Analog SFF, July-August 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The young man studied Gordon's face a long time and then nodded at what he read there. “A noble and lonely quest, Mr. Redcliff. May Allah in his wisdom help you find it. I am Harith. May I call you Gordon?"

  "Yes."

  "This is an English name, correct? Gordon?"

  "Yes,” he answered. “It is English."

  "I'm curious about something. If your mother thought the Arabs evil, whatever must she have thought of the English?"

  "Please do not be offended, Harith, but you are still too young to hear what my mother thought of the English,” he answered. Harith laughed.

  "Then how came you by the name?"

  "My father. That was before he left us and went to live in Los Angeles to become a Hollywood Indian. It was the night I was born. Never met the man until I was eighteen. Before I reported for the Army I went to Los Angeles, looked him up, and asked him why he named me Gordon. He said he got it from an old movie, Flash Gordon."

  "What?” Harith said disbelievingly.

  "He said my mother told him that when I was born she would charge me with defeating all evil that exists. Flash Gordon, he said, defeated evil and saved the universe. Then my father laughed at me and went to work. He was playing the role of an Oglala Lakota chief named Red Cloud. That was the only time I ever saw him, except in the movies.” Gordon smiled. “My father was from Bear Enemies People in Santa Clara. Chief Red Cloud spoke his Lakota with a Tewa accent."

  Harith smiled. “Take care of my boss, Gordon Redcliff. He is a very good man of great vision."

  "I will do my best. Take care of your back. In case we don't make it back according to plan, we are going to need some big help."

  Harith winced as he held out his right hand. Gordon took it. “Good luck, Gordon Redcliff. Allah willing, may you find what you seek."

  * * * *

  Inside the capsule, Dr. Taleghani introduced Gordon to the T-span operator. Mehmet Abdel Hashim had a jutting chin, brilliant white teeth, a flowing black pompadour, and the immature beginnings of a beard and mustache. The young pilot eagerly adjusted instruments mounted into the metal hull and checked calculations while Gordon and Dr. Taleghani, unobserved by others at the camp, loaded and stowed the supplies they'd need for their stay. Once the supplies were loaded, there was little to do but wait. Gordon decided to try qualifying the archeologist on a few weapons. He took his leather knapsack containing the .38, shockcomb, and ammo, slung the Detz, and brought the archeologist out into the dunes to practice on a makeshift target made from pasteboard.

  At a range of three hundred meters, Gordon put the eye out of a mouse in a pest control advert he fixed onto the cardboard with a bit of tape. He put two more shots through the same hole and proclaimed Harith's zeroing of the weapon adequate. Dr. Taleghani wouldn't even consider touching the rifle. They moved up to ten meters and Gordon reached into the bag for the .38 and a box of ammunition.

  They only used up four rounds before Gordon called a halt to the exercise for health reasons. Dr. Taleghani was becoming a nervous wreck as Gordon tried to get him not to shake, not to close his eyes, to look at the target through the iron sights, and slowly squeeze the trigger all at the same time. On the last two shots Taleghani was still shaking but now more violently and also had his face turned away from the target besides having his eyes tightly closed. In addition, the safest place on the desert that day appeared to be right in front of that piece of cardboard. Other than the original zeroing shots, it had suffered not a single perforation. Looking down at the cardboard, Dr. Taleghani said ashamedly, “I will hear no comments about electric shavers!"

  "I wasn't going to say a thing,” said Gordon. “But I think I understand why Harith included a particular weapon in our inventory. It's called a shockcomb."

  "It sounds a terror."

  "No sound to it, Doctor. Nothing jumps, nothing explodes, no recoil."

  "It sounds promising,” acknowledged the archeologist.

  Gordon went to his knapsack, replaced the .38 and the box of shells, and removed what looked like a silver comb with a greenish pistol grip. He held it up toward the archeologist. “This is a shockcomb. A hearing-sensitive, brain-damaged, spastic neurotic with advanced glaucoma and a migraine could fire expertly using this thing."

  "Despite the unfortunate characterization, I've never seen anything like it,” said the doctor, taking it from Gordon's hand. “It's incredibly light."

  "The same technology that produced the T-span makes the shockcomb possible. There's no real metal to it. Last I heard, it's classified. If I really was in US Intelligence, I'd be real curious where Harith obtained this."

  "The boy is quite resourceful. What does it do?"

  "I only did a familiarization course with one of these. Technically it shuffles or compresses selected time-space, briefly allowing whoever operates it to move, change things, or escape unobserved. In brief: aim, pull the trigger, and run like hell. To the observer, you look like you vanished when what you've actually done is slow the observer down. In another mode you actually do vanish. We only have one of these."

  "What will you use?"

  "I'll take the .38 and the rifle. Back to your weapon, Doctor. Besides minor space-time puckers, at extreme settings a shockcomb can kill. See that switch? The weapon has a focused range of twenty meters and a spherical range of almost three meters."

  Dr. Taleghani held up a hand. “Focused? Spherical?"

  "Yes. If you want to move someone else in limited space-time, use focused mode.” He touched the switch illuminating a tiny white light. “To move yourself through limited space-time, use spherical. It literally places you on the edge of an alternate dimension for a nanosecond, which will seem to you like anywhere from five seconds to half an hour, depending on the intensity. It picks you up and puts you down up to six hundred meters away."

  "So, is this is a matter transmitter? I thought science had taken a vote and decided this was impossible."

  "Next you'll be telling me the Earth orbits the Sun, Doctor. Actually, it is more of an interdimensional matter hitchhiker rather than a transmitter. Regardless, in spherical mode make certain you don't have part of someone else within range when you pull that trigger. Whatever's in range goes; whatever isn't stays. Messy.” Pointing to another switch below the first, he said, “This is the intensity switch.” Indicating the color-coded settings, he showed the positions for safety, space-time movement, and killing. “Remember to check your switches before pulling that trigger.” He set the selector switch to spherical and the intensity switch to red.

  "What's that?"

  "Suicide,” answered Gordon. He turned the intensity switch down to the 10 on the indicator. “Here. Stand close."

  Frowning, the archeologist stood next to Gordon, who aimed the comb at the piece of cardboard. “See our old target?"

  "Yes.” Gordon pulled the trigger and the cardboard, apparently, vanished. “Where is it?"

  "Look down."

  Dr. Taleghani looked down and they were standing on the cardboard. “Amazing!” He looked up at Gordon.

  "That was spherical mode. Let's try focused.” He adjusted the switches, handed the weapon to the archeologist, and began walking away. When he was fifteen meters from the archeologist, Gordon turned and faced him. He held out his arms. “Very well, Doctor. Aim, fire, and move."

  Dr. Taleghani aimed at Gordon, pulled the trigger, and seemed to vanish. From behind him, Gordon heard the archeologist say, “I like it!"

  They tried it out a few more times, then Gordon turned off the weapon and placed it back in his pack. “One thing more: each assembled shockcomb has a standby function that, unless it is reset every so often, makes it fire on its own: high energy in extreme tight spherical mode."

  "It puckers itself out of existence?” said Taleghani, holding out his hands. “For what possible reason?"

  "If an absent-minded professor, for instance, left one of these things out in the timestream, what might happen?"

  The docto
r's eyebrows arched. “Well, with no effort at all, whoever found it could become a wizard, always supposing he didn't kill himself first.” His expression changed to one of confusion. He said in a very quiet voice, “What's the point of the thing if they never allow anyone out of a capsule?"

  "The weapon design preceded the regulations, Doctor. However once they saw what it could do, the powers that be decided to keep it and use it. I have it set for seventy-two hours."

  "How does it recharge?” asked Dr. Taleghani.

  "Just turn it off and leave it out in the sun,” said Gordon. “Next to a hot fire will do even better."

  "I'm feeling much better about my contribution to our chances of survival, Gordon. Much better."

  "Want to make another try at that .38? Never hurts to have a backup."

  "Don't be absurd,” answered the archeologist.

  * * * *

  Just before departure early that evening, representatives of the International Temporal Span Authority, the consortium, the media, and the staff of Site Safar were in attendance, along with the head of Egyptian antiquities, representatives of the Egyptian and Libyan governments, and Mehmet's father. Captain Mansouri was even there, a frown hanging above the cigar stub stuffed in his face. Security this time, however, was courtesy of the Egyptian army. A company of regulars ringed the gantry and stood posts among the crowd while two more companies surrounded the entire site making certain there were no unwelcome publicity seekers, bomb-tossing or otherwise. Anything planning to cross above the site closer than fifty kilometers in altitude would be fried from the sky, according to the air force general who was attending.

  There were television cameras and politicians, hence there had to be speeches. Both governments were in trouble with their peoples, and the Safar Project's time span would be the farthest reach into the past that had ever been authorized. Perhaps the romance of this possible brush with another era might take peoples’ minds off the violence, sickness, and want stalking the streets of both countries’ cities.

  In the blinding light cast by the TV and excavation floods, Dr. Taleghani waved and said a few cryptic words of farewell into the PA system—words that would be much less cryptic when the archeologist presented his living fossil Neo-Squanto to the world. Gordon wondered what their visitor would make of this sight, these people, these times, and what they would have to do to get the fellow to come along with them. They hadn't talked about kidnapping, although the original Squanto had to be taken by force.

  Harith Fayadh was at the edge of the small crowd, being helped by one of the European archeology students, a blond fellow wearing white shorts, a faded yellow tee shirt, and a bleached straw cowboy hat. Harith wore only the white ankle-length dishdashah. Gordon nodded at Harith and the young fellow nodded back, revealing nothing by his expression save disappointment, a bit of anxiety, and a lot of pain. Wishes and prayers for a safe journey came from this one and that one, and finally Mehmet Abdel Hashim leaned toward the sound pickup and called time. “Dimensional windows and tide wait for no man,” he quipped, causing a ripple of nervous laughter in the crowd. Mehmet's father, a tall man with his son's good looks, applauded and beamed proudly at his momentarily famous son.

  As a number of reporters shouted questions at the same time, making all of their voices unintelligible, the three climbed the black gantry stairs, entered the capsule, and Mehmet pulled shut the hatch and sealed it. The tiny crowd did not dissipate. After all, the travelers should be back in under four hours local time, as far as they knew. Just going for a peek.

  "You, Mr. Redcliff,” said Mehmet, tinting the view plates against the glare of the floodlights, “have you been out before?"

  "As a boy in Philadelphia. I got to see the signers of the Declaration of Independence."

  "What did you think?” He flipped three switches that started the large generators.

  "My friends and I thought it was a rip-off—a gyp. We wanted to see Custer's Last Stand."

  Mehmet's handsome features frowned as he looked from his gauges at Dr. Taleghani. “And you, Doctor?"

  "I too have been in a timespanner, Mehmet, much larger than this one. It was in Cairo at the university when I was a student. My friends and I also believed ourselves gypped. We were shown a lot of dust and desert with an occasional horse and rider vanishing into it. We had supposedly witnessed Muhammad's army of ten thousand on its way to persuade Mecca to submit to Islam. It could have been a cheap Hollywood production, from what little we could see."

  "What did you want to see?” asked Gordon.

  Dr. Taleghani grinned like a mischievous schoolboy. “Allah forgive us, we were Egyptian boys. We wanted to see Cleopatra."

  Mehmet grinned widely and nodded. “I personally wanted to see Nefertiti. I did, however, get to see T.E. Lawrence and his Bedouins blow up a Turkish train."

  "Was it as good as the motion picture?” asked Gordon.

  "No,” answered Mehmet. “The lighting and audio were terrible and no close-ups. Reality has much to live up to."

  Gordon nodded. “That's been my experience."

  "Very well,” Mehmet continued, “then both you barnacle-encrusted time mariners know there will be no perceptive spatial movement until we get to when we are going. Do not touch the hull once we start punching dimensions. I'll warn you when we start. Hull materials will become intensely cold. It won't be cold long enough to affect the capsule's air temperature significantly, but it will be cold enough to burn you rather severely should you be touching the wrong thing at the wrong time.” He held up a pair of thin white cotton gloves.

  "I wear these just to be safe.” He nodded toward the formed plastic couches behind which they had stowed much of their supplies. There was a pair of white cotton gloves on the center couch and the couch to their left. “You may as well be seated. In a little over thirty-eight minutes—God willing—we should have you when you want to be. Then after we unload I go back for three weeks of unmitigated grilling and endless browbeating and guilt from my father for leaving the two of you behind."

  "What if they ground you and the operation?” asked Gordon. “What happens to us?"

  "We have rather good leverage should something like grounding the T-span happen,” said Mehmet, smiling at Dr. Taleghani. “Leaving you there for three weeks or so won't affect anything in the present. Anyone you might come into contact with will most certainly be eliminated by the combination of the shockwave and the floods resulting from the Kebira impact."

  "Leaving us back there for years, however,” said Taleghani, his hands held up in innocent helplessness, “who can say what effects we might have? If we don't get picked up on time, perhaps we might just get it into our minds to strike out on our own, make a run for it, get outside the flood area, perhaps bring some of the locals with us. I fancy I'd get tired cutting meat with a stone knife and might let slip how to find iron and make things out of it. Might even have central air conditioning before long."

  "That would put a spin on that old grain of sand,” said Gordon.

  "We couldn't really do such a thing, of course,” said Dr. Taleghani. “Place all of human history and accomplishment at risk? The dynasties of Egypt? The pyramids? Unthinkable, although,” he smiled, “not unthinkable to the authorities, I trust. They'll let Mehmet return for us."

  Taleghani sat in the center couch and Gordon sat to his right. After an uneventful thirty seconds during which Mehmet stood at the wall and studied his small panel of instruments, the view plates seemed to mist. White and fuchsia vaporous streams appeared in cones extending above the cabin's overhead view plate to an infinitely distant vanishing point. “As far as those on the ground are concerned, we're gone,” Mehmet announced. He finished checking his instruments and faced them. “In a few more minutes the stage will be finished with orientation. We're not just going back a few hundred years, so there is much to calculate concerning the movement of the African plate, the movement of Earth within the movements of the solar system, galaxy, and universe
."

  "What is next?” prompted Taleghani.

  Mehmet took his place in the remaining couch, raising a small instrument panel from his left armrest. “Once we're oriented, we'll fold into the general location of the escarpment, run our time, fix our windows, then I'll steer through the arrival window neat as you please and put down where you want us to land.” Suddenly the cones of vapor vanished, revealing that the travelers were suspended high above the silica glass dunes under a full moon at night. Gordon and the archeologist got out of their couches, both of them looking down at the sands through the view plates.

  "Mehmet,” said Dr. Taleghani, momentarily backing away from the hull, “what happens if I get sick?"

  "Please don't, Doctor. Whatever isn't splattered all over you, me, and Mr. Redcliff gathers on the inside walls of the protective field. When the field collapses, the film collapses with it—all over the three of us. You must have brought some sandwich bags. If not, use a pocket."

  "It might make sense to stop looking down,” suggested Gordon.

  "I agree,” said Mehmet. “Please, Doctor. We're ranging the dimension edge. Get back in your couch and close your eyes.” As Gordon and the archaeologist returned to their couches, Mehmet's hands became busy upon the controls as flashes streaked across the sky, everything taking on a turquoise hue. “Moving back,” he said. “Very well ... Punching dimensions now. Touch no metal."

  The turquoise hue abruptly went to orange, then midnight blue. Mehmet looked at his passengers and Gordon held up his gloved hands, as did Dr. Taleghani. “Excellent. A few days per minute accelerating by levels until we're close to ten millennia per minute. That's about as fast as I can take it with this portable. As we guide in to the proper time, I'll fine tune the locater, get the exact time on that meteor impact, then we'll sort and pick the window sets we'll use."

  The view plates showed the dunes beneath began creeping, then walking, then flowing backwards across the desert as the passage of the sun and moon became a blinding river across the sky. Soon the dunes themselves became a blur, then vanished, leaving behind what appeared to be a gently hilly landscape stained ochre moving to pale green.