The Ocean of Time

by David Wingrove

‘Ah …’

  I take the folder from him and bow my thanks.

  ‘Oh, and Otto …?’

  ‘Yes, Meister?’

  ‘Is it true … about Meister Hecht?’

  I hesitate, then nod. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘And nothing can be done?’

  ‘It seems not.’

  But now that he’s raised it, I’m beginning to wonder. If I can get myself out of the mess of dying – if I can – then why can’t I pull the same trick for Hecht?

  Why not? But right now it’s Kolya I’m interested in. Kolya who I want to find.

  284

  I jump in just after midnight, some three hours objective before I’m to find out the news about Kolya. It’s a big house and dark, not a single light to be seen in any of the dozen or so windows. The long, broad street is empty, the only sound the noise of a distant train. Across from me two of the big mansion-like houses show scattered lights, but there’s no sign of anyone.

  I walk across the front lawn and make my way round the side of the building. The garden’s neat, the grass trimmed, everything in its right place. Moonlight falls on an affluent, well-ordered house. I go to the French windows at the back of the house and look inside. The curtains are open, giving me a view of a wealthy, suburban room. A big couch, a TV – bigger than Matteus’s, though not by much – and a huge rug. Minimalist, one might say. Or underfurnished. No sign of children.

  I turn back, looking about me at the garden. No swings, no slides, no scooters, or anything a child might use. It makes me think of what Old Schnorr said to me, about Kolya kidnapping his past selves once they’d produced their link in his ancestral chain. Maybe that’s what this is. Only how is Reichenau involved? Because he must be involved somehow, especially as his man, Heinrich, is working at Kolya’s club. What is that deal? Is Heinrich watching Kolya? Has Reichenau placed him here for just that purpose?

  There’s a single door at the back of the house. I try it, but it’s locked. I think of breaking a glass panel and letting myself in that way, then I notice that there’s an open window, one floor up – which I can easily reach if I climb up on to the top of the porch.

  A minute later and I’m inside, in what looks like a guest bedroom. Again it’s spartanly furnished, like the minimum of effort has been made to make it look normal.

  I walk across and pause a moment to listen. Nothing. I try the handle, then curse. It’s locked. I jump out, then jump back the other side of the door, emerging in a deeply shadowed hallway. I take a moment to accustom myself to the gloom, then move down the hallway towards the stairs. There are doors off to either side, every one of them closed. I try them, one after another and find that they’re all locked.

  Why? I ask myself, and the answer comes at once. To delay. To slow someone like me down if necessary.

  Yes, but why?

  That’s part of my trouble. I haven’t got a handle on Kolya yet. I’ve only got what Old Schnorr has told me, about protecting himself through Time, and that seems a trifle … how shall we say … mad?

  The use of acute intelligence to an utterly illogical end.

  I go downstairs, hearing nothing, not even the tick of a clock. There’s thick carpet beneath my feet wherever I go and not even the smallest creak of a floorboard, as if someone’s been very careful to attend to such details. Even so, I feel that there’s something here. Why have this house for no reason?

  Downstairs the doors are pushed back, the rooms open for inspection. There’s a massive kitchen – state of the art for this time – and a ballroom of sorts. There’s a study, and two reception rooms, and a bathroom and, tucked away beyond the study, a small room with mirrors on the walls. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

  The study intrigues me. The drawers to the desk are locked, of course, but there’s nothing on the desk itself, not even an ink jotter. As for the shelves of books, they’re fakes. Just fronts. Pull out a section of fake books and it’s like an old Hollywood set, nothing behind the surface.

  So who is this for? Who is this meant to impress? Who comes here?

  But I’m convinced of one thing now. There’s no one here. Not now, anyway. I’m about to jump out of there when I decide I’ll make a mould of the one of the desk locks. I jump out, jump back.

  I’m partway through making the mould when I hear a car draw up outside. I freeze, then crouch beside the table, expecting the front door to open at any moment, but there’s nothing, and when I peer out through the drawn curtains at the front of the house, it’s to see a car parked across the way, outside one of the neighbours’ houses.

  I go back to the study, finish taking the mould, then jump straight out.

  285

  Having had the key made, I ought, perhaps, to have jumped straight back in. Only I needed a break, to sleep, for one thing, but also to read Old Schnorr’s file and let my impressions of the house settle. And so I go back to my room, in Four-Oh, returning to Phil’s just before dawn.

  Phil’s clearly having trouble sleeping, because as soon as it’s light, he brings me in a coffee.

  ‘So what’s the plan?’ he asks, hovering in the doorway.

  ‘We visit Kolya’s house.’

  Phil hesitates, then: ‘Who is this Kolya?’

  I pick the file up off the floor and throw it across. ‘That’s what we know. Only there are a few gaps.’

  Phil, who’s flicking through the pages, smiles at that. ‘There are always gaps.’ He pauses. ‘Is he dangerous?’

  I nod, remembering how he looked. ‘I’d say so. And obsessive, which is always a bad sign.’

  ‘And, of course, he kills you.’ Phil laughs, as if that’s funny, and then he adds, ‘Maybe that’s why he was so mad.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When he made the swap, with Prince Nevsky. You said he was mad with you. That his eyes smouldered like he really hated you for something. Well, maybe that’s why. Because he killed you and you still survived.’

  I stare at Phil. ‘You think so?’

  ‘Shit! I’d be mad!’

  That’s true. So maybe it’s worked already. Maybe all of this is part of the loop as well.

  I sip at my coffee, then look up. Phil’s looking at me strangely.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just you,’ Phil says. ‘Just that you aren’t what I expected. I don’t know what I did expect, but not some fucked-up crazy German guy.’

  ‘Fucked up?’

  ‘Sure, Otto. Didn’t you know? You’re even more fucked up than me. I mean … like degrees more fucked up.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Well, Christ. I haven’t got any mad monks pursuing me through Time. And I haven’t fathered five daughters back in the thirteenth century. And I sure as hell haven’t got to work out some way of saving my own ass by jumping back and forth through time so that there’s three of me!’

  It’s true, only I don’t like hearing it. Shrugging off the cover, I walk over to the window and, pulling the curtain back, look out into the Californian morning.

  ‘I didn’t mean any of those things to happen.’

  ‘No, but they did. And you ought to ask yourself sometime just why they did. Was it all an accident, or was it you, Otto?’

  I turn and look at him. He’s not accusing me. I can see that. Quite the contrary, the guy actually feels for me. Only his truths are a little uncomfortable.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Of course you don’t. We never do. Not until much later. And usually it isn’t so important. Only, you need to know what you are, Otto. Need to know why you’re doing these things.’

  I know why. I’m doing it for Katerina. Only is that the all of it?

  I close my eyes and think of how blue hers are, and see her smile, and I know I would do anything simply to be with her. Only is that enough? Does that excuse me fucking up everyone else’s lives?

  I turn and look to Phil, ready to argue my case, only right then Matteus arrives, the Tucker idling outside.

&
nbsp; Timely, I think, and, pulling on my jeans and shoes, go outside to greet him.

  We get to the Kolya house an hour later. It looks very different in the daylight. No less imposing, but somehow less mysterious, much more suburban.

  The key to the drawer in the desk is in my pocket. Making as if I’ve never been there before, I climb out of the Tucker and, walking across the grass, go directly to the front door and ring the bell.

  The house is silent, empty. Beckoning to Matteus, I begin to walk round the back. Phil waits in the car, looking anxious.

  The back garden, too, seems different. It’s a sunny, welcoming space in the morning sunlight. Nothing threatening. The window above the porch is still open. Climbing up, I go inside, then reappear a moment later at the back door, opening it for Matteus.

  In the light, the house seems abandoned. There’s enough furniture left to sell it to a new buyer and no more. The kitchen cupboards are empty and when you reach up to run your finger along the top edge of a door, there’s a light coating of dust. Not enough to suggest long dereliction, but enough to confirm what I’d begun to think: that whatever happened here happened some while ago and is done with.

  In other words, we’ve missed the boat.

  I’m tempted to jump back three months, simply to find out who was here and what went on, but first I go through to the study and try the lock.

  Matteus looks at me strangely. ‘Where did you get that?’

  I half turn, even as the drawer slides out. ‘I had it made.’

  I look back, and go very, very still, for there, staring up at me, is a picture of Katerina and I, standing in the sunlight on a jetty, while in the background Fyodor Mikhailovich Bakatin and his three sons pull hard at the oars, making their way back downriver.

  Tatarinka, I think, my heart thudding in my chest, my mouth suddenly dry. That was taken in Tatarinka, seven centuries ago.

  Matteus comes across. ‘Otto? Are you—’

  He sees what I’m looking at and gives a sharp exhalation of breath. ‘Thor’s teeth—’

  I lift the photo up. Beneath it is another, and another, all from that same long journey across northern Russia that Katerina and I once took. Shots of us on the river, or in this inn or that.

  Taken by whom? I wonder, and realise as I do that it must have been a long succession of different people. Kolya’s people?

  Or Reichenau’s?

  But just what is the connection?

  I pocket the photos, then dig deeper. There’s a map of Mineral County. I show it to Matteus and he grins, like it’s confirmed something he suspected. Beneath it is a notebook filled with what look like random numbers.

  ‘It’s a code,’ Matteus says.

  ‘Probably.’ But I know what they are. Coordinates. Time coordinates.

  And there, at the bottom of the drawer, in a pale cream presentation box – the kind you might use for a pearl necklace – are seven of the lazy eight pendants, their silver forms shining against the plush red velvet.

  Silver? Or something that only looks like silver? Because I’ve got a hunch now what they are, and if I’m right …

  I pocket them, then close the drawer and lock it.

  ‘Come,’ I say, but even as I say it I hear the sound of voices out front. I go through to the front window and peer through the curtains. Someone is leaning into the car, talking to Phil, who looks distinctly uncomfortable.

  As I watch, the newcomer pushes back away from the Tucker and, turning, comes quickly across the lawn. A tall, balding man in a long, dark trench coat. There’s the sound of a key in the lock, then footsteps on the bare wooden floor of the hallway.

  As he steps into the room, Matteus steps quickly up behind him and puts a gun to his head.

  Whoever it is, it isn’t Kolya, and doesn’t bear any kind of familial resemblance to Kolya. He’s not anyone I’ve ever seen before, and from the way he’s dressed I’d guess he’s an estate agent. The gun terrifies him. He puts his hands into the air, wincing, as if he expects to be shot at any moment.

  ‘Who are you?’ I ask.

  ‘I … I …’

  Whoever he is, he’s clearly no threat. In fact, he looks as if he’s about to pass out.

  ‘Matteus,’ I say. ‘Put the gun away.’

  Matteus removes the gun from the man’s head but stays where he is, blocking the door.

  ‘Do you know Kolya?’ I ask.

  ‘Kolya?’

  ‘Mr Kerenchev,’ Matteus says, using the name of the club’s owner.

  ‘Ah, right …’

  ‘We’re government agents,’ I say. ‘We’re looking for him.’

  The man wets his lips with his tongue nervously, then says. ‘He’s gone.’

  ‘Gone where?’

  ‘I, I deal with his lawyer.’

  ‘You have an address?’

  He gives it me.

  ‘Did he have children?’

  ‘Children?’

  It’s clear he knows nothing. I look to Matteus. ‘Come. Let’s go.’

  We hurry back to the Tucker and drive off. Phil is quiet, brooding, and when I ask him why he tells me.

  ‘That guy knows me. He used to be a customer at the record store.’

  ‘Shit!’ Matteus says, glancing round. ‘Then …’

  ‘We can expect a visit,’ I say. Only it doesn’t matter. Not now. I’ve got all I need in my pocket.

  286

  Gehlen is amazed and delighted. ‘How did you know?’

  I stare down at the vague, gaseous shape beneath the opalescent floor and shrug. ‘I guessed. I mean, I knew they had to have some kind of portable focus, because of the way Reichenau grabbed you from us that time. Only …’

  ‘It’s from the future,’ Gehlen says. ‘Way up the line. Such technologies …’

  The seven pendants are exactly what I thought they were – foci, made not of silver but from their owners’ DNA. They are the means by which Reichenau’s agents travel through time. It appears that tremendous forces are channelled through each of the circular arms, going round and round at phenomenal speeds, building up momentum until they are released through the facing arrowheads. The resulting controlled collision of particles powers the jump through time.

  Gehlen chuckles. A sound like water being pumped uphill. ‘You’d think such a thing would simply implode. And it’s so delicate and fine …’

  Gehlen – or his ghost, anyway – is impressed. This thing is so far beyond him that, for once, he’s not even jealous.

  ‘It makes you wonder what kind of mind came up with this.’

  Or minds. But I keep that suspicion to myself. It’s enough to know now what we’re looking for. Besides, it must surely make them more vulnerable. To remove our foci our enemies would have to cut deep into our chests, but to remove theirs …

  That’s the unanswered question. Whose were these? And why were they in the drawer? Did Kolya take them from Reichenau’s dead agents, or were they waiting to be used?

  Hecht wants to see me. He wants to know what’s going on. He’s heard that I asked for an audience with the Genewart – Gehlen’s gaseous AI – and he wants to know what it’s all about, but I’m not sure I want to tell him. In fact, for the first time in my life, I don’t hurry to answer his summons.

  In the end, he comes to my room.

  ‘Otto?’

  He’s tense, angry with me. Behind him, I note, is Freisler, like he suspects he might have to use some strong-arm stuff on me.

  ‘What?’

  I’m acting like a child, I know, and he could probably ground me, only then he wouldn’t get his answers, and as the days diminish he seems desperate for them.

  ‘No need to be impertinent,’ Freisler says, bristling with anger.

  ‘No?’ But I regret that even as I say it. I bow my head. ‘Forgive me, Meister, only—’

  ‘Only you want to see that damn woman …’ Hecht’s grey eyes, usually so cool, flash anger, and then he turns away.

  ‘Yes,’
I say calmly. ‘Yes, I do. More than anything. Don’t you understand? She is my other half. She … completes me.’

  Hecht turns, about to say something more, but Freisler reaches out, touches his arm, and Hecht steps back. It is Freisler now who confronts me.

  ‘You will have your report on the Master’s desk within the hour. If you do not, you will be grounded, your status as Reisende annulled.’

  I almost laugh. After all, this is what I’ve been waiting for for weeks now. Only I can’t afford to be grounded. Not now that I’m so close.

  ‘What do you want to know?’

  Hecht speaks from the shadows. ‘What did you find in the drawer of the desk?’

  I smile. ‘A map of Mineral County. A notebook full of coded numbers. Some photographs – most of them of Katerina and me – and seven pendants, of the same design that was in the frontispiece of your book of Russian folk tales.’

  ‘The sign for infinity with the two facing arrows?’

  ‘That’s the one.’

  Hecht is himself again, cool and collected. Given these four things, his mind seeks a connection. ‘The map I understand. The code book?’

  ‘Time coordinates, I think. Meister Schnorr is looking into it.’

  ‘And the photos?’

  ‘All of them taken on a journey Katerina and I took across northern Russia, between Novgorod and Moscow.’

  ‘Taken by whom?’

  ‘I don’t know. But several different people, certainly. And totally without us knowing. Agents, I’d guess. Someone keeping a very close eye on us.’

  Hecht nods. ‘And the pendants.’

  ‘I gave one to Gehlen – to the Genewart, rather – to analyse.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It’s a focus, but of a very advanced kind. Gehlen thinks from way up the line. He was impressed.’

  ‘Gehlen … impressed?’ Hecht’s eyes widen slightly at the thought. ‘Made of DNA? Or is there another process involved?’

  ‘Made of DNA. Seven different kinds.’

  ‘So the question is …’

  ‘Whose are they, and why were they in the drawer.’

  We meet eyes and he gives me the slightest nod of respect. ‘You did well, Otto. But next time come to me first. I am still Meister here. For a time …’