Lightning

I don't want to drag her into this. If anything happened to Thelma—"
    "It can be arranged without risk to her," he insisted.
    Outside, the promised rain arrived in a sudden downpour.
    Laura said, "No."
    "But she's our only hope."
    "No."
    "Where else can you raise the money?"
    "We'll find another way that doesn't require a lot of financing."
    "Whether we come up with another plan or not, we'll need money. Your forty dollars won't last another day. And I have nothing."
    "I won't risk Thelma," she said adamantly.
    "As I said, we can do it without risk, without—"
    "No."
    "Then we're defeated," he said dismally.
    She listened to the rain, which in her mind became the heavy roar of World War II bombers—and then the sound of a chanting, maddened crowd.
    At last she said, "But even if we could arrange it without any risk to Thelma, what if the SS has a tail on her? They must know she's my best friend—my only real friend. So why wouldn't they have sent one of their teams forward in time to just keep a watch on Thelma with the hope she'd lead them to me?"
    "Because that's an unnecessarily tedious way to find us," he said. "They can just send research teams into the future, to February of this year and then March and April, month after month, to check the newspapers until they find out where we first showed up. Each of those jaunts only takes eleven minutes in
their
time, remember, so it's quick; and that method is almost certain to work sooner or later because it's doubtful we could stay in hiding the rest of our lives."
    "Well…"
    He waited a long time. Then he said, "You're like sisters, you two. And if you can't turn for help to a sister at a time like this, who can you turn to, Laura?"
    "If we can get Thelma's help without putting her at risk… I guess we have to try."
    "First thing in the morning," he said.
    That was a night of rain, and rain also filled her dreams, and in those dreams were explosive thunderclaps and lightning, as well. She woke in terror, but the rainy night in Santa Ana was unmarred by those bright, noisy omens of death. It was a comparatively peaceful storm, without thunder, lightning, and wind, though she knew that it would not always be so.
3
    The machinery clicked and hummed.
    Erich Klietmann looked at the clock. In just three minutes the research team would return to the institute.
    Two scientists, heirs of Penlovski and Januskaya and Volkaw, stood at the programming board, studying the myriad dials and gauges.
    All the light in the room was unnatural, for the windows were not merely blacked out to avoid providing beacons for night-flying enemy bombers, but were bricked in for security reasons. The air was stuffy.
    Standing in one corner of the main lab, near the gate, Lieutenant Klietmann anticipated his trip to 1989 with excitement, not because that future was filled with wonders but because the mission gave him an opportunity to serve
der Führer
in a way that few men ever could. If he succeeded in killing Krieger, the woman, and the boy, he would have earned a personal meeting with Hitler, a chance to see the great man face to face, to know the touch of his hand and through that touch to feel the power, the tremendous power of the German state and people and history and destiny. The lieutenant would have risked death ten times, a thousand times, for the chance to be brought to the personal attention of
der Führer
, to make Hitler aware of him, not aware of him as just another SS officer, but aware of him as an individual, as Erich Klietmann, the man who saved the Reich from the dire fate that it had almost been forced to endure.
    Klietmann was not the Aryan ideal, and he was acutely aware of his physical shortcomings. His maternal grandfather had been Polish, a disgusting Slavic mongrel, which made Klietmann only three-quarters German. Furthermore, though his other three grandparents and both of his parents had been blond, blue-eyed, with Nordic features, Erich had hazel eyes, dark hair, and the heavier, more sensuous features of his barbarian grandfather. He loathed the way he looked, and he tried to compensate for his physical shortcomings by being the most vigilant Nazi, most courageous soldier, and most ardent supporter of Hitler in the entire
Schutzstaffel
, which was tough because he had so much competition for that honor. Sometimes he had despaired of ever being singled out for glory. But he never gave up, and now here he was, on the brink of heroism that would earn him