The Empire of Time

by David Wingrove

  I’m not sure why he looks at me as he says that, but I sense it has something to do with my comment the other day – about the Russians. Maybe he thinks I’m a Russian spy. Or maybe he’s just teasing.

  ‘Okay,’ he says, touching a panel on the side. ‘Get in the back.’

  As the door hisses open and lifts, I look to Burckel, but he seems as surprised as me. It’s a beautiful machine, but I’m not sure I want to fly around in it. Yet it seems we’ve no choice. We climb in, sinking into the scented white leather of those luxurious seats.

  I want to ask him what the deal is. This clearly can’t be his. But cameras are watching, and he’s told us not to speak.

  He climbs into the front, and as the door locks shut he buckles himself in, then reaches out and starts the flyer up. There’s the faintest vibration, and then the Steuermann lifts gently. As it does so the whole of the wall in front of us hisses open and we glide forward, out into the exit tunnel, the Steuermann moving smoothly, effortlessly on a cushion of air.

  Our friend slows to a halt in front of a panel of lights, then, as the configuration changes and the outer door slides open, slips the flyer out into one of the air-lanes, banking to the left, then straightening out again, accelerating as he does so, joining the flowing stream of traffic in the massive concourse.

  He handles the machine beautifully, climbing, banking, turning, finding his way without hesitation through the maze of giant tunnels. I relax, enjoying the sensation of flight, easing back in my seat, staring out at the massive struts and slabs that seem to flit by at a frightening pace.

  There’s never been a city like Neu Berlin, not before or since, and though much of it is architecturally quite brutal, its scale is something else.

  Minutes pass, and then we slow again, finally coming to a halt at a major junction. There’s a huge vertical shaft just ahead of us. I lean forward, looking up through the glass of the cockpit. It’s like someone has dropped a massive rock through the city’s levels. Up there, a long way up, I can glimpse the morning sky, though down here it’s dark, the walls studded with faintly glowing lamps, embedded in the fine crash-mesh that covers every surface.

  Our friend waits, watching the signal panel, then eases forward gently, beginning his descent. Down we go, down and down and down, until I wonder just how much further we can go. And then we stop.

  Just across from us is a guard post. It’s the only brightly lit point in the sea of darkness that stretches away on all sides. The ceiling here is fifty yards above us, yet despite the scale of things it feels intensely claustrophobic. The whole weight of the city seems to press down on us.

  The lone guard yawns, sets his paper down, scratches himself, then steps out and comes across.

  ‘Hi, Henny,’ he says, as our friend raises the door. ‘Nice flyer.’

  They talk for a while. Inconsequential stuff. But I now know more about our friend than he would probably wish. A name, an occupation. So much for his anonymity.

  Henny. It could be Heinrich. Unless that’s his second name.

  Eventually they exchange papers and, closing the door, we fly on, our headlights penetrating the darkness, until, in their glare, we see a big, low building of steel and glass. It looks old, abandoned. We steer to the right, and as we do, a queue of other flyers comes into sight, their engines idling, waiting to be admitted, but he ignores them, glides past and on round the back of the massive building, then slows as we approach a ramp.

  There are more guards, armed this time and wearing body armour and visors.

  ‘It’s a secure area,’ he says quietly. ‘They’ll need to see your passes.’

  One of the guards steps up and, seeing us in the back, gestures with his gun for our friend to open up.

  ‘Who are these?’

  ‘I’m taking them to see the Supervisor. He’s expecting them.’

  The guard takes our passes, scans them, then straightens, listening to something in his head. He nods and hands them back. ‘Okay. Go through.’

  The gate opens and we glide inside, into some kind of airlock. As the doors slam shut behind us, three men approach, scanning the flyer with tiny, hand-held sensors. Looking about me I note the automated guns that are trained on us.

  Satisfied, the three step back. One of them raises his hand. A moment later the inner doors hiss open and we go through.

  The noise and activity hit us at once. It’s a regular beehive. To both sides the Werkstätte are stacked up, floor to ceiling, each one a fully equipped service station, hundreds of them, piled one atop another, level after level, the single row in front of us stretching away out of sight, one of Urd knows how many rows.

  I am astonished. It’s a giant repair and maintenance shop. Big enough, by the look of it, to cope with half of Neu Berlin.

  As we glide slowly down the row I look about me. Technicians are busy everywhere, working on flyers of every shape and size. The bright flash of welding arcs and the buzz of machinery form a stark contrast to the darkness and silence outside. The whole place must be sound-dampened. Our friend ‘Henny’ seems to have relaxed now that he’s inside, and he half turns to us, even as he steers the big Steuermann towards the far side of the hangar.

  ‘Its okay. You can talk now if you want. There are cameras here, but it’s our people monitoring them.’

  ‘Your people?’

  He smiles, then slows the craft and eases it over to the right. ‘That’s right. The Unbeachtet.’

  The unnoticed. The ignored.

  I smile. ‘I like the name. And the Supervisor?’

  ‘He’ll see us when he can. Maybe an hour from now. It depends.’

  ‘But I thought—’

  He kills the engine, and, as the flyer slowly sinks to the ground, he turns, looking directly at me, his grey eyes serious.

  ‘Be patient, Otto. He’s a very busy man. You’re lucky that he’s seeing you at all.’

  101

  We hang around, waiting, wondering if the delay’s deliberate, to make some kind of point, yet when our friend returns, he seems apologetic.

  ‘I’m sorry. There was a problem. But he can see you now.’

  He leads us up a dozen flights of steps and then out along a kind of wire mesh walkway that leads across and between the stacks, high up, near the ceiling itself. At the far end of it is a kind of metallic cabin. It looks makeshift, hanging there by four great chains from the ceiling overhead, yet the underneath of it bristles with guns and cameras, and I wonder why.

  The walkway ends at a gate. Our friend unlocks it and lets us through. It’s not much of a barrier, but I can see its usefulness. It’s not meant to stop anyone, it’s meant to delay. The guns overhead would do the rest.

  I step inside, following our guide, expecting what? A control room of some kind, maybe. But it’s nothing of the sort. It’s a simple living space. There’s a bed in the corner and another to my right. There’s a small kitchen, marked off to my left and, in the centre, two old-fashioned sofas and a coffee table. Shelves of books fill every other bit of wall space. But this much I take in only at a glance, for my attention is immediately taken by the Supervisor and his companion.

  ‘Urd’s breath,’ Burckel whispers beside me. ‘I never thought …’

  The Supervisor is a small man, unimpressive in all but one aspect. His head. As he stands and smiles a welcome, so ancient instincts awake in me, making my skin crawl; the hairs at the back of my neck stand up.

  The skull is huge, like two skulls sewn together, side by side, the strange double bulge of the hairless dome tapering down to a boney ridge that seems to sit like a frill beneath both ears and around the top of his neck. Broad shoulders and massive neck muscles hold the doubled head in place, but otherwise his body’s fairly normal. Nor is he alone. His companion, smaller than him and clearly female, has the same shaped head. Her smile is very like his, her mouth tiny in that broad face.

  I’ve read about this. It was a Mechanist trick, to put two brains into one skull and
somehow make it work, linking the two with bridges of ultra-fine fibre-optics. Doppelgehirn, they called them. But I’m surprised, even so, to meet one. I thought they’d all died out long ago.

  ‘You look shocked,’ the Supervisor says, more amused than offended. And why not? He has probably seen this response a thousand times and more. His voice is soft, pleasant, like the voice of a homely uncle.

  ‘No, no I—’ And then I laugh. ‘Forgive me. I didn’t mean to be rude.’

  He gives me his hand. ‘It’s understandable.’ Then, smiling, he turns, indicating the girl beside him. ‘Otto, Albrecht, this is my daughter, Gudrun. And I am Michael Reichenau. A Doppelgehirn, as you see, and Supervisor of Werkstätt 9. Heinrich you’ve met.’

  ‘Though not by name.’

  Reichenau smiles, his mouth seeming exceedingly small in that huge face. ‘You blame him for his caution?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Then be seated. Gudrun, bring us drinks. Something a bit stronger than coffee, eh?’

  Heinrich leaves, and as we take our seats, I find I can’t stop looking at Reichenau – or rather, at his head. Two brains, two distinct minds, sit in that skull. I’d read that many of them attained a kind of wisdom, what one might term a genuine supra-human enlightenment, but that was rare. Most simply went mad.

  ‘It must be difficult.’

  ‘Difficult? How do you mean?’

  ‘Living with yourself.’

  Reichenau laughs at that. ‘No more than for any other man.

  There’s always more than one voice in our heads, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  He lifts a hand to interrupt me, and so I pause.

  ‘Even in our heads,’ he says, ‘it’s argued that there must be a master and a servant. But why should it be so? Let me assure you, Otto, we who live closer to the matter know better. One can live in harmony, two minds conjoined and in agreement.’

  I smile. It’s a pleasant theory, but it’s also a lie, because very early on in the process one of the brains always took control – the one with the strongest will. Yet Reichenau denies it.

  Why? For some political reason? Or does he really believe it? Has he fooled himself into believing it?

  Gudrun brings drinks in frosted tumblers. There’s the sharp taste of aniseed from the clear liquid, but it’s like drinking molten fire. I cough and put my glass down, noting Reichenau’s amusement.

  ‘Heinrich was telling me you were looking for a power source. Well, there you are!’

  And he laughs again, not bothering to explain the joke. But I guess it probably has to do with the name of the drink. My throat is burning, like I’ve just swallowed pure alcohol. And maybe I have. All I know is that if we keep drinking this stuff I will get drunk. As drunk as a Russian.

  ‘Seriously though,’ Reichenau says, his tiny eyes narrowing. ‘Why do you want to know where the source is located? You couldn’t get to it, you know. Couldn’t harm it.’

  ‘It must be heavily guarded.’

  His laughter this time surprises me, because I don’t think I’ve said anything funny. Yet he seems to think so, and I begin to wonder if I’m wasting my time here, if Burckel has made another of his mistakes.

  He smooths his left hand over the huge dome of his head, then shrugs. ‘The Guild take good care of their captive star. It would be easier for you or I to kill the King, yes and to fuck his daughter too, than to even get close to the power source.’

  Gudrun didn’t even blink at the notion of fucking the King’s daughter, yet anyone else in this society might have been shocked by the words. But then, these are Undrehungar, and I’ve no doubt Reichenau has raised his daughter to curse the King’s very name.

  ‘I’ll find a way.’

  This time he doesn’t laugh, but simply stares at me curiously. ‘You’re an odd fish, Otto. Oh, you may look normal, but …’ He takes a sip of his drink, then, smiling, looks at me again. ‘You’re not from here, are you, Otto?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. I’m glad to hear that you don’t deny it. Because I had you checked out. There are all kind of entries in the record for you. Enough to satisfy any official who might come looking for you. You have a Werknummer, for instance, tattooed on your right arm. And yet … well, according to our files, you don’t exist.’

  I smile, prepared for this. ‘I’m American.’

  ‘Ah. I see. An American. And why should an American be meddling in the affairs of Greater Germany? Are you a spy, Otto?’

  I could say yes, see how he reacts, then jump right out of there and go back, enter the timestream earlier and do this all again, taking more care, but things are delicate and I’m not sure what I’d upset. My smile broadens.

  ‘No, just an envoy.’

  ‘An envoy?’

  He leaves it. But his eyes tell me that he doesn’t believe it for a moment. He thinks I’m a spy, and probably for the Russians. Yet here I am, speaking to him, so there’s almost certainly something he wants from me. Something he doesn’t think he can get by any other means.

  Reichenau leans towards me, that huge head delicately balanced on those powerful muscles. Its closeness makes me feel uneasy. In a world of ‘evolved’ and variant humans, he is one degree too strange for my liking.

  ‘Your interest in the power source … why is that?’

  ‘My masters – my American masters – wish to enter into negotiations with the fortress. But before they do, they need to have a proper sense of, well, of just how powerful you Germans are.’

  Reichenau seems surprised. ‘They do not know?’

  ‘They know how it looks. You have limitless energy – energy provided by the black hole your scientists have tapped. And yet …’

  ‘And yet?’

  Reichenau seems almost affronted. It seems he is perversely proud of the regime he wishes to bring to its knees. A revolutionary he may be, yet he is also, curiously, a patriot.

  ‘And yet the Russians, who have no similar power source, appear your equals.’

  ‘Our equals?’ He roars with laughter. Beside him, his daughter is strangely silent, her face never changing from its sombre expression.

  ‘But of course,’ I say, sensing how restless Burckel is becoming beside me. ‘Why else would the war have continued so long? If Germany is so much more powerful …’

  ‘Oh, my friend, do you understand nothing? The war is not prolonged because we are incapable of winning it, it is prolonged because it is necessary. If we wished, we could crush those vodka-swilling peasants in a single day, a single hour. Eradicate them. But that would not suit our masters’ purposes. Oh no. For them the war is a means of control – each German who dies on the front, dies to keep that scum in power. So long as the war continues, then their rule is safe, the status quo maintained. But as for equality …’

  I am silent a moment, as if considering his words.

  ‘It may be so. And yet …’

  ‘Oh damn your “And yets”! It is so. But things are changing. Even now …’ He hesitates, as if he’s said too much, then sits back, glaring at me.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask, confused by his sudden change of mood. It feels almost like I’m facing a different person.

  ‘Your interest in the source,’ he says quietly. ‘It proves … convenient.’

  ‘Convenient?’

  He nods his huge head. ‘We need to know.’

  ‘Know?’

  ‘Why the power is fading.’

  It’s the first thing he’s said that genuinely surprises me. Burckel, beside me, tenses. The atmosphere in the room has changed. It has a sudden, dangerous edge.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘How can it be fading? The black hole … the power from that won’t run out for half a billion years.’

  His eyes search mine. ‘And yet it is,’ he says, as quietly as before. ‘Oh, they don’t know it out there – the feed to the city is but the smallest fraction of its total power – but the Guild is worried. Very
worried. These last three days …’

  Ernst, I think. The power-anchor to Ernst is draining the black hole’s energy. Yet how could that be? The total energy to be tapped from a neutron star was phenomenal. Almost incalculable. To drain it in the fashion they were talking of was impossible, surely? Or was I missing something? Some crucial piece of information? Maybe they could only channel so much. Maybe …

  But Reichenau is talking again, and I jerk my attention back to him.

  ‘ …was the only reason I agreed to see you. Your interest seemed, how shall we put it, much more than coincidental.’ He pauses, then. ‘It would suit the Russians perfectly, after all.’

  I smile coldly. ‘We are not Russians. Nevertheless, what you say is true. Were the power to be … diminishing …’

  The thought astonishes me. This has never happened before. Not, at least, in any of the time-lines we have explored. Yet if the time-anchor is new and untested …

  It makes me wonder if the Russians actually know just how dangerous this is. If so, maybe the effects of their tampering is accidental, and not some deliberate plan to undermine the structure of what follows.

  For this is where it all starts – where the loop begins and ends.

  You see, certain things must happen here. If they don’t then time travel will never come about, and without that …

  My head spins. It has to happen. Has to.

  Unless the whole damn thing gets blown to hell and back.

  Reichenau has been silent, staring at me as if trying to make up his mind. Then, abruptly, he puts his hand out and snaps his fingers. At once the girl stands and, going over to one of the nearby shelves, takes something down and hands it to him. He stares at it a moment, then hands it across to me.

  It’s a map, a simple, hand-drawn map like something a child might have sketched. I take it in, memorising all of its aspects, then hand it back to him.

  He’s surprised, maybe even impressed. ‘You don’t want this?’