When at last they had him out of the water and he lay on the damp earth, gasping for air, sobbing in pain, the Shadowy Man could see what had happened. Teeth or pincers, claws or tentacles, he could not tell which, had fastened onto the Krith, had torn away most of his tail, the toes and most of the flesh of one foot, strips of flesh from both calves and thighs, and had left his genitals an unrecognizable mass of mangled flesh. He probably would live, had not poison been introduced into' his system, did not infection enter the wounds. But whether he would wish to live in such a fashion was another question.
There was perhaps in the Shadowy Man a new understanding, a new appreciation of the Kriths, as he moved his consciousness away from that spot. It had not been easy, nor had it been pleasant, that first century or two of their racial existence. Mere survival had been a hard-won prize. And along with that understanding there came to him a glimmering of admiration. Under such conditions could another sapient race have survived at all? Could humankind have done as well as the Kriths had?
Above the islands he moved again, across them, toward the center of the long, slightly curving archipelago, toward the place where he had detected the largest cluster of minds, where he had detected the brighter points of psionic light, the more intense concentrations of mind that were the Tromas, or the proto- Tromas, the ten females of the race. And he asked himself: With such attrition as I have just seen, how can they even maintain the race, much less increase it?
One of the islands jutted a little higher above the level of the sea, provided a greater slope for the runoff
of rain water, and was a bit dryer than the other islands. And on the highest point of the curving, domelike island stood a cluster of rude huts, jerry-built affairs of reeds and vines, thatched with the broad leaves of some low-growing plant, huts without windows, but with doors covered with the colorful hides of some semiaquatic mammal-like creatures.
At first sight there was no indication that these people were the product and the agents of a civilization with the capability of crossing twelve parsecs of space in huge, plasma-powered spaceships. But on closer examination, in the center of the cluster of huts there stood something that could have come only from a highly advanced technology. A metal cylinder just slightly taller than the largest of the huts, of gleaming metal and glass that would have sparkled brightly had there been sunlight rather than this perpetual gloom, that did reflect brilliantly the flashes of lightning across the sky, an artifact from distant' Earth that could have been nothing less than a communications center, a radio/video/laser transceiver of great power, a holographic tank that would display images sent down from the orbiting platform, from the overseers who commanded from many miles above in the comparative safety of their metal cocoon.
Not far from the cluster of huts was a cleared area where the dirt had been packed firmly, then covered with broken bits of stone and shell, obviously the landing field for the cargo shuttles that passed between the islands and the orbiting platform. But it was not the landing field that attracted the Shadowy Man’s attention.
Rather, it was the largest of the huts, the one nearest the communications cylinder. Even without probing, he was aware that in that hut dwelt the females of the race, who had already, even this early in their history, become the directors of the actions of the proto-Kriths, the givers of wisdom, and who might now have some
glimmerings of tomorrow and the awesome powers they and their people would one day wield. . . .
Would wield, unless the Shadowy Man could stop them now.
Now he paused, hovered, analyzed. He was far, far from home, in frames of reference that encompassed space and time and paratime. The nexus that connected him with his corporeal bodies was now a tenuous one, stretched across great five-dimensional distances. And he was aware of the lessening of his powers, of how far across the continuua he would have to draw the forces with which he was to do battle.
Yet, he was not pitting his strength against the Tromas of KHL-000 on their own world, their own time, with centuries of experience behind them. He was pitting himself against ten tired female Kriths who huddled in a rain-drenched hut, who had never had enough to eat, who had never received proper care or medical attention, who were lashed by weather and heat and parasites, who did not yet fully comprehend the potentials within themselves.
He could defeat them.
Couldn’t he?
And as he took a brief glance at them, as he flashed his electromagnetic vision into and then out of the hut, as he saw them huddling in the semidarkness of the hut’s interior, illuminated feebly by two sputtering oil lamps, he felt a great sense of pity, of sympathy, even of concern for their wretched condition. Could he bring himself to strike against them, these pitiful half-humans who had been bom to suffer and to die as lonely, hopeless castaways over 19X10 miles from the homeworld Earth?
Yes, he could.
Now they were exactly as he saw them. But . . . looking across time and space and paratime, he saw other things through the vision of Eric Mathers’ memory: he saw the vast armies of Timeliners moving
from parallel Earth to parallel Earth to alter the histories of uncounted worlds in accordance with a plan the Tromas had developed in order to increase their chances of survival, heedless of what their meddling might do to millions upon millions of innocent human beings; he saw wars and death and destruction; he saw the deaths of a girl named Kristin and of a girl named Marissa, of a man named Hillary Tracy and- a man named Jock Kouzenzas, of the men and women of New Anglia, and of so many, many others that he could not distinguish all of them; he saw the dark- uniformed bodyguards of the Kriths, men like Pall and Marth, no longer human except in their bodily forms, more Krith than man in their minds; he saw armies of the Mager-types, the Companions, who were not men at all but something the Kriths themselves had created or had had created for them; he saw all the lies and deceptions that the Kriths had perpetrated over the years; and most of all he saw the Tromas in their “palace” on KHL-000 and sensed the power they possessed and would use to destroy the Shadowy Man and anyone else who stood between them and the future as they envisioned it, a future that, when the universe had reordered itself toward greater simplicity, would have the Kriths supreme on all the Lines of Time.
Yes, he would do it. He would attack and destroy these pitiful wretches. He had no other choice if man was ever to be free of them and be allowed to seek his own multiple destinies across the Lines of Time.
From remote distances across time and space he drew toward him energies, forces, powers, shaped them into lances of fire and spears of fury. He drew them back, tensed, and then for a moment, before he launched his attack, he projected out of the sky and into the hut this mental construction:
If you can see into tomorrow, you. will know who I
am and why I have come. I do not do this for pleasure, but because it must be done. . . .
And he was briefly aware of their astonishment, their fear.
Then his probe was gone, his shields were up, and toward and into the hut he hurled his psionic blasts.
The inside of the hut shimmered with auroral brightness, sparks and streams of lightning flickered across the interior walls, the dryer reeds inside smoldering and then beginning to bum. The ten females of the proto-Tromas writhed in agony, curled into balls, tumbled grotesquely across the floor, screaming in pain and terror.
For an instant he lowered his shield and peered into the hut.
Sisters ... A mental voice was crying out of its pain. Sisters, rally to me, to me. . . .
Incoherent mentations. Pain climbing toward the sky. One figure ceasing its horrible writhing, falling still, silent, the brightness of its mind fading to blackness, nothingness, death.
Sisters, he has come. Rally to me. We can still fight back. . . .
Nine consciousnesses now, through their pain seeking one another, converging, melting, blending, becoming one.
The Shadowy Man reached out into space/time, a minor sensation of t
riumph in him. He had killed one of them; their collective strength would not be as great as it could have been. Their collective strength was . . .
Now, sisters! . . .
As he gathered new energies into himself, as he forged new weapons to dash against them, the females as a single entity struck, battered against his not fully sustained shields, broke through them, hurled him backward.
Damn you! he cried to himself, now feeling pain as
they did, pushing away their force, bringing his shields back up, completing the manufacture of his weapons, deploying them, using them.
The invisible shields of the females shimmered with furious incandescence. Around them, the walls of the hut began to catch fire.
Outside, the male Kriths of the village, who had some awareness of what was happening, rushed to offer what help they could to their females, their guardians.
Tear down the walls, brothers/husbands, they cried. Keep the fire away from us. . . . Out of their pain and their fury they screamed.
With bare hands, two dozen or so male Kriths attacked the burning hut, ripped away portions of it, threw them across the damp earth, and let the rain do its work.
The females were hurt, were in pain both psionic and physical, for the males had not acted quickly enough, despite their swiftness, and the flames had licked across them, embers had scorched their flesh. But still they had repelled the blasts he had thrown at them, had held their shields.
Damn you! the Shadowy Man said to himself again, throwing up his own shields to ward off the flames and fury they cast at him. Now the pity and the sympathy were gone from him; now there was only his own fury and a desire to destroy them.
Again he reached out, again sought raw energy from which to build more weapons, groped across darkness, found . . . found dwindling supplies. He was too far away. Too far. And the females were rallying again.
Know this, thou force from out of time . . . they cried at him. Know this: you cannot now defeat us, now or ever. Have done with it. Let us be. .. .
What energy he could he took and brought it to this place, molding it, shaping it, propelling it against the shields of the females, which again flickered and burned brightly. Once again they held off the bulk of his at
tack, swept it away, felt only minor pain. The nine of them still held, and prepared to lunge against him.
The Shadowy Man sought to strengthen his shields once more, found them weaker still and weakening more. His reserves were almost gone. Across the lightyears, across the centuries, he tried to drag replacement powers, reinforcement energies, but the gulf was too great, too great.
Again the Krithian females struck against him, battering his shields again and again, smashing through them, tearing them down one after the other, forcing piercing lances of psionic force through them and into him.
The Shadowy Man screamed, felt the last of his defenses fall, felt himself being rocked backward in space, in time.
No, damn you, no! he cried silently, but that was all he could do. They had defeated him again. Before they could strike against him once more, before they could drive more bolts of hellish fury into him and through him across time and space into the bodies that were his component parts, he disengaged, withdrew, fled, hung suspended Nowhere, Nowhen.
They had beaten him. And they had been right: You cannot now defeat us, now or ever. . . .
He had lost again.
Perhaps for the last time.
The Sundering of Time
Still feeling the agony inflicted upon him by the blows of the proto-Tromas, still tasting in his mind the gall of defeat, the Shadowy Man slowly propelled the focus of his consciousness backward through time, across space and across paratime toward the physical bodies in the Underground of the BrathelLanza. Along with the pain there was confusion and a sense of hopelessness.
He had done what he had been able to do. There seemed no other avenues to pursue. Even in their infancy the Tromas were more than a match for him. And although he thought that he could have beaten them had he not been so thinly drawn, he knew that to be only academic. The facts being what they were, there was no way he could hope ever to meet the Tromas with an advantage over them. Perhaps there was, after all, a measure of predestination in the universe; perhaps it had been preordained that the Kriths would dominate all the Lines of Time, the bastard children of humankind, perhaps, but better suited for rule of the continuua of Earths.
So, despite his efforts, by and large the future would be as the Tromas had always seen it. When finally, centuries hence, the Timelines had multiplied so greatly that the universe would be forced to reorder itself to greater simplicity, the Kriths would most likely have had ample opportunity to assure their continued existence after that reordering. Then what? Once they had accomplished their racial goal, what would they do next?
The Kriths had no great love for their parent race, humankind, he knew, and would probably feel no significant obligation toward whatever portion of that race still existed after the reordering, whatever human Lines still remained, which should be a considerable number, considering the vast number of Lines spawned by mankind’s decisions when facing Either-Or. Would the Kriths finally take their vengeance on the race that had created them and then sent them off to the living hell of UR-427-51-IV? Or would they by then have gained sufficient insight to no longer hate humankind for being what it was? Would they allow the race of Eric Mathers and his kind to go on living, developing, perhaps to one day live up to the standards it sometimes tried to set for itself but seldom met? If the Kriths did let humankind go on, then in what status? As slaves of the Kriths? As inferior people to do their bidding, to further advance the Kriths and further assure their continued survival dining any future universal catastrophe? He did not know, could only speculate, but there was still enough of the human in him, enough of Eric Mathers, for him to feel a great concern, a fear for the future of man.
But what could he do?
He drifted back in space and time and paratime toward the Underground and the place of his physical existence as the senior of his resonating replicates. Now he could not even assure the survival of the physical body of Eric Mathers, though perhaps something could be done to help him. Perhaps.
As he came closer in space/time, as he moved through the nothingness that is everything, new perceptions came to him, sensations that impinged on his withdrawn consciousness. He looked out of himself, felt, probed, sensed.
Downtime, he thought, downtime there is something. What, he could not have said, could not have even guessed, but he was aware of something that had hap
pened/was happening/would happen, something that did have/was having/would have great consequences for all the Lines of Time.
With a growing sense of anxiety, forgetting momentarily the pain and humiliation, he thrust himself through nothingness with greater force, swept downtime toward the space/time of Eric Mathers and the replicates, then past them and farther into the “past.”
Then he saw, felt knew. . . .
He had encountered it before, but then it had been farther downtime, more remote in the chronological past as Eric Mathers would have conceived it. And it moved. . . .
A great wavefront was coming uptime, sweeping forward, fracturing and sundering as it came, spawning world after world after world, an ever-growing multiplicity of Timelines. The meddling of the Tromas, their flitting through and past themselves in retrograde time, their being/not being in duplication of themselves in the same relative space/time—all this, multiplied by the activities of the Shadowy Man in his own movements through time and his added manipulation of spatio-temporal events, had brought into being this! something that was the wavefront, something that was a swelling tide of rupturing paratime, duplicated, quadrupled world after world: worlds twinned, spawned, modified, and mutated, spreading the fabric of all the universes, all the continuua, thinner, thinner, ever thinner. . . .
And in the midst of this wavefront, spreading like a second cancer acr
oss the multiplicity of worlds, were the bluish-tinted creatures who were the true Paratimers, the beings truly behind Staunton and the raid on Fort Lothairin and who, perhaps, had been behind the destruction of the BrathelLanza, the nonhumans, non-Kriths who were the actual operating force behind so much that had been done in opposition to the Kriths—and in opposition to mankind as well.
Like the Kriths, the Paratimers sought to subvert a vast number of Earths, to bring them under their control, to alter the master plans of the Kriths and create futures more to their own liking.
But why? the Shadowy Man wondered. And what are they?
As he moved backward in chronological time, the Shadowy Man paused only briefly, snatching an image here, another image there, putting together in his composite mind a backward-running motion picture film that led him to the devastated Albigensian Lines of the far Temporal-West, to the dead, blasted worlds Eric Mathers and Sally had found when they had fled from Kar-hinter and sought Mica’s world. Still farther back in chronotime: balls of thermonuclear flame and towering mushrooms of dark smoke; missiles climbing on tails of fire from hidden silos, from submerged submarines, falling from orbiting stations: a war that spanned a dozen parallel Earths and more, a war fought by the Kriths and their human servants who weren’t yet Timeliners against the Paratimers.
Kriths! the Shadowy Man wondered. On worlds this far to the T-West? But the Kriths had never come this far to the T-West, had they? But perhaps they had. Perhaps they had—originally.
Still farther back in time: the Kriths consolidating their hold on a world, a single world; Kriths without their Great Lies and their Timeliner mercenaries and their vast propaganda machines to convince humans of their beneficence; Kriths who had established a tyrannical rule over the race who had created them and sent them to a hell among the stars; a beleaguered humanity fighting a losing war against its creation, then turning to fight with fire, unleashing against the Kriths a second subspecies created in the laboratories of genetic engineers, a second subspecies as different from the Kriths as the Kriths were different from their ancestral humans, a second subspecies that turned against
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