The Fall of the Republic (The Chronoplane Wars Book 2)

by Crawford Kilian

  “Right.”

  “Eric?”

  “Yes, Jerry.”

  “Eric, did I do all right?”

  “You did fine. Fine.”

  “Good. God, Eric, they’re there. They’re really up there.”

  “Who are?” asked one of the techs, wrapping Pierce in a blanket and easing him into a wheelchair.

  “The aliens. The aliens. I saw them.”

  Wigner saw the techs’ faces go pale. Most of the rest of the project team was in earshot, and he heard one man swear.

  “Don’t worry, old son. You’re perfectly safe. Everything’s fine. Get him upstairs quickly, please.”

  When Pierce was gone, Wigner gathered the rest of the team around him.

  “Our man is obviously upset by his experience. I wouldn’t put too much credence in what he said. In any case, it is not, repeat not to be repeated to anyone and you are not to discuss it among yourselves. I’d like to thank you for what you’ve accomplished today. Let’s get the place closed down as quickly as we can.”

  “Dr. Wigner? Did he bring anything back?” asked one of the physicists.

  Wigner held up the chest pack and withdrew the microfiches.

  “Six messages from the future. Again, that is top secret information, not to go outside this room and not to be discussed. Understood?”

  They nodded, and he curtly nodded back. Bless their hearts, they would be talking about this within minutes. Soon the whole Agency would know Pierce had brought back six microfiches and had seen aliens on Ulro. That would cause plenty of distraction. Wigner wanted distraction.

  Three hours later, when the project team had closed everything down and left, Wigner went upstairs to see how Pierce was. The medics had sedated him, and Dr. Franklin in Woodstock had been notified.

  Wigner went back downstairs and let himself into the subbasement. Five minutes later he was driving out of the building with an overnight bag slung on the seat beside him, headed for Pierce’s apartment on Bleecker Street. He left the bag in the back of a closet. Then he went back to his car and drove a hundred miles north up Highway 87 to Woodstock.

  Wigner liked Tom Franklin. He was well over sixty, a man who could remember the day Roosevelt died, but a natural ally of the young. His aquiline features and wavy white hair typecast him as the benevolent general practitioner; very few people outside the Agency knew that he had been a major figure in the development of Training, and that he had made psycho-conditioning a genuine science rather than a branch of magic. He had enlisted in the Agency back in the 1960s out of a mix of patriotism and opportunism, since his country was quite prepared to serve him as lavishly as he served it. A decade earlier, the Agency had run some clumsy experiments in Canada on the effects of LSD, the kind of effort Franklin called “Auschwitz science.” He had moved far beyond that.

  Wigner reached Woodstock in the evening, with light still in the sky. The town looked more decrepit and abandoned than ever, with not a decently paved road in the place except the one leading to the Wood-stock Clinic. It wound off north of the old summer stock theatre, through a stand of maples to a high brick wall and a steel gate. Wigner gave the password to the guards and was allowed in.

  The road curved through another half mile of woods and meadows before ending in front of a three-storey colonial mansion complete with pillared portico. Off to one side were the tennis courts; to the other was a two-acre lawn where three young women were doing tai chi in the twilight.

  In the foyer of the house a tall young blonde woman welcomed him and escorted him to Dr. Franklin’s office suite. Franklin strode out from behind his desk to shake Wigner’s hand.

  “Haven’t seen much of you these days, but your reputation precedes you, Eric.”

  “I’ll have to start driving faster.”

  “Come and have dinner with me.”

  The refectory was quiet and comfortable, done in colonial style with a lot of polished wood and brass. Franklin and Wigner took a table overlooking the lawn and watched the tai chi exercise while awaiting their roast beef and Yorkshire pudding.

  “I understand your man will be arriving later tonight.”

  “Yes. He’s pretty rattled, I’m afraid.”

  “Given what I know about him, his experience must have been a very bad one.”

  “Apparently so. I feel bad about it, since it was my project and I handpicked him.”

  Franklin smiled. “Is that why you came up here? To apologize?”

  Wigner shrugged. “I suppose. In part. Mostly I’m here to ask for special treatment for him. He’s a remarkable young guy and he could have an important career, if he bounces back from this.”

  “I can’t promise miracles, Eric.”

  “Of course not. I should mention something else. He’s been engaged in some very sensitive assignments.”

  “I understand. We won’t dig into that, and if anything comes out accidentally we’ll maintain normal security.”

  “No. Extreme security. Anything having to do with his case must go through me alone.”

  The waiter arrived with their meal. Neither man spoke for a moment; then Dr. Franklin leaned forward a little.

  “Why not through your boss?”

  “Dr. Clement isn’t authorized to take part in this assignment, even through passive advisement. And he’s no longer my boss, even pro forma. I’m transferring to Semiotronics.”

  “Indeed. This smells like intrigue, Eric.”

  “More like perfectly done rare roast beef.”

  “I’ll need something in writing from your superiors, whoever they may be.”

  “In good time. Meanwhile, just take care of my friend, and if he babbles don’t tell anyone else what he says.”

  “Those are very, mm, awkward terms for me.”

  “And for me, believe me.”

  One of the three women on the lawn stopped doing her tai chi and crumpled onto the grass. Curled into a foetal ball, she struck at the grass with her list. Even through the double-glazed window, the two men could hear her shrieks. The other two women quickly picked her up and carried her out of sight

  “That one’s a stubborn case,” Franklin muttered. “Poor dear. We’ll have her fixed up eventually. All right, Eric, we’ll play it your way.” He suddenly smiled again, a conspiratorial glint in his eye. “Just to see what you’re up to.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Franklin.”

  Driving through Kingston on his way back to New York City later that night, Wigner heard sirens and gunshots in the heavy summer air. The radio gave no hint of trouble; it was probably just another food riot.

  Nevertheless, the authorities had set up roadblocks on the approach to Highway 87, and riflemen were guarding the tollbooths. With all their windows shot out and bloodstains on their doors, a couple of pickup trucks stood empty on the edge of the toll plaza. Wigner’s Agency ID was still valid, and it got him through the roadblocks and tollbooths without trouble.

  The highway was deserted except for a few northbound army trucks, and he drove fast. So far, everything was working out fairly well. The only possible problem was Dr. Franklin: he might, if Pierce revealed enough, decide to choose the wrong side in Wigner’s silent war. That would be serious, however, only if both Franklin and the senior Agency people acted very quickly indeed, and they were not known for their quickness. If it did happen, however, Wigner was not worried. Not as long as he could spend some time first with the microfiches.

  *

  The northbound ambulance passed Wigner’s car at New Paltz. In the rear of the ambulance, Pierce lay drowsing comfortably. He was strapped to a bed and accompanied by two male nurses. Fifty milligrams of Diaquin had put him into a mildly euphoric state. He knew he was being taken care of, but felt no curiosity about what might happen to him. He knew he had escaped something bad, but could barely recall what it was. The thought that he had been on a destroyed world in the future seemed absurd even though, in some distant way, he knew it was true. At times he could summon up th
e images of the silently screaming corpses in the tunnel, but they were not as bad as another image, a small twinkling blue light.

  “He’s getting restless again.”

  “Yeah, about time.”

  Warm, dry fingers touched his arm and applied a small square patch of fabric to the skin. Then an instant’s pressure forced the second dose through to his bloodstream. A few seconds later Pierce felt fine again.

  They wheeled him out of the ambulance into a courtyard, then a corridor and a small room lighted by a single lamp on a night table. Gently they put him into the bed and applied one more skin patch, a sleeping drug. Pierce yawned and curled up under the coverlet.

  Dr. Franklin began the assessment the next morning. He had hoped this might be a transient condition, a mild upset that could be slept off. The bed monitors told him otherwise: blood pressure, heartbeat, cutaneous potential all showed a man in severe shock. When Pierce woke, his eyes looked dazed and unfocused.

  “Good morning, Jerry. I’m Dr. Franklin.”

  Pierce did not respond. Franklin pulled his chair up beside Pierce’s bed and performed a quick but thorough examination.

  “Your pal Eric was up here last night. He thinks you’re some kind of hero, you know. Worried about you.”

  Saying nothing, Pierce closed his eyes again.

  “Can you see Ulro?” Franklin asked.

  Pierce’s eyes opened.

  “Tell me what you see.”

  “Tunnel. Black.”

  “Good, Jerry. Very good. Are you in the tunnel?”

  Pierce said nothing, but began to shiver under the coverlet.

  “Jerry, I’m going to give you a little shot that’ll help you feel better. Then you can talk about Ulro without feeling bad. Understood?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Dr. Franklin loaded a hypodermic gun with a handful of tiny cartridges and pressed it against the skin of Pierce’s arm.

  Wigner felt comfortable in Pierce’s apartment; it had the same utilitarian spareness of his own, and even a few houseplants. The Polymath was a little slower than the one Wigner was used to, but it would do quite nicely.

  The microfiches could have been scanned with a flickreader, but Wigner was in too much of a hurry. Instead he ran them through a textreader and into the Polymath’s memory.

  “Boot, Polly.”

  The little girl on the screen looked anxious. “I’m sorry, sir, I don’t recognize your voice.”

  Wigner chuckled and tapped out a sequence on the keyboard. “My name is Eric, Polly. Jerry’s away for a while, and he asked me to take care of you.”

  “Sure, Eric. Pleased to meet you. What can I do for you?”

  “You’ve just had about three hundred microfiches added to your files. Please collate and cross-index by the following keywords: Central Intelligence Agency slash, Civil Emergency Administration slash, National Security Agency slash, Defence Intelligence Agency slash, Union of Soviet Socialist Republics slash — ”

  He went on through the list, which ended with various crimes such as treason, bribery, murder, conspiracy, and drug trafficking.

  “Okay, Polly? Now please give me the chronological sequence on Central Intelligence Agency and treason. Flick rate ten pages per second.”

  “Sure, Eric.”

  Wigner leaned back in the chair, enjoying the faint tremble in his hands.

  CHAPTER X

  “No need to be nervous,” Clement said as the MATS shuttle began its descent to Andrews Air Force Base. Out the window, Jasmin Jones glimpsed the suburbs of Washington through the smog.

  “I’m not,” she said.

  “They’re very easy-going people, very good listeners. They’ll certainly be interested in what you have to tell them.”

  “I should hope so.” What government had ever been granted a glimpse of its own future?

  A Navy helicopter was waiting at Andrews. It was a hot, hazy day, and from the helicopter Jaz could see little traffic beyond the military patrols. The Black neighbourhoods were busy with people on foot or bikes; every other street seemed to be a marketplace. Jaz wondered what it was like to live around Blacks or Hispanics or Asians; she’d been a little kid when the Ethnic Integrity Act had been passed, and in any case her neighbourhood in Santa Monica had been lily-white already. Sometimes she thought people got along better in the ghettos than the lily pads; sometimes she dismissed the idea as neo-lib sentimentality.

  Roadblocks were set up around every government building, and each building’s rooftop held a group of sharpshooters. But the soldiers seemed relaxed: many on the rooftops were sunbathing or sleeping. The smog browning the horizon came not so much from cars as from countless cooking fires; most ghetto streets were lined with tree stumps.

  The helicopter settled onto the pad outside the old administration complex on the campus of George Washington University, now the headquarters of the Civil Emergency Administration. Clement got out of his seat, looking both cool and elegant in his seersucker suit and straw boater; Jaz, in a lightweight summer suit, felt sweaty and frazzled beside him. Stepping out into the blast of the slowing rotors only compounded matters, tangling her hair and speckling her skin with grit.

  “Not to worry,” Clement assured her. “Five minutes in the ladies’ room and you’ll be spectacular again.”

  It took somewhat longer than that, but even so she was ready before Clement was; he had actually taken a shower, the bastard, and changed his shirt.

  Someone’s executive assistant escorted them to the briefing room on the fourth floor. He was a harried man with thin blond hair who asked them if they could get decent produce on the New York black market.

  “We don’t patronize the black market,” Clement said calmly.

  “Boy, you’re lucky. Can’t get along without it here in Washin’ton.”

  Clement caught Jaz’s eye and made a discreet face.

  The briefing room was large and airy, panelled in oak and thickly carpeted. A U-shaped table faced a smaller one at the far end; on the wall behind the small table were a holoscreen and a large green chalkboard. Tall windows gave a view of the Washington Monument rising into the smog above the campus treetops.

  Only after Clement and Jaz had settled themselves at the small table did their audience enter the room: ten men, half of them in uniforms, none younger than fifty, the Executive Committee of the Civil Emergency Administration and, therefore, the rulers of the United States.

  Jaz was struck by their good looks; all were evidently fit and healthy, with sensibly light tans and good teeth. Even the two or three who were not actually beautiful had a craggy masculinity she found attractive, and all dressed well. The military men, all generals or admirals, wore few decorations; the civilians were in lightweight suits.

  The ten men took their seats at the U-shaped table while another twenty, assistants, filed in and seated themselves just behind their masters. Papers and folders rustled above the basso continuo of masculine conversation. The chairman, a tall civilian with curly white hair, smiled at Clement and Jaz. He had dimples when he smiled, and when he cleared his throat the assistants ceased their murmuring.

  “Good morning, Jonathan, and Ms. Jones. It’s a pleasure to meet you, ma’am, and I hope we’ll have the pleasure of seeing you often at future briefings.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Chairman.” Jaz gave him direct eye contact and a dazzling smile, and watched them all perk up a little. It felt a little odd to be aware of their curiosity about her when she knew so much about each of them.

  They had been senior corporate executives or government administrators, or both, before the president had declared the Emergency. He had chosen these men to run what was left of the government without interference from Congress or the courts or the media. They had done so for years now, so well that the president himself was little more than a figurehead. The last elected Congress still met, but only to pass meaningless resolutions backing the Committee’s actions, and to vent the resentments of a few malconten
ts.

  “Mr. Chairman,” said Clement, “the purpose of this briefing is to acquaint the Committee with the results of our mission to Ulro, but we’ll try to answer any other questions that might fall within the bounds of the Research Services Division.”

  “Very good, Dr. Clement. We have a number of issues we’d like your advice on.”

  Nice, thought Jaz. Courtesy on the edge of flattery. Dement gave the Committee some quick background on the decision to try to find the Riverside Park repository, and then came down heavily on the details of its failure: the breakdown of the tank, the temporary power failure that had kept Pierce waiting, the six microfiches that had been the only real reward of the mission.

  “We performed deep analysis on that material,” Dement said, “and Ms. Jones was part of the analysis team. I’d like her to acquaint you with the results.”

  “Please,” said the chairman.

  “Thank you,” said Jaz. God, it was going to take forever to get it all across to these un-Trainables. She would have to remember to spell it out carefully.

  “The records we obtained were Agency personnel files from the year 2002, mostly for persons working out of our New York offices. Most of them were cognates of people now working for the Agency, and our own data correlate very closely with the Ulro data. For example, we had the files on an industrial analyst named Ricardo Chavez who joined the Agency on August 1, 1986; our files and the Ulro files on Chavez mesh perfectly up to now. The Ulro files indicate he’ll stay on the payroll until his death in 2002.”

  A general interrupted: “You actually know the date of this man’s death?”

  “April 23. But our Ricardo Chavez isn’t likely to die on that date because it’s an accidental death — an apartment fire in Brooklyn.”

  Now for the deep analysis part. “Over twenty other Agency employees are scheduled to die in the same fire, which occurred during a battle between units of the 101st Airborne and units of the American Liberation Army. The combatants were seeking control of Verrazano Bridge, and an Agency residential block was badly damaged by fire.” She paused. “I’m sorry if my verb tenses are confused.”