Timebound(17)

When I finished my summary, I turned to Katherine. “Whether you believe Kiernan’s information or not, there’s a lot going on that I need to know about. And I think perhaps my dad should be in on this. Or mom…”

I felt a bit like the accused claiming my right to an attorney, but maybe that wasn’t so far off. I didn’t know either Katherine or Connor well enough to feel that I could completely trust them, and Dad—well, he’s my dad, and I know whose interests he’d put first. And while my relationship with Mom is a little more complicated, she would do the same.

“Kate…” Katherine hesitated, apparently looking for the right words. “I admire you for wanting to keep your parents informed—and yes, Harry would be far more likely to understand than Deborah—but perhaps you should wait until you’ve heard my story. Then, if you want to talk to Harry… that’s fine.”

She reached up and pulled the chain around her neck, allowing her medallion to fall in front of her dark red bathrobe. The blue light altered the color of the robe near the medallion to a peculiar shade of purple. “But you must keep in mind, Kate, that your parents will never see this pendant as anything other than an odd piece of jewelry. If either of them held it for more than a few moments, they might feel a strange sensation—as Connor or anyone else with the recessive version of the gene does. They might notice a slight change in the color. But neither of them will ever see this as you or I do. And it would take time to convince them of what we can see and experience directly.”

Something about that statement nagged at me, but I focused on her key point that pulling Dad into the discussion would take time. I couldn’t shake the sense that time was short—the urgency in Kiernan’s voice had made that clear—and I wasn’t entirely sure that we could afford to wait until Dad was there and had been filled in on everything. And even though Katherine and Connor seemed to doubt the sincerity of Kiernan’s warning, I did not. It might have been my first kiss, but I trusted the instinct that told me Kiernan was on my side—whatever side that might be.





4





“I was born in the year 2282,” Katherine began. My face must have shown doubt because she quickly added, “I’m not going to waste time trying to convince you of what you already know, Kate.”

“Before my birth,” she continued, “it was decided that I would be a historian. My parents had saved a bit and, as I understand it, my grandparents and a childless aunt also contributed some funds, so there were several chosen gifts from which my parents could select. Everyone is allowed one—and only one—chosen gift. Initially they were distributed by lottery, but money has a way of opening doors in any society. All things weighed together, I’m not unhappy with their purchase.”

Connor returned from the kitchen with three mugs of black coffee that looked much too strong for human consumption and a large box of cookies, which he clearly would have eaten all by himself had Katherine not nodded in my direction. He gave up three gingersnaps—grudgingly, I thought—and propped his feet on the short table positioned between his chair and the couch.

Katherine continued. “Had my family been less well off or less inclined to invest in my future, I might have been given special aptitude for healing or for music, or some other trade or craft. My father’s chosen gift was chemistry. My mother’s chosen gift was logic, and she worked for many years at CHRONOS—programming the computers that were used to track historical missions and analyze the data they collected.”

I took a sip of my coffee, wishing for some milk to cut the burned taste. “What exactly is CHRONOS? I saw that in several diary entries.”

“Chrono-Historical Research Organization and Natural Observation Society,” Connor said through a mouthful of cookie. “Proving that future Americans are just as willing as their ancestors to contrive a title in order to get a good backronym.”

“At any rate,” Katherine said, raising an eyebrow at him, “my mother loved her work at CHRONOS—no surprise, since she and everyone else of my time are, quite literally, born to love their jobs. But I think there was some small element of wanderlust in her soul. The chosen gift she selected for me meant that I would see different times and places—”

“But,” I interrupted, my voice a bit hesitant, “what about free choice? I mean, what if you’d rather have been a chemist, like your dad? Or a baker? Or…”

Katherine smiled, but it was a tired smile. I could see that it wasn’t the first time she’d dealt with these questions. “Yes. But there is much to be said for making some adjustments before birth. How much time is wasted today training children to perform a variety of skills that they not only will never use but would never even consider using? I remember your mother complaining that she would never need to know the square root of anything, and while I forced her to do the math homework nevertheless, we both knew she was correct.