TIME PRIME

by H. Beam Piper

  “Excellent, Colonel.”

  After his meeting with the Strike Team commander, they made the half-hour long conveyer journey to the Hartley Belt. While in transit, he and Dalla discussed Blake Hartley.

  “I’d like to be there when you meet with Hartley,” Dalla said.

  “I want you with me. We’ve got a private meeting set-up about selling him a semiconductor patent that we have pending. I’m supposed to be Dr. Verkan, one of the engineers working for the Regency Division of the Industrial Development Engineering Associates. Regency is working on the first practical transistor radio and plan to bring it out before the end of the year. It’s something Ranthar’s team cooked up; it’s just the kind of thing to pique Hartley’s interest—if he’s who we think he is.”

  “That should hook him if he truly has precognitive abilities. Did it occur to you that if he’s a true precog, we might be able to mine information out of him that would be helpful to the Force?”

  Vall made a big grin. “Could be...”

  Dalla lightly punched him on the shoulder. “You big lug. Who knows what he could tell us...”

  “Almost anything he could tell us would make our job easier: if there’s going to be a war it would be a big help to know when to pull our operatives off the Hartley Belt.”

  “What if he’s a time traveler?” Dalla asked. “That might be more problematic.”

  “I’ll believe it when he’s given us solid data we can verify. It would certainly shake things up back on First Level. We’ve been working on linear time travel for over twelve thousand years; it would make a lot of people unhappy to discover some outtimer had worked up a time machine in his basement!”

  “Still, think of all the things we could learn.”

  “Or all the new headaches that would come with it,” added Verkan.

  II

  Verkan and Dalla were welcomed at the temporary rotunda-head by Ranthar Jard and Kostran Galth.

  “We’ve got the 12th Strike Team on call at Police Terminal,” Verkan informed them. “They’re only a message ball away. However, I don’t want to bring them in except under dire circumstances.”

  “Understood,” Ranthar replied. “Blake Hartley has his Associated Enterprises headquarters here. He still maintains a residence in Williamsport, but for logistical reasons operates out of Philadelphia. Associated Enterprises is making a big splash locally; they finished the new sixty-story Associated Tower in the Penn Center. They and their subsidiaries are now Pennsylvania’s biggest employer. He’s also making a lot of political contacts with the Republican Party, this Belt’s version of Management Party.”

  “Is there any evidence that he’s either working with or aware of the Organization or their mining activities?”

  Ranthar shook his head. “I’m not sure how the Organization discovered this Belt, but I doubt they know the divarication trigger. If they did, the Hartley reflections would already be under their control. It took the Department a million manhours of Survey Division research time to discover Blake Hartley Prime.”

  “How does Blake Hartley factor in on the other Europo-American Sectors, like Hispano-Columbian?” Vall asked.

  “We’ve found reflections of Hartley Prime on about half of our trial timelines. We know his father was named Herbert Hartley and he had two children, one who died at birth, and Blake Orr Hartley who was born on April 18, 1911. Blake is reported to have died of the flu at age eight during the Influenza Pandemic of 1918 on about half of the Europo-American and Kaliphate Subsector time-lines.”

  “That doesn’t rule out the time traveler theory, then,” Dalla offered.

  “Not completely. On most time-lines, the surviving Blake married Amanda Florence Coleridge on March 14, 1927; they had one child, a son Allan Hartley born July 18, 1932 in Williamsport.”

  “What happened to Amanda?” Dalla asked.

  “She died in an automobile accident in 1942. Drunk driver ran her over as she was crossing a Williamsport downtown street. Died instantly.” Dalla shuddered.

  Vall put his arm around her. Sometimes it was easy to forget how fragile human life was on these primitive Fourth Level sectors.

  Ranthar continued, “Blake, with the help of a housekeeper, one Eileen Stauber, has raised young Allan by himself. On every Europo-American and Kaliphate timeline we’ve visited, the young Allan Hartley reflections follow the cultural norms for growth and education, although they are certainly in the top ten percentile. However, on the Hartley Belt, the boy is extremely precocious; he graduates from high school at fifteen years of age and by eighteen has a Bachelors in Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It only took him another year to get his Masters. At nineteen Allan goes to work for his father at the Blake Institute of Engineering Research in State College, Pennsylvania. Of course, we know who put up the money for that. The son is considered a local genius, according to his fellow engineers, who teasingly refer to him as Young Edison.”

  “Is the son brilliant because he’s recycling the father’s precognitions, or is he a precog, too?” Dalla asked.

  “Good question,” Vall said. “This is something we can broach after you hypomech the father, Dalla.”

  “I’m looking forward to it,” she replied, her eyes sparkling.

  “What about the Organization?” Vall asked, “ Are there any cells on this time-line?”

  Ranthar paused to fill his pipe with tobacco. He used a local lighter in a metal case to ignite it, then said, “We found a big open-pit uranium mining operation in the Namib Desert some thirty miles from Swakopmund, Trust Territory of South-West Africa. It was discovered in 1928, but not mined until the Vanadium Corporation started operations about five years go. Rössing Uranium Mine’s a massive operation, employing three to four thousand employees. They have their own refining and processing plant at Rössing and have pretty much depleted all the surface ore. The uranium deposits at Namib really have only been mined superficially in either the Europo-American or Kaliphate subsectors, which is a red flag and points to Organization infiltration of this Belt.

  “Due to Rössing’s distance from any population centers and the cultural backwardness of the indigenes, this site is just about perfect for outtime extraction work. So far, this mining operation is the only evidence of Organization activity anywhere on Hartley Prime.”

  “That’s a relief,” Vall said. “If the Wizard Traders are big enough to have multiple operations going on throughout a Belt even this size—well, by Blaxthakka’s Beard, I don’t have to tell you what kind of trouble that might be for the Force.”

  Ranthar nodded while releasing a cloud of pipe smoke. “From Survey’s reports, I suspect the Organization has similar outposts in the Namib Desert on time-lines throughout the Hartley Belt.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Dalla added, “otherwise it might be impossible to root them out.”

  “Since the plant here is relatively isolated,” Ranthar continued, “Kostran and I thought it would be an ideal place to keep watch.”

  “Good,” Vall replied. “Maybe we can get to the bottom of this.”

  Kostran Galth left to setup a watch post on the mine, while Ranthar talked with the local Survey head-of-operations, Dardag Lorn, telling him that he was to be notified if there was any change in transtemporal activity within the vicinity of the Rössing Uranium Mine.

  III

  In less than an hour, Ranthar Jard got a call from Dardag Lorn from Survey about a big increase in transtemporal activity on Hartley Prime. “We’ve tried to triangulate on the conveyers, but they’re giving out false readings. I’m sorry, Inspector, but there’s no way we can identify them.”

  “Unregistered conveyers,” Ranthar groused. “This just keeps getting better.”

  “I know. Lots of activating beginning about fifteen minutes ago. I thought you’d want to know.” Dardag reported.

  “How many vehicles are involved?” Verkan asked.

  “About six left in the last two minutes. They’re
all going on different tracks.”

  Ranthar let out a stream of curses in five different languages. “Vall, I’ll send out tracking teams to trace and hold them.”

  Vall nodded. “Hold on. Judging from the Abzar Sector fiasco, there’s no telling how well they’re armed. Dardag Lorn. I suggest you contact Colonel Sordar on Pol-Term and have him send out individual strike teams to follow them.”

  Dardag signed off and Verkan said, “We’d better get to Rössing before they all bug out.”

  Dalla had already left for Philadelphia with the Hartley Team so he and Ranthar Jard transposed back to Fifth Level Police Terminal.

  Colonel Sordar was waiting for them at the Vendaran Equivalent conveyer-head.

  “We sent out the strike teams you requested. Are you sure you’re not going to need air support, sir?”

  “From our surveillance eyes and tell-tales, Colonel,” Vall said, “we know there are roughly six hundred guards at the mine; all of them are Organization outtime hires brought here for this operation. It appears the Organization doesn’t trust the local Afrikaners or the black workers. I don’t foresee any need for strike team aircavalry that some local might mistake for flying saucers. We want to keep a very low profile on this mission.”

  “I’ll send a company to the conveyer-head anyway. Just in case you need backup.”

  “If we do, demons will pour out of the Pits of Kungargh!” Ranthar interjected. “These Europo-American time-lines are saturated with newsies and reporters.”

  The Colonel shook his head. “I don’t envy the Paratime Police Department on this—not even one little bit.”

  After telling Colonel Sordar they didn’t need his assistance, they picked up another hundred Paratime Police troopers and took a large transport plane to twenty miles outside the Swakopmund Equivalent where there was a temporary conveyer-head already laid out. It was 2300 hours when Verkan’s forces arrived at the temporary camp two miles outside Rössing Uranium Mine’s open-pit mine and processing plants.

  There were already two hundred Paratime Police field agents and tactical officers at the conveyer-head awaiting their arrival.

  Kostran approached him after they exited the conveyer. “It’s been pretty quiet so far boss. The local workers are locked up in their barracks at 2100 hours. They’re not allowed to leave or let off any steam until Friday night, when the brothel tents and gambling pavilions are flown in. These poor laborers get paid terrible wages, then the company uses its own trollops and gamblers to skim their pathetic pay.”

  “How’d you find that out?” Vall asked.

  “We captured a laborer who was outside the perimeter fence trying to escape, as well as one of the outtime guards.”

  “Good thinking, Garth. What else did you learn?”

  “The guards here are lax. Other than a riot, a few years back when they first took over, there’s been no trouble. Most of these workers are just glad to have a place to rest their heads and earn a few units. Any mine workers who complain, start trouble or talk strike, are conveniently gone the next day. If we did an infrared search at night, I’m sure we could find numerous burial pits out in the desert.

  “The managers and production people live in those houses over there behind the razor-wire fences. They’re unguarded, too. It’s an easy post for the ‘imported’ First Level managers and engineers. According to our informant, most of them were chronic complainers and time-wasters who faced sentencing by the Bureau of Psychological Hygiene when they were ‘offered’ a job outtime with no questions asked.”

  “That’s ominous. Who in Fasif ’s name is supplying the Organization with that kind of information? Only Metro, BuPsychHyg and the Executive Council have access to those files. Chief Tortha’s not going to be happy when he hears of this.”

  “I’m just stunned at the size of this operation, boss. And this is just one timeline out of tens of thousands on this Belt. Of course, not all of them will have this depth of infiltration by the Organization, but—”

  “I know, Kostran. We’ve got our work cut out for us.”

  IV

  At exactly 0400 hours, Verkan Vall gave the order to commence the raid. The orders were to hit the management compound first since they held all the timeliners from First Level. At the same time, a team of fifty men were to hit the conveyer rotunda-head just in case there were any remaining conveyers. The largest force of some three hundred men were to neutralize the workers’ barracks with sleep gas. They’d be left to awaken in the morning to discover the processing plants and management housing in ruins, wondering where all the staff had disappeared to. The Vanadium stockholders back in Toronto would be left holding the bag.

  The outside guards were neutralized at once. Any of them who showed initiative or tried to resist were garroted or needled. Everything went according to plan until one of the rotunda guards opened up with submachine gun fire; then everything went to Shpeegar.

  Lights started popping on and guns opened up in the manager’s compound. Armed guards started pouring out of tunnels and buildings.

  Vall took a ten-man team with him to the compound. The razor wire was already cut and Kostran shot one guard with his needler, while they finessed their way through the sharp wire and entered the compound. He ran up to the main house and set a timed charge. He raised his arm and the team pulled back; moments later the porch and front doorway disappeared in a ball of fire and black smoke.

  Two guards, their gray uniforms wreathed in flames, ran out of the building screaming and waving their arms.

  Vall swept them both off their feet with his sawed-off shotgun.

  He quickly reloaded his shotgun with special 12-gauge micro-flechette shells and followed Kostran into the smoldering house. There was automatic fire coming from the back bedroom area; they crept through the hallway on the ground wearing oxy-masks. The air was filled with smoke and heating up.

  A woman dressed in a blue nightgown ran out of the bedroom. Before she could reach them, a dozen shots rang out from behind. She jerked and dropped to the ground in a heap like a limp rag doll.

  Vall ordered retreat over their secure comm-line and started backpedaling. The others followed. When the team had vacated the hallway and was safely outside, he gave the order to demolish. A rocket launcher fired and the back of the house disappeared in a wall of red flames and dense black smoke.

  By the time the house was engulfed, the fight was over. Some of the field agents were rounding up a few dozen prisoners, but most of the compound was on fire with flames reaching toward the sky. He was glad they were so far from Swakopmund or they’d already be swamped with police and newsies.

  Ranthar, who’d led the raid on the conveyer-head, came running up. “Verkan, we’ve got the conveyer-head secured. No conveyers inside. All the guards are down or captured. It appears the top brass left yesterday. I don’t know how they found out we were coming, but there’s a leak somewhere.”

  “Tell me about it!” Vall replied, through gritted teeth.

  “I don’t think we’re going to learn much from this crowd.” Ranthar grimaced. “We’ve tried to interrogate a few of the managers. I’ve seen some criminal overdoses on Zanithax before, but nothing like this! Some of these poor bastards had their memory stripped to the point they didn’t even know their real names... These Organization people don’t give a spent shell about their own troops. A lot of the technicians—I guess they hadn’t had time to transpose them out—were shot behind the ear, execution style. We got a few IDs we can check back on First Level, but I doubt we’ll get much out of them. We’re sending most of the prisoners to Pol-Term as it would cause a public relations nightmare if the local newspapers got wind of this. Blaxthakka help us, if the newsies back on First Level ever learned about it! The Organization is deadly serious about maintaining security.”

  “What I want to know is: where are they sending the yellow-cake?” Vall asked. “It’s not going to Home Time Line; we’ve got more radioactives there than we can ever use. Someon
e somewhere is building a lot of atomic bombs. We’ve got to find out where and quick.”

  “There’s no evidence they’re processing the yellow-cake into uranium here.”

  He nodded. “They probably have the plants somewhere on Fifth Level. If one of them is stupid enough to head there in his conveyer, we might find out where.”

  Ranthar shrugged his shoulders.

  By 0450 they were rounding up the last of the prisoners, some eighty-five all together. Half had already committed suicide. Verkan suspected post-hypnotic commands and poison capsules were responsible. He had all the remaining prisoners, except two, sleep-gassed so they wouldn’t kill themselves.

  “What are our losses?” Verkan asked.

  “Three dead and five seriously wounded, all on their way to Pol-Term with Crash units. The bill would have been lower if that idiot with the machine gun hadn’t opened fire.”

  V

  Kostran shoved a tall man, trussed up with sticky fiber, through the door of the large transport aircraft where Verkan was waiting impatiently.

  “We don’t have a lot of time, boss. This is the head engineer; apparently, he wasn’t important enough to transpose out yesterday. He didn’t have the guts to use his poison capsule. Survey just picked up two helicopters coming from Swakopmund. They’re about twenty miles out.”

  “What did the Evasion Team come up with to cover-up all this?” Vall asked, pointing to the smoldering ruins and burning houses inside the compound.

  “They set it up to look like a workers revolt turned bad. They burned most of the evidence, removed the collapsed-metal shielding and blew-up the conveyer head. Evasion threw most of the manager corpses into the flames. Just before we left they planted some Kalashnikovs and grenades in the barracks, along with some Communist books and pamphlets, as well as some illegal alcohol stills—which will explain their hangovers. The Team shot up several hundred of the workers; the authorities wouldn’t buy it if just the guards and managers were discorporated. Then they hit the survivors with the sleep gas antidote. Most of the them will be wide awake and wandering around in a daze by the time the authorities arrive. It’ll look just like another Communist sponsored revolt against the Capitalist system.”