I reach down and pluck a blade at the base. It’s thick and long and as broad as a man’s hand, greener than green, so it seems, and fat with moisture; a sword of greenness, the very grass of Eden. Among its rich, ripe verdancy, the great nodding heads of flowers – their massive petals garishly bright, red, yellow and purple – tower over me on every side, while great orange and blue butterflies the size of dinner plates flutter and dance in the air wherever I look.
The encampment is further down, nestled at the lower end of the valley, alongside the network of caves that pepper the limestone walls. It’s hot, humidly so, the sun a large, flattened ball of orange at our backs. A tropical sun.
Hecht turns to me and smiles. He looks transformed out here; a new man. His grey eyes gleam as he looks about him, taking in deep lungfuls of the sweet-scented air.
‘Urd save us, Otto. Just look at this place!’
But I don’t need to be told. I am already struck by its beauty.
‘Where are we?’
‘Three hundred and ten thousand years bc. Give or take a century or two.’
I stare at him, astonished. As far as I know, this is the furthest back any of us have ventured. Here, we are on the very edge of things, the very limit of the platform’s reach. Not that there isn’t power enough to go back further, but beyond this we can’t guarantee the accuracy. Beyond this, as Hecht’s assured me many times, it’s all hit and miss.
We walk on, and as we descend towards the far end of the valley and the huts come into view, so someone steps out of the largest of them and, raising his left hand to shade his eyes from the sun, waves to us with his right. It’s Hecht – another, younger Hecht, but him, definitely him.
Beyond the huts are a few tended plots and pens for the animals, innovations Hecht has clearly brought with him, for the natives of this age were mainly hunters, and were for the best part of a million years.
‘Are those what I think they are?’ I ask, the slightest anxiety in my voice.
‘They are,’ he says. ‘See if you can tell the men from the women.’
The creatures are gathered in a tiny group to the right, a dozen or so of them, the long auburn hair that totally covers their bodies making them seem more ape than human, but these are no apes, these are Neanderthal.
As we come closer, young Hecht calls out to us.
‘Did you remember the gifts?’
Hecht lifts the sack he’s carrying, and as he does, so there’s an excited keening among the creatures.
Closer to, we see how they hold back, as if shy or frightened, keeping their distance. But as Hecht takes the sack and turns to them, they crowd about him, stroking his arms and back and shoulders as he hands out the gifts, a low, deeply burred murmur of sound coming from the creatures.
They’re much shorter than us, but stouter and, I’d guess, much heavier. Though their arms and legs are shorter, they’re built like bulls, their heads especially. And, of course, they have those famous pronounced brows, which give their eye sockets a deep, almost cavernous appearance.
Hecht’s eyes are shining with an excitement I’ve never seen in them before. ‘Look at their hands, Otto,’ he half whispers. ‘Look how delicate they are!’
I’ve noticed it. And though one cannot call these people gentle exactly, they seem quite sensitive. You only have to see their paintings in the caves to realise that.
The gifts given out, Hecht turns back to me, still smiling, a very different Hecht from the one I’m used to. He’s relaxed and totally off guard here in the distant past.
‘They call themselves the huuruuhr,’ he says, making a deep rolling sound in the back of his throat. ‘As you saw, they have their own language. But I’ve been teaching one or two of them our language, and you’ll have a chance later on to talk to them. First let me show you around.’
I want to ask him what we’re doing back here, wasting time, when Ernst is still trapped; only I know that no time’s passing up the line. We can step back a second after we’ve left and carry on. But Hecht seems to need this break. Indeed, I can see now how he manages to carry on. This is how he recharges. By coming here.
The creatures have begun to wander away, yet as they do I note how one of them – a female? – looks back at us, an expression of pure curiosity in her deep-set eyes. She has a picture book, I see, holding it to her thickly haired chest as reverently as any priest ever held a bible.
‘Who is that one?’ I ask Hecht quietly.
‘That’s Ooris. You’ll meet her later. I think you’ll be surprised. But first come and meet my older brother, Albrecht.’
His older brother. That, naturally, surprises me. Even that Hecht has a brother is a revelation. Yet it makes sense now that I know. I always wondered who it was he confided in. Who shared his thoughts, the way he shares ours.
Albrecht leads us inside, into his hut. It’s one big, open room, with a large bed in one corner and a desk in another. All very simple and unadorned. Albrecht smiles and offers me the chair, but I’m happy to stand.
‘So you’re Otto,’ he says, his eyes taking me in. ‘The Einzelkind.’
I look to Hecht, surprised. But Hecht seems unperturbed. ‘Albrecht knows everything,’ he says. ‘And I mean everything.’
I wonder what that means, because there are surely things that even Hecht doesn’t know, if I’m anything to go by.
‘He’s the Keeper,’ Hecht says. ‘But you’ll see that later.’
I’m not sure what Hecht means by ‘Keeper’, but I let it pass. All in good time, I think, trying to take in what this all means.
Hecht has a brother, who knows everything.
I look about me, taking in small details. There’s a picture of a woman in a silver frame on the table beside the bed. Their mother? If so, I’ve never seen her before.
Albrecht, meanwhile, is looking to his brother. ‘It didn’t work, I take it?’
‘No.’ Hecht hesitates, then: ‘It was another blind alley.’
I guess he’s talking about my last trip back to Asgard.
‘That’s why we’re here,’ Hecht says. ‘I thought it was time Otto knew.’
Albrecht nods. ‘I thought so. But why now?’
Hecht shrugs. ‘Because …’
I don’t quite follow, but it would seem that our failures have brought Hecht to a decision.
‘It’s becoming impenetrable back there,’ he says after a moment. ‘There has to be a path through the maze, but what it is …’
Albrecht nods. Then, looking to me, he smiles again. ‘Forgive me, Otto. I’m being a dreadful host. You must be hungry after your travels. Would you like something? A sandwich, perhaps, or a drink of some kind?’
It’s an odd thing to be asked when you’re back in Neanderthal times, but I smile and nod. ‘That would be nice,’ I say, and watch as he goes to the door, and in fluent Neanderthal, bids one of the natives bring me something.
129
An hour later the three of us are climbing the grassy, tree-covered slope beyond the cabin, emerging on to a broad ridge, from which we look down across a landscape which – though I’ve seen many landscapes in many times – is the most spectacular I’ve ever seen. In the distance, running the length of the horizon there’s a mountain range, its seemingly endless peaks dominating the skyline from north to south.
‘The Alps,’ Hecht says, and I nod, realising where – geographically – we are.
Between us and the mountains is an Edenic country of rock and pool and tree; an undulating landscape of such magnificent wild beauty that it makes me think that there really was a Fall, and that this is what we yearn for when our imaginings turn to such things.
‘They’re out there now,’ Hecht says, ‘hunting.’
‘They?’
‘The rest of the huuruuhr.’
‘Ah …’ And I relax. For a moment I thought Hecht was speaking of the Russians. But this is one place they surely don’t know about. One place they’d never guess we came to.
&n
bsp; ‘Come,’ Hecht says. ‘It’s just there, down the path.’
We follow a dirt path down through the rocks, then turn left, through a screen of cypress trees, into a dark and narrow space. There, between two smooth, white stone walls, lies a steel door.
It looks like a vault.
‘Otto, I have to ask you not to look for a moment.’
I avert my eyes as Hecht taps a code into the keypad by the door. A moment later it hisses open, a draft of cool air reaching out to envelop us.
We go inside, into a marvel of high-tech efficiency. It’s a library, a massive storage room, with endless screens and shelves stretching floor to ceiling and, in one corner, a long kunstlichestahl work surface on which are all manner of tapes and files.
‘Welcome,’ Albrecht says, turning to me and grinning that by-now-familiar grin of his that separates him so distinctly from his brother. ‘This is where it’s all kept.’
The Keeper … And I understand, instantly and without needing to be told, that this is where Hecht stores it all. All of the information about all the different pasts we’ve visited. Details of all the changes are here, of all our failed attempts to make it different.
Hecht sees the movement in my face and smiles, a pale smile compared to that of his brother’s, but similar.
‘I see you understand. I knew you would. It’s all here. Everything. And Albrecht is the curator. He makes sense of it all. When I lose direction, I come back here and he shows me what I need to see.’ Hecht looks to his brother fondly. ‘It would be too much for one man.’
I see that at a glance. There must be tens of thousands of files stored here, in all manner of formats. And not just files, I note, but things. Things from a hundred Ages and more.
‘It’s unaffected, you see,’ Albrecht says, walking across and picking up a file, then inserting it into a nearby touch-screen. ‘If it were further up the line, then any changes that you made would make changes here. But being so far back … nothing changes.’
‘That’s right,’ Hecht says, ‘so when I come back here after a major paradigm shift, say, Albrecht reminds me. He shows me what was. All of those realities that I’d forgotten, that had been erased from my memory by Time.’
‘So just how different is it?’
‘Not much,’ Albrecht answers, concentrating on what he’s doing. ‘At least, not as much as you’d think.’
He’s quiet a moment, then gestures for me to come across and join him.
‘Look,’ he says. ‘Here’s one of your earlier de-briefings.’
For the next half hour I stand there, half-crouched over the touch-screen, watching myself answer Hecht’s questions about where I’d been, and what I’d seen and what was done. And not a single word of it remembered.
As it finishes I look to Albrecht. ‘Which of them was that?’
‘That was your sixth trip back,’ Hecht says, answering for him. ‘That’s when we knew that something odd was happening; that it wasn’t going to be as easy as we’d anticipated. That’s when we started going out on a limb – though nothing as left-field as your last trip back.’
‘And nothing works?’
They don’t need to answer that. Of course it doesn’t. That’s why we’re here. But I’m thinking aloud now.
‘But the cup …’
Albrecht looks to his brother. ‘The cup?’
‘The lavender-glazed cup,’ Hecht explains, then looks to me. ‘What about it?’
‘Just that it has to get into Gehlen’s possession somehow. That has to happen.’
‘Okay. But what’s the significance of that?’
‘I don’t know. Only that …’ I close my eyes and try to concentrate.
There are certain things that have to happen. Gehlen has to discover the equations, and Germany and Russia have to be destroyed. We know that and the Russians know that. But what about the power source? Does that have to be found? Do we have to free Ernst from the time-trap? Or is that something we have no control over?
Hecht, it seems, doesn’t know, and nor does Albrecht, because if they did, then we’d not be making these wild stabs in the dark.
Opening my eyes again, I look to Hecht. ‘One more try.’
He shakes his head.
‘Why not?’
‘Because the Russians know you’re there.’
‘They must have known that for some while.’
‘Maybe … but it grows riskier each time. If they get you—’
Albrecht looks to him sharply, and he falls silent.
‘What?’ I ask. ‘What don’t I know?’
‘Nothing,’ Hecht says. But he’s lying. And he doesn’t do it well.
‘What if we keep someone close this time,’ Albrecht says. ‘Someone who can jump in and pull him out of there immediately if there’s any trouble.’
‘No!’
‘Why?’
I’m almost pleading with him now.
‘Because it’s too risky. Besides, someone new—’
‘Won’t know what’s going on,’ I interject. ‘Look. Why don’t you show me what happened – all of it; all thirteen attempts – then send me in again, armed with what I know. After all, if this is a maze, then maybe knowing what doesn’t work – what paths not to follow – might just work.’
Hecht stares at me thoughtfully, then, quietly,. ‘You really want to do that?’
I nod.
‘All of it? I warn you, some of it’s quite gruesome.’
I frown. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean you died. Several times. We had to jump in and get you out – change time and unweave events. It wasn’t very pretty.’
‘I died?’
Hecht nods.
I swallow, then, knowing there’s no other course, look to Albrecht. ‘Show me. Every last little thing you have.’
130
That evening, as the sun sinks below the rim of the valley, Hecht ceremonially lights a massive fire at the centre of the encampment. It’s burning bright – throwing flickering shadows across the huts – when the hunters return, stepping out of the darkness in threes and fours, throwing down their captured prey on a great pile beside the main hut before joining the rest of the tribe about the fire.
And even as the men return, so the women get down to work, skinning and cutting up the dead animals, preparing the meat for the fire. Among them I notice Ooris. Indeed, it’s hard not to notice her, for she seems to be at the heart of all the activity, organising the women, making sure each task is done well. And when the first of the food is ready, it is Ooris who brings a great wooden platter of it across to us, where we sit in front of Albrecht’s hut and, bowing before us, makes an offering.
There is a kind of silence – a silence breached only by the roar and crackle of the fire – as she bows low, waiting for us to take the well-charred meat from the bowl.
Hecht looks to me and smiles. ‘You first, Otto.’
I take a large chunk of meat – the leg of some beast – and almost drop it, not realising just how hot it is.
‘Here,’ Hecht says, handing me a carved wooden plate.
I drop the meat on to the plate, then look up, smiling. ‘Thank you, Ooris.’
And as I say it, I almost feel she blushes. Only how would I tell in this half-light, and in that deep-set face? Yet there’s a distinct movement of her body, which seems to indicate a certain pleasure at my thanks, as well as a feminine shyness.
Finally, Hecht takes the last piece and, raising it, offers a word or two of thanks to the hunters, his voice richly burred as he utters their strange and ancient speech. And then the feast begins.
After a while, Ooris comes across again and, with that same, gentle shyness, sits down in front of us.
‘Hello,’ she says, her voice strangely deep. ‘Did you …’ She hesitates, then, more confidently. ‘Did you enjoy the meal?’
Her Volksprach is excellent. Hecht, I note is looking on, wearing a more earnest expression than I’ve seen him wear all ev
ening, like he himself is being tested here.
‘I did,’ I answer, nodding exaggeratedly. ‘You speak our language very well.’
‘Thank you,’ she says, and this time – from this close, and in the fire’s light – I see that she does blush. Indeed, though her form is somewhat heavy, somewhat frightening, there’s something about her face that’s almost attractive. There is a definite sweetness to her, and – I guess because she speaks our language – I find myself re-categorising her there and then, elevating her, I suppose you’d say, from ape to human. She is like us, despite her outer form.
She glances up, then looks down quickly, averting her eyes, that gesture so human, so like a love-shy teenage girl of some later Age, that again she comes suddenly alive to me, no longer just a creature. And it’s that image that stays with me as, later, I drift into sleep: of a Neanderthal woman, smiling shyly, reminding me, despite all physical differences, of something that I’m missing so acutely that it brings me close to tears.
131
Heavy rain, falling on the roof of the hut, wakes me before dawn. I go to the doorway and look out at a valley transformed. Mist drifts like clouds of dense smoke, obscuring vision briefly, then clearing to reveal a landscape washed fresh and new.
It’s only when I turn to speak to Hecht that I realise he’s not there.
I walk across to Albrecht’s cabin, expecting to find the two of them there, but that too is empty. Stepping outside, I look about me, but the encampment is silent, the huuruuhr sprawled in their huts, sleeping off last night’s drunken feast.
The rain is still falling, a warm, pleasant rain. Peeling off my top, I walk out into it and stand there, looking out along the length of the valley, enjoying the simple beauty of the view. My hair is plastered to my head, my trousers soaked, but it doesn’t matter. This is the best feeling – being alive on a morning like this.
‘Otto?’
I turn, to find Hecht and his brother there. Hecht’s carrying a pack. He smiles at me. ‘You’re an early riser. I thought you’d still be asleep.’
The Empire of Time Page 39
