Khyber Connection

Chapter 8

They clocked into a large, shadowy hall inside a dark, cavernous building. The atmosphere was dank and musty, with a feeling of great age. Massive stone columns supported a domed ceiling, and torches flickered in stone sconces. At the far end of the hall, atop a giant altar, was a huge obsidian statue of the goddess Kali, arms held out like an arachnid, skulls around her neck, tongue lolling. Their footsteps echoed on the stone floor.

"Whereare we"" said Finn.

"Inan old, deserted lamasery high above the Khyber Pass," said the twin Priest. "It used to be the temple of a thugee cult, which accounts for the statue and the grotesque carvings on the columns. It makes for a suitable base of operations. From below it’s virtually in-visible. An observer won’t even spot it with field glasses unless he knows what he’s looking for."

They saw a number of Pathan tribesmen standing guard and a few gray-uniformed soldiers moving about briskly, carrying equipment. They were taken to a small chamber, lit by portable lamps which generated their own power. There was a long table in the center of the room, with about a dozen chairs around it. Priest directed them to sit.

There were a number of soldiers in the room, all standing around the perimeter, watching them. A number of the faces looked unfamiliar, but Delaney spotted one he thought he knew.

" Bryant" " he said.

The officer looked back at him, deadpan.

"Bryant, but not B * ryant," Finn said.

The officer gave him a faint ghost of a smile.

"Martin,"said Andre, seeing another man.

The husky, bearded lieutenant gave her a brief nod.

"It’s amazing, — said Delaney. "A mirror-image universe."

"Not quite," said Priest. "But close." He walked up to Finn and pulled off his turban. "If you have a counterpart, I haven’t met him." He turned to Andre and yanked off her turban. Her long blonde hair cascaded down.

There was a strange look on his face. "Tell me about the other Lucas Priest," he said. "What was your rela-tionship to him""

"Wewere a team," she said. "The three of us. Lucas was my friend."

"For what it’s worth, I’m sorry he’s dead. How did it happen""

"He died saving a man’s life."

Priest nodded. "As good a way to go as any, I suppose. I wanted very much to meet him. I’d heard a great deal about you three."

"From whom"" Delaney said, frowning.

Priest smiled. "From a man named Drakov."

"Drakov!" saidDelaney.

"Nikolai Drakov arrived in our timeline escaping from you. Exactly how he managed to arrive is a complex question which we’ll save for the time being. He was unaware at first that he was not quite where he thought he was. As a result he made several mistakes which led to his arrest. Imagine his surprise, and ours, when we learned the truth. He was put through an exhaustive interrogation, the purpose of which was to learn as much about your timeline as we could. I use the term we generically. I was not personally involved. At least not at that point.

"The discovery of your timeline’s existence explained a great many things for us. It also raised a number of extremely difficult questions. For a number of years we had enjoyed uninterrupted peace. Our history, it seems, paralleled yours very closely. We had a Professor Mensinger as well, only he was considerably more successful than his counterpart in your timeline. He managed to prove to the Council of Nations that temporal warfare could interfere with history. Consequently, a ceasefire resolution was passed and temporal warfare was abandoned. The temporal armies were redirected toward space colonization, which I understand you have not pursued as extensively as we have. We found other means of settling our conflicts. Not perfect solutions, admittedly, but that need not concern you.

"Several years ago, by our Plus Time reckoning, we came under attack. A colony transport fleet was almost completely annihilated while en route to its destination with new settlers in coldsleep storage tanks. The few surviving ships could give no indication of why they were attacked, from where, or even by whom. Not long after that, the city of Altaira on the colony world New Queensland was destroyed. Reduced to slag. Again, no indication of who launched the attack nor from where it came. Other, similar attacks followed, apparently without rhyme or reason. Sometimes populated areas were destroyed, sometimes uninhabited moons or planetoids, sometimes the explosions occurred in space. Yet they all had the same things in common. No one could tell who was responsible. No one could tell where the attacks came from. Each aitack was a nuclear strike. And we have now learned that each attack came from your timeline, through an artificially created warp in spacetime."

"Warp grenades," Delaney said in a low voice. "Sweet Jesus, what have we done""

"Killed thousands, millions of innocent people," Priest said. "And, until Nikolai Drakov fell into our hands, we had no idea who was responsible."

"How could we have known"" said Andre in a shocked voice.

Priest shrugged fatalistically. "Perhaps you couldn’t have. Your moral culpability, on purely ethical grounds, is certainly open to debate, but that’s neither here nor there. Suffice it to say that while it may be understood, in principle, that you didn’t realize what you were doing, a great many people don’t see it that way. If you had known, I have no doubt you would have stopped teleporting nuclear explosions through corridors in spacetime that bridged to our universe. But would that have been enough" What about all the lives that were lost" How could you possibly make reparations for them" Besides, the situation is considerabl, more complex than that.

"I was in retirement when I was reactivated. I thought I had seen an end of military service, but there was a need for personnel with my qualifications. The Special Operations Group was brought togethe. based on information obtained from Nikolai Drako. One of my main objectives on this mission was to lo~cate you. Not you specifically, but the temporal adjustment team we were certain would be sent back to this time period when a discontinuity became evident.

"You traced our warp discs somehow," said Delaney.

"Ittook a good deal of time," said Priest, "but that was to be expected. We weren’t sure when you would arrive or where you’d be."

And now that you’ve found us"" Andre said.

‘First, I need to establish to my satisfaction that you two are the only temporal soldiers in the group. You were the only ones carrying discs, but I need to be sure. This one," he approached Din, who sat wide-eyed, totally bewildered by it all, "is probably exactly what you say he is, unless he’s one hell of a damned good actor. The others I am equally disposed to believe are native to this time period. Scanning procedures will quickly establish that."

"And then"" said Finn.

"One of you will return with us for some rather extensive debriefing. The other one will be allowed to return to Plus Time-your own Plus Time, that is-with an offer of terms."

"What sort of terms"" said Andre.

"It should be obvious that unrestricted warfare between our two timelines would have devastating results for all concerned. It would be impossible to control. Neither you nor we would be able to target our weapons with any reasonable degree of accuracy. There are massive fluctations in each timestream, resulting in points of confluence between our two timelines. That was how Drakov fell into our hands. The prevailing theory among our scientists is that discontinuities created by temporal actions in your timeline are responsible. The confluence effect may have been brought about by a single, massive disruption, or it could have been cumulative. The possibility was briefly considered that one of the two timelines was created by a timestream split, but fortunately that hypothesis was dismissed when we discovered significant differences in our histories and even in certain of our natural laws. I say fortunately because if that were not the case, we would be faced with certain insurmountable … philosophical questions, for lack of a better way of saying it. However, that still leaves us with other problems.

"We are confronted with the fact that you have committed hostile acts against us-knowingly or unknowingly, that’s not at issue. We are also confronted with the fact that our timelines are intertwining in a completely unpredictable manner, like some cosmic double helix. Our scientists believe there’s a possibility that our two timelines, as a result of interactive temporal inertia, could stabilize by merging into one. The results could be disastrous, on an unimaginable scale.

"Evenwithout that possibility, our Council is still faced with overwhelming pressure. People want retribution for the destruction of the colonies. We don’t ha… e any choice in the matter. If interactive temporal inertia compensates for the instability of our timelines by making them flow together into a single timeline, then the only course of action open to us is to maintain that instability. Perhaps if the instability were magnified, temporal inertia would be overwhelmed and our timelines would be forced apart."

""Perhaps,""Delaney said. -There’s no way of knowing that! What you’re suggesting could work the \sa~ you say, but hell, that’s only theoretical! It could also result in a massive timestream split!"

"That possibility was taken into consideration, — Priest said. "Our scientists think a timestream split could serve to overcome the confluence effect. True, it would create a whole new, possibly more serious problem, but if the split took place in your timeline, it would create no difficulties for us.

"We were not responsible for this situation," he continued. "We foresaw the dangers and we stopped our Time Wars. You did not, and we have suffered for it, so we’re not terribly concerned about splitting your timeline if that solves our problem. However, that may prove to be difficult. It may take some doing, so we’d like to negotiate a treaty-call it agreeing upon conven-tions of war-wherein both sides agree to limit the conflict to temporal actions. Otherwise the result would be incalculable loss of life on both sides from advanced weaponry which may, because of the confluence effect, become redirected at the user. The war is already a fait accompli. We merely wish to limit the potential casualties and wage it as logically as possible."

"Logically"" said Delaney. "Doyou realize what you’re saying""

Priest nodded. -Unfortunately, Lieutenant Delaney, I realize only too well. I don’t like this any better than you do, but I have no choice. We must interfere with your history in order to protect our own. We must increase the instability in your timeline, even to the point of bringing about a timestream split if necessary, in order to maintain our temporal integrity."

"Awar like that would have disastrous consequences for both our timelines," said Andre. "There has to be another alternative!-

"Thereis," said Priest. "We’d like to avoid an all-out temporal war, if possible. The only way to ensure that is with a massive first strike. And that is my other objective on this mission. You are prisoners of war. You will be treated fairly, with the respect due to your rank. But I must warn you that any attempt to escape will result in execution. Lock them up."

The soldiers from the alternate timeline led them away. Priest watched them go, a strange expression on his face. Captain Bryant came up to stand beside him.

"Well," he said laconically,"thatcertainly was interesting. I thought you handled that very well, considering."

"Itwasn’t easy," Priest said tensely."Ihad to keep telling myself she’s a different person."

"She’snot, you know," said Bryant. "Her genetic makeup is the same. She looks the same, she talks the same- "

"Enough!" said Priest. "What are you trying to do""

" I’m trying to make you face up to it now, before it really starts eating at your guts," said Bryant.

"She isn’t the same Andre. She’s not my wife."

You and I both know that," Bryant said,"butwe also know how you fell apart when your wife died. Lucas, don’t do this to yourself. Let Martin handle the interrogation. "

Priest shook his head. -We’re all going to have to face up to this sooner or later. It’s like making war upon ourselves. I can’t delegate responsibility simply because I don’t have the stomach to do what must be done."

"It’snot the same thing," said Bryant. "I wish you’d reconsider. "

"I wish I could," said Priest."But1 can’t abandon my responsibility. When the time comes, I’ll have to wring her dry. Meanwhile, I think I’ll go get drunk."

"A fine thing," said Darkness, manifesting from his tachyon state. "I send you out to gather information and you get yourself jailed."

Phoenix quickly got his feet inside the cell. "Man, am I glad to see you! But keep your voice down, for Christ’s sake! The guards will hear!"

"Of what concern is that to me" I have far more important matters on my mind. Have you managed to learn anything at all""

"I’ve learned plenty. Come on, Doc, keep it down, you’ll only-"

The door to the cell opened and a guard looked in. Seeing Darkness, he charged into the cell, his sword swinging in a sharp, descending arc. It passed right through the scientist.

"Get out," said Darkness. "Pmhaving a conversation."

The burly tribesman stared at him, bug-eyed. The other guard came running in and tried to grab Darkness from behind, only to have his arms close around empty air. The two tribesmen stared at each other in astonishment. From behind them Darkness said, "You two are beginning to annoy me. Phoenix, you speak their gib-berish. Tell them to get the devil out of here."

"You’d better leave before you make him angry," Phoenix said to the guards in Pushtu. They fled, screaming.

"Well, that’s all fine for you," said Phoenix, "but what do I do when half the Ghazi army comes running in here""

"That’s of no consequence to me at the moment," Darkness said."Weneed to talk."

"Of no consequence to you" Now just a-"

"Don’tinterrupt. There have been unfortunate developments. Lucas Priest is dead. I homed in on his symbiotracer only to find a corpse. It seems he died saving Winston Churchill’s life. A noble sacrifice, I must admit, Churchill wrote some excellent books. Still, there’s the matter of your agents. I can find no trace of any of them. I must assume they were killed. The most logical explanation is that-"

There was shouting in the corridor outside the cell and the sounds of running feet.

"We’llnever get anywhere with these constant interruptions," Darkness said. "We’ll have to continue this discussion elsewhere."

He translated into tachyons and disappeared from sight.

— Darkness! Wait-shouted Phoenix.

A large group of heavily armed Ghazis burst into the room.

‘Darkness, God-damn-you-iousy-son-of-a-"

An arm appeared out of thin air behind Phoenix. It grabbed him by the collar and yanked. Phoenix disappeared. The Ghazis trampled each other trying to get

out of the room.

"— bitch! ‘

"Really"" Darkness said. "I should have left you back there to face those primitives."

"Holy shit," said Phoenix.

He looked around. He was in a large, cluttered laboratory with wall-to-wall computer banks and other electronic instruments. Dominant in the room was a huge radio telescope. The domed ceiling made the room an observatory. There was an incredible array of equipment, most of which Phoenix could not identify, and ina bizarre juxtaposition, scientific apparatus stood side by side with exquisite Victorian antiques, bronze sculp-tures, and oil paintings. Books were everywhere, in

shelves upon the walls, stacked on desks and tables, piled on the floor. There were thousands of them.

— Wherein bell am I""

He turned and saw a large bay window. The landscape outside was rocky and desolate. It was also ver-milion. He could see nothing but desert and rocks for miles. And he could see three moons.

"Doc""

He turned around. Darkness looked drained. He walked over to a large reading chair and collapsed into it.

" You can move!""

"Ofcourse I can move, you imbecile."

"1 mean, you can walk like a normal person!"

The scientist made a wry face. "Thank you. I assume you meant that as a compliment. Yes, I can indeed move about like a normal person, as you say, when I am not in transit in my translated state. In other words, I do not violate the Law of Baryon Conservation when I am home.

"Home"" said Phoenix. "You mean … this is it.

He glanced quickly back at the window, at the three moons in the sky. -Christ, we’re not on earth!"

— Your powers of deduction are truly overwhelming," Darkness said. "There is a bottle of scotch on that sideboard there. Be so good as to pour me a glass. And help yourself as well."

The scientist looked exhausted. Phoenix swallowed hard, then moved to comply. "How the hell did you do … whatever the hell it was you did""

"The scotch, Phoenix, the scotch."

Phoenix handed him the glass and Darkness tossed it down. "I won’t try to explain how I did it, because I don’t feel like talking for six hours. What I did was to extend my tachyon field for a brief interval and drag you into it. I discovered I could do that, briefly, without altering the molecular structure of objects, but it de-pletes my energy severely. It’s quite an interesting phenomenon. Didn’t know that I could do it with people."

"Waita minute," Phoenix said. -You mean I’m the first person you ever tried that with""

"Well, I’ve never had occasion to attempt it with a living being before, — said Darkness. "Theprinciple should be the same … the structure of molecules is, after all … you do feel all right, don’t you" "

I don’t know. How would I feel if my molecules were out of whack""

"That could be painful," Darkness said.

‘Wery funny. How do I know I haven’t become like you" ‘,

" You could never become like me. But I assume you’re referring to an alteration in your molecular structure. Rest assured, it would take a great deal more than a brief exposure to my energy field to tachyonize your own molecular structure. However, if you find yourself leaving to go somewhere and arriving before you’ve left, I would say you may have some cause for concern."

"Just where exactly are we"" Phoenix said.

"We are in another galaxy," said Darkness. "That’s all you need to know."

" I can’t believe it."

"That doesn’t surprise me. However, if you can manage to contain your incredulity, we have some things we need to discuss. Apparently the situation is a great deal more serious than I thought. With Lucas Priest dead, I have no way of finding the adjustment team. He was the only one of them who had one of my symbiotracers. And since your agents have all disappeared without a trace, I must assume the worst."

"Drakov had Fox and Sable killed," said Phoenix. "My cover was blown when he recognized me."

"Drakov" How does he fit into this""

"He’s leading the Great Jehad as Sayyid Akbar," said Phoenix, then quickly brought the scientist up to date on what he had learned. "The only reason he didn’t have me killed was that he wanted to turn me over to the soldiers from the other timeline. Doc, according to Drakov it’s an almost identical alternate universe. I wasn’t able to learn very much about it, but Drakov claims it’s enough like ours that he couldn’t tell the difference at first."

"Interesting," said Darkness. "That may explain a great deal. I was wondering why the confluence effect did not manifest itself more profoundly. Perhaps it has and we simply haven’t noticed it."

"How’s that""

"Well, think of colors, for example. Imagine a flowing river of red. Now imagine another river that’s yellow. If they flow into one another, you’ll have an orange river. But if both rivers are red to begin with, only of slightly different hues, you might not readily observe a graphic change in color as a result of the confluence. Similarly, given parallel timelines of an almost identical nature, the points of confluence between them might not be readily apparent. Small wonder I haven’t been able to pinpoint them. I’ve been searching for dramatic fluctuations in temporal energy. Wrong method entirely. I should have been looking for anomalous inertial surge, instead. Of course. It seems so obvious, it should have occurred to me before."

Doc, you’re losing me again."

"Yes, well, you’re lost to begin with. But then, I’m not much better. If I had foreseen this possibility, none of this would have happened."

"What do you mean""

"I’m the one who invented warp grenades, remember"" said Darkness. He looked down at the floor. "I think I know now how the inventors of the atomic

bomb must have felt. It never occurred to me that i

teleporting such massive amounts of energy through

Einstein-Rosen Bridges could interfere with the

chronophysical alignments of the warps. After all, there

were already immeasurable amounts of energy involved,

I didn’t see how it could make any di erence. e e -

f ects must have been exponential."

"Doc, you mind speaking in English" To tell you the truth, I really don’t give a damn how it happened. it happened and now we’ve got to deal with it somehow. How about concentrating on that""

"My friend, I’ve been thinking of little else."

"And"

"And I haven’t come up with anything. Not even Mensinger would have been able to solve this one. I suspect that’s what drove him over the brink. He realized he had set in motion a chain of events that were bound to escalate out of control sooner or later. The people in the alternate timeline are faced with precisely the same problem, though admittedly that doesn’t help us much."

"Only they’re trying to do something about it," Phoenix said.

"Yes, well, they’re obviously concerned about maintaining their temporal integrity," said Darkness.

"At our expense," said Phoenix.

"I can hardly blame them," Darkness said. "Clearly they’re ahead of us in one respect. They’ve managed to pinpoint at least one confluence and use it to cross over into our timeline. If my supposition is correct, and the confluence point can be located by inertial surge …" He snapped his fingers. "Of course! That’s what they’re doing! "

"What""

"The two timelines are dissimilar enough to cause instability in the temporal flow," said Darkness, "but the Fate Factor enters in at points of confluence and attempts to compensate, only since the timelines are not dissimilar enough to set up a crosscurrent effect that would manifest itself in discontinuities, the result is a surge in the inertial flow! We have instability due to the proximity of the two timelines, yet a stronger inertial flow at points of confluence. The greater the number of confluence points, the stronger the inertial flow. Eventually this magnified temporal inertia would have to overcome the instability, and the two timelines would merge into one!"

"You mean sort of like a timestream split in reverse"" said Phoenix, frowning.

"Not bad," said Darkness. "That’s a very good way of putting it. Sometimes I underestimate you. You may be a little slow, but you do learn."

"Thanks," said Phoenix wryly."Butwhat does it all mean""

Darkness shook his head. "I see I spoke too soon. Very well, let me put it to you this way: you’re faced with a situation in which you are forced to choose between the lesser of two evils. On the one hand you have temporal instability caused by chronophysical mis-alignment, bringing two separate timelines too close together and causing them to intersect as a result of the interaction of their temporal fields."

"The confluence effect."

"Exactly. On the other hand this confluence effect causes a surge in temporal inertia at the confluence points,* which affects both timelines simultaneously, increasing the confluence phenomenon."

"And if it keeps happening, you’d wind up with a single merged timeline," Phoenix said. "So in order to prevent that, you have to do something to reduce or eliminate the confluence effect."

"Correct. And""

"And … and if the confluence effect is a result of the Fate Factor trying to compensate for temporal instability … you try to reduce the confluence effect by increasing the instability""

"Bravo. We’ll make a temporal physicist of you yet."

"But … that’s crazy!" Phoenix said. "The more you increase temporal instability, the greater the chance of bringing about a timestream split!"

"Ah, but in which timeline""

"The one with the greater instability""

"Pouryourself another drink, lad. You’ve just hit the nail right on the head. A timestream split would be almost certain to overcome the confluence effect, and it could result in changing the chronophysical alignment between the two timelines, forcing them apart, in a manner of speaking. But that’s only in theory. And it’s only one possibility."

"What are the other possibilities""

"Theoretically it could also result in three timelines experiencing points of confluence with an exponential increase in the instability factor. Then the same thing would begin all over again, only you’d have three timelines trying to achieve stability by merging into one. And in order to prevent that, you’d have to increase the instability again to a point where it would overwhelm the compensating influence of the Fate Factor, and you could wind up with yet another timestream split, resulting in four timelines, and so on ad infinitum. You’d be trapped in a situation where you’d have passed a point of no return and the only way to make it better, for the short term, would be to keep on making it worse. "

"Jesus. Where would it all end""

"You’ve got me. What’s the absolute opposite of entropy""

"I don’t know. WhaW’

"I don’t know either. Could be the Big Bang all over again."

"So what the hell do we do"

"Dr. Darkness does not, alas, know everything," the scientist said, sighing heavily. "I must admit to a certain morbid fascination with all this. What an incredible opportunity for research. This could enable us to quantify

Zen physics. We could be in a position to actually observe-"

"Doc!""

"What" Oh, sorry. You must forgive my enthusiasm. occupational hazard. I’ll try to keep a lid on it."

"So what’s the answer""

"What’s the question""

"Whatdo we do we about this mess""

"Stall."

"What do you mean, stall" How""

"Well, since no clear-cut solution seems to present itself, the most we can do under the circumstances is to maintain the status quo as long as possible," said Darkness. "The people from the alternate timeline are obviously attempting to hit us with a massive temporal first strike, trying to cause a significant historical disruption that might lead to a timestream split in our own timeline. We must not only prevent that, we must strike back at them in the same way. They interfere with our history, we interfere with theirs; each of us tries to adjust for the disruptions and maintain the instability as long as possible while trying to preserve a reasonable amount of temporal integrity on both sides."

Phoenix stared at him, slackjawed. "Are you serious"

"I’m very serious. It doesn’t solve the problem, admittedly, but it might keep it from getting worse. And it does have the added benefit of giving everyone a com-mon enemy. No more temporal conflicts between nations. Everyone will be too busy fighting against the other timeline. It could have considerable domestic advantages. Now we’ll really have a Time War on our hands."

"And just how long do we keep this up"" said Phoenix.

Darkness shrugged.

"Christ. I think I need another drink."