Time Loves a Hero (22 page)

Franc waited until night had completely fallen before he emerged from hiding. He had crouched in the shallows at the farthest end of the lagoon for the past half hour, raising his head above the surface only when he thought the darkness would conceal the bulge of the EVA suit's helmet. The camp was little more than fifty meters from his position, yet never once had anyone ventured over here. So long as he remained quiet, no one would know he was nearby.

It was a dangerous scheme, to be sure, but so far it had worked well. The moment he exited the timeship, Metz switched off
Oberon
's chameleon. Its abrupt appearance so thoroughly rattled the soldiers who had just invaded the island that no one noticed the telltale air bubbles caused by the opening airlock. Franc had fallen less than three meters before his boots sank into the muddy silt; he waited a few minutes, peering upward through the water to see if anyone had detected his presence, then he began his long hike across the lake bottom.

It had taken nearly two hours to reach the end of the lagoon. He didn't switch on the helmet lamps until he was twenty feet below the surface; by then, he had already paused to allow for pressure equalization. Lea had programmed the heads-up display with a map of the lake, but it could only show what lay above the water, not below it. The lake bottom was covered with man-made debris of every shape and size: rusting soda cans, coolers filled with muck, shapeless pieces of painted wood, fiberglass, and metal, broken fishing poles, even an ancient automobile that had loomed out of the brown limbo like a dinosaur carcass. Artifacts from an age of negligence.

The hardsuit would only be the latest addition to the lake's collection. When he was out of the water, safe within the woods along the shore, Franc lay on his back and struggled out of its ceramic carapace. The wool suit he had worn on the
Hindenburg
offered scant protection against the chill night air, but it would have to do; it was the only twentieth-century clothing he had saved from 1937. He took a few minutes to drag the EVA armor back to the lakeshore and shove it into the shallows; he heard a soft gulp as it swallowed water, then it disappeared from sight. With luck, it wouldn't be found for another dozen years or so, if ever.

Franc pulled up the coat lapels and tucked his hands beneath his armpits. He felt the tiny square of the compad in his shirt pocket, and briefly considered using it to contact the
Oberon
. No, that was a bad idea; the locals might be scanning carrier frequencies, including microwave. Better not tip his hand until he was good and ready. Lea and Vasili would just have to sweat a while longer. At least they were warm enough to sweat.…

Trying not to think about the cold, Franc began making his way through the dense thicket, careful not to step on any frozen branches underfoot. He heard the muted voices of soldiers on the nearby beach; when he paused to look back, he could just make out the lights encircling the
Oberon
. He regarded the distant timeship for a moment, just long enough to make him wonder at the lunacy of his own idea, then he turned and began trudging up the wooded slope.

Dozens of houses surrounded him, on the hillsides above the lake, but he could see lights from none of them. He briefly considered breaking into one, but decided to hold that only as a last resort. Even if they were presently unoccupied, these homes might have intruder alarms; he didn't possess the tools necessary to circumvent them.

Besides, his task was relatively simple from here on. All he had to do was locate a public telephone. If he could just make his way to a paved road, he knew that a phone wouldn't be distant. This was late-twentieth-century North America, after all. The locals loved telephones.

Road. Phone. Information. What could be more easy?

Wondering why Lea couldn't have done this instead, Franc fought his way through the dark and frigid night.

6:11
P.M.

Dinner was a brown vinyl bag containing an MRE: a Meal Ready to Eat or a Meal Rejected by Ethiopians, depending which definition one wished to accept. Inside were green foil wrappers containing diced cold turkey in gooey brown gravy, a tasteless potato patty, a handful of crackers, a packet of instant coffee, and some wispy blue tissue that Murphy first assumed was a napkin until he was informed that it was toilet paper. Eating at a picnic table by lanternlight, he managed to choke down half of the MRE before he took the rest to a garbage can. He should have been ravenous, but the events of the last couple or hours had left him without much of an appetite.

Shortly after he and Crawford returned from the sandbar, Colonel Ogilvy had held a briefing for the civilian advisors in the command tent. The facts themselves were clear: although the saucer inexplicably became visible at 1505, it had remained silent since then. Listening equipment set up around the craft hadn't disclosed any new information, no hatches had been discovered, and aside from what Murphy alone had seen in that brief instant before its single porthole closed, the craft's occupants hadn't chosen to reveal themselves.

Meredith Cynthia Luna remained adamant that the craft was an alien spaceship from a distant star system, and insisted that it contained emissaries from an interstellar federation. The possibility that these travelers might be human, or at least humanlike, only helped her embroider her revelation a little more: the human form wasn't unique only to the planet Earth, but is widespread throughout the universe, and these “parahumans” were deliberately seeking out others of their own kind. We shouldn't be confronting them with weapons, she charged, but had to find a more peaceful means of communication. She suggested that all the Rangers should immediately withdraw from the sandbar and allow her and several other OPS psychics to congregate on the island to attempt telepathic communication.

That was when Ogilvy laid down his cards. Since the Pentagon believed that the object posed a possible threat to national security, it had been decided that an attempt would be made to force entry. Metal-cutting torches used by the Navy for submarine rescue work were being flown in from Groton, Connecticut, along with technicians trained in their use. At 2400 hours, they would be deployed on the sandbar, where they would attempt to penetrate the object's hull.

Luna objected, and for once Murphy found himself in agreement, albeit for different reasons. They didn't know what was out there, but the fact that it had deliberately dropped its cloak tended to argue that the craft's occupants meant no harm. He needed more time to study the object; perhaps it hadn't come from the Crab Nebula, but neither was it from Tennessee.

Ogilvy had held firm: there would be no further debate on this point. This mission was under Defense Department auspices, and his orders had come from the highest levels. The colonel ended the briefing by telling everyone that chow would soon be served at the roach wagon, and then he closed his notebook and walked away.

Sanchez collared Murphy just before he went in search of a hot and tasty MRE. Although the military was handling the investigation, the FBI had jurisdiction over civilians working on this incident; this meant OPS was now working for the Bureau. Because Murphy hadn't yet received Top Secret security clearance, he would have to sign a document that would ensure that he wouldn't disclose anything he had heard or seen to anyone who didn't have similar clearance. So far as the public was concerned, the incident at Center Hill Lake never happened.

The document would soon be faxed to Sanchez. Once he received it, he would bring it to Murphy for his signature. One look at the agent's face told Murphy that there was no question whether he would sign it. Not unless he wanted to risk losing his job, let alone being sent to prison.

So dinner had been indigestible and the company worse, and Murphy found himself alone once more. The night was cold, the wind rising now that the sun was down. He pulled up his parka's hood and looked for a place to hide. The command tent had been taken over by Ogilvy and Sanchez, and he didn't want to see them right now. He briefly considered taking a quick nap in one of the Army trucks, but realized that he wasn't tired anyway. His eyes roamed to the distant sandbar, and the silver saucer captured within a circle of floodlights. All things considered, he was tired of looking at the bloody thing; just for a little while, he wanted to get away from all this.

So he decided to take a walk.

It was surprisingly easy to leave camp. No one had placed a guard on him, after all, and he didn't tell anyone that he was going away. A narrow paved road led uphill from the entrance to the picnic area; although a lone soldier stood watch at its gate, he didn't object when Murphy told him that he wanted to take a short stroll and would be back soon. The sentry was there to keep people from sneaking in; since Murphy only wanted to stretch his legs, where was the harm? The sergeant informed him that there was a campground store a half mile up the road, near the top of the hill. It was closed down, of course, but there was a Coke machine out front. Would Murphy mind bringing back a soda for him? Murphy didn't mind: one ice-cold Dr Pepper, coming up.

The breeze seemed to let up a bit once he was away from the water, but it rattled the bare branches around him. He tasted the scent of winter pine as the night closed in around him; the lights behind him vanished entirely, and he threw back his head to check out the constellations. It would have been a rare treat, since light pollution in the D.C. area forbade any decent stargazing, yet the sky was still overcast. A dark night; even after his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he could barely see his own hand when he held it at arm's length. Too bad.

Before he knew it, he reached the top of the road, where the mellow glow of a forty-watt bulb faintly illuminated a crossroad nestled in a saddleback between two short hills. There was a small general store at the junction, one which undoubtedly offered minnows, Moon Pies, and Orange Crush during season. The windows were shuttered, its door locked, but the porch light had been left on, illuminating the battered Coca-Cola machine between an empty bait tank and a pay phone.

Someone was using the pay phone.

At first he thought it was one of the soldiers, perhaps sneaking a call home to a wife or girlfriend, but when Murphy got closer he saw that the figure wasn't wearing military gear. Indeed, he seemed to be underdressed for the weather: a dark wool suit and nothing more, not even an overcoat. His back was turned, but even from a distance Murphy could tell that he was shivering in the cold.

Strange. Maybe he was a hitchhiker who had lost his way. Yet all the roads leading to this area had been blocked by state police; even then, the nearest highway was several miles away. Murphy studied the man at the phone as he walked toward the porch. Perhaps he was from one of the lakeside houses; Ogilvy had told them that they were summer homes, but maybe one of them was occupied year-round. Yet if that was the case, why would a permanent resident be using a pay phone to …?

“Thank you … yes, that would be most helpful.”

In the stillness of the night, Murphy heard the stranger's voice clearly. It held an odd accent that he couldn't quite place: British-American, yet with an faint Asian inflection.

“Yes, operator, would you be so kind as to tell me the exact date? Yes, ma'am … today's date. And the year, please.”

The date? The year? What, he didn't have a calendar?

The porch steps creaked when Murphy put his weight on them. Startled by his sudden appearance, the stranger looked up sharply, all but dropping the receiver from his hand.

“Sorry,” Murphy said automatically. “Didn't mean to interrupt.”

The man at the phone looked vaguely Eurasian. He stared at Murphy through wire-rim glasses, then seemed to remember what he had been doing a moment earlier. He raised the receiver again. “I'm sorry, ma'am … could you repeat that, please?”

Murphy walked over to the Coke machine, dug into his trouser pockets for change. He felt the stranger's eyes upon him as he found a couple of quarters and fed them into the slot. He had to be a vagrant; his clothes were so old-fashioned, they had to have come from the Salvation Army. Yet even the most destitute homeless men he had seen huddled on steam grates in downtown D.C. wore cast-off down coats or old baseball jackets. The last time Murphy had seen men's clothing of this style was in old photos of his grandfather as a young man.

“Thank you, ma'am. You've been very helpful.” The stranger prodded the rim of his glasses as if adjusting them, then hung up the phone. He blew into his hands, cast a furtive glance at Murphy, then started to walk toward the steps.

“Cold night,” Murphy said.

The stranger hesitated. “Pardon me?”

“Cold night.” Murphy pushed the Dr Pepper button; there was a heavy clunk deep within the vending machine, then a can rattled down the chute. “At least twenty.”

“Twenty what?”

“Twenty degrees. The temperature.”

“Oh … well …” Drawing his coat lapels more closely around him, the man nodded in the general direction of the road behind him. “It doesn't bother me. I don't live far away. Just down the road. Came down to use the road … the phone, I mean.”

Was it his imagination, or did his voice sound a bit different now? Murphy bent to pick up the can of soda, and the stranger hurried past him. “I didn't know anyone lived here year-round,” Murphy added. “I thought all these places belonged to summer people.”

“A few of us stay through the winter.” The other man took off his glasses, carefully folded them, placed them into his coat pocket. “Excuse me, but I …”

“Want to get home. Sure.” Murphy slipped the unopened soda into a pocket of his parka. “Take it easy.”

“Yes … uh, yeah.” He trotted down the porch steps. “I'll take it easy. You take it easy, too.”

Murphy watched the stranger huddle into himself and quickly walk away, moving out of the faint glow of the porch light as he began marching up the road leading to the top of the nearest hill. Poor bastard probably lives in a trailer, he mused. Can't afford a phone of his own, so he has to hike down here when he wants to make a call. Hope he's got a good space heater or something to keep him warm.…