Time spike

by Eric Flint

  "Survive what?" "I'll blow the damn thing. Give me ten minutes to go find Leffen. Then give him half an hour-hell, give him an hour-to figure something out. Fuck going over the trenches. Luff ain't worth it. Just snuff him like a rat in a hole." "He's right, Andy,"came Rod's voice."We can take the time. We've got the whole building surrounded and this one doesn't have any connecting underground corridors. Let's do it Cook's way." Andy hesitated, then realized they were right. His fierce urge to lead a charge into the building was just a half-suicidal way of trying to atone for his lapse in duty.

  But, whatever else, he had no right to risk the lives of other people in the doing. "Okay, we'll try it. James, go ahead. Take as much time as you need." By Andy's watch, it took exactly one hour, six minutes and fourteen seconds. Without any preamble except a brief alert over the radio-that was for the benefit of the sharpshooters-Cook appeared in the courtyard, pushing a supply cart ahead of him. He was moving fast, almost but not quite running. The cart was loaded with bottles.

  Big ones, most of them, all connected by some sort of fuse arrangement. God only knew what was in them. God and Carter Leffen, whose peculiar genius was now completely unrestrained by the need to avoid casualties. As soon as Cook appeared, Hulbert and the other sharpshooters starting firing into the building through the windows.

  As covering fire went, it was absolute and complete. If Luff or either of his two men tried to shoot at the oncoming cart-if they even raised their heads enough to see it in the first place-they'd be dead. When Cook got to the open door, he planted his foot on the rear axle of the cart and put his weight on the handles. That was enough to hoist the front wheels into the building. Then-damn the maniac-he took the time and risk to enter the building pushing it in front of him. He'd have no covering fire, now. Not from Hulbert and Scott, anyway. He was right in their line of fire. The sharpshooters on the other buildings kept firing, though, and that was evidently enough to keep Luff and his men down. A few seconds later, Cook came out of the building.

  Running as fast as he could. "Get down!" Andy half-shouted into the radio. "Everybody. Down!" The charge blew. Andy hissed in a breath.

  Leffen, the arsonist, had designed a bomb that was mostly an incendiary. The building didn't come down. It shook a little, but that was all. If they could put the fire out, they'd still have a machine shop. If they could put it out soon enough, they might even still have all of the machine tools and equipment intact. But Luff was dead. He and Krouse and Ray were probably unrecognizable at all, any longer.

  That incredible first bloom of fire had been hot enough to be felt reflected off the walls. Inside, it must have been like having a miniature atom bomb going off. He stood up and spoke into the radio.

  "Get the firefighting gear. Quickly, people." He shifted channels.

  "Marie, what's happening out there?" "Nothing. Haven't seen anybody in a while. I figure maybe thirty of them made it into the woods. Tops.

  Probably not more than a couple of dozen." "All right. We'll deal with that problem later. Once you're sure there's no danger, check to see if there are any survivors among the ones you shot." After a brief hesitation, she said:"Yeah. Will do." Up on the roof, Rod smiled.

  His girl, sure enough. And it was time for him to make good on the boast. He gave Scott a sidelong look. "Brad, you know what Andy's like. I figure he'll be having enough nightmares as it is, without adding another one." He used his rifle to indicate the five men in Luff's inner circle. "You with me, or do I handle it myself?" With a puzzled frown, Scott looked down at the five men below who'd made it out of the machine shop alive. They were sitting against a wall, under the watchful eyes of a guard. They'd stopped coughing by now, but they still looked teary-eyed, even from a distance. After a few seconds, the frown disappeared. "Oh. Yeah, sure." "Come on, then." Hulbert appeared, with Bradley Scott alongside. Andy only noticed him coming with part of his mind. He was preoccupied with getting the firefighting organized. The machine shop wasn't particularly flammable, as a building, nor was the equipment in it. But he was worried about the oils in there. They'd just be cutting oils and cooling solvents, not gasoline or anything like that. But, given enough heat, almost any kind of oil could ignite. Hulbert nodded toward the five men against the wall. "Since you're tied up, I figured I'd take care of this. We should get them into a cell. Keep the other prisoners from killing them, if nothing else." Andy gave the men in question a quick glance, then looked back at the burning machine shop.

  "Yes, you're right. Use any cell you can find that'll suit the purpose. We'll deal with them later." Hulbert went over to the prisoners. "On your feet. Now. You boys are getting locked up again."

  That seemed to relieve them more than anything else. Still bleary-eyed, they got up and starting walking in the direction Hulbert pointed to with his rifle. Rod and Scott followed, a few steps behind.

  Andy went back to worrying about the fire. Not more than five seconds after Hulbert and his charges disappeared around a corner, he heard a short fusillade of shots. His rifle at the ready, and with two other guards following him with their own weapons, he raced to see what had happened. He found Hulbert and Scott, standing over five corpses. When he got closer, he saw that all of them had been shot in the back.

  "What happened?" "Stupid bastards tried to make a run for it." Bradley Scott nodded solemnly. "Shot while trying to escape." Andy stared down at the bodies. They were still lined up in a row, the same way they'd been walking. He stared up at Hulbert. "Let it go, Andy," Rod said softly. "Just let it go. This part of our new world, you leave to me and Kevin Griffin, will you? I promise I won't meddle with the rest."

  The sound of distant rifle shots came. Not a fusillade. Just one shot.

  Then, a few seconds, another. Then, a few second later, another.

  Hulbert smiled. "And Marie, sounds like." Andy sighed, and wiped his face. "No more, Rod. I'll look the other way, with Luff's men." His tone became very hard. "But not one inch more. If that's not understood, I will make it understood. Believe me, I will." "You got it, boss. Not one inch more." They got the fire under control, before the oils in the lockers got ignited. Any of the small open cans of cutting oil lying around had gone, of course. But those had probably been ignited during the explosion itself, and they hadn't contained enough to do any real added damage. Once the fire was out and the building had cooled down enough, Boyne accompanied Andy into the building. While Andy looked for the bodies, John inspected the damage to the machine tools and the other equipment. "We still got a machine shop," he pronounced, after a while. "A couple of the drill presses are scrap, but that's no big deal. The drill bits are okay, which is all that really matters. And we'll have some work to do, repairing the Bridgeport and the small lathe. But the other two lathes and the Cincinnati are fine." He looked down at the three objects Andy was studying. "Which one's Luff?" "I have no idea." Fortunately for the mythology of their new world, they were able to figure it out soon enough. They found Luff's dental records in the infirmary. There wouldn't be stories floating around for years about how Luff might have made it to Argentina on a submarine-or even into the woods. The monster was dead. So were one thousand, four hundred and six of the inmates who'd still been alive when Andy left the prison to look for the Cherokees. And at least another forty weren't going to be alive much longer, from the effects of Luff's rule.

  Chapter 56 "Andy, you have to let this go," Jenny told him quietly, a week later. "The truth is, most of those men would have been dead anyway, within a year or two. Luff targeted all of the sickly, all of the old, anyone with an infectious disease, anyone with a heart condition, anyone with cancer, anyone with emphysema, anyone with a really serious blood pressure problem, anyone who was diabetic, anyone who was psychotic-anyone he thought was weak at all. You saw it. He had his office piled high with the medical records. He even had everyone on Death Row murdered, probably figuring they'd be more trouble than they were worth." "I know that. We also found his notebook where he made the calculations. So ma
ny dead, so much food saved-and then, so help me, he filled four pages calculating whether keeping a sick man alive instead of a healthy one would be cost-effective in terms of food, figuring that a healthy man needs to eat more. And came up with the conclusion that he'd always be ahead if he thinned the herd-that's the expression he used in his notes-by working from the bottom up. "I also know that, in his sick and twisted way and certainly not because he gave a damn about them, Luff probably saved as many lives of Indians out there as he took inside the prison.

  Probably a lot more. Whatever else happens, we won't be spreading AIDS and hepatitis and half a dozen other diseases in this new world. Not now." He fell silent. In the hopes it might lighten his spirits, Jenny said: "And we won't be spreading smallpox, either. If I remember right, that was the big killer after the New World was discovered by Columbus. Not because of Luff, but because we'd pretty much eradicated it anyway. There hadn't been a case of smallpox anywhere in the world in years." Andy shook his head. "I know all that, Jenny. And it doesn't make any difference. Not to me. My job was to be a guard commander. I might have taken a man to be executed, but I didn't pass the sentence and I didn't carry it out. And until the sentence was carried out, by lawfully appointed persons, my job was to protect society from that man and protect him as well." He wiped his face with a big hand. He'd been doing that a lot, these past few days. "And there was one of those men on Death Row that most of us thought was probably going to be exonerated and released soon. Once the lab report on the DNA evidence came in. Leland Jefferson. Quiet, soft-spoken, spent fifteen years on Death Row waiting for one appeal after another.

  Never budged from his claim to be innocent-and, privately, I eventually decided he was. The truth is, we all liked him, after a while." They'd never found Leland Jefferson's head. When Andy finally thought to inquire, the Boomers told him Jefferson was one of the men whose bodies they'd incinerated in those early days. He was just ashes, now, slowly spreading across the world of the Cretaceous.

  "Andy, let itgo." A few minutes went by, as they sat together on a log just outside the prison. By now, the area around Alexander was quite safe. In the course of scouring the area for escaped convicts, Griffin and his Cherokees also reported any dangerous-looking animals they spotted. Kershner and his men would respond immediately. They carried modern rifles as backup, but they always fired the first volley with the muskets. Hulbert was right about that. It remained to be seen how the muskets would do against something the size of a tyrannosaur or an allosaur. But those were few and far between, and none had been spotted within two miles of the prison. Against the smaller predators they did encounter, one volley of. 69 caliber bullets was enough. Certainly enough to take them down. The rifles were only used to finish the kill, if needed. Eventually, Jenny sighed. "All right. I know you well enough to know you probably won't let it go. Not ever, at least somewhere in your mind, till the day you die. But would it help any if you held me, in the meantime?" "Sure would." "Then do it. Start right now, and never stop so long as we're both alive."

  Chapter 57 "Hernando!" De Soto turned his head; something was coming from beyond the rise. "Run! Run!" His men were scattering, moving faster than they had moved in days. Then he saw the demon.

  "Cowards!" he shouted. He drew and fired his wheel-lock pistol. Then drew the other from its saddle holster and fired again. There'd be no time to reload. He drew his sword and spurred his mount. The horse threw him. Then fled. De Soto staggered to his feet. The demon might have gone after the horse, except that de Soto's fury was too great.

  On foot, he charged, staggering and reeling. He was still half-stunned from the impact of being thrown. Calling for the blessing of the virgin and the saints. No man is a villain, in his own eyes. And whatever virtues were absent in the man named Hernando de Soto, courage was not among them. All who observed his end, and survived to tell the tale, agreed that de Soto never stopped fighting. Not even after the demon's jaws had closed upon his middle and lifted him high, and his blood and intestines spilled everywhere. Still, he struck at the reptile head with his sword; and struck again, and again. Some swore he struck a last blow as he disappeared into the maw. And believe he fights still, in Lucifer's very bowels.

  Chapter 58 The seven-year-old girl's eyes looked as wide as saucers. "You promise you won't hurt him?" Esther Hu stooped and took Linda May Tucker's little hands in her own, which weren't all that much bigger. She didn't have to stoop much, either. The paleontologist was a very small woman. "Linda May, believe me, the very very very last thing we're going to do is hurt the little fellow. He's more precious than gold." The girl stared at her, for a bit. "Well, okay, then. I guess." "And you can come visit him any time you want to, just to make sure he's all right." Esther glanced up at the girl's parents.

  "We'll be glad to pay the cost of the trip, folks." The mother nodded.

  The father just looked relieved. Watching, Margo had to keep from laughing. Quite obviously, the father had heard the same stories about what happens to baby alligators kept as pets that she'd heard. Linda May Tucker, now satisfied enough, started examining the room curiously. Her eyes fell on a very big, thick book lying on a table nearby, kept under glass. "What's that?" "That?" Esther straightened up and studied the book for a moment. "We call it Exhibit A. What it is, though, is a very old Bible. Really old." "Can I touch it?" Margo stepped forward. "Better not, honey. It might get damaged. It's really really old." She was fudging, actually. True, looked at from one angle, the Bible was slightly over four hundred years old. But, measured from the likely date of printing, it was no older than some of the books in Margo's own library. And it was very sturdy. Still, they weren't taking any chances. Not with a German-language Bible, printed in Fraktur typeface, from the last decade of the sixteenth century. There was no date printed anywhere in it, but the expert Nick had brought in said he could place it and date it quite precisely-to the satisfaction of any antique or rare book dealer in the world. More to the point, he could place it and date it so precisely that not all of the king's men nor all of the king's lawyers nor all of the king's national security experts could deny the fact. Nick had been right. In less than eight months, they'd turned up seventeen people in the area around Grantville who'd discovered something, before the federal agencies clamped down. The Bible had been among the things they'd found. And then, encountering the blank indifference or even outright hostility of the authorities, had decided to keep those items quietly as a private possession and say nothing further. Margo still wasn't sure she agreed with Nick's plan, to wait until there was a change of administration before holding the press conference. Somewhere in the darker recesses of her mind, she had a faint lingering suspicion that Nick was trying to avoid embarrassing the current holder of the White House. He admitted himself that he'dvoted for the bum, even if she was pretty sure he'd come to regret the fact as time went by. Still, she understood Nick's insistence that politics be kept out of The Project's policies. And his reasoning was hard to argue with. The election was only a short time away, after all. And a new administration, regardless of which party's candidate won, wouldn't feel compelled to hold the bunker of folly at all costs. Not even the party which now controlled the White House, with a new President. Not after The Project held the press conference. With-so far-four Nobel Prize winners having quietly agreed to attend and give their support.

  With-so far-dozens of eyewitnesses who could report things that were completely at variance with the official government line. With-so far-well over two hundred objects of one kind or another that did the same. All of it backed up by the massive data The Project had collected over the years here in Minnesota. Data, furthermore, that had been duplicated at least in part by more than a dozen research facilities elsewhere in the world. And they had Exhibit A. Which was now, of course, demoted to Exhibit B. Margo beamed down at the new Exhibit A, which had just arrived from a farm located three miles from the spot where Alexander Correctional Center had once stood. The baby velociraptor peered back up a
t her. "His name's Chucky," the girl explained. Esther and the paleontologistsswore the critter wouldn't get any bigger than a large turkey. Margo hoped they were right. Even as tiny as it was, those teeth looked sharp-and the big claws on the feet looked even scarier. There wasn't much question it would grow up, either. The girl who'd found it, just coming out of the egg, had lavished tender loving care on her new pet. It was obviously quite healthy. "He likes Chicken McNuggets. And french fries. But you gotta break them up into little pieces first. So he doesn't choke or anything." Linda May leaned over, reached a finger into the cage, and stroked the creature's neck. Margo would swear the little monster arched its neck in response. And it made some sort of noise that sounded almost like a purr. Couldn't be, of course.

  Epilogue "One year to the day," Edelman pronounced. "Well.

  Formally, I guess." Jenny smiled at him. "What's the formality involved, Jeff? Wehave kept track of the days. This is the three hundred and sixty-fifth. Don't tell me you're trying to screw us up with a leap year." Edelman grimaced. "The folly of common sense.

  Jenny, what-exactly-is a 'year'? It was three hundred and sixty-five days where wecame from, sure." He waved his hand airily. "I will graciously ignore the additional fraction of a day that required a leap year on occasion. But you're presuming a constant day-and we know the Earth's rotation slows down, as time goes by. He tapped his watch.

  "That's why we have to keep adjusting these things, each and every damn morning. The day's shorter. You see my point? Sure, it's been three hundred and sixty-five days. Three hundred and sixty-fiveshorter days. Who knows how many days it takes to make a year, in the Cretacean Here and Now?" His expression got a little smug. "Ask me in a couple of years, though-however many days that takes-and I'll be able to tell you." Andy leaned over the side of the former watch tower, that had been turned into a favorite picnic area for most of the time and was reserved for the colony's cabinet in session when they wanted it, and looked at the pile of stones some distance away.