Eschaton 01 The Other End of Time

by Frederik Pohl

  Patrice shivered again. This time it was excitement, not cold. The last time she had taken part in an invasion of enemy territory she had been ten years old, playing Good Guys and Bad Guys with the Abwyth kids from next door. She was out of practice. She hadn't had a real gun in her hand then, either; probably wouldn't be holding one, ready for action, now, if it weren't for the fact that right in front of her Dan and Jimmy Lin had their guns out. So did Pat, by her side; for them it seemed to be deadly serious.

  It didn't seem that way to Patrice. It seemed like just another children's game. Behind the two Docs in single file at the head of the procession and the five humans who were capable-well, more or less capable-of firing their guns were the other Docs. One carried their spare weapons. Then there was another Doc that carried Rosaleen in one of its assorted arms, and the last one carrying Dopey himself. It was a regular circus parade. And why were they in it? Because Dan Dannerman had said so, and what an exasperating man he was. First he warned them all against getting into other people's fights. Then he reversed himself without notice. Now he was-and all the others with him- suddenly a warrior on the side of the Beloved Leaders against the Horch. Patrice gazed darkly at the back of his neck. In a way, she didn't envy Pat for her lover; in some ways Dan was a most unsatisfactory man. Lovers were supposed to communicate. Not Dan Dannerman; you never knew what he was going to be doing next.

  But in another way, of course, she envied Pat very much indeed.

  She hoped the Doc who was striding ahead of them knew where he was going. Patrice didn't. Nothing looked familiar, except in the way that one patch of desolation looked pretty much like all the others. She had long since stopped wondering about the strange objects they were passing. There was one period, not long after they entered the compound, that she didn't like to think about. First there was a hint of something foul in the air. It became a definite stench-growing, then horribly intense, then gradually fading again-that could be nothing but dead things. She never quite saw the corpses, whatever species they were, but there was no doubt of what she was smelling, and no doubt that there had been a lot of killing somewhere nearby. But after that there was nothing but their slow march, and nothing happening…

  Then something did happen.

  Between the time Patrice saw the first Doc suddenly turn and begin to run back, squeaking in a shrill soprano, and the time she saw the big silver-colored spidery thing appear from between the orange-colored crystal sphere and the jade pylons and they all began shooting at it, there was only a moment. It was time enough for her to be astonished that the Doc had spoken at all- before that she had never heard one of them make a sound- but then she saw that Dannerman had flung himself to the ground on one side of the corridor, his thirty-shot out and firing, and Jimmy Lin had done the same on the other, and she realized she had to follow their example. It all happened very fast. The Doc was able to run only a few steps before there was this sudden staccato sound, like shrill bees buzzing, bzhit, bzhit, bzhit. Patrice saw nothing that looked like either a projectile or a ray, but she saw the effects, all right, as at once the first Doc's head burst open-spray of orange-red blood and tissue flying out in all directions-and then the Horch machine was skating toward them, fast, on its spidery wheeled legs. The second Doc leaped forward to catch its fellow-too late-and there was more bzhit, bzhit and the whole right side of that one's body exploded, too. But by then everybody was shooting-even Patrice herself, startled at the unexpected recoil from the gun Danner-man had given her and her shots going wild, even Pat, next to her on the ground… even Martin Delasquez, standing wobbly but erect in the middle of the passage, but shooting his heavier gun with two hands. They didn't all miss. Pieces flew off the machine. Two of its legs collapsed and it clattered to the ground; a moment later something inside it flared and crackled and it lay still. And behind her, where he had hidden himself behind the massive trunk of the Doc that had been carrying him, Dopey was crying, "Stop firing! The machines do not respond quickly to sound, but it will attract them if you keep on shooting!"

  In the sudden silence both Jimmy Lin and Dannerman jumped to their feet and ran to inspect the wrecked machine. Dannerman gave it only a glance, then turned back, leaving Jimmy to kick at the thing suspiciously; Dannerman ran straight to Patrice and dropped to his knees beside her. "Are you all right?" he demanded.

  She rolled over to gaze up at him. "I'm fine," she said, "but I'm Patrice. That's your Pat"-who was already getting up and looking toward them-"over there."

  The two Docs that had been given the point were both messily dead, but so was the Horch machine. Dopey was fretting. "I should not have used two of them to draw fire. I can only spare one now, but we must not delay. Have you all got loaded guns?"

  Dannerman might or might not have been listening; his expression was unreadable. He was standing over the destroyed machine, his gun in one hand, the other arm around Pat's waist beside him. Patrice was standing nearby, somberly watching them. She did, after all, wish it was she that Dannerman was holding. It wasn't envy, exactly. She didn't feel any real jealousy of Pat-she definitely wanted Pat to have someone to hold her, too; she wanted nothing but good for Pat. But it would have been better, she thought, if Dopey had produced an extra Dan Dannerman or two along with the Pat Adcocks. She turned to look at the others. Rosaleen and Martin were fussing over each other, while Jimmy Lin checked the magazine of his gun, and the three remaining Docs were standing quietly, waiting for orders. That was reassuring, a little bit. They had all got through at least this first firefight-well, all but the two dead Docs.

  Dannerman kicked at the dead machine, triangular body now blazing quietly, the long legs crumpled. He turned challengingly to Dopey. "If they're that easy to kill, why couldn't your people handle them?"

  Dopey looked defensive. "Because there were so many of them! They kept coming. Every time we thought we had them cleaned up the Horch managed to capture another channel and they sent more of them in and it was all to do over again-and, finally, we had no fighters left to oppose them. Please, let us move on; we are very exposed here."

  Dannerman shook his head. "Tell me first, how many more of those things are there?"

  "How do I know? A few. Not very many, I think-but, please-

  Dannerman disregarded the urging. He had another question: "Are you sure you know where we're going?"

  "Out of my own knowledge? No, of course not. How could I? There is so much destruction, I cannot recognize anything. But the bearers do, so please hurry."

  Dannerman didn't answer right away. He stood there, with his arm around Pat's waist; he was thinking about something, but Patrice could not guess what. Whatever it was, he did not choose to share it.

  Jimmy Lin was losing patience. "Are we going or not?" he demanded.

  "Yes, sure," Dannerman said at last, then kissed Pat and took up his place in the procession as Dopey ordained it. With two Docs fewer to deploy, Dopey ordered the one with the weapons to take the point. Then came Dannerman and Jimmy, then Pat and Patrice and Martin; then the other Docs with their passengers, Rosaleen and Dopey himself.

  Patrice's heart was still pounding from the excitement of the fight. She had seen shoot-outs on the television news, of course-just before they left there had been the one between the police and the subway terrorists, when the Lenni-Lenape Ghost Dance Revengers tried to blow up Grand Central Terminal, and there had been at least a dozen other battles over the years-but she had never expected to take part in a gunfight herself. She had never imagined someone (well, something) actually trying to kill her! And herself shooting back!

  The funny thing was that she wasn't frightened. It had something to do with having a chance to do some shooting herself; it was certainly far better to be taking action, any kind of action, than just having things happen to her. She rehearsed every moment of the fight critically, looking for things she might have done wrong. She resolved to be ready for the weapon's recoil next time-if there was a next time. She wouldn't miss, she vo
wed…

  And almost fired her gun in reflex when the lead Doc suddenly stopped, glanced around, then down at the ground.

  Then it moved on a few more meters to an intersection and simply stood there, waiting.

  Dannerman and Jimmy Lin were the first ones on the spot, and they both recoiled. "Oh, Christ," Jimmy moaned. "Makes me want to puke!" It did Patrice, too, as soon as she saw what they were looking at. It was a corpse-not human, not a Dopey or a Doc-or, more accurately, it was about half of a corpse.

  "It's a Bashful," Patrice said, recognizing it: one of the ones she and Patsy had seen before being brought to the cell.

  "It looks like that other Dopey did, after we killed him," Lin said in disgust. Apparently the built-in waste-disposal system in the flooring had been in the process of disposing of this bit of waste when the power went off.

  "Yes," said Dopey, climbing down from his bearer and puffing toward them, "it is one of our fighters, mercilessly murdered by die abominable Horch machines. And, see, he has his weapon with him."

  "This thing?" Dannerman asked, picking up the shiny object that lay next to the corpse. He handled it cautiously, Jimmy Lin and Martin fidgeting as close to him as they could stand, both obviously yearning to get their own hands on the thing. Patrice had no such desire. She didn't want to touch it at all; it looked deadly. Clearly it was not designed for a human being. It didn't have a stock; it had a belly plate of some dark red substance that looked rubbery; it didn't have a trigger, but a pair of metal loops, like the finger holes on a pair of scissors. And it didn't have sights.

  When Jimmy Lin pointed that out Dopey said impatiently, "Sights? Why would it have sights? Such things are not necessary. When it is aimed there is a beam of green radiation, like a pocket torch-"

  "You mean a flashlight?"

  "Yes, are they not the same thing? That green ray is not the particle flux itself, only a beam of light to help you guide it, but what you touch with the beam of light will be destroyed by the particle flux. To fire it? Nothing is easier. You put your fingers in those loops and draw them together; the closer they are drawn, the more energy the particle beam carries."

  "Like this?" Jimmy Lin asked, experimenting.

  Dopey closed his eyes in silent despair. "Yes, exactly like that," he said, obviously restraining himself, "and if there had been any power for the weapon you would have killed Dr. Artzybachova. Please, all of you! I know you are not experienced with this weapon, but you must take care!"

  To Patsy's surprise, Dannerman had another of those off-the-main-point questions. "So why are you bothering with us amateurs? Why don't you make more of your trained fighters?"

  Dopey looked evasive. "Yes, that would be better in some ways, perhaps," he agreed. "But-"

  "But you can't do it, right?"

  Dopey hesitated for a moment. "That is true," he said at last. "At this moment. Once we have restored the power-once we have access to the damaged terminals-then it is quite possible that we could do so. But please, let us not waste time-"

  Dannerman held his ground. "That's the other thing. So we get the power on, and we kill the rest of the Horch machines for you-"

  "For all of us, Agent Dannerman! Your lives are also at risk!"

  "Whatever you say. Then what?"

  "Why, then we attempt to restore the damaged terminals. If we cannot, we simply wait for the Beloved Leaders to restore communication. Is that not obvious? Now I must insist-"

  "Which will be when?"

  "Oh, Agent Dannerman, why do you choose this time to ask foolish questions? It will happen when it happens. First the Beloved Leaders must send another physical spacecraft with a new tachyon terminal dedicated to the proper channel. How long will that take to get here? I do not know how long. Since such a spacecraft cannot exceed the speed of light, perhaps very long. But, you see," he added reasonably, "the length of time does not matter. If we grow too old to be serviceable we will simply generate new copies of ourselves to replace us. That will be no problem."

  "No problem?" Dannerman repeated, mildly enough.

  "Not at all. And we can repeat it as often as necessary. In that way we can continue to carry on our duties here for centuries if that is necessary. Now no more questions! We must go!"

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  Patrice

  Until, without warning, the lead Doc stopped short and stood motionless, waiting for the rest to catch up, Patrice hardly noticed where they were going. She could not get what Dopey had said out of her mind. For centuries, if that is necessary. But centuries of what? Of carrying out Dopey's plan? Growing old, in this miserable place? Never going home again? Manufacturing a new Pat Adcock and a new Dopey and a new everybody else when the present ones were too old or too enfeebled to carry on? And then what? Then quietly allowing themselves to die, with the next generation in place… and the next… and the next…

  Whatever joy that prospect might have for Dopey, it had none for Patrice. On the other hand-

  On the other hand, she told herself, to test out the implications of it all, those replacements would likely include an allotment of new Dan Dannermans, so that there might be enough of him for Patrice to have one of her own. But then what? Make some more Pat Adcocks, too, so that Martin and Jimmy Lin might have mates as well? (And how would those new Pat Ad-cocks feel about that?) And what did you say to the new arrival, blinking and confused as he stepped out of the machine: "Hi, I'm Patrice, and we've copied you so that I can get laid now and then. Unfortunately there's not much else to do around here. But welcome."

  The thought was comical enough to make Patrice laugh out loud. It wasn't a happy laugh, and it made Pat turn and frown at her. But none of the others heard, because Dopey was pounding his little fists on a machine that looked like a huge, green-enameled refrigerator and shrieking joyously, "That's it! That's the terminal."

  Patrice looked around, bewildered. Everybody else seemed excited about it; even Rosaleen and Martin, supporting each other, tottered over to touch the thing, and Pat and Dannerman were hugging each other. "I've been here before," she whispered, so softly that no one heard. But it was true. It had been a different place then, everything working and intact, but it was where she and Patsy had first discovered themselves in this place.

  It was different now, and what struck Patrice was the pervasive odor that hung in the air. It was the same decaying-meat stink she had smelled before. There definitely had been fighting around here, she thought. The terminal was intact, and so was everything on that side of the little square they were in. But on the other side ruined machinery and long-dead ashes showed that somebody had been doing something violent not long before. Dannerman turned to Dopey. "You said you were going to bring us to the experimental copies!" he said accusingly.

  Dopey looked away from the Doc he was talking to. "The copies? Yes. Their space was quite near here. I do not see them, so perhaps-" He shrugged and returned to the Doc, which silently listened, then moved away.

  Dannerman advanced on the alien, his gun in his hand, his expression dangerous. "If there are any human beings here we want to see them. Now!"

  Dopey looked up at him, the kitten whiskers trembling, the plume draggled. "Certainly you can look around, Agent Dannerman. If any survive I do not think they would have gone far; this is where their food was kept. But please, remain on guard! The Horch machines were careful not to destroy this terminal, so it is quite likely one or more will be somewhere near this area to watch over it. And-"

  He stopped, gazing toward the second Doc. Which had abruptly moved swiftly toward the wreckage and begun to pull away one of the metal plates. There was movement behind it. At once everybody turned, guns ready-

  A face peered out of the space behind the plate. It was looking directly at Patrice. And, "Oh, God," said yet another Dr. Patrice Adcock, "you're more of me!"

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  Patrice

  It all evened out in the long run, Patrice thought to herself- wondering if she
were going out of her mind: You lose one Pat, you get another to fill the gap. This particular Pat, though, was something special; she had clearly been through hell, even more hell than the rest of them. Her face was haggard, her bearing twitchy. Patrice longed to comfort her.

  But reunions had to wait. Dopey had no particular interest in one Pat more or less-his main concern was dispatching one of the Docs to find the standby generator and start it up-and the only interest the new Pat showed in Dopey and his Docs was to stay as far away from them as she could. "First things first," Dannerman ordered. "I want somebody with a gun at every entrance in case one of those things shows up."

  Nobody argued, though Patrice would have preferred to fuss over the new Pat, as Rosaleen alone could be spared to do, instead of standing guard, weapon out and ready, where she could see a few dozen meters down a passage. She wasn't doing a very good job of guarding. She couldn't help peering worriedly over her shoulder at the new Pat Adcock. The woman looked really terrible. Extreme fatigue, yes; that figured. Marks of pain and stress on her face, why not? She'd obviously been through a tough time; but there was something else that was nagging at Patrice while her new copy was doing her best to answer questions. And there were lots of questions. "Are there any others?" "Not anymore." "Do you mean the others are dead?" "Christ, yes! Can't you smell them? But listen, do you guys have anything to eat?"

  Well, they didn't; Dopey had promised there would be all the food they wanted, once the terminal was working again, so why encumber themselves? (But Pat had observed he'd taken food for himself; probably that didn't count as an encumbrance.) He was fidgeting about, doing his best to ignore the petty human concerns. "Please," he begged in agitation. "It will be some time before the bearer can have the power on line, perhaps as much as an hour. Then all will be well, but now we are still in great danger. Be vigilant! We must not be stopped now, when we are so close- What?" Dannerman was saying something to him, pointing to the new Pat. "Oh, very well," Dopey said impatiently, and glanced at the two remaining Docs. Who at once moved toward the new Pat…