That might have been the first time he'd ever said he thought Dan made a pretty good soldier. It was just like him to say it so it suggested Dan had been but wasn't any more. “If I'm all ruined and everything, Sergeant, how did I hit the target?” Dan asked.
“Luck,” Chuck answered at once. '“Nothing but dumb luck.”'
“I bet I do it again.” Dan knew he was taking a chance. The matchlock wasn't a very accurate weapon. Even a good shot could go astray. If his did, Chuck would make him pay for it. Oh, would he ever!
But the sergeant shook his head. “Nah, don't bother. Even if you hit, it doesn't really prove anything. Besides, you're getting soft because you're not exercising enough. You can't tell me you are, either.”
Since Dan couldn't, he tried to change the subject: “I'm just doing what the officers tell me to do. Sergeant.”
“Yeah, like officers know anything,” Chuck said scornfully. “Are they gonna figure out electric lights? Get serious! Are you gonna help 'em figure those lights out? What do you know about electricity?”
“Nothing, Sergeant.” Dan gave the only honest answer he could.
“Well, then!” Triumph filled Chuck 's voice.
“But neither does anybody else,” Dan said.
“And you're gonna be the one who finds out? Ha! Don't make me laugh.”
Even though Dan didn't think that was real likely, either, he didn't like the sergeant teasing him about it. And he had a good way to get Chuck off his back: “I do need to go back. They want me there.”
“The more fools them,” Chuck said. But he couldn't tell Dan not to go, not when Dan had orders. He did tell Dan to clean his musket first. Dan did. He took keeping the musket clean very seriously.
Then he hurried off to the traders” house on Glendon. Even if Liz hadn't lived there, he would have been glad to go. Every time the electric lights came on (and how? by magic?), he fell as ii he were back in the Old Time. Ii he only had some gasoline, he might have gone looking for an automobile, to see if he could make it start.
Captain Horace had put sentries at the front door. He didn't want anybody who wasn't supposed to be there gelling in and gawking at the lights. The sentries knew who Dan was. He had no trouble getting past them.
Sergeant Max and his bloodhounds were in the courtyard. By now, the bloodhounds knew who Dan was. too. They came over and sniffed Ins boots. He patted their heads and scratched them behind the ears. They looked as happy as you could if your face was made for saying your grandmother had just died.
“Do you expect them to find anything here after all this time?” Dan asked Max.
The sergeant shook his head. “Nah, not really. But I can give ‘em a rest from running around, so that's cool, you know? They re good dogs. They won’t get into any trouble.”
“Okay.”“ Dan said. If you argued with a sergeant, you lost unless you were an officer. Sometimes you lost even if you were an officer. A lot of young lieutenants let their sergeants run their platoons. More often than not, that was smart, too, because sergeants usually had a better notion of what was going on.
Dan went downstairs. He wanted to look at the electric lights again. Even if he didn't understand them, he liked being around them. They told him something about how marvelous Old Time really was. To have lights like those whenever you wanted them… How cool was that?
Captain Horace was clown there, too, with a gray-haired man whose hair stuck out in tufts that went every which way. Dan recognized him straight off. Dr. Saul was the closest thing to a scientist the Valley had. Up till now. Dan had thought he was the smartest man in the world.
Maybe he was… these days. But now Dan couldn't help wondering how he stacked up against a real Old Time scientist. Was he still smart, or nothing but a bumbling fool? Then again, no matter how clever the Old Time scientists were, they went and blew up the world. How smart did that make them, really?
Right now, Dr. Saul was pitching a fit. “Those lights have got to have a power source somewhere!” he shouted at Captain Horace.
“Where?” the officer asked-reasonably. Dan thought. ''What does it look like?”
“I don't know!” Yes, Dr. Saul sounded plenty peeved. “If I knew things like that, I'd be able to do them myself. Where do the wires from the fluorescent tubes go?”
“Beats me.” Captain Horace sounded cheerful admitting how ignorant he was. “Far as I know, nobody's looked. There are wires up there, you say?”
Dan thought Dr. Saul would blow a gasket. He wasn't quite sure what a gasket was. but the scientist sure looked ready to blow something. He tore at his hair. Dan had never seen anybody do that before, though people talked about tearing their hair all the time. No wonder Dr. Saul 's looked as if he'd never heard of a comb. Maybe he was lucky to have anv hair at all.
“Nobody's looked?” he roared, loud enough to raise echoes in the basement under the basement. ''Are you people blind, or just really, really stupid? Why haven't you looked?” He suddenly rounded on Dan. “Why haven't you looked?” he demanded, as if it were all Dan 's fault.
“Sir, I don't know anything about electricity. I don't know anything about wires,” Dan answered. “I'm still learning how to take care of a matchlock.”
“Well, do you suppose you can learn to get me a ladder?” Dr. Saul said. “Somebody's got to do the work around here.” By the way he said it, he meant he had to do everything himself. But he didn't have to find a ladder and then lug it down two flights of stairs. That was work for the likes of Dan.
Once the ladder was in place, Dr. Saul climbed it as nimbly as a monkey. That was one more thing people said without thinking about. How nimble were monkeys? Dan had never seen one. He didn't know anybody who had, either.
The scientist got a cover off so he could look right at the fluorescent tube under it. He cautiously reached out and touched the tube. “Isn't it hot?” Dan asked.
“No. I didn't think it would be.” But Dr. Saul sounded relieved enough to show he hadn't been sure. He gave the tube a twist, and it came away from something set into the ceiling, lt also stopped glowing, which made the underground room noticeably gloomier.
“Did you kill it?” Captain Horace asked.
“No, no, no.” Dr. Saul shook his head. His hair went on moving after his head stopped. *'I want a look at the socket.” Cautiously, he lugged at the socket. “It's set into the concrete, confound it. The wire must go through there.”
“Are you sure there's a wire?” the officer said.
“Of course I am. Of course there is,” Dr. Saul said. “This isn't magic, you know. But we'd have to chip away that concrete to get at the wire and trace it back to the power source.” He muttered to himself. “We'd probably break something.”
If “we” suddenly started chipping concrete, who would do the real work? It wouldn't be Dr. Saul. He thought about things-he didn't actually do them. It wouldn't be Captain Horace or any sergeant. No, it would be somebody a lot like Dan, somebody who wasn't good for anything else. They'd look at it like that, anyhow.
Dan slid up the stairs and out the trap door while Dr. Saul was still talking. Nobody noticed him go. Who paid attention to common soldiers? When you needed one, you went and grabbed him. Otherwise, forget it.
By the time they might have thought about needing Dan, he was already back on the Santa Monica Freeway line with the rest of his company. He could hope they would grab somebody closer to chip concrete.
They likely did. They didn't come grab him. anyhow. That suited him fine.
Liz had seen several wagons like the one the Stoyadinoviches gave the Mendozas. It was made from an old Chevrolet, a brand still alive in the home timeline. The engine and the fenders and the roof were gone. Losing the engine saved a lot of weight. Losing the fenders saved weight, too, and let the wainwright install big wooden wheels with iron rims to replace metal wheels and rubber tires that had rotted away. And in place of the roof were iron hoops and a cloth cover that reached up much higher and let the auto body hold more.
When Liz looked at the team hitched to that contraption, she cracked up. “What's so funny?” George Stoyadinovich asked. “They're good horses-you won't find better ones this side of Santa Anita.”
“I'm sure they are,” she said. “But… It's a car, right? And what's a car? A horseless carriage, right? And so this is a horseless carriage-with horses! How crazy is that?”
Mr. Stoyadinovich thought about that for a few seconds. Then he started to laugh, too. “I never looked at it that way before.” He turned to Dad. “Keep an eye on her. She's dangerous.”
“Really? I never would have noticed,” Dad said, deadpan. Mr. Stoyadinovich laughed harder than ever. Liz stuck her nose in the air and sniffed. That only made Mrs. Stoyadinovich and Morn bust up. Liz glared at her mother; who ignored her. Sometimes you couldn't win.
““You've got a pretty good cargo there, too,” Mr. Stoyadinovich said. “People go out and party when they find Old Time Levi's in good shape. And they should, because it doesn't happen very often any more. And the ones you're taking north, they're just like new.” He winked.
Liz knew what the wink meant. The jeans in the wagon weren't just like new, from some unearthed clothing store. They were new, from the home timeline. The locals wouldn't know the difference. These were special trade Levi 's, made in a style that wouldn't have been out of place in the 1960s.
The Chevy wagon's doors and front seal were still intact. The windshield could have survived, but the driver needed to be able to use the reins when he sat behind the steering wheel.
“Is that a cool set of wheels or what?” George Stoyadinovich said, winking again.