by Timothy Zahn
It was dark inside the wing, but there was enough light coming in from somewhere for me to make out the details of the fuel tanks and piping and all. It was eerily quiet, of course—vision on Jumps is as crystal clear as if we'd brought our physical retinas back in time with us, but there's no sound or other sensory input whatsoever. Like being wrapped in soundproof plastic, Kristin had once described it. For me it was just one more macabre touch amid the general unpleasantness.
I floated around inside the wing for several minutes, keeping a close watch for anything that might precede the explosion about to take place. From the settings the operators had made I knew I'd have fifteen minutes before the engine caught fire, but time sense distortion was a normal part of Jumping and I didn't want to be caught unawares. I'd been tethered to the right inboard engine pylon, the tether length adjusted to let me get nearly out to the outboard engine in one direction or to the fuselage in the other. The tether was even more of a witchgadget than most of the Banshee equipment as a whole, consisting mainly of a charged electrical lead attached to a specific spot on a scale model of whatever your target vehicle or building was. With a tether in place a Jumper would stick with that piece of metal or wood or plasterboard through hell and high water; without it, there was no way to hold your position even in a stationary building.
The experts could just barely explain the mechanism. The rest of us didn't bother trying.
I was just starting to drift toward the engine itself when the Ping-Pong ball caught my eye.
I'd poked around planes like this one a lot during my time with Banshee and in some ways knew more about them than their designers did; and I was pretty sure there weren't supposed to be Ping-Pong balls floating around inside the fuel lines. Maneuvering around in front of it, I leaned in for a closer look... and it was then that I saw that the ball wasn't alone. A dozen more were coming down the line toward the right inboard engine, and a quick check showed that two or three more were already clustered up against the engine intake itself.
There had been a lot of times I'd wished I could touch something on a Jump, and this was one of them. But there was still a lot I could learn with vision alone. The balls were coated with something waxy looking—a gasoline-soluble paraffin, most likely. They were smaller than regulation Ping-Pong balls, too, small enough to have been dropped into the plane's fuel intake or perhaps even hosed in through the nozzle along with the fuel.
I settled down near the engine, watching the balls clustered there, and waited for the clock to tick down... and suddenly the balls began spouting clouds of bubbles. I had just enough time to notice that flickers of flame were starting to dance at the balls' surfaces when the whole thing blew up in front of me.
For a second I lost control, and an instant later had snapped back behind the wing to the full length of my tether. The trail of smoke Morgan and Hale had mentioned was coming out of the engine. In a handful of seconds the engine would explode and everyone aboard would die... and if I ended the Jump right now, I wouldn't have to watch it happen.
I stayed anyway. White House cartes blanches or not, someone was shelling out a quarter of a million dollars for this trip. They might as well get their money's worth.
Morgan had been right; it wasn't nearly as bad as some I'd seen. The right inboard engine caught fire and blew up on schedule, sending pieces of itself through the air toward me. I ducked in unnecessary reflex and watched as the rest of the wing caught fire, blazing more fiercely than it had any right to. The plane tilted violently, but for the moment the wing and the pylon I was tethered to were still attached and I stayed with it. Then the wing just seemed to disintegrate... and as I fell behind the plane with the tumbling debris I watched it arc almost lazily down toward the tree-covered slope ahead.
And coming to Earth far behind the crash site, there was no longer any reason for me to stay. I let go of the past, wishing as always that I could just as easily release the trauma of what I'd just seen; and a disoriented moment later, I was back on the couch.
The operators unstrapped me and began removing the tubes and wires.... and as my eyes and brain refocused I became aware of Kristin's face hovering over me. "Kristin," I croaked, trying to get moisture back into my mouth. My eyes were just the opposite: they were streaming freely. I turned my head to the side, feeling an obscure embarrassment at her seeing me like this.
If Kristin noticed, she gave no sign of it. "Griff sent me to get you," she said. "He wants all of us in his office right away."
I blinked away the tears; and even as I struggled to sit up I noticed the tightness about her eyes. Still mad at me, I decided... until I realized her eyes were focused off in space somewhere. "Is anything wrong?"
She licked her lips briefly. "I don't know, but something sure as blazes is happening. Griff and Shaeffer have been closeted up there since you left for your Jump... and Griff wasn't sounding too good when he told me to come get you."
I swallowed, hard, and concentrated on getting my blood up to speed again. With Kristin supporting me, we were upstairs in Griff's office five minutes later.
She was right: the whole gang was there... and one look at Griffs and Shaeffer's stony faces set my stomach churning. Something had indeed happened... I looked at Griff, but it was Shaeffer who spoke. "Your report, Mr. Sinn?" His voice matched his expression.
I gave it to him without elaboration, describing as best I could the Ping-Pong balls in the fuel line and the way they'd behaved. Shaeffer listened like a man who already had the answers and was merely looking for some confirmation, and when I'd finished he nodded. "The searchers on the scene already came to pretty much the same conclusion," he said grimly. "Catalyst bombs, sounds like—gadgets that get the fuel and the degraded fragments of flame retardant to react together."
"Never heard of them," Rennie said.
"They're not exactly on-shelf technology. We've developed a type or two, and there are maybe two or three other countries doing similar work. That could be a blunder on the saboteur's part—exotic equipment makes any trail easier to trace. All right, Mr. Sinn, thank you." He took a deep breath, looked around at each of us in turn... and his expression seemed to get a little stonier. "And here now is where we get to the sticky part. I imagine you've been wondering why I came to Banshee in person instead of directing your investigation from Washington. It's because I want you to do something I don't believe you've ever tried before. Something—I'll say this up front—that could turn out to be dangerous." He paused, and the tip of his tongue swiped at his upper lip. "I've read everything President Jeffers ever received on Banshee, and he and I both noted with a great deal of interest that you've been... seen... on more than one occasion by the people you've been observing."
Kristin shifted in her seat... and a horrible suspicion began to drift like a storm cloud across my mind.
"Now, tell me," Shaeffer continued, sweeping his gaze across us Jumpers, "did any of you, during your Jumps the past few hours, ever get a look inside Air Force One itself?"
Hale, Morgan, and I exchanged glances, shook our heads. "That why Griff set the tethers so short?" Morgan asked. "So we couldn't get inside?"
A flicker of surprise crossed the rock that was Shaeffer's expression. "I hadn't expected you to notice," he said. "Yes, that's precisely why I had Dr. Mansfield set them that way. You see... as of yet, the searchers at the crash site have located only a few of the bodies from the wreckage. It occurred to me early on that due to an unusual set of circumstances back at the President's retreat no outsiders actually saw him get onto that plane. And now you've told me that none of you have seen him there, either.
"Which means... perhaps he never was aboard to begin with."
A brittle silence settled, vise-like, around the table. "Are you suggestin'," Morgan said at last, "that you want us to go back there and change the past?"
His sentence ended on a whispered hiss. I looked back at Shaeffer, and to me it was abundantly clear that he knew exactly what it was he was suggest
ing... and that he was just as scared about it as the rest of us were.
But it was equally clear he was also determined not to let those fears stand in his way. "There's nothing of changing the past about it," he said firmly. "We don't know—none of us do—exactly what happened on that flight. If we don't know what the past is, how can we be changing it?"
" 'If a tree falls alone in the forest, is there any sound?' " Hale put in icily. "Do you have any idea what will happen if we meddle like this?"
"No—and neither do you," Shaeffer replied. "Face it, people, no one knows what changing even a known fact of history would mean. A known fact, notice, which is not what we're talking about doing here."
"Oh, aren't we?" Hale retorted. "All right, fine—let's assume for the moment that somehow we keep President Jeffers out of Air Force One. It's been over six hours now since the crash. Are you going to try and tell us that he and his whole Secret Service detachment have been sitting around listening to the news and no one's bothered to pick up a phone to let the world know he's still alive? Come on, now, let's be serious. We keep Jeffers out of the plane and we've changed history—pure and simple."
"Maybe not," Shaeffer said stubbornly. "It's possible he could be lying low while the crash is being checked out. Especially if sabotage is a possibility, he might want to give the perpetrators a false sense of security. You might recall that for days after the Libyan raid back in 1986 Quaddafi disappeared—"
Hale snorted. "Jeffers wouldn't duck and hide, and you know it. That shoot-from-the-hip style of his was practically his trademark."
"Maybe lying low wasn't his idea," Shaeffer snapped. "Maybe someone persuaded him to do so."
I felt my hands start to tremble. "Shaeffer... are you saying you've been in touch with him?"
Kristin caught her breath and murmured something inaudible. But Shaeffer shook his head. "No, of course not. Do you think I want to risk frogging up your chances by contacting someone out there?"
"But if you call and find that he's there—" Rennie began.
"And if he isn't, then that's it," Shaeffer snapped back. "Right?" He glared around at all of us.
Morgan cleared his throat. "Mr. Shaeffer, we all of us understand how you feel 'bout... what's happened to President Jeffers. But denyin' the facts isn't gonna—"
"What 'facts,' Mr. Portland?" Shaeffer cut him off. "We have no facts at this point—just speculations and possibilities."
I looked at Griff, who had yet to say a word. "Griff...?"
"Yes, Griff, say something, will you?" Hale cut in. "Explain things to this idiot. Or has the wow-value of the big-city bureaucrat short-circuited your ability to think straight?"
Griff cocked an eyebrow, but that was the extent of his reaction to Hale's harshness. "If you're asking whether or not I'm going along with Mr. Shaeffer's idea, the answer is a qualified and cautious yes. We're talking about the chance to save a man's life here."
"Oh, for God's sake," Hale snarled, his eyes flicking around the table once before returning to Griff. "Will you for one minute look past the lure of a real budget and think about what we're being asked to do here? We're being asked to change the past—Shaeffer's weaseling phrases be damned, that's what's really at stake here. Don't you care what that might mean?"
For a moment Griff gazed steadily back at him. "Certainly, Hale, you have a point," he said at last. "Certainly this could prove dangerous. But have any of you stopped to consider the other side of the coin? If there's a single factor that consistently shows up on your psych evaluations, it's the frustrations Banshee creates in you—the stress of seeing disasters you can't do anything to prevent. Denials: anyone?"
I glanced around the table even as I realized that, for me, all further arguments were moot. The chance to save a life that would otherwise be lost—a life whose loss was filling an entire nation with grief and pain—was all the motivation I needed.
Besides which, Griff happened to be right. All of us hated the helplessness we felt during Jumps; hated it with a passion. If we really could do something about the disasters we had to witness...
"So," Griff continued after a moment. "Then consider what we've got here: a chance to see whether or not the past can be safely changed. Doesn't that seem like something worth taking a little risk to find out?"
"And if it leads to disaster?" Hale demanded. "What then? It doesn't matter a damn how pure or noble our motives were if we screw things up royally. I say we just forget the whole idea and—"
"Mr. Fortness, you're relieved of duty," Shaeffer said quietly.
The words came so suddenly and with such conviction behind them that it took a moment for me to register the fact that the man giving the order had no authority to do so. An instant later everyone else seemed to catch on to that fact, too, and the awkward silence suddenly went rigid. "Someone die and leave you boss?" Hale growled scornfully.
"That's enough, Hale," Griff said quietly. "Go back to your room."
From the looks on the other's faces it appeared they were as flabbergasted as Hale was. "Griff—you don't mean—" Kristin began.
Griff looked at her, and she fell silent. The awkward silence resumed as Hale got up from the table, face set in stone, and left the room. I half expected him to slam the door on his way out, but he apparently was still too stunned by it all to be thinking in terms of theatrics. Griff let the silence hang in the air another couple of seconds before looking back at Kristin. "I believe, Kristin," he said, "that the next Jump is yours. I know it's getting late, but I'd appreciate it if you'd try anyway. If you feel up to it, that is."
A muscle twitched in Kristin's cheek as she threw a glance at Shaeffer's tight face and stood up. "I'll try, Griff. Sure. Shall I go downstairs and start getting prepped?"
"Please. I'll be there shortly to set the tether and slot coordinates and see you off."
She nodded and left the room. Shaeffer watched her go, then turned back to lock Morgan, Rennie, and me into a searchlight gaze. "I realize that in a tight-knit organization like Banshee strangers like me are not especially welcome," he said, his soft voice underlaid with steel. "But at the moment I don't give a nickel damn about your feelings. We have less than sixty-six hours to get President Jeffers off that plane and into temporary hiding; and the longer it takes us, the greater the danger of exactly the sort of thing happening that you've all voiced concerns about." He paused, as if waiting to see if any of us would follow Hale's lead. But we said nothing, and after a moment Shaeffer turned to Griff. "All right, Dr. Mansfield. Let's get started."
—
"Now remember," Shaeffer said, leaning close to Kristin as if she were asleep or deaf or both. "You go right up in front of the President's face and hover there where he can see you—don't get out of his sight. If he doesn't seem to see you, or else ignores you, come back and we'll try again. Under no circumstances are you to stay long enough to see him climb up the steps to the plane. Understand?"
I half expected Kristin to remind him that this was the third replay of these same instructions and that she'd caught them all the first time around. But she merely nodded and closed her eyes. Griff gave the high sign, and with the usual flickering of lights she was gone.
Taking a deep breath, I moved away from Griff and Shaeffer, lingering by the two-foot model of Air Force One and the tiny model limo that now sat on the table beside it. The tether lead's alligator clip was attached to the limo; Shaeffer was pushing this contact as far back as he reasonably could, all the way back to the President's drive to the landing field. Passing the models, I kept going, heading for the rows of equipment cabinets at the building's west end. My father had always gone for a walk in the woods when he needed to think through a particularly knotty problem, and during my two years at Banshee I'd discovered that the maze of gray cabinets back here was an adequate substitute. I hoped the magic still worked. Upstairs, half an hour ago, I'd made my decision... but with Shaeffer's pep talk beginning to fade, things no longer looked nearly so clear cut. Th
e greatest good for the greatest number, and attention paid whenever possible to the individual; those were the rules I'd been taught as a child, the standards against which I'd always measured my actions. But to make such judgments required information and wisdom... and I could find nothing in past experience that seemed to apply to this case.
How was I supposed to weigh the pain and suffering that could be caused by changing the past?
"Hello, Adam."
I jerked out of my reverie and spun around. Rennie stood there, leaning against one of the computer cabinets, arms crossed negligently across his chest. Blocking my way out.
I made a conscious effort to unclench my teeth. "Rennie," I said with a curt nod. "You taken to wandering the Banshee room, too?"
"Hardly," he sniffed. "I just noticed you head back here and thought I'd see what Banshee's own little White Knight was up to."
I felt my teeth clamp together again. I'd hoped a year might have changed Rennie at least a little, but it was becoming clear that it hadn't. "Just looking for a little peace and quiet," I told him shortly. "If you'll excuse me—"
"Must be a great thrill for you," he continued, as if I hadn't spoken. "A chance to save a real person from real death—why, I'll bet you're so happy about it you haven't even bothered to consider that you might skewer a few billion innocent people on your lance in the process."
"If you're talking about Hale's rantings, yes, I'm aware of the risks involved. You can also drop that 'White Knight' business any time."
He radiated innocence. "You're the one who tagged yourself with that title—or had you forgotten? The White Knight: defender of the lame, guardian of the helpless, picker-up of those fallen flat on their faces—"
"Do you have something to say?" I interrupted. "If not, you're invited to step aside."