Slowly, very slowly he retracts his hand, but all the while his eyes are on mine, smiling, like he knows what I’m going to do.
Oh, I know this is a trap, and that if I take his hand something terrible will happen, only what else can I do? If I don’t go with him then they are lost for ever.
Jump back, you say. Get to them before he does? But Kolya is a step ahead of me, remember? He always has been, and I sense he always will. What other choice have I?
And so I grasp his hand and even as his fingers lock around my own, so I feel that sudden sideways lurch in time and know we’ve jumped.
Into a room, sun pouring in through a window to my right, even as Kolya frees his hand from mine and shoves me away.
I go to grab at him, to hang on for dear life, but he’s anticipated that. His knee comes up, making me double up in pain, and then his elbow slams hard into the side of my face. I fall to my knees, and as I do he gives me a snarling smile.
‘Goodbye, Otto. Have fun.’
And vanishes.
I straighten, gasping for air, trying not to be sick, then bring my hand up to my chest.
Nothing.
I try again. Nothing. Like there’s nothing there.
Impossible, I think. I’m in a loop. I’m …
Trapped. The bastard has trapped me here. Jumped me in and snipped me off.
Using the side of the bed, I haul myself up, then lie back, wheezing, the side of my face pounding where he elbowed it. For a moment I close my eyes, my thoughts swirling, unable to believe I let him do that to me. Then, struggling up, I make my way over to the window, wanting to know just where he’s dumped me.
I must be eight or ten floors up, the street below packed with cars and people. I’m in a city somewhere. Only where? And, more to the point, when?
I hold on to the sill a moment longer, then slowly turn, looking back into the room. Voices drift through the paper-thin walls. Spanish, or Portuguese, or something like that. Beside the bed, there’s a chair, a desk, a chest of drawers and a small bookcase. There’s one door over on the left, another just past the door in the corner on the right.
Whoever it belongs to, it isn’t mine, that’s for sure. There’s a case under the desk, and some papers on the desk. And there, on the floor beside the bed, is a newspaper.
I hobble across, feeling sick, and lower myself slowly on to my knees, staring down at the paper, amazed by what I see.
It is the New York Times for 8 November 1984, and beneath a banner headline is a picture of a man I last saw in West Berkeley, thirty-two years – or was it just two weeks? – ago. I read the headline: ‘DICK, TAKING 49 STATES AND 59% OF VOTE, VOWS TO STRESS ARMS TALKS AND ECONOMY.’
White-haired, and in his fifties now, Phil stares up at me from the page, exuding confidence, like he’s everyone’s favourite uncle. Security men, in dark suits and wearing shades, surround him on all sides, while a snowy owl – his ‘trademark’ so the caption reads – perches on the shoulder of his charcoal-coloured suit. Phil Dick, my old science-fiction writer buddy, and now President of the United States of America.
Acknowledgements
This one, as you’ll see from the dedication, is for Rob Carter – friend and fellow writer – who spent so many evenings sharing a beer with me and debating the notions that eventually became this strangest of tales. Thanks again. The next one’s on me.
Thanks go once again to my agent, Diana Tyler, and to my dear friends and fellow writers, Mike Cobley, Ritchie Smith, John Kavanagh, Brian Griffin and Brian Aldiss, for their comments and suggestions. Thank you, guys.
Huge thanks, too, to my editorial team at Ebury, Michael Rowley and Emily Yau, for their close attention to detail. Long may we work together.
Love and thanks go to my darling wife, Susan Oudot, and my four darling daughters, Jessica, Amy, Georgia and Francesca, for keeping me sane throughout this weirdest of science fictional trips.
The two quotations from Hermann Hesse’s The Glass Bead Game are from the translation by Richard and Clara Winston, published by Jonathan Cape in 1970, and are used here with their kind permission. The passage from Philip K. Dick’s The Man In The High Castle is from the Penguin Books edition of 1969, and used here with their permission. If you’ve not read this book, do so now. Finally, the passage quoted from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good And Evil is from the R. J. Hollingdale translation, published by Penguin Books in 1973 and used here with their permission.
As before, I want to thank the great Al Stewart, whose wonderful song, ‘Roads To Moscow’ inspired me to take this journey into the vast ocean of Time.
David Wingrove, February 2015
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Copyright © David Wingrove, 2015
Lines from The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse, translated by Richard and Clara Winston.
Published by Jonathan Cape and reproduced by permission of The Random House Group Ltd.
Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future by Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin Classics 1973, Revised 2003) Translation, translator’s note and commentary, copyright © R. J. Hollingdale, 1973, 1990. Reproduced by permission of Penguin Books
Lines from The Man in High Castle by Philip K. Dick. Reproduced by permission of the Wylie Agency (UK) Ltd.
David Wingrove has asserted his right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
First published in the UK in 2015 by Del Rey
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ISBN 9780091956172
The Ocean of Time Page 50