by Simon Hawke
"What happened to 'me' in this universe?" Andre asked, hesitantly.
"You bought it on an adjustment mission," Hunted said. "Priest never got over it."
"Lucas?" Andre said, feeling as if a cold hand were closing around her insides.
"Your husband," Hunter said. "Or rather, her husband. Our Andre Cross, that is. Only she wasn't Andre Cross in our timeline. Her name was Andre de la Croix."
Andre swallowed hard. "That used to be my name," she said. "I changed it."
Hunter nodded. "Hell of a thing, isn't it? And you have a Lucas Priest, as well?"
"Had," Delaney said. "He died on our last mission."
"So did ours," said Hunter. "He was waiting for it, I guess. He never came back from the last one. From what I heard, it was a real killer. You people got us good."
Delaney had no response. What could he say, that he was sorry? The situation was difficult enough as it was without his telling Hunter that he was the one who had killed their Lucas Priest. Andre felt numb. In their own timeline, she had always felt very close to Lucas Priest. In the congruent universe, her twin and that of Lucas had married. It might have happened to them, too, had her Lucas lived long enough. She could not get the image of Hunter's Lucas Priest out of her mind as he stood before her in 19th century Afghanistan, pointing a laser at her chest. She was the enemy and he should have fired, but he had hesitated. There had been a tortured look upon his face as he had briefly lowered the laser, then raised it once again, resigned to what he had to do. That moment's hesitation was what killed him. He had said, "Forgive me, Andre," then just as he was about to fire, Delaney had bayoneted him from behind. She hadn't understood what happened then, why he had hesitated. Now she knew and she wished she didn't.
"So there's a Reese Hunter in your timeline, as well," said Hunter.
"Was, "said Delaney.
"Was?" said Hunter. "I see." He shook his head. "Man, that's strange. It's like being told I died."
"Tell me about it," said Delaney.
"Yeah, it's a macabre situation, pilgrim. 1 keep having to remind myself that you're really not my partner, just like you're probably having a hard time remembering that I'm not the Reese Hunter that you knew. What was he like?"
"He was a lot like you," Delaney said. "Hell, he was you, only his history followed a slightly different path. He was an officer in the Airborne Pathfinders who became separated from his unit in 12th century England."
"Christ," said Hunter. "The same thing happened to me."
"Only you apparently came back," Delaney said. "Our Hunter decided to go underground."
Hunter chuckled. "I thought about it. Almost did it, too. It was tempting as hell. How'd your boy make out?"
"Pretty well," Delaney said. "He had quite a setup for himself back there in Sherwood Forest. Built himself a cabin and stocked it with all sorts of goodies from various different time periods. He had all the conveniences. Sound system, generators, microwave oven, briar pipes, smoking jackets, various kinds of ordnance, fine wines. . . The locals believed he was a wizard and he played up the idea to keep them from bothering him. Grew his hair long and dressed up in some kind of crazy silk robe from Japan with dragons on it. Then he got mixed up in one of our missions. Complicated story."
Hunter glanced at Andre. "He bring you back from the 12th century?"
"Yes," she said. "How did you ... oh, of course. But we went to 17th century Paris first. That was where he... died."
Hunter sighed. "Glad I never went to Paris," he said. "We clocked straight back home. Christ, it's really something. Alternate universes, almost exactly identical. And we're at war." Delaney remained silent.
"Look," said Hunter, "if you don't want to answer this one, just forget I asked, but I've always wanted to know something. Why'd you people start this? I realize you're only grunts, like I am, so maybe you don't really know, but it strikes me that there had to be a better way. All right, so the confluence phenomenon was endangering both our time-streams, but maybe if we got together, we could've figured out a way to lick this thing. But after what you did-"
"We didn't know," said Steiger.
Hunter sighed. "Well, I guess I sorta figured that. Hell, it wasn't your decision. You people are just soldiers, like me."
"You don't understand," said Steiger. "I meant we really didn't know. Until your people attacked us in 19th century Afghanistan, we didn't even know that you existed."
"Come on," said Hunter. "Is that really the line they fed you? Your people bombed the hell out of us. You wiped out entire colonies, killed millions of people-"
"And we didn't even know we were doing it," Delaney said. "He's telling you the truth. We have a temporal nuclear device known as a warp grenade. It allows you to utilize a specified portion of a highly controlled nuclear explosion and it clocks the surplus energy through an Einstein-Rosen Bridge out into space somewhere. We thought we were disposing of the surplus energy in the Orion Nebula, but apparently sending such massive amounts of energy through space warps somehow affected chronophysical alignment. We were clocking nuclear explosions into your timeline and we didn't even know it."
Hunter stared at him. "Are you serious?"
"I can't make you believe me, Hunter, but what I told you is the truth, I swear it."
Hunter sat silent for a long moment. "Hell, ain't that a kick in the head?" he said, his voice heavy. "The most dangerous war in the history of both our timelines and it got started by accident."
"Well, we were the ones to start it, even if it was an accident," said Steiger, "but your people are the ones who have a chance to end it."
Hunter snorted. "Not bloody likely, pilgrim," he said. "You want to know what kind of hatred the people in this timeline have for you? You know what kind of image you people have here? You guys are the living incarnation of evil, according to the politicians and the media. Mass murderers without a conscience. Imperialist warmongers determined to drive us straight into temporal chaos or oblivion to safeguard your own timeline. The only way to deal with you is through force, because that's all you understand. Nobody believes you'll negotiate. And nobody really wants to try."
"Is that how you feel?" Andre said. "I'm not hearing any hatred in your voice."
"Yeah, well, I'm not a civilian," Hunter said. "And I didn't have anybody in the colonies that were destroyed. I'm just a military man." He paused. " 'War is much too serious a thing to be left to military men.' A fellow named Talleyrand said that and everyone believed him. Unfortunately, Talleyrand was an asshole."
"Politician, wasn't he?" said Steiger. "I think I met some of his relatives."
"For what it's worth," said Hunter, "I don't hate you people. That would be something like hating your own reflection in a mirror. But then, nobody consults me about things like that. Anyway, I guess it's over for us now. It's just as well. I've had about enough."
"It isn't over yet," said Steiger.
"Isn't it?" said Hunter. "Take a look around you, pilgrim. I don't think we'll be getting out of this one. Compared to the head of Project Infiltrator, Drakov is downright civilized. You think Drakov's got toys in his attic? Wait 'til you meet Dr. Moreau."
14
It was an incongruous room to be found in a palace in ancient Greece. The floor was parqueted wood covered with a Persian carpet. The furnishings were late Victorian. The wine decanter on the sideboard held a Margaux made from grapes that would not grow for several thousand years. The cork-lined wooden humidor upon the desk contained tobacco blended from plants grown in a country that would not be discovered for centuries. The briar pipe held in Drakov's hand had been made by an English craftsman whose ancestors were at that moment painting their backsides blue and worshiping the trees.
In a land that would be the cradle of civilization, at a time when that cradle had not yet been constructed, in a universe that was familiar and yet alien to him, Nikolai Drakov had created an environment that belonged to no one time or place. It was an environment that suited him,
a man who belonged to no one time or place himself. It did not, however, suit the man who paced back and forth across the room, doing his best to control his temper and failing in the task.
"You are being unreasonable, Moreau," said Drakov, momentarily wreathed in a cloud of aromatic pipe smoke. "Everything is under control. Sit down and relax. Have a glass of wine. It will help steady your nerves."
Moreau stopped his pacing and stood in front of Drakov stiffly, his arms held tightly against his sides, his hands balled into fists. He was a small man, slightly built, with a high forehead crowned by a thick shock of unruly gray hair. His eyes were a very pale blue and he had grown a thick, luxuriant gray beard since leaving his own time. He was dressed in a white laboratory coat, a stark contrast to Drakov's elegant smoking jacket in black and red brocade.
"My nerves are not in need of steadying, thank you," said Moreau. "I am not nervous. I am not being unreasonable and everything is not under control. When I agreed to join you in this venture, you gave me certain assurances and you are failing to live up to your part of the bargain."
"And in what way have I failed, Professor?" Drakov said, evenly.
"In more ways than one," Moreau replied. "You are being careless, Drakov. Your monumental ego is placing this entire project in jeopardy. It seems as if you have gone out of your way to advertise our presence in this time period. Did you think the Special Operations Group would fail to notice? And now taking those temporal agents prisoner and bringing them here-the risk is simply unacceptable. You've told me yourself that these very agents have defeated you several times before and yet it seems you've failed to learn from the experience."
"Go on," said Drakov, his voice sounding dangerously calm. "You said I've failed to respect our bargain in more ways than one. What else?"
"You have displayed nothing but callous disregard for my creations," said Moreau. He put his hands on the edge of Drakov's desk and leaned down toward him. "I took my project away from the Special Operations Group because they insisted upon treating my hominoids as some sort of inferior sub-race. I did not devote half my life to this project merely to turn out genetically tailored mongoloids for the Special Operations Group to use as cannon fodder. I set out to create beings specifically designed to perform tasks and survive environmental conditions hostile to ordinary humans. I meant for them to work together, for hominoids and humans to complement each other in order to achieve a more perfect society. Yet fools and paranoid bureaucrats saw them only as slaves, creatures to be inhibited in their development so that they could not become 'competitive' with humans, to have their pain centers blocked and their minds programmed so that they could fight like automatons. I thought you were different. You made me believe that you were sympathetic to my goals, but you are no different from the others. Forty-seven of my hominoids were killed by those two S.O.G. agents when you sent them into that idiotic robot of yours. And for what? What did you accomplish? You killed one and took the other prisoner. Was that worth forty-seven lives?"
"Are you finished?" Drakov said.
"No, not quite. I insist that we move the headquarters of this project at once. It has become far too dangerous for us to remain here. I also demand that the prisoners be removed. Get rid of them. Clock them out to some other time period. Their presence here constitutes a serious threat to the project."
"You insist?" said Drakov. "You demand?" He rose to his feet, towering over the professor. "You arrogant pismire! You dare to dictate terms to me? I was the one who seized the Infiltrator Project from the Special Operations Group. I was the one who took a glorified university professor away from a government sponsored research project and gave him the opportunity to play at being God! Without me, you are nothing!"
"And without me," Moreau said, his voice barely under control, "you don't have the hominoids."
"You delude yourself, Professor," Drakov said. "I could easily have compelled your unquestioning obedience through psycho-conditioning from the very start. Santos is quite expert in such matters. I did not do so because I did not wish to risk damaging your creative faculties. However, do not make the mistake of thinking yourself indispensable. Do you think I have been merely sitting on my hands all this time? I have been watching you most carefully. Watching and learning. I am a highly intelligent man, Professor, but I am not a genius, as you are. I could never have created the hominoids myself, but given the creative spark you provided, I could learn to imitate the process. I do not pretend to have acquired all of your expertise, but I believe that I can create hominoids of my own now without any help from you."
"And you call me arrogant?" said Moreau, sarcastically.
"Here," said Drakov, picking up a file from the desktop and tossing it to him. "See for yourself."
"What is this?"
"Don't you recognize it, Professor? It's a status file on a new generation of hominoid. I have done this one exactly as you have done yours, only I wasn't going to tell you about it quite this early. I was going to save it for a surprise."
Moreau leafed through the file quickly, his eyes growing wider as he read it. "You can't be serious! This is some sort of joke."
"It's no joke, Professor, I assure you. By the way, please feel free to point out any errors you feel I might have made. After all, I am only the apprentice while you are the master."
"I don't believe it!" Moreau said. "You couldn't possibly have done this. It's beyond your scope, beyond all your abilities-"
"If that is, in fact, the case," said Drakov, "then it should show up in the status file. Does it? It is too early yet to tell how it will perform when it matures, but tell me, how does it look on paper?"
Moreau was shaking his head slowly. "This is monstrous!" he said. "Creating hominoids such as the titans and the harpies is one thing, but this is precisely what the government officials were most frightened of. This is a species that would compete with humans!"
"So you acknowledge that I have done it, then?" said Drakov. "That it is not, after all, beyond my capabilities?"
Moreau moistened his lips. "On paper, I must admit that it looks feasible," he said. "However, you have merely taken the first step. Still, I see that I have seriously underestimated you. I must congratulate you. Obviously, you are not as ignorant of the science of genetic manipulation as I thought. I cannot believe that you have learned all of this from me in so short a time."
"Now you underestimate yourself, Professor," Drakov said. "You have been an excellent teacher. However, you are quite correct. I am not an entirely unversed layman. Knowledge is power and power is a passion with me. To one who has lived as long as I have, and to whom time poses no barriers, it is not difficult to accumulate vast amounts of knowledge. I have spent years of study in preparation for this."
"You never told me," said Moreau.
"You would have been more guarded with me if I had," said Drakov. He poured Moreau a glass of wine. "It is pointless for us to quarrel, Professor. True, I have used you, but then you also have used me. In that sense, our relationship has been quite symbiotic. Look at all we have accomplished. I do not blame you for your concerns, but then you do not see the full scope of my plans. You do not have access to all of the details. I have learned long ago not to put all of my eggs into one basket. True, I have taken risks, but believe me, they have been well within the parameters of acceptability. I can understand your being protective, but you are being too conservative."
"Conservative?" Moreau snorted. "That's a new one. I have been called mad, but never conservative."
"That is because the people you have dealt with are little men," said Drakov, "and little men have little vision. I am not a little man, Professor. And my visions are panoramic."
"And you have really done this?" said Moreau, tapping the file. "This wasn't just an exercise? You have really taken this to the gestation stage?"
"That one and several others, as well," Drakov said. "But I could never have done it without you. As I have said, you are the genius. I am merely
a clever imitator."
"And where will you go from here?" Moreau asked. "To what use do you intend to put this... this creature?"
"It shall be brought along in a manner similar to all the others," Drakov said, "only this one shall be allowed to develop to its fullest potential, even beyond what we have achieved with the centaur. And what we have learned here with our little exercise in altering historical scenarios and making myths reality will be applied with this creature and others like it in my own timeline. I will clock it back to the appropriate time period, Professor, and then I will set it free."
The heavy bolt on the other side of the door was slowly drawn back and the temporal agents were on their feet in an instant. As the door started to open, Delaney grabbed it and pulled back on it hard, yanking the person on the other side into the cell. The others were standing poised to attack, but there was only the one man whom Delaney had knocked to the floor. He held his hands out in front of his face to shield himself from further blows.
"Don't!" he cried. "I've come to help!"
"Moreau!" said Hunter.
Delaney let him up.
"Here," said the professor, reaching inside his jacket and removing several warp discs. "Take these. Quickly. You must escape at once."
"What is this?" Hunter said. "I thought you and Drakov were in this thing together. Why are you doing this?"
"Because I must," Moreau said. "I've been a fool, thinking Drakov would help me prove the worth of my creations, demonstrate what they can be capable of doing, but he has perverted all my work, stolen the fruits of all my labors and now he plans to do something so monstrous that I cannot even imagine what the consequences will be if he is not stopped."
"How do we know you're telling the truth?" said Steiger.