The Ocean of Time (46 page)

‘Urd’s breath … it’s a platform!’

We drive back through Hawthorne in silence, the radio off, each of us locked in his thoughts. In fact, it’s only when we hit Bridgeport and Highway 395 that Phil finally leans forward and, addressing Matteus, says, ‘So who are you guys? Are you agents?’

‘Agents?’

‘You know. Government.’

‘Kinda,’ Matteus says. But I’m not comfortable having Phil there. Not now that I’ve thought about it. I want to talk this through, only that’s not possible with him in the car. Or is it?

‘There’s this man,’ I say. ‘He’s a, well, I guess you’d call him a revolutionary. Name of Reichenau. He runs a sect called the
Unbeachtet
.’

‘The unnoticed,’ Phil says, surprising me again.

‘You know the word?’

‘I know the club, back home in Berkeley. You think there might be a connection?’

‘I think it’s worth checking out.’ I pause, then say, ‘D’you think you could take us there, Phil? Tonight, maybe?’

‘Sure,’ he says. ‘Only not tonight. It doesn’t open midweek. Just weekends.’

Silence falls again. We drive on a mile or two, then Phil sits back and, smoothing his hand through his new growth of beard, asks casually, ‘So what’s with the sudden darkness and the beards and …’ He laughs. ‘If this is some weird dream, then it’s really feels fucking real. I mean, I can smell the leather upholstery, hear the swish of the tyres on the road, the way the engine turns over, real smooth and quiet … You don’t normally get that kind of shit in dreams, do you?’

‘No …’ I hesitate, then. ‘You want to know the truth?’

Phil laughs uneasily. ‘I’m not sure that I do. Not if it’s like the rest of it. Oh, and what’s a platform?’

Matteus looks to me.

‘Pull over,’ I say to him. ‘Let’s talk about this.’

Matteus slows, then turns the wheel, cruising over to the right, stopping on the gently canvered embankment. He switches the engine off, then looks to me again.

‘So?’

‘I’ve decided what we’re going to do. We’re going to change it. I’ll jump back. Make it so he never came on this trip.’

‘What?’ Phil says, leaning forward. ‘What are you saying?
Change
it?’

‘Are you sure?’ Matteus says.

‘Yeah. I’ve got to go and see Hecht anyway. He’ll want to know. Unless you want to end it here?’

Phil looks twitchy at my suggestion that we’re going to ‘end it’, but I smile at him reassuringly. ‘We’re not going to harm you, Phil. Only you’re right on one count. This
is
some weird shit. You see, we’re from the future.’

Phil stares at me for a full five seconds, and then he roars with laughter. ‘Great! The way you said that, your face …’

‘No, Phil, it’s true. What you saw earlier – the platform – is one of the means by which we travel through time. Only that wasn’t one of ours. You see, we’re the good guys. We’re the Germans.’

It takes a long time to convince him, and even then I’m sure Phil thinks he’s dreaming or imagining this. That someone’s slipped him some experimental drug – like the prisoners in the desert facility – and he’s living some strange alternate reality.

Driving through Yosemite doesn’t help, because there’s a sense in which the magnificent scenery is just sliding by, like some elaborate backdrop.

‘It explains a lot,’ he says. ‘I mean, like how you know so much about history. Frederick and Hitler and …’

‘Barbarossa …’

‘Yeah, Barbarossa.’ Phil stretches his arms out in a yawn, then smiles. ‘One thing puzzles me, though. Why me? If you wanted to keep things secret …’

‘Because this is your territory,’ Matteus says. ‘This is the kind of thing you’re going to write about. Time travel and changed realities.’

‘Only you guys actually live it, is that right?’

‘Right,’ I say. ‘Feel the beard. How else did that get there?’

‘Well, maybe I just fell asleep. Maybe you guys drugged me. The water in the bottle, maybe that had some hallucinogenic drug in it.’

‘But we
all
drank from the bottle.’

‘Then maybe we all went through the same experience.’

I smile. ‘Maybe.’ Then, remembering something, I reach across and, unbuttoning Matteus’s shirt pocket, make to remove the form guide from it.

‘Hey …’

‘It’s okay. We’re going to change it back.’

Matteus relaxes, lets me take it. I hand it to Phil. ‘Next year’s. You could make a million following that.’

Phil takes it, studies the cover, then flicks through, his eyes wide, his mouth open. ‘Is this for real?’

Matteus gestures behind him. ‘There’s a
San Francisco Chronicle
under the seat there. Check the racing results for two days back.’

We wait, while Phil finds the page in the paper, then checks the results against the entries in the form guide. ‘Holy shit!’

I reach across and take the guide from him. ‘Only Matteus isn’t supposed to do that. It’s against the rules.’

‘The rules?’

‘Yeah. We’re what you call
Reisende
– travellers – and there’s a code we’re supposed to live by, only some of us don’t. Some of us cut corners.’

Matteus makes a face. ‘And some of us are so straight-fucking-laced …’

Phil sighs. ‘Jesus, but this is—’

‘Amazing,’ I say, but I make the word sound so ordinary, so mundane, that he stares at me, as if seeking some explanation for my lack of enthusiasm.

‘It’s what we are, Phil. How we live. Slotted in here and there throughout time. Making changes. Fighting the Russians. Trying not to die or to get too involved with the people we have to deal with.’

‘But it sounds such—’

‘Fun?’ I’m silent a moment, then. ‘Look, this is how it’s going to be. I’m not going to change things yet. I’m not …’

‘Wait a second,’ Phil says. ‘Just hold on there. What do you mean by
change
things
? What precisely are you going to change?’

‘It’s simple. I jump back, to the day before we met. And I make sure that we don’t meet. So none of this happens. This whole time-line gets erased. This trip, the evening with Greg, meeting Kleo at your house … none of that will have happened.’

Phil nods. ‘I see. And I’ll not remember any of it?’

‘Not a single fragment. The only one who’ll remember anything is me, and that’s because I’ll have effected the change. It’ll be me who’ll go back.’

‘Uh-huh …’ Phil considers a moment, then. ‘You couldn’t write some of it down for me? Like, it would be a real help, with my stories, I mean …’

I laugh. ‘Phil … from what I’ve seen, the last thing you need is help.’

It’s dark by the time we get back to Phil’s house, and Kleo, hearing the car, rushes out, her face lit up in a big smile, seeing Phil home safe.

‘Remember,’ I say to him. ‘Not a word. We’ve got a deal, right?’

‘Right,’ he says and, giving us a wave, puts his arm around Kleo and heads back indoors.

‘He’ll tell her,’ Matteus says. ‘Ten dollars to a nickel he’ll tell her.’

‘What if he does? They’ll neither of them remember. Not once we’ve changed things.’

‘Yeah, but what about Hecht? You plan on telling him?’

‘You?’

‘No.’

‘Then it’s our secret. Another rule broken.’

Matteus smiles. Then, remembering what we saw, he asks, ‘So who’s Reichenau?’

‘Let’s get back,’ I say. ‘I don’t know about you, but I could do with a stiff drink.’

‘Sure.’

We drive the rest of the way in silence, and it’s only once we’re back indoors, drinks in hand, that we take it up again.

‘So?’ Matteus says, perching himself on the armchair just across from me.

‘Reichenau’s someone I bumped into, up the line, in the twenty-eighth century. He kidnapped Gehlen and stole his time equations.’

‘A Russian?’

‘With a name like that? No. A German, as far as we can make out. But not one of ours.’ I pause, then add, ‘He’s a very distinctive man.’

‘How so?’

‘He has a double skull.’

‘A double …?’ And then Matteus sees it. ‘A
doppelgehirn
?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Shit … Must make it hard for him to blend in outside of his time zone.’

‘Sure. But it doesn’t stop him. I saw him again in Baturin, in the eighteenth century.’

‘And now here?’

‘Right.’

I stare down into my glass for a second or two, then look back at him. ‘What did Hecht say, when he gave you the instructions? How did he know that something was out there?’

‘Hecht didn’t say anything. He sent a messenger. Young guy, name of Haller.’

‘Haller? But Haller’s …’

‘What?’

‘Never mind. You were saying …’

‘Haller said you’d be coming, and that I was to drive you up to a place in Nevada. He gave me the map reference and told me I might need some cutters and other stuff. Beyond that … Well, I don’t think even
he
knew what was there.’

I nod, considering things. ‘So someone was there before us. Someone
knew
what we were going to see. So why send
us
? Why not send in a hit squad? Blow the place to kingdom come?’

‘Maybe Hecht’s tried that. Maybe this Reichenau has outmanoeuvred him.’

‘Then why not tell me that?’

Matteus shrugs. ‘You tell me. I thought you were in thick with him.’

I look down.

‘Oh, it’s like that, is it?’

‘There’s a woman,’ I say. ‘Katerina, back in the thirteenth century. I …’

I meet his eyes and see he understands. ‘Shit,’ he says gently. ‘I’m sorry. And Hecht won’t let you …’

‘No. That’s why I’m here. As punishment.’

‘Are you sure? That doesn’t sound like Hecht to me.’

‘Hecht’s about to die.’

Matteus’s eyes bulge. ‘Hecht? No, no he can’t be … He’d stop that, surely?’

‘It’s a done thing,’ I say. ‘Locked in tight. Part of a loop.’

Matteus seems to deflate before my eyes at the news. ‘Urd protect us … Who will …?’

‘Take over? Me. But then I go missing.’

‘
What
?’

‘Like I said, it’s all locked in. Unchangeable. Only there must be something I can do
outside
of the loop. Some way I can affect things.’

Matteus nods thoughtfully. ‘Maybe that’s why you’re here. Maybe
that’s
why he’s not given you explicit instructions. Maybe he’s cutting you the slack you need.’

‘Maybe. Only I can’t see how that helps. So there’s a platform here. What difference does that make if we can’t get inside and use it?’

‘Who says we can’t?’

I shrug. The truth is, even if I could get to use Reichenau’s platform, or disable it, then how does that help? If things can’t be changed, then …

Make another loop. A second, different loop.

It’s vague, unformed, but the best I can come up with right now. Only I’m not telling Matteus, nor Hecht come to that. Talking of which …

‘I’d better go see him.’

‘Hecht?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

‘To report back.’

‘But you don’t know anything. At least, nothing that he doesn’t know already. Why don’t you wait? See what Phil comes up with.’

‘Phil?’

‘The club, dummkoff.
Unbeachtet
.’

It makes sense. ‘Okay. But as soon as we’ve found out …’

‘We change it. Agreed.’

‘Good.’ And I smile at him and raise my glass, because I find I like Matteus after all, cut corners and all.

The owl wakes me, its call intruding into my dream, making me start awake and go to the window to look out. It’s after three and the moon is low in the black, cloudless sky. Pulling on my jeans, I go downstairs and out on to the back porch, then stand there in the shadows, silently watching as the owl swoops and hunts, ignoring my presence.

Downed and beautiful it is, its curving flight so graceful, so
perfect
, that I wonder why I have never noticed it before. For a moment it’s at rest, its great yellow eyes blinking slowly, regularly, in the darkness.

Like the owl in the film
, I realise.
What was it called? Ah yes,
Blade Runner …

I go inside. For owls there is no passing time. Life just is. Time – the measurement of time – is a human thing. A product of consciousness. Without consciousness …

I go into the living room and, lifting out the innards of the gramophone, set up the tri-vi again and sit there in the darkened room, the sound low, watching the film.

I’m at the part near the end, on the roof of the building as the rain pours down and Deckard lies there, his hands broken, Roy Batty crouched nearby, when I grow conscious of Matteus in the doorway, looking past me, watching intently.

It’s beautiful. And when Batty makes his speech, I find myself suddenly so moved by the words, so
engaged
with what he says, by the dignity he shows, and by his consciousness of loss, that a tear rolls down my cheek.

I look to Matteus and he smiles. ‘That’s something, huh?’ he says softly.

‘But that’s
us
,’ I say. ‘That’s how …’

I stop, choked up, unable to say more.

‘I know,’ Matteus says. ‘So maybe now you understand?’

I nod, then look back, yet as the film comes to its close, I’m conscious that something has just happened to me. What it is, I don’t yet know, but I feel different somehow. Changed.

Matteus kills the signal, then walks across and switches on a lamp. ‘Coffee?’ he asks.

I nod, but my mind’s elsewhere, set off by Batty’s words, chasing down roads, down timestreams I have long forgotten.

I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe …

Unbeachtet
turns out to be a jazz club in a big, three-storey dark-brick building in a run-down part of town. The Tucker causes a real stir among the black guys gathered on the sidewalk just outside the club, and while Phil and I wander across to the ticket office, Matteus stands at the centre of a group of them who want to know more about the car and even, perhaps, have a poke around in the big six-stroke engine in the back.

‘Who’s playing?’ I ask Phil, as we wait for the girl behind the grill to stop talking to her girl friend and serve us.