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Truthfully, he had tossed the phone in the nearby tool
box just after "thank God you answered," though the
volume was loud enough that he could still just barely
pick up her words in the near-silence of the basement.
That is, he could have, if he were trying to listen.

It was Audrey. She always talked too much. When
they broke up over the phone, all he had managed to
insert were "what," "but," and "I." He still thought of her
as he had last seen her in person, decked out in a green
turtleneck (a little tight over the chest, as he vaguely
recalled) and blue jeans that had accentuated her Barbie-
doll legs. That was all for his benefit, she had said. It had
been the biggest day of his career. The day, eleven
thousand seven-hundred and two hours ago, when his life
had ended.

The admissions committee for the International
Society on General Relativity and Gravitation must have
been having uproarious fun. Doctor Abhay Ashtekar
actually lost his grip on the desk and fell to the floor,
pounding and braying like a jackass. Like a fat, block-
headed jackass, he recalled. All around the dais, the cream
of the academic world fought for breath, rumpling their
well-pressed brown and plaid suits as they gave in to
mirth. Who could believe that anybody with enough
brains to get his doctorate at twenty would stand up in
public and try to tell them he had invented time travel?

And there stood David Lahere, filling out his clothes
much better when he ate on a professor's pay. His suit
was of equal quality, crisp black jacket and slacks, a newly
ironed white shirt, a blue striped tie his late father had
given him when he made it into MIT. In fact, he was
currently dressed neater than any of his disheveled

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