Asimov's Future History Volume 2

by Isaac Asimov

  Jane sat huddled in her corner of the warehouse, feeling very much alone. No one bothered her and, from what she could see, no one even seemed to have noticed her. She reassured herself with the reminder that, of course, Hunter would come hurrying back if she called him. On the other hand, she would not interfere with his hunt for Judy without an absolutely critical emergency right here. She was uncomfortable simply because she felt so isolated here in this cold, gloomy place.

  If Steve had come on this mission, he would be here with her, right now.

  Judy stiffened when the car pulled into the rear lot of a large building. The two men opened the back doors and pulled Judy and Ivana out by their arms. As before, the men did not speak.

  The inside of the building was dimly lighted, cold, and silent. In the shadows, Judy saw old, decorative wooden molding that had been ignored for years, judging by the filth collected around it. From the regular distance separating the doors, she guessed it might have been a hotel in the Czarist years.

  The footsteps of all four of them tapped loudly as they walked down a large hall. Judy and Ivana were taken to a small room lighted by a hanging lamp with a single bulb. Their escorts then left, loudly snapping the door lock into place. The room had no other doors and no windows.

  Ivana quivered with fear. Judy looked around. The room was set up as an interrogation or meeting room, not as a prison cell. A long table ran down the center, with chairs on both sides of it. She eased Ivana into a chair, then pulled out another for herself, wondering how long they would have to wait for something else to happen.

  “Ivana? Why would they want you?” Judy asked quietly. “Do you know?”

  The old woman just stared at her.

  “Why did they take your husband? What exactly happened? Maybe I can help somehow.”

  Ivana just shook her head. Then she looked up at the light fixture and around the nearly empty room. She gestured vaguely at the walls.

  Finally Judy understood what Ivana was trying to express. Ivana was afraid that the room was bugged with secret listening devices. In this era, such devices would be very unsophisticated by the standards of Judy’s time, but they would work. Judy simply nodded and stopped asking questions.

  Suddenly Judy realized that if Hunter had been able to track her radio signal, it might also influence the NKVD reception. She decided, however, not to turn off her lapel pin. It was her only hope of telling Hunter where she was, so she would have to take the chance.

  Now that the engine noise from the car was gone, she realized she should send a sound of some kind. She reached up and idly began tapping her lapel pin with her fingernails. Ivana paid no particular attention.

  Judy decided that the fact that Ivana’s husband had been taken was enough reason for Ivana to be arrested, too. If he was still alive somewhere, he might have done or said something that had brought this about. Her sons, wherever they were with the Red Army, might also have attracted the attention of the political commissars assigned to the military.

  Judy remembered one case from the Stalin era in which a man was sent to prison for thirty-five years because he asked an NKVD agent why his neighbor had been arrested. For that matter, Judy’s presence with Ivana in the crowded warehouse was the only reason that she had been taken.

  Judy wondered why no one had questioned them yet.

  As Hunter continued to run at a steady pace, except when he ducked out of sight from other vehicles, he realized that the signal from Judy was growing stronger. First the engine noise stopped, then he heard car doors opening and closing. Those sounds were followed by the creak of a building door and the sound of four sets of footsteps on an interior floor.

  He knew that Judy and Ivana were unharmed so far from the questions Judy had asked Ivana. From those he had also surmised that they were alone. Though conversation had stopped, the clear tapping and scratching sounds became louder with each stride he took.

  Finally the radio signal was so strong that Hunter knew Judy was within a hundred meters of him. Some quick zigzags in his route helped him focus on the source of the transmission. She was inside a very large building right in front of him. Almost an hour had passed since he had left the warehouse.

  The building was constructed of stone and brick. Most of its windows were completely dark, but the light shone around the shades on the first floor. Since the city was blacked out for the night, the external lights were off.

  Hunter assessed his internal energy level. The prolonged run in cold weather had lowered his reserves significantly, but he would be able to function normally for a while yet. He could not estimate how long, because the length of time would depend on his energy expenditure in rescuing Judy and the duration he spent in the cold. Certainly the First Law gave him no choice about attempting to help Judy immediately.

  Before planning his actions, he considered the complex of First Law imperatives weighing on him. Most importantly, he could not interfere with the NKVD’s historical actions. He could not knowingly create any changes in the course of history. Of almost equal importance, he had to protect Judy from harm. As he had discussed with his team in the briefing before this mission, however, he now understood that the historical process would clearly accept some small level of involvement from him.

  Three approaches seemed open to him. The first, direct confrontation, risked violence against Judy and precipitating a change of actions by the NKVD toward Ivana, so he discarded that. The second was stealth, but he worried that sneaking into the building would take too long, since the NKVD might act quickly against its two new prisoners. That left a simple bluff as the most direct and least violent course of action.

  As Steve had sometimes reminded him, improvising could be very useful. Hunter prepared himself to try it as he walked up to the front entrance, assuming a casual, confident walk. The front door was locked, but he heard the metal pins rattle inside the knob. They sounded simple and primitive. In all likelihood, they would break easily.

  He grasped the knob and forced it to turn. The insides of the lock snapped and ground as he broke them. However, a second lock held a metal bolt in place and he had no way to grab hold of it.

  Hunter fingered the doorjamb. The wood was old and fairly solid, but it could be broken. Doing so would make noise and attract attention inside the building. He decided that he would have to take that risk.

  Bracing himself with his legs, he crouched and positioned himself to spring forward. Then he slammed his entire weight against the door at the point where it would apply the most force against the bolt. The bolt tore through the wooden doorjamb with a splintering sound as the door opened.

  Then he walked inside and calmly closed the door behind him.

  5

  AT THIS LATE hour, no one sat behind the front counter. The lobby was dark, though a light was on in a main hallway. A burly man in a plain gray business suit was bending over a coffee percolator on a small wooden table about halfway down the hall. He looked up in surprise and then walked forward, frowning.

  “Who are you, comrade? This office is closed. What do you want here?”

  At the sound of his voice, another door opened and two more men, dressed in similar suits, followed the first man toward Hunter.

  “Where are the new prisoners?” Hunter demanded. “I must see them immediately.”

  “Are you with the agency?” The first man spoke more cautiously. “We have not met. My name is —”

  Hunter pushed past him. “Stop interfering! I shall have you all on report! Where are they?” The radio signal was very strong, telling him that Judy was in a room right down the hall in front of him.

  “We must see your identification,” another man protested. “Please, comrade. We can all cooperate after procedures have been followed.”

  Hunter glared into the man’s eyes, gambling that the system of intimidation in this society also operated within this agency itself. “I cannot be bothered right now with the whining of subordinates. If you will not show me the
prisoners, I shall find them myself!”

  He shoved this man, also, but the third reached up to grab his upper arm.

  Instead of resisting, Hunter looked down at this man’s face, as well. “I hear the weather is very cold out at the front. Since you have so much energy, they could use you there. Or perhaps you would prefer an assignment to Vladivostok, where the Siberian wind will keep you safe from German tanks.”

  Suddenly uncertain, the other man stepped back, glancing at his two companions, and released Hunter.

  Carrying the bluff forward, Hunter strode past the third man and moved toward the room from which the radio signal came.

  Earlier that night, Dr. Wayne Nystrom had landed with a thump on hard ground. He looked at his companion, the humaniform robot R. Ishihara. They seemed to have arrived in their new time and place safely.

  “You okay, Ishihara?”

  “Yes,” the robot said calmly.

  Wayne surveyed the dry, frozen rolling plains around them. The sky was clear but the sun was red in the west, low over the horizon. “Well, it looks right so far. If I calculated correctly, we’re on the Russian steppe just to the rear of the German lines west of Moscow in December of 1941. It looks like the steppe in December, I think, but I don’t see anyone. Good for us that there’s no snow.”

  “I hear the sounds of primitive machinery faintly in the distance,” said Ishihara. “To the east of us. I expect we have arrived where you intended.”

  “What kind of machines?”

  “Rough internal combustion engines, I believe. A few small vehicles. I hear nothing to suggest that large-scale movement or violence is occurring at this moment.”

  “Good.” Wayne tugged his long fur cloak tighter around the knee-length tunic he wore. “The only trouble with coming directly here from Germany in A.D. 9 is that we’re still wearing these clothes.”

  “We shall be warm, at least,” Ishihara observed. He was dressed similarly. “Unless we find shelter, that is very important.”

  “Yeah. I’m sure we can get contemporary clothes from someone, somehow. I wonder what the Germans of this time will make of us when they see us.” Wayne grinned wryly. “They certainly won’t believe that we just arrived after visiting their distant ancestors.”

  “No.” Ishihara looked at the weak sun, low in the sky to the west. “Night is falling. Even colder temperatures are imminent. I suggest we start walking.”

  “All right. Where to?”

  “Well, I have begun monitoring the German radio traffic. It is heavy, coming from the east of us in the same area as the machine sounds.”

  “You can understand German?”

  “Yes. And I remind you that we dare not speak English in front of them, since the British and Americans are enemies of the Germans. Do you speak any Russian or German?”

  “No Russian,” said Wayne. “I studied German, but only to read technical research. I never spoke it much. What about you?”

  “As a researcher at the Bohung Institute, I took all the necessary data for modern German and Russian a long time ago in order to read technical documents; also Japanese. So I shall be able to communicate here in those languages, though they will have evolved some in the forms I know.”

  “I still have my radio pin, but for now I’ll let you handle this,” said Wayne. “In fact, I have an extra; I kept the one I took from Steve in Germany. Anyhow, just lead the way to the closest people you can find.”

  Ishihara began to walk. Wayne fell into step with him. The open ground was uneven and hard and the wind whipped across them from the northwest. Nothing was visible across the barren, flat farmland.

  “What is our long-range plan?” Ishihara asked. “Where do we expect to find that MC 4 has returned to his full size?”

  “Well, I’m trying something a little different this time,” said Wayne. “Actually, from the information I was able to obtain from the console on the sphere, I expect his miniaturization will end in Moscow, behind the Soviet lines.”

  “You do? Why did you bring us here, behind the German lines, then?”

  “I’ve come after three of the component robots now, and every time, they have been adept at avoiding Hunter and his team when they first return to full size. He has been able to run them down eventually, but never right away.”

  “Do you expect MC 4 to come here somehow?”

  “Yes. I have been considering the effect of the First Law on MC 4 when he analyzes the situation he has entered here. With a war going on, he will want to stop the violence by interfering with the aggressor.”

  “That would be the Germans, I believe.”

  “Exactly,” said Wayne. “Since the German army has invaded Russian soil, I think he will come to the German lines to stop them if he can. If we’re waiting for him, that will give us a jump on Hunter’s team.”

  “How extensive is your knowledge of history at this time?” Ishihara asked.

  “Very limited. I remember which countries fought on which side. And I know the Germans mistreated the Jews in Europe. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union were pretty unpleasant, I guess.”

  “My data is not extensive, either,” said Ishihara. “I merely have some summaries of the war given as part of my general education. But your evaluation of German treatment of Jews is an understatement of great magnitude.”

  “It is? Why, what —”

  “Alert,” Ishihara interrupted, suddenly looking into the distance to the east.

  “You hear something?”

  “I have picked up a radio transmission between a patrol vehicle and its base. The vehicle is on routine patrol, but it is coming this way.”

  “Have they seen us?”

  “No, but they will soon, even in the waning light. I suggest that we devise a personal history we can give to them.”

  By now, even Wayne could hear the loud, rough engine in the distance. A tiny speck of headlights was barely visible in the dusk. Wayne and Ishihara kept walking.

  “We’d better make it quick,” said Wayne. “What do you suggest?”

  “We must pretend to come from other countries. I have a Japanese name but not a Japanese appearance; I was merely named after a Japanese roboticist when I was created. Unlike Hunter, I do not have the ability to change my appearance. But maybe I can think of a way to trade on the German alliance with Japan somehow.”

  “What do you mean?” Wayne was watching the German patrol. So far, they apparently had not seen the two travelers yet, since the patrol was moving obliquely to them.

  “I am not certain yet. I only know that my German, coming from many years in the future, will not pass as native to this time, so I won’t try to fool anyone. However, your surname, ‘Nystrom,’ is Swedish. I see no reason to falsify it; your appearance matches that of your ancestors and Sweden was neutral in this war, though the other Scandinavian countries fought against Germany. We shall present you as Swedish.”

  “All right.”

  They walked in silence for a while. The headlights grew larger, bouncing over the hard soil. Finally the lights changed direction and began to move straight toward them.

  “We have been seen,” said Ishihara. “The patrol has just reported to their base that they are going to interrogate two men on foot. Apparently they had just enough sunlight left to see our movement.”

  Wayne grinned wryly. “I can hardly wait.”

  The small spot in the distance grew quickly as it raced toward them. Soon Wayne could see that it was a vehicle designed with a cab in the front and a large, open back full of soldiers. In the poor light, their gray uniforms and helmets made them almost invisible. They held rifles warily and two of them were tending some larger weapon mounted on a swivel.

  “Do you know what that’s called?” Wayne asked. “Their vehicle?”

  “It might fit the term, ‘armored car,’ “said Ishihara. “My data lacks a diagram, however. That weapon on the front is a machine gun. The patrol is accustomed to violence. We must not risk angering them.�
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  “Let’s stop walking and wait.”

  Ishihara suddenly loosened his belt and reached into his tunic. “I believe we may be searched.”

  “We don’t have any weapons.”

  “I suggest you give me the device that triggers the time travel sphere,” said Ishihara. “I have opened a panel in my abdomen. I believe I can slip the device inside my torso safely.”

  “Well … okay.” Wayne gave it to him. “But it doesn’t look like a weapon. Why would they want it?”

  “They will find it mysterious and might take it to study. Certainly we cannot afford to lose it.”

  “No — no argument about that.”

  The German patrol slowed carefully as it drew near. The soldiers looked over Wayne and Ishihara, their faces clearly puzzled by the long cloaks, tunics, and leggings. Some of them grinned as they muttered to each other.

  One of the Germans spoke. Wayne could not understand him at all; certainly the archaic German he had learned for the previous mission was no help. Ishihara answered him politely, however. They spoke for a moment, then the German nodded. He gestured for two soldiers to jump down. They did so, their calf-length black boots thumping on the hard ground.

  Ishihara leaned very close to Wayne and whispered in English. “They will frisk us. Cooperate with them. Their commander, a Korporal, has agreed to take us to German lines.”

  “Does he believe you? About my being Swedish and — whatever else you told him?”

  “He has accepted it tentatively, but he is suspicious. I told him that I lived in Japan and took the name of a friend. We must remain very careful.”

  “Got it.” Wayne, at the gesture of the German soldiers, raised his arms high over his head. He did not move as one of them quickly patted his clothing up and down the length of his body. Another did the same to Ishihara. Then both soldiers stepped back and pointed to the back of the armored car.