Blackbird: A Warrior of the No-When

by Martin Schiller

  “But, regardless, here we are, and there they are. We employ Phaseships and the Chuchniya use something else that I do not even pretend to comprehend. Both of our species seem to share the capability to travel the River, but by vastly different means.”

  “What is their aim then?” I asked.

  “That I do not know,” he admitted. “Which forces me to defer to the shaman’s explanation for want of anything better. I am also afraid that my answer will be just as disappointing when it comes to your spectral dinner guest.’

  “I for one, have never met any of the Masters, nor am I acquainted with anyone who has, but I caution you that this does not mean that she is one of them. At the moment and without more information, you should avoid making such assumptions.”

  He was right of course. I had been jumping to conclusions.

  “You said that she claimed to be the one who created your Kunstschränke?” he inquired.

  I nodded. “Yes, that was her assertion.”

  The Professor shook his head in bewilderment. “Unfortunately, I was not present when the cabinet was installed, so I cannot attest to the nature of the woman who commissioned it. Nonetheless, I have met many of your clones since that time, and all of them seemed to be rather conventional. There was nothing mystical about them whatsoever.”

  “Which only deepens the mystery,” I observed.

  “Quite,” he replied, lighting his pipe and taking a deep contemplative puff. “And this brings us to your theory that she and the Chuchniya may have something in common. Not genetics of course, but similar abilities.’

  “It could be that she is some form of human who has managed to grasp the paranormal technology normally reserved for these wild men, namely biolocation. Like the Chuchniya, she may well be a ‘walker-between-the-worlds’ that we have yet to classify. Certainly, far stranger beings are already part of our existence. Take the Sibyl for example.”

  By mentioning the Sibyl, he had made his point, and it was not hard for me to demote my visitor from being a Master to someone with the special talent for masking their presence, and transcending space and time at will. However, a larger question still remained; this was what her business was with me.

  “That inquiry brings us squarely into the realm of the Empyrean,” he said, “and pure speculation. We only know one thing with any certainty; and that is that she--whoever and whatever she really is--exists, and that she will likely revisit you at some point in the future. Beyond that…”

  “Yes,” I agreed. “Beyond that remains to be seen.”

  Although I now had more questions than answers, I felt somewhat relieved, if only because I had another person to share my confusion with. It made the Empyrean and the incomprehensible entities that inhabited it, seem a little less daunting. But only that.

  ***

  Our squadron took off from Nazca at dusk, accompanied by the Avalonian, El Doradan and Shamballan wings. Once we were in our operations area, the Shamballan crews began their charade and the rest of us found places to hide.

  Those of us who were with Nazca settled in on a little island in what most of us knew to be the Caribbean in the 10th century. The beaches there were wide, and we were able to land our Phaseships well away from the tide, and with plenty of room for our eventual departure.

  After that, it was all a matter of waiting for the distress call. Manfred and Ziva spent most of their time either swimming or basking in the sun, and Major Sixkiller and Hamilket immersed themselves in their reading. As for myself, I spent my time taking long walks along the clean white beaches, and puzzling over the details of my mysterious encounter with my clone.

  I found her religion to be particularly bothersome. How anyone with her caliber of intelligence (assuming that it compared to mine), could have abandoned all logic and sensibility in favor of such gross superstition utterly confounded me. Yet she had prayed over her meal and professed a belief in God.

  ‘You will see’, she had promised. But I seriously doubted that any ‘miracle’ could ever occur that would successfully challenge the fact that there was nothing but the Great Abstraction and the laws of probability governing existence. The very notion of a God was preposterous.

  Then there was the matter of Elizabeth. My clone had proven my suspicion that the woman I had loved was not an anomaly by any means. She had existed in her life as well, and it only served that in a universe as vast as ours, that some iteration of my love continued to survive.

  Frankly, had I possessed a destination, I would have gladly abandoned my squadron-mates then and there, and flown off in search of her. But no such time or place was known to me and I was left with nothing but speculation. And hope.

  My somber ruminations came to an end on the third day. The Deviators had attacked at last, and the Shamballans were defending themselves as best they could.

  Everyone dropped what they were doing and pelted for the Phaseships. In mere moments, we were aloft and transitioning into the No-When. I for one, was eager for the fight, and it was not long before I found what I sought.

  Just as they had when they had attacked Major Sixkiller and me, two wings were assaulting the Shamballans, and the sheer unfairness of this enraged me.

  “Tally ho!” I cried, as we closed the distance and engaged them. At the same time, the pilots from Avalon and El Dorado made their appearance.

  The panic that this caused on the part of our enemies was palpable. Where only seconds before, they had enjoyed a decisive advantage, they were now quite outnumbered, and it was suddenly their turn to defend themselves.

  Major Sixkiller and I went after a pair of Deviators that had been hot on the tail of one of the Shamballans. We were accompanied by Manfred and Ziva. The reptilians responded to our combined fire by peeling off in two directions, which compelled us to do likewise. I was unconcerned though; we still had the advantage and we exploited it to the fullest.

  The Deviator that Sixkiller and I were chasing was no ace, and although they tried to evade us, I used my chronoguns to force them directly into the Major’s fire. The enemy Phaseship split in two and disintegrated, but not before the pilot ejected.

  However unsporting it was, I must admit that in that instant, I was tempted to fire upon them. I abstained from this unworthy response though; once a pilot ejected, they faced the hazards of the No-When itself. Reptilian or no, to have added to this with such a cruel blow was far beneath me. It was enough that they were out of action, I decided. So I flew by--but not without wishing them the worst. That at least, was permissible.

  In the meantime, Manfred and Ziva had dispatched their quarry and were joining forces with the Avalonian pilots to challenge their opposite numbers. In that quarter at least, the odds were fairly even, and I was determined to change the equation in our favor.

  “Blackbird,” I exclaimed, “added thrust!”

  The Phaseship responded to my command immediately. My speed increased, and I arrived just in time to send a burst across the noses of another pair of Deviators who were challenging Wing Leader Faylinn. They reacted by changing course to avoid being hit.

  Then I spotted something that made my pulse race. The more aggressive of the two Deviators bore the insignia of the white rose on her fuselage. It was the same enemy pilot that had forced me down in Serbia and vanquished poor Manfred! Now there was no question at all about assisting Faylinn. I vowed that I would see my nemesis pay for the humiliation that she had inflicted upon us.

  “Major,” I declared, marking the Deviator on the display for her to see. “This one is mine!” As if she sensed my coming, the ace peeled away from Faylinn, looped and came straight at me. I managed to fire a single burst before I was compelled to take evasive action. Whoever she is, I thought, she is completely insane.

  Coming around, I fired again, but she spun hard to port at the very last instant, dodged the bolts and tightened her turn. I was doing the very same thing and as our paths crossed, she returned my compliment with her own guns. One of her bolts stru
ck Blackbird’s belly. It was a glancing hit, and did little beyond setting off an alarm, but she had still managed to inflict an injury.

  I spun, and attempted to out maneuver her, but she kept slipping away from me like a drop of mercury between my fingertips. Then, in the midst of our chase, she assaulted one of the El Doradan ships as it crossed in front of her, shearing off its wing and crippling it. Even as it twisted down towards the River and the pilot ejected, she had turned again and was going after the wingman--and all this while I was doing my level best to destroy her.

  Now I was certain that my adversary was not only mad, but absolutely ferocious.

  But before I could manage anything else, bolts flew past me from behind. Another Deviator had come in, hoping to catch me unawares. Having no other choice, I broke off the chase and concentrated on my would-be assassin.

  This was when Pierce showed his mettle. He had been in the process of ascending to attack another vessel above me, saw the opportunity, and dropped his ships nose to fall upon my attacker in a wild spiraling maneuver, firing as he went. The enemy Phaseship broke into pieces even as he pulled out of his dive and circled back around to engage his original target. Bastard or no, I felt a grudging admiration for his skill as a pilot, and I must admit, a certain sense of gratitude.

  A moment later, I had more pressing matters to attend to. Another enemy ship had dropped in on my tail, and I heeled over to avoid his attack. But the pilot was skilled (although not quite as much as my enemy ace was) and stayed with me. For a moment, I wondered if I was about to see my Phaseship destroyed and myself, floating helplessly in the No-When.

  This time, it was Major Sixkiller who interceded; she had been above me and dove downwards. From her course, it was clear that she was going to come at us head-on and I had an inkling of what she was about.

  “Penny!” she cried, “Hard 90!” It was a maneuver that she and I had discussed on a number of occasions during our training together, and I responded immediately, bringing Blackbird hard to starboard, but stopping short of a full roll. The River spun wildly in my viewscreens and at the very instant that my craft presented the smallest possible profile, the Major let go with her weapons. The twin bolts from her chronoguns missed me just as she had intended, hitting the unprepared Deviator instead.

  The enemy craft shattered under this assault, and I completed my roll, looping down and around to trail after her. There was another fight going on between Ziva and a Deviator, and we were eager to lend our assistance. But the enemy had the same thing in mind, and two of them heeled over and dropped, hoping to score hits as she passed beneath them.

  In doing so however, they presented us with perfect targets. Sixkiller and I fired a stream of shots that cut the closest one in half and sheered the wing off the other. With the threat to our teammate now eliminated, we turned together and fell upon the survivor. By now, the enemy pilot had realized the futility of chasing Ziva any further and broke it off, racing towards the River.

  We were not about to let our prey escape though; our blood was up. To their credit, the reptilian did its level best to avoid our combined attack, jinking wildly, but in the end, our bolts found their mark and another Deviator was put out of the fight.

  As one, we turned about and headed back to join our forces. Although I searched for her, the enemy ace was nowhere to be seen, and those Deviators who remained were either descending into the nearest century, or engaging their thrusters and fleeing like the cravens they were. The battle had been a decisive one, and we were clearly triumphant. My only regret was that the enemy ace had not been one of the casualties. That would have to wait for another day, and another engagement.

  ***

  After the battle, several days elapsed with nothing of consequence occurring whatsoever. Because of the lull, I was able to resume my lessons with the Professor and even enjoyed some leisure time, reading and listening to music in my rooms. My mechanica even managed to win some limited approval from me; just as the machine that served Louise had done, it proved capable of furnishing entertainment, providing me with faultless recordings of Vivaldi’s ‘Le quattro stagioni’ and other masterpieces. And as long as it stayed in the corner, out of view, I could even pretend that I was being serenaded by live musicians, and not something out of my nightmares.

  But as pleasant as all this was, I was not content to remain sequestered forever, and made a habit of taking an afternoon constitutional in the corridors. I was not alone in this, and on one of these excursions, I encountered Ziva and Manfred.

  “Penny,” Ziva said, “We were just coming to get you. Louise is back and she’s looking for you. You’ll find her with her Phaseship out on the tarmac. It’s the one with Betty Boop painted on it.”

  “Betty Boop?” I asked, not recognizing the reference at all.

  “Yah, the cartoon character,” Manfred answered. “You know, ‘boop-oop-a-doop’?”

  Totally at a loss, I simply stared at them.

  “You’ll find out,” Ziva said, waving it off. “You can’t miss it.” With that, they departed.

  Mystified, I made my way out of the dome and onto the landing area. As Ms. Meier had reported, there was a sixth Phaseship there, with a native ground crew servicing it. Its egress hatch was standing wide open and I could hear the strains of a song playing inside,

  “I wanna be loved by you,

  Just you, and nobody else but you.

  I wanna be kissed by you,

  Just you, and nobody else but you…”

  Drawing nearer, I spotted the image that Manfred had been referring to, and I was scandalized. The figure was a curvaceous female with an oversized head that reminded me immediately of Bo and Peep. Although her eyes were normal, they were enormous, and the dress that she wore left nothing whatsoever to the imagination. Worse, this bizarre pornographic caricature was winking suggestively and kicking up her leg like a common streetwalker! I blushed deeply and looked away.

  This was the very essence of what Louise was all about. She simply delighted in shocking people and exploited every opportunity that presented itself to do so. Clone or not, we could not have been more different than one another.

  “Penny,” she beamed as I walked aboard. “So good to see you. Hamilket has given you to me for the day.”

  “Given?” I retorted. “Whatever for?”

  “Well,” Louise said, lighting herself a cigarette, “you see, we help out the folks in Special Section from time to time when they run short of agents--and whenever they need someone.”

  I arched my eyebrow. “I see. And?”

  “And today is a special day that they always want me to handle.”

  “And what would that be?” I inquired.

  “Why, today is Hitler Day,” she told me. “You do recall me mentioning him, do you not?”

  I did, and inclined my head in affirmation.

  She flashed me a look that suggested that the answer was so obvious that it did not require any further explanation. Nevertheless, she still furnished one.

  “This is the one day when all the Hitlers in all the universes are in the same spot, at the same time, sitting in the same room, with the same man. We simply enter, shoot him, or we shoot his companion. There’s even a list, so we won’t get it all mixed up.”

  I was horrorstruck. The only time that I had ever done violence to another human being had been during my misadventure in the Underground--and that had been in self-defense. What she was proposing so casually was nothing short of cold-blooded murder.

  I was no assassin!

  “Penny,” she said, sensing my inner turmoil. “Trust me. After the third or fourth time you bump off Hitler, it all becomes rather easy. Especially once I tell you a little more about this nasty fellow. Really, it’ll be fun. I’ve even packed us a picnic lunch.”

  CHAPTER 8: Hitler Day

  In which I am compelled to kill Mr. Hitler and discover the meaning of the eighth artifact. I am also taught the art of time-weaving, and confront the Si
byl.

  During our flight, Louise managed to convince me that Mr. Hitler was without question one of the most despicable creatures ever spawned from the loins of humanity. According to her, just in the 2nd universe alone, he and his Nazis (for it turned out that he was the leader of this sinister movement) were responsible for the deaths of upwards of 11 million innocent people, and twice as many in the 5th, and ten times that in the 9th.

  There was more besides, but I could not bear to hear of it, and stopped her before she could furnish me with the grisly details. While the thought of killing a man face to face still unsettled me greatly, my discomfort was blunted considerably by the despicable deeds that Louise had ascribed to this terrible despot.

  Our first stop was in the 2nd universe, in of all places, California and the year 1938. In my timeline, this sunny place was a Spanish possession, but in this one, it was part of the United States of America and the tiny Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río Porciúncula was known of as Los Angeles, a fairly sizable metropolis and the very center of the movie production industry.

  Louise landed our Phaseship (which she assured me was disguised as a conventional aircraft of the time) in the back lot of a place called the 20th Century Fox Studios. It was an enormous facility, dotted with gigantic buildings, and filled with all sorts of activity. Having seen a movie, I was surprised that so much real estate and so many people were required to create them.

  “Oh,” she told me when I mentioned this, “They don’t really use all those buildings or so many people for the movies. They actually only need about a quarter of the space for production and a tenth of the staff. The rest is dedicated to us, or more correctly, Special Section. You see, this studio serves as the hub for all of our agents going out on assignment in the centuries. It’s the perfect arrangement; they have the costumes, and the accoutrement that our people need to fit in wherever they go, not to mention linguists, and other specialists.”