The Ocean of Time

by David Wingrove

  The radio plays softly. Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby, Al Martino, Sinatra and Guy Mitchell. The popular music of the time, cloying, romantic, but unintrusive. It washes over us as the miles pass.

  Matteus glances at the fuel gauge, then looks at me. ‘It’s low. We’ll need to stop for gas again.’

  ‘This thing drinks petrol.’

  ‘Yes, but she runs beautifully, don’t you think? Besides, it’s only money.’

  That irks me. As a Reisende I find it irritating that Matteus uses Time to make such cheap gains.

  ‘Is it true what you said? That you gamble?’

  Matteus grins, oblivious of my disapproval. ‘If you can call it that. I mean, why not?’

  ‘You shouldn’t. It might draw attention.’

  ‘Only if I get caught. And that’s not likely. I never place a bet twice in the same place.’

  ‘What do you use?’

  He smiles. ‘The form guide for ’53.’

  ‘What if someone should find that?’

  Matteus pats the small bulge in his shirt pocket. ‘Always keep it here.’

  I’m silent a moment, then: ‘Where exactly are we heading?’

  ‘Mineral County.’

  ‘And where’s that?’

  ‘Over the border.’

  ‘So why didn’t you tell me about this before?’

  He glances at me, surprised. ‘I thought you knew. I thought that’s why you were here. To make this trip.’

  Which makes me thoughtful.

  ‘Otto?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Why are you so sad?’

  I look to him; see how he’s looking at me. ‘Am I?’

  ‘Sure. Never seen a man look sadder. Like you lost something, or someone.’

  He’s quiet a moment, then. ‘D’you want to talk?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, if you do …’

  For a while he just drives. Then, seeing a gas station up ahead, he slows and pulls over to the right, gliding up to the pumps.

  It’s twilight now, and as the attendant comes across, I find myself thinking about Katerina once again, and the girls. While I’m here no time is actually passing. Not where they are. I could be ‘away’ for years and not a second would have passed back there in Cherdiechnost. Theoretically I could jump back the instant after I jumped out. Only I know somehow that that just isn’t going to happen. Why? No reason. Just a feeling. But so strong a feeling that it makes me wince.

  Matteus looks to me, concerned. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I think I need to use the bathroom,’ I say, climbing out, even as the blond-haired attendant smiles a howdy at Matteus and begins to unscrew the petrol cap.

  I pee, then come back, standing there across from the car, looking past its sleek golden form at the sun-bathed mountains in the distance, the red-streaked clouds and the blacktop, which stretches away for miles in either direction, the view unhindered. There are mountains up ahead. It’s a landscape of exposed soil and rock, and at any other time I might be moved by its raw beauty, only – America … what the fuck are we doing in America?

  I can’t see any kind of connection. Hecht has sent me here to exile. I’m sure of that now, a captive – like Matteus – to trivia and this lesser kind of reality.

  Matteus is talking to the attendant about the car, telling him where he bought it and a little of its history. As I walk up, the guy turns and smiles at me. He’s tall, blond, a regular storm trooper, if ever I saw one. Unmistakably so.

  Whose side were you on? And just how did you get hold of an American passport? What deals did you have to make?

  As we drive away, Matteus chuckles, and I ask him why.

  ‘Our friend back there … he could easily pass for a German. He has the look.’

  ‘He has …’

  Matteus is quiet for a time, then, like I’ve asked a question, he says. ‘You want to know, don’t you?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘Why I chose this car and not some other.’

  I shrug. In truth, it makes no difference whatsoever, but I ask anyway: ‘So why did you?’

  ‘I almost bought something else. A ’48 Lincoln Cabriolet. The Lincoln’s a beautiful car, more expensive than this and a convertible, and before that I was going to buy a Cadillac, an Eldorado, that’s another beauty, especially in a pure white trim. Only, well, this was the one. It had everything. Those others, they’re good cars, fast, reliable, powerful cars, only … this is the one I knew they’d talk about, the one that’d make people ask questions.’

  ‘And that’s good?’

  ‘Well, it ain’t bad.’

  ‘You know what I’d buy if I had the money?’ Phil chimes in, surprising us both by the fact that he’s awake. ‘I’d have bought a ’51 Mercury Kustom Carson. Kustom with a K, that is. Most beautiful car I’ve ever seen. The kind of car a movie star might drive. The one I saw was blue. An ethereal blue, with a pure white top and white wheels.’

  Matteus is nodding slowly. ‘Beautiful car, I agree, but it’s the rarity of the Tucker that sold me. That and the story behind it. Hey … anyone know what kind of engine drives this beauty?’

  Neither Phil nor I know, so Matteus carries on. ‘It’s a converted six-cylinder helicopter engine, that’s what! Ex-army surplus. The original was air-cooled, but Preston Tucker adapted it, made it water-cooled. That’s what gives it its oomph. One hundred and sixty-five horsepower … that’s seventy-five horsepower more than a Chevvy!’

  Phil whistles, impressed, but I haven’t a clue what Matteus is going on about. Nor do I care, really, only it is a very comfortable car, and of all the means of transport I’ve used across the centuries, this is one of the most stylish.

  ‘So,’ Phil says after a moment, ‘what is this place we’re going out to see?’

  ‘It’s a research facility,’ Matteus says, staring straight ahead through the windscreen. ‘Belongs to a private company. A big pharmaceuticals firm.’

  I’m surprised, but Phil just nods. ‘So what’s your interest in it?’ he asks, leaning forward over the back of my seat. ‘You work for their rivals?’

  Matteus laughs. ‘You could say that.’

  ‘And you’re checking them out?’

  ‘Right.’

  I want to take Matteus aside and ask him what he’s doing, only now is not the time. But I’m convinced of one thing now: sleeper agents aren’t reliable. Being alone in hostile territory for such a length of time isn’t a good thing. They develop quirks, eccentricities. Risk-taking eccentricities. Like the gambling.

  The miles pass. The light fades and an intense darkness swallows up the world, the triple headlights of the Tucker cutting a broad, crisp swathe of light ahead of us as the blacktop vanishes beneath our wheels. This is wild, open country with little else other than mountain and tree and rock. A wilderness, hostile to man.

  There’s hardly any traffic on the highway. In fact, we’ve probably not passed more than two or three hundred cars in the whole of the journey east.

  An innocent time, I think. Everything open, up for grabs. Before the crowded, overpopulated years. The years of misery and suffering. The years of unchecked genetic experimentation. Before it all went wrong.

  ‘How much longer?’ I ask.

  Matteus glances at the milometer. ‘We’re about fifty miles from the border now so … another fifty on top of that?’

  ‘Which gets us where?’ Phil asks.

  ‘Hawthorne.’

  ‘Hawthorne, eh?’ Phil says. ‘Same as your friend Abendsen?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Nice name. I should use it sometime. It’s the hardest thing, you know, names.’

  ‘Yeah?’ But I can hear that Matteus is only half interested.

  ‘Yeah,’ Phil carries on, oblivious. ‘Give your characters the right names and they take on a life of their own. Give them something wrong – something that doesn’t fit – and …’

  ‘Phil?’

  ‘Yeah,
Matt?’

  ‘You ever handled a gun?’

  I blink with surprise, then turn to look at Phil. He’s suddenly got a strange look on his face. As well he might, because he’s alone in a car with two guys, miles from anywhere, and we’re talking about guns.

  ‘No … why?’

  ‘I just asked, is all. There’ll be guards, you see.’ Matteus pauses, then says, ‘Just in case.’

  ‘I don’t need a gun,’ Phil says, and there’s an edge to his voice.

  Matteus turns and grins at him. ‘Hey! Only kidding!’

  Phil’s face wrinkles with relief. He grins back at Matteus. ‘You fucker …’

  ‘Hey, ain’t I?’

  And so we sail on through the night, the dark, sculpted wilderness of Yosemite surrounding us, the radio playing quietly, Hawthorne, Nevada getting closer by the minute.

  270

  We book in at a motel on the edge of town, one room with a big double and a single. Matteus and I share the double. Phil wants to talk some more, but Matteus is tired after the drive and I’m not feeling much like talking, so while Matteus and I get some sleep, Phil puts the radio on low and lies there on top of the blankets, fully clothed, stretched out, his hands behind his head.

  That’s how I find him when I wake, just after dawn. Matteus isn’t there, and when I ask, Phil gestures with his head towards the door.

  ‘He went out, half an hour back. Said he was going to try and find a map.’

  ‘Right …’

  But that too disturbs me. It all seems so casual. So unprepared. And bringing Phil along – what’s that about?

  I walk through to the bathroom and begin to wash at the sink. As I do, I hear the volume of the radio go up a notch or two. There’s a snatch of some corny Country and Western song, and then Phil changes the station. A man’s voice drifts from the next room.

  ‘… unlike most yew-fologists takes a sceptical viewpoint. He argues that …’

  I turn, looking back at Phil. ‘Yew-fologist?’

  ‘UFOs,’ Phil says, turning the radio down. ‘Unidentified Flying Objects. Country’s nuts about ’em. There’s aliens in the skies and reds under the bed!’

  I smile. ‘Reds … like in Russians?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Then, a glint of curiosity in his eyes. ‘You been away somewhere?’

  ‘You could say that.’ I sluice my face, then grab the towel and wipe myself dry. ‘I’ve been in Europe. Observing the reconstruction.’

  ‘All right … I wondered about the accent.’

  ‘So these ufologists … what exactly do they do?’

  ‘Spread rumours. Frighten people. Scare the living shit out of them, to tell the truth. As if some advanced alien race would be interested in us!’

  I walk through and stand there, looking at him. ‘I thought that’s what you did? I mean, write about that sort of thing?’

  ‘Fact that I write it, doesn’t mean I’m dumb. Doesn’t take a genius to work out that it makes no sense at all. I mean, if they were in our skies, we’d know about it. They wouldn’t go skulking around, appearing before a few hillbillies here and a few hillbillies there, would they now? As for abductions …’

  ‘Abductions?’

  Phil sits up, looks at me squarely. ‘Aliens abducting people from their cars on deserted highways, doing tests on them up in their mother ships and then dumping them back on the highway in nothing but their vest and socks. Don’t you love that image?’

  Phil chuckles, enjoying himself.

  ‘So you don’t believe any of that.’

  ‘No sirree. It’s all a crock of shit, if you ask me. If aliens have the technology to travel light years to get here, they aren’t going to skulk about and hide their light under a bushel, metaphorically speaking. They wouldn’t need to. Whether they were nasty or nice, they’d take the direct approach – Washington DC, I reckon, directly over the White House – either with all guns blasting or with a whole flying saucer full of doves. Pretty white doves with two heads a-piece …’

  Again he laughs, and this time I laugh with him.

  The door opens. It’s Matteus. ‘You guys having fun?’

  I turn and smile at him. ‘We’re talking UFOs.’

  ‘UFOs?’

  ‘Sure. You got the map?’

  ‘Best I could get. Two inches to the mile. Said we were thinking of prospecting.’

  ‘Prospecting?’

  ‘Yeah, There are lots of mines in this region. Have been for over a hundred and fifty years. Before it was a state, even. Thought it would give us an excuse if the local sheriff’s department stopped us. I bought us some hard hats, too, and some other stuff, just for cover.’

  ‘So what’s the plan?’

  ‘Thought we might drive as close as we can to the place, leave the car somewhere it won’t be seen, then go and sniff about.’

  ‘Can I ask you something?’ Phil says, that concerned look back in his face. ‘Is this going to be dangerous?’

  Matteus looks at him straight. ‘If it were, I wouldn’t have brought you. We’re just going to have a little look, that’s all. See what we can see. But first off, let’s go and grab us some breakfast. I don’t know about you two, but I’m starving.’

  271

  There’s a big wire fence, maybe ten feet tall, stretching away into the distance on both sides. Beyond it there’s nothing but sand and rocks and the odd patch of vegetation, and, in the near distance, a big escarpment of smooth, weather-sculpted rock. There’s no sign of a facility. But that doesn’t daunt Matteus.

  ‘It’s in there,’ he says. ‘Trust me. I know.’

  ‘You know because you’ve seen it?’

  ‘It’s there, I promise you. Just wait a second. I’ll go back to the car and get the cutters.’

  As Matteus walks away, Phil looks to me. ‘How long have you two been friends?’

  ‘A long time. We were at school together, back in the homeland.’

  ‘Matt’s a German?’

  ‘Didn’t you know? His full name is Matteus. Matteus Johann.’

  Phil turns, watching Matt as he walks over to the car and lifts the hood. ‘That makes sense of a whole number of things,’ Phil says quietly. ‘His ambivalence to the war, for a start.’

  I nod, but say no more. But I know one thing: just as soon as this trip is over, I’m jumping back and changing things. I’m going to make sure that next time we come here Phil isn’t with us.

  Matt’s back a moment later, a big pair of bolt cutters in one hand. He walks over to the fence, then, taking a grip, begins to cut through the wire, link by link. It takes about two minutes. He kicks the cut section of wire inward and is about to throw the cutters down when I stop him.

  ‘No. Keep those. We may need them if we don’t come out this way.’

  ‘But the car …’

  ‘We’ll find the car.’

  Matteus hesitates, then nods and looks to Phil. ‘You ready, Phil?’

  Phil doesn’t look sure; but then he nods and, before Matteus can stop him, ducks through the gap and over on to the other side of the fence. Matteus and I follow.

  ‘Which way?’ Phil says, keen now that he’s taken the first step.

  Matteus stops and, handing me the cutters, takes the map from his back pocket and unfolds it. He studies it a moment, then points to our left – to the west, if I’ve got my directions right.

  ‘There. It ought to be just beyond that outcrop there.’

  ‘You’ve been here before?’

  ‘No. But this is where it is. You-know-who said it was.’

  Hecht, he means.

  I’m surprised that there are no surveillance cameras, no guard towers or patrolling jeeps. It seems too quiet. It can’t be that important if it’s this easy to get in, can it?

  Or maybe that’s it. Maybe if the security were tighter – more prominent – then people would be more curious. Especially the locals. Even so …

  It takes us a full ten minutes to cross the open plain and
reach the cover of the rocky escarpment. It’s like a scene from an old western – the kind where the baddy flees and gets holed up in a canyon and has to shoot it out, and when I say that, Matteus excitedly tells me that this is precisely where they film all of that TV and movie stuff – here and hereabouts.

  Phil, however, is quiet. Too quiet, I think. Like he’s suddenly regretting his earlier bravado and wishes he was back in the car.

  Matteus gets out the map again and, checking that he’s where he thinks he is, folds it again, tucks it into his back pocket, and begins to climb, making his way between the boulders up the steep, dusty slope. We follow. Halfway up we rest, looking back at the way we’ve come. You can’t see the breach in the fence from here, nor any sign of our passage.

  Matteus has a knapsack on his back. Shrugging it off, he opens it and reaches in, bringing out a heavy water bottle. Uncapping it, he drinks, then passes it to Phil.

  ‘Where is it?’ I ask.

  ‘We should see it soon. Just over the brow.’

  Phil takes a long swig and hands the bottle back. He wipes his mouth then frowns. ‘We aren’t trying to get inside, are we?’

  ‘You aren’t,’ Matteus says. ‘I want you to stay outside and keep watch.’ He dips into the knapsack and brings out a whistle on a string. ‘Anyone comes along, you blow this, twice.’

  Phil takes the whistle uncertainly. For all he knows we’re spies. Russian spies, perhaps, or East German, which is just as bad.

  Matteus caps the bottle and slips it back into the sack, then slings it back on to his shoulder. ‘Okay. Let’s go.’

  Matteus is right. It isn’t far away. But even he’s surprised how strangely futuristic it looks, staring down at it from half a mile distant.

  ‘Weird,’ Phil says, shaking his head. ‘That doesn’t look like it comes from our age. That’s real Buck Rogers stuff!’

  Matteus puts down his binoculars, then hands them to me. It’s like he either hasn’t heard Phil, or Phil is no longer important.

  ‘What do you think?’

  I put the glasses to my eyes and gently adjust the focus. From a distance it looks big and circular and shiny, like a grounded flying saucer, but through the glasses you can make out that what makes it appear so shiny are whole concentric rows of solar panels. Whatever else it is, it’s energy efficient, and that alone marks it out as something from the future.