Soldiers Out of Time

by Steve White

  “And you know these energy figures?”

  “Approximately. I’m no specialist, you understand, but I’ve naturally taken an interest in the subject. If we can observe the displacement of one of these ships, I can tell you roughly how far into the past it’s gone.”

  “Very well. We will remain in orbit and watch for an impending displacement.”

  * * *

  As it turned out, they didn’t have long to wait. Fortuitously, their orbit had carried them over the hemisphere where the displacer was located when the transport they had followed from Zirankhu—having offloaded some but seemingly not all of its cargo—rose on its grav repulsion and maneuvered out onto that vast outdoor stage.

  The sensors involved were passive, so they were in no danger of detection as they measured the output of that antimatter reactor as it built up to the surge that would send the mass of the transport back in time at least the minimum three hundred years. They all stared as the figures mounted and mounted—especially Jason, who had some inkling of what such an output must mean when channeled into a Transhumanist displacer. It seemed as though the planet itself must shake, or at least that there ought to be some visual manifestation of these titanic energies . . .

  Then, with the usual anticlimactic absence of any such visual effects, the transport was gone.

  “Did you get that?” Tomori asked Jason.

  “Yes.” Recalling the mass of the transport (adjusted for a reasonable guess as to its cargo), he could do it in his head. He turned to Rojas. “Assuming that the energy efficiency of this displacer is the same as that of the one we captured on Earth, that ship has gone back approximately five hundred years.”

  “The 1880s, more or less,” Chantal remarked.

  “On Earth, that is,” Mondrago demurred. “Out here, in this barren system, nothing in particular.” He shook his head and voiced the question in all of their minds. “Why?”

  Rojas ignored his perplexity. “All right. We’ve been more successful in obtaining information than we could have reasonably expected. We need to return to Earth with that information without further delay. Captain Van Horn, prepare for departure.”

  “No.” Jason’s blunt monosyllable drew a sharp look from Rojas, and he decided he’d better put a little more care into deferring to her as officer in charge of what was, after all, an IDRF investigation. “I mean, Major, that you might want to reconsider that order in light of the fact that there’s one extremely crucial datum that we haven’t yet obtained: where these transports are going after they’ve been displaced five hundred years into the past.”

  “And how do you propose to obtain it?”

  “I want to get aboard the transport that’s still here—the one we saw return—and access its nav computer.”

  Jason couldn’t avoid a certain satisfaction at seeing Rojas, for the first time in their acquaintance, completely flabbergasted. “What? But . . . but how—?”

  “Look, we haven’t seen any sign of any weapon emplacements around that installation. You said so yourself.” Jason turned to Tomori for confirmation. “Isn’t that so?”

  “Right.”

  “And it makes sense. They know they couldn’t possibly build any defenses here that could stand up to a serious attack from space if they were discovered. So instead of trying, they’re relying entirely on secrecy—the fact that we don’t know they’re here. And they have no reason to think that secrecy doesn’t still hold. As far as they know, they’re all by themselves on this planet and have no reason to mount guard over that ship. We can land under cloak, a short distance from their base, and approach it unnoticed.”

  “And what do you propose to do once we get there? Do you think they’re simply going to let you stroll aboard their ship?” With an effort that obviously cost her a great deal, Rojas turned to Chantal in search of support. “Didn’t you say that the Transhumanist Underground is obsessive about security?”

  “I think, Major, that Commander Thanou may have a point about this perhaps being a case where they think they can afford to relax from that. And don’t forget another characteristic of theirs: arrogant overconfidence, rooted in their contempt for us Pugs.”

  “And,” Jason added hurriedly, before Rojas could think of a rejoinder, “I recall that you brought a nice little toolkit of IDRF intelligence-collection goodies along from Earth—including items which, in less respectable hands, might be called extremely sophisticated burglar’s tools. Is that stuff still aboard this ship?”

  “Well, yes. We never had any use for it on Zirankhu.”

  “And carrying whatever we need ought to be easy, in this gravity.” Jason held Rojas’ eyes. “We’ll never have this chance again, Major. If the IDRF attacks this place with guns blazing, anything they don’t obliterate the Transhumanists will blow up themselves.” Chantal nodded in confirmation.

  Rojas looked grim even for her. “Very well. We’ll try it. But I want two things clearly understood. First, I’m coming along, and I’m in charge.”

  “Of course,” Jason assured her.

  “Secondly, our objective is to get in and out tracelessly with the information we want, so they won’t know they’ve been compromised. We’ll approach the installation and wait for any opportunity to do that. If no such opportunity arises—in other words, if your assessment of their security proves to be overly optimistic—then we abort the mission and get out while still undetected.”

  “We’ll have no disagreements in this regard, Major.” Jason grinned. “Remember what I said before about heroes.”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Invisible and—they hoped—effectively undetectable by anything the Tranhumanists had installed on what was supposed to be a secret planet, the Comet settled cautiously down to the surface on grav repulsion.

  Van Horn landed them a couple of miles east of the Transhumanists’ landing field—a compromise between security considerations and minimizing the distance they’d have to walk. The landing site was behind a low ridge which lent its own low-tech concealment. As soon as Tomori confirmed that they had not been detected, Jason, Rojas and Mondrago (whom Jason had insisted be allowed to come along) suited up.

  Like all passenger-carrying spacecraft, the Comet carried, as a legal requirement, enough light-duty survival suits for all souls aboard. Jason (from his days with the Hesperian Colonial Rangers) and Mondrago (from his former life as a merc) were about as familiar with these as Rojas, whose training included them as a matter of course. This was not a bulky full-scale spacesuit, with its array of accessories. Instead, it appeared to be a jumpsuit made of electrically active, self-repairing nanofabric, flexible even when expanded slightly by pressurization. That “skin,” powered by sunlight and the wearer’s body heat, recycled waste and exhaled carbon dioxide, providing air and water practically indefinitely. Near-microscopic thermocouples woven into it maintained a comfortable temperature. A pullover clear plastic hood stiffened to form a helmet when the suit was pressurized. The gloves, with their sensory-input finger pads, allowed for dexterous manipulation of tools—including the electromagnetic needle pistols the three strapped to their belts. These suits were not military models, so their electronic camouflage systems did not automatically match the background, conferring near-invisibility; but the wearer could manually set the skin to any of several stock patterns. They chose “desert” and passed through the airlock.

  The ship’s artificial gravity had never been reset from Zirankhu’s 0.72 G, so the transition when they left it and stepped onto the surface of “Planet A” was not as disconcerting as it might have been. They soon adjusted to a gravity little more than half Earth-normal as they mounted the ridge and proceeded across the barren landscape. Van Horn had landed shortly before sunset so they would have some light for at least the first part of their trek, but be in darkness by the time they neared their destination. (The planet’s rotation was only about a third longer than Earth standard.) So they walked west toward the dim light of the small westering sun, tra
versing a boulder-strewn plain which was mostly sand but reddish in color due to significant amounts of iron and sulfur oxides. They made good time in the low gravity, despite the satchels they were carrying.

  The sun had almost set when they arrived at the edge of the plateau overlooking the Transhumanist installation. Lying prone, they peered down. The temporal displacer was in the distance to the right, beyond a cluster of pressurized domes. But the landing area was below and to the left, and the transport lay there. Discouragingly, there was activity around it.

  “They must be preparing for departure,” said Rojas into the tiny communicator stuck to the base of her throat.

  “Right. Another milk run to Zirankhu.” Jason studied the scene through small electronic binoculars. “Maybe they’ll quit work after dark.”

  “And leave the ship unguarded?” Mondrago sounded skeptical.

  “Remember, they don’t think they need to guard it.”

  “All right,” said Rojas. “We’ll wait here and observe for a reasonable length of time.”

  “How long is ‘reasonable’?” Jason wanted to know.

  “Until I say it no longer is,” snapped Rojas.

  There was little in the way of dusk in this thin atmosphere; almost at once, the moonless sky darkened from deep blue to black, spangled with stars that barely had the twinkling effect produced by Earth’s denser air. The temperature, already low, fell rapidly. But floodlights illuminated the transport, and the figures around it, clad in suits like theirs, continued their activity. It was difficult to keep count of how many entered the ship and how many left.

  “This isn’t going to work,” muttered Rojas.

  “Just a little longer,” Jason urged. “I can’t believe they’re going to keep at it all night.”

  Time went by and Rojas was growing restless again when the workers began to head back toward what must be the residence dome, which showed a flicker of lights. The lights of the nearer domes began to go off and finally the floodlights went out. The transport lay alone, in darkness.

  “This is our chance!” exclaimed Jason. Without waiting for Rojas’ assent he got to his feet and started off.

  Inside their flexible transparent helmets they wore passive light-collecting goggles—vastly more compact descendants of an earlier era’s “starlight scopes.” This enabled them to scramble down a ravine that cut down through the plateau to the desert floor. Moving cautiously, they kept the bulk of the transport between themselves and the domes as much as possible. At Rojas’ insistence, they stopped at the edge of the landing area and waited a couple of minutes. There was no indication that they had been discovered; evidently no security field enveloped the transport. They proceeded in a low, crouching run to the transport’s side and worked their way around it to where a standard model like this would have a personnel airlock.

  To their surprise, the access ramp was extended. And the airlock was as standard as everything else seemed to be, so the paratronic lockpick Rojas carried sufficed to open it from the outside. They stepped into the tiny chamber, illuminated only by the dim lights of the control panel, on which Rojas punched out a command. The outer door slid shut automatically, and then the inner inner door began to open . . .

  All at once, Jason’s entire universe was a blinding glare of light.

  Hastily, he shut off the light-gathering goggles he had left on, expecting the ship’s interior to be dark. Instead, it was fully lighted, and the goggles had enhanced that illumination into an intolerable glare, which now abruptly ceased. But his field of vision was still full of exploding suns, which he tried desperately to blink away. Just ahead, he could make out the figure of Rojas, who had stumbled into the ship, and a second figure who brought some kind of tool down on the back of the IDRF major’s head.

  Still frantically trying to clear his eyes of the stroboscopic aftereffects, Jason lurched forward and grappled Rojas’ attacker. But he was hopelessly disoriented, and his opponent’s muscles were products of genetic upgrade. He was flung aside, to smash against a bulkhead . But then his gradually returning sight made out Mondrago, grasping the Transhumanist from behind in a chokehold with his left arm and, with his right, giving a quick, vicious sideways twist to the head, breaking the neck.

  Jason got unsteadily upright, smiling weakly. “You must have had your light-gatherers deactivated.”

  “Just being cautious,” said Mondrago modestly as he helped Rojas to her knees. “Rest a minute, Major.”

  “No time!” Rojas got to her feet, holding her head and swaying slightly. “Let’s see if there are any others.”

  They drew their gauss needlers and fanned out through the transport, ending in the control room, but there was no one. “So there was just the one, still in here working,” said Jason.

  “And now he’s dead.” Rojas shot Mondrago a look that Jason though had a rather high acid content, considering that the Corsican had just saved her life. “When they find him—or if they don’t find him—they’ll know someone has been here.”

  “I’ve got an idea on that,” said Jason. Rojas muttered something in Spanish about Jason’s ideas, which he decided he was just as glad he couldn’t understand. “But for now, let’s hurry up and do what we came to do.”

  “All right,” said Rojas stiffly, as though agreeing only grudgingly. She turned, knelt and fumbled in her satchel.

  “You’re welcome,” Mondrago murmured inaudibly in the direction of her back.

  The device Rojas pulled from her satchel was the heaviest item in it, even though it was vastly lighter and more compact than its distant ancestor, the late twentieth-century’s TEMPEST (Transient Electromagnetic Pulse Emission Scanning Technology) gear. And, unlike that ancestor, it could read data already stored on a computer, not just what was currently being keyed in or displayed. Even though the transport’s interior lights made clear that it was operating under minimal auxiliary power, they took no chances. They booted up the nav computer on its integral battery power before Rojas began her probing. The process took a while, during which interminable minutes Jason’s nerves crawled. Finally Rojas looked up. “All right. What we need should be in here. Now let’s go. And . . . let’s hear your ‘idea’ regarding the highly inconvenient corpse.”

  The dead Transhumanist was wearing a suit not unlike theirs. They pulled his helmet cowl over, pressurized the suit, and carried him out of the airlock. The inner door could, with suitable manipulations, be closed while leaving the outer one open. They then arranged the corpse at the base of the ramp in such a way as to suggest he had finished his work, departed the transport, tripped, and fallen and broken his neck.

  “Do you really think this will fool them?” Rojas demanded irritably.

  “I think it might. Given their belief that they’re alone on this planet—and all indications point to them thinking that way—it will make better sense to them than anything else. And . . . do you have any better ideas?”

  “No,” Rojas admitted. “Let’s go.”

  They scrambled back up the ravine to the plateau and retraced their steps in the darkness with the aid of their goggles and Jason’s brain implant. Rojas still seemed intermittently dizzy, but she kept up.

  Tomori took several minutes to download the data and interpret it, while Chantal attended to Rojas’ head injury, which the latter accepted with fairly good grace. Finally the navigator looked up.

  “All right. Got it. That ship’s destination, after going back five hundred years, was the star HC+32 8213.” She brought up a display on which a star-symbol blinked for attention. “It’s fourteen point eight light-years from here, so it would only be a trip of less than five and a quarter days for them.”

  “And afterwards they don’t have to make a return trip to this system at all,” Jason observed. “All they have to do is restore the ship’s temporal energy potential, and it simply reappears here in the present.”

  “How can you be sure it works that way, Jason?” asked Chantal. “You’ve always told me t
hat, for any number of reasons involving fundamental physics, temporal displacement can only work in a planetary gravity field.”

  “Well, I can’t be absolutely sure,” Jason admitted. “We’ve never practiced time travel anywhere except on the surface of Earth, and you’re right about the displacement itself. But as for the retrieval . . . well, everything we know and understand indicates that the object has to return to its own time in the linear present, at the location from which it was displaced.”

  “We’ll have plenty of time to indulge in this kind of speculation later,” said Rojas, standing up and shaking off Chantal’s ministrations. “What do you know about that star?” she asked Tomori

  “It’s a single G3v star, only a little less massive and less hot than Sol. Beyond that, I can tell you nothing. It’s almost sixty-four light-years from Sol, and therefore has never been visited.”

  “By us,” Mondrago amended drily.

  “Very well, then. Now we know where ‘Planet B’ is.” Rojas gave Jason a hard look. “And before you can even make any suggestions regarding that star, Commander—”

  “Actually, I hadn’t intended to.”

  “—let me be quite definite on one point. It is now our duty to get back to Earth with the information we now possess, and we will take no further risks that might jeopardize our chances of doing so.” Rojas turned to Van Horn. “Captain, are our remaining provisions sufficient for us to return to the Solar system directly from here?”