Time Loves a Hero

by Allen Steele

  Their cabin was surprisingly small: a pair of double-decker bunks, a compact aluminum desk and a miniature sink which folded down from the bulkhead, a little closet in which their baggage had already been stowed. Somehow, Franc had expected something a little more spacious; the Oberon’s passenger compartment was larger than this. The steward showed them where everything was, told them that the lavatories were located below them on B Deck, and sternly reminded them that rauchen was verboten outside the smoking room. Then he wished them a good flight, and left them in privacy.

  Franc climbed the aluminum ladder to the upper bunk, sat down on its thin mattress, patted its handkerchief-size pillow. When he tried to sit up straight, his head touched the ceiling. He looked down at Lea and grinned. “I think we’re going to have to invent some new positions,” he said.

  “Think of something else.” She gave him a brief scowl as she opened the cabin door. “They’re going to raise ship anytime now. I don’t want to miss this.”

  The promenade on A Deck was crowded by the time they got there. A steward handed them glasses of champagne, then they found a vacant place near the starboard windows. On the ground below, they could see men holding on to the taut mooring cables. Twilight was beginning to set over the airfield; the rain had stopped, and rays of green-hued sunlight were slanting down through the heavy clouds.

  The band struck up “Deutschland Uber Alles,” and after seemingly endless recitals of its refrain, the ground crew released the cables, then rushed forward to push away the control car. And then—slowly, ever so ponderously—the Hindenburg began to rise from the airfield.

  Franc put his right arm around Lea’s waist. After a moment, she nestled her head against his shoulder. “We’re on our way,” she said softly, as they watched Germany fall below them. “Next stop, New Jersey.”

  He nodded, then ducked his head to give her a kiss on the cheek. “The next stop is history,” he whispered in her ear.

  He didn’t mean his remark to be ominous, yet she took it as such. He knew she did, for he felt her tremble.

  PART 2

  “… WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD”

  Thursday, January 15, 1998: 11:12 P.M.

  When the Center Hill Lake affair was over, after all the reports were filed with the appropriate agencies and various subcommittees had held closed-door hearings, when everyone with proper clearance had been reassured that the situation, although not completely resolved, at least was no longer critical … only then, looking back on the course of events, did Murphy come to realize that it really started the night before, in the Bullfinch on Pennsylvania Avenue.

  The Bullfinch was a venerable Capitol Hill watering hole, located about three blocks from the Rayburn Building in one direction and within walking distance of one of Washington’s more crime-ridden neighborhoods in the other. It was a favorite lunch spot for congressional aides and journalists who invaded it during happy hour, but by evening it became the after-hours hangout of federal employees from a dozen different departments and agencies. Coming off twelve-hour workdays, their shirts stained with sweat, their guts full of junk food, they emerged from Commerce and Agriculture and Justice and made their way to the Bullfinch for a few rounds with the boys before stumbling to Capitol South station to catch the next Metro out to the Maryland and Virginia suburbs.

  Thursday was beer night for the Office of Paranormal Sciences. Murphy skipped these bull sessions more often than not, preferring to spend his evenings at home in Arlington with his wife and son. Donna was still mourning her mother’s death just before Christmas, though, and Steve seemed to be more interested these days in Magic cards than his father, so when Harry Cummisky tapped on his door shortly after eight and asked if he wanted to grab a couple of brewskis with the boys, Murphy decided to go along. It had been a long time since he had given himself a break; if he came home an hour late with Budweiser on his breath, then so be it. Donna would burrow into her side of the bed anyway, and Steven wouldn’t care so long as Dad took him to the comics shop on Saturday.

  So he shut down the computer, locked up his office, and joined Harry and Kent Morris on a five-block trudge through sleet and slush to the Bullfinch. They were the last of the OPS regulars to arrive; several tables had already been pushed together in the back room, and an overworked waitress had already set the group up with pitchers of beer and bowls of popcorn. Although everyone was mildly surprised to see him, they quickly made room at the table. Murphy was aware of his button-down rep; he loosened his tie, admonished a wide-eyed Yale intern to stop addressing him as Sir and call him Zack instead, and poured the first of what he initially promised himself would be only two beers. A couple of drinks with the gang, a few laughs, then he would head home.

  But that was not to be. It was a cold, damp night, and he was in a warm, dry bar. Gas flames hissed beneath fake logs in the nearby hearth, and firelight reflected off the panes of framed sports photos on the wood-paneled walls. Conversation was light, ranging from next week’s Super Bowl to current movies to the latest Hill gossip. The waitress’s name was Cindy, and although she wore an engagement ring she seemed to enjoy flirting with the OPS guys. Every time his mug was half-empty, Kent or Harry or someone else would quickly top it off. After his second trip to the john, Zack stepped into a phone booth and called home to tell Donna not to wait up for him. No, he wasn’t drunk; just a little tired, that’s all. No, he wouldn’t drive; he’d leave his car in the garage and take a cab. Yes, dear. No, dear. I love you, too. Sweet dreams, good night. And then he sailed back to the table, where Orson was regaling Cindy with the joke about the Texas senator, the prostitute, and the longhorn steer.

  Before he realized it, the hour was late and the barroom was half-empty. One by one, the chairs had been vacated as the boys polished off their drinks, shrugged into their parkas and overcoats, and moseyed back out into the clammy night. Where there had once been nearly a dozen, now there were only three—Kent, Harry, and himself—teetering on that uncertain precipice between insobriety and inarticulate stupor. Cindy had long since ceased being amused and was now merely disgusted; she cleared away the empty mugs, delivered a pitcher that she firmly told them would be their last, and asked who needed a cab. Murphy managed to tell her that, yes ma’am, a cab would be a mighty fine idea, thank you very much, before he returned to the discussion at hand. Which, coincidentally enough, happened to be time travel.

  Perhaps it wasn’t so odd. Although time travel was a subject usually addressed in the more obscure books on theoretical physics, OPS people were acutely interested in the bizarre; they had to be, for that was the nature of their business. So it didn’t seem strange that Murphy would find himself discussing something like this with Kent and Harry; it was late, they were drunk, and that was all there was to it.

  “So imagine …” Harry belched into his fist. “’S’cuse me, sorry … well, imagine if time travel was possible. I mean, le’s say it’s possible to go past to the past, y’know …”

  “You can’t do it,” Kent said flatly.

  “Sure, sure, I know.” Harry waved his hand back and forth. “I know it can’t be done, I know that, okay? But le’s jus’ pretend …”

  “You can’t do it, I’m tellin’ ya. It can’t be done. I’ve read the same books, too, y’know, and I’m tellin’ ya it’s impossible. Nobody can do it. Nobody has the technology …”

  “I’m not talkin’ ’bout now, dammit. I’m talkin’ ’bout sometime in the future. Couple’a hundred thousand years from now, thass what I’m … that’s what I’m tryin’ to get at, y’know.”

  “Somebody from the future, coming back here for a visit. That it?” Murphy had read a lot of science fiction when he was a kid, and time travel was a big subject in those stories. He even had a few beat-up old Ace Doubles stashed away in his attic, although he’d never admit that to these guys. Science fiction wasn’t well respected at OPS, unless it was The X-Files.

  “Thass it.” Harry nodded vigorously. “Thass what I’m talk
in’ ’bout. Somebody from the future comin’ back here for a visit.”

  “Can’t be done,” Kent insisted. “Not in a hundred million years.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe not,” Murphy said, “but just for the sake of argument, okay. Le’s pretend someone from the future …”

  “Not just someone.” Harry reached for the half-empty pitcher, sloshed some more beer into his mug. “A lotta someones … a lot of people, comin’ back from the … y’know, the future.”

  “Yeah, right, okay.” Kent eyed the pitcher with avarice; as soon as Harry put it down, he picked it up and poured much of the rest into his own mug, leaving a half inch at the bottom of the pitcher. “Simon sez le’s pretend. So where are they?”

  “Tha’s it. Tha’s the’ point. Tha’s what summa the phizachists … phizzakists …”

  “Physicists,” Murphy said. “What I am. I yam what I yam, and that’s all that I …”

  Harry ignored him. “If you can go back in time in the future, come back to here …” He jabbed a finger against the table. “… then where are they? That’s what one of the Brits … the guy in the wheelchair, whassisname …”

  “Hawking.”

  “Right, Hawking. Anyway, that’s what he says … if time travel is possible, then where’re the time travellers?”

  “Yeah, but didn’t somebody say that about aliens?” Kent raised an eyebrow; for an instant, he almost looked sober again. “That other guy … whatchamacallit, the Italian, Fermi … once said the same thing about aliens. Luggit what we do now … look for aliens!”

  Murphy was about to add that, out of all the UFO sightings and abductions he had investigated in ten years with the OPS, he had yet to find one which panned out in terms of hard evidence. He had interviewed dozens of people who claimed to be have been taken aboard extraterrestrial spacecraft, and he’d collected enough out-of-focus photos of disc-shaped objects to fill a file cabinet, yet after a decade of government service, he had never found an alien or an alien spacecraft. He let it pass, though; this was not the time or place to be questioning his agency’s mission or methods, nor were these the people to whom he should be expressing his doubts.

  “Not the same thing, man. Not the same thing.” Although there was still some beer left in his mug, Harry reached for the pitcher, but Kent snagged it first. “If’n there was time travellers, they’d sway … stay hidden. Nobody would know they were there. They’d do it for their own good. Right?”

  Kent barked laughter as he poured the last dregs into his mug. “Yeah, sure. Like we got people from the future all ’round us now …”

  “Well, shit, we might.” Harry turned toward some guys seated nearby. “Hey, any of you fuggers from the future?”

  They glared at him, but said nothing. Cindy was wiping tables and putting up chairs; she shot them a dark look. It was getting close to last call; she didn’t seem to be happy to have garrulous drunks harassing her last remaining customers. “You wanna cool it?” Kent murmured. “Geez, I didn’t meanta make it a federal case …”

  “Hey, it is a federal case, man! Thass what we do, izzn’it? I say we bust this place for acceptin’ time travellers withoutta … withoutta … fuck, I dunno, a green card?”

  Harry reached into his suit pocket, pulled out his badge holder with the OPS seal engraved on its leatherette cover, started to push back his chair. That was enough for Murphy; he grabbed Harry’s wrist before he could stand up. “Hey, hey, take it easy …”

  Harry started to pull his hand free, but Murphy hung on. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Cindy giving the bartender a discreet hand signal; they were about a second away from being thrown out. “Calm down,” he murmured. “Keep this up and we’re going to land in jail.”

  Harry glowered at him, and for a moment Murphy wondered if he was going to throw a punch. Then he grinned and dropped back into his chair. The badge folder slipped from his hand and fell onto the table. “Shit, man … I was just kidding, thass all. Jus’ makin’ a point, y’know.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” Murphy relaxed, pulled his hand away. “I know. You’re just kidding.”

  “Thass right. Y’know an’ I know … ain’ no such thing as … geez, whatchamacallit …”

  “I know, I know. We got the point …”

  And that was it. Murphy hung around long enough to make sure that Harry had a cab ride and that he wouldn’t cause any more trouble, then he pulled on his parka and headed for the door, pausing at the bar to guiltily slip a five-spot into Cindy’s tip glass. The sidewalk was empty; the night frigid and silent. Pale exhaust fumes from the waiting taxi lingered above the curb like pallid ghosts; he climbed in, gave the driver directions to his place in Arlington, then settled back against the duct-taped seat and gazed out the frosted windows as they passed the floodlighted dome of the Capitol Building.

  Time travel. Jesus. What a stupid idea.

  Thursday, May 6, 1937: 7:04 P.M.

  The leviathan descended from the slate gray sky. At first it was a silver ovoid, but as it turned northeast, it gradually expanded in size and shape, taking on the dimensions of a vast pumpkin seed. As the drone of its four diesel engines reached the crowd gathered in the New Jersey meadow, Navy seamen in white caps jogged toward an iron mooring mast positioned in the center of the landing field. Everyone else stared up at the behemoth as it cruised six hundred feet overhead, its great shadow passing across their faces as it began making a sharp turn to the west. Now they could clearly see the swastikas on its vertical stabilizers, the Olympic rings on the fuselage above the passenger windows, and—above its control gondola, just aft of its blunt prow, painted in enormous Gothic letters—the giant’s name.

  Within the airship, passengers stood at titled cellon windows on A Deck’s promenade, watching as the Hindenburg made its final approach to Lakehurst Naval Air Station. They were arriving thirteen hours late, because of high headwinds over the Atlantic and an additional delay while a thunderstorm swept out to sea, but few people cared; during the last few hours, they had gazed down upon the spire of the Empire State Building, caused a Dodgers game to grind to a halt as they passed over Ebbets Field, and watched whitecaps breaking on the Jersey shore. Stewards had already carried their baggage to the gangway stairs aft of the staterooms, where it now lay piled beneath the bronze bust of Marshal von Hindenburg. It had been a wonderful trip: three days aboard the world’s largest and most glamorous airship, a flying hotel where mornings began with breakfast in the dining room and evenings ended with brandy and cigars in the smoking room.

  Now the voyage was over, though, and everyone wanted to get their feet on the ground again. For the Americans, it was homecoming; in a few minutes, they’d be reunited with family and friends waiting for them at the aerodrome. For the sixty-one crew members, it was the Hindenburg’s seventh flight to the United States, the first this year. For a couple of German Jews, it was escape from the harsh regime that had taken control of their native country. For three Luftwaffe intelligence officers posing as tourists, it was a temporary layover in a decadent nation of mongrels.

  For the passengers listed on the manifest as John and Emma Pannes, it was the beginning of the final countdown.

  Franc Lu raised a hand from the promenade rail to his spectacles, gently tapped their wire frame as if absently adjusting them. A readout appeared on the inside of the right lens: 19:11:31/—13:41(?)

  “Thirteen minutes,” he murmured.

  Lea Oschner said nothing, but gripped the rail a little harder. Around them, passengers were chatting, laughing, pointing at baffled cows in the pastures far below. The airship’s faint shadow was larger now, and moving closer; according to history, the Hindenburg would drop to 120 meters as it turned eastward again, heading back toward the mooring mast. The passenger decks were soundproof, so they couldn’t hear the engines, but Captain Pruss should now be ordering the engines reduced to idle-ahead; in another minute, they would be reversed to brake the airship for its docking maneuver.

&
nbsp; “Relax,” he whispered. “Nothing’s going to happen yet.”

  Lea forced a smile, but furtively clasped the back of his hand. Everyone around them was having a wonderful time; it was important that she and Franc appear just as carefree. They were John and Emma Pannes, from Manhasset, Long Island. John Pannes was the passenger manager for Hamburg-American German Lloyd Lines, the company that was the American representative for the Zeppelin airship fleet. Emma Pannes, fifteen years younger than her husband, was originally from Illinois. She had followed John’s job from Philadelphia to New York, and now they were returning from another business trip to Germany.

  Nice, quiet, middle-aged people who wouldn’t be at all nervous about being aboard the Hindenburg despite the fact that thirteen … no, make that twelve … minutes from now, they were destined to die.

  Yet John and Emma Pannes wouldn’t perish in the coming inferno. In fact, they were very much alive, well, and living somewhere in the twenty-fourth century. The CRC advance team had quietly abducted them while they were walking from their hotel to the opera on the evening of May 2, 1937, and delivered them safely to its safe house outside Frankfurt; by now they should have been picked up by the Miranda and transported to A.D. 2314. Franc hoped that the real John Pannes wouldn’t object too strongly to being kidnapped; given the alternative, though, he rather doubted that he would, once the facts were explained to him and his wife.

  Now Franc was a sixty-year-old American businessman, and Lea was forty-five instead of twenty-nine. Their appearance had been altered so convincingly that, two nights earlier, they were able to share a table in the salon with the Pannes’ old friend, Ernst Lehmann, the dirigible captain who was aboard the Hindenburg to observe Captain Pruss on his first transatlantic flight. They had dinner with Lehmann without the captain noticing any difference, yet they carefully remained aloof during most of the trip, preferring to stay in their cabin. The less interaction they had with the passengers and crew, the less chance of them inadvertently influencing history.