The Final Countdown, page 21
“Ninety seconds. Ninety seconds.”
“I was thinking, Matt.” Lasky had to shout to be heard. “I was thinking of poetic justice. I used to have a wife. Divorced. She, uh, could never understand why I could never keep track of time, so she divorced me.” He grinned like a lunatic at Yelland.
“Well said, Warren. I—” Yelland gasped for breath. A knife seemed to be twisting inside his brain. His mouth opened like that of a fish out of water gulping to breathe.
Every man on the ship felt the same terror. A voice barely gurgled on the speakers. Few men understood the words. They didn’t need to. They knew what they were.
“Sixty seconds.”
They fought to breathe, suck in air through tortured lungs, gasped, blinked their eyes in the pain that rose and fell like invisible waves through their bodies.
Nimitz went up the side of a mountain made of black water. The carrier hung, poised, on the thin edges of eternity.
Yelland tried to see the chronometer on the panel before him. The sweep hand moved like a rubber band being pulled a dozen ways at the same instant.
How much longer?
Seconds?
Centuries?
Forever?
No time?
They fell out.
Lasky found his mouth opening like an idiot’s. A scream began down in his gut and tore up his throat, a primordial shriek that had no sound. It filled the universe, unspeakably loud in its silence. It was heard-felt-sensed?
Time stopped. It was forever and .no-time together:
On the bridge, the helmsman rose slowly in his harness, a boneless puppet in slow, slow motion, his arms reaching upward and outward in supplication of forever. The sounds still came to them, but they were wrong, like a 78-rpm record turning slower and slower, the pitch going ever lower into a groan that was impossible.
Did God play a bass viol?
Space-time wrenched in upon itself.
The helmsman began to float down gradually, unreal, real, floating, his eyes wide, blank. His body distended, stretched longer and longer. An elastic gasp of life.
The deck of the bridge rippled. Steel shimmered like a thin veil, gossamer, dreamlike.
They were at the bottom of everywhere.
They began to fall upward.
It was an impossible acceleration, like being shot upward in a catapult, beginning with endless slowness and going faster and faster. Eyes bulged, muscles strained, bones began to break.
They fell upward faster and faster. There was no world, no sound, no reality.
Only acceleration.
Lasky stared, frozen in his webbing, pulled taut against its strands, as the lines holding Lieutenant Artemus Perry to his seat snapped like threads, and Perry’s body began an awkward ballet, a pirouette through the air, as if gravity had been banished.
He fell, slowly but faster, upward, and then he twisted impossibly in on himself and began a sideways arc across the bridge; he sailed against the thick Plexiglas on the other side of the bridge, the side of his face touched the Plexiglas, and his skin flattened and slowly his cheekbone collapsed and his nose broke and still the inexorable pressure, seeming to last forever, crushed his teeth and his skull without any sound of the blood and liquids glowing from within splashed outward in all directions like iridescent foam.
From somewhere, from everywhere, the universe screamed.
The light from inside the belly of the sun exploded silently in their brains.
Instantly the light went out.
Darkness became theirs.
And in darkness Time is forever.
20
The storm ripped them the early morning of December 7th, 1941. Daylight. The sun.
Darkness fell away from them but there was no sun. They wiped blood from ears, noses, mouths, realized the terrible pounding was gone. The savage knife-sound … gone.
Nimitz sailed on a smooth sea under the stars.
Throughout the carrier everything came alive. Not just men stirring, but the machinery and the electronics.
Machines gurgled and clattered to life. Teletypes clacked frantically. The systems tied in to satellites leaped into furious action. Digital clocks everywhere through the ship blurred, then snapped into focus with the time and the date.
July 16,1980.
Yelland threw off his harness. He banged his hand on a transmitter button. “Plot! The bridge here. Do we have contact with that strike force?”
“No contact, bridge. But we still have equipment coming on the line. Sir, everything’s working again! We’ll stay with it”
“Keep trying,” Yelland said unnecessarily.
Lasky groaned, worked his way to Yelland’s side. “If they were within the boundaries of the storm, they’ll be here. But they could be a thousand miles away, Matt. No way to tell.”
Yelland nodded. If all systems were operating again, then radar would be working, and they could pick up a transponder code from—
“Plot to bridge! We’ve got them!”
“Report!”
“Yes, sir! Twenty-four miles out and we count fifty radar targets, sir. That’s every last one of them.” Yelland pressed another button. “All hands, prepare to recover aircraft. Look alive down there. We’ve got fifty coming in. Let’s go, let’s go.”
He didn’t need protocol or officious announcements. The word that the planes had wrenched back into the future with them was more than enough. Yelland busied himself, checking for damage reports, assuring the reactors were sound, feeling the pulse of the carrier. Corpsmen removed the broken body of Artemus Perry. His neck had snapped. Yelland felt better there hadn’t been any long suffering.
He thought of time twisting like a rubber band. One never knew, he thought, as he watched Perry’s body leaving on a stretcher.
One by one the fighters and the bombers came in with their crash-landings on the deck. Helicopters hovered in recovery positions. Lights gleamed everywhere on Nimitz. Then the last fighter was on deck.
Lasky sipped from a mug of hot coffee. “Do you recall how long we were back in 1941?” he asked Yelland.
“Strange question. You were there. About nineteen or twenty hours. Why?”
“That’s close enough,” Lasky replied. “Oh, I was just thinking of the job you’ve got ahead of you. I don’t envy it”
“What job would that be, Warren?”
“We were in 1941 less than twenty-four hours. I came aboard Nimitz on July the thirteenth. Today’s three days later. You’ve been missing, Nimitz and everybody and all her planes have been missing, with no contact, for three days.” .
Lasky smiled. “You’re going to have a hell of a time explaining that to the Pentagon.”
Matt Yelland nodded. “It will be interesting, won’t it?” He laughed. “The best part of it is that they won’t be able to tell anyone else. Who’d believe them?”
21
Nimitz towered above the bleak gray quayside. A sense of the ominous received impetus from the high wire fences and barbed wire emplaced hurriedly only hours before the enormous carrier slipped into Pearl Harbor. The ship and its personnel were sealed off from the world by drastic security coverage.
Captain Matthew Yelland stood by Warren Lasky on the dock. Lasky carried his attache case and, especially incongruous under the conditions, restrained a dog by its leash. Laurel Scott’s animal. Someone in the White House had been in touch with the chief of naval operations. No one knew the source of the power-play, but the navy had been ordered to provide a car and driver to pick up Warren Lasky as he departed Nimitz. They watched the car’s lights as it went through two separate security checkpoints before it could reach the aircraft carrier.
Lasky looked beyond, across the water, his gaze shared by Yelland. They held their eyes on the memorial to Pearl Harbor: the hulk of the Arizona with her dead crew entombed within the battleship’s armored sides.
“It still doesn’t seem real,” Lasky said finally.
“Everything’s real, depending upon your point of view,” Yelland responded.
Lasky sighed. “HI be reading history books until I’m blue in the face.”
“We’ll all be going in mental circles for a while, I suppose,” Yelland offered. He watched the car pull up. The driver opened the door for Lasky, waiting.
Lasky clasped hands with Yelland. “What does one say at such a moment?” Lasky asked, smiling. “It’s been a great trip?”
“An interesting one, Warren. Somewhere, soon, I believe we’ll meet again to compare notes.”
“I hope so.”
“In the meantime, wherever you are, whenever you have doubts as to your own sanity, keep one thing in mind,” Yelland offered. “I’m sure it will help.”
“By all means, Matt, tell me.”
The captain pointed to Charlie. “Right there is the youngest forty-year-old dog you’re ever going to see in your entire life. Good sailing, Warren.”
“Driver, where are we going?” From the back seat of the car, Lasky made out the silhouette of the navy enlisted man at the wheel. He had seen something else when he climbed into the car, the dog following a bit reluctantly. The man was armed.
“Sir, I only know the address. It’s an estate up in the hills. My orders were to drive you there.”
Lasky thought for several moments. “Those navy orders?”
“Yes, sir. The only kind I get.”
“How come this car hasn’t got any markings on it? You know, serial numbers, U.S. Navy, stuff like that?”
“We’re a special group, Mr. Lasky. Top VIP’s only. We pick them up and drop them off and that’s all we know, sir.”
“I see.” He didn’t really, but what the hell. “Mr. Lasky, there’s a bar there if you’d like a drink.” A red light glowed on a panel, he heard the hum of an electric motor, and a bar slid out from the seat before him.
“Sir, your martini is on the right side of the bar. All mixed just the way you like it You’ll find ice on the left if you prefer it that way.”
Lasky picked up the drink, added two ice cubes and sipped. It was perfect. “All this part of your orders, sailor?”
He almost heard the chuckle. “Yes, sir. It is vodka instead of gin, isn’t it, Mr. Lasky?”
Lasky nodded to himself. ‘It is,” he told the other man, and the martini disappeared in a long, slow swallow.
Forty minutes later they turned off the main highway. A narrow road wound and twisted along a steep slope and the car stopped before massive metal gates. Lasky watched with interest. He knew security systems and there was a lot more backup to this gate than met the eye. He picked out the TV scanners, which meant that likely the gate area was covered with automatic weapons and the road ahead was mined, the devices to be detonated by remote control. What in the hell was tins? They drove through and continued along the winding road.
The car emerged from between heavy growth to either side of the road. Ahead of them stretched a magnificent garden and lawn, and a curving driveway to a building he never expected. He would have paid little attention to a great colonial home with white columns, or even a massive wood-and-stone structure of modem design. The last thing he ever expected to see here was an enormous black cubicle rising from the curving hill, dominating a magnificient view of tire islands and communities far below. “We’re here, sir,” said the driver. He remained behind the wheel. Before Lasky could open the door, a figure stood by the car to open it for him.
“It’s good to see you again, Mr. Lasky.”
Lasky climbed out. “I don’t remember—”
“I saw you off on the helicopter that took you out to the Nimitz, sir.”
Lasky nodded. “I remember. You’re Harold Elliott Executive assistant to Richard Tideman.”
Elliott took his attache case and shook hands. “Mr. Tideman said you never forgot names, places, or positions,” he said easily.
Lasky glanced up at the formidable structure. “Is Tideman here?”
“Yes, sir. Mr. and Mrs. Tideman are expecting you. If you’ll follow me, please?”
He walked slowly behind Elliott “Mind a question?”
“Not at all, Mr. Lasky.”
“We just docked tonight We didn’t even know when we were getting in. How could you have known?”
‘It’s an interesting thought isn’t it Mr. Lasky?” Harold Elliott managed a smile. “Really, sir, I’m not putting you off. My instructions are to let all such questions wait until you’re with Mr. and Mrs. Tideman.”
Lasky chewed on the answer. “All right” be said simply.
They went through another security check at the entrance to the great cubicle, much larger than he had estimated at first glance. An elevator took them eight stories up, and they stepped out into a wide foyer, plushly carpeted, with glowing walls. Not a picture or a sign or anything. Except for a single massive door. Elliott handed him back his case.
“This is where I remain, Mr. Lasky. You’re expected. Through that door, please?”
Lasky took the case and went forward slowly. He had expected Richard Tideman to be secure from outside interference, but this was beyond anything he imagined. He opened the door and walked in slowly, the dog moving cautiously beside him. He moved forward on thick carpeting. On the other side of the room, standing by wall-to-floor windows, waited a man and woman. “Warren Lasky,” he heard the man saying his name. “We have waited a long time for this moment.”
Before Lasky could answer, the dog let out a yelp and tore the leash from his hand, bounding forward. Lasky looked at the man. “Are you—”
“Forgive the security measures,” the man interrupted, still in shadow. “Yes, of course, Lasky. I’m Richard Tideman, and this is my wife.”
Lasky strained to see, but he couldn’t make out the details. “My pleasure,” he murmured.
They walked forward, their faces now in the light. Richard Tideman extended his hand. “Hello, Warren.”
Lasky shook hands with the strong, silver-haired man before him. His smile was electric. He—
He felt the icewater rush through his veins. “My God, it can't be—”
“Oh, but it is, Warren.”
“Dick Owens!”
“I’m sine you remember Laurel.” He stared at a-beautiful—no, a stunningly elegant woman, holding an ecstatic animal in her arms.
“Hello, Warren. It was only yesterday when I last saw you and you promised to take care of Charlie for me. Only yesterday,” she said with a dazzling smile. “Forty years ago.”
“Laurel. Laurel Scott,” Lasky breathed.
“The same,” she said.
He turned back to the man. “But … you’re Rich-chard Tideman!”
“You need another drink, Warren.”
They had talked through almost all the night. “So in the long run,” Owens-Tideman said, “it appears that time serves itself. Until yesterday, I was Richard Owens, navy commander, assigned to C7.S.S. Nimitz. But after what happened—that time warp—the paradox was established. I could not be in two places at the same time. I could not be a man on a small island off Hawaii in December of 1941 and also be the person who would suddenly reappear in the future. When Nimitz was enveloped in that storm a second time and warped back to now, I couldn’t be aboard. People’s memories or recollections don’t affect time, only physically causative elements. In other words, when Nimitz went through the warp to reappear in its own time and space, the person of Richard Owens, aged twenty-eight, was not only not aboard the carrier, but he no longer existed.
“Let me put it another way. Time serves itself, but history can and does accommodate a paradox, just so long as it doesn’t stretch the elasticity of reality too far in any one direction. It’s flexible, in other words. Laurel and I are living proof of what otherwise would have to remain a theory.”
Tideman—and Lasky was forcing himself to accept this man as Richard Tideman—sipped from a glass of dark red wine. “I’ve waited many years for mis moment 1 confess that Laurel and I had often wondered how it might turn out but now we know beyond any and all questions. Nimitz returned through time. Richard Owens did not. The tear in space-time was repaired. And yet Tideman, the man I am at this instant really aid not know until you walked through that door how it must turn out Charlie is one more wedge of the new reality.” He leaned back in a wide chair and sighed. “So it all fits. It was both yesterday and it was decades ago. That paradox is accommodated. That is a fact of the most overwhelming importance.”
“It must have been a, shall I say, strange, forty years?” Lasky ventured.
“Interesting, and informative. There is, well, it so happens there are small ways in which you can influence events. For example, your own career was nurtured and directed by Laurel and myself. Your computer work, your analytical programs, were all part of a plan.”
“You mean I had no choice in the matter?” Lasky felt a touch of anger.
“Of course you did. We didn’t maneuver you, Warren. We simply helped you, from behind the scenes, in what you wanted to do.”
“Yes. I can understand that”
“It’s no surprise to you—you knew it before you went back to 1941—that I am a very wealthy man. Indeed, the word wealthy is inadequate. I am worth more than we can easily compute. It is in the tens of billions of dollars, and I literally control hundreds of billions more. It’s hardly surprising, when you consider that I knew everything that would happen in the future ahead of me. I knew what moves to make, what stocks to buy, what properties to obtain, what small companies to control, what power politics to play/
Laurel’s the true master at that, as the years have established. Above all, though, I made certain never to rock the time boat, never to introduce elements that were inflexible, or even grossly out of proportion with events I knew were supposed to occur. So long as we moved with the time stream, I was safe, we were safe, and history would accommodate us. There is no changing history as would have happened, let’s say, if the planes from Nimitz had shot down the Japanese planes on their way to Pearl, and then wiped out the Nagumo fleet. Said simply, gross alterations are not permitted by changing the past, but subtle alterations are accepted. I don’t think I could write you a formula for that, Warren, but I don’t need to. Here I am. The proof. There’s one more proof. History recorded that Sam Chapman died in 1941 He did.”
