Downtiming the Night Side

DOIN’ THE TRIP POINT SHUFFLE

Eric Benoni may have made a number of mistakes in his life, but this one was going to cost him dearly. That much, at least, she understood. Benoni had calculated the Moosic trip point from the previous length of stay, based on the original calculations. He had forgotten, or overlooked, the fact that the Moosic who journeyed back now, like that professor long forgotten until this moment brought his story back, was overaged.

This knowledge and these memories were in her mind, as were all the memories of Ron Moosic—but that was all there was of Ron Moosic now. It was a marvel that she had those memories, and with it the understanding of them, yet they were not hers, but those of a stranger, someone from another time and place. The knowledge, the memories, seemed both real and unreal to her. Some things, the more subtle things, the feelings and the emotions and the sense of actually having lived them, were absent.

And yet, she knew, God had chosen her for this moment and for this purpose. She did not understand it, but one did not question miracles. It was clear only that this one had come to her and had grappled with her mind, and in her blind faith she had tamed it. So vital was her holy mission, though, that the Dark One himself had sent his agents to ambush and kill her. She had seen the demons, and with her strange knowledge and memories she had slain one through the grace of God.

She stood there, beside the cart, and stared at the slain demon, already smelling of its foulness. She remembered then the other who had been with it, and quickly slipped into the darkness of the rocks and grasses. She looked around but saw nothing, and realized that clouds must have obscured the moon, although it was starlit back towards the valley. The mountains were often covered in clouds and mist, particularly at this time of year.

And yet, after giving the cart as wide a berth as possible, she began to make her way back across the trail and towards those mountains and their darkness. She did not, however, feel fear. God had not put her through this to have her fail now.

Briefly she considered going back to the old monastery, but she realized that it would not be possible. The world was not ending any time soon, not for a very long time. The Mother Superior, the whole of the new Order, was, then, at best a terrible error, at worst a Satanic blasphemy. Sooner or later word of it would reach the hierarchy of the Holy Church, and the Inquisition would come for them. God would have mercy on their souls, for they had been pious and sincere.

She prayed to the Blessed Virgin for guidance, and as the night wore on, she seemed to sort it out, at least a bit. Her own pitiful memories stretched only to just before coming to this place, and these mountains were the only home, the order the only life, she’d ever personally known. Without the order, she had no place, no reason to exist at all.

But she had those alien memories, that alien knowledge, although it seemed almost to be growing weaker by the hour, yet she understood that God had given them to her for a reason. They were not hers, but they were real, and so were the terrible things they whispered. The blond Eric was a demon, perhaps the devil himself, surrounded by his minions. The others fought him in all times and places, and thus they surely must be God’s chosen instruments.

Satan wished the time belt, for from it he might get the whereabouts of his enemies. She, then, was the anointed one who had to retrieve that belt.

How?

God would not have acted thus unless there was a way. The dead demon’s belt was gone, of course. She had taken it to travel to purification on the cross in the manner of Our Lord. She understood that all now, and the knowledge that she had been chosen by Him and had been honored by trial on the Sacred Cross gave her a thrill that was beyond measure.

How?

The man whose memories she had been given had been real once. Had been here, in fact. The Lord had guided him to this spot, to her, and had then transformed him into a spiritual presence. His whole purpose, then, had been to anoint her, to leave his memories with her.

And his time suit.

She grew suddenly very excited and praised God for His revelations and His wisdom, tears of joy coming unbidden to her eyes. The knowledge from Ron Moosic’s experience mixed with her own interpretation, and she knew and understood the purpose of it all.

He, this man Moosic, could not return for the belt ever. Satan would keep watch over the spot, waiting to trap him if he did. But, said the memories, if someone else came, someone not Moosic but connected to him spiritually, as she was, they might not detect, but that new person could still touch the suit, touch the belt, even use it. Use it to go to those in God’s service who had passed through the trials as she had.

She was now to become one with them.

It was a high calling, and she felt doubly humble to be so chosen. She hardly felt like a saint, yet she would obey the Lord and gladly give her life in His service.

But first she had to find the time suit in the mountain wilds.

This was, she realized, one last trial, for her time was limited. The memory of where the suit had been hidden was already very dim, and it would not last much longer. Every moment she felt a little more of that strange set of knowledge and facts in her head fade away. Nothing specific, but she knew that she had little time.

She tripped over something in the darkness and came down hard, the pain shooting through her. It was a sign that she was being foolish, that nothing could be found in this darkness but injury and perhaps death. She must sit, sit and think, as hard as that was with the adrenalin pumping through her.

He had had a full moon on a clear night. She, on the other hand, had no moon at all up here, and even if the clouds parted, as they seemed they might, she’d have less than a sliver.

The monastery was above him, perhaps half a mile, she reflected, using his measurements and searching his dim memory, trying to force it forward. The valley was a bowl-shaped affair with no stream visible. Looming above it was a… cat’s head? She searched for the pictorial, but it was dim. A rounded shape with two small peaks angled off opposite one another, that was all.

Satan had caused the clouds, she knew, but even without them she’d have a rough time. She knew the surrounding countryside, though, had chased sheep and goats at least this far. The monastery had always been her point of reference when this had happened, of course, so she understood the proper distance required for his vision. From the angle, it would have to be off in that direction, to the southwest. There were three such valleys in that general area that she knew, perhaps others. She would search them all, looking for those two telltale tiny peaks that must have been stones or mountain tops. But she could not do it tonight.

Feeling the bruises from her fall, she got up and probed around for a soft or grassy spot, and prayed herself to sleep.

She awoke aching and sore, and found that her habit had been torn in numerous places. There was blood on it, too, in several places, from scratches and small wounds. It didn’t matter, and she knew it. What mattered was that there had been a definite fading in the alien memories, not so much in content but in her ability to use that content. Sleep had been the inevitable thing to do; she’d been tired and injured and could not have accomplished anything in the pitch darkness anyway. Still, time was running out on her and she knew it. Every obstacle was being placed in her way to prevent the doing of God’s will.

Ignoring her hunger and pain, she paused only long enough for morning prayers and then set off.

The day was cloudy and damp, and a mist was falling that made the rocky areas slippery. It took her the better part of two hours to reach the first of the alpine meadows leading to the bowl-shaped valleys, bowls which her alien knowledge said were carved by ancient glaciers, although she rejected that as a Satanic attempt to divert her and question her faith. The world was not that old.

Reaching the meadow, she stopped to get her bearings as best she could. There were clouds above and below, but it was amazingly clear in the central part, and she could see the distant winding road. She could even see the cart, although not clearly from this distance, and she saw in that area the tiny moving shapes of many people. Some were undoubtedly nuns from the Order, but others were apparently on horseback, either people from the town or, equally possible, members of the local duke’s household. It wasn’t possible to tell what time it was, but she began to fear, from the sight of the mounted group, that she had passed out for a very long time.

They would find some of the bodies—perhaps the demon’s, if its fellow had not carted it back to Hell, and certainly the poor sister who’d died in her place. They would see blood and mount a search for her. Time was now pressing in more ways than one.

She had received an instant education beyond measure, but she was not one to think quickly or accept or understand all that she now knew. For a long time she’d been in a situation where thinking at all was suppressed, and, oddly, this gave her a stronger will than perhaps any other would have to accomplish the task God had set for her, for she was single-mindedly devoted to this and no other thing.

All the facts, all the memories not relevant to the search were simply suppressed or ignored. She understood her relative position as regarded the monastery and the town below, but until and unless the clouds parted or the sun burnt through them and gave her a glimpse of the monastery and the peaks, she would have to proceed by chance, climbing to the level of the highest of the three valleys, searching it, then descending to the next, then the next, and doing likewise if need be.

Her bare feet were cut and bruised by the time she ascended to the upper valley, but what was such pain and discomfort to one who had been crucified in the manner of Our Lord? It certainly didn’t take long to realize that the climb had been for nothing; the upper wall of the valley turned inward, blocking any possible view of the monastery from within it.

By the time she reached the entrance to the second and then climbed back up to get into it, the sun threatened an appearance. It was well in the west, though, which indicated that the hour was growing late. More than once she’d heard the distant shouts of people around her, echoing back and forth across the mountainsides, and she knew that they were searching for her even now, and she had to constantly check to see if she were in anyone’s line of sight.

The second valley looked right, as far as she could tell from the point at which she surmised the position of the monastery to be, but without the mountain landmarks it was difficult to tell. She began a methodical search of the place, praying all the while for divine aid and intervention. The suit had been hidden in a cleft in the rock and concealed with brush. There was nothing to do but to make her way along the inner bowl of the valley and examine it bit by tiny bit.

The light had definitely changed for the worse by the time she had gone three-quarters of the way around, and she began to fear that she would have to spend yet another night. She was growing weak, although small springs had quenched her thirst, and she wasn’t certain how much more she could take of this. She sat down, finally, on a rock to catch her breath and closed her eyes, praying intently to the Blessed Virgin for both the strength and will to continue. The strange memories, while all present, were taking on a strange quality of unreality, and she felt doubt creep into her mind about them.

Was she, in fact, now insane? Had the experience on the trail driven her mind to this strangeness, or had Satan corrupted her and caused this to happen? Were these strange memories and voices within her truly from God, or were they in fact demons inhabiting her body? Certainly what much of them whispered to her was sheer blasphemy.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus…

Trip point… Assimilation… Outworlders… Night side…

Holy Mary, Mother of God, Blessed art thou…

Four dirty, naked little children and a fat old woman…

Holy Mary, Mother of God…

There was Joseph, and Ginny, and Sarah, and Cathy, and little Mark, who had never been well…

Holy Mary, Mother of Cod! How was she to know the truth? Tears welled up in her eyes, and she felt totally defeated, miserable, and alone. Finally, she pulled herself together enough to raise her head and look out again at the valley.

The sun was very low in the sky, but not yet beneath the mountains in the west. The clouds had moved off, although they were still off below the peaks, beautifully illuminated by the rays of the sun. Over to one side she could make out the village far below, but for only a brief period. It looked like…

She turned her head and wiped away the rest of her tears. The monastery was clearly visible at the correct angle. Frowning, she wondered for a moment, the correct angle for what? Then memory returned, single-minded memory, and she turned and looked back and up at the peaks, now briefly revealed. She squinted and tried to block out all the detail, leaving only the dark silhouette of the peaks against the darkening sky. It didn’t look quite right, but if you used a little imagination and thought of a bright, moonlit night, those two little peaks over there might almost look like ears…

Cat’s ears?

She stood up and studied the area again. There were bushes over there, a hundred feet or so back and to her right. She walked cautiously towards them, almost in a trance-like state, unthinking, not daring to believe.

She had passed the spot earlier in the day and had given it a good going-over, but now she dove into the brush and found behind it brush of a different sort, dead and discolored. She pulled it out anxiously, and saw it before too much longer.

So it had not been a dream. And if the suit was real, then the demons were real, and since the demons had tried to prevent her from reaching the suit, that meant…

The sun had set below the mountains, although there was still a murky twilight. Clouds were again rolling over the peaks above her, and there was a dank chill in the air. She was weak and had never weighed much, but she managed with her last ounces of strength to pull the heavy suit out and stare at it.

The red readout on the display was dim, but there. Power, measured on a bar, read at less than fifty percent. Clearly it was a fight to hold the suit in this time.

The suit was huge on her. She was almost standing on its seat to get her head out of the top, and the tremendously heavy helmet threatened to slip again and again from her grasp, but she finally got it on and barely remembered to switch on internal power to the suit. Cool air came in and filled it from somewhere as she managed to close the seals.

She wiggled to get her small arm into the massive arm and glove of the suit, but she brought it up to the controls and watched the liquid crystal display change as she did so. She needed more knowledge now; she reached back for it.

She cleared the readings to zero and tried activation, but the suit would not comply. With tremendous difficulty she made out the strange characters and understood that they were telling her that there was not enough power.

Not enough to reach—where? The heavenly base, of course. But she had known that.

The dateline readouts were zero, but the location indicator was not. Again her mysterious knowledge allowed her to guess that the location shown was indeed the suit’s home—where, in fact, she wanted to go.

But what should the numbers be? And would the suit, in fact, return her to the time chamber if she did get it right, the time chamber now held by a very different power? But, no—the suit was no longer linked to that early chamber or it would have ceased to exist It was linked to the forces of heaven, so wonderfully named the Outworld.

Perhaps, she thought, even if she determined the correct setting, it might not be best to proceed there directly. The demons could tell when the Outworld moved in time, and because this suit was now Outworld-powered, they had been able to track its original occupant here. But they could not see or touch the suit, so perhaps it might be best to throw them off, to do it in small jumps here and there. The “Home” control would always give her the right setting when she needed it.

They had caught her once, in his maimed body, in that time. They would know it, and be waiting.

She reset, and saw the numbers for her present return. So that was how easy it was. He had tried, as she had, to press the “Home” key, and that could not work. But if the controls were simply set by hand to zero, they would take her back, since the suit’s logic worked on the basis of that key time as zero and all else plus or minus that time.

So, no—not directly there. Lead them a merry chase fust. God was on her side. Did not the forces of Hell admit they would lose Armageddon in that future? Did not the Holy Word state that Satan would rule before the Final Judgment?

Curiously, it was not Moosic’s memories but those of Neumann that held some of the key, for he’d had a keen interest in geography. Cautiously, she reduced the numbers to 385.5, a good, experimental time. She knew little of history, and there was not the information she needed in anyone’s memory, but she thought the Holy Land a good bet. Neumann, at least, could get her in the neighborhood. The other memories indicated that the Crusades had liberated the area, and, indeed, in her own time it was taught that this liberation was a great thing. There was nothing in anyone’s memory to contradict this. It seemed safe, and a very appropriate place, should the forces of Hell follow.

Neumann, in one of his attempts to reconcile himself with his faith, had in the process memorized, without really realizing it, the basic latitude and longitude of Jerusalem.

Eagerly she punched it in, then pressed “Activate.” There was the sensation of falling and the passage of much time, but she did not notice. As soon as all had winked out, she’d passed out from sheer exhaustion.

There were stronger persorialities lurking inside the fragile mind of Sister Nobody, as Moosic had termed her, and in her exhaustion and freed from time’s constraints, they all rushed in to fill the vacuums created. It was not a conscious thing; all of them had essentially ceased to exist in that sense. It was, rather, a mind trying to create order out of chaos and was, in fact, a natural process when the newly forward personality, after the trip point had been passed, was neither strong nor dominant.

The frail young woman who came to in answer to the buzzing alarm in the suit was not the same as the one who had activated it. In a sense, she was a new personality, a composite of all those she held. She was, in a sense, reborn. It was merely an extension of the process by which those humans created by the time-travel effect merged into the master mind, although, in this case, that mind was too weak and too shallow to contain them.

Still, she was in the weak and nearly starved body of the Sister, and hadn’t much strength to do more than undo the seals and get out of the terribly large suit. It was night, as expected, and well within the ancient walled city. Few prowled this hour, except for the authorities, and none were in sight. She managed, somehow, to drag the suit back into a narrow alleyway between two huge multiple dwellings of eastern adobe, but that was about it. She spent time studying the street itself, taking particular note of the square not too far down the street. It was, to her eyes, a large and confusing city, but not one that could have this many distinguishing features.

Summoning every ounce of will and strength left in her, and feeling near death, she managed to find a half-burnt stick of charcoal from the alley and make several marks on the building’s wall. This was not to say that rain or the owners would not erase them, but it was something, anyway. At least, from the way the place looked, none of the owners ever erased or otherwise cleaned anything.

She used the small breathing tube in the suit helmet to help her; she was simply beyond walking to keep a steady air intake. She knew, though, that she might well have to undergo another trip point here, if only to keep her from expiring should she use the suit again. Let’s see… Would it be six days, or… what? No, that was for Moosic, and he was no more. Just how old was she, anyway? Impossible to tell.

How do you know you’ve reached the trip point? You’ll know, they’d assured Moosic, although it might take some will to get to and put on the suit after that.

It seemed forever that she sat there, sparingly using the helmet to breathe, but finally the moment came when time was ready for her. She felt the nausea almost as a welcome friend, and soon passed out.

Nowhere in her collective mind was the specific fact that the Crusades had indeed more or less liberated Jerusalem, and for quite some time, but had lost it, again and forever, in 1291. After the repeated failures of the Crusades of the fourteenth century, and in the schism in the papacy and Church that had followed, this fact tended to be glossed over to the low and the ignorant.

It was 1605 now, and Jerusalem was, as it had been for over three centuries, firmly in the hands of the Ottoman Empire.

Waking up as Ismet had shattered forever any hold Sister Nobody might have had on the new personality. For the rest, it was simply another shock to get used to in the cruel tricks time played on those who would play with it.

She had been born and raised in Egypt, had come from a good family and been married to an important Ottoman official when she was fourteen. She was his second wife, and thus had no voice in anything.

Two years after her marriage they moved to Jerusalem, where her husband became chief of tax administration. He was an important man, and already had two daughters by his first wife, but, of course, he wanted a son most of all. He had hoped that Ismet would provide that son, or many sons, for that was her purpose in life, but in the two years in Egypt and one more in Jerusalem she had borne him nothing. Finally, just after her seventeenth birthday, she had become pregnant, but joy turned to horror when the child, which was indeed a boy, was stillborn.

He blamed her for that, and beat her, but finally his rage cooled. Still, he could not bear to have her around anymore, and so divorced her. She was, in effect, thrown out into the streets of Jerusalem with nothing, including any skills or experience outside her sheltered existence.

Such women were easy prey for those who had need of them, such as Mufasta the Procurer, whose street people told him of this and who found her, weeping and alone, and had kindly taken her in. Helpless, alone, feeling abandoned and dishonored, she was perfect for what he had in mind. She proved to be easy to domesticate, and he soon moved her to his port operation in Tyre, where sailors had money and great lust.

After the first hundred men, she no longer thought of being anything but a woman of pleasure.

Now, however, she was back with him in Jerusalem, having had some difficulties with an official of the empire in Tyre over the amount of certain bribes to be paid for doing business. Business was, in fact, not nearly as good there, but he had opium to keep his “harem” girls happy, and as his political contacts there were far more friendly and far less greedy, it balanced out.

She had broken easily, and it did not trouble her. She called him “Master” and was grateful to be the property of one who provided for her needs. She was quite good-looking, and her barrenness had proven to her that this was indeed the mission in life Allah had selected for her. Mufasta was not a harsh master, for he was skilled and did not have to be.

She danced near naked for unruly, drunken crowds in the back rooms of places where wine flowed freely and religious laws were not highly regarded, and she laid more than twenty of them in nine days, and it was acceptable to those who inhabited that body with her because it felt good and was new.

The decision, however, had to be made, for they had to decide whether to risk all on Sister Nobody’s frail and broken body or to take Ismet’s far preferable one—but with Ismet as the primary.

Ultimately, they decided that there was a great possibility that Ismet could not be convinced to go, so they took charge. In the very early morning she had snuck out of her dingy little room, donned a chador and veil as was necessary to travel unescorted, and made her way several blocks to the square. She had made certain that she knew the spot, having had to fetch water and other things at her master’s bidding. The mind was very close to control, terribly frightened and confused, but she’d done it.

Compared to the last time, the suit was amazingly easy to find and only slightly worse a fit than it had been. It was, however, only Ismet’s compliancy and drug-weakened will that allowed her to come this far. The trip point was reached while she was actually in the suit, but before it could be activated. For quite some time she sat there, confused and frightened, but then something inside her fought, reached out and adjusted the numbers she could not quite understand, then pushed a button.

The date and location were basically random, but with reality blanking out around her the process of assimilating all of the personalities into her went on. Again the will was not a strong one, and a synthesis occurred, although the new personality was, in fact, less decisive and more prone to fright than the first one had been.

She came out in the water. It was an eerie sensation, literally standing atop an unmoving ocean, but soon she began to sink into it. She realized immediately what “random” meant, and struggled with the controls as she sank, hoping to reactivate before the pressure crushed the suit.

The next time, thanks to a bit of luck, she struck land, and knew that this new body, while young and attractive, also would not do, for it was addicted to opium.

In 1741, in India, she was a prostitute serving the British soldiers.

In 1854 she was a prostitute, this time serving seamen of all nations in Honolulu, in the Kingdom of Hawaii. But one was a navigator who knew quite a bit about latitude and longitude.

In 1905 she was a prostitute on the Barbary Coast of San Francisco.

She had by now realized that time had found a convenient outlet for her and was not going to let her go. She realized, too, that her power in the suit was waning, and her reserve air supply was so thin there was a question of whether it would reach. By this point she was three trip points beyond the first, and someone else entirely. Someone, in fact, who did not regard the life time was imposing on her, that of a barren whore, as something to be ashamed of.

Still, she decided to go for the abandoned time belt. There was more chance at a future there than in a past time in the oldest profession, and there seemed no reason not to take a chance on it.

She didn’t want to risk assimilation in Moosic’s present, if only because it would signal to the inevitable watchers that someone was there. The locator on the suit was not, however, designed to go down more than seconds, so where she arrived was not precisely where she wanted to be. It was, however, only two miles north of the plant.

The air gauge said it was empty, and had said so for some time. Not that she could move in that suit, anyway, but that left her with an hour or two, no more, before assimilation would take over. She abandoned the suit with no thought of hiding it. It was useless at this stage. Two miles was two miles, and her current body was quite young—seventeen, in fact—but also not in the best condition for walking or running. The men had liked large breasts, and the penalty for them in her case was to be large in other places as well. She would probably not make the distance in time, and it was too close now to take the chance.

There was a small communal housing development nearby, however, and she checked the outside and found a number of possibilities. Cars were out, since, even if she could find one, in this regulated society it wouldn’t mean anything. The machines would not run while she was out of phase.

She looked around the rear of the complex, which seemed some kind of cheap family housing, and eventually spotted a child’s bicycle sitting in one of the yards. It was a bit small for her, but it would certainly do. She feared it might be locked, but found to her relief that it was not. There was, apparently, one advantage to living in a rigidly policed state.

It was kind of fun, riding a bike stark naked down a major road, but it still took her some time to reach her destination, and the ups and downs of the road in this seemingly flat country were not easy to overcome.

The Calvert Cliffs, known as one of the east’s richest fossil beds, were just below the nuclear plant and its secret time project. She turned into the small parking lot for the cliffs and nearly jumped off the bike, running down the small trail a bit to where she, as Moosic, had left the belt, all the while praying it was still there.

It was, and it appeared to be functioning normally. She began to feel a bit dizzy, and worried that phasing might catch up with her before she could activate the belt. She had tripped as Ismet while actually in the suit, and only Ismet’s fear of returning and being discovered as having left without permission caused her to activate at all.

It had been, in a sense, lifetimes since she’d used one of the belts, and for a moment she was struck with confusion as to how it worked. Finally, though, she remembered the “Home” button, found it, and pressed it as nausea started to overtake her.

The feeling was replaced almost instantly by one of falling slowly, and she relaxed. The journey, which might have taken many hours in the old suit had it had the power, would not take long with this device.

Feeling a bit shaky, she appeared in the lounge area of the Outworlder base. Sitting there were Herb, looking much as he had so many lifetimes before, “Doc” Kahwalini, beautiful as ever, and a small, weasel-like man she barely recalled as Nikita.

Doc looked over at her and smiled. “Right on schedule,” she said approvingly.