All the Colors of Time

by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff

  Hilyard looked up from fiddling with his handcomp. “Begging your pardon, sir, but if a Tactical Center was in operation in the future, wouldn’t that indicate something about the health of the military establishment?”

  Caldwell nodded slowly. “Makes sense. All right. Send us to Offutt. If there’s any activity at all, it’ll be there.”

  oOo

  Four days later they were ready for the Shift, their target, the year 2094, Offutt Air Force Base, Bellevue, Nebraska. Caldwell didn’t ask what was in his shot, but accepted the electrolyte story at face value. This time it was closer to the truth. Instead of a powerful tranquilizer, the infusions contained only a mild neural damper and a dose of Ephkal-A.

  Hilyard went onto the Grid first—a precautionary measure, Cladwell insisted. Caldwell himself was plainly nervous as he followed; only Hilyard’s extreme calm persuaded him he was not going to merely evaporate into the shimmering void.

  He re-materialized in semi-darkness and stiffened in apprehension. The wave of anxiety passed at the pressure of Hilyard’s fingers on his arm.

  They were standing on a narrow catwalk. What light there was in the vaulted room seemed to be coming from below. Figures moving about the room cast eerie, elongated shadows onto the curving ceiling. Caldwell and Hilyard moved in unison to the steel railing at the edge of the carpeted walk, Caldwell looking back to make certain the move left them inside the invisibility range.

  Below and beneath was a large horseshoe-shaped chamber bathed in mellow gold light and populated by uniformed soldiers.

  Computer-generated maps alternated with video screens along the curving walls, while in the heart of the room were several computer stations. Directly at center was what looked like a huge holo-tank built on a square footprint. It displayed what looked like a topographical relief rendered in some sort of anodized, black metal. Between the top and bottom of the unit, hung a shimmering curtain of colored light. Next to that mystery stood a figure with what appeared to be an admiral’s insignia on its shoulders.

  Caldwell frowned. The uniform was an unfamiliar silvery-blue unrecognizable as being from any branch of the military. The rank suggested Navy, but...

  He scanned the other figures. Several, apparently officers, also wore the silver-blue, others wore a vivid shade between royal blue and midnight. From his high vantage point, he saw nothing of their faces; only the tops of heads covered with unfamiliar caps.

  Before he could solve the puzzle, one of the blue-suited soldiers seated at a computer terminal turned and said, “Commander, we’re receiving new data on the Northern Front. It looks like a much bigger push than we anticipated.”

  “On screen, Tech Newman.”

  Caldwell stiffened. It was a woman’s voice. He’d never objected to women entering the service—but in a War Room? Still, that the War Room was here at all was heartening. One of the wall maps came suddenly to life. Caldwell’s eyes flew to it and widened in surprise. Across a green representation of the United States and Canada, swept a coruscating swathe of gold, orange and red, its southern edge pressing as far south as Montana. On the east, it reached greedy fingers of glowing hues toward the Great Lakes.

  “My God,” Caldwell breathed awfully.

  Hilyard glanced at him and tapped his ear.

  The General barely noticed him. What nation could field such a massive front, let alone push it all the way into the northern states? He licked his lips, wondering what they were fighting it with.

  “Have all the warnings gone out?” the Admiral asked.

  “Yes, sir. Forty-eight hours before the leading edge. Status reports are already coming in; everybody’s battening down for the duration.”

  The Admiral nodded. “When will the leading edge reach Yosemite?”

  The technician plied his keyboard for an instant, then consulted his monitor. “Approximately twenty-four hours, sir. They’ve been advised.”

  Twenty-four hours? What army could move that fast? Maybe it was a weapon of some sort. Nuclear? No, too widespread. Chemical? Biological? How could they remain so calm in the face of such vast destruction—as if it was everyday fare. This looked like . . . Armageddon.

  “Thank you, Newman,” the Admiral was saying. “Mr. Mendez?”

  “Yes, sir.” Another technician glanced up from her console.

  “Are you in communication with Yosemite Base?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What is their status?”

  “Heavily embattled, sir,” answered the slightly accented voice. “Commander Li says the situation is barely under control.”

  “Visual reference,” ordered the Admiral.

  Next to the huge map, a video panel pulsed on. Nothing showed upon it but billowing smoke and flames. So faintly he wasn’t certain he’d really seen them, Caldwell’s eyes caught the movement of bodies plummeting through the fog-thick smoke. The observing camera eye panned. He saw uniformed soldiers scrambling through the blazing brush, flames patting at their passing legs like playful but deadly kittens.

  Below, the Admiral made a clicking noise and said, “Visual off. Advise Commander Li that we will send reinforcements immediately. Then contact Colonel Darnell and have her dispatch a company of troops and aerial support units. I believe the closest air squadrons are aboard the UNS Crazy Horse. Have the air support sent in from there.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “When you’ve completed that, put me in touch with General Dreyfus in Juneau.”

  The Admiral turned as a second officer approached her, carrying what appeared to be a handcomp. He made what Caldwell felt was a half-ass salute.

  “So, Mr. Krasnik,” said the Admiral, not bothering to return the gesture. “What new hot spots do you have for me today?”

  “Actually, sir, it looks very much as if we’re going to have an unusual situation in Florida. Cuba Station has already begun tracking.”

  The Admiral jerked a thumb at the odd machine to her right. “Show and tell, Mr. Krasnik,” she said.

  “I have General Dreyfus, Admiral,” announced Technician Mendez.

  The Admiral signaled Krasnik to go ahead. “On audio.”

  “Admiral Halleck, sir,” said a disembodied voice. “Good to hear from you,”

  “I noticed you were out from under. What’s your status, Vinnie?”

  “Pretty bad. We’ve been hemmed in for the better part of four days. Everything was grounded. Today . . . it’s terrible. The sheer number of corpses, sir—it’s devastating. The bio-med team has been doing its best, but we—we’ve had to put so many of them down.”

  Caldwell’s mind froze and threatened to recoil. What in the name of all things holy had they come to in the last thirty years—putting the injured down? His lip curled in disgust. He supposed they called it euthanasia or some such nonsense. Murder—that’s what he called it. Sheer brutal laziness. He glanced again at the map. Or had the enemy weaponry become that hideous?

  Beside Caldwell, Hilyard frowned thoughtfully and rested his elbows on the catwalk’s padded guardrail.

  General Dreyfus finished his report, noting that he could use something larger than his present complement of destroyer, cruiser and corvette to help “mop up.”

  “More men would be appreciated too, Admiral. We’ve got our hands more than full disposing of the bodies. It’s gonna take one helluva pit to bury all of them.”

  Caldwell almost puked. He gripped the guardrail, all but oblivious to Hilyard’s bemused expression. It couldn’t be that bad. It could never be so bad that you had to—

  Officer Krasnik turned from his machine and whispered something in Admiral Halleck’s ear.

  “My tactical officer informs me that you have about five days to get your situation in hand. You’re evidently going to be hit fairly hard from the northwest again.”

  Dreyfus swore.

  “Sorry, Vin. We’ll get your reinforcements to you on the double. The battleship Walesa is in Anadyr. I’ll have her deployed to your waters. How many men
do you need?”

  “I could use a battalion,” said Dreyfus.

  Halleck snorted. “Take two, they’re small.”

  “I wasn’t joking.”

  “I didn’t think you were. Casualties were that bad?”

  “Thousands upon thousands, Admiral. Worst I’ve seen in a situation like this. The Apah Param couldn’t have struck at a worse time of year. Shit, it’s hard to believe one damn boat could do so much damage!”

  One boat! One! Caldwell swallowed and found his throat too dry for the activity. And what the hell was an Apah Param? He had the sudden horrible thought that perhaps the Enemy wasn’t even human.

  “They will insist on year-round activity,” said Halleck.

  “We’ve certainly advised them against their bad weather jaunts, but who can reason with them? It’d take another Gorbi, God bless him.”

  Caldwell’s mouth popped open. Gorbi?

  “Well, do your best, Vinnie,” urged the Admiral. “Of course, you always do. Then, when this is all over, why don’t you take a nice vacation somewhere sunny and warm?”

  “Oh, sure. So I can come back and do it all over again next year!”

  “Well, you could transfer to Yosemite in the spring. We’ll be sending in a couple of battalions to rebuild.”

  “Yeah,” sighed Dreyfus. “I like trees.”

  Caldwell shook his head. The conversation was getting hard to follow. His assumptions about the situation shifted beneath him like dune sand as he tried to make sense out of it.

  Admiral Halleck signed off, then and turned her attention to Krasnik and his machine. “Show and tell time, Mr. Krasnik,” she said.

  In response, the officer touched an instrument panel on one side of the machine’s black base. The column of muted light became a colorful multi-leveled sea of three-dimensional images, flowing in stately waves—advancing, retreating.

  They reminded Hilyard of the “plasma clouds” he used to generate as a kid, using fractal equations on the family computer.

  Krasnik tapped and keyed and adjusted and the images settled into patterns that almost made sense. Vibrant green formed hills and vales below wisps and billows of subtly changing hues.

  Hilyard frowned and leaned farther out over the rail, flicking a glance at his superior officer.

  “And who have we here?” asked the Admiral, nodding at the 3D display.

  “This is Mariella.” Krasnik indicated a violently eddying orange area high in one corner. “And this,”—he indicated the rolling greens— “is the coastal area we’re afraid will be hardest hit when she rolls ashore.”

  Halleck frowned. “Poor Cuba. That’s twice in three years. What’s the prognosis for Florida?”

  “Not so good, if this continues to gain velocity. This mass here,”—he gestured with a sweeping, circular motion—“is strengthening rapidly. We may be looking at a full-fledge blow before tomorrow morning.”

  Caldwell’s stare changed to a stunned scowl.

  “What’re the chances of seeding her to force the precipitation?”

  Krasnik shrugged. “Cuba’s on it. Along with a wing of storm bombers from Mexico. We can but pray and send troops to help Florida batten down.”

  Admiral Halleck nodded. “Too bad we can’t get Mariella to dump her load on Yosemite. Coax Nature to put out her own fires. Wouldn’t that be poetic justice?”

  “We’re working on it,” said Krasnik soberly.

  Caldwell’s fists tightened on the catwalk rail. Confusion and anger swept up from his gut in a hot spray, warring with something blasphemously like relief.

  “I’ve seen enough,” he whispered and went to the Grid.

  oOo

  “What the hell was that place? Where the hell did they send us?” Caldwell turned on Hilyard the moment he stepped off the Grid. “It sure as hell wasn’t a War Room!”

  Hilyard blinked at him, feeling only slightly disoriented. “No sir, of course not. It was a Tactical Center.”

  “That was no Tactical Center like I’ve ever seen, Major.”

  “No sir. I don’t imagine anyone else has ever seen one like it either.”

  “And that—and that holographic machine—some sort of—of—”

  “It was an atmospheric model, sir.”

  “A what?”

  “An atmospheric model. A three dimensional projection of—”

  “Yeah, yeah... Doctor!” Caldwell launched himself at Oslovski as she stepped into the room. “Where did you send me? What was that place?”

  Oslovski glanced from Caldwell to Hilyard. “We sent you to a Tactical Center, just as you requested.” She spread her hands in a gesture of bemusement. “I can’t tell you more than that. You were there just now, I wasn’t.”

  Caldwell swung back to Hilyard. “Major, what do you make of it? What was that all about?”

  “I’d say sir,” said Hilyard, his voice soft and almost patient, “that we were sent to a military Tactical Center. I’d also say that they seemed to be fighting battles on several fronts.”

  “Battles? What battles? They weren’t fighting—”

  “They were fighting all right, sir,” said Hilyard imperturbably. “The enemy just wasn’t . . . people.”

  “What did you see?” asked Oslovski.

  “A farce!” erupted Caldwell.

  Hilyard ignored him. “Evidently in the future, we’ll be battling forest fires and hurricanes and oil spills . . . or so it seems.” He shrugged. “Maybe reforestation will replace demolition as a specialty—an environmental defense specialty.”

  “That’s absurd!” snarled Caldwell. “Fighting men fight, dammit. They don’t damn garden!”

  “What’s wrong with killing forest fires instead of people?” asked Oslovski. “Or planting trees instead of land mines? Wouldn’t you rather be the heroes of a constructive process instead of the villains of a destructive one?”

  “Villains?”

  Oslovski looked him in the eye. “Most of us don’t like war, General. We hate it. We’re not likely to thank anyone who perpetuates it when peace is within reach. I know you don’t understand that. Nor will you likely understand that most of us look forward to a day when the military is obsolete. Well, it looks like that day isn’t going to come. It looks like the future needs the military, after all—needs it for construction instead of destruction. I’d think you’d be happy about that.”

  Caldwell stood glaring darkly at the floor.

  “Looks like our interference in history didn’t accomplish anything after all,” observed Hilyard. “Maybe even made Gorbachev more of a hero than he already seemed to be.”

  “Hell,” muttered Caldwell. “What’m I supposed to tell the Chiefs?” He started toward the door. It scooted obediently out of his way.

  Oslovski shrugged and watched him pass. “You could find another historical crux and try again.”

  “We don’t have the funds. Dammit, we were so sure that was the right time and place—the right enemy.”

  “Sometimes it’s hard to know who the enemy really is,” observed Oslovski. “Or if there’s even an enemy at all.”

  He threw her a scathing glance and passed through into the hall. She found herself eye to eye with Major Hilyard.

  “We have met the Enemy and he is us?” he murmured, quirking an eyebrow.

  She smothered her reaction and followed the two men into the corridor, steering them toward the Conference Room. The rest of the Team was already there, along with Colonel Ferris, but Caldwell ignored them, dropping into a chair at the far end of the table.

  Hilyard seated himself next door and sat back in his chair, watching Oslovski make her way to the head of the room.

  “We have evidently failed in our mission,” said Caldwell. He glanced at Ferris’s suddenly pale, tense face. “The military of the future,”—he said the word as if it were odious—“is apparently more of an environmental defense mechanism than a national security force.”

  “Those people were defending more t
han the environment, sir,” said Hilyard quietly. “They were helping the people of this country defend themselves against natural disaster. They were helping devastated areas rebuild.” He smiled. “I’ll bet they see a lot more ticker-tape parades than we do.”

  Caldwell gritted his teeth. There was that unholy feeling of relief again, of something stronger. “What do we do, then? Slink on home with our tails between our legs and admit all the money we’ve spent went down the rat hole?”

  “We could get a head start on the future,” suggested Hilyard. “It looked pretty interesting to me, sir.”

  Caldwell glanced at him, pinning his lower lip between thumb and forefinger. “I suppose we could float some ideas around the Hill . . . before they sack all of us.”

  “May I make a suggestion?” asked Oslovski.

  Caldwell nodded.

  “First, let us put history back the way it was.”

  “How can you do that?” asked Ferris.

  “By sending you back to the time of the incident and having you not shoot Gorbachev.”

  Ferris shook his head. “But then, we’d be there twice.”

  “Not possible,” said Shiro. “If we got you there a millisecond before your initial materialization, the pattern of the first event will adjust itself to the second. Think of time as light waves. The first temporal event—your first visit—set up a waveform, if you will. If the second temporal event—the second visit—sets up its waveform just prior to the first one, it will cancel it out, engulf it, re-form it.”

  “Then what?” asked Caldwell.

  “Well, to paraphrase Reinhold Niebuhr,” said Oslovski. “Have the courage to change what you can, the serenity to accept what you cannot change and the wisdom to know the difference. Accept peace. Get used to it, and to the idea that you do have a peacetime role that’s more than just training for the next war—the war that won’t come. We can help you do that. Dr. Keller could help you set up a program to ease you into that peacetime role. The future doesn’t have to be miserable just because you have no enemies.” She nearly crossed her eyes at the sheer absurdity of the thought. “Judging from Major Hilyard’s description of the future, I’d say you’ll have lots to do . . . and lots of support in doing it.”