Borrowed Time (6 page)

"Of course. Why would I lie to you?"

"You tell me."

"You must have people down in Norfolk. Check it out for yourselves." Once these Pinkertons confirmed my story and handed it to Lincoln, he’d be very receptive to the proposal Ericsson would be making in the near future. Receptive enough to over-rule any objections from the ship-building establishment. As someone once suggested, letting people act in their own best interests was the best way to get results.

The notebook flipped shut and slid into a pocket as the ferret nodded. "We’ll check on it. Thanks. If this is true, President Lincoln will hear about it." He stood aside, gesturing with a jog of his head out the alley. "Where are you going now?"

It didn't seem like a good idea to announce I had to return to Richmond for my next jump. "Actually, I have business up North."

"Good. Since you seem unfamiliar with the city, we'll walk you to the train station."

"I hate to put you to all that trouble," I protested. Not that I minded being run out of town, but I didn't want these locals watching where I went.

"No trouble at all," the ferret assured me. I shrugged and walked out beside him, the gorilla following with a disappointed look on his face. At the station, the ferret offered me his 'pencil' so I could pretend to write down some schedules, then I bought a ticket to New York City and palmed the pencil as a bit of petty revenge. As far as I could tell, no other tails followed me onto the train, but just in case I used a doubleback in Baltimore before heading south.

I'd primed a Northern inventor to build something and the Northern President to want that same thing despite any protests. Now it was just a matter of waiting for the fireworks and hoping I'd timed things right.

#

The fireworks were impressive. I had to give Harry and his pals credit. The ironclad ship concept they'd suggested to the Confederates had been simple and suited to current technology. No messy anachronisms this time. So here I was on 8 March, 1862, back at Hampton Roads, watching the old frigate
Merrimack
, reborn as a hump-backed metal monster and rechristened
Virginia
, steaming grandly back to port after trashing a couple of wooden warships in the Union blockade fleet. This, as it happened, was the 'win' Harry had boasted to me about. Break the Union blockade, and you opened the door to European recognition of the Confederacy and a steady supply of weapons.

Harry had been partly right to announce victory, but only partly. Just because his people had managed a win for the South on March 8th didn't mean they'd continue the winning streak the next day, not if the counter-punch I'd set in motion materialized on schedule. Which it should, since I'd primed the North to keep track of the work on the
Merrimack
. I hadn’t been able to follow events up North since coming South, but Ericsson's ship ought to be on its way here now.

"Well, well, look what the cat drug in."

I turned at the familiar voice, seeing Harry two paces behind me smiling as smug as you please. "Harry Dawson. Fancy finding you here-and-now."

"Long time no see, Citizen."

"Not long enough, Citizen." We were playing a delicate mental ballet, each trying to determine when we'd last seen the other. Had Harry already threatened me in Richmond months before, or would he go there after this meeting? I was on my third jump, but he might be on his first or his fifth. I tried playing to his not-inconsiderable ego. "Is this your work?"

His smile widened so far I could examine his dental work. "That's right, Citizen. I hope you weren't hired by somebody who didn't want it to happen, because if you were they wasted their money."

Bingo. Here-and-now he wasn't sure who'd hired me, which meant this meeting came before the one in Richmond back in 1861. "I never discuss my clients' business in public. It's unprofessional."

"So is losing, and I bet you just lost. Are you going home now?"

"No. I think I'll hang around. I'm starting to like this place."

Harry's eyes narrowed. "Don't get any ideas. We're watching you."

I started to reprise my last year's remark about him being an emperor, remembered he hadn't heard it yet, and decided to hold it so it'd have full impact when I slung it at him earlier. "You do that, Harry. See you around."

I left him standing there, looking triumphant, and headed back into Norfolk, looking for a place to spend the night. The next few days might or might not be a foregone conclusion, so I needed to confirm firsthand that I'd done what my clients wanted. The sun set in a gunpowder-and-burning-ship-smoke-filtered blaze of glory as I walked, wondering how well-lighted the streets here were at night.

The answer was not very well, not that it mattered for long. While walking through a particularly dark patch on the street I heard a stealthy sound behind me, followed an instant later by the impact of a stun charge punching into my back. After that, it really got dark.

I awoke with an aching head and a queasy stomach. The reason for the painful head was obvious, and once I pried open my eyes so was the reason for the upset stomach. I lay in the bottom of some kind of small wooden watercraft, bobbing erratically in the choppy waters. Except for the moving water, everything else was silent and still in that curious way things always get between midnight and dawn. My first attempt to move revealed that my hands were bound together at the wrists behind me.

"Good morning, Citizen," a now very familiar voice snarled.

"Hi, Harry."

He knelt in the bottom of the boat, angry face centimeters from mine. "Real good trick you’re going to pull, Citizen. But not good enough. Maybe you stopped us tomorrow, but it won't happen that way."

I took a moment to sort the jump-tangled tenses through my aching brain. Apparently, this Harry had come from an even later jump, after tomorrow's events were decided. "Criminey, Harry. How many jumps can your client afford?"

"Enough," he spat back.

"Well, you should lay off them. They're making you real anti-social."

Instead of getting madder, Harry just smiled. "Talk all you want. Your ace is about to get trumped." With a dramatic flourish he whipped a piece of canvas off an object lying near me, revealing a cylindrical shape that glinted metallically in the moonlight.

A mini-torpedo. Not the things they called torpedoes here-and-now, which were just tethered mines, but a real self-propelled fish as long as my leg and equipped with a high-explosive warhead. Four holes in the top and sides of the back marked the outlets for the pressure-jet impellers. No primitive screw propellers for Harry's guys. Technology that flashy and anachronistic was risky as all get out, not even counting the cost of bringing it on a jump, which meant my opponents were desperate. That was good. Unfortunately, I was tied up in their boat and the ugly little weapon they'd brought Downtime had a very good chance of doing its job, all of which was bad.

"You can't be serious," I suggested. "What kind of Temporal Intervention footprints are you planning on leaving behind here?"

Harry's smile didn't waver. "None that matter. Your ship is sitting at anchor nearby. This jewel will cruise under its keel and blow a hole in the bottom. It won't sail out to fight tomorrow. End of Michael Holmes' little toy, and none of the locals will ever guess what really happened. For that matter, maybe the end of Michael Holmes, period. Like I told you earlier, Mikey, there's a war on, and people get hurt all the time."

"That's not very nice, Harry." A glimmer of an idea came to me, but if I was going to execute it I needed a good bit of distraction. Well, there was Harry leaning over me and my feet were free...

The sole of my foot caught him in the solar plexus. Harry went back and over with a tremendous splash. While his two pals dropped their oars and lunged to get him, I brought my knees up and hands forward until they cleared my feet, then dug frantically in my coat pocket, fumbling with my bound hands to seize and pull out the ancient writing implement I’d lifted off the Pinkerton ferret. I rolled toward the torpedo as my hands surfaced with the pencil, and jammed it as hard as I could into the right-hand impeller hole. It stuck solid halfway in, so I swung my clenched hands viciously, breaking off the protruding portion. By the time Harry, dripping wet and mad as a French Revolutionary circa 1800, saw me again I was lying back in place, smiling apologetically. "How's the water, Citizen?"

His fist came part way back, then lowered slowly. "You'll find out," he whispered. "Only nobody will pull you back in the boat. Understand? But first, I want you awake and aware while your Intervention gets ruined." I lay there as the boat bobbled its way across the water for an interminable period, occupying myself by slowly working at the ropes binding my hands. Based on the period, and the way they felt against my skin, those ropes should be natural fiber, which meant they were a lot stiffer than a synthetic and were also slightly slick. Also rough. It hurt like hell, but one of my hands slowly began to work through its binding. I hadn't quite finished when Harry finally gestured to his friends to stop rowing and pointed gleefully off to the side. "There. You can't miss it. And neither will the torpedo." With the help of both buddies, he hoisted the weapon over the side.

I needed to distract them in order to make sure they didn’t look too closely at the weapon and perhaps see my sabotage. “How’s that torpedo work, Harry? Some sort of homing device?”

Harry shook his head scornfully. “Too unreliable after a jump, Citizen, as you should know. No, it’s a simple straight-runner with an internal gyro to keep it fixed on course.” He leaned over the side of the boat, fumbling with something, then straightened. “There it goes. Say goodbye to your plan, Mikey."

"Goodbye, Harry." Something about my voice must have alerted him, because Harry looked at me with a very worried expression for about five seconds. That's how long it took for the torpedo, unable to hold a straight course with the impeller on one side completely blocked, to circle back around and pass under our boat. There was a muffled whump as the center of the rowboat flew upward and into pieces, followed by a geyser of water. Harry and his pals got tossed in one direction with their end of the boat while I went in another.

The water was cold as Europa and murky with stuff I didn't care to think about. No wonder Harry had been so mad when I dunked him. I lunged up gasping for air, before my period clothing absorbed water like a sponge and dragged me back under. I had time to wonder if my improvised plan hadn’t had a serious flaw, then flexed with all my strength against my bonds. Thanks to a little extra lubrication from the water, the hand I’d been working on jerked free, leaving a significant quantity of skin behind. Stroking to the surface again, I got another breath before my clothes pulled me down once more, then pulled off my coat before fighting my way up a third time. Grabbing a largish piece of rowboat as it drifted by, I rested on the impromptu float, watching as my hand dribbled blood into the frigid water. “Jeannie, did sharks inhabit these waters in this here-and-now?”

Affirmative. I do not have records giving precise hunting areas, however
.

“That’s okay. Thanks.” I ripped my shirt off despite the cold, wrapping it around my hand, then started paddling away from the yells and curses of Harry and his pals. I wondered what story they'd tell if a Union picket boat picked them up.

I mostly drifted until daylight, which fortunately wasn't long in coming, wishing this little event had been timed for a much warmer part of the year. Uptime mental training included a lot of ways to activate ancient methods of coping with severe temperatures, but the ability to survive didn’t make the cold any more pleasant. Eventually, a sailboat full of locals out to see the
Merrimack
aka
Virginia
in action again came by and picked me up. Wrapped in a blanket and fortified with their bourbon, I watched Ericsson's ship, (which he’d christened the
Monitor
) screw-propeller, rotating gun turret, forced ventilation and all, steam out to meet the Confederate vessel. The rest of the day was spent contemplating the two ironclads bouncing solid shot off each other, until the
Merrimack
slunk home, stymied.

#

"So," I finished explaining, "the disappointed locals took me back to Norfolk with them, and I headed for Richmond to get my jump gear and come back Uptime. With the
Merrimack
nullified, the Union took Norfolk a couple of months later."

“And no one thought it amazing that both North and South decided to produce these ironclads at the exact same time?” my client marveled.

I couldn’t help smiling. “Downtime historians labeled it a remarkable coincidence.” Coincidence explains everything and nothing, which made it convenient for Temporal Interventions like the Wright Brothers’ engine and Ericsson’s ironclad.

"That's wonderful. Is there any chance this torpedo the other T.I.’s used will be found and create temporal problems?"

"No, the bottom there is soft mud, so any pieces left after it exploded sank right out of sight.”

The client shook her head, plainly bewildered. “But now history records this battle of ironclad ships. It couldn’t have before. Why didn’t your changing history change our present as well?”

“Because I didn’t change the present. It’s based on the North winning the American Civil War. Fine. The North won. Some details changed, that’s all.”

“But . . . but . . . someone once said God is in the details!”

“They did? They were wrong. God doesn’t care about details. Neither does the Universe. Ask a quantum physicist. Historians used to care about details, which is why all the inconsistencies in the historical record drove them crazy.”

“I still don’t understand,” the client lamented. “If our present is based on large events which are inevitable, such as the North winning the American Civil War, why do some people try to change those large events?”