The Company of the Dead

by David Kowalski

  “And you’re calling me an asshole?” Hardas shook his head. “Can we go now, Major?”

  Kennedy turned the music back on. “Giddy-up.”

  II

  February 11, 2011

  Red Rock, Nevada

  “Now that we’ve covered the basics—environment suits and controls, restraints, fire control, user’s interface and information acquisition—tell me, are you guys happy with manipulating the partial insertion and extraction devices?”

  Doc replaced the pointer on the makeshift lectern and leaned forwards onto his fists, surveying his audience of two. Behind him was a chalkboard bearing the list of topics he’d mentioned, accompanied by a series of timelines. A model of the time machine, constructed from steel and brass, sat in two parts on a table beside him. Afternoon sunlight slanted across the room from a single window in the west wall. Peering through retreating storm clouds, it beat against the clay walls of the adobe so that they shone with sweat, but the air retained the scent of the recent downpour. And outside that window, under a tarpaulin still slick with rainwater, squatted the carapace.

  Mission time was less than twenty-four hours away.

  Kennedy had constructed the foundations of the Red Rock installation on the ghost of Jenkins’ original base; had started to build around the sand-crusted shell of the machine he’d discovered here less than a year ago. In the journal it said that the largest airstrip in the world had been here, along with fifty years of black ops and secret science.

  This room was where he felt it most.

  There were other places he had visited since discovering the device where the shadows hinted at that other world. Where that true reality was distinctly palpable. In the dusty town of Las Vegas, with its unpaved roads and a solitary truck stop that never closed and a church that hardly ever opened, there were times when he sensed a panoply of bright lights around him, and heard a low hum almost ringing in his ears.

  There were places in New York where the Japanese and Germans he encountered seemed to know that they didn’t belong, and exuded an awkwardness beyond their own comprehension. But Red Rock was the worst. Here was the nexus point. From here, things had travelled from beyond the sight of God and Man. Some rift still remained. Blink, and you might see a row of buildings where nothing stood. Tell yourself it was a trick of light and shimmering sand and heat. Deny the twist and exposure of a deeper architecture of reality. But count the moments till you leave this place.

  Mission time was less than twenty-four hours away.

  Are you guys happy?

  “Maybe we should take a break,” Doc said into the silence.

  “We’re fine,” Kennedy said.

  “Doc,” Hardas said, “when you ask about manipulating the partial insertion and extraction devices, do you mean do we know where the ‘on’ and ‘off’ switches are?”

  Doc wore a pained expression on his face. “Essentially, yes.”

  “I’m not trying to be a smartass. It’s just that the carapace is preprogrammed. It’s only a partial insertion, so the carriage remains here and we travel in the pod. All we do is sit back and enjoy the ride.”

  “This time it’s just a partial,” Doc said. “It won’t be next time. What if you need to use the environment suits?”

  “Frankly, Doc, if we need the suits that means the pod has crashed, which means we’re pretty much fucked up. We’re only going eighteen months into the future, so why should we need the suits at all?”

  Kennedy spoke up. “If we knew what to expect, we wouldn’t need to go in the first place. Go ahead, Doc.”

  “Okay, we have limited information. Basically we have the journal. Apart from that, we have experimental data from limited unmanned partials performed on-site. This is as important as it gets, so if you’ll indulge me,” he peered meaningfully at Hardas, “I’ll go over some fundamentals.

  “We have no idea why the carapace can act in either partial or complete movements across space–time,” he continued. “In partial movements, it works like one of those paddleballs. The paddle is the carriage, the ball is the pod. The carriage provides kinetic and chroncentric energy. Power for launch comes from the generator. Failing that, we can access juice directly from Alpha.

  “The carriage slings the pod in either direction across space–time for a limited duration. The further you go, the briefer you stay. Energy released by the return voyage sustains battery power that’s used for life support. We assume that a partial insertion is mainly for observation, reconnaissance perhaps, as it seems to place a minimal strain on the carapace. Our simulations confirm that there’s only a ten-year radius in either direction.

  “A complete insertion, on the other hand, is quite different. Then the carapace is both slingshot and projectile. It appears to drag itself across space–time, pod and carriage. We have only three examples of complete movements. The journey that Wells made back to 1911 from his reality; the return unmanned insertion to here, where you guys found the damn thing; and Roswell.”

  “And we know that no one walked away from that,” Hardas interrupted softly.

  Kennedy recalled a passage from the journal: Some kind of explosion. Only one body was recovered from the wreckage. Quite dead.

  “The crash in Roswell in true 1947,” Doc replied, “is difficult to explain.”

  “Gee, Doc, have you considered hobgoblins?” Hardas said dryly.

  “Commander?” Kennedy said.

  “We don’t know what we don’t know. That’s all.”

  “That’s right,” Doc admitted. “We don’t know shit. But one day, the good Lord willing, we’ll do a complete insertion. Now, while the partial is a discrete movement back and forth across time, we know that a complete insertion requires staging. Think of it as skimming a stone across the surface of a lake. For a hundred-year journey we’re looking at two stages: initially two hours, then approximately two hundred hours into the past. From there, the final movement slings us to the target. All things being equal, the entire carapace will re-establish itself there and then. No returns, and no comebacks, because if all goes well there won’t be anything recognisable to return to.”

  Doc drew a breath, then continued. “I said the crash at Roswell was difficult to explain.” He cast his eyes on Hardas. “I think that what happened there was a complete insertion, but an unstaged one. We have no idea which era the original time machine came from. We have to assume, however, that the journey it was making was a complete rather than partial. It’s hard to imagine that the machine came from anywhere within a ten-year radius of 1947, whichever reality you’re considering.” Doc sighed. “This is where it gets esoteric.”

  “That’s one word for it,” Hardas said.

  Doc nodded. “To paraphrase Doctor Wells, we’ve been in uncharted waters ever since day one, so don’t look at me for direction. All I can do is give you what we know, which is precious little.”

  “Sorry, Doc. Go ahead.”

  “Tomorrow you’re going partial. It’s a partial ’cause we can’t be sure ... we can’t be certain about a return trip. You go, you activate the information acquisition devices. You capture any radio or television transmissions. You obtain one soil sample. You do not try to leave the carapace.”

  Hardas and Kennedy glanced at each other, each of them trying not to smile.

  Kennedy said, “We’re not leaving the carapace, Doc.”

  “Damn straight.”

  And so it went, each significant comment Doc made being parenthesised by the phrase “we think”.

  The people of some unimaginable era who had constructed the first carapace were beyond consideration; but Jenkins and the men of that other world, that “True Earth”, had been engineering this machine for nearly fifty years. Even working with that time frame, things had gone wrong. At least one test pilot had experienced a significant head injury, as was confirmed by the journal. And this same machine had been in Kennedy’s possession for little more than six months...

  Everything was
, at best, conjecture.

  Tomorrow would bring about the confirmation of their dearest hopes, or a swift death. And with that, at least, the end of all desires.

  III

  February 12, 2011

  Red Rock, Nevada

  Once upon a time, two men embarked upon a journey.

  For the shortest measure of what might be called time, they became the focal point around which all that we know of as reality whirled.

  Reality folded.

  It twisted upon itself, writhed and unwound.

  Reality unfolded.

  Smoothed and spread itself out anew. The world worm, Ouroboros, swallowing its own tail.

  Chronometers aboard the carapace measured a mission time of thirty minutes. Information acquisition devices were activated. An attempt was made to capture transmissions. A soil sample was obtained.

  No one left the vessel.

  Revelation, when it came, was the butterfly’s broken promise to the chrysalis.

  IV

  February 13, 2011 Red Rock, Nevada

  They sat close by the embers. They might have been mistaken for pagans worshipping in the shadow of a single raised obelisk. The rock towered over the landscape. Night had bled all colour out of the formation.

  If anyone noticed anything different about the sand, they weren’t talking, but it was there for all to see. The shiny scar of earth around the tarpaulin had widened; shards of time, encroaching upon the adobe wall.

  Kennedy had been planning this discussion since the previous night, grasping at each thought, pursuing it to a conclusion that seemed reasonable enough to be said aloud.

  “It rained here yesterday,” he began. “Check the papers a year from now and it will still have rained. That’s a constant truth. That’s unchangeable.” He paused, thoughtfully. “It’s supposed to be unchangeable.”

  No one said a word.

  “A ship leaves Southampton dock, bound for New York. She’s the most magnificent means of transportation constructed to date. She’s supposed to be unsinkable. She had design flaws, but it would have taken a certain perspective to recognise them.”

  “Cue Doctor Wells,” Hardas said.

  “She hits an iceberg. She sinks like a stone. And within three years the world is plunged into the worst war it has ever known. We have dates, we have a hit list. We have the agenda of a psychopath.” He tossed the journal onto the sand before him. “I thought that was enough.”

  “Enough for what?” Morgan asked.

  “Enough to justify stopping him.”

  “What more do we need?” Shine asked.

  Morgan climbed to his feet, sniffing the air. He took a few steps towards the tarpaulin and the time shards cracked like dry twigs beneath his feet. He looked back from the darkness at Kennedy. “Christ. You did it, didn’t you?”

  “Yesterday,” Kennedy replied.

  “When?”

  “Early afternoon.”

  “No, damn it.” Morgan came stamping back to the fire. “When? When did you go to?”

  “I’m getting there.”

  “You’re taking your sweet fucking time.”

  “We’re not talking about a stroll through the park here.” Hardas’s voice rumbled menace.

  Morgan ignored him. “What did you see?”

  Kennedy noted how tired, how worn, Hardas looked. He said, “Seeing isn’t always believing.” He gestured towards the tarpaulin. “This is beyond our understanding. It was beyond the understanding of the people who built it. This isn’t science, Darren. It’s magic.”

  “Bullshit. When did you go? What did you see?”

  “A year, nearly two,” Hardas said, and gazing at Morgan’s expression he added, “Into the future.”

  The fire had died but no one seemed to notice. They might have thought the chill was brought about by Kennedy’s words alone.

  “We were there for thirty minutes. The transition was smoother than we expected.” Kennedy glanced at Hardas, who nodded back stonily. “We went forwards about twenty months. We were aiming for eighteen.”

  Doc shrugged.

  “Has to be more reliable than that,” Morgan muttered.

  “It will be,” Doc replied.

  “When the viewscreen activated, it was all just black smoke and dust. Within moments it was caked all over the screen. Something kicked in, a low-level vibration, and the screen cleared itself. The smoke was still there. At first we thought it was an effect of the journey, but it stayed that way the entire time we were there.”

  “And by there,” Morgan said quietly, “you mean right here, don’t you?”

  “That’s right. The carapace was programmed to maintain the same location—which, of course, meant it had to move in order to stay in the same place.”

  “You’ve lost me,” Shine said.

  “Doc?”

  “The Earth is hurtling through space. We’re constantly moving. Fast. If the carapace doesn’t compensate for that movement, it inserts itself into empty space. Or worse.”

  Morgan was looking around into the shadows as if he could already see licks of black smoke in the darkness. Shuddering, he said, “It’s getting fucking cold.”

  “Let’s get inside,” Kennedy said.

  They shuffled into the adobe. A single light shone weakly from a lamp on the table. They huddled around it, scraping their chairs together into a circle.

  “We made out some prefabs through the haze,” Kennedy continued. “A few of them resembled designs Doc and I have been working on, a couple I didn’t recognise, but they were all in ruins. Sand piled up against the walls, broken windows—”

  “Maybe you went further ahead than you think?” Morgan prompted.

  Doc shook his head.

  “I mean, if you jumped further ahead than we expected—”

  Hardas gave him a surprisingly compassionate look, actually reached across to squeeze his shoulder. He said, “No, Darren.” And just as swiftly, the mask dropped back into place.

  Kennedy knew what the look was for. They had made a deal before disembarking from the carapace, on shaking legs. They would tell the others what they’d seen, but they wouldn’t tell them everything. And Doc... Doc could make what he wanted from the footage.

  “Ruins and black smoke,” Morgan said.

  “Major,” Shine asked hesitantly, “was there anything else? I mean, did you see anybody?”

  That was a question of semantics. Did silhouettes etched onto the wall of a burnt-out shack count as “anybody”? How about white bones in the dust?

  “We didn’t see anyone,” Hardas said. “And no one saw us.”

  “We got a sample of the soil for testing,” Kennedy continued after a moment. “It’s still in the lab.”

  “What do preliminaries show?” Morgan’s voice held no emotion now.

  Doc had been examining the carriage portion of the model, rotating it in his hands. Without looking up he said, “The levels are through the roof. It’s hot—real hot.”

  “Christ,” Morgan moaned. “Radioactive ruins. This just gets better and better. When does it happen?”

  “We can’t possibly know,” Kennedy said.

  “Sometime late next year, as close as we can estimate,” Doc said. “When the base is up and running.”

  “Who would use atomics to bomb a place like this? I mean, I know this is big. The carapace and everything—”

  “Calm down,” Shine said.

  “No. You calm down. Fuck. Someone is going to destroy this place. Destroy everything.”

  “We’re not going to let that happen, are we?” Kennedy said gently.

  He told them all that he could. About the information acquisition devices, about the fact that despite thirty minutes of monitoring all radio and television bands they were unable to detect any transmissions. From anywhere on the planet.

  A crater-ridden plain both recognisable and alien at once. Twisted metal and the remains of tanks ... and something else that had fallen from the heavens. Whi
te bones blanched by more than sunlight in the sand’s sluggish tide. Waste Land.

  The journal alluded to future technology, to a world that had endured at least two global conflicts but at least endured. Yet all Kennedy had found was death and silence.

  They didn’t shake hands that night, nor was any pledge sealed in ink or blood. But a pact was made. Silently, nodding to each other as they left the adobe and made their ways to the campsite, each made and confirmed his promise. World without end, hallelujah. Amen.

  A GAME OF CHESS IV

  Forced Moves

  I

  April 25, 2012

  Pleasant Valley, Tennessee

  Kennedy had been talking for more than an hour. He spoke about the expedition to the carapace and beyond with a detachment that belied the fact that he’d kept this secret to himself for so long. It might have been coldness, that presentation of data with order and clarity. It might have been because he admitted to details he’d never revealed to Shine or Morgan or even Doc. More likely it was the sheer corrosive effects of the last few days. Regardless of the cause, the effect was undeniable. Lightholler finally found himself able to consider certain possibilities.

  Consider was the key word here. Anything more than that meant stepping beyond the bounds of sanity. It wasn’t the road to Damascus, but it was a start. Yet even consideration led to one unavoidable question: If Kennedy’s words were truly gospel, did a world need to be sacrificed in order to be saved?

  “My apologies for the delay,” Watanabe said, sliding into the seat next to Kennedy. His glance fell upon the open newspaper. “Is this where you get your information these days?” He traced an article down the page. “How are the mighty fallen.”

  Kennedy let the comment slide. He said, “I didn’t know politics interested you.”

  “Only when they impinge on my trade. In times of war, people get excited, foolish. Patriotism rears its ugly head and poor Watanabe goes a little hungrier than usual.”