by Allen Steele
Franc and Lea entered Sanchez’s office through an antechamber that briefly subjected them to intense UV radiation. They shut their eyes and covered their faces with their hands until the humming ceased and a bell chimed, then the door slid open. The mimosaur, who had buried its face within Lea’s collar during the decontamination procedure, immediately leaped from her shoulder and bounded across the broad, semicircular room.
“Franc here, Lea here!” Marcel’s voice was an excited squeal. “Lea give Marcel nuts! Franc say …” Its voice changed to a pitch-perfect imitation of Franc’s: “That’s one way of shutting him up. He’ll make a fine pair of shoes one day.”
Franc winced. One more reason why he disliked mimosaurs in general, and Marcel in particular: they had a tendency to repeat verbatim everything they heard, particularly when it had to do with themselves. “A joke, sir,” he said. “I didn’t mean it the way it sounds.”
“I certainly hope not,” Sanchez replied coldly. “I like my friend just the way he is.”
The Commissioner was seated in a wing-back chair, surrounded by the three-dimensional framework of his desk. Writing tables, flatscreens, data units, shelves, and cabinets encompassed him like a cage; when he moved in a certain direction, his chair automatically pivoted upon six major points of axis. As Marcel ran toward him, Sanchez shifted his skeletal body slightly, and the chair rotated him from upside down to an upright position. The blue lizard leaped onto a slender bar holding a flatscreen, then bounced into Sanchez’s lap.
“Sing Sousa for Lea!” Marcel yelped as it nuzzled against the long, white-streaked beard flowing down Sanchez’s shallow chest. “She like! Sing for you …?” Once again, it began to whistle the archaic marching-band song.
“No, no, Marcel. Thank you, but another time.” Sanchez gently stroked the back of the mimosaur’s neck with his bony fingers. The mimosaur went quiet, save for a contented reptilian purr. “Hush now. We have many things to discuss.”
Having soothed his pet to silence, Sanchez raised dark eyes that vaguely hinted at his Latino bloodline. “Dr. Oschner, Dr. Lu, gracias for coming here on such short notice. I hope your holiday was pleasant.”
“Muchas gracias, señor.” Franc found a seat in one of the normal-style chairs positioned outside the Commissioner’s desk. “It was very pleasant. Thank you for allowing us to take a furlough.”
“Sì, señor. Taking a break helped us immensely.” Like Franc, Lea addressed the Commissioner in formal Spanish. It wasn’t necessary to do so, of course, yet it was common knowledge among CRC researchers that Sanchez was proud of his Mexican ancestry. His office was decorated with murals of nineteenth-century Catholic missions, and a matador’s costume and swords, brought back from a CRC expedition to that period, hung within an airtight frame on the wall behind his desk. If Sanchez had been physically capable of leading an expedition himself, it would probably be a Class-1 to the Republic of Texas, so he could witness the Battle of the Alamo firsthand.
“I’m glad to hear that.” The Commissioner switched back to colloquial English. “So you’re ready for the C120-37?” he added, referring to the upcoming expedition by its serial number. “I take it that you’ve completed your research.”
“Yes, sir,” Franc said. “Lea and I finished our work at Tycho College. We’ve confirmed through contemporary census records that our personae perished aboard the Hindenburg. Pending successful extraction by the Miranda, we should able to assume their roles with no major problems.”
“I’m meeting with the Miranda team later in order to work out the final details.” Lea raised her left arm, touched her wristcomp. “Here’s the preliminary report, as you’ve requested.”
“Thank you.” The frail fingers of Sanchez’s left hand glided across the keypad on his armrest. The chair swiveled to the right and tilted upward slightly, allowing him to gaze at a screen above his head. The two researchers patiently waited while the Commissioner skimmed Lea’s report. “And you’ll be able to record their vocal patterns?”
“The extraction team will do that before we arrive,” Lea said. “The Frankfurter Hof was the favored hotel for American travelers, and the plan is for them to pick up our personae a few hours before our arrival.”
“John and Emma Pannes visited the Alte Oper the night before the Hindenburg left Frankfurt,” Franc added. “That’s within walking distance of the opera, so the plan calls for the abduction to take place in a pedestrian mall between those two points.”
Sanchez raised an elegantly tufted eyebrow. “And how do you intend to accomplish this, if it’s in a public place?”
“Two members of the Miranda team will be posing as Gestapo agents, and they’ll have rented an automobile for transportation. They’ll drive to the curb, stop, get out, and approach Mr. and Mrs. Pannes. After presenting their documents, they’ll demand that they accompany them.” Franc smiled. “This sort of thing was a common occurrence at this place and time, particularly in regard to foreigners. No one will report it. This was a very paranoid society, after all.”
“And the placement of your equipment?”
“Once the Pannes have been spirited away,” Lea said, “the team members will return to the Frankfurter Hof, this time dressed as civilians. They’ll be carrying our luggage. Once they’ve checked into the hotel, they will simply take our luggage to the Pannes’ room and, after using their room keys to gain entrance, substitute our bags for their bags, replacing tags as necessary. Early the next morning, they’ll check out again and return to the safe house in Griesheim.”
Sanchez nodded, but didn’t say anything as he continued reading the report. Franc was puzzled by his reticence. For a Class-1 briefing, the Commissioner was asking remarkably few questions. When Franc had been on the 1929 New York expedition, Sanchez had peppered his team with dozens of inquiries, and that had only been a Class-3 survey. This trip was not only more dangerous, it was also far more complex. Two timeships working in tandem, with the extraction of two contemporaries from a potentially hostile environment and replacing them with two researchers who would be in situ during a major disaster … any one of several dozen things could go wrong at any time. Not only that, but once he and Lea were aboard the Hindenburg and it was in flight, there was no way the mission could be aborted.
Nonetheless, Sanchez seemed to be accepting their prognosis at face value. Was the Commissioner becoming complacent? Or, as the thought suddenly occurred to Franc, was he preoccupied with some other matter?
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. From the corner of his eye, he saw Lea do the same. The mimosaur stood up in Sanchez’s lap, yawned and stretched in an oddly feline way, then hopped upon the warm surface of a data unit and curled up to take a nap. After a while, Sanchez grunted with what might have been satisfaction and rotated his chair to face them.
“Your preliminary report appears to cover all the foreseeable factors,” he said, “and as you probably expect, I have quite a few questions to ask. But there’s something I’d like to bring to your attention first … an incident that occurred during our last expedition.”
“The last expedition?” Franc glanced at Lea, then back at Sanchez. “If you mean the C320-29, we didn’t …”
“No, no.” Sanchez shook his head. “The C320-29 was flawless. If it hadn’t gone well, I would have never approved of the proposal for C120-37.” He smiled slightly. “And, yes, Dr. Lu, if this expedition is successful and your team delivers useful new information, I’ll consider taking your proposal for the C120-12 to the Board.”
Franc took a deep breath. The C120-12 was his dream mission: an expedition to Southampton, England, in 1912 to place two or more researchers aboard the HMS Titanic before it embarked upon its doomed Atlantic crossing. Within the CRC, this was widely considered to be the Mt. Everest of historical surveys, mainly because of the extraordinary risks it presented. In many ways, the C120-37 was a rehearsal for the C120-12; if he and Lea could prove that two CRC researchers could record the Hindenburg disaster and
survive, then putting historians aboard the Titanic would be considered feasible.
“Thank you, sir,” he said. “I appreciate your support.”
“That’s beside the point. I’m referring to the last expedition. The one which returned last week.” He peered at him through the bars of his desk. “The C314-65. The Miranda expedition to New Mexico. You haven’t studied the final report?”
He knew about the mission to which Sanchez was referring, but he was embarrassed to admit that he hadn’t been keeping track of it. Lea stepped in to save him. “Many apologies, sir,” she said. “We were so involved with our own work, we didn’t have a chance to …”
“Not acceptable, Dr. Oschner. All researchers are required to read reports from previous expeditions. The objectives may be different, but there’s much to learned from …” Sanchez sighed, looked away. “I’m sorry. Perhaps I should know better. Thirteenth-century North American history isn’t your area, and you’ve been preoccupied with the C120-37.” Then he looked back at them. “You say you haven’t spoken with Hans Brech? He was the Miranda’s pilot for that mission, and for your own as well.” He hesitated. “By the way, Vasili Metz will be your pilot on the Oberon. Any objections?”
Franc pursed his lips and hoped that Sanchez wouldn’t pick up on his distaste for Metz. He was a good timeship pilot—one of the best, Franc had to reluctantly admit—yet they had worked together during the C320-29, and Franc had found Metz to be insufferable. “No, sir,” he said, then he changed the subject. “I haven’t spoken with Hans. Did something happen during his last flight?”
Sanchez said nothing for a moment. He settled his wiry frame back in his chair and solemnly regarded them with his unfathomable black eyes.
“Hans says they saw an angel,” he said at last.
Monday, January 14, 1998: 11:58 A.M.
A frigid blast of wind followed Murphy through the rear entrance of the National Air and Space Museum. Pausing for a moment by the Robert McCall mural to unbutton his parka, he glanced around the lobby. Save for a boisterous group of elementary-school children on a field trip, the ground floor was uncommonly quiet. A handful of people strolled through the Hall of Flight, pausing now and then to examine the Apollo 11 command module and Alan Shepard’s Mercury capsule, while kids in hockey jackets chased each other beneath the Wright Brothers flyer and the Bell X-1. By next spring, the museum would regain its stature as one of Washington’s most crowded public sites, yet during winter it was mainly visited by locals taking advantage of the dearth of tourists.
Blowing into the palms of his chilled hands, Murphy quickly walked through the museum, entering the Hall of Astronautics in the building’s west wing. He had been here countless times, yet still he hadn’t become jaded to the exhibits on this side of the building. A life-size mock-up of the Skylab space station; just beyond it, Apollo and Soyuz spacecraft, permanently docked in low orbit; between them, a small forest of boosters—Scout, Mercury-Redstone, Atlas, Titan II. As often as he had seen these giants, Murphy still found himself slowing his pace to marvel at them, and it was only when he happened to spot the digital clock above the entrance to the IMAX theater that he remembered that he had a lunch date to keep.
At the far end of the hall, symbolically positioned in front of the tall windows overlooking the Capitol Building, rested a full-size mock-up of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module. Schoolchildren impatiently shuffled their feet while a teacher attempted to explain its historical significance; they were more interested in the posters advertising the Star Wars exhibit on the third floor. Yet the tall gentleman standing near the red velvet rope seemed fascinated by the spacecraft. As Murphy walked closer, he saw him hunch forward slightly, as if to more closely examine one of the silver Mylar-covered panels on its lower fuselage.
Murphy approached him. “Dr. Benford?”
Startled, the visitor looked around sharply, then turned to face him. “Dr. Murphy, I presume.” He pulled a hand from the pocket of his parka. “Greg Benford. Pleased to meet you. Thanks for taking time to …”
“No, no, really. The pleasure’s all mine.” Murphy returned the affable smile as they shook hands. “Like I said on the phone, this is a real surprise. I never expected …”
“Any chance I get to come here, I take it.” Benford glanced again at the LM. “Always seems a little bigger than you think it is. When you see it in pictures from the Moon, it looks small, but then you get up close …”
“I know what you mean, yeah.” For once, though, Murphy found himself ignoring the LM. It was an odd experience, meeting someone whose photo he had previously seen on the back flaps of book jackets. Nonetheless, it was the same person: trim gray beard, salted brown hair, calm and studious eyes framed by wire-rim glasses. About his own height, with a middle-age paunch around the waistline. The barest trace of a Southern accent.
So this was Greg Benford. The author of “Doing Lennon,” the story which caused him to blow a high-school chemistry exam because he preferred to read it behind his textbook when he should have been paying attention to a review session, and In the Ocean of Night, which made him forget that he was supposed to take Karen Dolen to the freshman mixer, and Artifact, which he read during his honeymoon vacation in England, and …
“It really is an amazing machine.” Benford took a final glance at the LM, then he pulled back the sleeve of his L.L. Bean parka, glanced at the Rolex on his left wrist. “But, hey, I don’t want to keep you. I know you’ve got to get back to work soon.”
“No problem.” Murphy shook his head. “Really. I’ve done my last meeting for the day, and it isn’t like I’ve got to punch a clock.”
“Yeah, but I’ve still got a plane to catch.” Benford nodded toward the nearby staircase. The field trippers were already scurrying upstairs, screaming with adolescent excitement, followed by their exhausted teacher. “We’d better hurry, if don’t want to get caught behind the rugrats. After you …”
And so they marched up the four flights to the café, carrying on idle conversation until they reached the restaurant. The kids got there first, of course, but they were clustered outside, waiting for the rest of their group. Murphy led his guest past them into the cafeteria, and while they picked up plastic trays and began moving down the serving line, he told Benford about his work at the agency, how he had been hired to write summaries of current NASA science programs and expressing his frustration that it wasn’t the basic research for which he had been trained, his hopes that he might one day get transferred to Marshall or Goddard, or maybe even JPL in Pasadena. He even found himself talking about the irritation of having to take the Metro to work today before he realized that this probably wouldn’t interest anyone.
For his part, Benford kept his silence, listening attentively yet nonetheless remaining laconic. He said that he was writing a nonfiction book titled Deep Time, but he didn’t say much of what it was about, and he casually mentioned his involvement in a TV miniseries about a Mars colony, yet he distracted himself by asking for Italian dressing to go with his garden salad when Murphy pressed for details. After a while, Murphy came to the conclusion that Greg was better at listening than talking. So much the better; during his tenure at NASA, he had met far too many egoists who could smother you with their bombast, and with far less justification.
They took their trays to a table near the back of the room, where they hoped to avoid the noise created by forty children piling into the cafeteria. “So,” Benford said as he reached for the pepper shaker, “about this UFO article … what inspired you to write it?”
Murphy shrugged. “Remember that piece in Analog a long time ago, ‘How to Build a Flying Saucer’?” Benford thought about it a moment, then shook his head. “Anyway, someone examined the reports about UFOs—their general appearance, how they fly, the electromagnetic disturbances they’re supposed to cause, so forth and so on—and wrote an article which explained them, more or less, on the basis of aeronautical science and known physics. I just took it a step further, r
eally. Ask the next question, as Theodore Sturgeon used to say.”
Benford speared a cucumber slice with his fork. “And what question was that?”
“If we accept the premise that UFOs exist … just for the sake of argument … then we’ve got to ask where they come from.” Warming to the subject, Murphy ignored the cheeseburger growing cold on his plate. “The extraterrestrial hypothesis, of course, is the favorite explanation, but that falls apart when you look at it from a logical perspective. There aren’t any other planets in our solar system where intelligent life could have evolved, let alone a technologically advanced race. The nearest habitable star systems are dozens of light-years away, so someone out there could conceivably have built starships to visit us, but any ship capable of travelling such enormous distances would have to be very large. The size of a small moon, really, if they’re reliant upon sub-c drives …”
“Sub-c?” Benford shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Umm … y’know. If c is the mathematical constant for the speed of light, then something travelling slower than light-speed is …”
“Oh, right. Of course.” Benford shook his head. “Sorry. Just a little distracted.” He nodded toward the children cavorting nearby. “You were saying …?”
“Right … well, if no one has seen a UFO that’s the reasonable size of a starship, and if we reject the notion that mother ships are lurking nearby … because, y’know, any backyard astronomer with a decent telescope would be able to spot them … then we have to discard the idea that they’re from space.”
“As most scientists already do.” Benford used his fork to play with his salad. “Have you read Philip Klass’s work? He’s been debunking UFO sightings for a long time.”