Soldiers Out of Time

by Steve White

  Kamen’s jaw fell. “The Teloi? But . . . but . . . I’ve heard of them, of course, but I thought they were long since—”

  “No. I’ll tell you—I’ll tell everyone—all about it later. But right now we don’t have time.”

  “That’s right,” said Rojas, stepping up to Kamen. “Give us a sitrep . . . that is, tell us what the situation is here.”

  Kamen seemed to stand up a trifle straighter. “Well, the Transhumanists’ fighters flew away and never came back. And those, uh, kinetic projectiles destroyed all the weapon emplacements and other military targets—barracks and so forth. But they had only destroyed a few other targets before they stopped falling.”

  “That makes sense,” Jason said to Rojas. “The late Odin’s precision strike hit the high-priority targets first. After that, had they been allowed to, they would have proceeded to systematically obliterate the town, and then every trace of human presence on this planet.”

  “Yes,” said Rojas, almost too softly to be heard. “Chantal stopped that.” She turned brisk again. “So the Transhumanist survivors must be mostly unarmed civilian types.”

  “That’s the impression we’ve gotten. We gathered up weapons from the dead guards here, and are getting organized to take the town.” Kamen looked pointedly at the group’s weapons.

  Carver waved Bermudez aside and got unsteadily to his feet. “Just give me one of those pistols, mate,” he said to Jason with his old raffish smile. “I’ve still got one good arm.”

  Jason looked around at the faces of humans from two different centuries—the soldiers of Queen Victoria and the soldiers of the Confederal Republic of Earth—and saw nothing to discourage him. Even Mondrago was functioning—maybe as a robot for now, but, Jason was certain, a deadly robot.

  He shook off his physical and emotional exhaustion and hefted his battle rifle. “What are we waiting for?”

  Evening had fallen by the time the fighting was over. As expected, resistance had been light, for few armed and trained Transhumanist soldier-caste types had survived the orbital strikes. For the most part, it had been more a matter of trying to prevent the unarmed ones from escaping into the countryside. In this, they hadn’t been altogether successful. But now the town was theirs, and the ex-slaves wandered the now-quiet streets in a daze, still adjusting to the fact that they really were ex-slaves.

  A large building in the town’s center must have been the governmental headquarters, for it held a conference room whose wall featured the symbol of the Transhuman Dispensation: a hand holding aloft a sword whose blade impaled the DNA double helix. Or rather it had featured it, for the rampaging liberated slaves had smashed the bas-relief into unrecognizability. The entire chamber was pockmarked by laser burns and marred by bloodstains but it was still usable. And now an ad hoc organizing committee met there. Besides Jason and Rojas, the three British sergeants were present, and so was Ari Kamen and two assistants—a twenty-fourth-century archaeologist and an 1880s North American rancher—he had co-opted to help him now in the absence of Captain Southwick, who had been his right-hand man.

  Mondrago was also there. He was, to all appearances, functioning normally. Indeed, anyone who knew him less well than Jason did would not have noticed that there was anything missing in his eyes. The wiseass was dead.

  By now, Jason had related the entire story, and explained everything. He came to the end, hoarse and in need of Scotch. At first, there was silence around the table.

  “So,” Kamen finally said, “now that you and all your people—all the surviving ones, that is—are together here, you can flick your group back to the twenty-fourth century at any time?”

  “Just by thinking it,” muttered Carver to no one in particular, shaking his head.

  “Right. As I’ve told you, my original intention had been to get you and as many of your people as possible aboard our ship, which had its own TRD.” Although God knows how we would have made the selection, Jason reflected. “But now, of course, with the ship gone . . .”

  “And by the same token,” said Hazeltine, “you can’t get us back to Earth.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “And not us, neither,” added the rancher.

  “No, I can’t. In addition to our ship, the Transhumanist slave transport was destroyed. They were the only deep-space vessels here.” And therefore, Jason thought drearily, they had to be destroyed, because history does not include any people returning to late nineteenth-century Earth with the knowledge you now possess. As always, reality protects itself—no matter who has to get hurt or die in the process. “So you people from the nineteenth century are also here for good. And . . .” Before he could stop himself, his eyes went to Rojas, and instantly slid away.

  But she smiled. “Don’t look embarrassed, Jason. I understand. I know you tried—how you tried!—but my fate was sealed the moment Stoneman brought me back to this time without a TRD. I know I’m stranded here. But that’s all right. In fact . . .” She turned to Kamen. “We’re all stuck here on this planet together. We have to start our own colony. I’ll do all I can to help. And thanks to Chantal we’ve got something left here to work with.”

  “That’s true,” said Kamen, nodding. “The utilities here are still more or less functioning—we’ve got drinking water, and electric power in most areas, and I think it can be restored in the others. And the mines and the agricultural fields are untouched.”

  “And we have something more important than that. We have a purpose!” Rojas’ voice grew vibrant. “We know what the Transhumanists intended to do by planting this colony: create an ally that would seem to appear out of nowhere from beyond the frontier sometime shortly in the future that we came from. Well, we can do exactly the same thing!” She turned to Jason, her dark eyes blazing. “So sometime after your time in the linear present, Jason—it has to be afterwards, the Observer Effect requires that—a new civilization is indeed going to appear. But that civilization—the whole culture that we and our descendants build here—will have a tradition of hatred for the Transhumanists! Its foundation-myth will tell it that it is descended from people enslaved by them. It will be an ally for the true humans of Earth.” She turned back to Kamen and the others. “We can lay the foundation for that. The Transhumanists planted the seeds of their own destruction by bringing us here. We can do it!”

  Yes, I believe you can do it, thought Jason, staring at her. And I think I have a pretty good idea who is going to end up as leader here.

  McCready spoke up. “You’re going to need a militia. We and our men can help with that.”

  “Right,” Carver put in brightly. “We’ll get ’em on parade!” But then he and his two fellow sergeants gave Rojas a slightly odd look, as though they still found something just a bit incongruous about a woman in a leadership role who was not the Queen.

  You’ll get used to it, Jason thought with an inner chuckle. You’d better!

  Through it all, Jason’s brain implant had continued with idiot savant single-mindedness to keep the time on Zirankhu for him to summon up at will. So he knew it was now daylight at the longitude of the outdoor displacer stage there, allowing them to arrive there without the psychic disorientation of materialization in darkness. There was no further need for delay.

  Jason, Mondrago, Armasova and Bermudez stood in the glare of the lights (this was one of the areas where the electricity worked) and said their final goodbyes. When Jason came to the trio of British sergeants he gave particularly firm handshakes. “Good luck with that militia of yours. You should be kept busy by the surviving Transhumanists who got away. They’ll be skulking up there in the hills. And remember, they’re stranded here too; Stoneman said they were displaced without TRDs.”

  Kamen overheard him, and frowned. “That reminds me of something, Commander. I haven’t mentioned it before, but it’s something you might want to know. The colonists here are fanatics who voluntarily stranded themselves in the past. But they told us that it isn’t always voluntary.”

&nb
sp; “What do you mean?”

  “A standard punishment for disloyal or incompetent members of the Transhumanist underground is temporal exile. They’re sent back to some particularly dangerous and unpleasant time and place in Earth’s history with no TRD, to survive as best they can with no preparation, orientation, equipment, or anything except period clothes, and with whatever bionics they possess deactivated.”

  “What?” Jason stared at him. “You mean the Transhumanists are so irresponsible that they—”

  “Their feeling is that the Observer Effect will prevent these exiles from changing history, so there’s no danger.”

  “Maybe there’s something to that. But still . . .!” My God, if I’m this shocked, how will Rutherford react when I tell him these exiles are scattered through the past?

  Mondrago spoke thoughtfully. “It must be a very effective threat to hold over their underlings. The idea of having to live under primitive conditions, on the same footing as the Pugs around them, with no advantages except those that their genetic upgrades give them, has to be horrifying. And I can just imagine some of the milieus they get dropped into. Nanking just before the Japanese took it, maybe.”

  “I can think of a few myself. Remember, I’ve seen the Thirty Years’ War and the Fourth Crusade’s sack of Constantinople.” Jason turned to Kamen. “This is something whose implications we’re going to have to think about long and hard. Ari, thank you for the information.” Jason shook hands with him, and finally turned to Rojas. “Elena, I don’t suppose I’ll ever be able to look at the night sky without thinking of your descendants here on Drakar.”

  “No!” she said sharply. “Not ‘Drakar.’ Don’t ever call it that.”

  “You’re right,” he said contritely. “You people will have to come up with a new name for this planet.”

  “Yes.” She turned to face Kamen and the other former slaves. “And I intend to urge—as strongly as possible—that we name it ‘Frey.’”

  Is this something you need to do—a way of making amends for having unfairly distrusted her? Jason wondered. I don’t know. You probably don’t know yourself. But it doesn’t matter. Your motives are irrelevant. The point is, it’s totally right.

  “I think that’s very appropriate,” he said aloud. “I also think she’ll figure prominently in that ‘foundation-myth’ you mentioned.” He took one last look around at the people he was leaving behind, then took his position with Mondrago and the two commandos. “Farewell.”

  He composed his mind to the state of concentration required to give a mental command.

  “Hey,” the irrepressible Bermudez suddenly piped up, “you’ll also need a name for this town. How about naming it after that water-carrier? What was his name, anyway?”

  McCready opened his mouth to reply. But by then the neural command Jason had given was irreversible. Reality dissolved like a dream and, after an interval that could have been either eternity or instantaneity, reformed. And the four of them stood on a great displacer-circle with HC-4 9701 shining overhead. The Xinkhan Desert of Zirankhu stretched away to the horizon in all directions.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  “So Mario McGillicuddy is still on Earth, eh?” asked Jason, taking a swig of dugugkh and handing the bottle back to Lizh’Ku with a shudder.

  “Yes,” said the aged Zirankh’shi. “He told me he would be there in rehabilitation for a while after his arm was regrown. But he also assured me he’d be back.”

  “He told me that too. I’m afraid he was probably telling the truth.” Jason shook his head and chuckled.

  There was a delay while Narendra Patel arranged transportation back to Earth for him and Mondrago. Jason had decided to make use of the enforced wait to keep a certain promise. So he had made his way to Lizh’Ku’s shack, carefully avoiding bumping his head as he entered. And now Lizh’Ku reminded him of that promise.

  “But surely you have a marvelous tale to tell me, of your adventures since we last saw each other,” he prompted, his tapering whitish-furred snout twitching with curiosity and his huge old eyes bright. Behind him, Luzho’Yuzho sat with writing materials at the ready.

  “That’s right. I promised that you’d be the first to hear the story if I lived through it. I also told you that it would put a strain on your ability to believe strange yarns.” Jason retrieved the bottle, pleasurably imagining the stroke Rutherford would have if he knew some of the things that he, Jason, was about to reveal. To hell with him. I owe this being. He launched into the story, sometimes resorting to awkward circumlocutions in order to get certain concepts across. At first Lizh’Ku passed things on in translation to Luzho’Yuzho, but eventually he stopped and just listened.

  By the time Jason was finished, night had fallen on Khankhazh and he was beginning to think one might get used to drinking dugugkh. Eventually. Maybe. As for Lizh’Ku, he sat silently for so long that Jason began to wonder if he had gone to sleep. But then his nictitating membranes shuttered open and his eyes held a twinkle.

  “Thank you for the wonders you have shared with me. There’s only one problem: when Luzho’Yuzho writes this narrative, no one will believe him!”

  Jason grinned. “There’s an individual named Rutherford who would be very relieved to hear you say that.”

  He was still thinking of that exchange three weeks later, as he and Mondrago faced Rutherford across the desk in his Australian office.

  The full report of the expedition, including the audio and video record of Jason’s implant, had been delivered and studied. It had given the Authority a great deal to think about, and Rutherford was still trying to assimilate its implications. When he spoke, he took refuge in the immediate and the concrete.

  “You’ll be pleased to learn, Jason, that on the basis of your report the idea of disbanding the Special Operations Section has been dropped. Indeed, Councilor Kung has been going about declaring that he has always been strongly in favor of the Section, and that its successes—including that of this latest expedition—have always been due to the inspiration he has provided with his unswerving support and charismatic leadership.”

  “Of course,” said Jason tonelessly. Mondrago’s face was absolutely expressionless.

  Rutherford cleared his throat. “The Section may be more essential than ever, now that we know of the Transhumanists’ nefarious practice of exiling their transgressing personnel in the past. Of course, they can’t do this with any of the obvious cyborgs—only with those that are, to all outward appearances, human. And I gather that any internal bionics are removed or neutralized. But the fact remains that there are—or, rather, were—interlopers in the past with various genetic upgrades. Stronger, quicker . . .” His voice trailed off and his expression grew stricken as he contemplated the possibilities.

  “As Ari Kamen told me, they’re counting on the Observer Effect to prevent any unintended consequences,” Jason reminded him. “Of course, we consider it irresponsible to rely on it that way. But if there’s any truth to our theories, anything these exiles do in the past has always been part of the past.” A thought occurred to him. “It might be worthwhile investigating some exceptional individuals known to history, especially those whose origins are mysterious.”

  Rutherford’s eyes went wide, for he immediately grasped what Jason was driving at.

  Mondrago spoke up, for the first time. “If we can locate any of these people in the past, they might be turned into sources of intel for us. After all, they can’t be too favorably disposed toward the Underground, after what it’s done to them.”

  “The idea has distinct possibilities, and will be taken under consideration,” Rutherford approved, still looking shaken. Then he resumed in his earlier desperately matter-of-fact vein. “And now I suppose we can tell the IDRF—and the Deep-Space Fleet, if necessary—that it is all right to go ahead and destroy the Transhumanists’ temporal displacer installation on Planet A, as we’re calling it.”

  Jason leaned forward and spoke sharply. “I strongly advise agai
nst that.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Don’t you see, Kyle? Stoneman told me that his slave-catching expedition in 1897 was their last visit to the Drakar colony, and that it was a one-way trip, made without TRDs. In other words, the Transhumanists in our era aren’t expecting him back. So they have no way of knowing that their colony came to grief. Hell, they don’t even have any way of knowing that we were there—or, for that matter that we know about the colony, or about their displacer.

  “But if we destroy the displacer, they’ll know that at the very least we know about it. And they’ll have to wonder how much more we know—and how much we may have done.

  “No. Let’s leave their displacer alone and let them think they’ve gotten away with planting their colony. They’ll just continue to leave that planet alone, for the reasons Stoneman gave me.”

  “Hmm. Yes, I see your point. Let them keep expecting to have the support of a highly developed colony of Drakar on The Day, when in reality . . .” Rutherford’s eyes took on a faraway look. “To think, the colony of Frey is out there, not quite fourteen light-years beyond our frontier, and has been there since just before the turn of the twentieth century without our knowing it! One can’t help wondering what sort of cultural amalgamation has evolved there. To take just one example, they’re descended from nineteenth-century Christians, Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, plus the full range of twenty-fourth-century beliefs. What kind of religious fusion—or fusions—will they have developed in the course of almost five centuries?”

  “That time-span brings up something else,” said Jason grimly. “Think about it. The Teloi battlestation was destroyed in the Solar System in 1669. Two hundred and twenty-eight years later Odin’s warship, following its course and trying to find out what had happened to it, came to the system of Drakar, or rather Frey—and then it was destroyed. As you’ve pointed out, that was almost five hundred years ago.”