The Rock (27 page)

"What about Debra?" Fran suddenly asked. "How come she didn't come back with us?"

Pencak sighed and leaned on her cane. "The bomb going off in Russia was only the beginning of the end. Even then mankind didn't learn. The Russians suspected the Americans of causing the explosion. The Americans suspected the Russians of trying to destroy Europe. The Europeans were too busy dying to suspect anyone. The southern hemisphere spiraled into economic and ecological disaster with the loss of the industrialized nations in Europe and the collapse of the South African gold standard. China tried flexing its military muscle and invaded Japan. The nuclear exchange between the United States and China was a result of the Americans trying to halt the takeover. Of course, the fact that the Japanese islands were left uninhabitable as a result of the war didn't stop anyone.

"But even then, staring extinction as a species in the face, the governments still worked against each other. Levy was picked up by the Hermes Project. She joined you all in the underground bunker, but her job was far different from yours. Hers was to work on weapons of destruction--the American government's last gasp at the ultimate weapon. And she did that very well." Pencak swiveled her gaze to Fran. "You recognized Ayers Rock when you saw it, but it was different, wasn't it?"

"It looked torn up," Fran said.

"It had been. The war was still going on even as we were running this mission," Pencak said. "Australia was the last habitable continent and you could see that it was barely livable--we had to heavily filter the air we pumped in from the surface. The remains of the U.S. government and the Hermes Project moved to Australia in year twenty-three of the Chaos. We built and occupied that vast underground complex underneath the Rock.

"Levy was the key to the team that developed the theories that allowed construction of the plasma projectors. A splinter group of survivalists used those weapons on our support facilities outside Ayers Rock when they discovered our plan to change the past and destroy our present. We stopped them temporarily, but only to gain time to complete this project. You could see what their weapons did to the Rock.

"The Russians--what remained of them--also worked on their own weapons. The other three men whose names we sent to the Russians were part of that team. Their deaths portend a change of our future even if the bomb does go off, because they will not be there to complete their particle-beam weapon, perfected twenty-five years after the start of the Chaos. Whether others may step into the breach and complete it we don't know. All we do know is that in twenty-seven minutes, the first true major change may or may not occur. All the other actions are a backup to that."

Fran looked up--there was a hint of light gray on the eastern lip of the crater. She shivered in the cold and wondered where Hawkins was right now and how close he was to succeeding in his mission.

Vicinity Kapustin Yar

Strategic Missile Test Center, Russia

23 DECEMBER 1995, 1440 LOCAL

23 DECEMBER 1995, 1140 ZULU

The Russian drove sitting in his own feces, no longer able to control his bodily functions. He didn't even notice the discomfort of it as the pain that racked his dying body overrode such trivial feelings. Only the intensity of his single-mindedness allowed him to continue to control the truck along the deserted logging road. He knew he was close because he'd passed the first warning signs that he was entering a restricted area fifteen minutes before. If he kept going along this road, in three or four miles he would reach the outer security fence. He didn't plan on having to go that far. Just another mile or so would be close enough for the yield of this bomb to vaporize the greater part of the main post of the facility--particularly the mobile rocket launchers holding the SS-27's.

He reached up and slid his shaking hand along his jacket pocket, ensuring that the remote detonator was still there. He'd rigged the bomb yesterday, knowing that today he would not be well enough to do the intricate wiring work. All it would take was to flip up the cover on the detonator and press the switch, and it would all be over.

His eyes were so intent on the road that it took him a moment to realize that the sun had been blocked out and he was in a shadow that extended only a short distance on all sides of the truck. He slowly became conscious of a howling sound. The wind was swirling around the vehicle, blowing snow up into the air. He pushed the brake and rolled down the window, leaning out and looking up.

Twenty feet above, Tuskin leaned out the open door of the skimmer and recognized Sergot as the older man squinting against the down blast from the thrusters. Tuskin considered vaporizing the cab of the vehicle with the plasma projector, but quickly vetoed that idea. For all he knew, Sergot might have rigged a dead man's switch, in which case the bomb would go off. Or the bomb itself might be up in the cab, in the passenger seat, and he was unsure what effect the projector would have on it.

Hawkins appeared at his side, having set the controls to hold the skimmer in position. "The nearest place to land is about two hundred meters ahead!" Hawkins screamed into his ear.

"He's there!" Tuskin yelled above the roar of the thrusters. "There's no time to land."

The door of the truck opened and Sergot stepped out. He held something in his right hand. As Hawkins swung up his weapon, Tuskin made his decision. He leapt out the open door and fell the thirty feet to the ground, landing on top of Sergot.

Tuskin heard the snap as his left leg broke and could feel several ribs on the side that had hit Sergot splinter and tear into his left lung. He ignored the pain as he reached with both hands and seized Sergot's right hand, squeezing with all his might. The older man was dazed when Tuskin landed on him and desperately tried to flip open the lid to the firing device. Tuskin kneed him with his good leg and dug his thumb into the other man's wrist, forcing the fingers open. Tuskin grabbed the device as he heard the roar of a pistol and felt the thud of a large-caliber bullet slamming into his gut. As Sergot fired again with his left hand, Tuskin threw the firing device clear of the two of them and turned his head up at Hawkins, hovering in the doorway of the skimmer overhead. "Shoot!" Tuskin screamed, but his words were blown away by the roar of the engines.

Sergot shifted and again fired into Tuskin at pointblank range. Tuskin felt his hold on the other man slip away as a darkness came over his eyes. With all his might he gripped the other man one last time to keep him from crawling after the detonator. He smiled for the briefest of moments as he heard the crackle of the plasma projector come from above. Then the smile was obliterated along with the rest of his body and Sergot.

Hawkins gently lowered the skimmer into a field a short distance away and then walked back to the truck. He stepped, with hardly a glance, around the black charred spot that had been two men, and pulled aside the tarp that covered the back. The bomb sat there all alone in the rear. Hawkins got into the cab of the truck and drove it to the skimmer and trundled the bomb on board.

He went up to the cockpit and set the controls for Tunguska.

TIME 

Meteor Crater

23 DECEMBER 1995, 0455 LOCAL

23 DECEMBER 1995, 1155 ZULU

"Five minutes." Batson muttered. Looking at the glowing face of his watch. The gray in the eastern horizon was now an ever-brightening reddish tinge, heralding the coming of the sun. Fran could now make out the outline of the eastern rim of the crater hundreds of feet above her head.

"Why were you sent back so many years before now?" Fran asked.

Pencak had been fading and coming back into focus every thirty seconds or so, for the past ten minutes. The old woman wearily looked at the younger one. "I was the one who had to help set up the whole scenario here in the United States."

"That's why you wrote all those articles about nuclear explosions forming the craters," Don observed. "And why you made your living here."

Pencak nodded. "But I had much more to do than that." She paused, faded, and then came back. Her voice was shaky as she tried to explain. "I had to monitor events and people. I have watched all of you at various times, as did my comrades. We had the facts laid out in our books and computers, but we wanted to know about the people themselves--would they be up to the tasks set before them."

"Were you the only one?" Don asked.

Pencak sighed. "No. My husband went back when I did. Except he went to Russia and he went earlier in 1943."

"Felix Zigorski!" Fran exclaimed.

"Yes. We got to see each other only every few years and then he died in 1990. But he had done his job well enough by then that the plan could go forward without him."

"You've sacrificed much to change things," Fran said.

Pencak looked at the younger woman for a long moment. "Our sacrifices will be for nothing if you do not make your own from here on out."

Tunguska 

23 DECEMBER 1995, 1757 LOCAL

23 DECEMBER 1995, 1157 ZULU

The antiaircraft systems surrounding Tunguska didn't even have a chance to fire as the skimmer hit the portal at over two hundred miles an hour. Hawkins flinched in the front seat as the front display showed nothing but trees just below until, at the last second, the craft skipped over the lip of the excavation and dived straight into the black Wall.

He was out on the other side before he had a chance to fully comprehend what had happened. By itself the skimmer threaded its way through the underground complex to the elevator door. The door slid open and Hawkins landed the skimmer. He rolled the bomb down the ramp and settled it on its side. He glanced up as three figures dressed in robes appeared and seemed to glide forward toward him.

Hawkins ignored them for the moment. He leaned both Tuskin's and his plasma projectors against the bomb casing, then straightened and stared at the figures. "I've recovered the second bomb. Colonel Tuskin died getting it."

"Yes, we can see that you have the bomb, Major Hawkins." The sound seemed to come from the center figure. "There are only a few minutes remaining." The Speaker slid his hood down, revealing his misshapen features. "My name is Raynor. I am human like you and come from your future."

Hawkins didn't even blink. During the ride back to the portal he'd put many of the pieces together. He stared at Raynor. "You're trying to change history."

"We have changed history, now that we have that bomb here. It was scheduled to go off in two minutes and twenty-three seconds. When it doesn't, this complex and my comrades and I will no longer exist. This future will no longer exist."

Hawkins shrugged wearily. "It doesn't look like a future I would want."

"It isn't." Raynor stepped forward. "You don't care about your own future, do you?"

Hawkins shook his head. "No. Here's as good a place as any to die."

"But it's not your time," Raynor replied. "It's our time." A black portal appeared on the side wall. "You must go back."

"What about the others?" Hawkins asked.

"Fran Volkers and Don Batson have already gone back. Debra is staying here."

"Is that her choice?" Hawkins asked.

"Yes. It is her choice." The three figures faded to the point of almost disappearing, then reappeared. "We may not be able to keep the portal open much longer. Go!"

Hawkins unfastened the protective suit and threw it on top of the bomb. He walked to the portal and stepped through without a backward glance. The portal flashed and he was gone.

Meteor Crater 

23 DECEMBER 1995, 0459 LOCAL

23 DECEMBER 1995, 1159 ZULU

"One minute," Batson announced.

"What will happen now?" Fran suddenly asked. "What did your projections show as the most probable course of events if the bomb is stopped and the governments cooperate?"

Pencak smiled. "That, my dear, is for you to live." The old woman's smile dissolved and faded, along with the rest of her, and Fran and Don were left alone at the bottom of the crater.

"It worked," Don whispered.

Fran looked up where the first rays of the sun were lancing over the rim of the crater and tickling the far side with their warmth. "It worked so far. But now it's up to us to make sure things stay on track." She reached out and took Don's hand. "It's a long walk to the top. I think we ought to get going." Together they walked across the crater bottom toward the closest side, where a winding trail led to the rim.

Ayers Rock 

23 DECEMBER 1995, 2130 LOCAL

23 DECEMBER 1995, 1200 ZULU

The wall disappeared, leaving bare rock in its place. The Russian general turned and looked at Lamb. "The twenty-four hours are up."

Lamb nodded. "They've closed it off."

"They've been doing that at Tunguska on and off over the past day," the general commented. He reached a hand up and pressed an earplug tighter in as he strained to listen.

"Tunguska has closed again. My men also report that the strange craft went back through just three minutes ago." The general pulled the earplug out and regarded Lamb solemnly. "What do you think the Coalition's decision was?"

Lamb felt something give way inside himself and suddenly he felt lighter and freer than he had in years. He put an arm on the Russian's shoulder. "We may never know. We can only hope it was to extend the perimeter. If not-well, either way we must join together and prepare either for eventual acceptance into the Coalition or to fight the Swarm. But we no longer have to wonder what path to choose-it's been chosen for us."