Outlanders - Tomb of Time Part 15

"What the h.e.l.l is that?" Grant demanded gruffly. "I never heard of it."

"I'm not surprised," Sindri answered. "I doubt your Dr. Singh would want to credit an accident with providing him with the foundation of his career.

Essentially, back in 1943 during the height of World War H, an experiment was undertaken to make warships invisible through the selective bending of light. Rumor has it that Albert Einstein himself was involved.

"Whatever energy source was employed caused not only the USS Eldridge to vanish into a bank of green fog, but within seconds it was teleported from the Philadelphia Navy Yards to Norfolk, Virginia, and a moment after that, it reappeared in Philadelphia. Legend also had it that the Eldridge was not only be transported from point to point in linear s.p.a.ce, but briefly to another time period.

"In my estimation, the Totality Concept's Operation Chronos and Project Cerberus were nothing more than efforts to re-create what had happened by accident."

Sindri smiled smugly, adding, "So the high esteem in which you hold Dr. Singh's genius may be misplaced. I think Dr. Burr deserves the lion's share of credit."

Brigid said coldly, "Most of Burr's time-trawling experiments were failures. The living tissue of whatever was trawled forward from the past broke apart. It wasn't until Lakesh made the first fully functional gateway unit operational that Burr was able to as- semble the trawled subjects in the mat-trans without organic decohesion."

Sindri waved away her words. "The personnel here overcame that handicap, as all three of you witnessed yourselves."

Puzzled, Shizuka asked, "What's he talking about?"

Grant shook his head. "I'll explain later."

Sindri laughed. "That should be interesting. Let me know when you do. I'd love to hear it."

"It doesn't really matter who did what," Kane pointed out, feeling a little strange to be defending Lakesh even in a backhanded way, "since everything relating to the Totality Concept was filtered down from another source.""Ah." Sindri nodded. "The so-called Archons. Or to be more precise, their forebears, the Annunaki and the Tuatha de Danaan."

Shizuka cast her dark eyes from Sindri to Grant "Who is he talking about?"

"That's an excellent question, madam," Sindri retorted. "And it has yet to be satisfactorily answered even now."

Grant pushed the wine tumbler away from him with such force the liquid sloshed out of it. Harshly, he said, ' 'How long do you expect us to sit through another one of your dissertations? No matter what you yammer about, you're still outnumbered." He touched his bolstered Sin Eater. "And outgunned. So get to the G.o.dd.a.m.n point, Sindri."

Oakshott stepped forward, pointing his wooden revolver at Grant. ' 'Behave yourself, sirrah.

Understand? Yes, yes, you understand."

Sindri waggled a finger at Oakshott. "Never mind, never mind. That's a good fellow. I'm not being threatened."

"The h.e.l.l you're not," Grant growled menacingly.

Sindri scowled at him, then arranged his face into a smirk of superiority. "You evidently paid very little attention to Miss Brigid's statement that I never do anything without an ace. I a.s.sure you that's true." X No one responded for a long, awkward tick of time. Then Kane yawned, as if ennui were settling over him. In a disinterested tone, he asked, "And what might that be?"

"And-" Sindri broke off, took a breath, then jumped out of his chair and walked toward the door.

"Follow me, please. Visual aids are so much more conducive to cooperation than, as Mr. Grant described it, another one of my dissertations."

Oakshott folded his arms over his chest and stared impa.s.sively at the four people until they pushed back their chairs and stood. They walked out into the corridor, trailing after Sindri with Oakshott bringing up the rear. The little man stopped in front of a heavy metal door without a k.n.o.b or latch. He tapped in a sequence on the keypad on the wall.

Machinery clanked, and with a prolonged hiss of pneumatics, the door slid to the right. Sindri entered a room dominated by a huge flat-screen vid monitor. The screen was divided into twelve square sections, each one showing different black-and-white views from a variety of perspectives.

One screen showed a high-angle view of rough seas upon which a little sailboat pushed through the waters, skipping on the chop like a flat stone on a pond. The craft approached a dark landma.s.s rearing out of the ocean like a ma.s.sive cube of black volcanic rock. Green vegetation was apparent on the summit of a small peak. Atop it stood the outline of a watch or bell tower. Castellated cliffs loomed at least a hundred feet above the surface of the Cine. Thundering waves crashed and broke on the bare rock, foaming spray flying in all directions. All of them recognized the scene.

In a voice tight with wonder, Shizuka said, "That is New Edo."

Sindri chuckled. "That it is. Take a closer look." His hand manipulated a k.n.o.b on the console and theview changed.

The little sailboat navigated a narrow channel between the high walls. The sea heaved under the boat as a rawboned man operated the sweep. Several other people could be seen hunkering down in the wave-tossed craft.

"That's Dubois!" Grant exclaimed. Dubois was a fisherman who had transported the Cerberus team from Port Mominglight to New Edo months before.

"Is that his name?" Sindri seemed to be enjoying himself thoroughly. "Maybe you'll be so good as to identify his crew."

Once more he manipulated a k.n.o.b, and the perspective on the screen tightened. Kane, Grant, Brigid and Shizuka stared at Kane, Grant and Brigid in the boat.

As they watched in bewilderment, the fishing boat plunged into the strait between the slick, seaweed-draped walls of the narrow channel. It pitched and jumped as it followed the twisting pa.s.sage.

The boat picked up speed, shooting forward, threading its way between upthrusts of pitted rock. The strait widened and the boat plunged into a lagoon. Even-within the inlet, the sea was turbulent and swells threatened to pile the vessel up on the rocks. The boiling sea calmed the farther the ship moved from the throat of the strait.

With an overwhelming sensation of deja vu, Brigid, Grant and Kane gazed at Dubois unfurling the sail.

When a breeze filled it, he steered the ship toward a stone jetty on the far side of the lagoon. Several quays and docks were built around a spit of volcanic rock that jutted out into the blue waters. A cl.u.s.ter of vessels was tied up there, mainly barges and skiffs, but he saw three large vessels that had all the characteristics of warships.

They were all of a type, riding high above the waterline, consisting of sharp angles, arches and b.u.t.tresses. The sails didn't look like broadcloth. They reminded him of window blinds made of a waxed and oiled paper.

He, Kane and Brigid had seen similar craft before, on the island of Autarkic. As he recollected, the ships were called junks. Beyond the ships and the docks, he saw a crescent moon of a white sandy beach, bracketed by stunted palm trees and tropical ferns.

Kane turned away from the screen and addressed Sindri. "Are we supposed to be all shook up by a vid record of what we did a few months ago?"

"Actually," Sindri answered mildly, "you should be. Do you recall seeing anything like a camera on the high seas or even...here?" He flicked a switch and another screen flickered with movement.

They watched as a squad of Tigers of Heaven marched toward the images of themselves. They were attired in suits of segmented armor made from wafers of metal held together by small, delicate chain.

Overlaid with a dark brown lacquer, the interlocked and overlapping plates were trimmed in scarlet and gold. Between flaring shoulder epaulets, war helmets fanned out with sweeping curves of metal. Some resembled wings, others horns. The face guards, wrought of a semitransparent material, presented the inhuman visage of a snarling tiger.Quivers of arrows dangled from their shoulders, and longbows made of lacquered wood were strapped to their backs. Each samurai carried two longswords in black scabbards swinging back from each hip.

None of them carried firearms, but their skill with katanas and the bows was such that they didn't really need them.

A roan horse suddenly cantered through the line of armored men, and they quickly gave ground. A small, lithe figure sat on its back, easily controlling the horse with an air of authority. Shizuka reined her mount to a halt and vaulted lightly from the saddle. She spoke a stream of rapid-fire j.a.panese to the samurai, who instantly began drifting away as if all of them had suddenly remembered something else they needed to do.

The screen next to it blurred with a jagged pattern of pixels, then the fortress of Lord Takaun appeared, stretching like a slumbering animal among gardened terraces. The structure was not particularly tall, but it sprawled out with many windows, balconies and carved frames. The columns supporting the many porches and loggias were made of lengths of thick bamboo, bent into unusual shapes. The upcurving roof arches and interlocking shingles all seemed to be made of lacquered wood. It was very well laid out with deep moats on three sides and cliffs on the other. At the top of the walls were parapets and protected positions for archers and blastermen.

Abruptly, the sky darkened, turning the deep purple of twilight between one eye blink and another. The screen showed the sprawling, landscaped lawn at the rear of the fortress. Through an open gate came a surge of Tigers of Heaven, their armor glinting in the sunset.

From almost every shadowed point on the lawn between the bathhouse and the castle rushed a horde of black-garbed and hooded figures wielding swords and lances. They struck the Tigers from both flanks, pushing them toward the rear of the fortress.

Shizuka inhaled a sharp breath, her eyes glinting in anger. She recognized, as did Brigid, Kane and Grant, the attempted insurrection orchestrated by the Black Dragon society. According to Takaun, the roots of the society stretched back three or more centuries to the last days of j.a.pan's old feudal system.

A group of soshi, disenfranchised and rabidly xenophobic samurai, formed an underground organization to fight the spread of Western influence. In reality, they were terrorists and later they became Nippon's pioneers of organized crime.

The Black Dragon society was revived in New Edo, hiding in plain sight, since most of them were recruited from the ranks of the samurai trainees. They did not want any commerce or contact with the mainland at all, and they were particularly in- I censed when Grant, Kane and Brigid arrived on the island. j Because he feared alienating the samurai, Lord !

Takaun did not take action against the Dragons. He claimed that even offering hospitality to the three outlanders was risking a rebellion, perhaps even a j coup. Bitterly, Grant realized the daimyo's fears '

were grounded in reality.There was almost no room to maneuver, and the katanas of the Black Dragons penetrated c.h.i.n.ks in the Tigers' armor and sank deep into eyes through the slits in the visors. The gloom lit up with little flares as blue sparks flew from impact points.

The Black Dragons did not wear armor, only ebony kimonos. He saw that most of them wore wide headbands, which Shizuka had called hachimaki. The foreparts were augmented by strips of chain mail.

Grant and Kane had learned through painful experience they wore chain mail beneath their robes, as well.

Sindri tapped a sequence of b.u.t.tons. "As interesting as all that is, for sheer entertainment value, I prefer this."

The view of the battle shimmered away, replaced by a panoramic view of a dark jungle clearing. Rain pounded down the foliage, and streamed from the fernlike fronds of trees. Four figures crept out of the underbrush, all of them armed. Moisture gleamed on the black armor of the Magistrates like a coating of oil. The armor was close-fitting, molded to conform to the biceps, triceps, pectorals and abdomen. They wore face-concealing helmets, their eyes masked by red-tinted visors. The only spot of color anywhere on them was the small, disk-shaped badge of office emblazoned on the left pectoral. It depicted, in crimson, a stylized, balanced scales of justice, superimposed over a nine-spoked wheel.

The badge symbolized the Magistrate's oath, of keeping the wheels of justice turning in the nine baronies, but now the only emotional resonance it carried was one of bitter betrayal. All of them were armed with Sin Eaters.

The quartet of armored men huddled together in the clearing to confer. Behind them, a shadowy shape shifted out of the gloom. Even watching from the safe remove of time and distance, Kane couldn't repress a shiver.

Grinning jaws bared rows of glistening yellow fangs. A saurian snout bore a pair of flared nostrils that seemed to dilate and twitch. The head, bigger than that of a horse, was set upon an extended, scaled neck.

Huge cold eyes, like those of a serpent a hundred times magnified, stared unwinkingly from beneath a pair of scaled, k.n.o.bby protuberances. Two huge legs, almost as big around as some of the palm trees they'd seen, supported the ma.s.sive, barrel-shaped body. A long tail trailed from behind, disappearing into the undergrowth. Its wet hide bore a pebblelike pattern of dark brown scales. Clawed forelegs were drawn up to its chest, almost in an att.i.tude of prayer.

Then, with incredible swiftness, the monster bounded out of the foliage and landed among the four Magistrates. They fired their weapons in a frenzy, the muzzle-flashes smearing the murk with bursts of light. One of the Mags ran pell-mell toward the jungle, fleeing like a panic-stricken deer.

The dinosaur caught up with the running man with one spring-steel legged leap. Huge jaws closed over the Magistrate's head, and the creature's neck jerked back and forth. The arms and legs of the armored man flopped bonelessly, like those of a disjointed marionette.Sindri laughed delightedly as the four people watched the sequence in horrid fascination. The scaled monstrosity clutched the Mag in its underdeveloped claws as it chewed through his vertebrae. The man's helmeted head fell from the blood-flecked mouth of the dinosaur and rolled across the muddy ground like an awkward ball. Clutching the decapitated corpse to its chest, the creature gathered itself and bounded from sight into the jungle.

Kane wiped at the clammy film of cold sweat that had gathered at his hairline. He retained an exceptionally vivid recollection of coming across the man's head. Since he, Grant and Brigid had glimpsed the creature earlier, he had guessed how the hapless Mag had come to be beheaded, but to actually witness it made his mouth fill with sour saliva.

Sweat glistening on his own brow, Grant turned toward Sindri, looming over the little man like a black colossus, ignoring the presence of Oakshott. "How'd you accomplish this?"

"Simplicity itself." Sindri depressed a b.u.t.ton and pointed to another screen. On it they saw a trunk made of metal, but overlaid with gla.s.s wedges. The lid suddenly split smoothly in two until the halves were in vertical positions. A small object, halfway between a sphere and a child's top, rose straight up from the exposed recess and hovered. Sindri rotated a joysticklike control, and the globe rose up and flew around the trunk.

Another screen lit up but showed only blank, featureless walls that seemed to be spinning like a centrifuge. On the monitor beside it an image appeared that looked strangely familiar. Kane's nape hairs tingled when he realized it displayed a rear view of themselves.

He pivoted swiftly. Gliding into the room, only inches beneath the ceiling, came the sphere. A misty white radiance emanated from it. Now that it was closer, he saw a framework like tiny wire filaments sectionizing it.

"A vid scanner," Brigid announced, sounding not the least impressed.

"It's that," Sindri conceded, "but it's more ap- j propriately a targeting scanner. The Chronos techs never returned bodily to any past or future epoch, or at least there is no record of any of them doing so. They contrived these devices to do that. They j could and did, travel the time stream." t "How do they work?" Grant asked, eyeing the '*

sphere suspiciously. 1 "They select a subject to be trawled or monitored and 'tag' it with a microwave pulse. That acts as a tap conduit to the control computers here. From I what I've been able to ascertain, there are outposts *

of these remote scanners at all predark scientific installations, particularly those that dealt with the To- I tality Concept experiments. I even patched into the one at Area 51." *

Sindri touched a dial on the screen, and on it ap- jpeared Domi, scooping up the fallen implode gren. Then she disappeared in a white blaze of incandescence. "With barely three-quarters of a second to spare," he said pridefully, "I pulled her out of there. And what to do I get for my trouble? Physical and j verbal abuse." I "Just why did you do it?" Grant asked, trying to *

keep his voice from quavering. '

Sindri shrugged. "I'm ent.i.tled to my whims. Of > course, indulging my whim wouldn't have been worth the effort if not for you three."

The scene wavered and coalesced into a high-angle view of the very room they occupied. Brigid, wearing a partial suit of samurai armor, sat at the console, looking at the screens. Kane and Grant, their bodies encased in Mag black polycarbonate flanked her. Her voice, sounding strained but enthralled, filtered out of a speaker. "The quantum interphase matter confinement channels are on-line with the chronon wave guide. The wave function and state vectors are all in sync-the coordinates have already been programmed and locked in...it's only waiting the final sequence to initiate retrieval."

"Retrieval?" Kane heard himself echo incredulously. "Retrieve her from where? Or rather when- that particular day, that very second?"

Brigid watched herself comb nervous fingers through her hair, noting how tangled it appeared. Her voice stated, "No. In my estimation, she's already been retrieved, but not yet rematerialized. The trawling process hasn't been completed. She's in a state of nonexistence, reduced to her basic energy form, not too different from a gateway's quincunx effect."

The quincunx effect referred to a nanosecond of time during gateway transit when lower dimensional s.p.a.ce was phased into a higher dimension.

"This is all guesswork," Grant declared suspi- ciously. "You can't change the past by pushing a few b.u.t.tons."

They all stared, fixated on the drama of the scene, as the image of Brigid swiveled sharply in the chair.

"What's the nature of time anyway, Grant?" she challenged. "Can you describe it to me, when the most advanced physicists of the predark world barely understood it? Before the nukecaust, modem science was just beginning to perceive that subatomic particles and quantum events made no distinction between s.p.a.ce and time.

"The laws of physics are fixed only by our perception. According to Lakesh, that was the major problem both Project Cerberus and Operation Chronos personnel constantly grappled with. Another was computing the precise temporal transfer points. Cerberus moved things from place to place. Chronos had to deal with moving things from place to place and time to time.

"In certain circ.u.mstances, photons-the particles of which light is made-could apparently jump between two points separated by a barrier in what appears to be zero time. The process, known as tunneling, was even used to make some of the most sensitive electron microscopes."If the very existence of time depends on the presence of s.p.a.ce, then time is only a variable, not an absolute. Therefore you can have more than one event horizon, which means you can have more than one outcome from an event-''

"Are you always like that?" Sindri murmured to her.

Repressing a smile, Kane replied, ' 'Most of the time."

He watched his image lift a hand to stem a further floodtide of scientific principle. "n.o.body's arguing with you on this point. You're way smarter than we are, all right? We settled that a long time ago. But there are still a couple of areas we need to explore.''

"Like what?" Brigid wanted to know.

Kane glanced around uneasily. "First of all, the microwave pulse. It's obvious whenever this temporal dilator thing is turned on it sends out the burst."

Brigid nodded. "We should be safe from it behind the shielding. You know enough of the properties of armagla.s.s to know that it goes opaque when exposed to certain levels and wavelengths of radiation.

That's one of the reasons it's used in the mat-trans gateways, to block energy overspills."

' 'Fine,'' Kane retorted brusquely.''One area dealt with. That leaves us with the second-who the h.e.l.l set up all of this for us? How do we know this isn't bait to trick us into pushing a b.u.t.ton and blowing us, and maybe this whole region of the Cific, to atoms?"

"Who would do that?" Grant demanded.

Kane shrugged. "I can think of a couple of past sparring partners who might have the know-how, but they're dead-I hope. But you can't deny this entire arrangement is just a little too convenient for us to accept at face value."

Sindri cast Kane a wry smile. "I presume I was one of the past sparring partners who crossed your mind that day. Who was the other?"

Kane didn't answer him. He watched as the image of Brigid on the screen declared tersely, ' 'Whoever set this up offered us two choices-we do nothing and Domi is lost to us forever. Or we can engage the final sequence, and at least initiate a chance to have her returned. I personally think that's worth taking the risk of blowing ourselves up...but then that's me."

Sindri touched a k.n.o.b and the scene froze on Brigid in a very unflattering pose, with her mouth open and her eyes half-closed. "We all know which choice you made," he declared.

Grant started to speak, then cleared his throat. "What happened-I mean, what would have happened if you hadn't made that choice?"

Sindri's eyes flashed with a combination of merriment and fascination. ' 'Excellent question. My answer is, I don't know. Once I performed the action of trawling her, we had a definite cause and effect. Was I fated to rescue her in that three-tenths of a second, or was it truly a spur-of-the-moment deci-sion that resulted in an alternate event horizon and therefore a paradox? Which came first, the girl's death or my decision to prevent it?"

"I didn't see any floating scanner that day," Kane pointed out. "Or any of those other days, either."

Sindri grinned. "I would have been surprised if you had. The devices pack what was known ill the techno vernacular as 'cloaks'...for all intents and purposes invisibility screens, but in reality, they are more like low-observable camouflage screens. Within the scanners are a series of microcomputers that sense the color and shade of the background and exactly mirror the background image. It automatically blends in with its surroundings." He paused and added, "Still, they didn't always work."

"Why do you say that?" Brigid asked.