by Bob Mayer
“I believe it would have to you,” Serge said.
Eagle spoke up. “Did you keep Caesarion from being assassinated?”
“I have no idea of what you speak,” Serge said.
“Do you have the HUB?” Scout asked.
Serge sighed. He nodded toward the galleon. “It’s in there. We took it because the Patrol was after us. We thought we could stop them. Their machine is better than ours was, but that was back in 1986. I’m sure improvements have been made.”
“You were the Soviet Time Patrol,” Nada said, not a question. He gestured, and Mac and Eagle went over to the galleon and began climbing a long ramp set against the side.
“Yes.” Serge began coughing and he covered his mouth with his hand. When he pulled it away, it was stained with bright red blood. “It is almost over for me.”
“What happened at Chernobyl?” Nada asked.
Serge wearily shook his head. “Too long of a story.” He coughed again, with the same result. “We were trapped here, and it took us a very long time before we found your Patrol and managed to get its, what do you call it, hube?”
“HUB.”
“We called ours by a different name. It was destroyed on our last mission.”
Nada glanced to the side. Eagle and Mac were carrying something down the plank. It was an obsidian, three-foot-high, triangular column. They placed it down on the sand.
“How does it work?” Nada asked.
“I didn’t know where to go,” Serge said, ignoring the question and indicating the columns behind him. “I am exhausted. Down to my very bones. I have never known such weariness.” He cocked his head. “They’re coming. I thought you were them, but you’re not.”
“Who is coming?” Nada asked.
“The Patrol.” Serge coughed, so deeply and hard, he bent over double, and then he went to his knees.
“Eagle, Mac,” Nada ordered. “Keep an—”
He halted as the smoothness of the water was disturbed and a vessel broke the surface. It looked like a plane with stubby wings. The front part was curved, but solid, no glass for a cockpit.
Neeley went to Serge’s side, checking his condition as Nada focused on the incoming craft, Scout at his side and Eagle and Mac behind him. The craft hit the sand about ten feet from shore with a grating sound.
All remained still for a moment, and then a hatch on top was thrown open. A man appeared, hoisting himself out and onto the top of the vessel. “Sin Fen!” He was of medium height, with thick black hair sprinkled with gray. He had a stubble of beard, mostly white, that appeared more from lack of time to shave rather than a look.
“Dane,” Sin Fen called out. “You are a bit late.”
“I’m never late,” Dane said with a slight smile. He climbed down off the front of the craft and splashed down into knee-deep water. He walked up onto the sand. He glanced at the Russian. “They went too far.”
“They almost caused a lot of trouble,” Sin Fen said.
Dane nodded. “We’ve had problems in other timelines. I couldn’t spare any resources until now.”
He looked over the group. “This is it?” he asked Sin Fen.
“There are others at the Ratnik camp. Along with Amelia’s Outcasts. They should be along shortly.”
Nada stepped forward. “I’m the team sergeant for the Nightstalkers. Nada.”
“Yes. The Nightstalkers.” The man offered his hand. “Eric Dane. Formerly of Recon Team Kansas, MACV-SOG, a long time ago. Well, a long time ago for you.” He was referring to the Military Assistance Command Vietnam–Studies and Observations Group, a rather innocuous name for an elite counter-insurgency group of Special Forces during the Vietnam War.
“But now,” Dane said, “I’m the Administrator.”
“Of what?” Nada asked.
Dane nodded. “That’s a good question.”
“Where’s the Patrol?” Nada asked. “We have an emergency that”—he looked at his watch, and then remembered it wasn’t working—“that time is running out on.”
Dane held up a hand. “Relax. Time is different in here than back in your timeline. You’re talking about the Caesarion anomaly?”
“Yes,” Scout said.
Dane looked at her and his focus zeroed in, ignoring the others. “You have the sight.”
“Everyone keeps telling me that,” Scout said, “but no one has told me what it means.”
“You’re young,” Dane said, “yet you are with these people.” He indicated the members of the Nightstalkers and Neeley. “Why did they choose you?”
“Because I knew my way around a gated community?” Scout said with much less than certainty, going back to her first encounter with the Nightstalkers in North Carolina.
“You were in the right place and time,” Dane said, “and it turned out to be more than that. Things that look like chance often aren’t when you begin to see the big picture of the universe.”
“What big picture?” Neeley asked.
Dane looked at her. “You have some of it too, but there is much sadness in you.” He looked past as Moms arrived with Amelia Earhart and the rest of the Nightstalkers and Outcasts.
“Amelia,” Dane said, holding up a hand in greeting.
“Dane.” Amelia Earhart walked through everyone and gave him a hug. “It’s been a while.”
“It has.” He looked around. “So these are the Nightstalkers?”
“We lost a man,” Moms said. “Back in our timeline.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” Dane said. “This is”—he paused, searching for the right words—“the moment of choices before we reboot.”
“Reboot?” Doc asked. “What do you mean?”
Dane pointed at Serge lying in the sand, Neeley pressing a wet rag on his forehead, about the only comfort she could give. “The Ratnik were a problem, certainly. Your timeline’s problem, so your timeline was allowed to solve it. Given some help,” he added with a nod to Amelia Earhart.
“Doc,” Moms said, pointing at Serge. Doc headed over to do what he could. Taki was twitching, looking like he was ready to take Serge’s head off.
“Who are you?” Moms demanded.
“I’m the Administrator of the Time Patrol,” Dane said. “I’m not from your timeline, although there is, or was, an Eric Dane in your time. He might have died in Vietnam. He might still be alive. I don’t know and I don’t want to know. He might even end up on your team, because he might have the sight like I do.”
“What is this sight?” Scout demanded.
“It is what it is,” Dane said. “I can’t explain it, but you know it when you have it, and you can see it in others. To see beyond what is right in front of you.” He tapped the side of his head. “The mind is so much more than what we have used. Even your scientists will tell you that. Those with the sight simply use more of what is already there.”
“Right,” Scout said, but without doubt or sarcasm for once.
“Regardless,” Dane said, “we have come to the moment of choices. For each of you.”
“We’re on the clock,” Moms said. “Your Patrol needs to fix a problem in our past. There are only a couple of hours before this ripple turns into a shift or whatever the frak you people call it.”
Dane smiled again, but it was a tired one. “Edith? She’s a great actress. Plus there is the memory block. You know that works the other way? It can impart information. Information, mind you, is not intelligence. Big difference. But to ease your minds, the Caesarion anomaly isn’t a real problem. It was part of the test.”
While the team absorbed this news, Earhart stepped forward. “I’m sorry. But I need to get back to my camp with my people. We’ve taken what we can from the Ratnik base. There will be others, scavengers, coming. It’s best if we’re not around when they get here.”
Dane nodded. “Once more, thank you, Amelia.”
She walked up to him and gave him a hug. “One day we’ll all be free of this.”
“That is the goal,”
Dane said, but they could all tell he wasn’t putting much faith in his words.
Earhart said farewell to the rest of the Nightstalkers, and then headed off with the rest of the Outcasts, disappearing over a dune.
“This is just weird,” Ivar said, a bit too loud.
“It is,” Dane agreed. “But your timeline invited this when it began to punch holes in the space-time continuum. Of course, you’d already had visitors from other timelines over the millennia via the naturally occurring gates. Places like the Bermuda Triangle. By the way, is Foreman still alive?”
“He is,” Nada said.
“Good. We need the funding he gets us for the Patrol.” Dane continued. “Your Ratnik were the first to abuse the capability. They had to be eliminated.”
“So you used us,” Nada said.
“Tested you is more like it,” Dane said. “You’ve been tested before, haven’t you? Various training courses. Colonel Orlando and his little plays. And you’ve all passed thus far, in order to become Nightstalkers. This is just another step along the way.”
“A test?” Nada stepped forward. “People have died. The guard for the Patrol was killed.”
Dane shook his head. “All that was real. Foreman just saw an opportunity and took it. You’ll understand shortly. The clock will start over after you reboot.”
“What do you mean ‘reboot’?” Doc demanded.
“You’ll see,” Dane said.
“So where is our part of the Patrol?” Moms asked.
Dane frowned. “You wouldn’t understand. Let’s just say they’re not available right now.”
“Try us,” Doc said.
“No, really,” Dane said. “It’s not worth the time to try to explain that. The Patrol is multiversal. We work in a number of timelines, but never allow members to cross timelines. That is where danger begins. The analogy I can come up with is we’re like the United Nations of timelines. We try to help each timeline preserve its integrity.”
“The UN doesn’t do that great a job,” Roland said.
“True,” Dane said. “Because most countries put themselves first, and it is underfunded, undermanned, and not a priority. Unfortunately, the same is true of the Patrol. Some timelines fully support us. Others, not so much. With others, like yours, we have to act in secrecy. Your Mister Foreman gets us the funding for your timeline, and it is rather inadequate, but we make do. And that’s where you Nightstalkers come in. We need agents from your present to help the agents already in place in your past.”
Moms stepped forward, in front of her team. “What now?”
Dane walked over to the HUB. “This is when each of you gets to make a choice.” He gestured. “Sin Fen?”
* * *
“In the course of a timeline,” Sin Fen said, standing behind the HUB, “there are billions and billions of lives. It is not a bad thing to say that, for history, and the overall timeline, few of those individual lives make an impact. That’s not to say in their personal lives, for their family, their friends, even their enemies, all those people aren’t important. But if any of those people ceased to exist, blinked out of existence, the course of history would not change.”
“What about their descendants?” Eagle asked.
“Even then,” Sin Fen said, “it is almost always the same.”
“So we don’t matter?” Scout asked.
“It is not a value judgment or a weighing of your life in itself,” Sin Fen said. “I am simply speaking of the larger picture. And remember, the scales of that are balanced. An impactful life can as easily be negative as positive. Sometimes both.”
“I got a headache,” Roland said.
“Even those who seem to make a large difference by a specific action,” Sin Fen continued, “say, John Wilkes Booth shooting Lincoln, are usually not important, because if Booth disappeared or were stopped, someone else could easily take his place and produce the same result.” It sounded as if she were talking about something that had actually happened, not theory.
“Why are you telling us this?” Moms asked.
“Because each of you has to make a choice,” Sin Fen said. “As Dane has said, it is the moment of choices. You make it now, before you go back to your timeline.”
Dane spoke up. “What is needed to be a member of the Time Patrol is that you are a person who will never, ever, use the HUB and go back and change something for personal reasons. Every one of us has something in our past, some point, where we wish we had chosen differently. Many points probably. But you can’t ever use time travel for personal reasons.” He stepped back to let Sin Fen continue.
“Because of that, each of you will make a decision now to take one of three paths.
“One is to do nothing, to walk away, go back to being a Nightstalker. Frasier will wipe your memory of this once you get back to New York. Your life will go on as if none of this ever happened.
“Two is to see the key moment in your past and go back and change that moment.”
“How do you know these key moments?” Nada asked.
“I know,” Sin Fen simply said. “If you believe I’m wrong once I show you, please tell me.”
It was obvious she was quite confident no one would tell her she was wrong.
Sin Fen continued. “If you choose to go back, and it doesn’t affect the timeline, and it most likely won’t, you will be allowed to go back. But that will be the end of you as a Nightstalker, as a member of the Patrol, as a member of this timeline. And if you begin to interfere in the point you go back to by knowing the future, you will receive a visit from one of Hannah’s, or Nero’s, operatives at that time and be Sanctioned.”
Doc spoke up. “Won’t we run into ourselves if we go back?”
“You supplant your old self if you travel back,” Sin Fen said.
“What?” Roland asked.
“It won’t screw things up,” Mac said.
“Okay,” Roland said, but he sounded, as he often did, confused.
Sin Fen continued. “Three is to know your past and accept it. Fully. Completely. Accept who you are now, where you are now. All that has happened to shape you into who you are. And choose to be part of the Time Patrol.”
She paused and looked over the group. “Do you understand?”
Everyone nodded.
“Then let me give you each your choice,” Sin Fen said. “I ask that you give us some space.” The Nightstalkers, with Neeley, backed up about forty feet.
“This is frakked,” Mac said.
“It makes sense,” Doc said. He gestured toward Serge. “He’s not going to last a few more minutes.”
“Guess he made his choice,” Mac said.
“Wonder what my moment is?” Scout said.
Moms and Nada didn’t say anything, which was as significant as if they had. Eagle looked thoughtful, and Neeley looked tired. Roland. Was Roland.
Sin Fen called out. “Eagle. Come here, please.”
Eagle left the team behind and went over to Sin Fen.
“I thought it was tough when Ms. Jones asked if I wanted to be a Nightstalker,” Mac said. “I never thought something like this would come up.”
“What do you think your choice is gonna be?” Roland asked him.
Mac’s face tightened. “I know the moment.”
“And?” Roland asked.
“Sometimes you talk too much,” Mac said.
“Easy,” Moms said, putting a hand on Mac’s shoulder. “This is hard on everyone. Let’s not speculate, people,” she said in a louder voice. “And make your choice freely and without reservation. No one will think anything different of you regardless of which path you take. You have all served honorably as Nightstalkers. That was all that was ever asked of you. I want—” She paused as the HUB projected a gate about ten feet in front of it. Without a word, Eagle walked into the gate and disappeared.
“Mac,” Sin Fen called out.
“The night your brother died,” Sin Fen said without preamble.
Mac nodded.
“I figured as much. But you know, I might save his life, but it wouldn’t change anything else. And I’m guessing, since you’re giving me this choice, that his life didn’t amount to a hill of beans one way or the other. Nor mine. But at least I’ve contributed to something bigger than me. With the Nightstalkers.”
“Your parents would treat you differently,” Sin Fen said.
Mac laughed. “Listen, lady. I am what I am. You know what this whole clusterfrak has shown me? To be what I am. I’ve hidden it. Tried to bury it in the Army. Volunteering for every dumb and dangerous assignment out there. Prove my manhood. Chasing skirts. Well, I’m a man. And I’m going to volunteer for this dumb and dangerous assignment too. But I’m going into it being what I am openly.”
Sin Fen spread her hands in acceptance. “You’ve made your choice.”
Mac walked into the gate.
“Doc!”
“Geez,” Scout said as they heard Doc cry out. “Did she tell him he didn’t get all his PhDs?”
Her attempt at humor fell flat and she knew it, but everyone was antsy. This wasn’t playing out the way any of them expected. Saving the world had devolved into something so much more personal. It wasn’t the way a Nightstalker mission usually went.
And then Doc was gone, through the gate.
“Neeley.”
“Good luck,” Roland said. “I—” He ran out of words, after three, which wasn’t unusual.
Neeley walked over to the big man and shocked everyone by leaning in, looking up, and grabbing his head. She pulled it down and gave him a kiss. It was a surprisingly tender gesture and then it was over as she headed to Sin Fen and her choice.
“Anthony Gant,” Sin Fen said.
“I couldn’t save him even if I went back,” Neeley said. “Cancer got him. Ate him down to nothing. Can’t do anything about it.”
“Ah,” Sin Fen said. “That is what you saw and that is what he wanted you to believe. But how do you know his cancer wasn’t treatable? Did you ever go to a doctor with him?”
Neeley opened her mouth to respond, but then realized the impact of those words. She’d just accepted Gant’s prognosis. Terminal. No treatment possible.
