The Hugo Awards Showcase - 2010 Volume

by John Kessel

  Jefferson studied me, once more trying to decide what I really was, and just how adept I might be.

  “That last session with Ramiro,” I began.

  Squaring his shoulders made Jefferson’s belly stick out.

  “I can’t find any recording of the interview. Is that right?”

  “There isn’t any,” he conceded.

  I couldn’t decide if he was lying.

  “Collins didn’t share any details with you. Did he?”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “Because when there was important news, he always came straight to you. But that night, he walked home with Jim.” I used a suspicious smile, pointing out, “Or maybe there was important news. But he knew that his audience would never accept whatever he was carrying with him.”

  Jefferson looked up and to his right.

  I glanced at his television, just for a moment. The civil war in China seemed quite small and smoky, a few pain-wracked bodies flicking in and out of existence, a single tank burning in an anonymous street.

  At last, Jefferson asked me, “What exactly is your assignment here?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” I asked.

  Then he laughed—a miserable, sickly utterance—and with a tone of confession, he said, “Oh, shit . . . that’s what I thought.”

  7

  “I’ve seen your arrival site.”

  “Have you?”

  “Not physically, no,” I confessed. “And even if I had the chance, I think I would pass on it today.”

  “Reasonable of you.”

  I stopped walking.

  Ramiro took two more steps before pausing. His exercise yard was long and narrow, defined by brownish green walls, and for no discernable reason, his potted plants were healthier than those in the public avenues. Standing between vigorous umbrella trees, he watched my mouth, my eyes.

  “Kashmir,” I said.

  He decided to offer a narrow, unreadable smile.

  “You couldn’t know this, but some years ago, I was able to walk on the Indian side of the disputed region. It wasn’t a long visit, but I came away with the impression that Kashmir was one of the most beautiful and most dangerous places in my world.”

  My comments earned an agreeable nod.

  “Did Collins tell you? Various teams have visited the Shyok River.”

  “He mentioned that, and I’m sure you know that.”

  “Tough work, those people had. Trying to verify the unthinkable, and doing it in what was a low-grade war zone. That first survey team was tiny and ignorant. They went in fast and flew out again on the same day, pockets full of soil samples and photographs. But the evidence was plain. Something energetic had happened there. The toppled trees and soil profiles were odd, and obvious. So we came up with a workable cover story, a fable that allowed us to move around the area, and when it was absolutely necessary, involve Pakistani Intelligence.”

  Ramiro’s eyes remained wide open.

  “But that second team didn’t know what the hunt was for either. Our top people were told not to ask for specifics, but to always watch for details that seemed out of place.”

  “You said you’d been to the site,” Ramiro mentioned.

  “By VR means.” I placed both hands over my eyes, pretending to wear the cumbersome mask. “Those agents came home with high-density images. I learned about them when I was first briefed about you, and I demanded to be given the chance to walk the site.”

  “Did you learn anything?”

  “Much,” I mentioned.

  He waited.

  “Knowing nothing, I might have guessed that some passing god had sneezed. A perfect circle of ground, big enough for a couple hundred people, had been swept clear. Locals had already carted away most of the downed trees, but there was enough debris to give a sense of what the scene had looked like. That second team dug a trench, took its pictures, and then covered everything up again.” I drew a vertical line with a finger. “A little more than a hand’s length underground, the old soil was waiting. It looked a little like shale. But according to the data, what was under that line was identical to the soil sitting straight above it. And by identical, I mean the same. Pebble for pebble, sand grain for sand grain.”

  “The Lorton Energy was shaped carefully,” he said.

  “Seventy feet across, eight feet tall.”

  He nodded.

  “I like studying the weird crap that they found in the soil. Do you know what I mean? The nano debris, the occasional busted machine part. Little stuff that we couldn’t make today, even if we wanted to.”

  “There would have been more debris,” he mentioned. “Except our clothes and bodies were thoroughly cleaned before.”

  “Smart,” I said.

  He waited.

  “Of course we needed Pakistani help,” I admitted. “There was no way to poke around their side of the disputed border without being noticed. And since they happened to be our loyal allies in the war on terror, at least for the moment, we invented some very scary intelligence about an armed group, possibly Indian radicals, who had slipped across the border in ’99. Our mutual enemies had carried gold and guns, and to help explain all the sampling, maybe enough radionuclides to build a few dirty bombs. They would have been on foot, we told our allies. And they might have had odd accents. Then we asked for help interviewing the local people, trying to find anybody who remembered strangers passing through three years before.”

  “Some remembered,” said Ramiro.

  I waited.

  “Collins mentioned as much.”

  “Stories about strangers, yes.” I started to walk again, and Ramiro fell in beside me. “I haven’t gone over all the testimonies. Just a few summaries, that’s all I’ve had time for. But there were witnesses on the local farms, and more in a couple of nearby towns. Exactly what you’d expect if a large group of quiet pedestrians had come in the night and quickly scattered across the landscape.”

  “Most of us hid,” he said.

  “Naturally.”

  “A few were dispatched to secure transportation.”

  “Those who would blend in best, I’ll assume.”

  “I assume the same.”

  “You and your little cell hunkered down together.”

  With Ramiro beside me, I was keenly aware of how much taller he was. “In a woodlot by the water,” he said.

  “And Abraham?”

  “I don’t know where he was.”

  “I wouldn’t believe you if you claimed otherwise.”

  Silence.

  “After all, you’re just a convert who got lucky. You weren’t scheduled to join the invasion. But at the last moment, one of the chosen warriors fell ill—”

  “My friend.”

  “The German, your benefactor. Sure. He cleared your entry into Abraham’s group. And when he couldn’t make the trip, you did in his place.”

  My companion held his gait to the end of the room, and then with the precision of a big zoo cat, he turned and started back again.

  “I have a question about the German.”

  “Yes?”

  “But first, let’s talk a little more about Kashmir.”

  “Whatever you want, Carmen.”

  “Even our crude virtual-reality technologies make it beautiful.”

  “Our arrival site was lovely,” he agreed.

  “Seeing the mountains and that glacial river . . . it made me sad to think about what’s happened to it since.”

  He waited.

  I said, “Sad,” once again.

  “And I am sorry,” Ramiro volunteered.

  “For what? You told us what you knew, and we acted on it. You had to pass through Kashmir because that’s where the only substantial time machine existed in your day. Point-to-point transfer is the way time travel is done. And it was your German pal who claimed that Abraham would center his operation inside Iraq. Because they had industry and an educated middle class, he said. Because of a greedy dictator and a useful
secret service. Abraham planned to approach Saddam with the fantastic truth, and if the Baathists cooperated, there would be riches beyond all measure.”

  “Iraq was a disappointment,” he allowed.

  I nodded in agreement.

  We had crossed the room again, stopping short of the door—a heavy metal door with thick glass on top, a single guard watching us from the other side.

  “I was surprised,” Ramiro admitted. “I expected that you’d find a good deal of physical evidence.”

  “We did find some lost nanos in warehouses, and a diamond screwdriver out in the oil fields.”

  He shook his head slowly. “Perhaps you understand why I don’t like these people.”

  “They manipulated you.”

  His pace lifted, just slightly. And his hands swung the weights just a little harder.

  “Then we bombed Iran hard. And goaded Israel into mangling Syria for us.”

  We walked until the room ended, and like two cats, we turned and walked back in our own tracks.

  “Two more disappointing wars,” I muttered.

  He pointed out, “Your leaders made those decisions. I was very honest. I would have handled these conflicts differently.”

  “I know.”

  Then he said, “Pakistan.”

  I waited.

  “That was a possibility I mentioned to Collins.” His tone was frustrated. He sounded like a proud man who had suffered a public embarrassment. “Very early in our relationship, even before you reached Baghdad, I suggested to Collins that my people might gravitate to the nearest compliant government.”

  “Except the Pakistanis were our friends. And we had close, close ties with Musharraf.”

  Ramiro smiled. “Do you trust anyone, Carmen?”

  I waved the question aside. “But of course Pakistani Intelligence—our partners on the ground—was full of ambitious souls.”

  “That’s true.”

  “The future that we should have lived could have been very instructive. Somebody like Abraham, setting his sights on potential allies, might identify the name and address of a young captain who would have eventually ruled his empire. A fledging Napoleon with connections and toxic ambitions. Leave him alone for another twenty or thirty years, and he would have earned his power. But patience isn’t common in would-be emperors. A man like that would surely look at the temporal jihadists as gifts from God.”

  “Collins and I discussed the Pakistan possibility. In addition to several other scenarios.”

  “I want to talk about Pakistan.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you know why we hit it next?”

  He took a moment before shaking his head.

  “What did Collins tell you?”

  “Its government was on the brink of collapse,” he said. “A powerful bomb was detonated in Islamabad, and a peculiar device was found in the wreckage. Collins brought the object to me, to ask my opinion.”

  “I haven’t seen the device myself,” I admitted. “From what I hear, it’s sitting in a vault under the Pentagon.” And for a thousand years, that’s where it would remain, protected by the radioactive nightmares from Indian Point.

  Ramiro lifted one of his weights, remarking, “It is about this size, but hollow. Cylindrical and composed of intricate nanostructures that give it some interesting properties.”

  “Juice it up with electricity,” I mentioned, “and it turns invisible.”

  “I gave a demonstration.”

  “The machine has a structural flaw and can’t be used. You claimed. But if it functions, it could play a critical role in the construction of a portable, low-energy time machine.”

  Ramiro lowered the weight, saying nothing.

  “I trust everyone I know,” I mentioned.

  He glanced at me, his gaze curious. Alert.

  “What I trust is that people will always be people. They will do what they want, and when you search for motives, rationality proves to be a luxury. Fear and love and hatred: those are the emotions that count for something. And everything that involves us comes naturally from our human beast.”

  “A reasonable philosophy,” he replied.

  “What if Abraham was busily fabricating a new time machine?”

  Ramiro said nothing.

  “Our nightmare kept getting worse and worse,” I continued. “By then, we had a new president. A chance for fresh beginnings. But what if our enemies were trying to cobble together a small, workable time machine? They could bring it into our country and drive it wherever they wanted to go, and with modest amounts of power, they could aim at the future, launching the makings of bombs. It was just like Collins suggested early on, wasn’t it? The jihadists could launch atomic bombs or the ingredients for a chemical attack.” My voice picked up momentum. “We wouldn’t have any defense. Deadly, unbeatable weapons sent through time, invisible to us now. This moment. Abraham’s people could travel from city to city, and ten years from today, at a predetermined instant, our entire country would be wiped clean off the earth.”

  We paused, turned.

  “That’s what they made me read,” I confessed. “After I got my chance to walk beside a beautiful virtual river, that apocalyptic scenario was shown to me.”

  Ramiro nodded.

  “Of course we went into Pakistan,” I said. “I would have attacked, in an instant. Any responsible president would have been compelled to do nothing less. Because Abraham might have been hiding in Islamabad or Karachi, probably in some baby potentate’s guest room, and we had to do something. Didn’t we? Another little war, another stack of wreckage to poke through. But maybe we’d find enough this time, the kinds of evidence to show us where to go next, and who to hit next, and maybe even get a prisoner or two worth interrogating.”

  Ramiro let me pass into the lead.

  “Pricks,” I muttered. Then I slowed and looked up at him, saying, “It’s too bad about India. Too bad. But a few dozen nukes dropped into their cities is a lot better than total oblivion for us.”

  My companion slowed, almost stopping, and with a patient, almost soothing voice, he asked, “What about the German?”

  “Your friend?”

  “You had a question about him,” Ramiro reminded me.

  I stopped altogether. Something in my posture worried the guard on duty. But as he started to work the door’s lock, I waved to him, ordering him to remain where he couldn’t hear our conversation.

  “I’m sure Collins already covered this ground,” I said. “He was always thorough. I just haven’t found it in the files yet.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “His name was Schwartz?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you met him outside Madrid? In the refugee camp where he worked as a counselor, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “He became your sponsor. He was the one who converted you to Abraham’s cause—the violent overthrow of a flawed, weak past—and then he worked hard to have you accepted into his group.”

  “Collins and I thoroughly covered my history.”

  “But on the last day, your friend got sick.”

  “A strain of flu. Yes.”

  “That we haven’t seen in our time.” I stood close to Ramiro, letting his face hang over mine. “Your people didn’t want to spark an unnecessary pandemic, particularly in a population you wanted to use as an ally.”

  “Schwartz was disappointed.”

  “Just disappointed?”

  He shrugged. “Devastated is a better—”

  “Did you make it happen?”

  Ramiro blinked.

  I took one step backward while staring at him. “Did you infect him with the flu? Just to free up a slot for you?”

  The prisoner stared at me until he decided to stare at one of the bronze walls. “That is an interesting proposal.”

  “Collins never asked that?”

  “No.”

  “Did you do it?”

  “No, Carmen. I didn’t d
o any such thing.”

  “That’s good to hear,” I allowed.

  He nodded.

  “In twelve years, Collins never asked that question?”

  He shook his head and smiled, saying, “He didn’t.”

  “But could Abraham have thought that you did such a wicked thing to your friend? Is that possible?”

  “I have no idea what the man considered,” he said.

  “But both of us can imagine the possibility. Am I right? A person might do the treacherous and horrible, just to get his chance to jump back through time.”

  The disgust looked genuine, but not particularly deep.

  “This is what I believe, Ramiro. I believe that there isn’t one question, no matter how unlikely or silly or outright insane, that you haven’t already anticipated. At one time or another, you have considered every angle.”

  His next smile was cautious but proud.

  “Whatever you are,” I said.

  “What do you mean by that, Carmen?”

  I closed my mouth, my heart slamming hard and steady. “I think you’re ready to say anything,” I told him. “Anything. If it suited your needs, short-term or long, you would happily admit to inoculating Schwartz. Or you’d agree that yes, Abraham was suspicious of you. Unless you decided to confess that you have been his most trusted agent from the beginning, allowing yourself to be captured, and then happily causing us to step everywhere but where we needed to be.”

  “That,” Ramiro allowed, “is a singularly monstrous image of me.”

  Then with no further comment, he swung the weights in his hands, continuing with his morning exercise.

  8

  I rode our smallest elevator to the surface, passing through the concrete-block field office and several more layers of security. One of the CIA girls gave me a lift to the nearby airstrip. As she drove, we chatted about safe subjects. The weather, mostly. And then she smiled in a certain way, mentioning Collins. “I haven’t seen much of him lately.”

  I said, “He’s brutally busy.”

  “Oh, sure.”

  Collins was a cat locked in a box. In her mind, he was nothing but alive. Since there was no good reason for her to know what happened underground, she knew nothing.