by Dale Smith
– Catherine – Leiter repeated, the intonation exactly the same as before. Flat, cold, dead. – You are in the vicinity of the travelling belt. Our employer left specific instructions that this was unacceptable. Please remove yourself from the vicinity. –
Catherine closed her eyes, and held onto the belt.
‘He is not our employer,’ she whispered. ‘He is our master, and we’re his slaves.’
Leiter didn’t argue the point. Still Catherine didn’t turn.
‘Can you remember what it was like before?’ she asked, eyes still closed. ‘Can you remember what you were like? What they took from you?’
Somewhere deep in Leiter, a servo gave a little whine.
– You have made this enquiry before – Leiter’s mechanical voice sounded almost petulant. – And before I have answered that I recall every day. Since my activation. –
A tear escaped from Catherine’s eye.
– Will you remove yourself from the vicinity of the travelling belt? – Leiter asked again. This time, it sounded almost gentle.
A pause.
‘No,’ Catherine replied softly.
– In that event, our employer has left instructions that you be killed. – Leiter paused again, a parody of reluctance. – You have my sympathies. –
Catherine’s head fell, and she sucked in a deep breath.
She turned around.
‘I’m sorry, Leiter,’ she said.
The psi-gun was in her hands.
– That device is inoperative. –
He didn’t sound entirely sure, possibly some trace of his old memories causing him to doubt. Catherine didn’t answer, focused her mind: she remembered the first time she had met Leiter. Their first journey together, their first night together. She felt a familiar heave in her stomach and the cold presence of the psi-gun in her mind. She looked at Leiter, the lumbering cadaver that couldn’t rest, and let her emotions run through fear, hate, and love. And the greatest of these was love.
The psi-gun burst into life, its cool blue beam cutting Leiter almost in half: such was the power of Catherine’s love for him.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, looking down at him as the semblance of life left him. ‘I’m so sorry, my love.’
Leiter didn’t answer, didn’t even close his eyes. Instead he just stared glassily up at her. She tried to tell herself that it wasn’t an accusing glare, but a thankful one: at last, he could rest. And then she saw the glass valve on his neck glisten as the light left it.
The same kind, exactly the same.
Catherine stood looking down at the valve for what seemed like an age. If she took it, everything changed. If she was dependant on that valve to travel back, and then changed what had brought that valve into her possession... The universe could survive such a paradox, she knew: she had witnessed it enough times on her travels. But the results were unpredictable, and the restitching might attract unwanted attention. Everything she had endured, every moment spent carefully preparing her plan, would be wasted. There were no certainties.
Except one: if she didn’t take the valve, there was no hope.
Catherine knelt down and put her hand on the valve. It was still warm, in contrast to Leiter’s dead skin. She looked into his eyes, but saw nothing there.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again.
The valve unscrewed easily.
Chapter Five
5A. 4 November 1951, 19:50
When Catherine reached the Albino’s office, the door was swinging awkwardly on one hinge. Inside, she could hear raised voices and furniture breaking: obviously Lechasseur had arrived before her.
For a moment, she simply stood in the doorway in silence, watching the contest being fought in front of her. Lechasseur was outnumbered and outmatched – tall and lithe against two rough and stocky apes: they circled him, each trying to distract his attention from the other before pushing in for the kill. But where they hesitated – where their caution held them back – Lechasseur didn’t waver: he powered in, his opponents’ blows shrugged away as his hands pulled them from their feet.
He grabbed the Albino’s men by their shirts, and slammed their heads together even as each tried to break his knees with a kick. Their attack came to nothing as their skulls cracked and they fell dazed to the floor.
‘Stop,’ Schreck ordered. He was standing behind the Albino’s desk, a silver pistol in his stubby fingers.
Catherine felt her heart skip.
Lechasseur ignored the lawyer’s command, and charged the desk without hesitation: he moved in silence, not even a breath escaping his lips. Schreck should have fired, and Lechasseur should have died, but not even that stone-hearted lawyer could remain impassive in the face of such righteous anger. His gun arm shook, and his finger wouldn’t tighten on the trigger, and then it was too late: Lechasseur grabbed him by both lapels and threw his against the far wall. The lawyer slammed into the works of the Albino’s machine, and then fell to the floor in a shower of broken wax discs.
Catherine felt a pang of envy: if she had been the one to be taken, she knew there was no-one who would have fought for her as blind to danger as Lechasseur had for his Emily.
Lechasseur walked over to the shattered wall and pulled a length of wire from its workings. Using it to tie Schreck’s hands together, he looked over at Catherine.
‘I missed her,’ he said simply.
Catherine nodded: she had known he would. She held up the travelling belt, its lights glowing a cool blue to indicate its readiness.
‘Is that it?’ Lechasseur asked.
Catherine nodded.
‘The Albino found it in the rubble,’ she said quietly. She remembered watching from a distance as the Albino’s men had trawled the debris, a good few days before it would be declared officially safe to do so. ‘It was battered and burned, and he couldn’t get it to work. I knew I could, but I didn’t have any reason. Until you found me.’
‘You found me,’ Lechasseur said. Catherine didn’t argue. ‘And it’ll work? It’ll do what Emily does?’
‘I repaired it,’ Catherine said, handing it to Honoré. ‘There was a broken valve. It was nothing.’
Honoré turned it over in his hands, like he expected it to bite.
‘A little Emily,’ he said to himself, with a wry smile. ‘How did it get in the rubble?’
Catherine paused, for a moment.
‘Leiter wore it. That’s how we travelled, after...’ Catherine could feel the heat of the explosion on her again. It scorched her skin even from months past: she had spent many sleepless nights wondering how it had felt for Leiter. ‘Leiter was still wearing it when the Albino killed him.’
Lechasseur looked at her, but Catherine knew he was thinking of his own friend caught in that same fire.
‘Leiter, the walking transistor radio?’ Lechasseur asked.
‘No,’ Catherine said. ‘That’s what they made him.’
‘They?’
‘They captured him, remade him, made him the belts,’ She saw Honoré’s eyes go to the Sodality’s horned brand on the buckle. For a moment, she thought that he recognised it. ‘They were going to alter his mind, to do their bidding. I saved him. But...’
He had loved her, before they had changed him: she knew that he had, he had told her so often. It was only afterwards... his heart no longer with her, if they had even left him a heart to love with.
‘And we’re going back to save him?’
Catherine’s heart skipped.
‘Not from that!’ she said. Not them. She couldn’t face them again, not even for Leiter. ‘From Burgess. From the Albino. We’ll save your friend, as well.’
And with time, Catherine knew she could remind Leiter of his love for her. Without having to face them again.
Lechasseur didn’t speak for a moment, didn’t catch her eye.
There was something he was mulling over, some question he wasn’t sure if he could ask; but whatever it was, he put it to one side. He nodded at Catherine, as if to say, ‘Okay, we’ll do this your way.’ He straightened up and fastened the belt around his waist.
‘So....’ he said. ‘We just go back?’
Catherine shook her head.
‘Not that simple,’ she admitted. ‘The belt won’t let you arrive anywhere where it’s already been active. If you try, it’ll bounce you forward.’
‘So how do we get back to the right place?’ Lechasseur frowned. ‘You said Leiter was there with the belt.’
‘He always turned it off whenever we arrived,’ Catherine said firmly. ‘It’ll be fine.’
She said it as convincingly as she could, but the truth was, she hadn’t known back when she’d arrived that so much would rest on it, and so hadn’t specifically checked. Yes, he always had turned it off before... but everything had happened so quickly. Had Leiter been distracted? She had answered the question in every conceivable way over a thousand sleepless nights, and even now she couldn’t be sure.
In the end, there was only one way to be sure.
‘Are you ready?’ Catherine asked.
Lechasseur looked down at his handiwork: Schreck glared up at him; Stump and Frisk were still unconscious.
‘If you’re lucky,’ Lechasseur said coldly to the lawyer, ‘we’ll bring your boss back, safe and sound. He can set you loose. If you’re lucky.’
Schreck glared, but didn’t respond: Catherine knew then that if she had the chance, she’d arrange it that they stayed bound like this until they died. It was no more than they deserved.
‘I wouldn’t worry,’ Lechasseur added with a twinkle. ‘With time travel, we can be back as soon as we’ve gone. Of course, that means if we’re not, you might want to start panicking.’
He turned to Catherine. His smile was cold.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘February, here we come.’
‘Not yet,’ Catherine said, taking his hand. ‘There are a few things we need to arrange first.’
She activated the belt, and they fell.
5B. 4 November 1951, 19:38
The sensation was so like falling that he completely forgot where he was and started reaching for his parachute’s drawstring. It was only when he didn’t find it that he felt the familiar feeling of travelling through time. He’d called the belt Little Emily, but it was really nothing like her: usually he could feel Emily not just beside him, but inside him – both their thoughts taking them to their destination. Now there was nothing – Little Emily barely even registered, and even Catherine’s hand felt cold and unnatural. He had never felt so lonely in all his life, not even when he was lying in hospital thinking how he’d never walk again.
After what seemed like both an eternity and a moment, Honoré sensed the ground reappear beneath his feet.
They were standing in a carpeted corridor, lamps lining it with discreet green shades. In front of them was quite a crowd, all with their backs to them. Leiter was carrying someone ahead of him, and two goons were following behind, pushing a young woman along. Honoré knew the goons’ names – they were Frisk and Stump, or Stump and Frisk: he hadn’t had the chance to learn which was which, first time around. The woman they were pushing was Catherine.
Honoré looked to Catherine beside him. She didn’t say anything.
He realised that the person Leiter held was himself.
The two goons were closest to them, and they were already turning: if the pyrotechnics he’d seen in the library with Li were part and parcel of arriving with the belt, there was no way it could have been missed. Honoré’s Catherine didn’t give the two goons much chance to react: she pulled a lamp from the wall and slammed it hard against the exposed head of the smaller of the two. He fell to the ground, and his companion was left swearing and confused: he spun around, and for just a moment saw the mirror of the girl he was holding in his arms.
– Do you require assistance? – Leiter asked. His voice felt hollow and cold, ice on an exposed nerve.
‘You worry about your guy, Frankenstein,’ the goon snapped, holding the younger Catherine even tighter.
– Stay here – Leiter’s impassive voice instructed. – I shall recapture him. –
Looking past the two Catherines and the remaining goon, Honoré could see that his younger self had taken advantage of the distraction to run as fast as he could in the opposite direction. Leiter gave chase, leaving the remaining goon alone with them.
‘Don’t make me hurt...’ the goon growled, his arm choking-tight around the younger Catherine’s neck, ‘... er.... you.’
Honoré’s Catherine smiled disarmingly, and her younger self scraped the heal of her shoes down the goon’s shin. He opened his mouth to shout, and found it suddenly filled with a powerful right hook. Catherine cracked her knuckles as the goon joined his fellow on the carpet.
‘Don’t panic,’ Catherine said to her younger self, holding out her hands but consciously not touching her: Honoré wondered why not. ‘It’s happening – soon for you, now for me. We’re going back.’
The younger Catherine looked at Honoré with something like adulation; the sort of look he guessed young girls gave the musicians when Radio Luxembourg announced they’d topped the sheet music charts.
‘What do you need me to do?’ the younger woman asked.
‘You’ll know,’ the other answered. ‘But we have to move. This way.’
The older Catherine led the way, pulling Honoré down into another corridor while leaving her younger self to follow obediently. Honoré couldn’t imagine where they were heading, but he didn’t have long to wait to find out: the corridor was short, and at its end was a small door that the older Catherine strode confidently up to.
‘What are we doing?’ Honoré asked, suspiciously.
The older Catherine just smiled, and pulled open the door, motioning for Honoré to step through. He did, and for a moment was dazzled. Then his eyes adjusted.
In front of him, he could see a stage with two women gyrating in unison. Their dresses were similar to the one that Catherine wore, not in colour or style but in intent: they were dresses to show off just enough to get the customers interested, but still make them think there might be a little more to see, for the right price. The dresses seemed to be working: in front of the stage, there were row after row of small, round tables filled with bland-looking men sweating in expensive suits.
‘The Albino’s business,’ the younger Catherine said. ‘Exotic dancers for the discerning gentleman.’
Honoré looked again, and he realised that one of the dancers on the stage had a washed-out green tinge to her skin. The other looked normal enough, until you noticed that her undulating arms were actually suckered tentacles. About a third of the men at the tables had a woman perched on their lap, and each of the women had something unnervingly alien about them.
Honoré looked back to the Catherines.
‘None of us here has any choice,’ the older Catherine said. ‘If we run, where would we hide ourselves?’
‘Before you found me,’ the other said, ‘there was no hope.’
Honoré didn’t know what to say.
From the far side of the room, there was a sudden commotion: the dancers stopped and stared at something going on at the edge of the stage. Honoré looked over, and saw himself, caught in the bright lights and panting like a deer about to become road kill. In the darkness behind, Leiter was approaching fast, relentless and murderous.
The older Catherine gave Honoré a little push, and he realised what he had to do. His hand went to his wallet and pulled a few grubby notes out: there was nowhere near enough there, but he doubted that anybody would actually bother to count.
‘A hundred pounds to the first girl to kiss the black guy!’ he yelled at the top of his voice.
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br /> As one, all the strange dancers in the room turned and looked at him. He doubted they even saw his face: just the colour of his money as he waved it in the air. One of the Catherines pulled him back out of the room as all hell broke loose.
‘We should go,’ the Catherine said. She looked at the other, still hovering by the door. ‘Remember what I said: soon.’
The younger Catherine nodded, and smiled at Honoré.
‘Thank you,’ she said.
Honoré looked at his Catherine.
‘You really don’t know why I came here, do you?’
Catherine gave him a confused look. Behind her, her younger self stared out into the club and waved frantically at some unseen body.
‘All right, then’ he said, taking her arm. ‘There’s somewhere else we need to stop off first.’
Catherine nodded, and suddenly they were falling again.
5C. 23 February 1951, 03:04
The Albino ignored her, almost immediately – her Albino, not the younger version who had introduced himself as Burgess. Instead, he kept his eyes on the end of the corridor, watching his younger self arguing with Leiter, whilst Kate did her best to stay close to the giant.
‘Is this the new trend?’ the albino Burgess said snidely. ‘I think I preferred you when you had skin.’
‘Don’t,’ Leiter warned in a broad Australian brogue. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Are you going to pay or not?’
The older Albino watched Burgess as if he was falling in love. His breathing slowed, coming in shallow gasps; his eyes never wavered; his lips moved in time with the Burgess’s words. He stepped closer – it was an ecstatic love, and it moved him – but it was clear that he wanted only one thing: his younger self’s voice, so crisp and clear and powerful it carried all the way to Emily’s cold ears.
‘Leiter,’ Burgess purred, with a hint of a Scots lilt. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. How can we talk money when she doesn’t seem willing merchandise?’
‘That’s your problem, mate,’ Leiter growled. ‘You wanted an “exotic” dancer, not a house-trained one. You didn’t complain about that Orion girl I brought you.’
