TW05 The Nautilus Sanction NEW (25 page)

The soldiers sitting before him in the briefing room were very different from the regular troops assigned to arbitration conflicts, though they had all come from those ranks. Unlike those outside in the plaza, who were dressed either in disposable green transit fatigues or in period costumes—Cossacks, Mongols, Waffen SS, Rainbow Division, Vikings, Celtic knights—the commandos in the briefing room were dressed for action in blue battle suits woven from nysteel, lightweight, flexible one-piece garments that would deflect most ammunition but not, they all knew only too well, laser beams or plasma from an auto-pulser. All the commandos had their equipment at their sides, weapons and floater-paks, ready to be donned in an instant. Each had programmed his or her warp discs with the partial coordinates for the attack. They lacked only the final coding for the sequence—the precise time.

As they sat there, some napping, some talking quietly, some smoking, some eating sandwiches, others just simply staring straight ahead, the time had already passed long since. But the event of that long past time they were awaiting had not happened yet. They waited for history to change. Each hoped the change would not be significant enough to overcome temporal inertia and affect the timestream. History did not report a battle taking place in the interior of an extinct volcano on an island off the coast of Papua, New Guinea, in the 19th century. With luck, history never would report it.

Sergeant Wendy Chan, a small raven-haired, delicate-looking woman whose outward appearance gave the lie to her thin, yet exceedingly fit body which had been wounded scores of times in temporal conflicts, sat talking quietly with Staff Sergeant Martin, who nibbled on a pastrami sandwich. Captain Sullivan kept running his hands through his close-cropped black hair and rubbing his temples, trying to calm his nerves. It had been a long time since he had seen any action and he fervently hoped his battle instincts were still sharp. Lieutenant Bryant, his face calm-looking and world-weary, sat staring off into infinity, creating an aura of dispassionate isolation about himself. They were all in the same unit, yet they had never gone into battle together en masse. Outside the briefing room, the hectic activity of the base proceeded as usual. Only a few were aware of what was about to take place.

Forrester would be leading his people into battle. No one could guess his thoughts as he sat there, waiting with the rest of them, smoking his pipe and sipping coffee. He appeared perfectly composed. No one knew he was being eaten up by guilt. None of the people in the briefing room knew Drakov was his son. The last time they had met, father and son had confronted each other in deadly combat. Forrester should have killed him then, but he had been unable to. Now the time had come to pay the price, and he stared at the screen before him to avoid seeing the faces of those under his command, many of whom would soon be dead because he had failed to kill his son when he had the chance. A part of him had not been able to do it, even while another part told him that he must. He had hesitated, and he had lost. As the minutes lengthened into hours, he steeled himself for what was to come. He did not wonder if he would survive the battle. He no longer cared.

They were brought out on deck, still under guard, for their first glimpse of Drakov’s base. Verne and Land, neither of them knowing what to expect, were both awed by the sight which greeted them.

The submarine was on the surface of a giant lake inside the volcanic crater. High above them, the walls of the hollow mountain tapered to the opening, across which birds flitted as they darted from one side of the volcano to the other, their cries echoing down to them. To their left, they saw the tiers of buildings that were the quarters of the base personnel, modular units built into the rock, with catwalks connecting them. Above them, spanning the lake, were the pedestrian cable bridges across which people walked several abreast, carrying equipment or pushing dollies. To their right, the larger area of the complex was the heart of Drakov’s base. In the water near the dock was a submarine tender, toward which they slowly moved. The crewmen of the tender stood ready to receive them. Beyond the tender, in a large slip, was berthed the
Valkyrie,
her sails neatly furled. Overlooking the entire complex, like an eagle’s aerie, was Drakov’s house, partly carved out of the stone wall and partly built of white brick. It looked like a cross between a cliffside Pueblo Indian dwelling and a lamasery.

“Unbelievable,” said Verne, his voice almost a whisper.

“You will experience much that defies belief here, Mr. Verne,” said Drakov. “Pay close attention.

You shall record all this for posterity. Here, in this burnt-out caldron, an age will end and a new one will begin. You shall see history in the making and I shall be the one to make it. Literally to make it, to shape it out of nothing.”

Finn glanced at Drakov sharply. “What are you talking about?”

“You will soon see,” said Drakov. “The time has almost come.” The submarine was made fast to the tender and they disembarked. With Drakov leading the way, they walked down the dock and across a short stretch of beach to the main building.

They entered a large hall, with several corridors branching off from it. Lucas fought the temptation to look over his shoulder at Martingale. Their guards conducted them through the building, past the mess hall and recreation rooms, past a library, a computer center and a generating plant, toward the rear of the building and an elevator which took them up to Drakov’s house. They came out directly underneath it and circled round to a wide stair cut into the rock face, ascending to the entrance of the house.

They climbed the stairs to a small portico and a large, carved wooden door, which one of the men opened for them. They entered into a foyer with a mosaic floor and large planters placed around it. A winding stairway led to the upper story of the house. Thick carpeting covered the stairs. Oil paintings hung on the wall, mostly Pre-Raphaelite art. There were several busts, one of Julius Caesar, another of Napoleon. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling. Drakov’s boots echoed on the tile floor as he turned to the left and walked out onto the veranda, a wide, tiled plaza with a brick wall running round it at about waist height. The view was spectacular. They were halfway up the side of the volcano, looking down onto the lake, the submarine and the schooner, the cable span-bridges not far below them. Drakov leaned on the wall and looked out over his domain.

“Today is T-Day,” Drakov said, still looking out over the base. “T for Transition. Transition from one age to another.” He turned around to face them. “This has been my base of operations, my sanctuary from temporal agents and soldiers like yourselves who have dogged my heels ceaselessly since the Zenda affair. I spent my entire fortune to construct this place. Here I gathered and trained my people, preparing them for the tasks which they will embark upon today. Until now, not even my officers knew the full extent of my plans. What one does not know, one cannot reveal, no matter what the temptation may be.

Now, it is safe to reveal all, for no one can stop it. Within the hour, it shall be done.” He took a deep breath of relief. “It has all gone well. Everything is ready. Shiro, bring champagne.”

“What are we celebrating?” Finn said.

“The ultimate disaster,” Drakov said. “The end of time as you know it, Mr. Delaney. From today, the entire character of time will change. And you will have a ringside seat. All three of you. After we have our toast, Santos will prepare a disc for you, one which will send the three of you back to the 27th century, back to my father and the war machine he serves to tell him he has been defeated. You had assumed, no doubt, that I would emulate my old compatriots in the Timekeepers and attempt to blackmail the war machine into dismantling itself. Perhaps that might have worked, but it would not have provided an ultimate solution. Perhaps nothing ever will. But I think I can increase the odds in its favor.” He looked down at the submarine below.

“I have twenty chances,” he said, “twenty opportunities to make a better world, a better universe. I have had some of my people clocking out to various periods of time, preparing other bases for us, not as ambitious as this one, but they will serve. It has taken time, it has taken money, and it has taken backbreaking labor, but all is done now.”

He looked at Martingale, von Kampf and Benedetto.

“I am sorry to have kept you in the dark,” he said. “I felt it was necessary. There was too much at stake to share my plans in full with anyone. Everyone has had a task. Some worked on our new bases, others disposed of riches that we found in order to provide the funds for all the work, still others worked to establish connections for us in the places we shall be visiting. There was much groundwork to be laid.

Many nights, while you thought I was resting in my cabin, I would return here to keep track of our progress. Shortly before we left Barataria, I learned that all was in readiness at last.” Shiro brought out the wine.

“In order to create something new and clean, there must be a purging,” Drakov said. “I shall purge the human race, not once, but twenty times. Each ballistic missile in the
Nautilus
has been equipped with a warp disc in its guidance system. Each will be launched from here into a different time period. Each will change the course of history. One will strike the Soviet Union during the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Another will strike the state of Israel during the Six Day War. Still another will be targeted on New York City during the time of a crippling embargo against the USSR. All will strike different locations in different time periods. Each will result in events radically different from those of history as we know it. Each will result in a timestream split. We shall have twenty different timelines to choose from, my friends. We shall have twenty alternate universes to explore. By clocking back through time, starting with the most recent split we shall initiate, we can travel to our base moments before the split occurs and then clock forward, thereby finding ourselves in an alternate timeline. We will see the future we will have helped create and, if it is not to our taste, we shall clock back to the next most recent point before the split and try again, when that next timestream split occurs. We shall all be able to pick and choose our futures and work to influence them. And with twenty different timelines in existence, the effect on temporal inertia will be such that none of these timelines will ever rejoin. Yes, we will destroy, and that will be the purging. But just think of what we shall create!”

They were all speechless at the enormity of what Drakov proposed. Even Benedetto, who had accepted the worst excesses of the Timekeepers with indifference, was so stunned he dropped his glass.

“The three of you,” said Drakov, to Lucas, Finn and Andre, “will stand right here on this spot and watch each missile being launched. As the final missile leaves its silo, Santos will activate the disc and send you back where you belong. The Time Wars will end, because no one will have any way of knowing from then on which universe they will be clocking back to. And when you tell Moses Forrester of what I have done, tell him that I could never have accomplished it without him.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Lucas saw Martingale edge around slightly so that he stood just behind the guards who had their weapons trained on them. While all eyes were on Drakov, save those of the guards who were watching the commandos carefully, Martingale’s right hand went to the warp disc strapped to his left wrist.

Drakov reached into his pocket and removed a small communicator. He turned it on and as he spoke, his booming voice came through a speaker system, filling the interior of the volcano.

“Attention,” he said, looking out over the base. “Attention. We are now at T-Day minus one hour.

All personnel have fifteen minutes to report to the assembly hall to begin transition. Clocking will commence by unit in twenty minutes. Control and missile crews of the
Nautilus
stand by your stations, all other submarine and tender personnel report to the assembly hall.” Martingale was gone.

The scene barely had time to register on Martingale’s consciousness as he fugue-clocked into the briefing room. He prayed he had programmed the disc correctly. There had been so little time. He had only a momentary impression of seeing a man seated before him and a roomful of commandos in battledress before he shouted out the date and time coordinates and winked out again.

Forrester was on his feet in an instant, shouldering the floater-pak and buckling the harness. “
Now,
people!
Move it!”

Not a second’s time was wasted. Those who were eating or smoking simply threw the cigarettes or food onto the floor and grabbed for their floater-paks. Warp discs were quickly programmed with the coordinates Martingale had shouted. Forrester repeated them loudly, several times, to make certain everyone had them right. As the floater-paks were secured and the discs were programmed, they took position where they stood, left arms cocked in front of their chests, discs facing up, right arms raised to indicate the discs were staged. Forrester didn’t wait to check that everyone was ready. The moment a significant number of hands were raised, he gave the order.

“Go!”

No one noticed the barely discernible confluence of atomic particles making only the vaguest hint of a shadow in a corner at the back of the room. The tachyonic essence that was Dr. Robert Darkness did not wait for Forrester to give the attack order. The moment Martingale disappeared, Darkness hurtled across parsecs of time-space with a speed faster than thought. The First Division could stop the time pirates, but it was up to him to save Martingale and the three commandos.

Drakov stared. A flicker of movement had caught his eye and he blinked, puzzled. What had he seen?

“Captain,” Verne said, finally finding his voice, “
this is madness!
If those explosives are as powerful as you say, hundreds of thousands will die!”