Golem 7

Chapter 28

The mists of acrid fog still hung in the air, and they could perceive a noticeable chill. Maeve blinked, looking this way and that. “Paul?” She called, leaning forward to peer into the cold blue haze.

No one answered.

She walked boldly up to the yellow event horizon line in the Arch Bay, waving her arms through the mist, groping at infinity as it were, but felt nothing. Thinking he may have fallen in a swoon of nausea, she knelt quickly her arms smoothing in wide arcs over the cold concrete floor.

No one was there.

The main lights came on in the bay as the Arch spun down to a quiet 50% power. Maeve had an anguished look on her face. She could both clearly see that the room was empty, and was up and at the intercom in a heartbeat.

“Kelly,” she shouted. “Are you sure the retraction sequence is finished?”

“Yes, it’s fine. All green on my board and the sequence is closed,” came Kelly’s voice.

“Are you sure?… Something’s wrong,” said Maeve. “He’s not here!”

“What?”

She wasted no time, running to the elevator to get up to the lab where she found Kelly frantically checking an incompressible wall of numbers on the retraction module screen.

“I’m telling you the system is showing he made a safe shift. I have no warning flags, no loss of pattern integrity. There was a brief vibration during the shift, but it was just a second and it stabilized immediately. The computers show they brought him in, lock, stock and barrel.”

“Then where is he, man?” Nordhausen raised his eyebrows, clearly upset.

“He should be in the damn Arch Bay,” said Kelly, deathly afraid that he had made another error in the numbers. The look on Robert’s face said exactly that, though the professor didn’t say anything more. The tormented look in Kelly’s eyes dissuaded him.

“Think,” said Maeve. “What could have happened?”

“I’ll check the shift program, but the Golems assisted with the processing, and I had really strong integrity, well over 99.875% That’s better than we had on any shift we’ve made.”

“Well, hell,” Nordhausen could not hold it in any longer. “The first time we shifted into the God damn pre-Cambrian!”

“I got you back on target,” said Kelly.

“Then we ended up arriving at different times in the desert.”

”That was just a sequencing problem. I had to bring you in one after another due to the power situation.”

“Then Maeve and I missed our target time for Rosetta by a full year, and damn near fell afoul of Napoleon’s guardsmen.”

“I got you back to the correct target date in five minutes,” said Kelly.

“Then where in blazes is Paul?”

The question lashed at all of them. Kelly sat with it, deflated and deeply troubled. He gave the screen a wan look, unwilling to believe he had made yet another error.

“I don’t know…” he said quietly. “Damnation, he should be here!”

He was there.

The instant he felt solidity return to his frame again and perceived the hard concrete flooring of the Arch Bay cold on his cheek, Paul opened his eyes. He was lying in a wet puddle just over the event horizon line, and the dizzying lights and roaring sound of the Arch had abated. He thought he caught something out of the corner of his eye, and looked to see the roiling mists stirring near his legs. It was very cold, and he still had a strangely odd feeling all through his body.

Then, to his amazement, he saw a dim shape looming before him, slowly receding into the shadows of the Arch Bay. An odd echoing sound resounded, more in his mind than the chamber around him.

He watched as the apparition seemed to vanish into the elevator, shaking his head and rubbing his eyes to be certain he was OK. Everything had a strange hue. There were tinges of blue and vermillion running along the hard, straight edges of the walls. His head ached, and his ears were still ringing with the concussion from Rodney’s guns. He thought he might be having a migraine, complete with the characteristic visual aberrations.

Some welcome, he thought, still shaken by what he had seen and experience after he had been thrown over the gunwale into the wild sea. He looked around, expecting to see Kelly and the others, but apparently they were all still up in the lab, so he composed himself, sat up, and eventually rose on unsteady legs, walking slowly to the elevator. The button was icy cold, and he rubbed his fingers together to ease the discomfort.

The elevator seemed to take forever, but the doors finally slid open and he entered. This time he shielded his hand with the sleeve of his uniform before he pressed the floor button that would take him to the lab. Emerging a few moments later, he was in the long ascending tunnel that would lead up to the heavy pressure sealed door. What were they so pre-occupied with that no one could come down to meet him, he wondered?

As the heavy door eased open he thought he could hear people talking, but their voices were completely unintelligible. He had an odd feeling of déjà vu, thinking he had already come up this tunnel and gone through the door, a thousand times.

He stepped into the lab, dismayed to see three dark shadows hovering near the retraction module. The sounds around him reverberated again and again, and he felt a sudden stab of pain all through his body. He could not help but flatten his palms against his ears to muffle the sound, and his eyes puckered, closing with the pain. Then, to his great amazement the tortured sound resolved in timbre and tone, and he could hear definite voices, hard on the dead air of the room.

“…He should be here!” It was Kelly, nearly shouting at the others as he gestured at the screen.

Paul opened his eyes. The shadows suddenly sharpening to clear shapes, and he could see Kelly staring at him, his jaw slack with disbelief.

“He… he is here!” Kelly pointed, and Robert and Maeve looked over their shoulders to see the bedraggled figure of Paul standing there in his Navy whites, drenched from head to toe. He forced a wan smile, swaying a bit.

“Dissonance…” he breathed, and the others rushed to his side.

They took hold of each arm and eased him down onto a swivel chair. The color came back into his face and his smile seemed warmer, his eyes brightening as he looked at them.

“That was very uncomfortable,” he said, telling him where he had been just before the retraction kicked in. “One more wave and I think I would have gone under for good,” he breathed, shivering.

Maeve had a thick wool blanket and she wrapped it around him. “But what in the world just happened?” she asked.

“I was surprised no one came down to the Arch to meet me,” Paul began.

“I did!” said Maeve. “The retraction finished and you weren’t there. Nothing but fog in the Bay. There wasn’t a sign of you anywhere, so I came up to check on things with Kelly.”

“Very strange,” said Paul. “I thought I saw someone in the bay, a shadow, a formless shape really, and it moved directly to the elevator.”

Kelly had a serious look on his face. “I had solid green on the numbers here. The system was telling me you were home safe and sound,” he said.

“Apparently I was,” Paul seconded him, but told them what he had experienced coming up through the tunnel and through the final door into the lab. “I could see the three of you, indistinct figures, with a strange aura outlining each one of you. Your voices were oddly distorted, then it hurt like hell and when I opened my eyes you were all here!”

“Swear to God, Paul?“ said Nordhausen. “Tell me you aren’t just pulling our legs here.”

“I swear!” Paul protested, placing the palm of his hand on his chest.

“Then could you have manifested late, just after we left the Arch Bay?”

“No, I had power down to 50% by that time,” said Kelly. “That’s not enough to hold a shift pattern together.”

Paul thought for a moment. “I think I came back OK,” he said. “But I may have been slightly out of phase with your exact time locus.” It began to make sense to him now as he thought of the shapes and sounds he had seen. “I was slightly ahead of you—in Time—perhaps no more than a few milliseconds.”

“Ahead of us?”

“Ever so slightly,” Paul explained. “I think you were obviously the formless shadows I saw, and I could hear your voices, such as they were. I must have been slowing down to sync with your time. God, it’s painful. It’s like I was being pulled into this moment by Time gravity. The place I was, just an instant ahead of you on the continuum, could not hold me. It didn’t seem solid enough. The color of things was all wrong. Nothing sounded right.”

“But you could see us?” Robert was stunned. “Why couldn’t we see you then? I didn’t see any shadowy shape in the Arch, did you Maeve?”

“Well, the lighting was fairly dim, but I ran my arms all through the area where you should have manifested, and there wasn’t a hint of solid mass there.”

“There’s no way you could have seen or felt me,” said Paul. “Even a millisecond ahead of you in time, I would be completely invisible; simply not there. I was in a place, or rather at a location in space-time, that you had not yet reached—but I was moving too. By the time you did reach it, a millisecond later, I would have moved forward, again just beyond your time. God,” he thought, “If I hadn’t slipped back into sync I might have remained there forever, here, but just beyond the edge of your awareness.”

“Arriving somewhere, but not here,” said Kelly. “I know the feeling.”

“Then how could you see and hear us as you think you did?”

“I guess I was still actually moving in Time,” said Paul. “I overshot the target ever so slightly, but for all intents and purposes, the margin was so slim that I was in the present, just slightly out of phase. But I was slowing down, moving closer to this instant, and seeing it manifest as I came into sync. You can look at the past, Robert, think Spook Job. The shift back here must not have resolved properly. I was attenuated across several milliseconds of space-time, until one of those instants, the one I was destined to manifest in, asserted enough gravity to pull me into sync.”

The evidence of his experience was all he had to go by. The theory of Time travel was yet in its nascent hours. Perhaps they would encounter many more anomalies like this, slowly filling in the lexicon of possibility as they did so. Paul made a note to make yet another entry: Attenuation.

“Well whatever happened, thank God you’re safe,” said Kelly. “I mean, you guys pulled me over ten millennia without a hitch. I should have been able to manage 70 years or so for you. I was scared shitless that I had made some minor error in the calculations, so minor that even the Golems could not bother with it. We had over 99.987% certainty, but I guess you never get to that 100%, not on the level of quantum mechanics at least. And you weren’t helping, Robert, dredging up every last bump in the road we’ve had. You want to program the numbers? Be my guest!” Kelly gestured to the terminal, but Robert extended a hand, placating him.

“Forgive me. I shouldn’t have thrown that broadside at you, Kelly. Let’s just be glad our lost sheep is back in the fold and be done with it.” Then he looked at Paul. “Are we finished?” he asked. “Was Bismarck sunk?”

“Speaking of broadsides,” said Paul. He took a deep breath, folding his arms. “That phase shift was really unnerving, but wait until you hear this…”

Chapter 29

Wohlfarth watched the action with growing distress. He had fired off his last two torpedoes, watching them run true and strike Rodney. One hit full amidships, the other forward. The first torpedo suffered a minor malfunction and became a ‘surface runner’ losing its assigned depth and hitting the ship much too high, exploding harmlessly against her main belt armor, some 14 inches thick.

The second hit struck the thin 1.5 inch forward torpedo armor, breached it, exploded inward through the hull void and introduced flooding in the compartment beyond. Were it not for the presence of a few engineers and officers on the scene, including an American officer who smartly closed off the inner hatches, the flooding would have spread and cause the ship to list. More importantly, the last torpedo room on Rodney would have been put out of action as well. One of her two torpedo doors was already jammed by a shell from Bismarck. This last operational tube was to have a great impact on the events that followed.

Wohlfarth did not know any of this. He simply took heart when he saw his last two fish explode and then looked to Bismarck, watching her guns light up the night sky, the yellow fire rippling across the ragged bottoms of low clouds overhead. While Paul was struggling down into the lower decks aboard Rodney, he was watching the big ship in the distance, cheering her on. In spite of his effort, however, Rodney was still in the thick of the fight. There was nothing wrong with her enormous 16 inch guns, and they were blasting out in regular salvoes, four barrels, then five barrels firing in alternating rounds so as not to shake the ship too violently with a full broadside of all nine guns.

The first two salvos from the British ship were over, the next was a straddle. Bismarck returned fire with three salvos of her own, but only one gun from her Anton forward turret was in operation, along with the two guns in the Bruno turret. The three round salvos fell over, short, then straddled Rodney’s forward segment, where one fell so close that the concussion from the explosion jammed her port side torpedo tube door.

About the time Paul was gaping in amazement at the Elgin Marbles and stacked crates of gold bullion in Rodney’s hold, the British ship scored her first hit, forward on Bismarck’s Anton turret, which put those two guns out of action permanently.

The most devastating blow, however, came from the hidden sting she harbored in her forward bow. As the range closed she used her starboard torpedo tube to fire one fish after another at Bismarck. The first ran true, right before Paul’s wild eyes as he bobbed in the tortuous sea, and it struck Bismarck very near the patched section of her bow, increasing the damage there and blowing off the temporary repairs made by the engineers. The hit forced Lütjens to lower his speed dramatically at a crucial moment in the battle. And that was just enough to change the balance in the fight yet again.

Wohlfarth spun his periscope around, cursing when he saw the arrival of two more British ships, identical in shape, a menacing duo that immediately open fire as they came up on Bismarck’s port aft quarter. Their forward turrets mounted a total of six 14 inch guns each, and this time the guns were ‘well sorted out’ as Admiral Tovey might have put it. The twelve rounds fell heavily on target, surrounding Bismarck with a forest of straddling shell plumes, and two of the twelve scored hits. Her Dora aft turret was temporarily disabled, and out of the action for the next crucial fifteen minutes while the deck crews fought the fire there and cleared away torn metal, the gaping steel flesh of the turret’s damaged side armor that was jamming the turning mechanisms.

Rodney’s ninth salvo struck forward on the German ship yet again, and this time a massive shell hit Bruno turret dead on, exploding furiously and sending a lethal hail of shrapnel, molten metal, and debris careening up and back where it struck the battle bridge like a heavy shotgun blast. Admiral Lütjens instinctively flinched, closing his eyes and raising his arm to shield his face. The forward view ports blew open, shattered, and seconds later he was dead, along with the dour Captain Lindemann and most of the bridge crew. There was only one survivor on the bridge, back in the plotting room where the bulkhead between him and the main bridge was enough to save his life.

The ship was now leaderless. Its various parts continued to do their jobs, engines still thrumming, propellers turning, active guns still ranging and firing, though the cables connecting the radars had been damaged or severed, and two of the mast mounted rangefinders on the upper superstructure were also out of action. Bismarck was near blind in the thickening dark of the night, decapitated, and beset from two sides.

Wohlfarth watched in growing frustration as the aft Caesar turret bravely turned its two 15 inch guns on the oncoming threat from King George V and Prince of Wales. When the two ships turned to starboard to bring their own aft torrents into the fight the Germans were outnumbered twenty guns to two, and eight of the nine 16 inch guns of Rodney still fired their alternating salvos, with two more hits scored on the German ship’s main superstructure when the range began to close to only 9000 yards. Those last hits fell with such thunder on the ship that the Bismarck literally rocked to one side as she absorbed the blows, then shifted slowly back to an even keel. The last thing Wohlfarth saw through his scope was a raging fire amidships, the awful silhouettes of men backlit by the flames, some diving from the ship into the turbulent waters, preferring an icy death at sea to the fiery hell Bismarck was becoming. There was nothing more he could do. For the briefest moment he thought he saw a light winking on and off in the smoky shadows of the ship, as if signaling something in Morse code to the enraged enemy that grappled with her. Then he could look no more.

“Down scope,” he said, a disconsolate, defeated look on his face. He glanced at his executive officer, then at Souvad, the navigator who had urged him not to attack convoy HX-126. “She’s finished,” he said in a low voice, eyes averted now, shoulders slumping, and they knew at once he was not referring to Rodney.

“We did all we could, sir,” said Souvad.

“Not enough,” said Wohlfarth. “I should have listened to you, Souvad. I should have listened…”

The U-boat captain, his boat low on fuel, would return to the sub pens at Lorient, there to be greeted by Admiral Donitz himself and awarded the Knight’s Cross for valor and distinguished service. But he would never forget the sight of Bismarck bravely fighting and dying in her final hours at sea. It was to be his last successful U-boat cruise. On his very next mission, after a brief, well deserved leave in France, his boat would be hunted down by three British destroyers and forced to the surface. Wohlfarth and a number of his crew would be captured and spend the remainder of the war in a British prison.

As for Bismarck, she was indeed unsinkable. But there was very little of the ship left after another hour of pounding by the three British battleships. They fired all of 3000 rounds at her, until the ship was reduced to a twisted mass of burning metal and belching oily black smoke. It was a savage reprisal to avenge the loss of Hood, but as the battle wore on, the scene became a sickening vendetta, and soon the men aboard Rodney came to feel a strange kinship with the German sailors they saw leaping into the tumult of the seas.

The chaplain aboard Rodney made a direct appeal to Captain Dalrymple-Hamilton. “For God’s sake,” he cried. Can’t you see the ship is finished?” The big Scot would have nothing of that, sending the man below decks, the angry heat of battle still on him. But in time even he came to feel that each salvo he fired was nothing more than brutal, mindless vengeance. Yet the ship would just not sink! Finally he took a deep breath, peering through his field glasses for one last look at the dying German battleship. “She’s had enough,” he said in a low voice. “And we’ve had enough of this bloody business as well. Cease fire.”

A dark stillness fell on the scene, as both of Tovey’s ships also fell silent, the smoke still oozing from their guns. The big battleships had won the day. Now the cruisers and destroyers were vectored in to finish the job with their torpedoes, scoring several hits, but the ship would just not go down until the last remnants of her crew set off the scuttling charges deep in her bowels, finally destroying the marvel of her secret new hull and armor design, and seeing her roll over and slip beneath the restless sea.

On August 11, 1941 Bismarck would not sortie out of Brest to find and sink the Prospector of Convoy OS-85, along with three other ships, and a man named Thomason would arrive safely at his assigned post at Alexandria.

Months later he would lead a Royal Navy commando raid behind German lines near Bardia, and there he would gun down a Berber scout when the man sought to lead in a group of light German armored cars in an aborted counterattack. Kasim al Khafi would keep his appointment with death that night, and he would not wander into a bar in Benghazi years later, an old army veteran drowning his sorrows in stiff drink and the bosom of a willing barmaid. Kenan Tanzir would not be born, and would not spend a warm May evening in suite 911 at Le Méridien Oran Hotel as Americans thought to begin a busy Memorial Day weekend an ocean away. Nor would he be passenger fifteen aboard a charter flight into La Palma the next evening, leaping into the night over Cumbre Vieja with praise for Allah on his lips.

The day would dawn, clear and cool over the Canary Islands, with light breeze from the east and a chance of scattered showers later that evening.

They were gathered around the Golem Module, watching as the Weight of Opinion solidified, the lines of red and amber fading to light green, then solid deep emerald indicating all was well. Kelly checked the decimal readings, noting very high integrity percentages, particularly on Golem Bank number seven, which had reached an early conclusion concerning this intervention, leading in the other Golem Banks until there was a unanimous return. The continuum had healed, and all the course of the Meridian from 1941 to the present was now clear and safe.

“It was the damn torpedoes,” said Paul, “just like you said, Kelly. I was headed up to the bridge when Wohlfarth hit Rodney with those last two fish. That’s what pulled me below decks. Wohlfarth! If he hadn’t fired I would have been up on the bridge if I could get there. I can’t tell you how bad I wanted to see this battle.”

“So you closed a vital hatch below decks and saved Rodney’s own torpedo room,” said Kelly. “And that’s what slowed Bismarck down. Another damn torpedo. Thank God it’s over now. Just a few data variations, but the percentages look good. Minor stuff, really.”

“We were bound to get something off,” said Maeve. “There were deaths on the Arethusa, and so we may be missing a few ancestors.”

“Well, we won’t notice anything in this segment of the Meridian. Not on our watch. But there is a possibility that a few of these variation fissures may widen over time. They could get more serious in years hence, but we’ll just have to wait and see.”

“I’m just glad the data is settling down,” said Robert. “I can at least expect to find the history in one piece, just where I left it, the next time I do research.”

“Any more lose twine in this report, Kelly?” asked Maeve. “I want no unfinished business this time.”

“Well now that you mention it,” said Kelly. “I was trying to run down more information on that Cargo ship, the Darlington Court.”

“The one that was supposed to have been sunk by U-556?”

“Right, but it survived in this intervention and reached its destination safely—then blew up in a rather spectacular way.”

“It blew up?”

“Big time. It was supposed to have been carrying wheat, but Paul’s suspicion was correct. There was something else secreted aboard that ship. It took out two other vessels, one over a mile away as it was approaching the anchorage. I didn’t think much about that at first, until Golem 7 produced another variant flag. Industrious group that bunch. Come to find out… the steaming order had been altered just before the ships came into port.”

“Someone was shuffling the deck again.”

“Right, and a few new ships were added to this berthing to make up for losses sustained during the U-boat attacks. One of them was named the Prospector, and it was supposed to be berthed right next to Darlington Court, but it was moved to another harbor at the last minute. The paper trail is thin, but I found a record of the transfer order, or rather Golem 7 did. It was signed by a Lieutenant Commander James Conners, Royal Navy, so I sleuthed him out as well, and get this—he was listed as a casualty during a German bombing raid during the blitz in late 1940…

“Curious,” said Maeve, “and very suspicious. Sounds like someone assumed Conners’ identity and shuffled some paper to get that ship moved somewhere else, and well away from Darlington Court.”

“Right, and Prospector was the ship that was later assigned to Convoy OS-85, the one carrying Thomason to Alexandria.”

It was clear that someone else had been operating here, with intention to spare the life of the Prospector, for one reason or another.

Paul had drifted off to the next room, changing out of his still drenched Navy Whites. He returned a moment later, his brown hair wild after being tousled by a fresh towel. “Anyone want to get a taste of Atlantic seawater from 1941?” he said. “I’m amazed the water came through at all. It wasn’t part of the pattern signature, but I guess it was diffused enough, and in such close proximity to my body that the Arch brought it forward. Very odd. I didn’t think anything from the past could shift in without a pattern signature.”

Then he remembered something, rushing back to the other room and emerging a moment later with a look of wide eyed amazement. “Damn!” he said. “Look what else came through!”

He walked over and extended his palm, and the others saw that he held what looked like a small black iron skeleton key. “Apparently HMS Rodney held another secret in its gut,” he said. “When I was down in the hold rendering assistance and trying to seal off hatches, I found a room stacked with crates of gold bullion and what looked to be elegantly carved slabs of marble. I wondered what they were.”

“The Elgin Marbles!” said Robert. “Yes, the British Museum had a good segment of the marbles, they were from the Parthenon and Acropolis. Sir Thomas Bruce, the 7th Earl of Elgin obtained permits to move them to England in 1801—why, right about the time the Brits were also carting off the antiquities of Egypt as well, Rosetta stone and all. Lord Byron was very unhappy about it. He went so far as to call Sir Elgin a vandal… Here, Google up some Byron.” He keyed in a brief search and read a passage from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, a poem by the famous British poet.

“Well it was a fairly wild hour,” said Paul. “There was a beautiful horse’s head that came tumbling out of its packing crate. The look on its face was one of strained energy.”

“The Selene Horse!” said Robert. “It was one of four horses pulling the chariot of the Moon Goddess Selene through the heavens and was depicted exhausted after its labored journey.”

“It took a hard fall with the concussion of the guns,” Paul explained, “and a segment of the rough unfinished bottom broke loose to reveal this, embedded in the marble.”

“May I?” Nordhausen took hold of the key, holding it up to the light, noting a series of numbers carved on its side, and suddenly quite disturbed.

“You say this was embedded inside the marble?”

“Had it not fallen and cracked open no one would have known it was there,” said Paul. “I don’t know why I took it, given the chaotic circumstances, but I wedged it loose and just stuck it in my pocket. Then it was fire brigade time and the next thing I know I was washed overboard in the sea. God, my ears are still ringing from it all. I’ll never get warm again.”

“Extraordinary!” said Robert. “A metal key… Inside one of the Elgin Marbles?”

“I’m still trying to figure out how it could have shifted back with me,” said Paul.

“Well, look here,” said Robert. “Modern numbers inscribed on the shaft of the key. That could only have been rendered by precise Computer Numeric Controlled equipment, or perhaps a laser.” He handed the key back to Paul.

“Could it have been hidden there by the British?” Kelly suggested,

“In 1941?” Maeve shook her head. “And with a laser carved serial number?”

“This is freaky,” said Paul. “This had to come from a future time. The Greeks did not make it, that much is certain. Hell, it may have been deliberately hidden there, but it might also have been in the stone they quarried to carve this piece.”

“Well it is a clear bit of modern day detritus polluting the history,” said Maeve. “You’re correct, Robert. It shouldn’t be there, and I’m one with Byron on this. We clearly had nothing to do with it, so it can only mean our warring friends and enemies in the future must be responsible.”

“I don’t know what harm it might do,” said Paul.

“Every little bit hurts,” said Maeve. “We’ve altered the Meridian so many times now, in so many locations, I’m just amazed this mission balanced so well, and did so little damage to the continuum.”

“We still don’t know what it did in the future,” said Kelly. “Like I say, these variations could worsen over time.”

“Well this has got to stop, Paul,” said Maeve. “How long do you think we can keep this up? OK, we reversed Palma once more and the Shadow has dissipated. All that does is open the door again and allow future Time travelers to go merrily about their business. In some ways Palma was the cork on the bottle. It was preventing them from getting through its penumbra and conducting missions. Otherwise I don’t think we would have been able to operate like this, with such success. The Assassins had up to twenty Arch complexes! We were outgunned worse than the Bismarck in that final battle, but yet we beat them, time and time again.”

“The arch is still spinning,” said Paul. “We still have quantum fuel. All we have to do is open the continuum again and tell the Admiralty to ignore Lonesome Dove. We can still back out and accept Palma, and live the rest of our lives with it. After all, it did happen, and our intervention changed the Prime Meridian we were born to. If we shut down now we’re living in an altered Time line—albeit a much more comfortable one for us, and future generations here in the US. To say nothing of the dog… our supposed allies in the future, Graves, LeGrand, Rantgar, the Abbot and the lot of them.”

“I think we made our choice on all this once already,” said Maeve. “What’s done is done, Paul. But how can we shut down this war?”

“We could call for a conclave,” said Kelly. “A truce.”

Paul raised an eyebrow at that. “I suppose we could,” he said. “All we would have to do is boldly publish a call in our data stream—now, while we still have the protection of a Nexus Point. Both sides will surely pick it up. They’ll get a clear variation signal, and when they investigate it they will see it’s our message.”

“Stick it in an apple?” said Maeve with a wry smile.

“No I think a digital message will do this time,” said Paul. “Hopefully both sides will respond immediately. Let’s ask each side to send someone back to this location. Right here, right now. Conclave! You’re a genius, Kelly!”

Kelly took off his Giants baseball cap and proffered a gracious bow.

Chapter 30

“Please be seated, gentlemen,” said Paul. “Thank you for responding and welcome to the original Arch facility here at Berkeley. We’re glad it’s still here…” He looked at the Sheik, an obvious message in his eyes.

LeGrand had a look of disdain on his face, showing obvious sympathy for Paul’s remark. The Sheik smiled unpleasantly, Sheik Basim Abd Al Aziz, who’s name meant ‘Smiling Servant of the Powerful.’

“It is certainly a tribute to the skill and ingenuity of the Founders,” said the Sheik.

“When envoys are sent with compliments in their mouths, it is a sign that the enemy wishes for a truce,” said LeGrand, also smiling.

“Do you not wish as much?” the Sheik said sharply. “Or would you have me take my leave and we shall continue this struggle through the ages? We shall see who prevails!”

“You forget, Sheik, that Palma is no more,” LeGrand said flatly. The instant this Nexus is dissipated all your conniving and scheming will have come to naught when the Heisenberg Wave finishes the job.”

“We are not without means in that event,” said Aziz. “You have not set your hand upon our hidden sanctuaries, in any Meridian we can see. And they will survive. We will strike again, as Allah wills it. And perhaps this time your Founding Fathers here will not be so quick or insightful in redeeming your lost causes.”

“Gentlemen,” said Maeve. “This will lead us nowhere. You were summoned here to the consideration of peace, not to continue quarreling with one another.”

“You pardon,” Aziz nodded, his eyes still narrow under heavy dark brows beneath his gold braided headset. His prominent nose was raised slightly, a proud, yet haughty face if Paul had ever seen one.

LeGrand was a sturdy man, fairly short, broad in the shoulders, yet with a girth that tended more to brawn than to excess weight. Gray-brown tresses of hair dangled freely from beneath a floppy burgundy cap, framing his round face and high, ruddy cheeks. His eyes were alight with a mischievous glint that seemed ignited by the Sheik’s discomfiture. He was, of course, the very same man Robert and Maeve had encountered in their mission to Rosetta. The Order apparently had been satisfied with his ability to adequately persuade the Founders on more than one occasion, and perhaps they felt familiarity would strengthen their side of the arguments here as well.

“We have called you here to ask for a complete cessation of any and all intervention in the continuum,” said Paul. “I realize that you may be constrained in what you may or may not reveal to us here, but recent events have produced a number of alarming and unexpected irregularities, at least insofar as we perceive the Time theory here.”

He briefly related his experience in arriving slightly out of phase on his last retraction. “We had good numbers on that shift.”

“Very high integrity percentages,” said Kelly. “Also adequate power and perfect stability on a quantum level.”

“Yet I apparently overshot my targeted reentry point, if only be a few milliseconds, and it was both painful and disturbing when I finally manifested in sync with this present. I was there all along, of course, but not yet there, by the barest fraction of a second, and for all intents and purposes I was a ghost at that moment, unseen by any of my associates here, though I could still dimly perceive them.”

“I still don’t understand why,” said Robert.

“If I may, professor,” LeGrand cleared his throat. “Everything you see and perceive is information from the recent past. It takes the barest wee bit of Time for the light to bounce about and reach your eyes, and that Time interval extends the farther away you look. Why, have a glance at the heavens above tonight. Your eyes will be taking in light that has been traveling eons to reach you. Everything you see is not really information from the present. It is the night sky as it appeared ages ago, and in some places millennia ago. You can clearly look into the past, it’s the absolute present and the future you can never really see or perceive.”

Nordhausen nodded, satisfied.

“Then there’s an issue with the movement of objects through Time,“ said Maeve “in both directions. You people have been quite sloppy it seems.”

“We believed an object could not be moved unless there was a pattern signature in the system,” said Paul. “Now I understand your side is using String theory as the basis of your physics.” He looked at Aziz. “Yet we have tangible evidence of objects that have been found where they should not be, where it would be impossible for them to exist.” He was fingering the metal key in his pocket as he spoke, but made no mention of it.

The Sheik smiled. “Do you mean things like parts of plastic laminated playing cards tucked discretely in a copy of the Holy Koran?” His smile faded.

“Come, come, now,” said LeGrand. “To err is human. We found that a very clever ploy, and Mr. Ramer’s play on words concerning his surname in the hieroglyphics was equally ingenious.”

“Now who makes sweet compliments,” said the Sheik.

“The point is,” said Maeve, “we have come to feel we are doing irreparable damage to the continuum. Every breaching point, every mission, each intervention, all the meddling about with Prime Movers, and the risky flirtation with Free Radicals, it’s very, very dangerous, and may make a fatal wound in the continuum, if it hasn’t already done so.”

“We were not the ones who took the life of Primes,” said Aziz. “You will note that we intervene by sparing life. You call us Assassins, yet we are merciful, as Allah commands.”

“Sparing life? Merciful?” said LeGrand. “If you call the obliteration of countless billions mercy, then you are demented, man. Yes, you spared lives, ever so discretely, heedless of what the outcomes and consequences might be.”

“We were very mindful of the consequences,” said Aziz. “They were simply not to your liking, that is all.”

“Not to our liking, indeed.” LeGrand said smugly. “And how do you like them now? We’re back on our feet again. The tables have been turned round once more. See how you like hiding out in caves and high mountain passes now, eh?”

“Gentlemen!” Paul warned. “I was hoping to reason with you, but I may just as well make my point another way. We can turn off this whole thing. Our latest intervention can be withdrawn as easily as I can shut down this Arch at the moment. I know exactly what we did, the where and when of it all, and I can restore both Bismarck and Palma to the Meridian in a heartbeat. As this Nexus Point remains open, I’ll warrant neither of you have a clue on this operation yet, nor will you until we dissipate our Nexus. You will therefore be powerless to prevent anything we decide to do here.”

He looked at LeGrand. “You may have the advantage if we let this intervention stand, Mr. LeGrand, but I can change all that. So I warn you, I will not hesitate to do so, even if it means we live our lives out here in the agony of our Post-Palma world, the merciful gift of the Sheik and his oh so pious followers of the Koran here.”

“You can’t be serious,” said LeGrand. “You would align yourself with them?”

“We would see it another way entirely,” said Maeve. “It would be a defense of the original Prime Meridian, wherein the Palma event has a rightful place. So you can wipe that smug look off your face and get serious about negotiating here, or we’ll settle the matter without further input. And as for you,” she pointed at the Sheik, “you won’t like the latest twist we have planned either. We’ll make certain your side shares fully in the suffering caused by Palma. You will not emerge unscathed, nor will you ascend to a dominant position in your future if we can prevent it. And we can. It’s all planned. The operation is ready to go and, I assure you, our final intervention will be completely unassailable.” She folded her arms, bluffing, but doing so in a most convincing manner, in a way only Maeve could truly pull off.

LeGrand seemed stunned. “My, my,” he said at last. “I hardly expected to have a gun put to my head here.”

“Cocked and ready, “ said Paul. “Now, we want some information, whether it means you divulge something critical or not is of no concern to us at this juncture. This business concerning a British steamer, the Darlington Court, is somewhat disturbing. It was blown to pieces upon arrival at its berthing point in the U.K., and the explosion was so powerful it damaged vessels over a mile away. That was no natural explosion, gentlemen. We suspect a bomb was placed on board.” He looked from one to the other, his gaze resting on the Sheik at the end.

“War is war,” said the Sheik. “Yes, we sabotaged that ship. Regrettable, but there it is.”

“When?” said Paul, waiting cautiously and hoping the Sheik would be forthcoming with an answer.

“It was part of the general plan for this campaign. I do not have the exact shift time for that mission at hand.”

“Well enough,” said Paul. “Except for this… In our history, the information we hold protected here in our touchstone RAM Bank, there was also an unusual explosion during the attack on convoy HX-126. We uncovered evidence of obvious tampering in that event stream—ships reassigned, steaming orders changed, and a strange underwater explosion that was noted in the reports of several eye witnesses.”

“You mean the subterranean earthquake?” the Sheik smiled.

“That was no earthquake,” said Paul, frowning. “We believe it was an explosion on one of the ships sunk by U-556 in that attack, the Darlington Court. Imagine our surprise to discover the history in our own RAM bank had already been tampered with.”

The Sheik’s jaw hardened, his eyes narrowing. LeGrand gave him a suspicious and reproachful look, but the heavy set man also seemed discomfited.

“We can say nothing more on the matter,” said LeGrand. “I do not wish to seem stubborn or uncooperative here, but there are some things that we simply cannot divulge—out of respect to your very own rules concerning Prime Movers, Miss Lindford.”

Paul nodded, satisfied that he now knew enough about that event to justify his inner fears and suspicions. The reaction of the two men was transparent. It was clear that the history had been tampered with, but his mind moved on to greater consequences.

“There is something else at stake now that is bigger than all our mutual interests here,” Paul took a seat and leaned forward heavily, elbows resting on his legs, hands clasped under his chin.

“We believe the continuum is fracturing, gentlemen. The minor phasing aberration I experienced on retraction was but the barest inkling of what is to come. And we think the fractures already caused in this conflict will propagate out to much more serious consequences in your day. There’s a reason why you asked for Arch support at this end before you shifted in, LeGrand. And you, my dear Sheik, there is a reason why you missed your target date by three days, eh? Because I saw you three days ago, down in the garage when I was seeing to the fuel situation during our Tours intervention. You appeared, holding that very same sword at your side there, then vanished. I believe you saw me as well, so you know I speak truthfully here.”

The Sheik was flustered. “It was merely a ‘Spook Job’ to use a phrase you have coined. A simple reconnaissance.”

“Rubbish,” said Paul. “Yes, you will tell me that the penumbra of Palma accounts for these irregularities, but we believe something more is happening. Be frank with me, sir, or suffer our eternal enmity. If we side with LeGrand and his people we’ll checkmate you at every turn. Our privileged position on the continuum gives us enormous leverage on events. We antedate every other Arch complex you can build and you may wish to consider the advantage that gives us in any ongoing conflict. We have stopped your entire operation cold, Palma, the Sami’s little scheme at Castle Masyaf, Rosetta, Tours, then we sunk the damn Bismarck and reversed Palma yet again. Are you hearing me? Am I making myself clear?”

The Sheik was clearly cowed, the look on his face speaking volumes behind his wan smile. “We had no intention of sparing Bismarck as a means of restoring Palma. That was an unexpected dividend,” he said testily.

“Well, whatever you were up to, it’s over,” said Paul.

The Sheik eyed him suspiciously. “Not quite…” he started, then seemed to reconsider, sighing heavily. “A gun to our heads, indeed,” he looked at LeGrand.

“Very well,” said LeGrand, folding his heavy arms over his belly. “You’re on to it, quite clearly, and you may as well know. What you have said is true. The continuum is fracturing, to use your term. You don’t notice it here yet, but you will in due course. By our day we’re facing some rather severe ramifications. You know of what I speak, Aziz.”

The Sheik nodded solemnly. “Phase shift is the least of our worries, Mr. Dorland, a mere nuisance, but there is more.”

“Quite a lot more, I’m afraid,” said LeGrand. “Things are… well, not as they should be. We have predictors that return integrity numbers you would be proud of Mr. Ramer, but then events shift, they slip, they twist into an unexpected consequence that no one, in spite of all our considerable efforts, has foreseen. The incidence of Free Radical elements encountered in even the slightest intervention is astounding. We think we have everything nailed down in the research, and then it all goes to mayhem when we intervene.”

“For not even the wise can foresee all ends,” said Kelly.

“Thank you, Gandalf,” Maeve smiled at him. But LeGrand was not finished.

“At first we considered that these difficulties might be counter operations conducted by the Assassins. Then, in a moment of rare clarity and frankness, one of your associates disclosed the fact that you were struggling with similar aberrations in your operations as well.”

“In the interest of accord I will confirm this,” said Aziz. “We believed our problems were the work of our enemies as well, or even the Founders here, yet soon even simple courier missions became so problematic that we were forced to suspend operations. It is the reason, in part, we sought to etch the history in stone, quite literally, in an archive hidden deep in the past, well away from the damage we were observing. We thought the Shadow of Palma was deepening, and we could have no certainty in our day. There were regrets among many of our most senior Seers and Khadis. Some even advocated that we undo the mischief and misery we unleashed upon the world with Palma.”

“Then you will not be too distressed to learn we’ve done the job for you,” said Maeve.

“I’m afraid it goes far beyond Palma,” said LeGrand. “We always wondered about something else,” he said darkly, “and undoubtedly you have posed this question as well my dear Sheik. You see… we have a future as well. When we leave here we go forward, returning to the present we know, which is well in your future,” he gestured to the Meridian team members. “But we have a future as well, and it always bothered us that no one from that future, to this day, has ever paid us a visit with any friendly advice in the heat of this struggle. We took that as a bad omen when the scales were balanced against us, but even when we had the upper hand, our future remained entirely dark and silent. We get no messages in apples, as it were. Not a whisper, not a wink or a nod, and we have come to feel that there is some cataclysm of unimaginable immensity waiting for us just round the next turn in the Meridian. We do not know if the damage we have caused continues beyond our point in the continuum, but it is reasonable to assume it does. Are we responsible for this great silence? It is most unsettling.”

“As for now,” said the Sheik, “ I can say we have shared the dread you speak of. For we, too, have prayed, and called to our brothers who may live in generations yet to come. We have sent many messages, words we were certain our future generations would discover and surmise, yet we, too, receive no answer. We have come to believe that all Meridians are bent toward one great Finality. We are blind to what it is, or where it may wait for us in the future, though the strange aberrations we have experienced may indeed be the root cause. Believe me, it is unnerving when one sets down a goblet of wine and turns to a friend in conversation, only to find the goblet and wine missing when you reach for it again, the bottle unopened, the friend not there when you whirl about in amazement and find yourself alone. All of our Walkers report such experiences now. We perceive the changes, yet we do not forget what we once knew to be correct. We ourselves are not altered. At first we believe these were mere hallucinations—after effects caused by too many Time shifts, but they continue and continue, and they are increasing. We call out to our future like a frightened child, and we wait, yet no word ever returns…”

The implications of what the two men shared confirmed Maeve’s worst fears. “Gentlemen,” she said softly. “If you ever do want to hear a voice from that future I most strongly advise you both to heed this voice now from your past. As the Founding Director of Outcomes and Consequences, hear me roar. Stop this war. Cease fire. At once. I want a complete cessation of all operations and planned interventions. Furthermore, I want all operatives presently stationed on any Meridian, in any Milieu, to be immediately recalled. Then, upon receiving a signal that we will initiate, I want every last Arch complex you possess, known facilities and hidden ones as well, to cease operation and dissipate their Nexus Points. It is the only way we can still down the continuum enough to see what we have done and assess the damage. If as much as a single Nexus Point remains open, then we can reach no clarity on the matter. Time will wait. We’ve lifted her skirts and she’ll show us plenty of leg if we persist with this nonsense, and then, one day, there’ll come that unexpected kick. You gentlemen know exactly what I mean.”

The Sheik smiled, this time with some warmth and a measure of respect. “You are, indeed, a formidable woman,” he said.

“You’ll find us all quite formidable,” she emphasized. “We are the Founders, gentlemen. You must heed this warning, or I can tell you the consequences will be darker that any of us here can now imagine. It will not be unopened wine bottles, but people and places will go missing in due course, just as you have shared here. Events will change all on their own, and no one will be able to put things right again. We cannot even be certain of the history we once thought was safe in our Ram Bank, and the same is true for both of you. Interventions in Time under these circumstances would be like a surgeon operating blind. Would either of you care to be the patient on that operating Table? So I beg you, in the interest of humanity and the future you call to so earnestly, to end this war. Every one of us is in agreement, here. Paul?”

“I call for an immediate cease fire, a truce, and termination of all Nexus Points upon our signal.”

“Robert?”

“Gentlemen, leave my history alone, if you please, and do exactly what this woman says.”

“Kelly?”

“Shut the damn thing down. Period.”

Maeve looked at them, a fierce expression on her face now. “That’s all four of us,” she said in a low voice. “We have reached an absolute certainty in our view on this, and four votes from the Founders is one hell of a weight of opinion. What is your decision, gentlemen? Will you comply, or must we take further action?”

LeGrand swallowed hard. “I am authorized to reach an accommodation with you should all Founders be seen to be in agreement. Yes. You are correct, Miss Lindford. The weight of your combined opinion is duly noted… and respected. The Order is therefore willing to comply to the terms as stipulated.”

Aziz spoke next. “Then you will not allow Palma to stand? Even if it has a rightful place in the Prime Meridian?”

“We will not,” said Maeve. “There will be no further intervention, no more damage to the continuum, unless you force us to act again. Play it as it lays. Your decision?”

The Sheik stroked his beard. “Your message to us said that any emissary sent must have binding authority. I have as much where our people are concerned.” He looked from LeGrand, to Maeve and the others. “Very well. I agree to the terms as stipulated. Provided the Order complies in this manner, by first shutting down all active Arch complexes, save two. Then we will comply and both sides will cease all operations simultaneously upon receipt of your signal.”

“Fair enough,” said LeGrand. “The Order agrees.”

“And you’ll also destroy any existing Oklo reaction site you may have in use,” said Paul. “And by recalling your people we mean all of them. Your archival Sphinx site with Hamza and his scribes must be abandoned as well.”

The Sheik’s chin tightened, but he thought for a moment and then nodded in the affirmative. “We will do as you ask,” he said. “This agreement is concluded, but how will it be enforced?”

“Leave that to me,” said Maeve. “If nothing else, I’m very tidy.”

“Gentlemen,” said Robert “Let us drink on it. To the history… And may God forgive us our wanton and selfish ways.”

“All Gods we may ever know,” said LeGrand.

“As Allah wills it,” said Aziz.

Paul stood up, smiling broadly. “Then I swear to you all, on my father’s grave, that I will not be the one to break the peace we have made here today.” His voice strained to imitate Brando, and Maeve gave him an incredulous look.

“The Godfather,” he said sheepishly. “There’s something in that movie for virtually any occasion.”

There was a sudden sharp pop, and they turned to see that Robert had hold of a freshly opened bottle of Champagne.