Mission

by Patrick Tilley

  But we didn’t.

  I just bared my teeth and said, ‘You and your fucking breakfast…’ Which shows, I guess, just how much I still had to learn.

  Needless to say, that slip of the tongue meant that the rest of the weekend was shot to hell. The silence that hung over the breakfast table would have earned us a free ticket to a Trappist monastery. It was Miriam who finally broke the ice but it didn’t help to raise the temperature.

  ‘You look as if you’ve got a lot to get through here. I think I’d better drive over to Scarsdale. After all, they were expecting me.’

  Scarsdale was where her parents lived. ‘Sure. Good idea.’ It was the wrong thing to say but part of me enjoys being mean-spirited now and then. I shrugged. ‘Listen – if that’s what you want to do.’

  Of course it was. She already had her coat on. Maybe I could have persuaded her to take it off but it was too much hassle. Besides, it was true. I really did need to make up for the time I’d lost on the Saturday having my mind bent by footnotes from the Two Hundred Million Year War. If that sounds flip, it is because I was doing my damnedest to play it down. What we had become involved in was absolutely incredible. What we had seen and heard was fantastic. Unforgettable. But the look I’d seen in Miriam’s eyes when he’d produced the stigmata had scared the hell out of me. I might be long on questions and short on answers but I was sure of one thing: as two of the smallest cogs in the Celestial machine, we ran the risk of being ground to pieces. The only way to stay sane, whole and healthy was by keeping a firm grip on reality. And that’s what I planned to do on behalf of both of us. Even if it meant playing the bad guy.

  I opened the front door but didn’t offer to carry her overnight bag. We walked down to where she had parked the Pontiac. We both chewed on our teeth until we got there. She tossed the bag into the back and got in.

  I leaned against the inside of the door as she went to close it. The window was up and it was obvious that she wasn’t going to roll it down. ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry I went over the top when The Man disappeared. I don’t know why any of this is happening, or what it is were getting into. Maybe we ought to take some time to work out where we go from here.’

  ‘Take all the time you want.’ She switched on the ignition.

  ‘What do you want me to do with all the food?’ I said.

  She threw me a bleak glance. ‘Ship it to the Vietnamese Boat People.’

  If I could have stood the pain, I’d have left my arm in the door as she slammed it shut. Just to ruin her weekened. But as I’m a devout coward, I lifted it prudently out of the way. I stepped back and watched her do a tight-lipped three-point turn, then waved her out of my life. It wasn’t the first time she hadn’t waved back and I knew it would not be the last. And what made us so different? People had been arguing over The Man for centuries. I went back inside and immersed myself in the heady world of patent infringements.

  Now I don’t know how closely you’ve been following this but some of you may have detected a certain schizoid quality in my reactions to The Man and what he’d been laying on us. If you’d have been there when it was happening, I think you might have been a little confused too. I no longer doubted the validity of the experience. I was just doing my level best, as I’ve already said, not to go overboard. I had suspended both belief and disbelief. I was trying to cling to the middle ground, somewhere between awe and derision but the deepseated cynicism with which I regarded most of the things of this world and certainly all of the next, kept bringing me back to earth. I wanted to hear more; to discover all he knew. But I didn’t want to be drafted into this Man’s army and, despite the voice inside my head which kept egging me on, I was not about to volunteer.

  And there was another problem. This game of chronological hide-and-seek we’d got mixed up in threatened to cut us off from the people around us. After all, The Man could come back again. For days instead of hours. How long could we conceal this historical time-bomb that had been dropped in our laps just because some cosmic body-snatcher didn’t know his quarks from his mesons?

  Suppose someone started back-tracking from that empty drawer in the morgue towards us? Or if friend Fowler got visions of winning a Nobel Prize by going public with his analysis of that blood sample? And I could envisage the Monday morning small talk at the office. Hi, Leo. Have a good weekend? Mmm, I was up at Sleepy Hollow and a couple of friends dropped in. Oh, yeah. Anybody special? No. Just Miriam and a guy called Jesus.

  It was a terrifying thought but as I sat there in front of those depositions, I couldn’t think of one person Miriam and I could tell who wouldn’t think we had flipped our lids.

  I diluted my anxiety with a generous shot of bourbon, waded through the rest of my paperwork then drove back into town to avoid the inevitable Monday morning pile-up. It was around eleven as I let myself into my apartment. I checked with the answering service but there was no message from Miriam. I toyed with the idea of ringing her in case she’d tried to reach me at Sleepy Hollow, then thought better of it. If and when she wanted to get in touch, she would know where to find me. I went to bed with the Good Book and checked over a few key passages before I turned the light out. At least I knew where he’d gone. The Man had a date with the rest of the boys in Bethany. To break some bread and show Thomas his stigmata. And according to the Book, Thomas, who’d been out of town all week, was even more impressed than we were.

  Chapter 5

  On the Monday morning, I spent an extra half-hour in bed and thought about the exercises I should have been doing and about phoning Miriam. By the time the cab called for me – my regular eight a.m. pick-up – I hadn’t done either. But to even things up, I walked the last five blocks with a dime ready in my fingers but, as it happened, all the pay-phones I passed were in use.

  I rode up in the elevator with Joe Gutzman, the senior partner and founder of the law firm. Joe was a small, dapper silver-haired man whose tan identified him as a dedicated sun-lamp worshipper. His mind was as precise as the Cartier watch on his wrist and he cost as much by the hour. He always looked as if he were about to smile but rarely did. Joe had two great sorrows in his life. The first was his son David, who had swapped a law career for an Israeli Air Force Skyhawk jet and had gone down over the Sinai desert during the Yom Kippur War with a SAM-7 missile up his tailpipe. The second was his daughter Joanna who, at the age of twenty-eight was still unmarried, in spite of the fact that she could pass for Brooke Shields on a dark street. In her case, I was the joint cause of Joe’s sorrow. He had tried everything he could think of to get us together short of throwing his daughter naked into my bath. Career-wise, the advantages were obvious. Joanna was also a nice intelligent girl. It just didn’t gel. The chemistry wasn’t right. But I valued Joe’s fatherly interest in my career and his oblique, but affectionate, regard. In my arrogance, I liked to think that it was due to my innate talent. That I had earned my place in the sun without falling all over his daughter. But another part of me knows that sometimes, when he comes into my office to talk, it’s not me he sees but the shadow of his lost son.

  Joe favoured me with a quizzical glance. They’re something he uses a lot in cross-examination and he likes to keep in practice. ‘Have a good weekend?’

  This could have been my big moment. There were eleven people in the elevator, eyes averted, all minding their own business. I could have jolted them all with the news. Embarrassed the hell out of them. Emptied the elevator at the next floor. But I didn’t. ‘Not bad,’ I said. ‘I’ve been gearing up on the Delaware case. We’re in court today. Going for that injunction against Cleveland Glass.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ nodded Joe. ‘Are we going to win that one?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said smoothly. ‘I’m handling it exactly as you suggested.’ Rule One for rising young lawyers: if you don’t marry the boss’s daughter, learn how to kiss ass.

  I took my share of mail from Nancy at the switchboard and dropped it on Linda’s desk as I went through to my own offi
ce. Linda is my secretary. The cover was still on her typewriter. Linda is not a clock-watcher. Which means she always starts late. But she stays late too. So things even out. On top of which she can spell. What more can you expect these days?

  I didn’t see him as I came in through the door. In fact I’m willing to swear that the office was empty but, as I put my Samsonite on my desk, turned and sat down, there he was. Sitting on the black leather Chesterfield, wearing the same brown robe and white Arab-type head-dress. The sudden shock jerked me out of my seat. I gripped the edge of the desk to steady myself and closed my eyes for a couple of seconds. When I opened them he was still there.

  I crossed the room and shut the door that led in from Linda’s office. ‘Did anyone see you come in?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I just got here. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.’

  ‘That’s okay,’ I said. ‘Nice timing.’ My gut was still quivering. Let’s face it. Sleepy Hollow was one thing, but visitations at the office were definitely unwelcome. I was quite prepared to enroll for a course of enlightenment but I had no wish to play Russian Roulette with my career. ‘Is this another quick trip, or should I make plans?’ I asked, trying to sound friendly, briskly polite and distant all at the same time.

  The Man shrugged. ‘I can’t tell you yet. We were in contact with the Time Gate the Sunday before last – ’

  ‘The day of the Resurrection?’

  ‘Yes,’ he nodded. ‘After I got back to Jerusalem and was transferred to the longship, I sent a message explaining what had happened and requesting rectification of the time-fault or failing that, a revised set of mission orders. But so far, nothing has come down the line.’ He shrugged. ‘Until we get the word, I guess we must all do the best we can.’

  It was at this point, I remembered those famous words of Tonto – What do you mean ‘We’, white man?. But what I said was, ‘Maybe you’ve been dumped again. You did mention that might be the answer.’

  ‘I know.’ He looked doubtful. ‘I can’t believe this has been programmed. All our Earth missions up to now have been linear inputs.’

  ‘What are they?’ I could have kicked myself for asking such a dumb question. The last thing I wanted to do was to get involved in another long conversation. I had a million things to do. Joe or Dick Schonfeld, the other partner, or Corinne his assistant might walk in at any minute and then where would I be?

  The Man must have known all this was buzzing around my brain yet it didn’t stop him. But then, nothing ever did. ‘An input,’ he began, ‘is the periodic interaction between the Empire and the World Below – in this case, Earth – either directly, or by proxy. And a linear input is one which accords with your own perception of time as a one-dimensional straight-line series of events.’

  ‘You mean like one of your people coming to live here for a given period of time – like your own life in Galilee and Judea for example?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Time, for you, has three components. The future, which you are able to visualise as a variable projection of the present – the fleeting, immeasurably brief second component – and time past. Which is a sense-memory made up of personal experience and received images from other sources. Even though past events can now be recorded and reviewed on film, only the elusive moment of time present exists as a concrete realisation, which instantly slips through your grasp. But if your perception of time could be altered to embrace the concept and indeed the existence of simultaneity, then you would realise that all past events are still taking place within a series of overlapping time-frames.’

  ‘You mean in the way that the separate images on a strip of movie film still exist on the reel after they have passed through the projector?’ I said.

  ‘Not quite, but it’s close enough. For you, the present would be one of the single frames that is projected fleetingly on the screen. What you have to imagine is a set-up where the whole film is being projected simultaneously.’ He smiled. ‘That’s the hard part. Plus the fact that, as I’ve demonstrated, it is possible, under certain conditions, to traverse time in different directions. What one might call “lateral tracking”.‘

  ‘Must be an amazing experience,’ I said.

  ‘It is,’ he replied. ‘Just don’t ask me how it’s done.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I won’t.’ Stuff like this is hard going at eight forty-five on a Monday morning. And anyway if, as he had said, he didn’t know why he had been mailed to Manhattan, he was unlikely to know how. But he had this annoying knack of opening up avenues that I could not help wanting to explore. And time-travel was a subject I found hard to resist. ‘Tell me something. I know that Time is regarded as being relative to the observer but how can it be multidimensional?’

  He smiled. ‘Just accept that it can. Don’t think of Time as a straight line running from past to future. Think of it as a continuous strip within which, at a given point across its width, the multiplicity of simultaneous events that make up the present exist side by side. Like the strands of yarn that interweave to make up a width of fabric. Just as your time-line is interwoven with Miriam’s – and with others too. The width of the strip is infinite, but try to imagine it standing on edge. Not in a straight line, but folded into sections that zig-zag from side to side throughout eternity with, let’s say, a century between each fold.’

  ‘Okay, I’ve got that,’ I said. ‘What happens when you come to the end of the strip?’

  ‘There is no end,’ he replied. ‘It zig-zags round in a circle.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I said. ‘If the ends of the strip join up, it means that the far future is also our past. That doesn’t make sense.’

  He treated me to another patient smile. ‘You’re forgetting the rules of simultaneity. Don’t think of Time as being made up of the past, present and future. Time is.’

  ‘For you maybe,’ I riposted. ‘How does time-travel fit into this model?’

  ‘Very simply,’ he said. ‘If you visualise these century-long folds as lying close together you can see that, under certain conditions, one could pass through the weave of the fabric from one “fold” to another. It would be possible to make a straight line connection between any point in what you regard as a past century and one in the future. For you, whose life runs along the plane of the fabric, Time is still linear. But we Celestials are not bound to the temporal dimension, and therefore can travel through it.’

  ‘I think I get the idea,’ I said. ‘Tell me, would this explain the fleeting visions of you that people have had down the centuries? Could they have seen you as you passed through their time-strip, or track, or whatever, on your way between here and Jerusalem?’

  He shrugged. ‘I suppose it’s possible.’

  The significance of his non-committal reply did not escape me. I pressed the point further. ‘Would it explain the visions of your mother?’

  He seemed genuinely surprised. ‘You’ve seen her?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘But I understand she’s made a number of personal appearances. Several world tours, in fact.’

  I had the feeling I was on to something but before we could take it any further, Linda knocked on the door and walked in with the opened mail. She was surprised to see that I had someone in my office but she didn’t make a big thing of it.

  ‘Anything important?’ I asked.

  ‘Just the top three. I can handle the rest.’ She glanced back at The Man. ‘Is this anything I should have down in my book?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘This gentleman’s a friend of mine. He just flew into town and stopped by to say “Hello”.’ I introduced her to The Man. ‘This is Linda Kovaks, my assistant.’

  ‘Hi,’ said Linda.

  I didn’t attempt to explain who he was. I just sat there and watched them exchange smiles.

  Linda turned to me. ‘Do you want me to hold your calls?’

  ‘For the moment,’ I said.

  She paused halfway out the door. ‘Would you like me to bring you some coffee?’


  I referred the question to The Man.

  ‘Not for me,’ he said.

  ‘In that case, I won’t bother,’ I said.

  Linda left us. I checked my watch and decided that the mysteries of Time and Space would have to wait. ‘Look, I don’t want to seem rude, because I’d love nothing better than to sit here and talk some more, but I have to be in court at ten-thirty and I have quite a few things to get through before then. Are you really sure you have no idea how long you’re going to be around?’

  ‘No,’ he said. Just sitting there.

  ‘Then I guess we’ll just have to play it by ear.’ I let out a long-suffering sigh in the hope of making him feel bad. It was a problem. I couldn’t just leave him sitting around the office, but what were the alternatives? Put him on the train for Sleepy Hollow? Supposing he lost his way? I thought of asking Linda to drive him up but that would mean loaning her the Porsche. Which was out of the question. Besides, putting the two of them together in isolation could be dangerous. If I got on to a limo-service, it would be the same thing. He might do a conversion job on the chauffeur. Too risky. But why? Why should I be worried about what he might say or do to anybody else? I’ll tell you – although the answer does me little credit. I didn’t mind him screwing up my private life with his unscheduled appearances, and I was quite happy for him to hand me the Secrets of the Universe – whatever they were worth. I just did not want to be associated with him in public. It was as simple as that. And the more people he got involved with increased the risk that this thing might come out into the open. And God knows what might happen then. He would attract every nut in Christendom. I had no desire to end up as a marked man, or part of a three-ring circus.

  Miriam was the answer. But she would be tied up at the hospital and besides, we weren’t speaking. On top of which, I didn’t fancy her being alone with The Man until I’d had a chance to straighten her out. It was then it came to me. An hotel. Brilliant. I could book him into the Mayflower on Central Park West and tell him to stay in his room until I was through for the day. But what about luggage? Simple. The airline was still looking for it. It happens all the time. Passport? Everything stolen. I was the lawyer handling his case. The rest was easy. But what if he suddenly high-tailed it back to Jerusalem? That was a chance I’d have to take. Providing he didn’t do it in a packed elevator there shouldn’t be any problem. Very few people notice what’s going on around them these days. I would arrange for the hotel to charge the tab to me. The sooner they hauled him back over the time-tracks, the less it would cost.