Time Travel Omnibus, page 971
It was an exhilarating sight. He had never felt so completely satisfied with the world. Five hours ago the people standing on the deck had been crowded into the hell below decks, with their future lives reduced to weeks of torment in the hold, followed by years of brutal servitude when they finally made land. Now they merely had to endure a three or four day voyage to the British colony in Freetown. Half of them would probably become farmers in the land around Freetown. Some would join British regiments. Many would go to the West Indies as laborers—but they would be indentured laborers, not slaves, free to take up their own lives when they had worked off their passage. A few would even acquire an education in the schools the missionaries had established in Freetown and begin their own personal rise toward civilization.
He had raised the flag above the slaver with his own hands. Several of the Africans had pointed at it and launched into excited comments when it was only a third of the way up the mast. He could still see some of them pointing and obviously explaining its significance to the newcomers. Some of them had even pointed at him. Most liberated slaves came from the interior. The captives who came from the coast would know about the antislavery patrol. They would understand the significance of the flag and the blue coat.
“We’re all loaded and ready, sir.”
Harrington turned away from the deck. The last prisoner had settled into his seat in the boat.
He nodded at Terry and Terry nodded back. The hands had managed to slip in a few more pawings under the guise of being helpful, but Terry seemed to have the overall situation under control.
“She’s your ship, Mr. Terry. I’ll send you the final word on your prize crew as soon as I’ve conferred with Mr. Bonfors.”
“It looks to me like it’s about time we hopped for home,” Giva said.
“Now? He’s only brought one load of slaves on deck.”
“You don’t really think he’s going to decorate the deck with more Africans, do you? Look at my screens. I’m getting two usable images of your ancestor returning to his ship. It’s a high-feel closure. All we need is a sunset.”
“There’s five hundred people in that hold. Don’t you think he’s going to give the rest of them a chance to breathe?”
“He exaggerated his report. Use your head, Emory. Would you go through all the hassle involved in controlling five hundred confused people when you knew they were only four or five days away from Freetown?”
“You are deliberately avoiding the most important scene in the entire drama. We’ll never know what happened next if we go now.”
“You’re clinging to a fantasy. We’re done. It’s time to go. Hal—I request relocation to home base.”
“I have a request for relocation to home base. Please confirm.”
“I do not confirm. I insist that we—”
“Request confirmed, Hal. Request confirmed.”
Time stopped. The universe blinked. A technology founded on the best contemporary scientific theories did something the best contemporary scientific theories said it couldn’t do.
The rig dropped onto the padded stage in Transit Room One. The bubble had disappeared. Faces were peering at them through the windows that surrounded the room.
Giva jabbed her finger at the time strip mounted on the wall. They had been gone seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds local time.
“We were pushing it,” Giva said. “We were pushing it more than either of us realized.”
The average elapsed local time was three minutes—a fact they had both committed to memory the moment they had heard it during their first orientation lecture. The bump when they hit the stage had seemed harder than the bumps they had experienced during training, too. The engineers always set the return coordinates for a position two meters above the stage—a precaution that placed the surface of the stage just outside the margin of error and assured the passengers they wouldn’t relocate below it. They had come home extra late and extra high. Giva would have some objective support for her decision to return.
The narrow armored hatch under the time strip swung open. An engineer hopped through it with a medic right behind her.
“Is everything all right?”
“I can’t feel anything malfunctioning,” Giva said. “We had a flicker about two hours before we told Hal to shoot us home.”
Emory ripped off his seat belt. He jumped to his feet and the medic immediately dropped into his soothe-the-patient mode. “You really should sit down, Mr. FitzGordon. You shouldn’t stand up until we’ve checked you out.”
The soft, controlled tones only added more points to the spurs driving Emory’s rage. Giva was sprawling in her chair, legs stretched in front of her, obviously doing her best to create the picture of the relaxed daredevil who had courageously held off until the last minute. And now the medic was treating him like he was some kind of disoriented patient . . .
He swung toward the medic and the man froze when he saw the hostility on Emory’s face. He was a solid, broad shouldered type with a face that probably looked pleasant and experienced when he was helping chrononauts disembark. Now he slipped into a stance that looked like a slightly disguised on guard.
“You’re back, Mr. FitzGordon. Everything’s okay. We’ll have you checked out and ready for debriefing before you know it.”
Peter LeGrundy crouched through the hatch. He flashed his standardissue smile at the two figures on the rig and Emory realized he had to get himself under control.
“So how did it go?” Peter said. “Did you have a nice trip?”
Emory forced his muscles to relax. He lowered his head and settled into the chair as if he was recovering from a momentary lapse—the kind of thing any normal human could feel when he had just violated the laws of physics and traveled through three centuries of time. He gave the medic a quick thumbs up and the medic nodded.
He had his own record of the event. He had Giva’s comments. Above all, he had Peter LeGrundy. And Peter LeGrundy’s ambitions. He could cover every grant Peter could need for the rest of Peter’s scholarly career if he had to. The battle wasn’t over. Not yet.
You need the creatives. The creatives need your money.
I ordered the liberated captives brought to the deck as circumstances allowed. They did not fully comprehend their change in status, and I could not explain it. Our small craft does not contain a translator among its complement. But the sight of so many souls rescued from such a terrible destiny stimulated the deepest feelings of satisfaction in every heart capable of such sentiments.
Two well-placed candles illuminated the paper on John Harrington’s writing desk without casting distracting shadows. The creak of Sparrow‘s structure created a background that offered him a steady flow of information about the state of his command.
He lowered his pen. He had been struggling with his report for almost two hours. The emotions he had ignored during the battle had flooded over him as soon as he had closed the door of his cabin. The pistol that had roared in his face had exploded half a dozen times.
He shook his head and forced out a sentence advising the Admiralty he had placed Mr. Terry in command of the prize. He had already commended Terry’s gunnery and his role in the assault. He had given Bonfors due mention. Dawkins and several other hands had been noted by name. The dead and the wounded had been properly honored.
It had been a small battle by the standards of the war against Napoleon. A skirmish really. Against an inept adversary. But the bullets had been real. Men had died. He could have died. He had boarded an enemy ship under fire. He had led a headlong assault at an enemy line. He had exchanged shots with the captain of the enemy.
The emotions he was feeling now would fade. One hard, unshakeable truth would remain. He had faced enemy fire and done his duty.
He had met the test. He had become the kind of man he had read about when he was a boy.
A BRIDGE IN TIME
Joseph P. Martino
Wherein ‘detour’ takes on a whole new meaning . . .
The phone rang. He picked it up.
“Maintenance. Carson speaking.”
“Tom, this is Sandy.”
“Yeah, boss, what’s up?”
“The grocery job finished?”
“Yeah. There was a bad module in the controller. I swapped it out. When I left, they were getting a shipment of fresh-picked apples from next October.”
“Thanks for the tip. I’ll stop and get some on the way home. Be sure to send the module to the lab. We need to find out what went wrong.”
“Done already, boss.”
“Good. Got another job for you.”
“What this time? Another warehouse?”
“No. This is out on Highway 297, about ten miles west of town.”
“What’s the problem there?”
“I don’t have details. We just got a call. We have two units at a bridge out there. I figured you’d be the best guy to tackle it.”
“Thanks for the confidence, boss. I’m on my way.”
Highway 297 turned out to be a two-lane rural road that twisted and turned through alternate farm and woods. Carson finally reached a bridge.
This must be the place, he thought.
There was a sign beside the road:
BRIDGE CLOSED NIGHTLY 1 AM TO 2 AM.
Beyond the sign he could see one of the company’s time gates, both doors raised so cars could drive right through. At the other end of the bridge another gate was visible, its doors also open.
A knot of people stood near the bridge ramp. He pulled off the road near the fence that blocked anyone from bypassing the time gates, and approached them.
A guy in a hard hat, he thought. Must be the construction foreman. A guy in a Highway Patrol uniform. A guy in plain clothes, who has “cop” written all over him. FBI maybe?
As he approached, he introduced himself. “I’m Tom Carson, with the Maintenance Division of Time Gates. You have some kind of a problem here?”
The man in plain clothes said, “I’m FBI Special Agent Arthur Hamilton, with the Time Crime Division.”
Bingo!
FBI held up a copy of the Wall Street Journal, folded so only the date was visible. The date was for three months ahead.
Hardhat chimed in. “We inspect the bridge every morning. One of my guys found this newspaper. We called the highway patrol.”
The trooper spoke up. “The bridge is under our jurisdiction, but Time Crime isn’t, so we called the FBI.”
“And we called your company,” FBI added, “because there may be a flaw in your equipment.”
“Look,” Carson said, “I’m used to working with time gates in warehouses. What’s going on here?”
Hardhat spoke up. “Starting in just over two months, this bridge’ll be closed. We’ll tear it down and replace it. It’s scheduled to be reopened eight months after that. We’re trying something new. Instead of detouring people all over hell’s half acre while the bridge is out, we’re using your time gates. We shunt people down-time from when the bridge is out, let them cross here while the bridge is temporarily closed, then shunt them back up-time to where they came from. If it works here, we’ll use it on bridges with more traffic.”
“So that’s why you’re closing this bridge in the wee hours every morning?”
“You got it.”
“But why not shunt them up-time, to when the new bridge is in?”
“This way we know the bridge is here,” Hardhat answered. “We can’t be sure when the new bridge will be open. Might be construction delays. A flash flood might wipe out the bridge.”
“Or terrorists might blow it up,” FBI added, “like they tried to do with that bridge up on I-70.”
“But can’t the highway department send back messages every day, confirming that the bridge is open?”
FBI frowned and shook his head. “Besides being illegal, it’s a bad idea. With all that message traffic, no one could scan it all. It’d be too easy for someone to slip in something illegal. Stock prices. Horse race winners. Basketball scores. You name it.”
“But groceries send messages all the time,” Carson protested.
“Not the same,” FBI said. “They don’t use the time gates for messages. They place an order for future delivery, specifying a time and date. If it’s a regular order, the supplier loads it on a truck. If it’s for an out-of-season product, the supplier sends it through a time gate. No message traffic either up-time or down-time through the time gate.”
“Okay, I see what’s going on. But how do you protect against criminal activity here?”
Hardhat said, “We photograph every car, including the license plate, when it enters the time gate up-time. A computer stores the picture, along with the time and date it entered the up-time gate, and the time and date it was shunted to the bridge here. We take another picture here of every car that arrives from up-time, storing time and date. And likewise for when the car crosses the bridge and is shunted back up-time. Eventually we can match the records from now and up-time, if there’s any questions.”
“Do you video the car as it crosses the bridge?”
“No. Just a single photo.”
“Then any of the cars could drop something off while they’re crossing the bridge, couldn’t they? And you wouldn’t know it?”
Hardhat and FBI looked at each other.
“Looks like we have a hole in security,” FBI finally said.
“I’ll have somebody check the bridge at two a.m. every morning,” Hardhat finally said.
“Okay,” FBI said, “but if anything more happens, we may need additional security.”
“Right now,” Carson said, “I’ll check both units, just in case something’s wrong with them. But I think your problem is with the traffic, not with my equipment.”
The dew lay heavy on the grass. The sun, half a diameter above the horizon, shone red through the morning haze. Ahead of Carson, the crushed stone jogging track curved around some trees.
Carson held his head high, sucking huge drafts of cool morning air deep into his lungs. He was into his second mile. He had his second wind, his legs were swinging as regularly as a metronome, and endorphins were flooding his bloodstream. He felt on top of the world.
As he leaned into the turn, another runner, a woman, came out of a side trail. Her long blond ponytail swung in time with her pace.
Nice legs under those running shorts, he thought. And she’s obviously got a jogging bra under that tank top.
The woman dropped back and fell in step with him.
“Mind if I run with you?” she asked. “I do better when I have someone pacing me.”
“Not at all.”
They ran in silence for a while, then between breaths she asked, “How far are you going?”
“Just over three more miles. That’ll make five for me.”
“Okay, I can stay with you that far. I usually stop at four miles.”
“You ought to try for five some day.”
“I’d either have to start earlier or be late for work.”
“What’s your job?”
“I’m a stock analyst. And yours?”
“Maintenance engineer for Time Gates, Inc.”
“That sounds interesting. But engineering was always beyond me. I was good at numbers, but not at things.”
They continued in silence until they finally reached the bathhouse.
The woman untied her ponytail and shook her head. Her hair cascaded down below her shoulder blades. “Time for a shower and then off to work,” she said. “Thanks for letting me run with you. The woman I’ve been running with was transferred out of town, and I’ve missed having someone to pace me.”
He paused a moment, then said, “You want to try for five miles tomorrow?”
She cocked her head to one side, then said, “Okay, I will. By the way, I’m Jennifer Campbell.” She held out her hand.
He shook her hand. “I’m Tom Carson. I start running at five thirty.”
“Good. I’ll see you then.”
As Carson arrived at the bridge, Hardhat and FBI were already there.
“I got your call,” Carson said. “What’s up?”
“We caught the guy who was throwing out newspapers,” FBI said. “We’ve had the place staked out the past three nights. Last night a car came through. It slowed in the middle of the bridge. The driver threw a copy of the Wall Street Journal over the side of the bridge. This time it went down into the ravine.
“There was a guy standing down there waiting for it. We caught him with the paper in his hands. We checked the license on the car. It’s registered to the same guy who caught the paper. He was passing information down-time to himself. Open and shut case of time crime.”
“So what’ll happen to him?” Carson asked.
“Depends on whether he accepts a plea bargain,” FBI replied. “Minimum of five years in jail. Up to twenty-five years if he goes to trial.”
“But if he’s in jail, how can he throw a paper to himself?” Hardhat asked. “And if he doesn’t throw a paper to himself, what’s he guilty of?”
“Look,” Carson said. “Don’t ask me to explain time travel paradoxes. All I do is fix the time gates when something goes wrong. Paradoxes are argued over at a much higher pay grade than mine.”
“Doesn’t matter,” FBI said. “The crime’s already been committed when he receives information from up-time. Even if he can no longer send it to himself. Anyway,” he turned to Carson, “we’re going to put nets on the sides of the bridge, so this can’t happen again. We called you out here to make sure that whatever we do with the nets doesn’t interfere with your time gates. Can you check that?”
“Sure. I have my instruments with me. Put up your nets and I’ll run a set of diagnostics on the time gates.”
It took Carson three days to muster enough nerve to ask Jennifer for a date. As he picked her up at her apartment he asked, “Any preferences? Chinese? Mexican? Italian?”
