by Neal Asher
How very interesting, thought Tack, knowing that to voice such a thought would probably result in him getting a beating. He looked around and instantly realized that he was in no place that he knew, for in his lifetime he had never seen a landscape completely untouched by the works of man. Perhaps there had been such places in those portions of the Antarctic still not inhabited in his own era, but someone like himself did not get to travel there—his business usually involving very close contact with other human life, however briefly, not the shunning of it.
Traveller paused for a second to kick at a pile of dung before moving on. ‘Mammoth, probably. I brought us down in an interglacial period, so they’ve moved up while the ice sheet retreated. Some big animals around in this time—we definitely don’t want to run into any of the predators.’
Tack noted the massive footprints in the snow, and suddenly it felt as if a huge emotional backlog had caught up with him. That the girl had dragged him back in time he had figured with stolid logic—which was understandable since U-gov programmed its killers for dispassion. Now he experienced a surge of emotion that flipped his stomach over and made the world grow vast around him. Mammoth, he remembered from his early schooling. Smilodons … As they walked, he turned away from Traveller to scrub tears from his eyes. Then, his voice catching, he brought the subject back to their immediate circumstances, ‘Is that mantisal thing alive?’
Without looking round, Traveller said, ‘It is alive in the only way that matters.’
‘I don’t understand …’
‘Vorpal energy,’ Traveller stated succinctly and by the man’s mien Tack knew that to push him further might result in renewed violence.
More advanced, maybe, but certainly more bad tempered, thought Tack. However, when Traveller now glanced round, his expression changed utterly. Tack registered frowning surprise in the man’s face, then a hint of amusement. Traveller explained further, ‘Only life can travel in time and time travel is only possible in the time life exists. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Reality is patterned in circles, spheres, convolute and twisting dimensions. It is not required to be amenable to your logic. The linear mind finds this difficult to grasp.’
Tack felt the urge to make some sarcastic quip, but quickly repressed it.
Traveller added, ‘The limit, for life, of travel into the past is the Nodus. It is that point in the Precambrian when multi-cellular life first evolved.’
‘Why is multi-cellular life the limit? Why not single cells?’ asked Tack and waited, half-expecting to have his nose set bleeding again.
‘Ah, a sign of intelligence at last.’
Tack couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief.
Traveller went on, ‘That point is much debated. The energy gradient steepens into those aeons, and time travel is possible but unfeasible. The answer is connected with the quantity of living matter extant on Earth, and the amount of vorpal energy that generates.’
Something dubious in that explanation, thought Tack. ‘I do not know what vorpal energy is,’ he said.
It seemed Traveller did not attack him when he asked questions, no matter how they were posed. The first beating must have been only to disable him for capture, and the second time he was struck was because of his voicing sarcasm.
‘I could give you the equations, but you do not have the weight of knowledge to absorb them. It is just a kind of energy generated by the slow interaction of complex molecules. It was discovered some hundreds of years after your time when separate sciences were beginning to meld together.’
Tack surprised himself by beginning to understand. He had forgotten nothing of their discussion in the barn and now a picture was building in his mind. He had a vision of time sprouting from that point called the Nodus, branching and multiplying between facing mirrors of probability, expanding from one point towards infinity. This vision carried emotional weight and it frightened him.
As they finally reached the forest, it became evident that, behind the clouds, the sun was setting. Here, once they had pushed a little way in, they found the ground thick with pine needles and dead wood, and only sparsely scattered with snow.
‘Here. You may take off that pack now.’
It was dark under the trees and Tack was very tired. His training and his superb physical condition had carried him this far, but even he could not sustain indefinitely the kind of punishment he had received over the last—he glanced at his watch—twenty-five hours.
‘We light a fire now, eat and rest. You will take the first watch for three of your standard hours, but understand that there are only beasts here, so it is likely that the most that will be required of you is that you keep the fire going. You understand?’
In this forest glade, sheltered from an icy wind that propelled flecks of snow as from a grit blaster, they built a cairn of wood, which Traveller lit with a weapon only briefly revealed to Tack. The gun itself looked quite silly and ineffectual, but focused enough energy in that instant to incinerate half of the woodpile and send a huge cloud of white smoke ascending into the trees. The two of them then piled on more fuel and huddled close around the blaze.
POLLY OPENED GRITTY EYES, but her vision was blurred and it took a moment for her to discern Frank standing over her. She sat up slowly and looked around. She found herself on a bed in cramped sleeping quarters, with a blanket thrown over her.
‘There a toilet?’ she asked muzzily.
Frank stepped back as she sat up and put her legs over the side of the bunk. ‘Back there.’ He gestured to the door behind him. ‘But, first, I found these for you.’
He placed a bundle on the bed: army fatigues, a small pair of boots and a couple of pairs of thick socks because the boots most certainly would not be small enough. She accepted these gratefully, then stood and walked unsteadily to the door. Following her, he directed her down a short partitioned corridor to another door. Once inside she locked herself in, took off the coat, and found blessed relief on the toilet while she took off her hip bag and checked its contents. Luckily the waterproof lining was intact, the seal-strip had remained closed, and the inside was dry. She checked the contents and was not sure what she was most glad to find, her hairbrush, rolling tobacco or her taser. At the sink she cleaned herself up as best she could, brushed her hair and applied a little make-up. Then she pulled on the fatigues, up underneath her pelmet so it held them in place like a cummerbund, then pulled on the socks and boots. Thus fortified, she rolled a cigarette and put on the coat before stepping outside again. Frank was waiting for her, glancing impatiently at his watch.
‘The sun’s near up and it’s time we got back to shore,’ he told her.
Outside, in morning light, Polly observed the navy personnel starting about their business on the fort’s superstructure. Frank led her around the side, down a short ladder to the same door through which they had entered. Soon they were down on the jetty and into the boat and pulling away, Dave and Toby greeting her cheerfully.
Suddenly she was feeling very good—full of energy and anxious to be … somewhere. Turning to look back at the fort as they pulled away from it, she now had a perfect view of the structure, with its waves of camouflage paint undulating across the stocky pillars that supported it, with its radar tower and the guns.
Impressive, isn’t it?
In her head, Polly replied, ‘Yes, I never knew about things like this.’
Do you know anything about this war they’re fighting?
‘You can read my thoughts?’ she subvocalized.
No, only those ones that are on the edge of speech. Any deeper and things get a bit confusing. But tell me, what do you intend to do now? You are in an age you do not know, and I wonder what chances you have of going back to your own era.
‘I’ll survive—and maybe I’ll do better than survive. I made this thing on my arm take me back to here, so maybe I can make it take me forward again. If I can successfully travel in time, then there will be nothing I cannot do.’
Big
plans from such a little whore.
But her plans did not take into account the three who awaited her on the jetty.
LIGHTNING IGNITED OVER THE horizon like the flares of a distant battle, and the low rumble of thunder was constant. Visible through the trees, another glow lit the opposite horizon, as red and ominous as a furnace. Tack guessed there must be vulcanism over that way, but did not consider it worth the risk of seeking confirmation. Soon they were eating from Traveller’s supplies of spicy food, which Tack did not recognize but did not dislike either, then they used melted snow to make themselves hot coffee, which he felt certain he would require over the coming hours. Traveller he noticed, laced his coffee with the contents of a hip flask, but none of its contents was offered to Tack. Shortly, Traveller searched through his pack and came up with a pair of slip-on boots, which he passed to Tack. While Tack pulled them on, Traveller also unearthed two thermal sheets. One of these he tossed over to Tack, and the other he laid out on the ground for himself beside the fire. However, he showed no inclination yet for sleep.
‘Can you tell me more about this Cowl?’ Tack asked, between sips of steaming coffee.
‘Cowl is Cowl,’ said Traveller, something hard entering his voice. Then he shook his head in irritation. ‘I suppose it is best you know … Cowl is a genetically altered being from my own time, superior in intelligence, vicious, dangerous, unviable, and in our opinion not really human. He hates us because we are human, just as he hates everything else that is not of his own creation.’ Traveller stared into the flames, ‘And from beyond the Nodus he is trying to kill us all.’
Traveller made no attempt to hide the loathing in his voice. This man and Cowl had a history, Tack realized.
‘But … you said earlier you can’t travel beyond the Nodus?’ he said.
Traveller shrugged. ‘I don’t know everything.’
Tack decided not to comment on this particular first.
Traveller continued, ‘He shuffles the alternates, seeking to bring to the main line one in which the human race did not evolve and where only his kind is viable. He does this by adding his own DNA to the protomix in the seas. He is constantly experimenting and to test his results he samples the future. Tors, like the one worn by that female you were with, are the way he does that.’
‘She is a sample?’ Tack asked, thinking this explanation too pat.
Traveller met his gaze, and Tack saw that some of the colour had returned to the man’s eyes. ‘A sample, yes, and when Cowl has learnt what he wants, she will be disposed of as such,’ he said bitterly.
Tack was not sure how he felt about that. He had intended to kill the girl himself, but that some monster roosting at the beginning of time would do so, almost negligently, affronted him. He gazed at Traveller and again saw signs of irritation. Nevertheless, he risked one more question.
‘I don’t really understand. How can you travel back in time to stop him? If he succeeds, he has succeeded, and that is in the past. You would now be off the main line, so unable to travel back to him.’
‘Concurrent time,’ said Traveller almost dismissively, and lay back on his thermal sheet.
‘What is concurrent time?’
‘If Cowl succeeds in his mission, say, ten years after his arrival at the Nodus, we—my people—will be shoved off the main line ten years after he departed from us.’
‘But that won’t kill you.’
‘No, but we will no longer be able to travel in time. We’ll be somewhere down the probability slope in a prison of linear time, and closer to oblivion. That would be death to us.’
Tack had an entirely different idea about what was death; it involved horrible gristly sounds, blood and burnt flesh. He gave Traveller a final glance before spreading out his own heat sheet and sitting down on it with his seeker gun ready. At no point did he think to aim the weapon at his captor—it just wasn’t in his programming.
THE THREE MEN WORE trench coats and trilbies. Two of them looked to have been built in a tank factory, but the leaner one seemed to have been fashioned for a more vicious purpose.
‘You’ll come with us right now,’ said the lean man as soon as she stepped off the boat. He was taller than his two accompanying heavies, and good-looking in a cold sort of way.
‘Who the hell are you?’ asked Frank.
‘None of your concern,’ said the thin man, his gaze still fixed on Polly.
‘I’m making it my concern,’ growled Frank.
One of the heavies calmly took out a large revolver and pointed it at the boat captain. Perhaps seeing that things might get a little out of control, the leader turned his full attention to Frank. ‘Fleming, military intelligence.’ He displayed some paperwork from his pocket.
‘Oh.’ Frank backed off. ‘I suppose someone from Knock John got onto you. Look … she’s all right. We dragged her out of the sea …’
Fleming held up a hand to silence him. ‘I’ll get to your story in good time.’ He glanced at Toby and Dave as they too stepped off the boat, and slipped his hand menacingly into the pocket of his trench coat. Indicating the man who had drawn the revolver, he went on, ‘Garson here will return for your statements tomorrow, so I want the three of you here on this jetty at eight sharp. We will meanwhile take this young lady away and have a chat with her.’ He turned towards the shore, where a car was parked. The second heavy took hold of Polly’s biceps and guided her firmly in that direction.
See. What did I tell you?
Polly shot a look of appeal at Frank and the other two as she was marched off, but they just stood staring at her with growing suspicion.
I reckon it’ll be electrodes, and a body massage with a length of hose pipe, then a firing squad at dawn.
‘What about you?’ Polly subvocalized. ‘Will you die with me, or will you continue existing in the head of a rotting corpse?’
Oh … yes …
‘Take the coat off,’ said the unnamed heavy once they reached the car. She did as instructed and he took the garment and tossed it to Garson, who began to search it. ‘Take that off, too,’ the man then ordered, gesturing at her hip bag. ‘Carefully.’ Again she did as instructed and the item was passed on to Fleming this time. As the three men now studied her, their attention came to rest on the object on her arm.
‘Now what is that?’ enquired Fleming.
Polly glanced down at it and could think of no reasonable explanation. Nandru came to her rescue though.
Tell them it’s scar tissue. Tell them you were badly burned. The damned thing looks like part of you now, anyway.
That explanation was only accepted when it became evident to her captors that the strange covering would not be separated from her flesh, and was apparently part of it.
‘Now, hands up on the car.’ Glancing back she saw the still unnamed one pulling on tight leather gloves. She turned her face away as he did an intimately thorough body search and, wincing, she wondered if surgical gloves had yet been invented. The greatcoat was finally returned to her, then she was pushed inside the car, her searcher squeezing into the back beside her. Garson slid behind the wheel and Fleming got into the front passenger seat. Nothing more was said as the vehicle started up and they drove off, but Polly became aware of Fleming’s interest in the contents of her hip bag.
‘We have been expecting infiltration of our sea forts for some time,’ said Fleming, eventually closing the bag and placing it on the dashboard. ‘I have to admire the way you went about it. I suppose you intended to build up a relationship with Brownlow?’
‘I’m not a spy,’ said Polly grimly.
Fleming laughed quietly. ‘You’ll tell us everything eventually, so why not make it easy on yourself? Tell us all we want to know and I can promise you’ll go to Holloway rather than up against the stained and bullet-pocked brick wall in Bellhouse.’
‘I’m not a spy,’ Polly repeated desperately, realizing her story about a lover killed in North Africa would soon be proven untrue. Possessing no identification pap
ers for Fleming and his kind—no history here whatsoever—she foresaw the questions would be never-ending because no answer she could give would ever be believed or confirmed. Her only option was to escape and hide, but how? She looked at the object clinging to her arm and realized that perhaps there was another option.
Immediately upon thinking this, she felt a tension of forces webbing through her body from the alien thing. For a second her environment seemed to grow dark and she had a deeper vision of a vast colourless continuum, over which all her present surroundings seemed a translucent moving watercolour. Then suddenly she panicked and clamped down on it all, somehow, and the world around her returned to normal.
What happened then? Muse 184 has the facility to monitor your biorhythms, and they just went crazy. It is now transmitting a ‘wounded soldier’ warning.
‘I have my way out of this situation, but I’m too scared to take it. The thing wants to take me through time, but I don’t know where to,’ she subvocalized.
Perhaps you’d better save that option for when they apply the electrodes.
‘Thank you for your comforting words.’ Polly winced.
Including the car she rode in, every machine she now saw would have been classified as a serious antique in her own era. The few tractors on the fields were small machines, grey or dull red, pulling ploughs little bigger than were once pulled by a team of horses, but of a suitable scale for the little fields they occupied. There were many laid-over hedges, and many other fields contained livestock. The roads they drove upon were unmarked by lines and never wider than double-track.
