Free Godspeed by Charles Sheffield Page B

she had only been trying to help. "He's home now. He can stay there." I stuffed Enderton's black wafer into my pocket and hurried into the house. The kitchen drawers and cupboards were closed again, and the mess of the previous night had been cleared up. Three men from Toltoona were sitting at the table playing cards. I knew them. They were all big and broad and self-confident, and they nodded at me casually.
    "I didn't touch your room yet," mother said. "I thought you'd prefer to do that yourself. Come on."
    I followed her, waiting until we were at the top of the stairs before I spoke.
    "Mother." I kept my voice down to a whisper. "I've got it—the thing that the men were looking for last night."
    She halted at the door of the guest room and glanced back to the stairs. For the first time in my life, I had the feeling that Mother was frightened.
    "Go on into my room," she said. She followed me and closed the door after us. "Now, what do you say you've got?"
    I pulled out the innocent-looking piece of molded black plastic, and told her where it came from. She took it from me, turning it over and examining each side.
    "He made it work last night," I said. "He made it show a lot of lights in the air. But I don't know how to do it. What is it?"
    "I'm not sure." Mother sat down on the bed. Her room, like the kitchen, was back to normal. She began to press the surface of the black oblong, placing her fingertips into its shallow depressions. "If I had to guess, I'd say it was never made on Erin—or anywhere in the Forty Worlds. That means it must be very old, from the days before the Isolation."
    It was strange to hear her talk that way. "I thought you said there never was a Godspeed Drive."
    She glanced up, all the while pressing the concave areas on the wafer. "Oh, that's just me agreeing with Duncan. He says there never was one. But if you ever went over to the big museum in Roscommon, you'd not doubt that we came here from another star, a long time ago, and that goods and people were coming to and from Erin for hundreds of years. Until one day, suddenly, it all stopped."
    "Why don't you take Uncle Duncan over to Roscommon with you, and show him?"
    "Because he won't take the time to go. He says, and I half agree with him, what's the difference? There's no Drive now, and we have to get on with our lives without it. I don't dwell on the past much myself, but there never was a man like Duncan West for living in the here and now. That's why I like him. He's all in the present."
    "Where is he?" It had suddenly occurred to me that he was not in the house.
    "He left, as soon as he was sure that I was safe home and protected. He said it had been chaos yesterday, but he still had to earn a living."
    All the time we were talking, Mother had been studying what she was holding, and pressing in different places with various combinations of fingers. "There!" she said with satisfaction. "That's got it."
    I leaned over. There was no sign of the beautiful three-dimensional display of lights that I had seen in the boat, but the dark surface showed a glowing set of numbers and open round spots. "What did you do?"
    "Turned it on. It was just power-protected, against being turned on by accident. To activate it, you have to press here, and here, and here, all at the same time. See."
    Three of her fingers moved down in unison. The display vanished, leaving dull black plastic. A second later the glowing numbers reappeared as she pressed down for a second time.
    "But what is it?" I asked.
    "I'm not sure, but I think it's probably a calculator. Anyway, it's hard to believe that this is what the men last night were searching for. Here." She handed it to me. "I'd say that with Paddy Enderton dead, you have more right to it than anyone."
    She stood up. "Now, I want you to sort out your room and the front bedroom, and get them as far as you can back to normal. Anything that belonged to Mr. Enderton, you keep separate. Put it out on the landing. When you've