The Ocean of Time (52 page)

‘It’s like this,’ I say, forcing myself not to think of that, focusing on what Matteus needs to know. ‘When I was here before …’

We could have jumped directly there – jumped in and jumped straight out again – only the drive over to Mineral County will give us time to talk. Time to reacquaint ourselves.

First, however, I want to visit Phil and Kleo and give them the gift I’ve had made for them.

It’s a change – maybe even a serious change, considering how much Phil’s life is influenced by such things – but I want him to have it.

We get over to the house just after seven. It’s early, but it’s a long journey across to Nevada, and I want to get there before the light goes. Putting the container down on the porch, I knock and wait. I don’t like waking them this early, but it’s likely to be the only chance I’ll get to see them. There’s no answer, and when I knock again – louder and longer this time – all I can hear is silence.

I walk round the house and peer in. There’s no sign of them. Their bedroom curtains are drawn. Through them I can see that the bed’s made, the room tidy.

I walk back to the front and call across. ‘Matteus … They’re not here. Do you know if they were planning anything?’

Matteus winds the window of the Tucker down. ‘Nothing I know of.’

‘Where d’you suppose they’ve gone?’

He shrugs. ‘I don’t know. Knock again. They must be there. They’re the least adventurous people I know. Phil never goes anywhere. Not if he can help it.’

I go back and knock again, but there’s still no answer. I’m about to give up – to suggest to Matteus that we go – when I see the two of them walking slowly up the road towards us, hand in hand.

Phil’s smiling, recognising the Tucker, but as he sees me, his face changes, becoming closed, defensive. It’s an aspect of him I’ve not witnessed before, but fits with what Matteus has told me.

Matteus gets out of the car and makes the introductions. ‘Phil, Kleo, this is Otto. Otto, my good friends Phil and Kleo Dick.’

I put out a hand and we shake. He looks at my hand, then at me. ‘Have we met?’

‘No. But I’ve heard a lot about you.’

Phil looks like he doesn’t know whether that’s a good thing or a bad. He looks to Matteus, then back at me. ‘You fancy some coffee?’

‘That’d be nice,’ I say, ‘but we can’t stay. We’ve got to make a trip. To Nevada. We’ve business there.’

We’re about to go inside, when Phil notices the container. He looks to me. ‘Yours?’

‘No. It’s for you, actually. A gift.’

Phil looks back at me, suspicious now. After all, I’m a stranger to him in this time stream. ‘A gift?’

‘Sure. For the two of you. Matteus mentioned you liked them.’

‘Matteus?’

I smile. ‘My cousin, Matt. It’s his full name, didn’t you know?’

Clearly he didn’t. We go inside, into the familiar kitchen, and while Phil makes the coffee, Matteus and I sit there, at the table, making small talk with Kleo.

Phil’s strange when he’s like this: brooding, like a disappointed child. It’s the other side to him, the one I haven’t seen, and I’m not sure I like it. Later, so Matteus says, he’ll write a novel about his divided self, and call this darker character Horselover Fat, translating the two parts of his name.

As he hands me my coffee, I push the container towards him. ‘Careful,’ I say. ‘It’s delicate.’

He sits. ‘How do I …?’

‘That catch there. On the side. Yeah, that’s it. Just lift it.’

He does as I say, and the lid to the container slides up. He takes it off, then makes a little noise of surprise. ‘Jeeze …’

‘You like it?’

Matteus, like Phil, is staring at the bird with wide-open eyes. Kleo, looking on, is smiling.

‘
Nyctea scandiaca
,’ I say.

‘A snowy owl,’ Phil says, a sudden tenderness in his face. He looks to me, then back at the bird as it preens itself, beak under its wing, its great orange eyes with their dark centres hidden momentarily.

It’s beautiful and, of course, a fake, built from my DNA. A copy. But not just any copy. It took a lot of skill to make this bird. Such things won’t be possible in this world for a good six hundred years yet.

Phil gives a soft laugh, then shakes his head, as if confused. ‘But you don’t know us. This …’ He looks to me, his expression totally different now. ‘This is too much. It’s too big a gift.’

‘You like owls, don’t you?’

‘I dream of owls. The novel I was going to write …’ He stops, then turns and looks to Kleo. She’s grinning fit to burst.

‘Hey,’ he says softly. ‘It’s a wonderful gift. And I thank you, Otto, from the bottom of my heart. This is a gift of true friendship.’

Kleo comes up alongside Phil, looking into the cage. ‘What does it eat?’

‘Mice.’

We all laugh. They have mice a-plenty in Phil and Kleo’s kitchen. Why, they’re almost like pets.

‘Do I need a licence of some kind?’

It’s not something I’ve thought of, but I don’t want to spoil the moment.

‘No,’ I say, ‘but it needs to fly. To hunt. There’s a handbook in the bottom of the container. It’ll tell you all you need to know.’

And with that it’s done. It’s time to go. Phil asks us to stay, to share breakfast, but I’ve finished here. I like Phil and Kleo a lot, but we’ve a job to do.

We say our farewells and leave, and in the car Matteus asks me how I managed that.

‘Managed what?’

‘The owl. You must have called in a lot of favours.’

I smile. ‘I did. But Phil’s worth it, don’t you think?’

Matteus grins. ‘He is,’ he says, and for a while we don’t talk, just drive, feeling good about our morning’s work.

It’s exactly like it was before: the fence, the massive outcrop of rock, and, beyond it, the facility. Taking the bolt-cutters, I cut through the wire and step through, holding the torn section of fencing back as Matteus eases past. As before, only this time without Phil.

It’s early, not even six, and the shadow of the outcrop is long: a dark, broad stroke on the uneven red sand surface. We move into it, into the night’s dark chill, hurrying now.

We clamber up, towards the morning light, up over that great hump of rock until we can see the facility, there beneath us, still and silent, its rounded, glass-like surface glittering in the early sunlight.

I’ve arranged this already. Spoken to Maria. Now I jump back to Four-Oh where she’s waiting. I give her my estimates – elevation, direction, distance – and she sends locators in, one after another, studying the screen a moment. And then she smiles.

‘Go,’ she says. ‘Jump straight in there. I’ll put Matteus in beside you.’

And an instant later there I am,
inside
, Matteus shimmering out of the air beside me, a long corridor curving away in front of me, a sealed door behind.

I look to him and he nods. We talked this through last night. He knows what to do. At the least sign of trouble he’s to jump straight out of here. It’s what I’ve said
I’ll
do. Only I’ve lied to him. I don’t intend to leave until I’ve found what Hecht’s looking for. That’s why I’m armed. We move quickly, silently, like shadows. If there are cameras here, I don’t see them, but there is a door. I hesitate, listening for any sounds beyond it, then put my hand to the door pad.

It opens silently.
No DNA-locks then
, I think.
No retinal recognition systems.

Everything simple. Like they don’t care. Or simply aren’t bothered.

It makes me think of what Hecht said. About Reichenau constantly making changes to this.
Relocating
the whole facility time after time. Which speaks of a different kind of mindset to our own. Profligate. Using time plastically. Moulding it to his needs. Not caring what the effects are on the real people who exist in all these worlds.

A different
kind
of game, outside the rules that we and the Russians abide by.

Or did. Because it’s all changing. Or so Zarah says.

The room we step into is broad, curved, a series of lockers to our right. I go across to one and open it. Uniforms. Seventeenth century, by the look of them. I open another. More gear. Ancient-looking stuff. Boots and cravats and what looks like women’s clothing from some distant century.

I turn and look to Matteus. Judging by the curve of this room we’re close to the centre here. There’s a door on the far side. I gesture to Matteus to go to it. He goes across, then turns, looking to me, his hand hovering over the door-pad. I nod, and he brings his hand down, and as the door slides open, so he ducks through.

There’s a shout of surprise, and, as I cross the room towards the doorway, I get a glimpse of Matteus struggling with someone.

And then he’s gone. But I can see across the room now. See the platform and the surrounding work bases. A perfect copy of the one at Four-Oh, only with strangers at the desks. Young men with earnest faces.

They stare at me, alarmed now, seeing the
staritskii
in my hand, knowing it’s a weapon. The one who was struggling with Matteus backs away slowly.

‘Call Caleb,’ he says quietly to someone at the back of the room. ‘Code Blue.’

I know Reichenau will change this if he can. Remould it. Unless I can get on to the platform. Because if I can do that, if I can plant the anchor-trace like Hecht wants me to, then we’ve got him, like a fish on a hook. He can rebuild all he wants, relocate however many times he wants, but we’ll still have him.

I move slowly, edging step by step towards the platform, the gun trained on one of them after another, and for a while I think that maybe they’re not going to stop me. Then one of them makes a move, maybe trying to distract me and, though I burn him straight through the chest, it’s the signal for a number of them to try to rush me.

Matteus went too soon …

Yet even as I think it, he’s back, standing just behind them, gun in hand, blasting away, buying me precious seconds, cutting a path through them, so that with a leap I make it up on to the great circle of the platform, a flailing arm catching my heel, making me stumble. Even so, I’m there. Yet as I take the warm, tiny little glass and metal device from my pocket, there’s a sudden surge of power that seems to grab my chest in a powerful, iron-handed grip. The air solidifies and—

We jump. Not just me, or Matteus, but the whole damn thing. I
know
that feeling. Yet when it’s finished, when that cruel, hard hand lets go its grip, I am still there, on the platform, the smell of burned flesh, the moans of the dying still surrounding me.

Elsewhen, but still here
.

But how can that be so?

I try to jump, but can’t. And when I try again, I almost faint, giddy suddenly, my head like a faulty gyroscope filled with slushing mercury. I stagger and, for a third time, put my hand to my chest and this time – Urd help me – it works!

Away … relief coursing through me. Back to Four-Oh.
Home
, I think, as the platform solidifies about me, as Urte and Zarah reach out to take my arms and help me down. Only as I sit there on the edge of the platform I find that I’m trembling, shaken by what happened.

I look up, meeting Zarah’s eyes. ‘It jumped. The whole damn platform jumped.’

‘I know,’ she says, and I can see the fear now in her eyes. ‘I thought I’d lost you.’

Hecht’s looking gaunt. He’s never been a fleshy man, only he looks ill now, grey with worry, and this latest news can’t have helped.

He sets the report down and looks across at me, the Tree of Worlds shining above him in the darkness. ‘You know where you went?’

‘2443.’
Neu Berlin … in the Age of the Mechanists
.

Hecht’s silent for a time, then he stands.

‘Is it gone?’

His eyes meet mine, distracted. ‘What?’

‘The facility? Did he move it? I mean, like before. Did he go back in time and change it all?’

‘He didn’t have to.’

‘But I thought—’

‘It seems he’s tired of that gambit. Or maybe he’s got what he wanted.’

‘Which is?’

Hecht sighs. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t a clue what’s in that double skull of his.’

‘So what now?’

But Hecht doesn’t answer. It’s like he’s suddenly grown old. Or maybe it’s just his impending death that casts a shadow over his thoughts, because his grey eyes seem to lack the lustre of former days.

‘Do you want me to go in?’

‘In?’ And then he sees what I mean, and shrugs. ‘I …’ He hesitates, then shakes his head – though I sense it’s not in answer to my question. ‘He was
there
,’ he says, pointing into the air. ‘We had a
trace
on him. And then …
nothing
. Gone. Like smoke …’

And it oughtn’t to be possible, because platforms are points of stability, the unmoving focal point to which all else is relative.

Unmoving? No. Let me correct that. Slow-moving. At the rate of a second per second through Time. But in effect …

You see, their very stability allows this complex process. For them also to be capable of jumping adds one element of complexity too many. If Four-Oh were not Four-Oh, then how would we get home each time? To what fixed and certain point would we refer?

Only it is, thank Urd. Yet Reichenau has somehow changed all that. Unless …

I laugh, astonished that I’d not thought of it before.

‘It’s not.’

‘Not?’ Hecht stares at me as if I’ve gone mad. ‘Not what?’

‘Not a platform. It’s a focus. A big version of what we’ve got in our chests. Only a mobile version, like the pendants they wear about their necks.’

Hecht almost smiles. ‘Yes. That would explain it all. Only why would he need such a thing?’

I can almost see his mind turning over. And then he laughs. A brief little explosion of sound.

‘Numbers,’ he says. ‘Pure numbers. It has to be. A focus, yes. And there was I thinking …’

He sighs, then looks to me again. ‘In. Yes. You must go in. Find out what you can. What his plans are. Why he needs these mock platforms. Why his man Heinrich is back in 1952. Answers, that’s what we need. Answers.’

I nod in agreement. Yet it seems too vague, too unfocused. Hecht usually has a plan, but lately …