Pam doesn't join Bogg and Jeffrey for lunch or even has anything to eat. She just sits in the drawing room staring out of the window.
"She took it kind of hard, finding that woman, didn't she?" Jeffrey says.
"I guess so."
"I'm glad I didn't see it. Was it very horrible?"
"Could have been a lot worse, considering."
"I wish there was something we could do for her."
"Maybe I can talk to her."
"You?"
"Yeah. You've been saying we should be nicer to each other. Now seems like a good time. And if it's about the murder she's probably more likely to talk to me about it than to you. She didn't want to tell you what was going on. Remember? Maybe you should sit with Alice, make sure she's not found out about until next week."
"Yeah, you're right. I almost forgot about Alice. It's terrible that we know who she is, but that we can't tell her, or anybody else because she's not supposed to go back to her family yet. We have to keep her away from her family, Bogg."
"I know, kid. But at least she's with friends."
Jeffrey nods and walks away to find Alice. Bogg joins Pam in the drawing room.
"I have something for you."
Pam looks at the item he holds in his hand. "An apple. An apple for the teacher."
"Actually, I was think that you said you were a trauma eater, but you haven't eaten at all since breakfast."
"Thank you." Pam closes her hands around the apple and returns her gaze to the outside world.
"I wish there was something I could do to help you," Bogg says after a while.
"Help me? With what?"
"Help you deal with this. You've been very withdrawn ever since you found her. And frankly." Bogg pauses for a moment. Should I say this? "Frankly, you were more fun when you were yanking my chain."
"I don't feel like yanking anything right now."
"I understand that. And I also understand if you are rather left alone." He gets up from his seat.
"Please, stay." Bogg lowers himself back in his seat. "I think I want to talk to someone. It's just that I don't know what to say."
"Maybe you should just start somewhere and we can work our way from there."
Pam gives him a wry smile. "That seems like a good idea." She stares at her hands for a while.
"Should I ask you questions to get you started?" Bogg ventures. He has no idea how to conduct this kind of conversation. He tries to remember what would have helped him if people had said it to him when he saw his first dead body, a man with a slit throat and slit stomach, his bowls pouring out off the gap. It makes him sick all over again thinking back.
"It is such a harsh way to go."
"Sometimes people see no other option than to kill themselves."
"I know. I meant, it's a harsh way for that woman to shoot herself. It's so violent and not usual for a woman. I've looked into it." She takes long pauses between sentences.
At least she's talking, Bogg thinks. Don't ask questions. Let the words come out at their own pace.
"When women kill themselves they choose 'friendlier' methods. They take an overdose of sleeping pills or they slid their wrists while taking a bath. Men choose the violent methods. They're the ones who drive their cars into a concrete wall at a hundred miles an hour. They hang themselves more often. They shoot themselves in the head."
Bogg finds all this information a little disturbing, but he doesn't say.
"Women don't shoot themselves," Pam says in soft voice. "Women rarely shoot themselves."
"Some times they do," Bogg says.
Pam looks at him. "Some times they do. Some times they do." She turns back to looking out of the window. "When I was five my parents died."
"You said so earlier. Does this remind you of that?"
"It does." She opens and closes her hands, revealing and hiding the apple. "They were killed. Shot."
"I'm sorry to hear."
"It's not true. My father was shot. He was killed. Shot in the head." Pam points to a place on her forehead. "My mother shot herself." She points to her head again. "I found them. I was five. I didn't understand. They told me later. I still didn't understand. I still don't. Why would a woman kill her husband and herself? How great could her sorrow have been? Why hadn't anyone noticed anything? Why did she choose that her child should live? Why?"
"I -- I don't know."
"The way that woman lay, slanted on the sofa. That was my mother. Everything in that office was my parents' living room. I was back there, and there was nothing I could do."
Bogg doesn't know what to say. He wouldn't have imagined anything like this would have been the matter.
"Hold me," Pam says. "Hold me."
"Of course." Bogg puts his arms around Pam and pulls her close. She puts her head on his shoulder and holds him tight. He strokes her back. If this happened to her as a child, no wonder she's upset now.
-oOo-
Alice is enjoying a quiet cup of tea in the tea room, when Jeffrey joins her.
"Hello, Jeffrey, how are you? I heard it was your friend Pam who discovered the body. She must feel terrible. I know I would."
"She does. Did the police talk to you?"
"They did. They asked if I knew anyone that matched the description of that poor woman and if I had heard anything. But I couldn't help them on either account. And they asked me what I was doing here."
"Why did they ask that?"
"I guess they wanted to make sure I didn't come here just to kill some poor woman. But I told them I'm here from Africa, for a visit. I'll be putting an advertisement in the newspaper tomorrow to see if I can contact any distant relatives that I have living here."
"That sounds like a good idea. It is important to stay in touch with your family."
"Yes, I think so too."
-oOo-
"Jeff, Pam and I are going for a walk, get some fresh air. Do you want to join us?"
"Sure. I'll get my coat." Jeffrey apologizes to Alice for breaking off their board game.
"We'll wait for you out front."
A little later Jeffrey meets Bogg and Pam outside.
"How are you?"
"A little better, thanks."
Jeffrey offers her his arm which she takes with a smile.
"This way." Bogg leads the way. They round the corner into an alley and there they stop. "Jeff, this is not a good place for Pam to be right now. So I was thinking that we should take her somewhere else and than you and I could occasionally omni in to check on Alice. What do you think?"
"Of course. You keep seeing that dead woman, huh? I wouldn't want to stay in a place that reminded me of something that horrible. Where do we go?"
"October 15, 1964, Tokyo," Bogg answers. "She picked it."
"Summer Olympics? Very wise choice." Jeffrey gives Pam an approving nod.
"Hold on."
Pam and Jeffrey each grab hold of one of Bogg's arms and he triggers the omni.
-oOo-
"Boy, it is dark here," Jeffrey remarks. "Where are we?"
"I don't know. It's too dark to read the omni. But I can tell you there's no red light. Nor a green light for that matter."
"We're inside somewhere," Pam says. "I thought we could only land outside."
"No, we can land pretty much anywhere, both in and outside. Bogg, do you suppose we're ..." Jeffrey is interrupted by someone swinging open the door and switching on the light.
"Sorry about that. We didn't quite know when you would be coming, or we would have made your arrival a little more pleasant."
"Professor Garth."
"Hello, young mister Jones." Garth walks up to him to shake his hand. "Very nice to see you again. Do I dare say you have grown."
"I don't think you dare say that to anyone over the age of five," Jeffrey retorts.
"Point taken. Mr. Bogg." Garth shakes Bogg's hand too.
"What is this place?" Pam is still sitting on the floor taking in the room. "A courtroom?"
"This is headquarters," Bogg replies.
"Headquarters? I thought you said you couldn't get me to headquarters."
"We got you here," Garth replies. "I'm Garth last of the Elders. And you are?"
"Last of the Elders, what does that mean? You're like the CEO, or someone on the board of directors?" Garth looks a little puzzled. "You run this operation."
"Yes, you could say that."
"So you decide to just pluck people out of their time and recruit them as Voyagers."
"Well, it is not exactly my decision. It is written in history that that should happen."
"History is the set of events we have agreed upon. Nothing predetermined about that."
"That may have been the way it appeared to Napoleon, the truth however is different."
"The Truth is Out There, though."
"You're quite a clever woman," Garth states.
"Well, I wasn't predetermined to be a Voyager for no reason."
"That's just it, you aren't predetermined to be a Voyager."
Bogg, Jeffrey and Pam look at each other in surprise.
"Come with me, I will explain."
The threesome follow Garth to his office. He appoints them some chairs to sit on. He sits down behind his desk and folds his hands under his chin.
"A few days ago we picked up that Voyager Bogg's omni appeared in 1998. It's not supposed to go that far."
"I know. It sometimes passes it's time boundary," Bogg replies.
"Yes, that's why we are monitoring it more carefully these days. We saw you picked up some extra cargo in 1998."
"Some early recruitment, like with me," Jeffrey suggests.
"Yes, we first thought so too, then we looked into it. Your name is Pam Townsend, right? There isn't a Pam Townsend anywhere in our records. You aren't a potential Voyager. You should be taken back to your own time."
"How about a Pandora Townsend?" Pam asks. I can't believe I'm asking this. This guy is offering me a way home and I want to stay?
"Pandora?" Bogg asks.
"Like you I didn't get to choose my name either."
"Bringer of all gifts, that's not too bad."
"You have heard of the mythological Pandora who got curious and brought all evils to mankind?"
"Sure, but that wasn't you was it?"
"If it was, Drake could have saved himself the trouble of trying to drown me. Poseidon gave the mythological Pandora the ability to never drown."
Bogg smiles, and at the same time he wonders whether that was perhaps a sick joke from Drake: trying to drown the woman who can't drown. On the other hand, how would Drake have know Pam's name is Pandora?
With the conversation drifting away from him Garth has taken the opportunity to look into the live and times of one Pandora Townsend.
"Pandora Townsend, also not meant to be a Voyager. You will be happy to know that we will return you to your own time at the exact moment you were taken from it. You will forget all about Voyagers and go on with your life in the publishing firm you set up with your parents as if nothing has happened."
"My parents are dead."
"Are you sure?" Garth consults his screen read out.
"Quite sure," Pam replies in a hoarse voice.
"You are Pandora Townsend, born 25 May 1970?"
"Yes."
"There's only one of those in our files. After graduating university with a double major in English Lit and History you go into business with your father. A small publishing firm which specializes in historical novels."
"My father died on June 6, 1975. And so did my mother."
"That's not in our files."
"Then your files must be wrong."