The Lilliput Legion Read online

  The average person, in either universe, had no conception of the danger, no real understanding of the instability brought about by the congruence of two universes, instability that was magnified by the confluence of two separate timelines that intersected at various points in rime and space because of the increasing chronophysical imbalance. It occurred to Hunter that most people had never really understood the fragility of their existence anyway, largely because they didn’t want to.

  The generation that had grown up with atomic weapons had clung to the idea that atomic warfare was “unthinkable,” not so much because no one could win such a war (which was debatable), but because a “nuclear exchange” (how much more sanitized a term than nuclear war!) was, in reality, simply too horrifying to comprehend. So most people tried not to think: about it. That was what the word “unthinkable” really meant. In the same manner, they had chosen not to think about the irreparable damage they were doing to their ecosystem through the pollution of their air and water and the abuse of their resources. They clung to a lunatic philosophy that held that there was no limit to growth. All criminal foolishness. Someone had to pay the piper in the long run, but most people never considered the long run. They took the short view, looking to their wallets at the expense of their legacy.

  It had been the same with time travel, an idea that had seemed quite harmless, even quaint, alongside the specters of nuclear missiles and orbital beam particle weapons platforms. And yet, it was a thousand times more dangerous. If people ever really took the time to think: about the sort of world they lived in now, thought Hunter, it would reduce them to hysteria and raving paranoia. Nothing was certain anymore. Perhaps it never had been. .

  With the advent of the Time Wars, it all became a tightrope walk without a net. By far the largest percentage of troops in both timelines were now essentially non-combative Temporal Observers, assigned to lonely posts scattered throughout time—their duty to monitor historical continuity and be on the alert for temporal anomalies. And there was a temporal Underground in Hunter’s universe as well as in this one, each a loosely organized society of deserters from the future who had become frightened or disaffected and had dropped out, fled to the past on the theory that disaster was imminent, and that when it came, the worst effects would be felt further up the timeline.

  The Underground, with its black market chronoplates and warp discs and its complex system of transtemporal contacts, offered a tempting mode of life. In a sense, these people had achieved the ultimate in freedom. All of time was at their beck and call. Hunter had once found himself temporarily separated from his unit, stranded in time, and the temptation to seek out the Underground had been very strong. He had held out and waited until rescue came, but his twin in this universe had succumbed to the temptation and gone over to the Underground. Delaney, Cross and Steiger had said that he was dead now, murdered in 17th century France. It had been a blow for Hunter to learn that, in this timeline, “he” had died—or at least a version of himself had—just as it had been a shock to encounter Finn Delaney and Andre Cross, mirror-image twins of those he had known back in his own timeline. In Hunter’s timeline, Finn and Andre had been killed. In them, he had been the one to die. It was madness.

  In both timelines, the boundaries between reality and metaphysics were being blurred. Nothing was certain anymore. How many people in the past were really people from the future? How dependable was history when, at any moment, a person from the future could clock back in time and change it, altering—perhaps irrevocably—the flow of the timestream? And with the confluence phenomenon, how could anyone hope to lead anything even resembling a normal life if they knew that at any given moment, they could slip through a wrinkle in time and wind up in another universe, in another timestream, in an alternate reality?

  No, it was better not to think about such things. It was easier to go through life taking the short view and passing the buck, ignoring that Sword of Damocles suspended over your head and hoping it would fall on someone else. Preferably someone you didn’t know too well. Like your great, great grandchildren, for instance.

  However, Hunter did not have the dubious luxury of self-deception. He was in the same position as his counterparts in this universe; he knew all too well how fragile the continuity of both timelines had become. And the war between them was only making matters worse.

  It had come very close to being an all out war, especially after the scientists in Hunter’s universe finally figured out where all those devastating nuclear explosions were coming from, but it didn’t take long for leaders in both timelines to realize that all-out warfare between them would be equally devastating to both. Quite possibly, no one would survive. So a form of limited temporal warfare was being waged. The military scientists in Hunter’s timeline believed the only way to end the confluence effect was to cross over into the congruent universe and create a temporal disruption of sufficient magnitude to bring about a timestream split. The resulting creation of another parallel timeline would then act as a sort of chronophysical “wedge” driven between the two parallel universes, forcing them apart and ending the confluence phenomenon. In theory, it would constitute a temporal buffer zone between them. In theory.

  There was, however, another theory that held that a temporal disruption resulting in a timestream split in either timeline would only compound the problem by creating yet a third timeline, another parallel universe in confluence with the previous two. And such a magnification of the confluence effect could only serve to introduce further temporal disruption into all three timelines, which could then result in even more time stream splits, creating yet a fourth parallel universe in confluence with the other three, and perhaps fifth and sixth and so on, exponentially, in a chronophysical chain reaction that would be impossible to stop. But the proponents of that theory were very much in the minority because such an event, their fellow scientists insisted, would simply be “unthinkable.” There was that word again. And in any case, they said, the confluence effect was already introducing temporal disruption into both timelines. Sooner or later, the scientists insisted, something had to give. Far better that it give in their universe than ours.

  Hunter no longer knew whom to believe. If he stopped to think about it for very long, he started to get the shakes. Perhaps it was only combat fatigue. Or maybe it was the desperate fear of a rational man confronting his own ephemeral existence in a totally irrational world. Either way, there didn’t seem to be anything that he could do about it. For now, his one imperative was to survive.

  It had occurred to him that, purely by accident, he had been placed in a unique situation. Ironically, he was now in a position to become the C.I.S. ‘s most effective deep cover operative. Even in the event of a penetration of his counter insurgency unit by the T.I.A., nobody could blow his cover because no one knew where he was or how to get in touch with him. They didn’t even know that he was still alive. Not even he knew exactly where he was, relative to historical continuity in this timeline. However, he could learn. It would not be very difficult. All he’d have to do was clock forward a few centuries in time, purchase a microcomputer or even an cybernetic implant, and then buy himself an education—download some history and world affairs. There would be some risk of getting caught if they were expecting him to try something like that, but the risk would be extremely small. The T.I.A. had no idea where he was, or where he might pop up or when, so the risk was slight and well within acceptable parameters. With his captured warp disc and a detailed knowledge of this timeline’s history, he could become a virtually untraceable saboteur. He, might easily bring about a timestream split in this timeline all by himself and, if the scientists back home were right, he’d single-handedly end the confluence effect and be a hero.

  Of course, no one back home would ever know he’d done it, because in that event, he would undoubtedly become forever trapped within the timestream split he had created. That was something he had been resigned to from the very start, when he’d become an age
nt of the C.I.S., yet on the other hand, what if the scientists were wrong? What if the minority view held by the so-called “lunatic fringe” academicians was the correct one? What if the creation of a timestream split served only to compound the crisis, setting off a chain reaction of temporal disruptions on a cataclysmic scale? In the absence of direct orders, Hunter had to rely upon his own initiative. And what if he made the wrong decision?

  Still, there were other choices, He could do as his twin in this timeline had done and join the Temporal Underground, assuming he could find a way to get in touch with them. Or perhaps, better still, he could opt out and do it on his own. Did he really need the Underground? Even if he decided to function as a deep cover C.I.S. saboteur within this timeline, what better way to do it than from within the Underground? But did he really owe that much to the C.I.S., who certainly would not be supporting him in any way and who would undoubtedly have already listed him as killed or missing in action? What about patriotism? Well, what about it? Would anyone care about his patriotic motivations if the choice he made only served to make the situation worse? And what did the concept of patriotism mean, anyway, when ripples in two congruent timestreams resulted in a confluence effect that rendered even boundaries in time and space irrelevant?

  He needed time to think and plan. And in order to do that, he needed money and a place to stay. Once again it came down to bare essentials. Survival.

  Fortunately, he did not look too out of place in the simple green transit fatigues he had picked up at Pendleton Base before he had clocked out again, but he needed other clothing and, most of all, he needed money. And when a soldier was trapped behind enemy lines he had to improvise as best he could.

  He picked out a likely looking prospect and mugged him in the subway, knocking him out with a sharp chop to the neck. It was a quick and efficient hit-and-run. The robbery netted him a brown eel skin wallet containing a driver’s license, some credit cards, and forty-five dollars in cash. Not very much, but it would do for a start. He went up the stairs to Pennsylvania Station, sat down at a bar, drank some coffee and perused a copy of the Daily News. After a while, he went to the men’s room, locked himself up inside a stall and clocked ahead several hours. Then he left the stall, walked out of the bar with the paper folded up under his arm and headed toward the Off Track Betting counter he had spotted earlier inside the station. He spent a short while there, noted the racing results, went back to the bar, entered the men’s room once again and clocked back once more. Then he returned to the Off Track Betting counter and placed several bets. Needless to say, he did very well indeed.

  His winnings enabled him to purchase a new suit of clothes and have a satisfying dinner in a Chinese restaurant. He then found a different Off Track Betting parlor and repeated the performance, placing larger bets and spreading them out more. He slept that night in the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, using the name but not the credit cards of the man whose wallet he had stolen. The next morning, he had room service send up breakfast and a copy of The Wall Street Journal.

  He spent several hours looking over the stock market and commodities reports, then without leaving the room, clocked ahead one day and went out to pick up that day’s copy of The Wall Street Journal, taking care to note the time so that he could avoid encountering himself the following morning. Having picked up the paper, he clocked back to the previous day and spent another several hours in the hotel comparing the performance of the various stocks and commodities. Then he took a cab to a brokerage firm on Wall Street and opened an account with twenty thousand dollars in cash, using the identity of his mugging victim, Charles Forman. He then took a cab to the public library and spent the rest of the day reading historical survey texts. It was not as efficient as computer learning, but it would do for a beginning.

  He returned to the hotel that evening, had dinner, went to bed, and left a wake-up call for seven A.M., early enough to ensure that he could leave the room before he was due to clock in from the previous day. He had breakfast in a coffee shop, then went back and checked out of the hotel. By now, Charles Forman would probably have reported the theft of his credit cards and cash, and if he had the time, he might possibly have gotten around to getting a new driver’s license, but it would never have occurred to him that someone might use his name and social security number to open an account. He’d be more concerned with fraudulent charges on his credit cards, which Hunter had avoided doing, merely using the cards to reinforce his position, by allowing the broker to catch a glimpse of the gold American Express card while he was filling out his account application.

  By the end of the week, Hunter was living in a suite at the Plaza” Hotel. He had purchased a conservative wardrobe at Brooks Brothers (for visits to the brokerage firm and lunch at ‘21’) and somewhat sleeker, more fashionable suits at Barney’s (for the track and dinners in little Italy). He made daily trips to Belmont Park by rented limousine, increasing his cash flow dramatically each time and attracting attention with his unerring instinct and ostentatious style. Some people started to approach him and he made his choices carefully after some initial probing conversation on both sides. He traded tips for information. And for certain services and introductions.

  His disbelieving stockbroker had about a million questions, but wouldn’t dare to ask a single one so long as he could make the same investments as his apparently clairvoyant client. The broker didn’t want to scare him off. And in order to be helpful, the broker fell all over himself when Hunter requested a few favors, such as certain introductions to certain types of people.

  By the end of the month, Hunter had become a multimillionaire with bank accounts in Switzerland and the Bahamas. He had also established a number of different identities for himself, each fully documented and backed up by impeccably forged credentials, enabling him to drop the identity of his mugging victim, leaving the unfortunate Mr. Forman with an interesting tax problem. Hunter was soon on a first name basis with some of the most influential citizens of New York City, Miami and Geneva, as well as some of the most powerful figures in organized crime. He was moving fast, establishing connections, putting out feelers, making inroads. Surviving. Doing business. And, as the old saying went, sooner or later, everyone does business with everyone. Though Hunter didn’t know it, through one of his connections, he had started doing business with the Network.

  “What do you mean, you lost him? How the devil could you lose him? Explain yourself!”

  The officer in the black beret and combat fatigues stood stiffly at attention atop the mahogany writing table, all six and a half inches of him. His fatigues were crisply pressed and his combat boots were spit shined to a glass-smooth gloss. He looked like a toy soldier, except that this toy soldier was alive.

  “It wasn’t anything we could have foreseen, sir,” he said, his voice as formally correct as his stiff, military bearing. “The mission plan was followed to the letter. Gulliver was released in a manner that allowed him to think he had escaped. We tracked him until he returned to England and then the assault team was clocked out to make the strike. It turned out that Gulliver was not alone at the time of the engagement, a contingency we had prepared for, but there was no way we could have prepared for the target employing a warp disc to escape, sir.”

  “He did what?”

  The officer winced from the volume of the full-sized voice. “Used a warp disc to escape, sir.”

  “Gulliver? Impossible! Where the hell would he obtain a warp disc? And how would he know how to use one?”

  “As I’ve already stated, sir,” the Lilliputian officer continued, Gulliver was not alone. The advance scouts clocked in first, according to the mission plan, and they established that there was another man with Gulliver. The mission plan called for them to wait until the target was alone before calling in the strike. However, the scouts were able to establish that the man Gulliver was with was a Temporal Observer and they decided to go ahead and call in the strike. “

  “An Observer? Are you sure? How d
id they know?”

  “Gulliver was apparently suffering from a hangover. The man gave him some aspirin. The scouts also observed that he was writing a report. In shorthand, with a ballpoint pen. “

  “Go on,”

  “Based on what they saw, the scouts called in the strike and the field commander made the decision to go in. Because the Observer was deemed the greater threat, he was designated the priority target. The intention was to take him out quickly and then take care of Gulliver, but the man was a good soldier. He kept his cool under fire and used his own body to shield Gulliver while he put the warp disc on him and clocked him out. The transition co-ordinates must have been pre-set; he didn’t have time to reprogram the disc. The Observer could have escaped himself, but Gulliver had all the information. It was an unexpected move, although a tactically sound one, assuming you don’t mind committing suicide.”

  “What did they do with the body?”

  “The field’ commander determined that with the target clocked out, presumably back to the Observer’s base, a Search and Retrieve team could be coming through at any time, so they left the body, clocked out the dead and wounded and got the hell out of there. With Gulliver clocked ahead to tell them what happened, destroying the body would have been pointless in any case. And too time consuming. The risk was deemed unjustifiable. “

  “Unjustifiable, indeed! All they did was leave behind incontrovertible evidence to confirm what happened. “

  “Even using lasers to dismember the corpse, disposing of a fun-sized human body would have taken hours,” said the colonel. “And with Gulliver in their hands, they’d already know what happened.”