Time Loves a Hero

by Allen Steele

  Earth’s horizon appeared on the wallscreen as a vast dark curve, highlighted by a thin luminescent band of blue. Stars appeared above the blue line at the same instant he felt his body begin to rise from the seat cushion. They had achieved escape velocity; Metz was throttling back the negmass drive. But they had to stop. They had to abort to low orbit. They needed time to study what had happened aboard the Hindenburg before …

  And then the timeship’s wormhole generators went online.

  Oberon’s AI discovered a quantum irregularity in Earth’s gravity well; exotic matter contained within the pods beneath the saucer enlarged the subatomic rift into a funnel large enough for the timeship to pass through, and laced the funnel’s mouth with energy fields that would keep the wormhole temporarily stable. Within moments, a small area of spacetime was warped into something that resembled a four-dimensional ram’s horn: a closed-time-like circle. Relentlessly attracted by the wormhole it had just created, the timeship plummeted into the closed-time circle.

  Then something that felt like the hand of God slapped the timeship and sent it careening … elsewhere.

  Friday, January 16, 1998: 10:26 A.M.

  The jet was a fifteen-year-old Grumman Gulfstream II, a relic from the days when the government was still able to purchase civilian aircraft manufactured in the United States. On the inside, it only looked ten years old, which was a little better than the last ride on a Boeing 727 Murphy had taken. Yet the seats were threadbare, the overhead compartments smudged with handprints; there had been some turbulence when the jet had taken off from Dulles that had caused the fuselage to creak a bit and gave the woman sitting on the other side of the aisle reason to recite her mantra in a low, tense voice.

  Once the jet leveled off at thirty-three thousand feet and the pilot switched off the seat-belt lights, an Army lieutenant walked down the aisle to ask if anyone aboard wanted refreshments before the briefing started. Murphy settled for coffee and a bagel with cream cheese. The woman demanded to know whether the bagels were kosher, the cream cheese was low-fat, and the coffee was from Guatemala. She was miffed when the lieutenant politely informed her that the bagels were frozen and that he didn’t know about the fat content of the cheese nor where the coffee beans had come from; she settled for hot tea and scrutinized the label on the tea bag before she dipped it in her mug.

  There were five passengers aboard the Gulfstream, including Murphy himself. The humorless lady was also from OPS, but he didn’t know her name; he recognized her only from having passed her in office corridors, so he assumed she belonged to another division. The two military officers were in civilian clothes; so was the FBI man, but he was the only one besides Murphy who was dressed for the outdoors. He sat in the back of the plane, speaking on a phone while he worked on a laptop computer. When Murphy got up from his seat and went aft in search of a bathroom, the FBI man turned aside and cupped his hand over the phone as Murphy went past.

  Weird. But not half as weird when, a half hour after takeoff, the senior military officer started the briefing.

  “Gentlemen, ma’am,” he began once his aide had helped everyone swivel their chairs around so that they faced the table behind which he stood, “thank you for being here on such short notice. Your government appreciates your willingness to be summoned to duty so quickly, and I hope it hasn’t caused you any undue embarrassment.”

  He then introduced himself as Colonel Baird Ogilvy; with him was Lieutenant Scott Crawford, also from U.S. Army Intelligence. The FBI agent’s name was Ray Sanchez; he was here principally to facilitate matters with local law-enforcement officials and to act as an official observer. Ogilvy seemed pleasant enough, a gray-haired gentleman in his mid-fifties who would have been at home in a golf cart; his aide was younger and a bit more intense, but he managed a brief smile when he was introduced. Sanchez, who put down his phone only reluctantly, looked as if he were carrying a glass suppository; he frowned when Ogilvy called him by name, but said nothing. Murphy decided at once to give him a wide berth if he could help it. Most of the guys he had met from the Bureau were decent enough chaps, but Sanchez was one of those who had seen too many Steven Seagal movies.

  After the colonel introduced Murphy himself, identifying him as the OPS lead investigator for this mission, he went on to name the last two people on the plane. Murphy put a hand over his mouth when Ogilvy introduced the woman as Meredith Cynthia Luna. Lean and fox-faced, her brown hair styled in a rigid coif, she looked like a real-estate broker who had dropped acid and seen the face of the Almighty in a breakfast croissant. Murphy knew Luna only by reputation; a psychic from Remote Sensing Division, she was supposedly difficult to work with, apparently believing that she possessed a sixth-sense hot line to another dimension. She preened when Ogilvy mentioned her ES-Per abilities, and Murphy wondered if she would demonstrate her talents by proclaiming that they would soon be flying over water.

  Not for the first time, Murphy wondered why he was working for the Office of Paranormal Sciences; not for the first time, he remembered the reasons. NASA was dead, salary jobs at the National Science Foundation were vanishing faster than humpback whales, and far more astrologers were gainfully employed these days than astrophysicists. So Murphy did the best he could, trying to be a voice of reason among spoon-benders and firewalkers, and when he found himself contemplating resignation, he reminded himself that there was a mortgage that needed to be paid and a son who had to be sent to college, and thanked God that Carl Sagan was no longer alive so he wouldn’t have to tell his old Cornell prof what he was now doing for a living.

  As Colonel Ogilvy continued, Crawford began passing out blue folders with eyes-only strips across the covers. “At 6:42 A.M. Eastern this morning, two F-15C fighters from Sewert Air Force Base outside Nashville were on a training sortie over the Cumberland Plateau sixty-eight miles east-southeast of base when they encountered an unidentified object.” Ogilvy’s eyes occasionally darted to his folder. “The planes were at 30,500 feet at this time, and the object was on a due-east heading above them, altitude approximately 45,000 feet when first sighted, approximately 10 to 15 miles distant from the planes’ position. It appeared to be entering the atmosphere at a sharp downward angle of approximately 47 degrees, at an airspeed in excess of Mach 2. Although the object wasn’t detected by radar either from the planes or by military or civilian air-traffic control, both pilots reported clear visual confirmation of the object.”

  Ogilvy flipped to another page. “Upon receiving clearance from base, both planes moved to intercept the object. Upon close approach at 34,000 feet, they described the object as a flying saucer approximately 65 feet in diameter and 20 feet high—about the size of their own aircraft—which flew without any visible means of propulsion. At the front of the object’s upper hull was a single window.”

  Meredith Cynthia Luna held up a hand; Ogilvy acknowledged her with a brief nod. “Did the pilots see any aliens within the spacecraft?”

  “No, ma’am, the pilots didn’t spot any occupants. They were doing the best they could just to match the object’s course and speed.”

  “Did the pilots report receiving any psychic transmissions?”

  “Ma’am, the pilots attempted to contact the craft by radio, on both LF and HF bands. They received no transmissions, radio or otherwise.” Was Murphy imagining things, or was Ogilvy trying to keep a straight face?

  “But it seemed as if the object had entered the atmosphere. Is that correct?”

  “Given the fact that it was first spotted in the upper atmosphere and was descending at supersonic speed, that’s the impression they had, yes ma’am.” Ogilvy held up his hand. “Please let me finish the briefing, then I’ll take your questions.”

  The colonel consulted his notes again. “When they failed to establish radio communication with the craft, both pilots maneuvered their aircraft so they could get a closer look at the object. By this point the craft had decelerated to sub-Mach velocity, and it appeared to be leveling off its approach a
s it passed an altitude of 29,000 feet. One pilot, Capt. Henry G. O’Donnell, took up position 700 feet from the craft’s starboard side, while his wingman, Capt. Lawrence H. Binder, attempted to fly closer to the object in order to inspect it. Binder was passing beneath the object’s underside when his jet apparently lost electrical power.”

  “Lost power?” Murphy raised a hand; the colonel nodded in his direction. “You mean, he … his jet failed to respond to his controls?”

  “I mean, Dr. Murphy, Capt. Binder’s aircraft lost all electrical power. Avionics, propulsion, telemetry, the works. He said it was as if someone had pulled the plug. His plane went into a flat spin, and Binder was forced to eject manually from the cockpit.”

  “I’ve heard of this happening before,” Meredith Cynthia Luna murmured. “A police officer in Florida had his car lose power when he encountered a spacecraft.”

  “Did he eject?” Lieutenant Crawford asked.

  Murphy slapped a hand over his mouth. Oh God, don’t laugh, don’t laugh … then he saw Ogilvy forcing a cough into his fist as he shot a look at his aide, and realized that he wasn’t the only rational person aboard this plane.

  “It’s not funny!” Luna’s face was red with righteous indignation. “The poor officer suffered a terrible ordeal! He was held captive for twelve hours!” Then she turned to the colonel. “Tell me … did the pilot receive any psychic impressions when this occurred?”

  Murphy jotted down a note in the margins of his binder: 100% loss of F-15 elec.—EMP?

  Ogilvy ignored her. “Captain O’Donnell, upon seeing his wingman lose control of his craft while in close proximity of the object, decided that hostile action had been taken by the object. Following Air Force rules of engagement, he fell back one thousand feet, then locked his AIM-9 Sidewinder missile onto the object.”

  Luna was horrified. “Oh, no! He didn’t …”

  “Yes, ma’am. After attempting one last time to establish radio contact with the object, Captain O’Donnell launched his missile.”

  Time unknown

  “Hang on!” Metz shouted.

  Franc barely had time to grab the armrest of the pilot’s chair before the timeship violently pitched sideways. Even so, he was hurled across the control room; his left shoulder slammed against a bulkhead, and he slid to the deck.

  “Did it hit?” he yelled.

  “Detonated in the negmass field.” Metz was still buckled in his seat, hauling against the stick as he fought for control. He glanced up at the ship-status screen. “No hull damage. We’re lucky. But we’re still going down.”

  Ignoring his bruised shoulder, Franc struggled to his hands and knees, crawled upward along the deck toward Metz’s chair. In the last moments before the timeship plunged into Earth’s atmosphere, the pilot had managed to reactivate Oberon’s gravity screen. If he hadn’t, the missile’s shock wave would have pulverized him against the bulkhead.

  A small blessing. Oberon was plummeting through Earth’s lower atmosphere, less than nine thousand meters above the ground. They didn’t know when or where they were, or even how they got there, save that the wormhole had thrown them back toward Earth so quickly that the timeship’s negmass drive had drained most of its energy in order to make a safe reentry. The AI had stabilized the ship just enough to keep the crew from being roasted alive, yet the effort had severely drained its fusion cells.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, two contemporary aircraft had spotted the timeship during its atmospheric entry. One made the mistake of flying within the electromagnetic field cast by Oberon’s drive, causing the jet to lose power. Although its pilot had managed to escape, his partner apparently misinterpreted the accident as hostile action.

  “Can you get us out of here?” The deck was tilting less sharply now as Metz began to level off the timeship. Grasping the armrest, Franc painfully clambered to his knees. “Maybe we can outrun that thing.”

  “Any other time, no problem.” Clutching the stick, Metz stabbed at the console with his free hand. “But power’s down 47 percent and dropping, and the field’s getting weaker. If that jet launches another missile …”

  “Understood.” The negmass field had effectively shielded the timeship from the missile, but they couldn’t count on the same luck again if the jet launched another one. “Hole generators?”

  “Sure, I can open a hole.” Metz scowled as he punched at the flatpanels, trying to reroute more power to the drive. “If you want to blow an eighty-klick crater in the ground below us. That’ll screw up the worldline nice and proper, won’t it?”

  “Forget I asked.” Stupid question; this was the very reason why timeships always departed from orbit. Franc glanced at a screen. The remaining jet had fallen back a little, but it was still dogging their every move. He tapped the mike he had snagged on his way out of the passenger compartment. “Lea? Got anything on that aircraft yet?”

  Her voice came through his earpiece. “Library identifies it as a F-15C Eagle, circa late twentieth century U.S. Air Force.” She began reading data from the library pedestal. “Single-seater … maximum speed Mach 2.5 … ceiling 18,288 meters … range about 5,600 kilometers … armament includes 20-mm cannon, air-to-air and air-to-ground missiles …”

  “Forget that! How do we dodge the thing?”

  “Dammit, Franc, how should I know?”

  “Tom,” Metz snapped, “what’s going on back there?”

  “I’m working on it!” The last time Franc had seen Hoffman, the mission spec was on his hands and knees in the passenger compartment, his arms thrust deep into a service bay beneath the deck plates. “I’ve rerouted the gravity subsystem to the negmass, but I can’t access the main bus without … shit!”

  The deck buffeted violently as the timeship hit heavy turbulence. Through the headset, Franc heard Hoffman curse as he pitched sideways once more; true to his word, he had cut off the gravity screen. Hanging on to the armrest, Franc glanced again at the porthole. The last skeins of cirrus clouds dissipated like smoke, revealing a countryside of rolling hills shadowed by the early-morning sun. High country, dotted here and there by white spots and tiny irregular grids, sprawled below them: houses, small towns, farm fields. According to Lea, they were somewhere over Tennessee.…

  Franc glimpsed something that looked like two parallel black ribbons running through the hills—a highway, perhaps—then an irregular silver-blue surface swam into view. A large lake, its channels meandering past miles of sharp ridgetops …

  “We can’t do this much longer,” Metz murmured. “I’m trying to lose that thing, but it’s …”

  “Put it down,” he said softly.

  “What?” Metz glanced over his shoulder at him, then followed his gaze to the porthole. “Down there?”

  “Yeah, down there. Is the chameleon still operational?”

  Metz glanced at his board. “If I divert ten percent power, sure, but it won’t work unless we’re hugging the ground.”

  “Not the ground. The lake.” Franc reached forward, punched up a close-up shot of the lake below them; two more taps on the panel projected a thermographic false-image. “There’s the deep end,” he said, pointing at a dark blue splotch within the lake’s widest area. “If you can get down there, do a water landing, maybe we can submerge, lose that thing once and for all.”

  The pilot’s eyes widened. “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Probably, but you got a better idea? Maybe you can find a nice little airport. We can always tell the locals we’re from Mars.” He nodded toward the flatscreen; the jet continued to follow them like an angry terrier. “Or we can let our friend lob another missile at us. Maybe he’ll get lucky this time.”

  Metz’s eyes raced from the porthole to the flatscreen to his status board: the lake, the jet, the uncertain status of his craft. Any way you added it up, it was a losing equation.

  “Okay, all right. I’ll take us down.” The deck canted again as Metz pulled the stick to one side; this time, Franc hung on for dear life. “
Now get back to your seat and buckle in. Whatever happens, it’s going to be rough.”

  “Good luck.” Franc slapped the pilot’s shoulder, then let go of the armrest and flung himself toward the hatch behind him.

  He nearly collided with Lea in the passageway; she opened her mouth to speak, but he shoved her into the passenger compartment before him. Hoffman was struggling back onto his knees; the tools from the fixit kit were skittering every which way across the deck, and he had only barely managed to shove the access panel shut.

  “What’s going on?” he shouted. “What are we doing?”

  “Landing in a lake! Hang on, going to be rough!”

  Another violent swerve, and Franc fell headfirst into a couch. He managed to wrench its belly strap around himself just as the craft yawed once more.

  “Going evasive!” Metz’s voice yelled in his headset.

  Lea grabbed his thigh and clung to him as he grabbed her by the shoulders, but Tom was flung backward against a bulkhead. He slid down the wall, his arms limp at his sides.

  “Tom!” Lea started to crawl toward the unconscious man.

  “Strap down!” Franc yelled at her, then he flung her toward the adjacent couch. Lea hit the seat hard, but somehow she managed to land in it, not next to it. Dazed, she started pulling the straps around herself.

  Franc glanced at Tom; there was nothing he could do for him. The timeship was probably working on 50 percent power or less; Metz was trying to dredge what little energy remained in Oberon’s cells for a controlled crash landing. Safely strapped down, Lea was shouting at Hoffman again, but he couldn’t answer; the mission specialist was out cold.

  His throat gnarled with fear, his fingers digging into the armrests, Franc stared at the wallscreen. A rippling blue-green surface scudded past them only a hundred meters below, its edges marked by tall limestone bluffs. A trestle bridge shot beneath them with less than ten meters to spare, then it vanished, and they were going down, down, down …