A Question of Charity
Penelope Hill
Day 1: Friday, October 30, 1998
"Al Calavicci, I do not belong to you, and I have no intention of changing my mind, so there!" The woman's voice was high-pitched and penetrating. The man she addressed winced and waved at her to keep her voice down.
"Tina, honey," he began to say, but the woman was not listening to him.
"I know you can't come to Vegas with me, because Ziggy's expecting Doctor Beckett to complete translocation at any moment. But that doesn't mean I can't go, if I want to. And I want to." She turned up her nose and began to walk away. Her companion took a wary look at the people who surrounded them, sighed, and went after her.
"Tina. Honey. Tinkerbell," he tried again, waving the stubby cigar in his right hand to emphasise each word. "Will you just listen to me...?"
They were in the canteen, one of the few communal gathering places that existed within the confines of the Project. It was also lunchtime, an occasion which guaranteed the presence of most of the technicians and off-duty support teams, a range of administrative and security personnel, and several of the research staff. Since the ups and downs of Admiral Calavicci's relationship with his blonde and beautiful technical assistant formed a major part of the Project gossip, the scene they were acting out was attracting a great deal of attention. Far too much attention for the Admiral's personal comfort. He had the distinct feeling that Tina had deliberately picked the venue in order to show him up, and he really didn't have time to deal with her petulant feelings of affront. There were times, and this was probably one of them, when he seriously wondered how he'd managed to get himself entangled with the woman in the first place. She was selfish, emotionally demanding, highly self-centred and, in many important matters, remarkably dumb.
"A perfect match," Sam Beckett had declared it once, although he hadn't been entirely serious at the time. At least, Al hoped he hadn't been serious. It was hard to tell with Sam sometimes. The truth of the matter was that, despite all her faults, Tina was a decidedly sexy woman, with curves in all the right places and moves that made her dynamite in bed. When she wanted to be, which these days wasn't as often as he might have preferred. It had been so easy in the beginning. Tina was no college sophisticate, needing to be wooed with fancy food and high-class conversation; once away from her monitor screen she'd been happy to settle for a little flashy jewellery, a bottle of champagne and a trip to Vegas. One weekend away from the Project and they'd come back an item, much to Sam Beckett's amusement and everyone else's unsurprise. What had surprised everybody - Al included - was the fact that no more seemed to come of it. He'd been married so often now, he'd decided eventually, that the prospect of divorcing Tina had had sufficient unappeal to prevent him from asking the vital question in the first place. An affair would have been a different matter - a few weekends, passion snatched and savoured, followed by the inevitable falling out and the attraction of another woman - all of that he could have understood; but Tina had appropriated him, with all the possessiveness of marriage, just without its attendant benefits. He didn't own her, as she had so shrilly pointed out, but she didn't own him either, just acted as if she did. If it wasn't that their mutual apologies were quite so pleasurable - and that she had just the right winsome smile to melt his resistance when she wanted to be nice to him - he'd have bitten the bullet and dissuaded her from his company as gently as he could have managed it.
If the Admiral were ever honest with himself - an occupation he tried to avoid as a rule - he might have reluctantly admitted that the real reason he hadn't disentangled himself was the same reason he never disentangled himself. He just couldn't do it. It was always the woman that walked out on Al Calavicci, an expectation he generally brought to the relationship to begin with; there was a part of himself unwilling to commit too deeply, unable to extend the trust he wanted to, yet always hoping that this time would be different. It usually started well enough, but he never allowed himself to believe it might last, clinging instead to the idea of having a perfect relationship until his chosen partner ran true to form and refused to put up with him any longer. Often the final straw had been because she'd discovered him overly occupied with another member of her sex. He had too much of himself to give, and, after his first wife, had never found a woman with the right depth of heart to take all he had to offer. He didn't go off with other women because he'd fallen out of love with the one he had, just wanted the next one that caught his eye. Most of it was hot passion, not intellectual desire, and few of those kind of affairs lasted longer than the time it took to consummate them. Some of them didn't even last that long. His longer-term relationships tended to consolidate around those who either played hard to get or dug their claws in deep once he had them where he'd thought he wanted them. Tina had been one of the latter, and he'd fallen for it in a big way. Sam Beckett would probably suggest that his friend's problem with his women stemmed from being in love with the species, not the individuals. Only twice in his chequered lifetime had Al Calavicci really been in love, and the first of those had been with a married woman too conscious of society's morals ever to consider their relationship anything more than a passing affair; the second time had been with the wife he had been trying to replace ever since. Tina's selfish demands and easily ruffled feathers were no substitute for Lisa's easy-going company or Beth's sincere affection, but it was unlikely he would ever make that kind of connection again - not least because of his own unadmitted guilt over feeling as if he'd betrayed both of them.
All of which made Tina's petty little games highly frustrating - like now, stumbling after her in the public eye of the canteen, trying to look as if he were in control of the situation, despite the fact that he obviously wasn't. "All I'm asking is that we postpone the trip for a few days." His pleading was falling on deaf ears, as he well knew, but he had to salvage some dignity from the embarrassment. "You know we can't predict Sam's Leaping in and out, honey. Ziggy does her best, but -"
"Don't you blame any of this on Ziggy." Tina turned back with a dramatic pout of indignation. "She doesn't mind if Gushie takes scheduled time off. Why should you be any different?"
Since this was blindingly obvious to anyone who worked on the Project, the Admiral was briefly dumbstruck. His mouth worked, but failed to formulate any kind of sentence, a reaction which allowed her to consider him with smug triumph.
"See," she said, as if his silence had admitted everything she was accusing him of. "You never find time for me. All I want is a fun weekend away, and all you do is keep finding excuses."
He sighed. This would be a lot easier if she wasn't so attractive when she got angry, all flashing eyes and pert indignation. "Honey," he began with conciliatory effort, when the base intercom crackled into life.
"Admiral Calavicci," Ziggy's dulcet tones announced, "please report to the Waiting Room as soon as possible. We have an arrival."
He bit back a curse at the bad timing and put on his best apologetic look instead. "Tina - I gotta go. Sam's going to need me."
She looked at him with her best martyred expression. "Go on then," she sniffed. "Just don't expect me to be here when you get back. I've got a plane to catch. Honestly," she confided in the nearest person, as the Admiral turned away with an equally martyred look, "sometimes I think he thinks more of Doctor Beckett than he does of me."
Al didn't have time to note whether the person concerned made sympathetic noises of agreement or not, but he did wince at the parting shot which he'd clearly been meant to overhear. Tina didn't mean any more by the remark than a barbed shot in their latest conflict, but it sank home much deeper than she'd probably intended it to. If questioned directly, he'd have had to admit that it was true.
Verbeena Beeks was already in the Waiting Room when he arrived, making soothing noises at their latest visitor, who was staring about himself with wide-eyed anxiety. To the attentive psychiatrist, of course, he appeared to be Doctor Samuel Beckett. To Al, whose perceptions were in phase with those of his time-distant comrade, he was a very different individual.
A young man, in his mid-twenties at a guess, with a tumble of fair curls around an almost feminine face; he was of small build, and not much over five-six or five-seven at first assessment. He blinked owlishly at the Admiral's approach, which implied a need for glasses, and his hands twisted together in incessant distress.
"Who are you?" he demanded, flinching away from Verbeena's reassuring hand. Al glanced at her momentarily before turning his full attention to the questioner.
"A friend," he announced in neutral tones. "Who was about to ask you the same question. What's your name, son?"
"O'Leary," the man replied warily. "Carson O'Leary. Are you a doctor? Where am I? What is this place?"
Al had long since categorised the initial reactions of the many people whose lives had been interrupted by Project Quantum Leap, and this one fell firmly into band C - wary but rational. He offered a reassuring smile and remembered to try not to stress the importance of his questioning. "One thing at a time, son," he said. "I'm not a doctor, but she is. You're in a government base which is part of a top secret project, and I'm afraid I can't really tell you much more than that. I can assure you that no harm will befall you while you're here, and we will be doing our utmost to return you to where you ought to be. In the meantime, just relax, and let us take care of everything. There's just a couple of questions I need to ask, and I know they may sound a bit strange, but it's only for the record, okay?"
O'Leary nodded, his eyes flicking to Verbeena's gentle smile and back again. "I guess that's okay," he allowed.
"Fine," the Admiral acknowledged with friendly neutrality. "Let's start with the easy ones, shall we? What's the date today?"
O'Leary thought about it. Most of them did. It couldn't be easy, being in one place at one moment, then somewhere else entirely the next. "Ah - the fourteenth, I think."
"Of?"
"April." That answer was more certain.
"And the year?" The trick was to make that sound like a gentle joke, as if just insisting on detail.
"1967 - are you sure you need this?"
Al smiled, concealing his reaction to the information with the ease of practice. "Just making sure, Mr O'Leary." He glanced at Verbeena as he said it, and she nodded approvingly. O'Leary seemed to have made the transition with only minor disorientation, which made a pleasant change. "Next question. How old are you?"
"Twenty two - next birthday," O'Leary added with a hint of apology.
"Which is?" Again the reassuring smile, the implication of jocularity.
"Next Thursday," their visitor grinned. "Dammit," he realised immediately afterward, "Mary Ann promised me a party! Am I going to get back for that?"
The Admiral didn't know, but he tried to sound positive about it anyway. "We'll try, Mr O'Leary, but I can't promise anything. We'll throw you a party if you're still here. How about that?"
"Well, okay, but Mary Ann's gonna be mad if I don't make it."
"Tell me about Mary Ann," Al suggested, glancing at the handlink that peeked above his jacket pocket as he did so. The pattern of lights was indicative of a running data search, which meant that Ziggy was having difficulty pinpointing Sam's location from the data she had so far.
O'Leary blushed. "Mary Ann? She's - real hip, you know? Tall, blonde, built just so - " His hands made appropriate gestures in the air, which raised the Admiral's eyebrows and made Verbeena smile to herself. "You get the picture."
"Yeah," Al agreed softly, getting the picture exactly. He took a determined breath and forced himself to concentrate on the more important issues. "But this is for the record, son, remember?"
"Oh, right." O'Leary looked abashed. "Well, her name's Mary Ann McGowan, and she's twenty three, and she lives in McGowan House - at least until the bank calls in its loan, which it won't if we can get the Society grant, only - I'm not going to be able to prove anything while I’m sat here - wherever here might be. The Society will only award the money if we can show that the Washington connection is more than hearsay and tradition. I'm trying to research the history of the house," he explained at the puzzled look this statement elicited. "I'm sure it was remodelled from a much earlier building - but the documents make it look as if it were newly erected after the war."
"Whoa," Al requested, putting up a hand to halt the flow of information. "I'm sure you know what you're talking about, but we need the details a little better organised than that. McGowan House?"
"Uh-huh. It's the mansion on Lammas Hill, just outside of Middlewick. Middlewick? Mass?" O'Leary continued, when all he got was a blank look. "Twenty five miles from Boston - just beyond Salem, you know?"
The handlink squawked, and the lights stabilised into a definitive lock. Al's heart leaped, just as it always did. There was a reassurance to having a positive timelock that he found hard to put into words. As long as they knew where and when Sam was, he figured, they had a better chance of getting him back.
"Twenty five miles from Boston, eh?" he muttered, pulling out the handlink to key the information in. "Nice part of the world. Do you live in Middlewick, Mr O'Leary?"
"It's Carson," the young man corrected, obviously uncomfortable with the formal treatment. "And no, I don't. I live in Boston. But my family comes from Middlewick - my grandmother actually lives on the estate. I'm staying with the group while I do my research, and if I can just find the proof and submit my paper, I know the university will allow me to stay on for a doctorate."
"Gotcha," the Admiral muttered, mostly to himself. The handlink was feeding him details of O'Leary's background now, a silent stream of words cycling across the miniature screen. Sam had decided early on not to provide a direct voice link for Ziggy in the Waiting Room, since her disembodied voice might have a tendency to spook the occupant. O'Leary wouldn't want to hear what Al was reading anyway. It didn't look as if his bright future had turned out as well as he might wish. "Well, Carson, we'll do our best to make sure you do just that. Why don't you tell Doctor Beeks here all about your research, and I'll go and see what I can do about getting you home in time for your party, okay?"
"Okay," O'Leary smiled, glancing at Verbeena as he did so. She smiled back, with professional reassurance. Al nodded satisfaction with the arrangement and turned to leave. Halfway to the door he turned back again.
"By the way," he asked, trying to make it a throwaway question, "what do you call your grandmother?"
"Nan? Just Nan, I guess - oh, I see. It's Mrs Rose O'Leary. But folks in Middlewick just call her Ma Rose. She's the town witch, you see. Last of a long line."
Down in Imaging Control, Ike Bettenhoff was busy monitoring the start up sequence that would activate the intricacies of the Imaging Chamber. Al waved an acknowledging hand in the man's direction as he entered, moving past him to take up position behind Ziggy's multicoloured console.
"Talk to me," he requested, placing his palm on the activating panel. Ziggy's main interface hummed into life immediately.
"Good afternoon, Admiral Calavicci," she purred. "What information do you require?"
"Where's Gushie?" the Admiral requested, distracted from immediate matters by the realisation that the man concerned was nowhere to be seen.
"Weekend off," Bettenhoff muttered, with more than a hint of malice.
"Chief Programmer Gushie is currently boarding flight 509 to Las Vegas," Ziggy announced smoothly. "Do you wish me to contact him?"
"No, of course not," Al retorted, then froze. "Flight 509? Tina's flight?"
"Communications Technician Tina also has seat reservations for that particular flight, Admiral, if that is what you mean."
"Dammit," he swore, glowering at Bettenhoff, who merely looked back with irony. "Just because I... I'll kill him - no, I'll kill her, I swear it."
"Do you require that statement formally witnessed, Admiral?" Ziggy enquired solicitously. He grimaced in her direction and shook his head.
"Forget it, Ziggy. I don't know what she sees in him, I really don't. And I don't know what you're laughing about, Bettenhoff. She didn't give you more than a week."
Bettenhoff sighed and bent back to work, leaving Al to fume in private. Tina knew just how to get under his skin, and it rankled that she'd make her revenge so obvious and immediate. For all he knew she'd arranged her trip precisely so that he would be unable to take her, thus ensuring that she secured Gushie's fawning sympathy and his jealousy all at the same time. "Women," he muttered with annoyance. "Why can't more of them be like Donna - and why do I always end up with the ones that aren't?"
Ziggy prudently made no attempt to answer that particular question. "I have a fix on Doctor Beckett, Admiral," she announced. "There appears to be a certain level of interference associated with this location and time. I have had to increase my power demand and shut down several peripherals in order to eliminate the fluctuations."
The announcement served to refocus the Admiral's mind firmly on immediate matters. "Will that be a problem?" he enquired, pulling the handlink from his pocket and checking the interface was still active.
"Maybe," Bettenhoff said, moving across to study the display that had flickered into life. "It would help if we don't have to implement a large number of translocations."
Al raised a wry eyebrow at him. "Sure," he said. "I'll just tell Sam to stay exactly where he is until he Leaps out again. Get real, Bettenhoff. Ziggy? What are the odds on this one?"
She hesitated, which wasn't very reassuring. "The requirement appears to be straightforward," she decided eventually. "But the solution is still too random to calculate. I will need to cross-tabulate the data concerning the mansion with the period in question. I do not have a detailed account of the War of Independence. It's not within the normal parameters."
She sounded peeved, and Al couldn't blame her. "I'll get them on to it," he promised, fixing Bettenhoff with stern attention. "Link her up to the Library of Congress will you? And the national archives, and - anywhere else you can think of."
"That'll take power," the technician warned. "Okay," he allowed with a sigh, "the research team will protest, but then they always do. I guess it'll make a change from old newspaper archives."
"We'll want those too," Al reminded him. "Middlewick, Mass, circa '67. Check the Boston Times, and all the local services in the area. Salem's just down the road apparently."
Bettenhoff smirked. "Just in time for Halloween, eh, Admiral?"
He had to grin back. "Here, maybe. But it's April where Sam is, so I don't think we need worry too much. A Friday too. Makes a change to be almost in sync for once."
"A query?" Ziggy interjected. "What has this Leap to do with Halloween?"
"Check your files for references to witchcraft and witch trials," Al suggested, reaching into his jacket to extract a fresh cigar. "Sam's in the area, that's all."
There was a pause, and then she said, a little worriedly, "The evidence is very conflicting, Admiral. Are you implying that there may be factual event behind the hysteria?"
"I'm not implying anything," he said, stepping off the daïs and heading for the Imaging Chamber door, "I'm keeping an open mind about witchcraft. Wouldn't mind getting to know a New Age witch a little better, though." He grinned. "I hear pagans have a very healthy attitude toward life, you know?"
Bettenhoff smirked again, which reminded Al of things he didn't want to think about. Ziggy was still curious. "May I have access to further information on this?" she enquired.
"Sure," he agreed distractedly. "Help yourself. Can you focus in on Sam? The sooner we start this, the sooner he can do whatever he has to."
He stepped into faded elegance. The mansion was furnished to match its age, slender chairs and curlicue furniture set among velvet curtains and gilded panelling. A row of windows marched along one wall, revealing a formal garden sprinkled with spring; sunlight pierced the panes and patterned distorted squares across the intricate carpeting. A carved stone fireplace dominated the opposite wall, topped by a broad mantelpiece and a cherub-bordered mirror. Above that a gilded homily arched in archaic lettering. "A wise man rises higher in his search for truth; from the steps of heaven, all things can be seen." The images were sharply detailed, as crisp as in life, confirming Ziggy's declaration of a positive lock. Without one he'd be standing in fuzzily defined guesswork in which nothing quite focused and sounds were distorted rumbles filtered through a background of white noise - which was more or less what the Imaging Chamber generally contained, unless the Observer happened to be enveloped in the bio-inductive field which allowed Ziggy to establish syncronicity with the remote time they were observing. And the secret of that little trick was a tiny gizmo implanted somewhere near the base of his skull, a match to the one Sam Beckett had carried with him into the depths of his own past.
He could feel the subtle buzz of the device if he concentrated hard enough. It was activated by the complex interplay of generated forces within the Imaging Chamber, the resultant overlay wrapping him in an almost undetectable electrical field. It tended to play havoc with his watch, but seemed to have no other side-effects; without it he'd be hard put to contact the absent Project Director in more than short bursts and distorted words.
His hand drifted across the back of his neck and up, unconsciously locating the site of the implant as he thought about it. He could recall the day it was put there with startling clarity. "It won't hurt," Sam had promised, and it hadn't - not much anyway, a minor irritation that soon settled into no more than a vague awareness of the intrusion. "Completing the circle," the scientist had gone on to add with amusement, referring to the contribution the two of them had made in the generation of Ziggy's biomass. Al also recalled that he hadn't been entirely happy with the concept, but he could not refute the benefits that had resulted from the work.
In fact, the entire feasibility of the Project hinged on one of the miniature neuronic implants, since without it Sam Beckett would be untraceable, even with the clues provided by the inhabitant of the Waiting Room. It acted like a homing beacon, served as a communications relay, and became the 'hook' for the retrieval process. At least, that was the theory. The reality had proved to be a little different, which was why the Admiral was currently standing in the middle of the Imaging Chamber surrounded by someone else's furniture.
Sam was nowhere in sight, so he strolled across to the Chamber side wall, using the handlink to reorientate the images so that a comfortable looking sofa lined up with the extruded bench. When he was satisfied with the match, he sat down. His hand dipped into his jacket pocket and he relit the extracted cigar while listening to the sounds of over thirty years before.
Birdsong and the distant yip of a dog drifted through the open window. Were it not for the intangibility of the images the illusion would be utterly convincing, as if he had actually stepped back into another existence: yet he was well aware of the way he was tied to his own time, of Ike Bettenhoff and Ziggy, and whoever else had joined them in Imaging Control watching his movements, recording his words, and monitoring his vital signs. Sam, of course, was another matter. The bio-implant enabled the time traveller (and those few around him with simple enough perceptions) to see and communicate with his Observer, but generally only Ziggy shared that particular privilege in the opposite direction. It took power to generate and manipulate the focus of the biofield, the demand increasing exponentially with the volume it had to enclose. He could, by contact, draw another person into the equation, but it also put a high drain on the power reserves. Even then it was only the image that would be transmitted down the years, not the whisper of another's voice. In extreme emergencies anyone might make use of the external field generator that was held in reserve, but it forced Ziggy to handle uncalibrated data and the results were not guaranteed.
"Have you made contact, Admiral?" Bettenhoff's voice requested from somewhere behind a picture of a fat lady and a fatter poodle. Al smothered the reactive smirk and muttered a suitable negative instead. The handlink informed him that the man he was waiting for was very close, and moving closer. He'd not moved off in search of him because of the power demand such translocations took, and he was conscious of Ziggy's concerns over this particular interface. Besides, it was very pleasant just to sit looking out onto a New England spring. It made a definite change from the New Mexico desert. It helped to centre his sense of purpose; to focus his mind on the coming meeting. While he stood in the Imaging Chamber, Sam Beckett had to be his primary concern, Sam and the task he must fulfil in order to be released into the timestream. His anger at Tina and his frustrations with the Project could not be forgotten, but they could be used, redirected into the efforts of keeping Sam both alive and sane. Verbeena had impressed on him how important a rôle he played in Sam's life these days - as if he were the scientist's wingman, flying backup on a high-risk mission. The analogy had been a good one. He approached each trip into the past as if it were a combat run, the adrenaline kicking in and his situation awareness tightening into sharp focus. SA A-OK, he grinned to himself, everything else SNAFU. When they got Sam back, he promised himself, he'd take a good long holiday. Hawaii perhaps. He liked Hawaii.
Voices registered above the birdsong, their owners walking along the flagged paths outside the house. One was a woman, pitched clear enough to hear, even at a distance, and the other was the unmistakable tone of his time-trapped friend, trying, as usual, to sound noncommittal while he figured out what the hell was going on. "I said I was sorry, Kit," the woman was saying, a hint of laughter in the apology. "If I'd known you hadn't got your balance, I'd never have taken up the slack."
"It's okay," Sam Beckett answered, clearly embarrassed. "I should have been watching what I was doing."
The Admiral stood up, walked over to the nearest window and stepped out, onto the path. He was getting used to things not being there, although he still felt a moment of trepidation when he had to walk through a wall and had no idea what might lie on the other side. A window frame was no problem and he slid through the image with the ease of a ghost. Outside he had a better view of the formal garden, which was somewhat overgrown. Raised beds marched down to an ornate pond and fountain, beyond which was open land and the beginning of a wood. Several people were at work, clearing paths and digging in the beds; most had the look of enthusiastic amateurs. A few paces away from where he emerged, two distinctly different figures were walking toward the house. One was a shapely, feminine form, clad in a pair of jeans that were tight over the hips and billowed out into wide patchworked flares at the ankles. Al's consideration was appreciative as he ran his eyes up her youthful curves, past the slim waist that sported a macramé belt, over the tightly laced vest, and up to the tumble of blonde hair that framed her face. Mary Ann McGowan was, as Carson O'Leary had implied, a looker, and then some. Beside her, Sam Beckett should have been a complementary image - except that he was dressed in an ill-fitting pair of dungarees, and he happened to be soaking wet. So wet, in fact, that he was busy creating a distinct puddle of water at his feet. He looked utterly bedraggled, and not at all happy about it. Al stifled the laugh the sight engendered, but could not help the grin as he strode across to complete the contact.
"Nice outfit, Sam," he remarked, his eyes inevitably drifting back toward Mary Ann and her innumerable attractions. The scientist glared at him, earning himself a sigh from his company.
"I don't know," she announced. "I really can't risk you trailing swamp water all over my eighteenth century carpets. You'll have to go through the kitchen and dry off in front of the range. I'll meet you in the hall later, okay?"
"Okay," the bedraggled man acknowledged, finding her a wary smile. She smiled back and turned away, throwing him a little wave over her shoulder as she flounced down the path. The Admiral watched her go with fascinated pleasure. She was a little young for his personal taste, but not far off perfect in all other respects. "When you've finished drooling," Sam remarked somewhat acidly, "maybe you'll tell me why I'm here."
Al refocused his attention with a sigh. Sam had never been one to understand the attractions of sheer physicality, nor the pleasures of observing it. Something to do with his incredible intellect, probably, or perhaps just his bible belt upbringing. It never hurt to look, and it certainly never hurt to be appreciative. Most women liked the attention as long as it was both respectful and genuine. A Calavicci always made sure he was both as a matter of course. "The kitchen," he observed, consulting the handlink for the map Ziggy had unearthed, "is in that direction."
Sam harumphed and set off for the indicated end of the house, leaving damp footprints in his wake. "So?" he demanded over his shoulder.
Al eyed the distance and keyed the shift into the handlink, letting the world flip from one place to another without a step in between. Sam went from being ahead of him to several yards on his right and he had to take several steps before he was in sensible hearing distance again. "So," the Admiral announced, "your name is Carson O'Leary, you're a student of history at Boston U, and you're probably here to save all of this. We think. Ziggy gives it a 78% chance, anyway."
"This?" Sam paused in the shadow of the stone arch that held the kitchen doorway to look up at the superstructure of the house. "You mean the mansion?"
"McGowan House," Al offered helpfully. "Supposed to have been built just after the War of Independence, and demolished in 1970 to make way for a conference complex, golf course and industrial site."
"It gets knocked down? That's a shame."
"It's a downright crime," Al corrected sharply. He'd pulled the background material and was studying it as it scrolled across the tiny screen in his hand. "According to Ziggy the estate includes fifty acres of virgin forest that gets bulldozed and concreted over. And the damn place never makes a profit either. It goes into receivership in'91."
"Oh." Sam looked suitably abashed. "I see. So what can I do about it?"
He opened his mouth to answer, then shut it again, rethinking what he was about to say. "We don't know - yet," he added quickly. He was continually having to remind himself that, while this was Sam Beckett, genius and intellectual giant, he was also a vulnerable individual, adrift in a world without adequate reference parameters and a long way from home. It could be hard, sometimes, to equate this hesitant, trusting soul with the determined man of vision he called his friend - until there was the look, the hint of impish humour, or the moment of decisive commitment that was so typical and so unmistakably Sam that it was more reassuring than any of Verbeena's professional words, or Ziggy's confident pronouncements. He got the look now, a patient, forbearing assessment that spoke volumes without having to say a word. "Ziggy's working on it - but it may have something to do with O'Leary's research paper."
"Research into what?" Sam's hand reflexively pushed O'Leary's spectacles back up the length of his nose as they slipped on dampened skin, then pushed them down again as he realised he couldn't see through them very efficiently.
"The history of the house - or the family, or both. He never actually submitted it," the Admiral admitted, trying not to grin too widely at the sight of a dripping Sam peering at him over the wire rims. "Never went back to college, either."
"M'mm." The traveller mulled that one over, glancing around to take in as much information as he could. "So when am I?"
"'67." Al waved at the brightly coloured figures toiling in the garden. "You know - Afghan coats, psychedelics, free love, all that sort of thing." He tried to sound flippant about it, which should have been easy and suddenly wasn't. His memories of the sixties were irrevocably coloured with images of Beth, of long hard work fighting to get into the astronaut program, and the shadows that fell upon him in the days which intervened; shadows which had distanced him from both the woman and the dream. The dream he'd managed in the end, but the woman had been lost to him forever.
"I think I missed most of that," Sam was frowning thoughtfully.
You and me both was the somewhat bitter response that rose to mind, but he didn't say as much. Instead he made ushering motions toward the door. "I bet it's still fun second time around," he suggested, which at least brought the echo of a smile to his comrade's face.
"I'll let you know," was the answer, the voice, if not its owner, distinctly dry.
Beyond the stone arch and the heavy wooden door was a kitchen straight out of a museum. Hand-worked wooden cupboards shared space with a deep porcelain sink topped with a hand pump rather than a tap; a wide and well-polished range took up the width of a chimney breast underneath a beaten copper hood; a set of wooden racks hung from the high ceiling, draped with pots, pans, assorted utensils and endless bunches of herbs; beneath them stood a heavy wooden table, benches lining either side of it and, at one end, a solid block of wood into which a number of vicious-looking kitchen knives were thrust. Sam's eyes lit up as he entered; he always did appreciate the ingenuities of the past, and this place showed evidence of being both loved and well tended. There was a young woman in a long tiedyed dress busy stacking plates on the table; she looked up with a cheery smile as the door opened, then burst into a peal of laughter.
"Carson O'Leary," she chuckled, looking the arrival up and down with friendly amusement, "what have you been doing?"
"I fell in the swamp," Sam growled, a little embarrassed at her reaction. She laughed sympathetically.
"You should know better than to be helping Mary Ann," she told him, beckoning him across to the range. "At least around here."
"I should?" he echoed a little blankly.
"Sure," she continued, motioning him to stand in a particular spot on the stone floor. "You're an O'Leary and she's a McGowan. Now I don't believe in curses - or ghosts for that matter - especially ones four hundred years old, but if enough people do, it's bound to have some kind of influence. You ask your Nan," she advised, disappearing through a side door and reappearing with a large towel. "She knows."
"Uh - right," Sam acknowledged warily as she thrust the towel in his direction. She chuckled a second time, and shook her head with resignation.
"I know," she allowed, spreading her hands a little. "It wouldn't matter what I, or your Nan, or anyone else said, would it? You've got it bad, Carson - and it shows. Listen - you dry off, and I'll fetch you down something dry, okay?"
"Okay," he answered. "And thanks," he called after her as she headed for the inner door. She laughed, pausing to glance back in his direction.
"Don't thank me just yet," she warned. "Anyone not sick or on clearance gets domestic duty, remember? You just volunteered for crockery."
Al watched her departure worriedly. He'd joked about witchcraft earlier, but he had a superstitious soul and he didn't like the implications of unnatural influences. "Ghost?" he questioned. "Curse?"
Sam snorted, peeling off the soaking dungarees and the damp teeshirt underneath them. "No such things as ghosts," he grinned, amused at his friend's discomfiture. Al opened his mouth to contradict him, then closed it again with a sigh. For one thing Ziggy was always unable, or unwilling, to confirm the occasional brush with the supernatural that had apparently occurred during Sam's travels in time, and for another Sam's Swiss-cheesed brain never remembered them anyway. That only left Al Calavicci's word as to what might have happened and, for various reasons, it was important that his word was regarded as being militarily reliable. He was conscious of being recorded, and it occurred to him that to start spouting affirmations as to the existence of impossible phenomena might just be something that could be used against him at some later date. Concerns and doubts, yes. That was healthy and open-minded. But definitive and certain statements were definitely out.
"You can't prove that," he pointed out instead and earned himself a wry glance.
"That's true," Sam agreed. "But I can't disprove it either. It's probably just some local legend - and hardly something you need worry about." He paused to rub some of the moisture out of his hair and re-emerged from under the towel with an even wider grin. "Maybe I'm here to disprove the existence of this curse thing."
"And maybe you're here to break it," Al muttered, knowing better than to push the possibility. He keyed it into the link anyway, getting disparagingly low odds on the idea from Ziggy, who had found no record of any curse in the first place.
"What does Ziggy say?" Sam asked, wrapping the towel around his waist and kicking out of what remained of his wet clothing.
"Not much," Al had to admit. "It's early days yet." He reviewed what little extra data Ziggy could give him, aware that Sam needed facts, not vague speculation. "Apparently there's some sort of grant on offer from the Washing Society ..." He grimaced, realising he was getting a resurgence of the intermittent data break-up that constantly plagued him in the Chamber, and smartly thwacked the side of the handlink with the palm of his hand, scattering cigar ash as he did so. Gushie had told him it was something to do with a generation of interference between the data transmission stream and the bio-inductive field but, since Gushie didn't fully understand how either of them worked, Al had taken this explanation with a pinch of salt. Whatever the reason, it happened and when it happened an encouraging shake was generally enough to put it right. Sure enough the handlink emitted a protesting whine and the text reformed on the tiny screen. "The Washington Society," he corrected. "Dependent on there being documentary evidence to back up O'Leary's claim that the General actually visited McGowan House during the War of Independence."
"Is there any?" Sam stalked the length of the range, lifting lids on the cooking pots and sniffing their contents with appreciation. Not for the first time, Al Calavicci wished Ziggy's illusions extended to the sense of smell.
"Nope." He took a long pull at his cigar in compensation, savouring the scented smoke. "None on record, anyway. Ziggy seems to think you might be here to find it."
"I suppose that makes sense." The towel wrapped figure stepped back to study the words carved into the lintel above the range. "A man alone satisfies only his stomach," he read. "Eat heartily of the meat of company."
"Corny, isn't it?" The girl in the tiedye swept back into the kitchen, throwing a bundle of scarlet and gold cloth in Sam's direction. "The place is full of that kind of easy wisdom. 'An empty echo of words,' as the Buddha probably said. Or would have, if he'd read the things written all over this house. You get dressed, and I'll go ring the dinner bell."
"Ah - right," Sam acknowledged, unrolling the bundle with a wince of dismay. Al went from looking at the girl with admiration to looking at the fabric with appreciation.
"Nice colours," he breathed, his smile broadening at his companion's martyred expression. Sam threw him a pained look.
"For the inside of a Bangkok brothel, maybe," he growled, then paused, clearly trying to remember just when or why he might be familiar with such an establishment. The Admiral raised an eyebrow at him, successfully distracting him from the half-memory. It wasn't that Al didn't want him to recall Bangkok, so much as the associations of the place. He and Donna had paused there on their honeymoon - well, actually, on the way to a science conference in Japan, but it was the nearest thing to a honeymoon they had had - and those memories were a whole kettle of fish he'd rather not have pop open right now. The clothing the girl had brought down turned out to be a voluminous caftan, the scarlet fabric highly decorated in gold and green. Al thought it looked rather handsome on Sam's lanky frame. He loved colours, and he loved clothes, loved them with the kind of passion that only Italian blood, a deprived childhood and five years in the Hanoi Hilton might explain; he'd certainly never been able to explain it to Sam, whose idea of dressing in the morning was generally throwing on the first thing that came to hand and who bought shirts in bulk from mail order catalogues because that way he only had to worry about it two or three times a year. Donna had been good for him in that sense - before she arrived on the scene he'd lived in sweatshirts and jeans left over from college. He was the retiring type and hated to be conspicuous, which made the glory of the caftan even more embarrassing. He slid into it and threw his holographic companion a look which warned against any comment - any at all; Al merely grinned a little wider.
"I'm going to start the potatoes," the girl was saying brightly, heading for what had to be a larder door. "Can you start loading plates on the trolley for me?"
"Sure," Sam agreed, retrieving the towel from around his feet and looking round for somewhere to put it. Al checked the readout on the handlink screen and frowned at what it was telling him.
"I'll see you later," he announced, keying open the Chamber door as he did so. It slid up with its characteristic hiss, a sound that always disconcerted the Admiral a little because he could remember it having opened differently at one time - except that it hadn't, since Donna had insisted on the automatic door system being put into the complex from day one. Sam nodded distractedly, and Al stepped out of the images, through the light-filled buffer zone, and let the door slide shut behind him. Sam had included the buffer zone so that when his Observer entered or left the Chamber Ziggy had time to either initiate or discharge the biofield. It was a little like walking through a wall of static, and Al felt his skin tingling as he stepped out into Imaging Control. Bettenhoff was leaning over the power monitor in the corner, flicking switches to reroute services, and Donna Eleese stood next to Ziggy's main console, her hand resting casually on the plastic, but her body language tense. Here I go again, Al thought to himself, painting the required smile onto his face with the habit of practice. "Hi, Donna."
She smiled at the greeting, although it didn't reach her eyes. The strain of her husband's continued absence had threatened to tear her apart to begin with, but she had faced the crisis and come through it, settling for a patient waiting that was strengthened by her faith in Sam. She had complete certainty that he would return; even so, moments like this were hard on her, and she faced them with tight determination. "How's he looking, Al?" she asked, long past any polite dissemblance. He let the smile become one of reassurance.
"Fine. Just fine. It's a nice quiet Leap this time - a bunch of youngsters in an old house. No guns, no crazies - no problem."
She relaxed a little at his words. "You always say that," she accused good-naturedly. He winced a little, but kept it inside where it didn't show.
"Well, this time I mean it. All he has to do is find some manuscript or other. Nothing to it really. Kind of a holiday in a way."
She nodded, glancing at Bettenhoff's bent shoulders. "I'm sorry about your trip," she observed distractedly. Al winced again, this time for completely different reasons.
"That's okay. I probably couldn't afford Vegas this month anyway," he joked, unable to avoid the slightly bitter note in his voice. "I've alimony cheques to pay." She turned back toward him with guilty concern.
"Al - " she began, and he waved his hand to stop her.
"If Tina has to go to Vegas that badly," he growled, "I'm not going to stop her going on Gushie's paycheque. I've better things to do." Donna nodded, moving forward to put her hand on his arm.
"Sometimes," she said with a sympathetic smile, "I'm not sure Sam deserves your loyalty. I love him. You don't have that excuse."
He thought about that. "Don't I?" he offered softly, then grimaced at succumbing to the temptation of sentimentality. "Whatever," he decided. "It's my job, Doctor Eleese, remember? Just because they made me an Admiral doesn't mean they can't court martial me." The casual joke briefly twisted his expression. He nearly had been court martialed once - a long time ago - for something he hadn’t been guilty of. The explanation of his innocence had resulted in a wonderful woman losing her life, and the recollection still had edges sharp enough to hurt him if he let it.
Donna laughed, the moment of vulnerability safely past both of them. "I'd like to see them try," she said. He echoed her amusement with a grin. "Listen," she went on with a sigh, "I've got a whole bunch of papers that need checking before they go to Washington. If I drop them off in your office, do you think you can run your eye over them by Thursday morning? I've got to get to grips with the personnel transfers before I leave, and pacify the head of the research team - he's only getting one extra body, not the three he requested."
"Has Ziggy verified the figures?"
"Of course, Admiral," Ziggy interjected, managing to sound indignant at the suggestion she might not have done. "You will find them all in order. By the way - thank you for the seventeenth century."
"The seventeenth?" Donna frowned up at the shifting colours of Ziggy's globe. "I thought you were researching Washington?"
"So did I," Al noted worriedly.
"I am continuing to cross-reference the period required for Doctor Beckett," the computer announced smugly. "I was referring to my request for information on the subject of Salem and witchcraft."
"Witchcraft?" Donna mouthed at Al, who shrugged apologetically. He had no objection to Ziggy studying anything she wished, so long as it didn't distract her from her primary task. She had the same eclectic appetite for knowledge that Sam did and allowing her to pursue her own minor research was a good way of keeping her attitude sweet.
"I don't like all these fluctuations," Bettenhoff announced, straightening up to study a different set of readouts. "There's a high demand for power and no apparent reason for it."
"The variations are within acceptable parameters, Mr Bettenhoff." Ziggy didn't appear to be too concerned over the matter. "The interference is limited and I am compensating for it."
"What's the source of the interference?" Al asked, tucking the handlink back into his pocket. Bettenhoff shrugged. Ziggy paused to consider her answer. Neither reaction was very reassuring.
"Unknown at this time, Admiral," the computer said at last. "It appears to be location-specific and irregular in pattern. So far it has not affected the timelock, which has remained steady. However, it does create surge reactions in the Imaging Chamber which require matching inputs of power to counteract them."
Donna looked at the man beside her, then up at Ziggy's interface. "Is that safe?" she asked with a hint of concern. Al shot her a worried glance. He knew that there was always a great deal of power interacting around him in the Chamber but he'd never once thought there might be any danger associated with it. Of course, if he really stopped to think, he'd probably be terrified; every time he walked into the featureless room he was stepping into the focus point of forces nobody but Sam really understood. He trusted Sam, so he trusted the technology, just as he had trusted skilled technicians throughout his working life. The Imaging Chamber was no more dangerous than a fully-armed Corsair, or a shuttle poised on the launch pad, and he'd survived both of those with ease. Of course, both the plane and the spaceship had been something he was in control of most of the time, whereas Ziggy was principal pilot in the Project: pilot, flight control, and navigator, all at once.
"There is a minor possibility of a feedback discharge." Ziggy answered the question with prompt reassurance. "But the probability is less than point five of a percent."
"I can live with those kind of odds," Al announced before Donna could raise any objections. She frowned at him, but nodded her acceptance all the same. There had to be risks. There always were in leading-edge technology; but Sam's safe return depended on the Project continuing to function as it was designed to do, and the chances the Admiral took were minor compared to the one her husband had taken by stepping into the Accelerator in the first place. Compared to Sam's safety, that of his best friend took second place every time - at least as far as Al was concerned. He never discussed it with Donna because he didn't want her to have to think about it. He tried not to, most of the time. "Maybe you could give Bettenhoff a hand running a diagnostic," he suggested. "I gotta go see O'Leary. I need to ask him about the curse."
"Curse?" Donna echoed in astonishment. "What curse?"
"That," Al said, "is what I mean to find out."
A Question of Charity. Chapter One. Disclaimer:This story has been written for love rather than profit and is not intended to violate any copyrights held by Donald P Bellasario, Bellasarius Productions, or any other holders of Quantum Leap trademarks or copyrights.
© 1996 by AAA Press. Written and reproduced by Penelope Hill. Artwork by Joan Jobson
Chapter Two