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25
Bloody Good, Then
Jack
WedroppedCliveoffat RATS in the overgrown and hidden garden. Nothing had changed there. The windows were still blocked directly above. It paid to check those things each time we flew now. Mimi and Bryan had noticed a time slip yesterday, and with Time at the helm, I thought it prudent to be aware of such possibilities going forward.
Charles didn't exit the Vehicle, but as Rafe rushed out to greet Clive and give me an update, I stepped down into the verdant greenery. Crawford might have been back and might have been the legitimate Chief Surgeon at RATS in his eyes, but I was still Rafe's Flight Surgeon and the report he gave was given to me.
"Bryan's come around," Rafe told me. "He's fit to throw a punch, battered and bruised, and swears he'll get revenge on Anderson for Mimi. Sally's making sure he's not doing anything stupid and Dean's making sure Sally doesn't get her heart torn apart in the process."
"Not an easy task," I offered.
"I'll keep an eye on Dean," Rafe promised.
"Any news on that rip?" I asked.
"It was definitely Sergei. Bauer went in Orion 6b. Standard stitching of Time from inside the Vehicle."
"Then how did she know it was Sergei?" Clive asked; his insertion in the conversation was as familiar as if he'd never left the building. It also made it look like he understood exactly what we were talking about, but I hadn't mentioned the rip alarm sounding on my departure from RATS.
I wondered, yet again, just what was going on inside Clive's head.
"She activated every external camera the module had and caught Sergei and the Wylde family entering his Lunik not too far away," Rafe explained.
Clive grunted in reply and didn't ask why Bauer hadn't exited the Vehicle to stop Sergei from getting his hands on Lunik's secrets.
"Nothing appears changed here," I told them. "So no time slip, thankfully. Which means..."
"...he didn't get what he wanted," Rafe finished for me.
"I was actually thinking that it confirms it was an older version of Sergei and he must have been in Russia for a different purpose."
Clive made a gruff sound again, but this time it wasn't in agreement, I thought.
"What's on your mind, Dr Crawford?" I asked.
He harrumphed briefly and then straightened his suit jacket. "Nothing is ever as it seems with Time, gentlemen," he said.
"Be more specific," I told him.
He turned to look at me. In that look, I could see how much he had aged. How exhausted he was. How determined he was, too, I'd wager. There was a lot going on behind those intelligent grey eyes. He knew something. He either expected me to work it out for myself, or he didn't think knowing what he knew would help me.
"Mimi killed Sergei," I said, speaking aloud for my benefit as much as his. "Any Sergei we see from now on has to be an older version travelling forward in time."
"Does it?" Clive asked.
"We don't travel forward that often," Rafe offered. "It's possible, but rarely done."
"But possible," I said. I needed this Sergei to be an older version of the man Mimi had killed. I needed to know we had made progress. That we'd thwarted his efforts to get Lunik's secrets. That we'd won.
That Mimi's efforts weren't for nothing.
I closed my eyes because I couldn't stand the look on Clive's face right then. The pitying look of a man who knew the truth and pitied those around him who couldn't see it.
Sergei was dead. Mimi was back in her old time. This latest rip didn't cause a time slip. Not that time slips are guaranteed if the past is altered, but Sergei had managed it once, so why not now if he was altering time? Stealing knowledge he shouldn't have?
Maybe he didn't get what he needed.
