"Call the question?" Sleeth, the second physicist's mate-pending-first, said. That was conventional because she was juniormost voting member; it also fit Sleeth, because she was young and bouncing with energy in a crew of old, tired people. Most of the crew muttered that she was annoying except Squire, who said it outright whenever he was out of the tank, and Robert, the first physicist's mate, who said it coldly, as if it were the atomic mass of oxygen or the orbital velocity of a planet.
To compensate, Xhrina made no secret that Sleeth was as much her favorite now as when she had come aboard as a too-noisy-for-ship-people two-year-old. As the captain grew older, she had felt more and more that Sleeth was the only person, besides Xhrina, who liked to get things done. So this calling the question was natural, aside from being a duty.
The vote wasn't even close—only Squire and Robert voted against. Sleeth said apologetically to her cabin mates, "I'd like to be from a famous ship, and these runs around on the surface of the Sixth Pulse are getting dull."
It seemed to Xhrina more likely that Sleeth, who was barely twenty, but had come back from the training ship when only twelve, had been living too long with an angry husk in a tank, and a cold man who never spoke (did Robert use her roughly? Xhrina had asked Sleeth, more than once, and Sleeth had said no in a way that Xhrina thought meant yes, but please don't do anything). This looked to be Sleeth's first little step to saying that she would not be pushed around by Robert and Peter, and it made Xhrina glad in a way that she had not felt in a while.
That night, when Chang crawled into the sleepsack beside Xhrina, he said, "When we approach the home system, and you wake knowing that there are ghosts in the opsball, don't wake me. I'm afraid of them and I don't want to know about them."
"All right," she said. "Have you been reading my diary?"
"Yes," he said, "it's my right as first mate to read anything you write, and I don't like to ask. And I asked Treo and he told me how frightened he was, and I went back and looked at all your birthdays, and Mtepic's, and saw the ghosts on the recordings. It made me so afraid I have had a hard time sleeping since. So don't take me with you. I don't want to see ghosts." More gently, he said, "You might talk to Sleeth about it. She's always been your little shadow, and she would face the fear just for love of you."
"Thank you," she said, "I will." And Xhrina turned her back on him, to enjoy his warmth but not to talk any more. I suppose I would have faced the ghosts for love of Mtepic, she thought, but I wanted to see them anyway, though I didn't know it until he showed them to me. I hope it can be that way with Sleeth.
****
On the night of her ninety-third birthday, Xhrina rolled over and touched Sleeth, who had been her sleepsack partner for some years now. "Ghosts," she said, "finally."
"I'm glad," Sleeth said, awake at once, and they turned up the lights and dressed quickly.
She wasn't sure that she really was glad. Sleeth and the captain had talked of ghosts at least every few shifts for the last five years, and Sleeth had come to realize that her first time seeing ghosts would be the captain's last. She had forced herself to seem happy and cheerful about the impending visit of the ghosts all through the annoying too-long layover around Old Earth's moon, as well, and now that the time was here, she hadn't really had time to think through what she wanted to feel, or ought to feel, and was stuck with just feeling what she felt—which was a mystery.
She had heard so much from the captain about Mtepic, and ghosts, and all the theories about ghosts, because the captain only needed to work an hour a day or so during the layover, while they found whatever cargo they could. The synminds of Old Earth and Ulysses at last found a small load, but did not seem to be able to explain what was in the containers, except that it was something that it was not inconceivable that someone in the new Seventh Pulse worlds out toward the Southern Cross and Sentaru might want 120 years from now.
The captain had not cared, so Sleeth had not cared. The scant cargo meant that their holds had had that much more room for a load of U238, depleted uranium, not for atomic power as in ancient times—they might as well have taken hay, oats, and water, and would have if nothing denser had been available—but because it was a conveniently dense supply of mass to be torn to nucleons and shot out the bow by the shielder, to clear a path through the interstellar medium for them. With the extra mass, they were able to run at 99.7%c, which meant almost 13 years of slowtime to one year of eintime. Ulysses would be some sort of legend, now, for sure.
But, Sleeth thought sadly, the end of the legend will not be Captain Xhrina bringing Ulysses to the port of Summer, the port that they had been aiming for since their last PPD and change of course about a year eintime ago.
Xhrina and Sleeth had talked of ghosts, many times, and Sleeth longed to see them, with Xhrina; but she would miss their conversations about them, and it seemed sad that she would have no one to talk about this first time with. But then apparently Mtepic had seen them five times alone, and who knew how many others saw them and never talked about it at all?
Still, Sleeth had always imagined that when at last she saw them, she would be able to talk about them with Captain Xhrina. She had been ship-raised, and because of the way the schedules had worked out, had only been on a training ship for six years, about half what was normal, so that she had spent a great deal of time following Xhrina around when she was younger, and then more time tending her later. Xhrina had always been her one real friend.
Sleeth knew she would miss the captain dreadfully, but she didn't think she should say so, with the captain's eyes alight with joy; once they were in the opsball, it was easier, waiting in the dark, because Sleeth could just let her tears quietly flow.
It was all as Sleeth had heard it told, so many times.
As the ghosts neared, Xhrina bounced and fidgeted as if she had a tenth of her years. When the slender, small ghost that had to be Mtepic—though now strong and young—swam through the wall into the opsball, the glowing baby emerged from her head and chest in just two heartbeats, formed fully in the air, and held its arms to Mtepic, who swooped in and scooped up the newborn Xhrina. Just a few seconds, the first time I ever saw the ghosts, and it was all over, Sleeth thought sadly.
As if he had heard her thoughts, Mtepic, still cradling the fiercely glowing ghost-baby, turned back, and smiled a warm knowing smile at Sleeth.
To everyone's surprise—even to the surprise of Mtepic's ghost—ghost-Xhrina, newborn and toothless, huge-eyed face wide with glee, in the ghost-mathematician's now-strong and young arms, waved bye-bye to Sleeth, in a way so like any other baby that Sleeth giggled, aloud, and all the ghosts but Mtepic and Xhrina fled as the stars began to fade.
Grinning, Mtepic raised a finger to his lips—Shhh!—and so did Xhrina, and they both waved bye-bye once again before they were gone into the field of stars, which faded after them, leaving Sleeth laughing in darkness.
****
Return to Top
A Time to Kill by S. Andrew Swann
Illustrated by Christoff Koelzer
Marine Lieutenant David Abrams was a sniper with the 3rd Force Reconnaissance Company. He had the highest operational success rate of any U.S. soldier in the Iranian theatre, and coalition-wide there was only a single Scotsman with the SAS who had a better record.
And, right now, he was curled up on the floor in a dank cell somewhere in western Jerusalem where the only light came from a small opening high on one wall.
Occasionally he would cough up a mouthful of blood and phlegm from where the militia guards had battered in the left side of his chest. He was lucky to be alive; the ceramic insert in his Kevlar vest had probably kept the blows from being immediately fatal.
They had beat him, stripped him naked, and thrown him in this cell wearing only his dog tags. They had his rifle, of course. And they had the gadget.
What was left of the gadget anyway; he had heard the casing shatter when the guards fell on him. The scientists had warned him that breaching the
containment isolating the strange quantum mechanism meant it would collapse into the non-space from which it was formed . . .
No going back even if his captors meant to spare him.
He was long past going back anyway.
He coughed up more bloody phlegm, wondering exactly how he would be executed.
Light from the hallway blinded him as the door opened. David blinked up at a rough silhouette and wondered if this would be his executioner.
David's visitor spoke in a rough, almost unintelligible accent, "You speak Hebrew?"
David laughed at the incongruity.
His visitor continued in Hebrew. "Do you understand me? Do you know why you're in this cell?"
"Waiting for you to kill me."
"Do you have any conception of what you've done?"
David looked into the shadowed face and tried to see an expression. He felt dizzy. Probably blood loss. "One bullet, I thought. One bullet and the gadget and there could be peace . . ."
"Peace?" his captor spat, as if it was the only word he could understand.
****
"Lieutenant Abrams, how would you like to be the man who ends this war?"
The man asking him the question was the secretary of defense of the United States.
It was the third week of the thrust toward Tehran, and David had been called back to the States by orders signed by the President herself.
Now he sat in meeting room, deep in the bowels of an unnamed DARPA campus in the Nevada desert. He faced the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the secretary, and a trio of scientists.
"What do you want me to do, sir?"
The secretary handed David a thick briefing book. "This is your target."
David opened the folder and saw a familiar bearded face. He looked up at the secretary. "But he's already dead."
****
The intel was perfect. The gadget dropped behind some sand dunes in the Afghan desert, 2000 yards from his target. It was frigid night, and the gadget was a weird weight on his back, pulling him like a gyroscope.
David staggered from the sudden change in orientation. Moments ago he had been standing on the concrete floor of an empty hangar in the DARPA complex. His feet now sank into sand, and he had the adrenaline shock of realizing that he was alone, in enemy territory.
He froze, praying his sudden appearance had gone unnoticed. It had; the desert night was quiet around him. After getting his bearings, he carefully lowered himself to his stomach and crawled with his weapon to just within sight of the impromptu camp. He brought his weapon to bear and looked through the scope, into the open tent.
The reality of what had happened didn't strike him until he saw Osama bin Laden's face in his crosshairs, laughing at something the Saudi prince with him was saying.
It wasn't until that moment that David truly believed what the scientists had told him. He really was in the Afghan desert in the year 1999. He really was here before 9/11, before the war in Afghanistan, before the invasion of Iraq. Before an unmanned drone invaded Iranian airspace to take Osama bin Laden out with a GPS-guided missile and spark the war with Iran.
In the words of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, "The gadget gives us the opportunity to revise that particular decision and eliminate OBL at a place chosen to be of maximum advantage to the United States and our allies."
For the first time in his career as a sniper, David's hand shook.
But only after he had pulled the trigger and OBL's laughing face melted into a red mist.
The shot echoed through the desert, followed by the popcorn sound of automatic weapons fire, interspersed with the occasional shout of Arabic.
He managed to press the red button that would take him back to the DARPA testing fields, a few milliseconds later than when he left.
****
Of all the consequences of eliminating OBL from the historical equation, David hadn't thought of the DARPA complex itself. Somehow, an irrational part of his brain half-expected to see the scientists, the chairman, and the secretary all there to greet him and to tell him what the last decade had wrought.
At first he thought that the gadget had dropped him in the wrong place and time, but his GPS locator placed him in the right area in Nevada. And the right time, a couple of seconds after he left.
But the DARPA complex was gone, and in its place was a sand-swept airstrip and a couple of dilapidated buildings that hadn't seen use since the sixties.
"I guess the project started after 1999 . . ."
David shook his head, a little mystified why killing bin Laden would prevent development of the gadget. But it began him thinking about other consequences.
No DARPA project and he never would have gone on the mission to hit OBL. That meant there was another David Abrams out here somewhere. Someone with his name, his face, but who had a completely different history since 1999. Would he have joined the Marines if 9/11 never happened? Was there any part of his life left?
David was prepared to die for his country, but somehow, this was worse.
****
He had to walk to the nearest town, carrying his weapon, preparing to be challenged at any moment by MPs or civilian police. He didn't know what would happen if he was picked up. He wasn't AWOL, but the only orders he had were signed by someone who might not even be President now.
He made it to a small diner, by the side of the road.
David always kept a few twenties in a pocket sewn under his vest. Never knew when American currency would come in handy. Good thing too. He was hungry.
He pushed his way into the near-empty diner.
The man behind the counter looked up and stared. "Good lord, where'd you come from?"
David, shook his head. "Long story. Can I get something to eat?"
"Sure." The man waved away his twenty. "Your money's no good here." He turned around and called out, "Sarah, get out our best steak dinner, got a serviceman here."
David took a seat at one of the barstools, fighting the weird gyroscope of the gadget. It was awkward, but he didn't want to set down a one-of-a-kind hundred billion dollar piece of equipment.
The man looked at him. "You're not the National Guard out of Vegas?" He looked a little surprised.
"No, Marines. Third Force Reconnaissance Company, out of Mobile."
"Uh huh . . . just got a truckload of National Guard, two days ago, heading for Ground Zero. That where you going?"
David shook his head, unsure of what the man had just said.
Ground Zero?
He must have taken silence as assent. "Thought so. I been telling everyone that there had to be some of those rag-head bastards running around here. How the hell else could they get a nuke into Vegas. You take a few out for me huh?"
David could only nod.
A steaming T-bone slid in front of him.
"On the house. Anyone who puts his life on the line for his country eats free here."
"Thanks." David looked at the meal. A nuke in Vegas? How the hell could . . . Taking out OBL should have been a death blow to al Qaeda.
David looked up and saw a TV, tuned to CNN.
"Can you turn that up?"
"Sure."
David ate mechanically in silence as he listened to what a balls-up failure his mission had been.
It wasn't just Vegas.
It was Vegas, New Orleans, and Chicago. The nukes were from Iran. At least that was the excuse for leveling Tehran and a dozen other cities. And Saddam had plowed into Iran, lobbing chemical shells, with tacit approval of the U.S. Casualty figures were reaching a two million. Ten times the war David had left.
Not counting the ones in the States.
No one had seen the attacks coming. Just like 9/11. But it was 9/11 with a decade more planning in the shadows of the Middle East.
****
The first time he saw the gadget, it was hard to believe they wanted to send something so fragile looking on a military mission. It didn't look like it, but it was the result of an effort that
made the Manhattan project look like a couple of kids working in their dad's garage.
A cube of electronics connected to a metal framework holding a sphere that resembled a silver Christmas ornament the size of a bowling ball. It would fit into a canvas envelope that would strap to David's back instead of a normal pack.
"This is really a time machine?"
"Yes, it is," said one of the scientists.
"And it can go anywhere?" David asked.
"With some limits."
"What limits?"
"The coordinates where the device coalesces cannot co-occupy a point where the probability wave has—"
"In English?" David asked.
The scientist paused, taking a moment to phrase his explanation. "Any one device can't go to a point in time between any two points it has already traveled to."
****
The decade between OBL's corpse falling in the Afghan desert, and an Islamic nuke exploding in Vegas, was now inaccessible to the gadget. But the results were so catastrophic, David had no choice but to try to fix what he had done.
But there were only so many bullets, and he had to choose wisely.
****
Western presence in Saudi Arabia was one of the main driving factors behind OBL and his followers. If the U.S. hadn't come to drive Saddam out of Kuwait, they would lose their focus. The U.S. would not become involved in what was really a regional conflict.
So, if Iraq never invaded Kuwait . . .
David jumped a decade before his assassination of OBL, to Baghdad in 1989. And this time it is Saddam's face that evaporates in his crosshairs.
****
He knew the DARPA complex would not be there. And he knew his appearance would cause alarm, especially if he had achieved his goal and there was no longer an ongoing war. So this time he appeared after nightfall, inside a library in his home town.
He had night-vision equipment, so he was able to navigate through the green monochrome library, to the periodicals.
Jim Baen's Universe Volume 1 Number 3 October 2006 Page 9