All the Colors of Time (7 page)

She berated herself mentally for such a glaring oversight.
They’d been so wrapped up in the technological aspects of the situation, they’d
ignored the most obvious logical ones.

“General,” said Vance, “we never said things
would
change radically. Just that they
could.
”

Out of the corner of her eye, Oslovski saw George Wu trying
to attract her attention. He gestured, first, at his video unit, then at
himself. She responded with a slight nod.

“Are you
sure
you
killed him?” Caldwell was asking Ferris.

“Killed or vegetized,” responded the Colonel emphatically. “No
one survives two direct hits to the head with an AK-70.”

“Hilyard, you corroborate?”

Hilyard nodded.

“How can we know for certain?” was Caldwell’s next question.

Oslovski glanced at George Wu.

“History books,” he said quickly. “Newspapers. We can have
the Library Computer get a sampling.”

“Do it.”

George keyed in his request. Within seconds, they were
looking at a front page spread: GORBACHEV VICTIM OF ASSASSINATION PLOT.

“Continue,” George prompted. The page changed. WORLD STUNNED
BY VICIOUS ATTACK ON GORBACHEV: DOCTORS HAVE LITTLE HOPE FOR SOVIET LEADER’S
SURVIVAL.

“Hold that!” said Caldwell. “Let me read the copy.”

“Amplify,” said George.

The page enlarged, rendering the text beneath the caption
readable.

“He wasn’t killed,” murmured Caldwell. Then frowned. “But it
amounts to the same thing—severe brain damage, kept on life support in a Moscow
hospital. He’s a vegetable.” He shook his head. “I don’t get it. How come
nothing’s changed?”

“What were you expecting?” asked Oslovski as dispassionately
as she could.

He ignored her, his eyes devouring the story on the monitor.

“I could find some history books,” offered George.

Caldwell waved a hand at him. “No, don’t bother. I caught
the drift from this—” He flicked his fingers at the newspaper spread. “A lot of
wimpy speeches about ‘our brother’s sacrifice not being in vain,’ a lot of
fancy political rationalization about the impossibility of going back. Weak
willed—” He clenched his jaw.

“Maybe the effects are further in the future,” suggested
Ferris.

“That’s a distinct possibility,” said Oslovski thoughtfully.
“Time travel is a frontier. What we know of the Temporal Spectrum suggests that
changing history—altering the pattern of the Spectrum—might cause an actual
branching effect. This close to the bifurcation, we might not see its full
effects. Although, heaven knows, we could even have created an anomaly—a
parallel history, or a bubble in history.”

“And we could be in the middle of this . . .
bubble?” asked Caldwell.

Oslovski adjusted her glasses on her nose. “As I said—a
distinct possibility. Then again, maybe Someone or Something just won’t let us
change history . . . retroactively.”

Caldwell just stared at her blankly. Ferris gritted his
teeth. Hilyard smiled.

“How far in the future—these effects?” demanded Caldwell.

Oslovski shrugged, enjoying his frustration. “Years, decades . . .”

“I want to see it,” he said. “I want to see the future.”

“All right, but it will take several days to recalibrate our
equipment for a forward Shift. We could be ready to send your operatives into
the future in as little as . . . say . . . four
days.”

“Not them,
me! I
want to see it! Hilyard, you’ll come with me. In the meantime, I’ll be having
my contacts check their own Library computers.” He jabbed the table with his
forefinger, then pivoted on his heel and left the room with Ferris right
behind. Hilyard watched them leave, then rose slowly and followed, still
smiling.

Oslovski shivered. “I see what you mean about him,” she told
Vance. “He is creepy.” She turned to George. “I could just kiss you! Where did
you get that stuff you showed us?”

George shrugged. “Over the last couple of days I got to
thinking about how Caldwell and his bunch would react to this, and it occurred
to me that they’d want to see solid proof that what their operatives said
happened actually
did
happen. There
wasn’t any time to discuss it with everyone, so I had the Library Computer play
‘what-if’ with the assassination and come up with some hypothetical headlines
and political analyses. Then I just got a little creative with the output and
had the computer assign well-known authors to the commentary. There’s a front
page, lead story and follow-ups for every major U.S. and European publication.
Oh, and I had the computer draft some hypothetical history texts, too.”

“What made you decide Gorbachev didn’t die?” asked Vance.

“Well, it also occurred to me that Caldwell might very
likely do his verification somewhere that fell through my cracks, as it were.
If he did, he’d see that Gorbachev died of natural causes in a private hospital
outside Moscow at the age of eighty something. I had to adjust my ‘history’ to
that. I was able to get to his private computer through the Library of Congress
system. If he connects through that system, he’ll find that Gorbachev was taken
to a private facility where he eventually died—this is history according to
George, now. I also planted the idea that there was an attempted cover-up. That
a group of Soviet higher-ups tried to make light of the President’s injuries
and claimed that he had only been superficially wounded—so that people wouldn’t
lapse into despair or renewed animosity.”

“Why that?” asked Vance.

“Covering our tracks, Doc. There’s still every chance that
Caldwell or his contacts could look in the wrong places and come up with a
Gorbachev who was not only alive, but lively. Even with my noodling, that could
still unravel our whole fabric. Now, if I knew who Caldwell’s contacts were,
what data they’d be likely to access and what nodes they’d be using, I could
make sure they all got matching information. Unfortunately, I’m not a mind
reader.”

“You might not have to be,” said Oslovski. She held up a
small, dark gray box. “Hilyard dropped his handcomp.”

George gaped. “And it’s displaying a list of contacts?”

“No, it’s displaying an index.” She held it out to him. “You’re
the hacker—have at it.”

It was at once logical and beyond all possible miracles to
suppose that the names and system addresses of Caldwell’s contacts for Project
Hourglass were amongst the data stored in Hilyard’s handcomp, but they were.
George and Louis went into high gear. They downloaded the information to their
own handcomps and immediately set about using it to shunt any requests for
information originating from the contact’s terminals through to the QuestLabs’
Library server. Hilyard’s unit was returned to him post haste.

“But what if somebody just goes to a library terminal and
requests information about Gorbachev’s assassination?” asked Shiro.

George allowed himself a self-congratulatory grin. “I
planted something in the nature of a glorified IF-THEN statement in the Library
of Congress system. IF anyone requests information on the assassination
attempt, THEN they get routed to our ersatz fact file. Since all libraries
network to that system—” He shrugged.

“George, you’re a marvel,” Oslovski told him.

He blushed faintly at the praise. “Well, I couldn’t cover
all
our tracks, but I did what I could.
It’s just . . .” He made a wry face.

“What?”

“Well, it seems too much of a fluke, I guess. Here we find
ourselves in a position where we could use certain information and—bingo!—it
falls onto our conference room floor.”

“Miracles do happen,” observed Vance.

George tilted his head. “I don’t doubt it. But there’s
something a little odd about this miracle. For two weeks, Hilyard’s been taking
notes on that handcomp. I didn’t find a trace of them.”

“Maybe it was encrypted,” suggested Shiro.

“Even encrypted information takes up room in memory, my
dear. The only data left in that unit, with the exception of the information we
needed, was general stuff. There wasn’t even a letter to mom.”

Oslovski stiffened. “You’re suggesting we’ve been set up.”

George shrugged. “The nodes I accessed were operative and
the addresses and passwords were real. Maybe I’m just being paranoid.”

“Maybe not.” Oslovski frowned thoughtfully. “Let’s keep a
close eye on Major Hilyard.”

“What do we do if he does anything suspicious?” asked Louis.

Oslovski grimaced. “I haven’t the foggiest idea. But we don’t
have any time to worry about it. We’ve got to get ready for Phase Two of
Operation Little Big Horn. First order of business is helping General Caldwell
decide where to go.”

oOo

“It has to be someplace where I can ascertain military
activity,” said Caldwell. “In other words, a military installation.”

“A . . . War Room, perhaps?” suggested
Oslovski.

“You mean a Tactical Center,” corrected Ferris. “We haven’t
called them War Rooms for years.”

A rose by any other
name,
thought Oslovski. Aloud, she said, “Tactical Center, then. Would that
be appropriate?”

Hilyard looked up from fiddling with his handcomp. “Begging
your pardon, sir, but if a Tactical Center was in operation in the future,
wouldn’t that indicate something about the health of the military
establishment?”

Caldwell nodded slowly. “Makes sense. All right. Send us to
Offutt. If there’s any activity at all, it’ll be there.”

oOo

Four days later they were ready for the Shift, their
target, the year 2094, Offutt Air Force Base, Bellevue, Nebraska. Caldwell didn’t
ask what was in his shot, but accepted the electrolyte story at face value.
This time it was closer to the truth. Instead of a powerful tranquilizer, the
infusions contained only a mild neural damper and a dose of Ephkal-A.

Hilyard went onto the Grid first—a precautionary measure,
Cladwell insisted. Caldwell himself was plainly nervous as he followed; only
Hilyard’s extreme calm persuaded him he was not going to merely evaporate into
the shimmering void.

He re-materialized in semi-darkness and stiffened in
apprehension. The wave of anxiety passed at the pressure of Hilyard’s fingers
on his arm.

They were standing on a narrow catwalk. What light there was
in the vaulted room seemed to be coming from below. Figures moving about the
room cast eerie, elongated shadows onto the curving ceiling. Caldwell and
Hilyard moved in unison to the steel railing at the edge of the carpeted walk,
Caldwell looking back to make certain the move left them inside the
invisibility range.

Below and beneath was a large horseshoe-shaped chamber
bathed in mellow gold light and populated by uniformed soldiers.

Computer-generated maps alternated with video screens along
the curving walls, while in the heart of the room were several computer
stations. Directly at center was what looked like a huge holo-tank built on a
square footprint. It displayed what looked like a topographical relief rendered
in some sort of anodized, black metal. Between the top and bottom of the unit,
hung a shimmering curtain of colored light. Next to that mystery stood a figure
with what appeared to be an admiral’s insignia on its shoulders.

Caldwell frowned. The uniform was an unfamiliar silvery-blue
unrecognizable as being from any branch of the military. The rank suggested
Navy, but...

He scanned the other figures. Several, apparently officers,
also wore the silver-blue, others wore a vivid shade between royal blue and
midnight. From his high vantage point, he saw nothing of their faces; only the
tops of heads covered with unfamiliar caps.

Before he could solve the puzzle, one of the blue-suited
soldiers seated at a computer terminal turned and said, “Commander, we’re
receiving new data on the Northern Front. It looks like a much bigger push than
we anticipated.”

“On screen, Tech Newman.”

Caldwell stiffened. It was a woman’s voice. He’d never
objected to women entering the service—but in a War Room? Still, that the War
Room was here at all was heartening. One of the wall maps came suddenly to life.
Caldwell’s eyes flew to it and widened in surprise. Across a green
representation of the United States and Canada, swept a coruscating swathe of
gold, orange and red, its southern edge pressing as far south as Montana. On
the east, it reached greedy fingers of glowing hues toward the Great Lakes.

“My God,” Caldwell breathed awfully.

Hilyard glanced at him and tapped his ear.

The General barely noticed him. What nation could field such
a massive front, let alone push it all the way into the northern states? He
licked his lips, wondering what they were fighting it with.

“Have all the warnings gone out?” the Admiral asked.

“Yes, sir. Forty-eight hours before the leading edge. Status
reports are already coming in; everybody’s battening down for the duration.”

The Admiral nodded. “When will the leading edge reach
Yosemite?”

The technician plied his keyboard for an instant, then
consulted his monitor. “Approximately twenty-four hours, sir. They’ve been
advised.”

Twenty-four hours?
What army could move that fast?
Maybe it was a weapon of some sort.
Nuclear? No, too widespread. Chemical? Biological? How could they remain so
calm in the face of such vast destruction—as if it was everyday fare. This
looked like . . . Armageddon.

“Thank you, Newman,” the Admiral was saying. “Mr. Mendez?”

“Yes, sir.” Another technician glanced up from her console.

“Are you in communication with Yosemite Base?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What is their status?”

“Heavily embattled, sir,” answered the slightly accented
voice. “Commander Li says the situation is barely under control.”

“Visual reference,” ordered the Admiral.

Next to the huge map, a video panel pulsed on. Nothing
showed upon it but billowing smoke and flames. So faintly he wasn’t certain he’d
really seen them, Caldwell’s eyes caught the movement of bodies plummeting
through the fog-thick smoke. The observing camera eye panned. He saw uniformed
soldiers scrambling through the blazing brush, flames patting at their passing
legs like playful but deadly kittens.