Chronospace by Allen Steele Page B

timeship would soon begin entering the ionosphere, and Metz would have to correct its angle of descent to prevent burn-up. The status panel, though, told a different tale: the timeship was rushing down an invisible funnel, the event horizon of the wormhole Oberon was beginning to form around itself. Push a finger against a pinhole, and keep pushing until . . .
    “Five . . . four . . . three . . .”
    “Oh, God . . .” Hoffman whispered.
    “Shut your eyes,” Franc said, just before he did so himself.
    “Two. . .one. . .”
    In the next instant, it felt as if reality itself had becomethat imaginary rubber sheet, stretched to an infinite length, longer than the entire galaxy, longer than the universe itself . . .
    Then abruptly snapped.
    He slammed back into his couch, so hard that he felt the vertebrae at the base of his neck pop, and at the same instant he heard a distant scream—Tom, or maybe it was Lea—as everything seemed to shake at once. There was a harsh, high-pitched whine that came from everywhere yet nowhere; he smelled something acrid and sickly-sour, and then . . .
    “All right,” Metz said, “you can relax now. We’re through.”
    Franc opened his eyes.
    The first thing he saw was a globular, semiliquid mass floating in midair next to his couch. Mystified, he raised a hand and reached out to touch it . . . then recoiled when he realized what it was. He carefully turned his head to the right, saw Hoffman wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
    Tom caught Franc’s scowl, winced with embarrassment. “Sorry . . .”
    “Never mind. Happens now and then.” And now you understand why we warned you not to eat breakfast, he silently added, but there was no sense in pointing that out now. He tried not to smile when Lea ducked away from the globule of vomitus as it floated closer to her. He touched the lobe of his headset. “Vasili, if it’s not too much trouble, we could use some gravity in here.”
    “Just a moment,” the pilot said. A bar on the status panel shifted from red to green, and a few seconds later he felt the sudden sensation of falling, as if he were in an elevator that had just dropped a few floors. The globule splattered messily on the deck between their couches. It wasn’t pleasant, but at least it was better than having it wandering freely around.
    Franc unclasped his lap and shoulder harnesses, roseunsteadily to his feet. At first glance, the image on the wallscreen seemed unchanged, until he looked a little closer and noticed that they were at a higher altitude. The daylight terminator, too, was in a different place; now it ran across the eastern edge of the Atlantic Ocean, with nighttime falling on the British Isles and Spain.
    “Are we in the right frame?” Tom asked.
    “The AI says we’ve hit the correct coordinates,” Metz replied. “May 2, 1937, about 1800 hours GMT. I’d like to get a stellar reading to confirm it, though. Dr. Oschner, can you do that for me, please?”
    “I’m on it.” Lea was already out of her couch; shoulders hunched slightly, she staggered to the hatch, opened it, and exited the compartment. In the monitor room, she would be able to access historical star charts from the library and match them against the real-time positions of visible constellations.
    Although Hoffman had unbuckled his restraints, the younger man still lay in his couch, his face pale as he stared up at the ceiling. “Are you all right?” Franc asked quietly, and Tom gave him a weak nod. “Good. Take it easy for a minute, but then we’ve got work to do.”
    “Yeah . . . okay, sure.” Tom took a deep breath, let out a rattling sigh. “It’s . . . different from the simulator, isn’t it?”
    “It’s always different in the simulator.” He swatted Hoffman’s knee. “Cleanup detail is yours. When you’re done with that, you can help Lea and me get ready for insertion.”
    Tom nodded again. Franc walked to the hatch, then