The River of No Return

only strong enough to light a few bulbs at a time, so hopefully no one will turn a switch on elsewhere.” This corridor was like the others, arched, with messy shelves and cabinets, but these were interspersed with low wooden doorways, five on each side. “These are our offices,” Alva said. “Everyone who is located primarily in this time gets one. Mine is the third on the right. But I barely use it. In fact, it’s full of Peter’s spillover right now and I might just let her keep it.”
    “There are only ten of you?”
    “Yes, give or take. Others travel through. We can’t really support more than ten right now in this location. But we’re hoping to expand. We have our eyes on a couple of properties. . . .” She reached to turn the light off, but they went out with a pop before her fingers touched the switch. “Crap.” She turned her flashlight back on. “I’m not even in favor of the generator. It’s Archana’s pet project. But it’s funny how you’ll use things if they’re there.”
    Nick’s head was reeling. “What is this place? What are you all doing here?”
    Alva held the flashlight under her chin, turning her face into a ghoulish parody of her beautiful features. “Destroying the future,” she said in sepulchral tones. “Ruining it for everyone!”
    “Yeah,” Nick said. “So they told me.”
    “I bet they did. Come along.” Alva sped away like the White Rabbit, trotting past the ubiquitous shelving. “These all lead into libraries,” she said, flinging a hand toward a series of low, wooden doors on the right.
    “Libraries? So what are all the books along the corridors?”
    “Overflow. None of it’s really well organized, to be honest—even in the libraries. We haven’t had an archivist in a generation or two. Ah.” She pointed to a door with a thread of electric light spilling out from underneath. “That’s Archana’s lab,” she said. “If she was in a better mood I’d introduce you, but I don’t think it’s a good idea just now.”
    “How can she bear to work in a hole in the ground?”
    “Don’t assume that because this is a hole, it is damp and cold like a grave! Archana’s lab is warm and full of light.”
    “Okay, but . . . this is a graveyard. I’m just saying.”
    “Technicalities!”
    They passed by.
    “All right, here we are. The transporter.” Alva touched the handle of a square door. “Someone dubbed it the transporter because this is where we enter and leave from other times. It’s like in Star Wars, you know. ‘Beam me up, Scotty.’”
    “That’s Star Trek, not Star Wars .”
    “Oh, they’re different? Someone watched a lot of TV in Chile.”
    “It was practically all they had us do.”
    Alva sighed. “Lucky. I adore TV. But I jumped to 1790. I was illiterate, I only spoke Swedish, and all I knew how to do was tote water and grow beets and pray. The Guild locked me up in the most dreary castle in Scotland with a redheaded stepchild from Azerbaijan and a sex fiend from Alsace-Lorraine. I learned to read with the New England Primer, which is enough to drive anyone mad, and then advanced to an endless course of David Hume. . . . But, enough of that.” She threw open the door to the transporter. “Nice, isn’t it?”
    Nick stepped inside. “But it’s a pub!” And it was. At first glance it was like the perfect country inn from his own time. Beautifully cozy, with low-beamed ceilings, fires crackling in the fireplaces, and big comfortable chairs set by the hearths. There were solid oak tables laid for eating, and candles flickering here and there in wall sconces. But on second glance, there was a pinball machine in a corner, a dartboard on one wall, and a mantelpiece piled high with paperback novels, a skull teetering on top. In another corner a wind-up Victrola opened its enormous red mouth into the room, and against a wall by the bar there stood a yellow upright piano with an intricate symbol painted above the keys: a many-spoked wheel, surrounded by eyes. A tuba and a trombone were crammed on top of the piano, and a banjo lay on its bench. A dusty disco ball hung off to the right.
    Nick turned around, taking it all in. “What’s the idea?”
    Alva leaned in the doorway, her arms crossed. “This is where we gather most nights. The Ofan who are visiting and those of us who are making our homes here. We hang out, drink, talk, make music, dance—fight, laugh, fall in love, break up—we argue about who the Ofan were