by Simon Hawke
“That will be entirely up to you.” said Darkness. “I did notsay how the book ends, did I?”
Delaney exhaled heavily. “Jesus, this is it, isn’t it? Thekey point in time. The reason you came back. This is where it’s all going tohit the fan.”
“Only partially correct, Mr. Delaney,” Darkness said. “Thisis one of the key points in time. but it is, or it is about to be, ahighly significant one.”
“You’re saying we blew it the first time around?” asked Steiger.
“The first time’?” Darkness said. “There is no first time.As Delaney was just saying, quite correctly, there is only time. A nebulouscommodity that can be disturbingly fluid and unstable. This moment, right now,is in fact a temporal disruption. I am a temporal disruption. And if thetime-stream has become a sea of instability, we are about to enter into the eyeof the storm. What you are about to do, one way or another, will change thecourse of history. That you will effect a change is unavoidable. That you willeffect the right change is conjectural. But you will effect a change.”
They all remained very silent.
“I see I have your attention,” Darkness said with ‘a slightsmile. But it was a smile that had no amusement in it whatsoever. “In the past,”he said, “I have interfered, in one way or another, in each of your lives.Except, of course, for you, Mr. Travers, as we have never met before. Your rolein what is about to happen will be minimal. Whereas theirs”-he indicated theothers with a sweeping motion of his walking stick-“will be pivotal and crucial.You doubtless have questions that you’d like to ask, but I’m afraid that I haveneither the time nor the liberty to answer them right now. However,” hecontinued, addressing his comments to the others, “everything that I have doneup to this point has had a purpose.
“There is a great deal that I simply cannot tell you,” hewent on, “but I can tell you this-something has occurred in the time periodfrom which I came that has resulted from a series of pivotal events that tookplace in the past. Not all of those events involve you, but some of the mostsignificant ones do. And this one is, perhaps, the most significant.”
“Will it be the last?” asked Andre softly.
“That all depends, Miss Cross,” Darkness replied. “If wepass this test-and it is very much a test, for you as well as me-then therewill be at least one more challenge that we shall have to face together. But ifwe fail here and now, then it will all be moot, for I will have only one chanceto attempt to set things right. Because, as you were saying just a few momentsago, to risk attempting it a second time would create a temporal paradox and theconsequences of that would be dire, indeed. For we are already involved in one,you see. In a manner of speaking.”
“What do you mean, in a manner of speaking?” asked Delaney.
“I cannot tell you all the details of what is about tohappen,” Darkness said, “but Steiger has guessed correctly. The Special OperationsGroup from the parallel universe has indeed created a temporal paradox by theiractions in this scenario. Had they done so in their own timeline, they wouldhave risked bringing about a timestream split. But they have done it in our timeline.which changes the situation considerably.”
“I’m not sure I see how,” said Travers. “If they sent inObservers through the confluence point who then returned and made their report,then by sending through an S.O.G. team and having them clock back and interferewith temporal continuity during the same period their Observers had reportedon, then the minute their Observers return, they will have altered their ownpast.”
“Not necessarily,” said Darkness. “Not if the Observers donot return.”
“What?” said Lucas. “You’ve lost me. They would have had tohave returned in order to make their report, so the S.O.G. team could comethrough and act on it. Because if they didn’t return and make theirreport, then how could the S.O.G. team have received it in the first place? It’sthe Grandfather Paradox.”
“Precisely,” Darkness said. “So let us use that as anexample. Assume that you clock back into the past in an attempt to kill yourgrandfather before he ever met your grandmother and you succeed in doing so.Your grandfather has now died before he could sire your father, which wouldhave made it impossible for you to have been born. If you had not been born,then how could you possibly have gone back into the past to kill yourgrandfather? The most basic problem in temporal physics. Seemingly insoluble.Only Mensinger had solved it. His solution, of course, was the timestreamsplit. however. Mensinger had not anticipated a Grandfather Paradox that couldinvolve two separate universes. And this is precisely what we are confrontedwith.
“Let us now take our particular example of the Grandfather Paradoxand follow it through using the two separate timelines,” Darkness continued. “Stepone: the people in the parallel universe locate a confluence point and sendObservers through in order to research as thoroughly as possible the temporalscenario they wish to disrupt. Step two: the Observers complete their task, goback through the confluence point to their own timeline. and make their report.Step three: a team is assembled from your counterparts in the parallel universe,the Special Operations Group, and sent through the confluence back to thescenario the Observers had already reported on. Of course, since they are goingback into a past scenario into which they had already sent Observers, those Observersare still going to be here when they arrive, because they will not yet havefinished their task and made their report. And if at that point the S.O.G. teamdoes anything to disrupt the original scenario, then obviously that will affectthe scenario, changing it from what the Observers had originally reported on.You with me so far’?”
“Right,” said Lucas.
The others mumbled their assent or nodded.
“All tight, then.” Darkness said, we understand that the momentthe S.O.G. team arrives here, then the moment they do Anything that affectsthis scenario, they change the past. They change what their Observers hadoriginally seen. And at that point, they create a temporal paradox. So in orderto avoid that, they proceed immediately upon arrival to step four. They killtheir own Observers.”
“Wait a minute,” Travers said. frowning. That wouldn’t work.Then they’d still be faced with a paradox. Their Observers had to havemade their report in the first place in order for the S.O.G. to receive and acton it.”
“You’re absolutely right,” said Darkness. Now they’re facedwith the hypothetical dead grandfather. Only in this case, he’s been killed inanother timeline. So what they’ve done has not affected their timeline at all.”
But it would still affect them,” insisted Travers. “The oneswho did the killing. I mean. The paradox still exists.”
“You’re quite right,” Darkness replied. “And it centersaround them. Only they are no longer in their own timeline.”
“I can’t see what difference that makes.” said Travers.
“Can’t you? Follow it through. What has actually occurred intheir own timeline? They sent Observers through a confluence point. That doesn’tchange. Their Observers completed the task they were sent out to do and cameback to make their report.”
“That does change.” Travers said. “The team went back andkilled them, so now they never come back.”
“Correct,” said Darkness. “But let’s get back to theiroriginal scenario. After the Observers made their report. The team went throughthe confluence point to effect their disruption. So what do we have so far?Observers leave on their mission. They come back and report. The S.O.G. teamleaves on its assignment Only part of their assignment is to kill theObservers, so now they can’t come back. The grandfather has been killed. So nowthe grandson can’t possibly exist. Only he does exist. Not in his own timeline.but in ours, where he doesn’t really constitute a paradox. The temporal paradoxwould only come into play when he went home again, back to his own timeline.Because then we’d have an S.O.G. team that would be returning to a universewhere their actions in ours had changed the past in theirs. As a result of whatthey’d done. their Observers never returned. And since their Observers neverretur
ned. the S.O.G. team never would have left. So they can’t return.either.”
“I’ll be damned,” said Travers slowly. He moistened his lipsnervously and nodded. “It works. So long as they don’t go back, there’s notemporal paradox in their own timeline.” He shook his head with awe. “It’spositively brilliant. They came here on a suicide mission!”
“No, they didn’t.” Lucas said quietly.
Travers glanced at him. “But then, how …”
“They just came here on a one-way trip,” said Lucas.
“They can never go back. But they can go anywhere they wantto in our timeline.”
“A guerrilla disruption team,” Steiger said. “They can spendthe rest of their lives clocking through our timeline. disrupting our historyeverywhere they go. And since they can never go home again, they’ve got nothingleft to lose.”
“Which means that we not only have to stop them from preventingCaesar’s assassination,” added Delaney, “we’ve got to make sure we find everysingle one of them. And kill them all.”
“You’ll need to do much more than that,” said Darkness. “Keepin mind that they’re in a position to affect the lives of at least twopivotal figures in this scenario. Any well planned mission has both a primary anda secondary objective.”
“Cleopatra,” Andre said.
“Precisely. If they fail in their objective to preventCaesar’s murder, they can still affect the course of history by killing Cleopatra.Or Marc Antony. for that matter. Or even Octavian. who will become CaesarAugustus.”
“Hell. I knew I was going to hate this mission,” saidDelaney.
“We can have Antony and Octavian covered.” Lucas said, aworried look on his face, “but they’ve already got Cleopatra.”
“Which is why I’ll have to kidnap her.” said Darkness.
10
Capt. Zeke Hollister of the Special Operations Group sat ona couch in his room at Cleopatra’s house, scowling and smoking a cigar. He wasscowling at the men standing before him, dressed in white cotton tunics andsandals. They were all standing at attention, their eyes firmly fixed on apoint somewhere above his head.
“At ease “ said Hollister in a voice that was quiet, yetlaced with barely suppressed fury.
The men assumed a position of parade rest, their eyes stillfocused on a point somewhere above him. They did not look at all at ease.
Hollister looked up at his platoon sergeant. “All right,Maselli,” he said, around his cigar, “what the hell went wrong’?”
Sgt. Robert Maselli’s jaw muscles tightened for a moment beforehe replied. “We got hit, sir.”
“I know you got hit. God damn it, what I want to know ishow? And by whom?”
Maselli swallowed nervously. “We don’t know, sir.”
Hollister stared at him for a long moment. He took a deepbreath and let it out slowly in an effort to control his temper.”Tell me whathappened.”
“We took three squads.” Maselli said. “Petrone led thefirst. Morton the second. I took the third. I figured we had plenty of time toconduct the operation. I knew we had at least a couple of hours once they wentinto the bedroom and I figured half an hour at most would be enough, plenty oftime to get the A team back before Caesar was ready to leave.”
Their platoon was divided into three squads-A team. B team.and C team. The A team was Caesar’s bodyguard. with Sgt. Morton in charge. Bteam, under Cpl. Petrone, remained stationed at the house with Hollister. Cteam. under Maselli, was recon and surveillance.
“It was going to be a fast operation,” Maselli continued. “hitand run and get out quick. Petrone led the detachment from B team againstSeptimus and the others. They set up an ambush on a quiet side street a shortdistance from their baseops. Morton led the group from A team against thatSabinus character and I went in with four men from C team to get Marcian. Iknow the idea was to take him alive for interrogation. but he was already deadwhen we got there.”
“Dead how?”
“Shot through the heart with a laser.” said Maselli. “Andthere’s one more thing. A guy was watching his house.”
“What guy’?”
“I don’t know, sir. I never saw him before. He was takinggood cover and we almost didn’t spot him. We took a risk and clocked straightin from the coordinates I picked up when we were at that orgy Marcian had acouple of weeks back. We found him dead in his room, with the door locked fromthe inside.”
“Suicide?”
“No chance,” Maselli said. “Whoever killed him had to haveclocked out.”
Hollister frowned. It wasn’t making any sense. “Go on.”
“We decided not to do anything about the guy keeping Marcian’splace under surveillance. Apparently, he didn’t know Marcian was already dead.so I doubt he was involved. For all we know, maybe he was just a burglar.casing the damn place.”
“You should have taken him.” said Hollister.
“I’m sorry, sir. I guess I made the wrong decision. It’sjust that finding Marcian dead really threw me. It simply didn’t make sense andI didn’t want to take any unnecessary chances.”
“All right.” said Hollister. chewing on his cigar. “What thehell happened with the other two assault teams?”
“After we found Marcian dead, we clocked over to back up Petrone’steam,” said Maselli. “Only we were too late. They’d already been hit. Nosurvivors. I left Church behind to take their discs and clock the bodies outand the rest of us clocked over to check on Morton’s group. They’d been hit, aswell.”
“I don’t believe it,” said Hollister. All right, Morton. let’shear it.”
Sgt. Morton picked up where Maselli had left off. “We clockedover to the Argiletum, where Sabinus had just moved into a small apartment. Wefigured he was only one guy, we’d have no trouble. We could probably take himalive for interrogation. Only there was someone keeping him under surveillance.We held back and while I was trying to figure out what the hell that meant.Sabinus came out and started walking down the street.”
“Alone?”
“Alone. And this guy started tailing him. So we startedtailing them both. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on. But after a coupleof blocks. I was pretty sure that Sabinus or whoever the hell he really isspotted the guy who was tailing him so we decided to move in. Only before wecould, somebody opened up on our tail with lasers.”
Hollister frowned. “What the hell.
“That’s just what I thought, sir. And right about the sametime, we got hit. as well. I don’t know where the hell they were. I never evensaw them. Randall and Biers were down before we knew what hit us. Sabinus andthe guy tailing him both clocked out to who knows where. Then we got the hellout of there ourselves before we all got wasted. That’s all there is. sir.”
“Son of a bitch!” said Hollister. through grittedteeth.
“What the fuck is going on? how many sides are there to thisthing’?”
“The only explanation I can think of is that it’s their Underground.”said Macelli. “They must have an entire cell back here. They’ve caught on to usand started backing up the T.I.A. team to prevent a disruption on their hometurf.”
Hollister nodded. “That would fit,” he said. “They could becovering the T.I.A. people, but that doesn’t explain the hit on Marcian. We’repretty sure that he was either in their Underground or another L.T.O. In eithercase, why take him out’? It doesn’t make any goddamn sense!”
“There’s obviously something going on that our Observers weren’taware of,” said Maselli.
“We allowed for the possibility of a T.I.A. adjustment teambeing clocked in,” said Hollister, “but we didn’t count on members of theUnderground coming to their aid. We should have foreseen that possibility. Butit’s still not necessarily a problem.” He got up and started pacing back andforth. “Marcian’s murder bothers me. It simply doesn’t fit. Why would they wantto take out one of their own people?”
“Maybe he wasn’t one of their own people,” Morton suggested.“Maybe we were wron
g about him. Maybe he was just an ordinary Roman whom theyused.”
“Then explain the cigarettes we found in his room,” said Maselli.“And the warp disc and the laser he had hidden away. No. Marcian or whoever hereally was had to be either T.I.A. or Underground. We know their TemporalIntelligence agents used contacts in the Underground from time to time. Hell,we’ve done the same thing. So either way, it doesn’t make any sense that theyshould kill him. There’s got to be a part of the picture we’re not seeing. In anycase, it probably doesn’t matter anymore. If they had any doubts about us before,they don’t after tonight. I think it’s time we considered aborting the mission.”
Hollister spun around to face him. “We’re not aborting anything,Maselli! We’ve come too far and we’re too close to give up now! Besides, we’restill holding all the cards. So long as we stick close to Caesar and Cleopatra.they can’t touch us. Not without risking a temporal disruption. They can bringin as many people as they want, an entire fucking army, and it still wouldn’tdo them any good. Caesar’s got to die on the fifteenth and he’s got to bemurdered by Brutus. Cassius. and the other conspirators. Anything they do tochange that would play right into our hands. Even if they figured out some wayto get the conspirators past A team and take out Caesar we’ve still gotCleopatra. And we can still shift our objective to Antony or Octavian. Theirhands are tied by their own temporal continuity. We don’t have to worry aboutthat. do we?”
“No. sir, I guess we don’t,” said Maselli.
“You’re damn right, we don’t. Just about anything we do herecan constitute a disruption, so we stick to the original objective. Morton, youget back to the rest of A team. If Caesar asks about the missing men, tell himthat you sent them out for wine or something and they were set upon and killed.That should make Caesar think twice about discounting the rumors of aconspiracy against him. Maselli. I want you to bring the rest of C team in.From now on, A team sticks to Caesar like glue. B and C teams remain right hereat baseops. If Cleopatra decides to go out, B team stays as close to her aspossible. She’s our insurance. In the meantime, we’ll double the guard here,just in case they’re crazy enough to try anything. And nobody, nobody, getsinside unless they’ve been cleared through me first. Got that?”
