The Ocean of Time

by David Wingrove

  ‘Who says we can’t?’

  I shrug. The truth is, even if I could get to use Reichenau’s platform, or disable it, then how does that help? If things can’t be changed, then …

  Make another loop. A second, different loop.

  It’s vague, unformed, but the best I can come up with right now. Only I’m not telling Matteus, nor Hecht come to that. Talking of which …

  ‘I’d better go see him.’

  ‘Hecht?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To report back.’

  ‘But you don’t know anything. At least, nothing that he doesn’t know already. Why don’t you wait? See what Phil comes up with.’

  ‘Phil?’

  ‘The club, dummkoff. Unbeachtet.’

  It makes sense. ‘Okay. But as soon as we’ve found out …’

  ‘We change it. Agreed.’

  ‘Good.’ And I smile at him and raise my glass, because I find I like Matteus after all, cut corners and all.

  275

  The owl wakes me, its call intruding into my dream, making me start awake and go to the window to look out. It’s after three and the moon is low in the black, cloudless sky. Pulling on my jeans, I go downstairs and out on to the back porch, then stand there in the shadows, silently watching as the owl swoops and hunts, ignoring my presence.

  Downed and beautiful it is, its curving flight so graceful, so perfect, that I wonder why I have never noticed it before. For a moment it’s at rest, its great yellow eyes blinking slowly, regularly, in the darkness.

  Like the owl in the film, I realise. What was it called? Ah yes, Blade Runner …

  I go inside. For owls there is no passing time. Life just is. Time – the measurement of time – is a human thing. A product of consciousness. Without consciousness …

  I go into the living room and, lifting out the innards of the gramophone, set up the tri-vi again and sit there in the darkened room, the sound low, watching the film.

  I’m at the part near the end, on the roof of the building as the rain pours down and Deckard lies there, his hands broken, Roy Batty crouched nearby, when I grow conscious of Matteus in the doorway, looking past me, watching intently.

  It’s beautiful. And when Batty makes his speech, I find myself suddenly so moved by the words, so engaged with what he says, by the dignity he shows, and by his consciousness of loss, that a tear rolls down my cheek.

  I look to Matteus and he smiles. ‘That’s something, huh?’ he says softly.

  ‘But that’s us,’ I say. ‘That’s how …’

  I stop, choked up, unable to say more.

  ‘I know,’ Matteus says. ‘So maybe now you understand?’

  I nod, then look back, yet as the film comes to its close, I’m conscious that something has just happened to me. What it is, I don’t yet know, but I feel different somehow. Changed.

  Matteus kills the signal, then walks across and switches on a lamp. ‘Coffee?’ he asks.

  I nod, but my mind’s elsewhere, set off by Batty’s words, chasing down roads, down timestreams I have long forgotten.

  I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe …

  276

  Unbeachtet turns out to be a jazz club in a big, three-storey dark-brick building in a run-down part of town. The Tucker causes a real stir among the black guys gathered on the sidewalk just outside the club, and while Phil and I wander across to the ticket office, Matteus stands at the centre of a group of them who want to know more about the car and even, perhaps, have a poke around in the big six-stroke engine in the back.

  ‘Who’s playing?’ I ask Phil, as we wait for the girl behind the grill to stop talking to her girl friend and serve us.

  ‘Sonny Rollins,’ Phil says. ‘He plays tenor sax. He’s been working with Miles these past few years …’

  ‘Miles?’

  Phil stares at me like I’m an idiot, then shakes his head. ‘Christ, man, you are from the future! Miles, Miles Davis. Birth of the Cool? You heard of that?’

  The girl finishes talking, turns and smiles at me. ‘How many?’

  ‘Three please.’

  ‘Make that eight,’ Matteus says, putting his hand on my shoulder. ‘We’re going to treat my friends here.’

  The girl looks to me, one eyebrow raised.

  ‘As the man says,’ I say, and dig out another twenty-dollar bill.

  ‘Hey, that’s a fine thing you’re doing, man,’ one of them says.

  ‘A real friendly thing …’

  Inside it’s dark, gloomy to the point of being dungeon-like. Waitresses move between the tables like wraiths, while a fug of cigarette smoke makes it hard to see across the room to the tiny stage where there are a number of musical instruments: a drum kit and a piano, a stand-up double bass and, against a silver stand, a big tenor sax.

  ‘Two tables,’ Matteus says to a passing waitress, ‘and some beers. Eight beers.’

  I grab his arm and pull him close. ‘What’s with your friends?’

  ‘They’re regulars,’ Matteus says. ‘They know this place. You want to find out a few things, well, here’s your chance.’

  I release him. I thought he was messing about, playing the big man, but it makes sense. Good sense. We settle, near the stage and the beers arrive – opened bottles, unpoured. I look to one of the guys.

  ‘Otto,’ I say, putting out my hand.

  ‘Rudy,’ he answers, smiling broadly, his teeth flashing a brilliant white as his hand wraps about my own. It’s a firm, generous grip. Welcoming.

  ‘You a regular here?’

  ‘Every week, man. Don’t miss a show if I can help it. Not if I can afford it, anyway.’ He grins. ‘Speaking of which, it’s much appreciated man. You’re a real dude.’

  A real dude, I think, and smile at that, then clink my beer bottle against his.

  ‘They get good acts here?’

  ‘Good? They’s the best, man. Take Sonny Rollins. Ain’t but one sax player as good as him, and he’s playing with him tonight!’

  I clearly look non-plussed, so he adds. ‘Jackie McLean, man. Like I’m talking … hot.’

  ‘He’s that good?’

  ‘That good and some,’ says one of Rudy’s mates, who introduces himself as Ben.

  ‘You’re not a jazz fan, then?’ Rudy says, leaning a bit closer so I can hear him properly.

  ‘Classics,’ I say.

  ‘Well, you gonna see a classic tonight.’ And he laughs, and it’s so warm that I find myself joining in.

  We drink beer, talk, and then finally the band comes on. It’s okay, but somehow I don’t connect with the music. Don’t understand it. There’s a lot of improvisation going on, and I can see – and hear – that they’re all fine musicians, Only …

  Only it doesn’t connect.

  At the break I get up and, on the excuse of going to the john, wander round the back of the club, seeing what I can see. Most of the doors are labelled ‘Staff Only’, and when I try the doors they’re locked. There’s a staircase goes up into darkness and I’m tempted to follow it, only right then two men step out of an office to my left, and I’m about to explain that I’m looking for the toilets when the words freeze on my tongue.

  The one on the left – a tall, red-haired, plumpish man, wearing a trilby – I’ve never seen before, but his companion, to the right of him, I’ve met on three occasions at the least.

  Heinrich!

  He clearly doesn’t recognise me. Or, more likely, hasn’t actually met me yet. But I’m surprised to find him here. I knew he worked for Reichenau, but I’d never have guessed he was a ‘traveller’.

  ‘Yes?’ he asks, seeing how I’m staring at him. ‘You want something?’

  No one else would recognise it, but there’s a distinctive accent there. A twenty-eighth-century accent.

  I’d like to know what you’re doing here and why? But I don’t say that. I smile apologetically. ‘I’m looking for the rest room …’

  ‘Wrong way,�
� he says, pointing back the way I’ve come. But there’s a slight inquisitiveness in his eyes now. Maybe it’s a response to the slight Germanic traces in my accent. Or maybe he’s just curious why I’d be here, in what’s clearly the staff area of the club.

  ‘You enjoying the music?’ he asks, reaching out to touch the arm of his companion, as if to hold him there a moment longer.

  ‘Not much. I’m a Beethoven man, myself.’

  He laughs at that. ‘Me, too. Only I can’t book him …’

  I smile at the joke, but my eyes have caught a detail. On the chain about his neck is a tiny silver pendant. The lazy eight. The infinity sign with the two inward-pointing arrows.

  Connections, I think. But why here? Why now?

  I turn to go, then turn back. ‘It’s Otto,’ I say, holding out my hand. He takes it, smiling again, giving a gracious little nod of the head.

  ‘Henry,’ he says. ‘A pleasure to meet you.’

  ‘And you.’

  And then I leave, making my way back through to the main body of the club, making sure as I go not to touch anything, knowing that if I can preserve whatever trace he has left of himself on my palm, that we might yet have a chance of tracing where he originates and maybe finding out just when and where he first encounters our friend Reichenau.

  277

  Hecht is hard to read. Is he unimpressed by what I’ve got to say, or does he simply know it all anyway? If he does, he keeps that to himself.

  ‘But now that we know where the platform is …’

  ‘We’ve tried,’ he says. ‘If we make any kind of aggressive move against it, he simply changes its location. Goes back in time and builds it somewhere else. That’s why I sent you in without any warning. So you could see it for yourself. See what we were up against.’

  ‘But surely …?’

  ‘He seems to know our every move, even before we make it. It’s like he’s tracking all our agents.’

  It’s a devastating thing to say, only Hecht says it without the faintest trace of emotion.

  ‘He can’t be.’

  ‘No,’ Hecht agrees. ‘And yet he does.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘We? You, you mean. I’m about to die, remember?’

  Again, it’s said almost factually, almost without bitterness. As if, in the short while I’ve been away, Hecht has come to terms with it.

  Like Roy Batty, I think, only the comparison is strange. The two are so different.

  ‘You want me to go back?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And do what?’

  Hecht’s steel-grey eyes never leave mine. There’s no expression in them. For all the animation in them, they could be camera lenses. ‘That’s up to you. You’re making the rules now.’

  I’m making the rules? But before I can query that, something strange happens. The Tree of Worlds, which has been glistening overhead, shimmering faintly in the dark, now seems to shiver, as if a strong wind has passed through its branches.

  I look to Hecht. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Change is coming. Major change.’

  ‘Your death …?’

  ‘Is part of it, yes. My time is done. The Game is almost over now.’

  ‘But how can it end?’

  ‘Nothing is for ever, not even the Game, it seems.’

  ‘But, Master …’

  And now something breaks in him and he stands and turns away, stepping back into the darkness, such that for a moment he seems almost to have vanished. But he is there still. If I squint into the shadows I can still make out his form.

  ‘I didn’t mean to fall for her.’

  ‘No. But you did.’

  ‘Then it must have been meant.’

  He turns back, angry now. ‘Must it? Or was it simply self-indulgence?’

  ‘No. Compulsion. I’ll not deny it. But can’t you see? Before here there was nothing, no meaning, no substance to my life. Oh, there was the Game, but—’

  ‘Listen to yourself, Otto. Listen to what you’re saying. See how far you’ve strayed. Urd protect us from such error!’

  I am silent for a while, then I stand and make my way to the door. There is no more to be said. I can be Hecht’s man now or I can be my own. Even so, I cannot leave without apologising.

  ‘I’m sorry. I must be a great disappointment. All of your hopes …’

  And now his voice is bitter. ‘You don’t know, Otto Behr. You simply do not know. The long years, the careful planning. And you destroyed it all. Removed the glue, the binding, leaving the pages to blow away in the wind. What damage you have done.’

  I leave, subdued by his bitterness. Only I wouldn’t change a thing. If I had to destroy a dozen Games, I would do it for her.

  Maria is there at the platform. ‘How was he?’

  ‘Bitter. He blames me for everything.’

  ‘He doesn’t understand.’

  Her words surprise me. ‘Understand?’

  ‘He’s never loved. Not a person anyway. Ideas, tactics, strategies – those are his loves. And fine loves they have been, only they’re not human.’

  ‘Then why …?’

  ‘Why obey him? Because he is the Meister. Because there was no alternative. Until now …’

  ‘Then what has changed?’

  ‘You have, Otto. You have.’

  278

  The musicians have started the second set when I return. Both Phil and Matteus look up from the table as I squeeze between them.

  ‘You okay?’ Matteus asks.

  ‘Yes. I went to see Hecht.’

  ‘And what did he say?’

  ‘He says I’m on my own.’

  ‘Ah …’

  Matteus turns away, watching the musicians. For a time he says nothing, then, touching my arm, he gestures towards the back of the room. ‘You want to go?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He turns to Phil. ‘We’re gonna go. If you want to stay …’

  Phil hesitates, then shakes his head.

  We shake hands around the table and say our goodbyes. A minute later we’re outside, on the lamp-lit street. The two young boys who have been ‘guarding’ the Tucker for Matteus grin broadly at the sight of him, then scurry forward to be paid.

  A dollar apiece, I note.

  ‘Okay,’ Matteus says once we’re all inside. ‘Back to my place?’

  We stop at a liquor store on the way and buy some more beers and a bottle of single malt Scotch, but I’m barely aware of the transition between car and house, because my mind’s working away busily, trying to connect what I know. Trying to make sense of all the disparate pieces of information I now have.

  Reichenau is here, or has been here. Certainly his man, Heinrich, is. But what they’re up to is still a mystery. Why, for instance, run a jazz club? And what were they doing with those cuffed prisoners at the facility in the Nevada desert? Were they being sent somewhere?

  And what’s with the pendants? The lazy eight? Is this some kind of cult?

  Matteus and Phil are in the kitchen, talking. I go through and stand there, watching them a moment.

  ‘But that must be strange, I mean, really strange,’ Phil says, speaking animatedly, using his hands. ‘I mean, one moment you’re in a place and it’s just trees and open fields and a river, maybe, and the next—’

  ‘Mile-high buildings of steel and concrete.’

  They both turn to look at me.

  ‘That’s just how it is,’ I say. ‘I’ve seen Moscow when it was just a trading post. And Berlin … Berlin was just a tiny wooden fort on a turn in the river, forest on every side. And then, a full thousand years later, there it was … a giant sprawl of kunstlichestahl – “false steel” – filling the north German plain … five billion people crammed into its levels.’

  Phil’s mouth has opened in wonder, but I can see from his eyes that there’s still a part of him that’s unconvinced, that thinks that maybe we’re a pair of con men, inventing all this shit just to impress him.


  I look to Matteus. ‘I think we ought to show Phil a thing or two. Prove we’re not talking total horse shit.’

  ‘You want to?’

  ‘Sure. I think we ought. As friends.’

  Matteus shrugs. ‘Okay …’

  We go back into the living room and while Matteus sets up the tri-vi, I pour myself a finger of Scotch and settle back.

  ‘Jesus …’ Phil says, as Matteus sets the tri-vi down. ‘What the fuck is that?’

  ‘The future,’ Matteus says, and I can see from the gleam in his eyes that he’s imagined this moment more than once.

  ‘But what …?’

  ‘It’s tomorrow’s TV.’

  He laughs. ‘Then it won’t work.’

  Matteus looks sideways at him. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there won’t be any signal.’

  Matteus smiles and produces the tiny silver disc. ‘It’s all recorded. On this.’

  He hands it across. Phil studies it, amazed. He’s used to big, heavy black wax discs, and this, this is barely the size of a coaster, and not half as heavy.

  ‘Jeeze …’

  I smile. ‘The best is yet to come, Phil. Slot it in the hole there and sit back. I think you’re going to enjoy this.’

  I’ve seen this before – not often, but once or twice – where a man has been shown his future, his achievements. But rarely have I had such pleasure as when I tell Phil that what he’s seen is his, that all of this weird, fantastic shit came from out of his head. That awes him. Only Matteus then tops my moment by bringing a big cardboard box full of old paperbacks down from his study and handing them across to Phil. Scruffy little books with garish covers.

  ‘What the …?’

  He takes one out and stares at it agog, and then another, and another …

  And more, many more, every last one of them bearing Phil’s name. I watch as he opens them up, one by one and flicks through, reading the odd paragraph here, the odd line there, and nodding to himself.

  ‘Yeah,’ he says finally. ‘Yeah …’

  Matteus is grinning. ‘You believe us now, then, Phil?’

  But Phil has gone very still. He’s staring down at the pile of books in front of him and slowly shaking his head.