The Master of Time

by David Wingrove

  ‘And Dankevich may have known where,’ Ernst says quietly.

  ‘Dankevich knew nothing! Reichenau didn’t even tell him about Kolya, so why should he know where Katerina’s being kept?’

  Svetov looks down, calming himself, trying to ignore the corpse just across from us. ‘You’d better get back, Otto.’

  ‘Back? Do you really think I’m going to find anything back there?’ And I shake my head. ‘He’s toying with us, Arkadi. Yes, and pissing himself laughing.’

  ‘No,’ Svetov says. ‘You’ll find something. You just have to keep looking.’

  Only, again, I don’t believe that. Meeting with Dankevich again, knowing that my gut instinct was right and he was a traitor …

  The thought of it makes me stop dead, wondering what other mischief he’s been up to. I mean, for the past few weeks he’s had access to every single debate, every single decision that we’ve made. Oh, he might be dead now, but I guarantee he’s still making trouble, somewhere out there in Time.

  ‘Get men on it,’ I say, looking back at Svetov. ‘Get them to track down everywhere he’s been these past few days. Who he met. What he did. And when you’ve found all that out, come and tell me. Till then I’ll go back. See what I can find in 2343.’

  And I jump …

  366

  Back in my room at the Gast Gebaud, I shower and change and, within the hour, go down to meet Hans Klug at the bar and, by chance as it happens, notice yet another of my ‘targets’, August Eichel.

  The vivacious, silver-haired Eichel is surrounded by young men, and at first I am reduced to the role of observer, but then Klug comes up alongside me and engages me in conversation.

  ‘How are you, Meister Kroos?’

  ‘Call me Otto,’ I say, using the name that I’ve chosen for this Age. My own, true, but then what more natural?

  I ask him, with all reverence, just what he’s been working on recently, and he smiles and leans in and whispers, ‘You should come and see. It’s very interesting.’ But that’s all he’ll say, and we change the subject.

  I look about me. The décor here is extravagant. This bar, the biggest of the hotel’s five, is called The City Of The Dead, and as if to emphasise that, there are pictures of living skeletons wherever one looks. Why, even at the bottom of your glass a skull smiles back at you.

  For they are obsessed with death, here in this Age. Though nothing like as much as they’ll be four centuries hence.

  ‘Otto,’ Klug says, coming back to me, ‘let me introduce you to an old friend of mine. Otto, this is Augst Eichel …’

  I take the great man’s hand and smile. In return he holds mine firmly, giving it a real man’s shake, all strength and challenge, his cobalt blue eyes staring very intently at my own as he does.

  It’s rather like looking at a machine, but that’s maybe to be expected. Much of Eichel’s work is in the field of human enhancement and his basic foundation work will allow the development of the Guildsmen.

  Indeed, here at the bar, to either side of me, are the two main architects of the world I’ve witnessed Up River in the twenty-eighth century. Manfred’s world. And Gehlen’s.

  ‘I hear you’re working on adapting the hox genes,’ Eichel says, and I feign embarrassment and delight that the great man should have noticed me at all.

  ‘Mine’s a very small area of research,’ I say. ‘Then again, it is the oldest shared genetic material. Why, the hox genes of the chicken and the fly have a common ancestor that’s over 670 million years old …’

  And so it goes on … a long, interminably long evening turning to morning at the bar.

  Later, back in my room, showered and ready for bed, there is a knock on my door. If it’s Klug, I’ll have to tell him I’m not interested, but it proves to be a bi-sex do hu sent by Klug for my use: a stunningly attractive model that is both masculine and feminine at the same time.

  It’s a kind thought, even if slightly perverse, and I pen a thank-you note to him, but I seriously can’t face what is essentially a sex-toy, and send it away.

  But whatever the cause, lying there in bed I can’t sleep, and when Ernst jumps into the room to warn me that Gress is on his way to my room with an armed squad, I have to hide my arousal from him.

  ‘You can’t jump,’ Ernst says quickly, in case I should try. ‘They’ve a man just outside, watching the room, making sure you don’t escape.’

  ‘So what’s the plan?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ernst answers. ‘But I’ll go back now. Get us working on something.’

  ‘Okay …’

  But he’s gone. And, as if a veil has been pulled aside, I realise that while I can’t jump out to avoid them, I can go back, just so long as I return here in a moment or two, objectively.

  I look about me at the room, wondering if it was part of someone’s plan to catch me fucking a do hu in my room, then jump, back to Four-Oh.

  367

  To find Ernst and Old Schnorr waiting for me, a pack of special equipment in Schnorr’s hands. What he calls ‘products of the new thinking’.

  Our great men – and women – have been busy. There’s a design for a protective under-jacket that can withstand the blast of bullets, grenades and laser-fire, and there’s another for a device that will allow me to listen to what’s being said at Four-Oh wherever I am in Time.

  Last, but far from least, there are diagrams for a couple of ‘weapons’ that look totally innocuous but are, in fact, highly deadly.

  I am surprised by these, because from what I’d heard our Great Men didn’t want to get involved with anything that would harm someone. I say this to Ernst and he grins.

  ‘It’s a well-known fact that scientists don’t always grasp the full implications of their discoveries. Da Vinci, particularly. The man has a whole future armoury in his head and doesn’t realise it.’

  ‘I see. And how soon will this stuff be ready?’

  ‘A week? Maybe two?’

  I find that encouraging. ‘I ought to go see them,’ I say. ‘I promised Zarah.’

  But Ernst shakes his head. ‘The situation is resolved. We took them all back a week and did some intense brainstorming. The women held their own, so now they’re accepted. We even have a romance, of a kind. Young Moseley and the knowledgeable Miss Franklin.’

  I know neither of them, but now’s not the time for questions on that score. Now I need to get back, to face Gress.

  I jump in just a second or so before the hammering starts on my door.

  ‘Meister Kroos! Open the door, now!’

  ‘Who is it?’ I demand.

  ‘It’s internal security! Open up or we’ll kick our way in!’

  I count to five and, a moment before they start shouting again, undo the latch and pull the door open. At once they’re on me, turning me about and cuffing me.

  ‘What is this?’ I protest, fake indignation in my voice. ‘I demand to know why I am being treated in this manner!’

  Gress pushes past me, looking about him at the room.

  ‘Oberlieutenant Gress,’ I say. ‘I demand to know what the charges are against me!’

  At which Gress comes over and, in a sombre voice I’ve not heard from him before, tells me that I’m a spy, working for the Russians. That the entries in the records about me have been falsified, and that no one that they’ve spoken to at the Cologne Institute has ever heard of me. All of which is true.

  ‘Ridiculous!’ I say. ‘Someone has been having a game with you, Oberlieutenant. Or, more likely, spreading vicious lies to discredit me.’

  Gress is about to say something more, when Klug himself appears at my door, clearly hoping to find me alone and willing, for my room is fourteen floors below his own penthouse suite.

  ‘What in Urd’s name is going on here?’ he demands, putting on his most pompous and authoritarian air. ‘Don’t you realise who this is?’

  ‘Meister Klug, I—’

  ‘This man is with me,’ he says, ignoring the SS man. ‘He is a
brilliant geneticist and is here on the invitation of the president himself. Now on your way, man, before I decide to take offence!’

  It is marvellously and effectively done, for Gress and his men leave smartly, Gress making no attempt to argue with this particular Great Man. Knowing that to do so might mean the end of his career.

  Alone with him, Klug turns to me and, not unkindly, asks me what’s going on.

  ‘A jealous colleague, perhaps. You know how they are.’

  ‘Oh, I know,’ Klug says, and turns to close the door, before turning back to me, his expression changed, an uncertain smile on his face.

  ‘You know, Otto, I’ve grown very fond of you …’

  But even as Klug takes a step towards me, Ernst appears in the air behind him, stun gun in hand, and fires off a charge, felling Klug like a tree.

  368

  I sit on the edge of Klug’s bed, in his room on the top floor of the hotel, watching as the physician gives Klug a thorough examination. Klug himself is groggy. He doesn’t know quite where he is, or what day of the week it is. Finally, the physician looks up and declares that the great man must have had a seizure of some kind.

  When the physician is gone, I move closer, looking down at him attentively.

  Klug is grateful. He genuinely believes that he had a stroke or heart attack of some kind, even though his heart is healthy.

  ‘Is there anything I can do for you, Meister?’

  Klug looks away, moved. ‘There is one thing …’

  ‘By all means. Name it.’

  ‘My speech … I’m due to give the keynote speech, tomorrow … If you could give it for me, Otto.’

  ‘It would be my pleasure,’ I say, squeezing his hand. And he directs me to his case, in which the text of the speech is kept. I take it out and flick through the pages, then realise what it is. It’s nothing less than a history of Klug’s research activities for these past twenty-five years, and there, as a footnote near the very end of the document, are details of the doppelgehirn experiments.

  I look up from the folder, meeting his eyes. ‘You do me a very great honour, Meister Klug. A very great honour indeed.’

  369

  ‘So?’ I ask, looking about me at the others gathered about the big farmhouse table. ‘What do you think?’

  Behind them, out beyond the hills, the sky is dark with cloud.

  Zarah looks about her, then speaks up. ‘Well, at least we know now who he is – both of him.’

  ‘And where he comes from,’ Svetov adds.

  That had been the shock. To discover that Reichenau – at least, part of Reichenau – was Kolya’s illegitimate son, given over to the Akademie by Kolya for experimental purposes. It showed there was no love between them. But beyond that?

  Ernst is shaking his head. ‘I don’t know. My gut instinct is against this. We got this information far too easily. It was just too much of a coincidence that we should stumble on this by accident. This feels … planted.’

  ‘I agree,’ I say. ‘It has the feel of someone meddling again. Planting false information to throw us off the real trail. Reichenau would have known of Klug’s speech. He would have taken measures to prevent it, surely? To allow it to fall into our hands like this … No. I don’t think he’s that inept!’

  There’s a rumble of distant thunder. The guards at the bottom of the field, spaced out every thirty metres or so, look up, expecting the storm at any minute.

  Tannenberg looks bleak for once. Abandoned.

  ‘Well, I disagree,’ Old Schnorr says. ‘The man is vain. He might even have enjoyed the idea of being in Klug’s keynote speech. And there’s no doubting that he has a presence, there in 2343, and there must be a reason for that. So let’s find out.’

  Svetov speaks up, as another great rumble of thunder fills the valley, closer this time, the slightest hint of lightning in the far distance.

  ‘What I want to know is how the little monster keeps on anticipating our every move. He and Kolya. It’s like they’ve got the inside track to things.’

  ‘A traitor, you think?’

  Ernst shakes his head. ‘We had one traitor and he’s dead. Remember? No. It seems to me that the only way to deal with Reichenau is to take him out, right now. Go for him direct at all the places we know he frequents and see just how fast he can jump out of there each time.’

  ‘We know where he’s been in the past,’ Zarah chips in. ‘So let’s start with those. In Werkstatt 9, back in the twenty-eighth century. At Gehlen’s research establishment on the day that the bombs fell. And at Baturin, back in 1708. Let’s send in a crack squad to each of those and attack him. It surely can’t do any harm.’

  There’s a growl of agreement from the others, but not from me. I share the scepticism Ernst expressed earlier. It was too easy. And, talking of gut instinct, mine is to let be. We haven’t yet caught him off guard, and if he were to hit us back …

  Yet that’s the veche’s decision. To go for his throat.

  The rain begins, big drops of it falling from the heavens, forming dark spots on the wooden deck. And as it does, so we jump out of there, one after another, until only Ernst and I are left, the heavy rain soaking us in seconds.

  ‘We’ll take him alive if we can,’ Ernst says, as the rain becomes a downpour. ‘I promise. Find out where they are, and—’

  But I am gone.

  Promises, I think, as I make my way through to Hecht’s rooms, water dripping from me. What fucking good are promises?

  370

  I’m told to take a back-seat role, which is why, as we materialise in the air just inside of Werkstatt 9, I find myself as an observer as our team blast their way up the stairs and across the walkway to get to the supervisor’s office.

  The firefight is intense, but then suddenly we’re inside and my men come down to me, holding a struggling man between them.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘He’s the supervisor, Master. He says he’s never heard of Reichenau. You want us to question him?’

  Perhaps I ought, but I half expected this and know – without a shadow of a doubt – that torture would achieve nothing. No. Reichenau has made changes here, erasing himself from time.

  I leave four of them to search the place and see what they can find, then get the rest of the team out of there, linking up with Ernst at Four-Oh.

  ‘You should see this,’ he says, and grabbing my arm, jumps back … to Erfurt in the twenty-eighth century, only, instead of a castle, there’s a ruin and no sign whatsoever of Gehlen’s research facility.

  We jump again, to Baturin this time, and to the back street where I once glimpsed him, only that too is a ruin, the house demolished by fire.

  Reichenau has destroyed everything in his wake.

  Scorched earth, I think, recognising his touch in all of this.

  And finally we jump back to the Kolya house in Berkeley, California, in January 1952, to find … not even a house, just a vacant lot with a For Sale sign posted on a tree.

  How? I ask myself. How does he know?

  371

  Which is precisely what I ask Ernst when he comes to see me later.

  Only Ernst has no answers either. Reichenau seems to have vanished from Time. Meanwhile, the veche, it seems, have met again, this time without me.

  Ernst?’

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he says, reassuringly. ‘They simply want you to go back in. Back to the original plan. To infiltrate 2343 – make friends with the big, important men – and see what we can find out.’

  ‘So you want me to read Klug’s speech?’

  ‘That and the rest of it. The socialising and the lectures and …’

  In other words, all of the dull stuff, the stuff I really hate. Academics! Urd help us, who in the gods’ names would be an academic?

  372

  And so I return.

  ‘Meister Kroos!’ Theoretician Fischer booms, seeing me across the crowded room and gesturing to me to join him. ‘What have you been up to?’r />
  For word has got around about me ‘saving’ Klug’s life. The academicians look at me now with guarded smiles, as if I’m the man to know.

  Which is not quite what we’d planned. To draw attention like this …

  I present myself to Fischer, who takes the opportunity to put his arm about my shoulders and speak to me quietly, almost intimately, his breath, smelling of mint, in my face, far closer than is decent.

  ‘I missed you last night, Otto. You should have come and seen me.’

  And then, much louder, for all to hear, ‘Have you heard, gentlemen? Meister Kroos is to present the keynote speech tomorrow! It is an honour he well deserves!’

  And he gently squeezes my right shoulder before saying, quietly and to my ear once more, ‘I look forward to seeing you later on, Otto. We should become closer, you and I, yes?’

  But Fischer knows not to overplay things and moves away, ‘working’ his way around the big reception room.

  The president is to be here soon, along with several of his ministers. And the prince, though he’s too frail to stay long. But before either arrive, my new patron, Meister Klug, makes an appearance in a luxurious healing couch, the big wheelchair pushed by an attendant, the old man smiling and gesturing, positively beaming when he sees me, his ‘saviour’, as he calls me. Which makes me think of Ernst, stunning him like a prize bull as he rushed across the room to ravish me.

  ‘How are you, Meister?’ I say, crouching to address him face to face. ‘Are you feeling any better?’

  Klug grins back at me and clasps my hands, clearly delighted to see me. ‘Much better, Otto, thanks to you. Have you read it through?’

  He means his speech, and I have, a good six times, until I was word perfect.

  ‘I have it by heart,’ I say, and he grins even more and squeezes my hands.