"Right," Ham Duo said. "Here's the plan. We go to the house. We go inside. We get your Disruptor back. We find out what they know. Simple."
Splock's ears flattened. "That is not a plan. That is a sequence of actions with no contingency for failure, no escape route, and no consideration for the temporal consequences of direct confrontation. It is, in fact, the opposite of a plan."
"Got a better one?"
"Several. The most logical involves locating Chewgumma, retrieving his Disruptor, and establishing a secure observation post from which we can—"
"No," Bill said.
Splock blinked. "No?"
Bill stood up. "I'm not chasing a seven-foot furball through a city I don't understand so we can have a spare time machine that probably won't work anyway because Chewgumma's probably already traded it for food."
"Kookies don't—"
"I don't care what Kookies do. I'm hungry. I'm tired. And we've been sitting here listening to you talk about haiku-based pornography while the guy with my Disruptor is probably packing his bags and leaving town."
Splock drew himself up. "The haiku were culturally relevant to—"
"No." Bill held up a hand. "We're going to that house. Now. You can either help or stay here and write a paper about it."
Splock's expression shifted into something that, on a human, would have been wounded dignity. "I spent considerable effort gathering intelligence while you were unconscious. The Thurlow-Yonce methodology is not—"
"Is appreciated," Bill interrupted. "Really. Great job. Lots of facts. Now we're going to use them."
Splock's expression suggested he was recalculating every assumption he'd made about this mission. "Your approach lacks logical foundation."
"My approach is the only one we've got. Lead the way."
For a long moment, Splock simply looked at them—Bill with his fists on his hips and Duo with his infuriating grin. His expression suggested he was mentally filing a formal complaint with whatever authority might exist in this century. But he said nothing. He simply turned and began walking.
They followed.
The York residence was a three-story brownstone in a quiet neighborhood, sandwiched between similar buildings with identical stoops and identical windows and identical expressions of prosperous anonymity. Evening was settling over Brooklyn, softening the edges of things, painting the sky in shades of purple and orange that would have been pretty under other circumstances.
Splock led them to a position behind a parked vehicle across the street. "There," he whispered, pointing. "Second floor. The room with the amber curtain."
Light glowed through the fabric. Shadows moved inside.
Bill squinted. Through a narrow gap where the curtains didn't quite meet, he could see figures. A man. A woman. Close together.
"That's Hastings," Splock confirmed. "The man with his back to the window."
Bill stared. Hastings was tall, well-built, with dark hair and the kind of generic handsome features that could have belonged to anyone. Nothing about him suggested a ninth-century raider. No beard. No axe. No horned helmet.
Bill leaned toward Splock. "He doesn't look like a Viking."
"Why would he?"
"You said—the name thing. Hastings. Descendant of Hastein."
"Yes. Descendant. Not reincarnation. Temporal mechanics do not typically—"
"Shh." Bill held up a hand.
Because Hastings was doing something odd. He was leaning toward the woman—Karen, presumably—and pressing his lips to her forehead. Gently. Tenderly. The kind of kiss that belonged between lovers, not between a family doctor and his patient. Something else.
"See that?" Bill whispered. "That's weird, right? Doctors don't do that."
"Not in any medical ethics code I'm familiar with," Duo agreed.
Splock's ears were twitching furiously. "Fascinating. The body language suggests—" He stopped. "Do you hear that?"
Bill listened. From the house, faint sounds drifted through the evening air. Voices? No—something else. Rhythmic. Breath-like.
Bill leaned closer. "Is that... moaning?"
Splock's ears swiveled like radar dishes. "Vocalizations consistent with human intimate activity. Fascinating. Given the presence of a married woman and a man who is not her husband, the logical conclusion is—"
"They're doing it," Duo supplied helpfully.
"I was about to say 'engaging in extramarital relations,' but your phrasing is equally accurate."
Bill shook his head. "Why would a doctor—"
"The sounds are accompanied by rhythmic motion consistent with—" Splock paused. "Wait. The pattern. The frequency. This may be related to the earlier cultural reference."
Bill stared at him. "You think they're—while watching—"
"It is possible they are viewing an adaptation of the Spellkin haiku. The vocalizations match certain... artistic interpretations I have studied." Splock's ears twitched. "The production values were reportedly low, but the sound design—"
The sounds grew louder. More urgent.
"I would like to observe this footage," Splock said thoughtfully. "It might explain why the juvenile population—"
"You want to watch porn to figure out why kids called you 'erph'?" Duo's voice cracked with suppressed laughter.
"I want to gather complete intelligence. I am simply noting that the cultural penetration of those six films appears broader than initially estimated. I would be curious to view them myself, to better understand why the children associated me with the character 'erph.' The haiku upon which they were based—"
Bill grabbed his arm. "We're going in."
"Without an escape plan?"
"We'll find one on the way out."
The fire escape was on the side of the house. Old iron, bolted to the brick, leading up to a second-floor window. Bill grabbed the lowest rung and pulled himself up.
The entire structure tore away from the wall with a shriek of protesting metal and crashed to the ground, taking Bill with it.
He lay in a heap of twisted iron, staring up at the evening sky, wondering if the universe had a personal vendetta against his dignity.
Inside the house, the sounds stopped. A face appeared at the window. Hastings. He looked down at the three figures in his backyard—one on the ground, two standing uselessly nearby—and his expression shifted from surprise to recognition to something else. Something colder.
He pulled the curtains shut.
Bill scrambled up, ignoring the new aches in places he hadn't known he had. "He saw us. He definitely saw us. Splock—" He leaned close to the Nocturnian's ear. "He doesn't look like a Viking."
Splock's ear twitched. "We have discussed this. He is not a Viking. He is a twentieth-century physician named Hastings, whose surname has etymological roots in—"
The back door of the house burst open.
Hastings stepped out. He stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the light, his posture unnaturally still. Then he moved—not walking, but gliding, his legs bending in ways that suggested joints operating on different principles than human anatomy.
Bill leaned toward Splock again. "Still not a Viking."
"Your observational skills are remarkable but irrelevant."
"He doesn't have a beard."
"Many Vikings were clean-shaven."
"He doesn't have a horned helmet."
"Vikings did not wear horned helmets. That is a nineteenth-century theatrical invention perpetuated by—"
"He doesn't have a boat."
"His lack of a longship in suburban New York is not evidence—"
Ham Duo grabbed both their arms. "Can we run first and argue Viking genealogy later?"
They ran.
Through the backyard, over a fence, into someone else's property. A dog barked. A light came on. They kept moving, crashing through hedges, leaving a trail of destruction that would take decades to forgive.
Behind them, Hastings followed. Not running—he didn't need to run. He moved at the same unnatural glide, covering ground too fast, too smoothly.
They hit a street. Crossed it. Ducked into another alley.
Bill glanced back. Hastings was there, at the entrance to the alley, his head rotating slowly as if scanning.
"He's still there," Bill panted. He leaned toward Splock. "You know what else he's not?"
"I am aware."
"He's not carrying an axe."
"Astonishing."
"He's not wearing chain mail."
"Noted."
"He doesn't have that weird Viking hairstyle with the shaved sides."
"Vikings did not have a standardized hairstyle. Archaeological evidence suggests—"
A garbage can flew past them. Hastings had picked it up and thrown it. With one hand. From fifty feet away.
They ran faster.
Through a playground. Past a swingset. Over a fence that snagged Bill's jumpsuit and tore a strip off the leg.
They emerged on a residential street. Quiet. Dark. No pursuit visible.
Bill doubled over, gasping. "Is he—is he gone?"
Splock looked back. "I do not see him."
A shadow moved at the far end of the street.
"There," Duo said.
They ran again.
This time they didn't stop. They wove through backyards, crossed more streets, ducked under clotheslines and around garden sheds. Every time they thought they'd lost him, a glimpse of that too-smooth movement appeared in their peripheral vision.
They ducked into a narrow passage between two garages. Dark. Filthy. A dead end, but it would hide them for a moment. Just a moment to catch their breath.
Ham Duo leaned against a wall, grinning despite the sweat on his face. "You know, this is the most fun I've had since the flamenco dancer incident."
Bill opened his mouth to say something—probably something about how they really needed to hear that story eventually—but the words never came.
Because around the corner, something moved.
A head appeared.
It came slowly at first, then kept coming. The neck stretched, elongated, pushed forward like a snake uncoiling from a basket. A pale face with a mechanical smile, attached to a neck that should not have been that long. Behind it, Bill heard a faint whirring sound. Servos. Motors. Something artificial.
Bill leaned toward Splock and whispered urgently in his ear: "He still doesn't look like a Viking."
Splock's ear twitched. "I am aware."
"Neck's too long for a Viking."
"Viking neck length is not a documented anthropological metric."
"That sound. The whirring. Vikings didn't whir."
"Your grasp of Norse history is improving."
Hastings' head finished extending. Then his shoulders came around the corner. Then the rest of him, unfolding into the alley with movements too smooth to be organic. In his hand, he held Bill's Disruptor.
He smiled. It was a perfect smile. Plastic. Programmed. Wrong.
Bill leaned toward Splock again. "That smile. Not Viking."
"Noted."
"No horned helmet."
"We have established this."
"No beard."
"Vikings had beards. He lacks one. Your point is made."
"No axe."
"I am compiling a comprehensive list."
Hastings raised the Disruptor. His thumb hovered over a button.
Splock's voice cut through the moment: "Bill! His right hand! Look at his right hand!"
Bill looked. The skin on Hastings' wrist caught the light strangely. It gleamed. Metallic. Not skin at all.
Bill leaned toward Splock one last time, his whisper barely audible: "Also, Vikings didn't have robot hands."
"That is an unusually astute observation."
Hastings pressed the button.
The air around them began to shimmer. To pulse. To dissolve.
And from somewhere beneath the doctor's shirt, muffled by fabric but unmistakably present, a thin electronic voice sang:
"Plans made in the nursery can change the course of history. Remember that..."
Bill had time to think that Hastings definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent did not look like a Viking.
Then the world folded in on itself, and the alley snapped back into focus—same graffiti, same garbage cans, same general atmosphere of urban decay.
But something was wrong.
Bill blinked. Looked up at the slice of sky visible between the buildings. It was bright. Harsh. Midday sun beating down instead of the soft evening glow they'd fled.
"I don't understand," he muttered. "It was night. We were running from—"
Splock's ears twitched violently. "Fascinating. Observe the vegetation." He pointed at a tree visible beyond the alley's mouth. "That oak was approximately eight meters tall during our previous temporal iteration. It now exceeds eleven meters. The growth rate suggests a passage of approximately three years."
Bill squinted at the tree. It looked like a tree. Trees grew. This was not news.
"Also," Splock continued, gesturing at the empty lot across the street, "that vacant parcel has been converted into a vehicular storage facility. A parking structure. The construction alone would require—"
"And that." Ham Duo pointed at a wall covered in fresh graffiti. Bold letters declared "Shake the Disease" and "The Singles 81–85" in a style that clearly meant something to someone.
Splock studied the markings with intense concentration. "Shake the disease. The phrasing is problematic. Pathologies cannot be physically agitated. They are conditions, not objects. And 'The Singles 81–85'—the numerical range suggests a temporal span, but 'singles' refers to unmarried individuals. The concept of cataloguing unmarried people by year is statistically peculiar. Unless—" His ears flattened. "Unless this is a roster of available mates by annum. A primitive dating service."
Bill stared at him. "You think that wall is a singles ad?"
"I am hypothesizing. The data is insufficient."
Duo looked around, taking in the changed landscape. "We jumped. He sent us forward. That—what did you call him? The not-Viking?"
"Hastings," Splock supplied. "Doctor Hastings. The Viking comparison, I should note, was always tenuous. His lack of a longship was merely the most obvious—"
"He sent us three years forward," Bill interrupted. "It's 1985 now. That's what the wall means. The numbers. 81 to 85. Years. Not singles."
Splock considered this. "Ah. A temporal marker. That is considerably more logical than my initial interpretation. I formally retract the Viking hypothesis in its entirety. He was never Viking. His neck alone—"
"Can we focus?" Bill patted his pockets. His empty pockets. His very, very empty pockets. "He took my Disruptor. He pressed a button and we—" He looked at Duo. "Check yours."
Duo patted his own clothing. His hand stopped on a solid shape. He pulled out his Disruptor. Intact. Functional. Grinning, he held it up.
Splock performed the same motion. His Disruptor emerged from an interior pocket. Present and accounted for.
They both looked at Bill.
Bill patted himself again, as if the device might have magically reappeared. It hadn't.
"So," he said slowly, "he stole mine. Used it to send us here. And kept it."
"That appears accurate," Splock confirmed.
"The Historian's people have a Disruptor now."
"Yes."
"And we have two."
"Correct."
"And Chewgumma has the fourth somewhere in this city, probably eating something he shouldn't."
"That is also correct."
Bill took a breath. "Okay. We can work with this. We still have two. We still have each other. We still have—" He stopped. "What year did you say it is?"
"I did not say. The graffiti suggests 1985."
"Which means Delia is—"
"Approximately three years old," Splock finished.
Bill processed this. A three-year-old girl carrying the embryo of Alexander the Great. A three-year-old girl who, if the Historian's timeline held, would serve as a living container for another five years before the transfer to her mother.
"We need to see her," he said. "We need to see if anything's changed. If the plan's still on track."
Duo nodded. "The house. We go back to the house. Different day, different year—they won't be expecting us. The cops won't be looking. We're ghosts now."
"Ghosts who don't know how fire escapes work," Bill muttered.
"Speak for yourself. I've never fallen off one."
They emerged from the alley into a city that was both familiar and alien. The same streets. The same buildings. But the people were different—their clothes brighter, their hair bigger, their expressions somehow more aggressive. Music blared from passing cars, tinny and synthetic.
A vehicle rolled past, windows down, speakers thumping with an insistent beat:
"See no evil. Your eyes are blunted. We are the hunters. We are the hunted."
Bill watched it go. "That's... different."
On the sidewalk, a young man in a black T-shirt was explaining something to his friend with great enthusiasm. The shirt bore a name and a declaration: "Alan Wilder is God."
Bill's eyes locked onto the words. "God. That says god. Wilder is god. So Wilder is—" He looked at Splock. "The one the Anti-someone is anti-against?"
Splock studied the shirt. "Alan Wilder. The name is not in my cultural databases. The Gumption's archives contain extensive information on Earth's religious figures, but this individual—" He paused. "Wait. Wilder. Oscar Wilde was a nineteenth-century author. The similarity in nomenclature suggests a possible familial connection. But Oscar Wilde was not divine. He was a writer of considerable wit who—"
"Different guy," Duo said. "I don't know the details, but he seems to be very popular among youth." He paused. "I may have picked up some local data during my... interactions."
"Your sunglasses-stealing interactions?"
"Information-gathering interactions. I multitask."
They walked. The York house was where they'd left it—same brownstone, same neighborhood, same air of prosperous anonymity. But now, in the bright light of a 1985 afternoon, it looked almost ordinary. Almost harmless.
A small figure played on the front lawn.
Bill stopped. Held up a hand. The others froze behind him.
Delia.
She was three now, old enough to walk and run and engage in the mysterious activities of small children. Right now she was crouched over something—a doll, maybe, or some toy. Her dark hair fell across her face as she concentrated on whatever game consumed her attention.
A man walked past on the sidewalk. Business type. Suit. Briefcase. In a moment of absent-mindedness, he fumbled with his wallet—a thick leather fold of cash and cards—and it slipped from his grasp, landing on the grass just feet from where Delia played.
The man kept walking. Didn't notice.
Delia looked up. Watched him go. Then, with movements too quick and too deliberate for a child her age, she snatched the wallet and tucked it behind her back.
Bill leaned toward Splock. "Did you see that?"
"I saw."
"That's not normal. That's—" He searched for a comparison. "That's Chinger behavior. Quick. Opportunistic. Calculating."
Duo nodded slowly. "She's not just a container. She's something else."
Delia had noticed them. Her head turned. Dark eyes studied the three strange figures across the street with an intensity that made Bill uncomfortable. Then, slowly, she stood and walked toward the low fence that separated the yard from the sidewalk.
She stopped at the fence. Looked at Bill. Looked at Duo. Her gaze settled on Splock.
On his ears.
She stared at them with open fascination. Her head tilted. One small hand reached up, as if to touch something similar on herself, found nothing, and dropped.
Splock stepped forward. This was his element—communication, analysis, logical exchange of information. He crouched to bring himself closer to her eye level.
"Greetings," he said, his voice carefully modulated. "I am Splock. These are my associates, Bill and Ham Duo. We are—" He paused, selecting words with care. "We are visitors from a future temporal location. We have come to assist you and your family."
Bill's jaw dropped. He mouthed silently: Future?
"—in dealing with certain challenges that may arise from your unique physiological situation. Our intentions are entirely benevolent. We wish to ensure your wellbeing and that of—"
Delia's gaze shifted from Splock's ears to Bill's face. Her small nose wrinkled. Her expression shifted into something that could only be described as profound disdain. She pointed one chubby finger directly at him.
Something gurgled from her mouth. Not words, exactly. But the meaning was unmistakable.
Ugh. Him.
Then she spat.
The glob of saliva arced through the air with surprising precision and landed squarely on Bill's uniform sleeve.
Bill stared at it. The wet spot. The insult. The defilement of military attire.
Duo made a sound like a dying animal. It took Bill a moment to realize he was laughing—silently, violently, his whole body shaking with the effort of not making noise.
"Did you see—" Duo wheezed. "She—she spit on you."
"It's an insult," Bill hissed. "To the uniform. To my honor. In the Space Troopers, that's—that's a challenge. That's blood."
"Out of the mouths of babes," Duo whispered, tears streaming down his face. "She took one look at you and decided you were the one worth spitting on. That's—that's judgment, Bill. That's character assessment."
"I'll show her character—"
"You'll show her nothing. She's three. You just got owned by a toddler."
Delia, satisfied with her work, turned and ran back toward the house. Her small feet pounded on the grass. The stolen wallet was still clutched behind her back, forgotten in the joy of a good spit.
Splock stood slowly, watching her go. Something in his expression shifted.
"Bill," he said quietly. "When she ran—her hand. I observed a reflection. A glint of light."
Bill was still staring at his sleeve. "So?"
"She may have taken something."
Bill looked up. "Taken what? She's three. She steals wallets. That's her thing, apparently."
Splock's hand moved to his pocket. The pocket where his Disruptor was located.
His hand stopped. Pressed. Found nothing.
He patted again. More thoroughly. His expression remained neutral, but his ears flattened completely—a sign of profound internal disturbance.
"The Disruptor," he said. "It is no longer in my possession."
Bill stared at him. Then at the house, where Delia's small form had disappeared through the front door. Then back at Splock.
"She—" A laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep in Bill's chest. He tried to suppress it. Failed. "She picked your pocket? A three-year-old?"
"Children of this era are apparently more dextrous than anticipated."
"She stole from you. The great logical mind. The master of observation. Taken down by a toddler."
Splock's ears twitched. "The statistical probability of a child of that age executing a successful pocket retrieval without detection is approximately—"
"I don't want to hear statistics." Bill was laughing openly now. "I want to savor this. You, Splock, got robbed by a three-year-old girl who just spit on me. We're losing this war. Badly."
Duo had collapsed against a lamppost, tears streaming. "The look on your face when you patted your pocket—"
"It is not amusing."
"It's hilarious."
Splock drew himself up, dignity intact despite the circumstances. "The child is clearly enhanced. Accelerated. Her cognitive and motor functions exceed normal developmental parameters. This is not a failure of my observational capabilities. This is evidence of the Historian's modifications."
"She's three," Bill repeated, wiping his eyes. "And she made you her bitch."
"Your language is inappropriate."
"My language is celebrating. There's a difference."
Splock's ears remained flat, but something in his posture suggested he was recalculating every assumption he'd made about this mission. About children. About the entire concept of interacting with small humans.
"The Disruptor," he said quietly. "It's in that house now. With them."
Bill's laughter faded. He looked at the brownstone. Somewhere inside, a three-year-old girl was probably showing her parents a shiny new toy she'd found. And her parents—Gene and Karen, whatever they really were—would recognize it.
"We need to get it back," he said.
"That would be optimal."
"Any ideas? Without fire escapes?"
Splock's ears twitched once. Then again. The gears were turning.
"I may have one," he said. "But it requires patience. And a certain amount of—" He paused, searching for the word. "—acting."
Bill looked at Duo. Duo looked at Bill.
"Acting," Bill repeated. "You want us to act."
"I want us to present a credible alternative identity. One that would grant us access to the household without raising suspicion."
"You mean lie."
"In the service of a greater truth, yes."
They were still processing the toddler-heist when a most peculiar procession appeared around the corner.
A blind man was making his way down the sidewalk, tapping ahead with a white cane. He wore a wide-brimmed black hat and the kind of beard that suggested either deep religious conviction or a lifelong bet with a razor. His clothes were dark, his expression placid, his steps careful.
Leading him was a dog.
Calling it a dog was technically accurate but spiritually insufficient. It was a creature of magnificent confusion—a large, shaggy beast with fur the color of a mud puddle that had swallowed a rainbow and regretted it instantly. Patches of brown, tan, black, and something approaching chartreuse clung to its frame in clumps, many of which appeared to be in the process of departing forever. It scratched constantly, pausing every few steps to attack some new itch with a hind leg that moved independently of any known law of physics.
Its tongue hung from its mouth like a wet flag at half-mast. Drool cascaded in continuous streams, forming small puddles on the sidewalk that pedestrians carefully avoided.
The face was the worst part. Eyes that looked in slightly different directions. An expression of pure, unfiltered bewilderment, as if the universe had posed a question and the dog was still trying to figure out what language it was in.
The procession stopped at the York residence.
The dog, with the impeccable timing of chaos agents everywhere, squatted and began to relieve itself directly on the front lawn. A look of transcendent peace crossed its mismatched eyes.
The front door opened.
Counter-Dirk stepped out. He was dressed in an expensive charcoal suit—no puce, no mauve, nothing that would suggest his true nature to the casual observer. But Bill knew. That jaw. That posture. That particular way of standing that said I have tortured men and I keep my cauldron of fried chewing gum well-stocked.
Bill grabbed Splock's arm. "Hide! Get down! If he sees us—"
They crouched behind a parked car.
"He doesn't know we're here," Duo whispered. "We're ghosts, remember?"
"He's Counter-Dirk. He has a sixth sense for—"
On the lawn, something else happened.
The front door burst open again. A small figure shot out like a missile. Delia. She'd spotted the dog.
The dog spotted her.
The blind man's cane waved uselessly. "Ryder? Ryder, where are you going? Ryder, come!"
Ryder was already gone. The dog lunged forward with the kind of joy only animals and fools possess, forgetting entirely that its leash was still attached to its owner. The lead whipped taut, wrapped around the blind man's ankles, and sent him flying into a hedge with a yelp that was surprisingly canine for a human.
Delia shrieked with delight. The dog reached her, and chaos became communion.
Bill watched, his lip curling. "Yes," he whispered. "Yes. Eat her. Eat the little monster. Leave nothing but bones. I'll deny everything."
Splock turned to stare at him. The look on his face was not quite disapproval—it was something more complex, the expression of someone who had just discovered a fundamental flaw in a companion he had previously considered merely limited rather than morally suspect.
"Bill," he said. His voice was quiet. Measured. And then, without warning, he turned to face an empty space beside the parked car—a space where no one stood, where no camera crew lurked, where no audience sat.
But he spoke directly to it anyway.
"Before we continue," Splock announced, "I need to address to the entity that is currently passing this stream of events through itself. The individual known as Bill, the Galactic Hero, has expressed a desire to witness the violent demise of a three-year-old child at the jaws of a canine. This is not acceptable behavior, even taking into account the earlier insult to his uniform's honor. I request that any pregnant children or women of unstable psychological disposition be removed from the vicinity of these proceedings immediately. Frankly speaking, the decision to allow such an event to happen is questionable. We return you now to your regularly scheduled chaos."
Ham Duo stared at him. "Splock. Who in the nine hells are you talking to?"
"The idiot who's handling this material," Splock replied calmly. "Now observe. The situation is developing."
He was right.
On the lawn, Delia had thrown her arms around Ryder's neck. The dog, far from eating her, was engaged in an enthusiastic campaign of facial cleansing. Its enormous tongue swept across her cheeks, her forehead, her nose, depositing enough saliva to irrigate a small farm. The child shrieked and giggled and held on tighter.
Bill's expression shifted from anticipation to horror.
"She's... she's hugging it. It's licking her. She's enjoying it."
Duo elbowed him in the ribs. "Cheer up, soldier. Look at it this way—she just got a bigger dose of spit than you did. The honor of your uniform is restored. If anything, she's more defiled now."
Bill considered this. "That's... actually a fair point."
"Told you. Karma's a bitch. Or in this case, a very confused dog."
The blind man had extracted himself from the hedge. He brushed leaves from his clothing with the dignity of someone pretending this was all part of the plan. Counter-Dirk stood on his porch, arms crossed, watching the scene with an expression that suggested he was calculating how much this was going to cost him.
"Mr. York," the blind man said, approaching with his cane extended. "I am so sorry. Ryder is normally—she has diplomas. Medals. Best guide dog in the city, they said. Today is just—" He gestured vaguely at the universe. "Today is a day."
Counter-Dirk's jaw tightened. Bill could almost hear the thoughts: I have conquered timelines. I have served the Alien Historian. I am raising the vessel of the reborn Alexander. And now a blind man's incontinent mutt is using my lawn as a latrine.
But he said nothing. Because Delia had turned to look at him, still wrapped around the dog, and her face was shining with a joy he had apparently never seen before.
"Daddy," she said. "Can we keep him?"
The dog chose that moment to shake. A cloud of fur and drool erupted into the afternoon air.
Counter-Dirk's expression did not change, but something behind his eyes shifted. Bill recognized it—the calculation of a man weighing risks and benefits. The dog was a variable. Variables could be controlled. Or used.
"The gentleman's dog appears to be a working animal," he said carefully. "I doubt he would part with—"
The blind man held up a hand. "You know what? Take him. For a while. I have to go out of town—family business. My sister in Jersey. Can't take Ryder to Jersey. Long story. Bad memories. The chickens—" He shook his head. "Just take him. Please. A week. Two weeks. I'll be back."
Counter-Dirk's eyes narrowed. "You're leaving your guide dog with strangers?"
"He likes your daughter. She likes him. And I've got the cane. I'll manage. The city's not that hard to navigate if you know the bus routes." The blind man was already backing away. "Thank you, Mr. York. You're a lifesaver. A real mensch. Ryder, be good!"
And he was gone, tapping his way down the sidewalk with remarkable speed for a man who'd just abandoned his only navigational aid.
Ryder looked after him with an expression that suggested this was entirely within expectations. Then he turned back to Delia and resumed licking her face.
Bill watched all of this with growing unease. "Did you see that? The way Counter-Dirk looked at the dog? He's already planning something. I know that look. It's the same look he had when he brought out the antelope prods. The cauldron of fried chewing gum is next, mark my words."
Splock was making notes in an imaginary log. "Observation: the child displays affection toward the canine. The canine displays reciprocal affection. This suggests either genuine emotional capacity in both parties or a sophisticated deception on the part of one or both. Probability assessment in progress."
Duo scratched his chin. "That dog is not normal."
"No argument," Bill muttered.
"I mean—look at it. The fur. The eyes. The way it just... accepted being abandoned. That's not a pet. That's a plant."
"A plant?"
"An agent. A spy. Someone's watching through those mismatched eyes. I'd bet my Disruptor on it."
"Just you dare do that! A three-year-old and that non-Viking already have two of ours!"
"Point." Duo paused. "But I still think that dog is trouble."
They watched as Delia led Ryder toward the house, one small hand gripping the fur around his neck. The dog's tail wagged with the enthusiasm of something that had just found its purpose in life. Drool marked their path like breadcrumbs.
Counter-Dirk stood on the porch, watching. His expression was unreadable. But Bill could have sworn he saw the ghost of a smile.
Then the door closed, and the street was quiet again.