by Allen Steele
Helga took a deep breath. “We’re observers. Not spies, simply…observers. I won’t tell you where we’re from, other than to say that it’s not a place that exists in this frame of time.”
“Observers,” I repeated, and then I remembered something the lieutenant had said just before we were discovered. “Then…this is an observation post, I guess.”
She smiled slightly. “That’s a good way of putting it. We established this place for the purpose of watching and recording everything that will occur, or may occur, at this particular point in—”
“What do you mean, ‘will or may occur’?” Arnault raised an eyebrow. “Is there something we should know?” Kurt muttered something under his breath that may have been obscene, and Helga went pale as if she’d suddenly realized that she may have said too much. “The missiles,” the lieutenant went on. “This has to do with them, doesn’t it?”
“It does, yes.” Now it was Alex’s turn to be both reticent and informative. “There are…certain points in time, shall we say?…when human existence hangs in the balance and its future depends upon the actions of a few. This is one of those occasions. But even so, all the pertinent facts are not always recorded. Because of this, later generations are left to discover how things might have happened differently if the situation had changed even just a little.”
“History is malleable,” Helga said, “because time itself is not linear. Any deviation, no matter how slight, can have enormous consequences, which in turn can lead to the creation of parallel timelines in which—”
“Look, I don’t care about any of that.” Arnault was becoming impatient; I’m not sure he even listened at all. “The only thing that matters is that the Russians are stockpiling missiles on Cuba, and those missiles may have nuclear warheads.”
Something cold went down my spine. “Is this true?” I asked. “Do those things have nukes?”
“Hell, yes!” The lieutenant regarded me as if I was an idiot. “What would be the point of positioning rockets within sixty miles of our country if they didn’t have nuclear warheads?” He glared at the other three people in the room. “Maybe you’re not Russians, but that doesn’t change a thing. I have to tell my people what’s going on!”
He started to walk toward the door. Alex stepped in front of him. “You can’t do that.”
Arnault halted, looked him straight in the eye. “Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”
“If anyone else learns what you know, it will cause…” Alex hesitated. “Look, I can’t reveal to you what’s going to happen, but I can say that any changes to this timeline may be catastrophic. If you—”
“Get out of my way.” Arnault took another step forward, and Alex raised his hands to stop him. Bad move; the lieutenant had the same training in hand-to-hand combat as I did. Arnault grabbed his arm with both hands, and in the next second Alex was on the floor, gasping in pain from the judo throw Arnault had used on him. Kurt started to move, then froze as the lieutenant whirled toward him. The two men stared at each other, then Arnault stepped over Alex and calmly walked out the door.
Helga turned to me. “Floyd, you can’t let this happen.”
I was stunned by what I’d just seen, unable to move. “I…I…”
“Floyd…listen to me.” Helga rushed across the room to grab me by the shoulders. “What I’ve said is true,” she went on, dropping her voice so that Arnault couldn’t hear her. “We’ve seen the outcome in other timelines. If your president learns too early that there are Soviet missiles on Cuba, it will prompt him to launch an invasion or a preemptive air attack. But he doesn’t know how many missiles are already there or their exact locations. And the Russian premier has given his officers in Cuba permission to use tactical missiles against an invasion force, or launch intermediate-range missiles at the U.S. if there’s an air strike.”
“You know what will occur if that happens,” Alex said. Kurt was helping him off the floor; he winced as he massaged his twisted right forearm. “Kennedy will order a retaliatory nuclear strike against the Soviet Union, Khrushchev will respond by launching Russia’s strategic missiles…”
“Millions will die.” Helga’s eyes were locked on mine. “The world as you know it will be destroyed. We’ve seen it happen.”
I was having trouble breathing, and my legs felt weak. From the other end of the hallway, I heard the porch door slam open, Arnault’s footsteps trotting down the back stairs. “Why…why can’t you…?”
“We cannot interfere.” Kurt was apologetic but almost laughably calm, as if he was informing me that I had an overdue book at the library. “No matter what happens, we’re prohibited from taking any actions ourselves.” He looked at Alex and shook his head. “We’ve done too much already. When we visit critical events such as this…”
“Go.” Helga shook my arms, trying to snap me out of my shock. “For the sake of everyone you know and love…stop him!”
I pushed her aside, hurried to the door. I no longer heard Arnault’s shoes on the stairs; when I reached the back porch, a passing beam from the lighthouse captured him for a second as he marched down the driveway.
I nearly fell down the stairs in my haste, but the lieutenant had already made it to the road by the time I caught up with him. “Lieutenant, wait!” I yelled, but he didn’t stop or turn around. “Just stop, will you? We can’t…!”
I laid a hand on his shoulder, and he whipped about to face me. “What do you want?”
“We…we…” I was gasping for breath. “We can’t do this. If we tell them…”
“Ensign Moore…at attention!”
Training took over. I snapped rigid, back straight, hands at sides, legs together. He stepped closer, so close that I could fell his breath on my face. The searchlight passed over us again, and I saw his eyes only inches from mine.
“Ensign Moore, you are a seaman in the United States Navy. Is this correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I can’t hear you!”
“Yes, sir!”
“As a Navy seaman, you are sworn to protect your country. Is this correct?”
“Yes, sir!”
“As your superior officer, I order you to fulfill your oath. We will go to the blimp, where you will provide me with the means to send a coded priority message to NAVINT, informing them of what we’ve discovered! Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir!”
“Outstanding.” He stepped back, turned away from me. “Follow me.”
The ray from the lighthouse passed above us again, and in that instant I saw, on the side of the road, a tree branch that had been knocked down by the storm. There was no hesitation; I knew what I had to do.
I bent over and picked up the branch. It was about the size of a baseball bat and just as solid. I grasped it with both hands and swung it at the back of the lieutenant’s head. There was a hollow crack as I felt it connect. Arnault grunted and staggered forward, but before he could react or even turn around, I raised the branch above me, rushed toward him, and slammed it straight down on his skull. He gasped and fell, but he’d barely hit the ground before I brought the branch down upon his head again.
And again.
And again.
The next time the light touched us, I saw that he was dying. He lay face-down in the road, arms stretched out. There was blood all over the back of his head, and it turned the pavement black as it flowed out from under him. I couldn’t see his face, but I could hear a rattling rasp as he struggled for his last breath. I raised the branch again, but didn’t strike him; instead, I watched as his hands twitched a couple of times, then there was a soft sigh and he was still.
I was still staring at him when Helga touched my elbow. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so, so sorry…”
I nodded. Then I dropped the branch, went over to the side of the road, and threw up.
History records that only a handful of lives were lost during the Cuban Missile Crisis: the pilot of the American U2 that was shot down ov
er Cuba by a Soviet anti-aircraft battery, and the Russian soldiers who died when the truck carrying them went off a mountain road and rolled down an embankment.
There was another casualty, though: U.S. Navy intelligence officer Lt. Robert Arnault. But he is not counted among the dead.
Helga took me back to the house, where she let me clean up in the bathroom while she washed the bloodstains from my shirt. There was a bottle of scotch in the kitchen; I poured myself a double, no chaser.
Kurt and Alex returned in a little while. I noticed that they’d taken off their shoes and rolled up their pants legs, and that their bare feet were covered with sand. They told me what they’d done with Arnault’s body, and how they thrown the branch into the woods and washed his blood off the road with buckets of sea water carried up from the beach. They’d also come up with an alibi; it sounded plausible to me, and we went over it a few times until I had it thoroughly memorized. I had another drink—because I needed it, and also because it was part of my alibi—and then I put on my shirt and left the house.
The hour was late by the time I walked back into Matthew Town; the restaurant was closed, and the streets were quiet. A poker game was going on in someone’s room at the guest house, but no one saw me when I came in. Handsome Jimmy was snoring loudly when I let myself into the room we shared, and he didn’t wake up as I undressed in the dark and climbed into bed.
It took a long time for me to fall asleep.
Capt. Gerrard woke up the crew up shortly after sunrise, going from room to room to knock on the doors. It was then that Lt. Arnault’s absence was noticed; his bed was unmade, and his duffel bag was untouched. Everyone remembered that he and I had left the bar together, so the captain came to me and asked if I had seen him lately.
I told the skipper that Arnault had become interested in a girl we’d met in the bar, and that the two of us followed her back to the house where she was staying with her cousin and a friend. I hadn’t wanted to go with him, I explained, but it seemed like the lieutenant had had a little too much to drink, and so I’d gone along to make sure that he stayed out of trouble. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened; Arnault made a scene when he caught up with Helga, insisting that she come back to the bar with him, until Kurt and Alex threw him out of the house. I’d remained behind to apologize, and ended up staying awhile to have a few drinks. I hadn’t seen the lieutenant after that…why, was there something wrong?
Capt. Gerrard called the Mathew Town police and told them that a member of his crew was missing. About an hour later, the police chief came to the guest house with shocking news: the lieutenant was dead, his body discovered on the beach just outside of town. It appeared that someone had beaten him to death, then dragged his body to the waterside. Two sets of footprints in the sand attested to the fact that he’d been attacked by two people, probably while walking back to town; his watch was missing, and although his wallet was found on the beach, there was no cash in it. The police figured that he’d probably put up a fight, and the robbers had murdered him.
Since I was the last person to see the lieutenant alive, I had to repeat my story several times; I’d have to do so again, in front of a Navy board of inquiry charged with investigating the lieutenant’s murder. I had my alibi down pat and I was careful never to deviate from it, and so I never came under suspicion. And when the police went out to the house, the three vacationing birdwatchers verified everything that I had said; the lieutenant had made a pass at Helga, and so Kurt and Alex had made him leave, but let me stay awhile because Helga liked me.
The killers were never found, but that didn’t surprise anyone in Matthew Town. There was very little crime on Great Inagua, but when it occurred, it was usually caused by one of the Haitian boat people who periodically came over from Hispaniola. That was a common explanation in the Bahamas: whenever there was an unsolved crime, a Haitian was always responsible. The Navy investigation eventually reached the same conclusion; Lt. Arnault had been simply in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the men who’d killed him had only been after his watch and money.
Less than two weeks after the lieutenant’s death, President Kennedy learned that the U.S.S.R. had placed nuclear-tipped missiles on Cuba. Over the next nine days, America and Russia played a dangerous contest of wits, each poised to start a war no one could win. In the end, Kennedy and Khrushchev—two men who had seen war first-hand and knew its consequences—managed to persevere over the hawks on both sides to reach a diplomatic solution: in exchange for a promise that the U.S. would cease its attempts to remove Castro from power and respect Cuba’s sovereign status, the U.S.S.R. would remove its missiles from Cuba.
The Centurion returned to Key West long before that happened. It flew only once more, to watch for Russian submarines off the Atlantic Coast during the crisis. The following month, the Navy decided to ground its blimps for good. So the Centurion was deflated for the last time, and its car eventually made its way to an aviation museum in Connecticut. I was transferred to the U.S.S. Lexington, where I worked as a communications officer before leaving the service a few years later.
I was given an honorable discharge. The irony of this hasn’t been lost on me. But I never told anyone what I did that night, even though it haunted me for years to come.
Did I do the right thing? I’d like to think so, if only because it’s helped me deal with my conscience. But something Helga told me that night has stayed with me as much as the murder itself.
History is malleable, she said, because time itself is not linear. This implies that there was—there is—more than one outcome to the events of October, 1962. Have those alternatives—which Helga claimed to have actually seen—hinged upon what I did or did not do? Or was the lieutenant’s death merely an incident that had no lasting consequences?
I’ll never know. But there is this:
I’d moved to a small town outside Colorado Springs several years back, and a few days ago I went into the city to visit my doctor. My son drove me there; he’s taken care of me since my wife died, and he had a few errands of his own. After I got through at the doctor’s office, I walked down the street to a restaurant where I was to meet my son for lunch. My illness hasn’t totally bedridden me yet, although I have to depend on a stroller and an oxygen tank to get around.
It was midday and the sidewalks were crowded, mainly with office workers on their way to one place or another. I’d almost reached the restaurant when the front door of an apartment building swung open and a young woman walked out.
It was Helga. Of this, I’m absolutely certain; I’ve never forgotten her face, even after all these years. And although her hair style had changed and she was wearing a business suit, she hadn’t aged a day. It was as if she’d come straight from Great Inagua with only a quick stop at a fashion shop and hairdresser along the way.
She didn’t recognize me, of course. I was just a sick old man, bent over a stroller with an oxygen line clipped to his nose. She strolled past me and was gone before I could say anything.
So she’s here, in our time. But why?
Consider this: NORAD, the North American Aerospace Defense Command, has its headquarters at Cheyenne Mountain, just outside Colorado Springs. Since 1966, the Air Force has directed American strategic defense operations from an underground complex deep within the mountain. If a global nuclear war were to break out, this would be one of the first places to know.
Perhaps it may only be a coincidence that I’ve seen Helga again. Or perhaps it may not. I’m afraid I may live long enough to learn for certain.
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