Time Loves a Hero

by Allen Steele

  There had been a close moment yesterday, though, when they’d joined a tour of the ship.

  The tour was necessary. John and Emma had toured the airship, so they had to follow the course of history. Yet, more importantly, it gave the researchers an opportunity to fulfill the primary objective of their mission: delivering an eyewitness account of the Hindenburg’s last voyage, and documenting the reason why the LZ-129 had been destroyed. So while the passengers marched single file along the keel catwalk, gaping at the vast hydrogen cells within the giant duraluminum rings, Franc and Lea paused now and then to stick adhesive divots, each no larger than the rivets they resembled, to girders and conduits. They had artfully scattered the divots everywhere aboard the airship; the divots transmitted sights and sounds to the recorders concealed within Franc’s cigarette case and Lea’s makeup compact, both of which had evaded discovery by the Gestapo agents who inspected everything carried aboard the Hindenburg by its passengers before they left the Frankfurter Hof the morning of the flight. Of course, the Nazis had been searching for a bomb, not for surveillance equipment so microscopic that it could be hidden within commonplace items of the early twentieth century.

  The incident occurred when the tour reached the airship’s stern, just below the place where the bomb was carefully sewn into the canvas liner beneath Cell Number 4. Kurt Ruediger, the ship’s doctor who was conducting the tour, had paused to point out the landing-gear well in the lower vertical stabilizer when they heard footfalls descending a ladder above them. A few seconds later, a rigger appeared from the darkness, stepping off the ladder to head forward toward the nose.

  When he came into the half-light cast by the electric lamps strung along the catwalk, Franc and Lea recognized him at once: Eric Spehl, whom history would cast as the man who had planted the bomb that would destroy the Hindenburg. He didn’t look much like a saboteur, although he was within sight of the tiny package he had hidden in the gas cell while the ship was hangared at Friedrichshafen. Indeed, he seemed little more than an overworked rigger: a tall, blond man in drab cotton coveralls and rubber-soled shoes. As the passengers stepped aside to let him pass, though, Lea hesitated on the narrow catwalk. The necklace around her throat held a nanocam; this was her only chance to record Spehl’s image.

  The heel of her left shoe caught on the aluminum-mesh floor, though, and she tripped and staggered backward, her hands blindly groping for the railing. The airship’s taut canvas skin lay only thirty feet below the catwalk; past that was a three-hundred-meter plummet into the frigid waters of the North Atlantic. Franc reached out to catch her, but Spehl was closer. He grabbed her by the shoulders and steadied her, then he smiled politely and said something about being careful, Fraulein. Then he turned and walked away.

  A small occurrence, over and done within a few seconds, yet the significance of such incidents had long been a matter of debate within the Chronospace Research Centre. Some researchers argued that worldlines were so rigid that even the slightest disturbance could have vast ramifications; look what had almost happened when the CRC placed someone in a parking lot behind a high fence near Dealy Plaza in Dallas on November 22, 1963. Others contended that chronospace was more flexible than anyone believed; minor accidents were allowable during expeditions because history was already in motion. It didn’t matter how many butterflies one crushed underfoot during the Pleistocene; the dinosaurs would die anyway.

  Nonetheless, once Franc and Lea returned to their cabin, they had quietly fretted over whether the incident would cause a paradox. Yet history apparently hadn’t been disturbed. Monitoring the airship from their cabin the following morning, as the Hindenburg approached the American coast, they watched as Spehl walked down the keel catwalk, furtively looked either way, then climbed the ladder to Cell Number 4. The divot Franc placed at the bottom of the ladder couldn’t make him out in the visible spectrum, but his thermographic image showed him clinging to the ladder beneath the cell as he set the photographer’s timer that would send an electric current from two dry-cell batteries into a small phosphorous charge.

  At 7:25 P.M. local, plus an indeterminate number of seconds, 203,760 cubic meters of hydrogen would be ignited. Thirty-seven seconds later, the Hindenburg would hit the ground as 241 tons of flaming mass.

  Now the mighty airship was slowing down. Through the promenade windows, they saw the crackerbox shape of the hangar, the skeletal mooring mast surrounded by tiny figures in white caps. Franc tapped his glasses again: 19:17:31/-08.29(?) In a few seconds, the aft water ballast tanks would be released, the bowlines dropped.

  It wasn’t the next eight minutes that bothered him, though; it was the thirty-seven-plus seconds that would follow the explosion. He and Lea had had little trouble getting aboard the Hindenburg. Now they had to see if they could get off again.

  Thursday, May 5, 1937: 7:21 P.M.

  One of the most interesting things about the early 20th century, Vasili Metz concluded, was the way Earth looked from space.

  It wasn’t just the relative smallness of its cities, or the clarity of the skies above them, or the subtle differences of the coastlines. It was surprising to see New York City when its skyline was new and not half-submerged, but even that was to be expected. This was his third mission as the Oberon’s pilot, and he had become accustomed to such changes. What struck him as unreal was the emptiness of near-Earth space. No powersats, no colonies, no shuttles. Chronos Station was nowhere to be seen. There wasn’t even any space debris; the first satellite wouldn’t be launched for forty years, and another thirty years would pass before free-falling junk would pose a navigational hazard.

  On the other hand, it would be another ten years before anyone ever reported having seen a flying saucer. And it would remain that way if he had any say in the matter.

  For the past three days, after a brief visit to Earth to drop off Lu and Oschner within Frankfurt, then a suborbital jaunt to deposit Tom Hoffman in New Jersey, Metz had held station in geosynchronous orbit above the Garden State. Except for when he monitored the Miranda’s departure, when it opened the wormhole that would send the support team, plus two nice people named John and Emma Pannes, back to Chronos Station, he had been almost alone.

  Three hours earlier, Oberon had descended to a new orbit 289 kilometers above New Jersey, and Metz had suddenly become quite busy. Maintaining the proper balance between the timeship’s negmass drive and Earth’s gravity, while simultaneously compensating for the planet’s rotation, was difficult enough; he also had to remain in contact with Hoffman. With no comsats available to assist them, and Tom unable to throw up a transceiver dish, they had to relay on old-fashioned ELF bands that wouldn’t likely be intercepted by ham radio operators of this period.

  “Oberon, this is Lakehurst Base.” Hoffman’s voice came over Metz’s headset. “Do you copy? Over.”

  Metz prodded his throat mike. “We copy, Lakehurst. What’s the mission status?”

  “Status good. Hindenburg’s at the tower. Water ballast down, bowlines have just been dropped. Holding steady at about ninety-one meters. Event minus three minutes, sixteen seconds, and counting.”

  Hoffman was trying to remain professionally detached, but Metz could hear the excitement in his voice. Nor could he blame him; the mission specialist was about to witness one of the classic technodisasters of this century, one which would put an end to commercial airship travel for the next nine decades. It was probably all Tom could do to remain seated within the automobile he had rented a couple of days earlier; however, it wouldn’t do for him to be seen lugging a comlink case around the aerodrome.

  “Copy that, Lakehurst.” A flatscreen below the porthole displayed a false-color radar image of the Hindenburg floating above Lakehurst Naval Air Station. The dirigible was a light blue bullet-shaped blip surrounded by hundreds of tiny white gnats. Above the image was the mission timer: 5.07.37/19.22.05/E—02.45(?). “Holding station, ready for pickup on your mark.”

  “Very good, Oberon. I’m about …” Th
e rest was lost in a wave of static. Metz’s hands moved across his console, correcting the timeship’s position; the static cleared and Hoffman’s voice came back: “… is huge. You wouldn’t believe how big it is. Almost the size of an asteroid freighter. It’s …”

  “Keep your mind on the job.”

  “The motor’s running. I’m ready to go.” Another pause. “Can you believe people actually used these things to get around? They smell awful.”

  “I know. Stay focused.” Metz glanced at the mission chronometer again. Two minutes, eleven seconds and counting, plus or minus a few seconds given the inexactness of contemporary records. Those few seconds were going to be the tricky part of this operation.

  “All right, Franc,” he murmured. “Don’t screw up now.”

  Thursday, May 6, 1937: 7:23 P.M.

  An odd stillness had fallen over the airfield. The light drizzle had let up for a moment as dull gray clouds parted here and there, allowing sunlight to lance down upon the aerodrome and reflect greenish twilight off the Hindenburg’s silver skin. The Navy men had the zeppelin’s mooring lines in their hands; they dug in their heels, playing tug-of-war with the leviathan looming three hundred feet above their heads. On the outskirts of the crowd, a radio newsman from Chicago delivered a breathless report of the airship’s arrival into a portable dictaphone machine.

  Glancing around the promenade, Franc realized that he was surrounded by dead people. Fritz Erdmann, the Luftwaffe colonel who had been trying to ferret out a saboteur among his fellow passengers, but failed to notice Eric Spehl; he would soon be crushed by a flaming girder. Hermann Doehner and his lovely teenage daughter Irene, taking a family vacation to America: they were doomed as well. Moritz Feibusch, the sweet man whom the stewards had segregated from other German passengers simply because he was a Jew; he would soon perish. Edward Douglas, the General Motors businessman the Gestapo believed was an American spy, whom Erdmann had dogged during the entire flight; he, too, was living his last minutes.

  And so were John and Emma Pannes. At least, this was how history would record their fate.

  Although the clothes he and Lea had put on this morning appeared to be made of contemporary wool and cotton, they were woven from flame-resistant fabrics unknown in this century. The handkerchiefs in their pockets, once unfolded and placed over their mouths, contained two-minute supplies of molecular oxygen. They had left nothing in their baggage which had been made in the twenty-fourth century; the divots they had scattered throughout the airship would dissolve when the ambient air temperature reached 96 Celsius. When no one recovered their bodies from the wreckage, it would be presumed that their corpses had been incinerated by the inferno. This wasn’t too far from the mark; some of the bodies recovered from the disaster had only been identifiable by wedding bands or engraved watches.

  “Time,” Lea whispered.

  Franc prodded his glasses again. “Sixty-five seconds, plus or minus a few.” Then he took off the spectacles and slipped them into a vest pocket. She nodded and returned her hand to the railing.

  There was a sudden rush of cool air. A few feet down the promenade, someone had cranked open a window. A woman waved to a man with a bulky motion-picture camera on the ground far below. Ghosts. He was surrounded by ghosts.

  In the breast pocket of his jacket, Franc carried the one personal souvenir of this trip he had permitted himself: a folded sheet of paper, engraved with the Hindenburg’s name and picture, upon which were printed the airship’s passenger list. This wasn’t for the CRC; when he got home, he would frame it on the wall of his Tycho City apartment. Lea had nagged him about taking it, until he pointed out that it would be destroyed anyway; he later pretended not to notice when she tucked a teaspoon into the garter belt of her stockings. Little things like that wouldn’t be missed. He just wished he could save the two caged dogs back in the baggage compartment. Dogs were so scarce where they came from, and he hated to think what would happen to them when …

  Franc took a deep breath. Calm down, calm down. You’re going to get through this. Just don’t lose your head now …

  They had deliberately placed themselves on the starboard promenade of Deck B, not far from the gangway stairs. Many of the survivors had lived simply because they were here and not on the port promenade of the same deck, where others would be pinned down by dining-room furniture. The original John Pannes died because he left the promenade just before the crash to see about Emma, who had remained in their cabin for unknown reasons. Airsickness? A premonition, perhaps? History hadn’t recorded the exact reasons why the Pannes had died, but he and Lea wouldn’t make the same fatal error.

  The airship’s stern would hit the ground first. Although the aluminum grand piano at the far end of the promenade worried them, they had already agreed to rush the gangway as soon as they felt that first, fateful jerk that everyone would initially assume to be a mooring rope snapping. Down the stairs past the Deck A landing, then down another flight of stairs to the passenger hatch … by the time they got that far, the airship would be almost on the ground. They shouldn’t have to jump more than four meters.

  Thirty-seven seconds. From the instant when the first flame appeared on the upper aft fuselage to the moment the Hindenburg was a flaming skeleton, only thirty-seven seconds would elapse. Time enough to cheat history …

  Or time enough to lose the bet.

  Franc felt Lea slide against him. “If we don’t …”

  “We will.”

  Her head nodded against his shoulder. “But if we don’t …”

  “Don’t tell me you love me.”

  Her laughter was nervous and dry. “Stop flattering yourself.”

  He managed to chuckle, and her hand briefly squeezed his arm before it returned to the railing. Franc glanced to his left, saw the dirigible’s shadow gliding closer to the mooring mast. “Hang on … any second now …”

  The airship drifted back, forward, back again. The ground crew fought the wind as they hauled the behemoth toward the iron tripod. The two ground shadows converged, became as one.

  Franc clung to the railing, felt it dig into his palms. Okay, okay … when is it going to happen?

  A sudden, hard jolt ran through the ship.

  He grabbed Lea’s shoulders, turned her toward the door heading to the gangway. “Okay, let’s go!” he snapped. “Move, move …!”

  Lea took a step, then stopped. He slammed into her back.

  “Wait a minute …” she whispered.

  “Move!” He shoved at her. “We don’t have …!”

  Then he stopped, and listened.

  The deck was stable. It wasn’t tilting beneath their feet.

  No screams. No shouting. The chairs and tables remained where they were.

  Passengers gaped at them with baffled amusement. Edward Douglas chuckled and turned to say something behind his hand to his wife. Moritz Feibusch gave him a look of sympathy. Irene Doehner enjoyed a brief moment of teenage condescension. Colonel Erdmann sneered at him.

  Then one of the stewards strolled down the promenade, announcing that the Hindenburg had arrived and that all passengers were to make way to gangway stairs. Please do not forget your baggage. Please proceed directly to American customs.

  Franc looked down at Lea. Her face was pale; she trembled against him.

  “What went wrong?” she whispered.

  Friday, January 16, 1998: 8:12 A.M.

  Murphy didn’t hear the phone when it rang; he was in the bathroom, using a styptic pen on the cuts his razor had made against his chin and neck. Lately he had been keeping the razor beneath a little glass pyramid that his wife had given him for Christmas, but it wasn’t preserving the blade’s sharpness the way its brochure claimed it would. Either that, or the brutal hangover he suffered this morning had made him sloppy while shaving.

  At any rate, he wasn’t aware that someone was calling for him until Donna knocked on the door. Office, she mouthed silently as she extended the cordless to him, and Murphy wince
d. He was already running late, thanks to the blinding headache he’d woken up with; there must be some eight o’clock meeting he had forgotten, and someone at OPS had phoned to find out what was keeping him. Donna hadn’t been pleased when he’d come home drunk in a cab, and the prospect of having to give him a lift to the office wasn’t helping her forgive him. She gave him another withering look as he took the phone, then went back to watching the morning horoscope on TV.

  “This is Zack.” He tucked the phone under his chin as he reached for the deodorant stick.

  “Zack, it’s Roger Ordmann …”

  The phone almost fell into the sink. Roger Ordmann was the agency’s Chief Administrator. Murphy had spoken with him exactly three times during his tenure at OPS; the first time was when he had been hired, the other two during social occasions. Roger Ordmann was the man the President called when Mary Lincoln’s ghost was seen roaming the second floor of the White House.

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Ordmann. Sorry I’m running late, but the car battery died this morning. My wife’s about ready to bring me in, though, so …”

  “That’s okay, Dr. Murphy. Perfectly understandable. We have a small problem here that we need to discuss.”

  The bathroom tiles suddenly felt much colder beneath his bare feet. Oh, God, it’s something to do with last night. Harry got in a fight at the bar and was taken downtown. Or Kent cracked up his car while trying to drive home. The police got involved and his name came out. “A problem, sir?”

  “Are you on a secure line?”

  A moment of puzzlement. What was Ordmann asking? Then he remembered that he was on a cordless phone. “Umm … no, sir. Do you want me to …?”

  “Please.”

  “Just a moment, sir …” Murphy fumbled with the phone until he found the Hold button, then he stalked across the house to the little office next to the den. Donna barely glanced up as he shut the door behind him; the TV volume was up, which meant that she shouldn’t be able to hear what he was saying. The forecaster was explaining why this was a good day for Capricorns to renew old friendships, particularly with Scorpios.