The Cleopatra Crisis tw-11 Page 4

  Waging the war with strategic weapons would have been toodangerous. for there was no way of telling if a nuke launched at the opposinguniverse would actually explode there, or if it might become caught in aconfluence and cause untold destruction, and possibly a timestream split, inthe universe that had launched it in the first place. So the war was foughtthrough the means of historical disruption. But there were more than just twosides.

  The conflict was complicated further by the existence of the‘temporal Underground. a loosely organized confederation of deserters from thefuture who had fled into the past in order to escape the madness. No one wasquite certain what to do about them. Technically. they were criminals,fugitives. It was up to the Temporal Intelligence Agency to track them down andapprehend them, but the particularly the covert field section. had neverseriously considered them a priority. In fact, many of the old covert fieldagents had maintained contacts among the members of the Underground andsometimes called upon them for assistance in their missions. When Forrester hadassumed the directorship of the agency, he had put a stop to such practices. aswell as to the corruption in the T.I.A. he had discovered that many of thecovert field agents, as well as their section chiefs, had been running an extensivetrans-temporal black market operation to enrich themselves. The corruption wentall the way up to the previous director.

  Their immensely profitable and highly illegal sideline was referredto as-the Network’ and it involved such things as using time travel tomanipulate the stock and commodities markets, smuggle rare coins from the pastto sell in future time periods, practice piracy on the Spanish Main and sellthe booty in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Network had hijacked gold andworks of an from the Nazis. They were involved in the East India Company. Theyused time travel to scam betting operations, and the list went on and on andon. They were the ultimate soldiers of fortune. less interested in their dutiesas temporal agents than in their

  Crosstime financial ventures. Forrester had tried to put astop to their dangerous and illegal activities, but he had not been entirelysuccessful. He had disbanded the covert field section and put every agent hecould get his hands on, from the lowliest records clerk to section chiefs andsenior administrators, through a scanning procedure in an effort to ferret outthe ones who were involved in the Network. However, word got out and many ofthem simply disappeared, going underground in time and becoming a trans-temporal.Mafia, the ultimate organized crime family. They had put a price on Forrester’shead. There had already been several attempts on his life. He had no doubtthere would be more.

  And what of the man who had started it all? As he walkeddown the corridor from his quarters to the lift tubes. Forrester thought thatperhaps it was unfair to blame it all on Robert Darkness. Darkness had notstarted the Time Wars. The Time Wars had come about when nations had decided touse time travel to settle their conflicts by having their troops do battle inthe past, in order to protect the present from the ravages of war. There was noreal evidence to support that it was the invention of the warp grenade. and notthe actions of the Time Wars, that had brought about the confluence phenomenon.Yet. Darkness himself seemed to accept responsibility for what had come about.

  He was not on Earth when the confluence phenomenon came intobeing. he had disappeared mysteriously and no one had any idea what had becomeof him. Forrester later learned that Darkness had established a research laboratoryon some far-off, desolate planet and had gone there to perfect his process oftachyon conversion. Darkness had discovered a way to focus a tachyon beam andsend it through an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, which amounted to instantaneoustransmission. No time lag whatsoever. Going from Point A to Point B withouthaving to cover the distance in between. His next step was to start working ona process whereby the human body could become converted into tachyons, whichwould depart at six hundred times the speed of light along the direction of thetachyon beam, through an Einstein-Rosen Bridge. His main concern had been thattachyon conversion might violate the Law of Uncertainty. The beam was focusedby means of gravitational lenses, but there was no receiver, so in order toinsure that what would materialize at the other end would not be some kind of ablob, he had incorporated a timing mechanism into the conversion process. whichwould reassemble him in the proper order, at the proper time and place, basedon the temporal coordinates of transition. What he was seeking was the ultimateform of transportation, something that would surpass even the chronoplatedevised by Dr. Mensinger.

  Unfortunately, when Darkness tried the process on himself.he had discovered that it was ultimately restrained by a little known law ofphysics called the Law of Baryon Conservation. When he had arrived at his pointof destination, he discovered that he could not move from the spot on which hestood. Something had happened to his subatomic structure. He took on theappearance of a hologram. He had become a ghost with substance. His body hadbeen permanently “tachyonized.” He had become faster than the speed of light.He could move from place to place. traveling through time and space at will,but only by translocating or, as he called it. “taching.” He could not walk somuch as one step. He could appear to “walk.” after a fashion, but it was only aseries of incredibly rapid translocations, having the multiple-image effect ofhigh-speed photography.

  Quite possibly, thought Forrester. the tachyonization hadhad an effect upon his mind as well, although with Darkness, it was difficultto tell. The man was incredibly brilliant, light-years ahead of all his peers(both figuratively and literally). They could not even begin to understand hiswork. His personality was, to say the least. idiosyncratic. He was a man ofimmense wealth, holding the controlling interest in Amalgamated Techtronics anda number of other large multinational corporations. he felt himself accountableto no one. What he had done with Lucas Priest was a perfect example.

  Lucas should have died. thought Forrester, despite the factthat Col. Priest was his closest friend. He should have died and he should havestayed dead. What Darkness had done was inexcusable. Ever since he’d done it.Forrester had spent many sleepless nights. worrying about the possibleconsequences. As had Lucas Priest himself, on whom the strain was obvious.

  It had happened in the year 1897, while Priest. Cross, and Delaneywere clocked out on a mission to Afghanistan, during the Pathan revolt againstthe British. A strike team of the S.O.G.. from the parallel universe, had comethrough a confluence in the Khyber Pass and was working to change the course ofhistory. Priest and Cross had been standing on a bluff with the British commandstaff, watching the fighting that was taking place below them, between theGhazis and the Bengal Lancers. A lone Ghazi sniper who had concealed himself inthe rocks had drawn a bead on the battalion surgeon, mistaking him for theBritish general. Priest had spotted the sniper and, without thinking about thepossible consequences of his interference, had shouted out a warning. Thesurgeon, his instincts honed by combat, had immediately dropped to the ground,but by doing so, he had left the young Winston Churchill, who was present as awar correspondent, directly in the line of fire. Churchill was too slow torespond and Priest. in his cover as a missionary. had not been carrying aweapon. He had done the only thing that he could do-he flung himself atChurchill. knocked him out of the way, and took the bullet meant for him. Or,more accurately, meant for the surgeon with whose destiny Priest had interfered.

  Lucas was killed instantly. They had even buried him. ButDr. Darkness changed all that in a manner that Forester still could notcompletely comprehend. During a prior mission, Darkness had implanted each ofthe three commandos, as well as temporal agent Steiger, with a particle-leveltracer device of his own design. one that bonded itself to their molecularstructure. It allowed him to find them no matter where they were in space andtime. What Darkness had not revealed to them was the fact that these tracerdevices were also prototypes of a new invention he was trying to perfect-a newgeneration warp disc. The original warp disc, the one now issued to all temporalpersonnel. functioned on the same principle as the warp grenade and had supersededthe more cumbersome, obsolete chronoplate of Dr. Mensinger. The new
modelDarkness had designed was not worn on the person, but was integrated on theparticle level, actually bonding itself with the individual. Moreover, it wasthought-controlled, an idea that still scared the hell out of Forester.

  The prototypes had all malfunctioned. The tracer functionsworked perfectly, but the bonding process had damaged the temporaltransponders. rendering them useless-all except Priest’s. Rather than lose hisonly working prototype. Darkness had elected to bring Lucas Priest back fromthe dead.

  How he had done it was a Zen physics puzzle. The leader ofthe S.O.G. strike team from the opposing timeline had been Priest’s twin fromthe parallel universe. A man whose personal history was apparently somewhatdifferent from the Priest that Forester knew, but who was identical to him inevery other respect, right down to his genetic code. After Priest had died.Finn Delaney had killed the “twin Priest.” Darkness had tached through time andtaken the body of the twin Priest, then tached back and, moving faster than thespeed of light, had substituted it for their Lucas Priest, snatching him out ofthe bullet’s path at the last nanosecond, pulling him into his tachyon fieldand taking him back to his headquarters on that unknown planet. There, he hadactivated the dormant, tachyon-based, thought-controlled transponder Priest hadbeen implanted with. And now Priest had returned, to see his own name listed onthe Wall of Honor, among those killed in action. There still remained thequestion-what had actually become of him? And what had he become’?”

  Darkness had gone back into the past and changed somethingthat had already happened. Or had he? Had he actually altered the past or hadhis actions in fact restored the past to the way it had originally happened? Itseemed to Forrester, and to Priest as well, that there had to exist a point intime, somewhere. a moment in which Lucas Priest had actually died. Logic wouldseem to dictate that for Darkness to have gone back and saved him from death,he would have had to have died in the first place. otherwise there would havebeen no necessity for Darkness to do what he had done. However, when it came to‘Zen physics, logic frequently broke down.

  After the mission was completed, an S amp; R team wasclocked back to retrieve Lucas Priest’s remains. But had Search amp; Retrievebrought back his body. or that of his twin? Even if the remains had not beencremated, how would it have been possible to tell, since both were identical,right down to their DNA? Had Priest actually died, or had the corpse of histwin taken the bullet? Had Darkness merely caused a temporary “skip” in thetime stream’s continuity, or had what he had done in saving Priest become atemporal disruption that could have unforeseen consequences further down thetimestream? Those questions plagued not only Forester, but Lucas Priest, aswell. And there were still more problems that Priest had to contend with,beyond the metaphysical riddle of his own existence.

  By experimenting on himself. Darkness had created an instabilityin his own subatomic structure, an instability that seemed to be increasingwith the passage of time. Darkness believed that, eventually, his tachyonizedstate would decay into discorporation and he would depart at multiples of lightspeed in all directions of the universe. Forester shuddered at the thought ashe stepped into the lift tube and punched out the restricted code for the penthouse.Knowing that something like that would inevitably happen to you had to have aneffect upon your mind.

  He stepped in front of the scanner and a beam of lightplayed on his right eye, reading his retinal pattern. Then the tube started toascend. Priest could be facing the same thing. Although the process he had beenexposed to via the particle-level implant in his body was different from thatwhich had tachyonized Darkness, it was based on similar principles. Priest hadno idea whether or not it would eventually do the same thing to him. Moreover,he had to contend with the problem of having been turned into a living timemachine. It had become necessary for him to learn an entirely new level ofmental discipline, because now any stray thought could launch him on a tripthrough time. It had already happened on a number of occasions. The thought-controlledtemporal transponder was unable to differentiate between when he was awake andwhen he was asleep. Consequently, a dream could launch him on a trip throughtime as well. As Darkness had typically understated it. the device still “had afew bugs” in it.

  The trouble was, since the transponder had become permanentlybonded to Lucas, fused with his atomic structure, there was no way to removeit. Priest would simply “have to adapt.” as Darkness had put it. Forresterwould have dearly loved to take a swing at Darkness and lay the bastard out,then throw his ass in jail, but how could you hit someone who was faster thanthe speed of light, much less hope to incarcerate him?

  The tube arrived at the penthouse floor and revolved to letForrester out. Priest had called him the moment Darkness arrived. He “droppedin” from time to time to check on the progress of his living prototype.Forrester had asked Priest to prevail on Darkness to stay long enough to talkto him. but he had no idea if the man would still be there. Darkness did notwait on generals, or anybody else, for that matter. He could already have left,thought Forester, and arrived back where he had started from before he haddeparted.

  However, when he entered the penthouse. he saw that Darknesswas still there. The scientist was standing behind the bar. helping himself toForrester’s twelve-year-old Scotch. Andre Cross was there, as well, along withFinn Delaney and Creed Steiger.

  Delaney, a brawny, powerfully built man with a face like anoveraged delinquent’s, looked, as usual, as if he’d slept in his black basefatigues. His dark red hair was uncombed, his heard scruffy, and his bootsunshined. a stark contrast to Steiger, who always looked like a smartlyturned-out member of a S.W.A.T. team. Col. Steiger’s hair was dusty blond, hewas clean-shaven and his hooked nose and cruel mouth gave him a predatory look.Andre Cross sat beside Priest. Her long, ash-blond hair fell to her shouldersand her fatigues were neatly pressed. Her movements denoted a finely honed,athletic muscular control. Her sharp features were striking and attractive.Sitting next to her. Priest looked, as always, like a model military officer.Slim, dark-haired, and handsome, he would have made a perfect model for arecruiting poster. The very vision of an officer and a gentleman.

  They had all been trying to spend as much time with Priestas possible. Priest needed the support of his friends just now. he was under agreat deal of strain. Forrester visited as often as he could, but the duties ofcommand left him with little spare time.

  They all got to their feet as he entered.

  “As you were.” he said.

  Darkness glanced up at him from behind the bar. “You wantedto see me, Moses?”

  He was tall and slender, a gaunt-looking man, with dark, unrulyhair, deep-set eyes. a sharp, prominent nose, and a neatly trimmed moustache.He was wearing a Norfolk tweed shooting jacket in dark brown herringbone, withrust-colored suede leather elbow patches and a matching, quilted shooter’s padon the right shoulder. He had on a dark brown vest with a gold watch chain, awhite Oxford shirt and maroon silk paisley ascot, dark brown tropical woolslacks and light brown calfskin jodphurs. He looked like the ghost of anEnglish country gentleman. Forrester could see the back of the bar rightthrough him.

  “I have a few questions and I’d like some straight answers,Robert, if you don’t mind,” Forester said.

  Everybody else called him “Doc” or “Doctor,” but Foresterand Darkness were on a first name basis, based upon a curious blend of mutualrespect and cordial dislike.

  “Ask.” said Darkness, suddenly appearing about two feet infront of Forrester, holding a glass of whiskey. Instinctively, Forrester backedoff a step and grimaced, annoyed with himself for doing so. Darkness smiled.

  “I’ll never get used to the way you pop around all over thedamn place.” Forester grumbled.

  “You said you had some questions,” Darkness said. His voicesounded cultured. vaguely Continental. There was nothing about the way he spokethat was overtly arrogant or condescending, but that effect came across justthe same. He was, thought Forester, an irritating bastard.

  “What’s the long-term prognosis on Pr
iest’s condition?”

  “We were just discussing that.” said Lucas.

  “Yes,” said Darkness. “Unfortunately, it would appear thatthe long-term prognosis is not very favorable. There’s been a dramaticallymeasurable decay. It’s apparently irreversible.”

  Forester glanced at Priest with alarm. “You mean-”

  “He means his particle gizmo,” Lucas said. “not me.”

  “Particle gizmo, indeed!” said Darkness, rolling his eyes.

  “Well, whatever you want to call the damn thing,” Lucassaid. “It seems the good doctor hasn’t quite got it figured out yet. It’sfailing. Looks like it’s eventually going to stop working altogether.” Hegrinned. “Ain’t that a damn shame?”

  “What does that mean in terms of his health?” askedForrester.

  “His health?” said Darkness. “His health is excellent andwill undoubtedly continue to remain so. unless he manages to get himself in theway of another bullet. I cannot be held responsible for his propensity forfoolish heroics.”