tasks out of the way— and if the change you want to make meets with our approval — we'll dispatch an operative to make the change for you." He put the papers down, pursing his lips. "These are good enough."
"I don't know if your operative could do it," said Charlotte. "It'll involve getting onto a secret U.S. Air Force base in 1978."
Mishal looked up from the papers and gave her a frosty smile. "Oh, I think we can manage."
He held out his hand, and Charlotte shook it.
"And you'll get my daughter away from those people," said Marrity.
"Yes," said Mishal. "Of course."
Lepidopt caught Marrity's eye and nodded slightly. Then he waved at the papers they'd marked up with the burnt matches. "Fold those in half, top to bottom, with the marks on the outside, without smearing the carbon, and press them against your skin under your shirts, top side outward. They'll smear soon enough, but it's the initial burn that counts. You can make fresh ones again later."
Charlotte took hers and started to get up, but Lepidopt raised his hand. "I'm sorry, Miss Webb, but you've got to do it here. We can't let either of you out of our sight, and I'm not going to escort you to the ladies' room."
Marrity began unbuttoning his shirt. He noticed Lepidopt look up at the balcony over their heads and touch his chin, and then look back down at the table. Signaling a watcher? thought Marrity. I bet we'll be leaving here soon.
When he had pressed the paper against his chest and buttoned his shirt over it, and Charlotte had rearranged her blouse over her own copy, Marrity cocked his head and opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated.
Lepidopt raised an eyebrow.
"Nothing," said Marrity, "I just—" He turned to Charlotte. "Do you get any…?" He waved vaguely at his rebuttoned shirt.
She touched her blouse over the hidden piece of paper. "Yes," she said, "The paper, as if it's…" She giggled, then bit her lip. "I think I'm getting your heartbeat."
Marrity grinned in embarrassment. That was it — the paper was faintly pulsing to a heartbeat that was not his. "And I guess I'm getting yours," he said. "Cheaper than stethoscopes."
Mishal had shifted in his chair to look at the crowd behind him. "That's a common effect," he said to Marrity over his shoulder, "when the papers are prepared at the same time." A sandy-haired man in a business suit was walking toward their table, and Mishal seemed to nod slightly in recognition.
Marrity was aware of curiosity from Daphne, and he was glad that wherever she was she had the leisure to notice things like this. He crossed his arms and then patted the couch on either side of himself, hoping this would show her that he was not actually pressed skin to skin against Charlotte.
Charlotte was looking at him, her eyebrows raised above the frames of her sunglasses.
"Clarifying it for Daphne," he explained.
"Ah! Your chaperone!"
The sandy-haired man had paused by the fountain a dozen feet from their table and was watching the people in the lobby with no apparent interest.