Seven smelled warm manure mixed with the smell of the lilacs, and in the next moment the mist lifted so that the purple flowers stood out all dewy by the driveway below. A delightful scene, Seven thought; and he liked the gas-sniffing George Brainbridge a lot better at first sight than he did the twentieth-century version who chased the pigeons. And as if he’d called them, a flock of pigeons came swooping down from the back side of the barn to the buttress beneath the window; and began cooing. From the cot inside the room, George Brainbridge muttered, “Goddamned pigeons,” and Seven despite himself began to laugh. Then he sobered. He had to get back somewhere close to twilight, 1985. And quickly.

Chapter Three

Oversoul Seven Takes a Body and Finally Meets the Right George

Cyprus was a speck of light in the office waiting room of George Brainbridge’s twentieth-century residence. George was waiting in the office across the hall for the arrival of his new associate, Dr. Seven. George whistled under his breath, turned on the radio, squinted at the pigeons on the window ledge, and hoped to hell that the new arrangement was going to work out.

But Cyprus could tell that Seven was either waylaid or had taken a wrong turn in time or space; he wasn’t in this space in this time. Slightly exasperated, she loosened her own consciousness from its precise orientation with time, but maintained the same space coordinates. From her present probable position her consciousness went whirling through the room’s futures. Still no Seven! So Cyprus started to ruffle quickly through the past.

Almost at once she saw Seven wandering around, a good hundred years off—but in space hardly a few feet away. She materialized as the ancient-but-young woman teacher and stood beside him. George Brainbridge, glancing into the waiting room in his time, saw no one, of course.

“Seven, you’re in the wrong time,” Cyprus announced.

“I went back into the past,” Seven cried, “and met George’s grandfather.” He was wearing his favorite fourteen-year-old male image.

Cyprus smiled; almost. “I didn’t realize that you were methodical enough to do such background reference,” she said.

Seven smiled modestly.

“I thought maybe you just got lost,” Cyprus said.

Seven blushed. “Well, there must have been a reason why I ended up in the wrong time with the wrong George,” he said defensively.

“Exactly,” Cyprus replied. “Remember that later. But you don’t even have a real body yet, and George expects you at any moment.”

“You do mean a body, not just an image?” Seven asked.

“A body. I told you that before,” Cyprus replied, laughing. “And you have to make it in the right time period, so it will fit properly. That means that we have to return to the twentieth century first.”