Time Loves a Hero (31 page)

For an instant barely longer than a human heartbeat, Herbert had caused a wormhole to open around itself, then slipped back in time … for one second.

In that single second, there had been two Herberts: the one about to disappear into chronospace, and the one that had appeared out of nowhere some distance behind it. When that happened, the ground radar had briefly captured both of them as two distinct blips.

Not only that, but Herbert's nose camera had picked up an image of itself … as seen from behind.

“Jesus …” Feeling his knees beginning to buckle, Murphy sagged against the lieutenant's console. He made himself take deep breaths; for a moment he thought he was going to faint. All around him, Air Force officers were shouting at one another as Doris and Everett hugged each other. He looked around, caught the expression on General Leclede's face. It was nauseatingly smug, and Murphy had little doubt that, when he made his final report, he would claim most of the credit for the success of Blue Plate.

All of a sudden, the one thing he wanted most in the world was to get a breath of fresh air.

“Save the data,” he said to Everett, “and transfer control to the tower for the flyback phase.” Then, muttering apologies no one seemed to hear, Murphy grabbed his parka and began pushing through the crowd. Leclede called after him, but he pretended not to hear as he headed for the door.

The chill desert air was a relief after the closeness of the control room. The wind had died down, so he pulled his Mets cap out of his pocket and put it on. The ground crew was gathered at the edge of the airstrip, waiting for Herbert to make its remote-controlled landing. Murphy hoped he would get a chance to inspect the drone for himself before it was spirited away into one of the hangars. However, now that the Air Force knew the secret to temporal transit, everyone involved in Blue Plate—or at least the civilian R&D staff—would be retired. Herbert had just become a military asset.

Now he knew how J. Robert Oppenheimer must have felt …

The hell with it. Thrusting his hands in his jacket pockets, Murphy strolled away from the operations building. Perhaps it was just as well. He had never intended to let Blue Plate consume nearly one-third of his life. All he had ever wanted to do was figure out how someone with a handful of archaic pocket change and a passenger manifest for the
Hindenburg
could wind up in 1998.

“So now you know,” he murmured to himself. “Happy?”

Well, at least he had a military pension coming to him. The mortgage was paid off, and he had come to enjoy living in New England. Perhaps he could see Steven a little more often, and take in a few ball games at Shea Stadium …

Suddenly, everything around him seemed a little brighter, like the first light of dawn breaking over the secret airstrip.

Murphy was looking at the ground when it happened. He saw his own shadow stretching out before him, much as if a great floodlight had abruptly been switched on the night sky. Then he heard men shouting behind him …

“Hey, what …?”

“Holy shit, it's …!”

“
Nuke!
”

Murphy whipped around, stared upward. For an instant, he, too, believed that the nuclear bomb had exploded far above the desert. He instinctively covered his eyes with his hands, yet there was no sound, no concussion, only a hellishly bright glare from high in the night sky, as if a miniature supernova had suddenly erupted far out in space …

“
Oh, my God!
” someone yelled. “
Look at the Moon!
”

Lowering his hands, Murphy gaped at the sky. The source of the glare was coming from where he had seen the Moon only a few moments ago …

He was still staring at the white-hot orb in the sky when something flashed directly behind him.

At first, he thought it the high beams of a nearby truck. He couldn't take his eyes off the sky, and so he ignored it, but then the illumination grew brighter, overwhelming even the distant cataclysm, and suddenly he was aware of nearby men pointing his way, shouting in horror …

Murphy turned, found himself standing at the edge of a ball of light that had materialized directly behind him. Within the center of the aura was a vaguely man-shaped form, yet with wings that rose above its head.

Raising his hands against the blinding glare, Murphy started to step back, yet any thoughts of escape came much too late. The corona stretched out to envelop him, the figure within its nucleus reaching toward him …

The taloned hands that grasped his arms weren't human.

Tues, Oct 16, 2314—1547Z

“You say you saw it?” Lea asked. “The angel, I mean … you got a close look at it?”

“Only for a second.” Murphy shrugged as he continued to gaze into the remains of the bonfire, as if summoning memories from its dying embers. “I'm not sure what happened then, except that I blacked out. When I woke up, I was here.” He gestured toward the fire. “I guess it left that to keep me warm. I don't why or how, but I knew that you were coming, so I just waited until …”

“Tell us about the angel,” Lea said quietly. “What did it look like?”

Murphy shivered. “Lady, whatever it was, it was no angel. More like a reptile on two legs, with a face that would give you nightmares.” His brow furrowed as he thought about it. “About seven, eight feet tall, with long fins coming from its back. Leathery brown skin, long bony skull, black eyes. Evil-looking, but …”

He said nothing for a moment, then he shook his head. “But they're not evil. At least, that's what it's telling me now. It says it's deliberately hiding its appearance because we associate ugliness with evil, and it's aware that we'd consider it repulsive.” A corner of his mouth inched upward. “I can't fault its reasoning. From the brief glimpse I got of the one who brought me here, it's about the worst thing I can imagine.”

The sun was starting to set behind the western side of the valley. With twilight closing in, the rings in the sky were beginning to change color, assuming muted shades of orange and red which vaguely resembled the autumn foliage that once graced New England at this time of year. “But these … this race, I mean … weren't they the ones who destroyed the Moon?” Franc picked his words carefully, mindful that someone or something else was eavesdropping on their conversation. “That led to the destruction of our planet and everyone on it. Why shouldn't we regard them as evil?”

Again, Murphy shut his eyes and lowered his head, assuming the posture of someone listening carefully to an unseen voice. “It insists that it's … I mean, they … that they're not evil,” he said at last, speaking haltingly. “It's speaking about its race. It claims that they're destroying our satellite … the Moon, I mean … was necessary in order to prevent us from damaging spacetime any further. If they hadn't done so, we would have caused more paradoxes to occur, until …”

“So they snuff out five billion people?” Metz hurled a stick into the fire as he angrily rose to his feet. “You just can't … I mean, who the hell elected them God? They're …”

“For chrissakes, shut up!” Hands clamped over his ears, Murphy bent forward as if in physical pain. “I didn't … I can't …!”

“Vasili, sit down, please.” Lea moved closer to Murphy, wrapped an arm around him. “Take it easy,” she whispered. “It's all right. Don't rush, just take it easy …”

She shared a meaningful look with Franc. Like him, she was concerned about the precarious state of the scientist's sanity. No wonder he was frightened; for the last couple of hours, he had been forced to act as a telepathic channel between them and the … whatever it was. Indeed, watching Murphy lay his head against Lea's shoulder like a frightened child, Franc wondered whether he wasn't close to snapping.

Metz regarded Murphy with disgust and loathing. “Sure,” he muttered. “Take it easy. We've got all the time in the world …”

“Be quiet.” Franc locked eyes with the timeship pilot. “And if you can't be quiet, then go back to the
Oberon
.” Perhaps there was some sort of washover effect associated with the telepathic link; whenever any one of them—particularly Vasili, the most irritable of all—had become emotionally aroused, Murphy had reacted accordingly. He returned his attention to the old man cradled in Lea's arms. “Dr. Murphy,” he said as quietly as he could, “if you need some rest, we can continue this later.”

Like it or not, he had to admit that Metz was right on one point: they did have all the time in world. Indeed, time was the only thing Earth had left.…

Murphy surprised him by shaking his head. “No, no … this is too important. I just …” Opening his eyes, he sighed as he sat up straight. “I'm sorry, it's just that … when I woke up this morning, it was 2024, and everyone I knew was still alive. And now …”

“We understand,” Lea said. “If it makes any difference, it hasn't been easy on us, either.”

Daylight was beginning to fade, the fire quickly dying out. Franc found another branch behind him; he broke it in half, fed it into the low flames. “So tell us everything you know,” he said quietly, giving Metz an admonishing look. “We won't interrupt again, I promise.”

“Everything I know. Sure …” Murphy pulled off his baseball cap, absently ran his fingers across its embroidered logo. “Okay, for what it's worth, here goes …”

Again, a reticent moment. “The angels … the aliens, or whatever you want to call them … are an old race. I mean, very old … they were technologically sophisticated when we were still in the Stone Age. They won't tell me what they called themselves, or where their home world is …
was
, I mean … located, because they wish to keep that secret. However, they will tell me that, for about a thousand years … our years, I think … they dominated a quadrant of our galaxy nearly two hundred light-years in diameter, and had explored most of the rest.”

“So they were conquerors,” Metz said flatly.

Franc shot him another look, but Murphy didn't seem to mind. “At first they were, yeah, but as time went on they abandoned their ambitions for empire. I guess you could say they grew up. They realized it wasn't much fun being the toughest kid on the block, because then nobody wants to play with you.” He smiled. “Those are my words, not theirs, but you get the point.”

“We do,” Franc said. “Go on, please.”

“There's lots of intelligent races out there … no surprise, I guess we knew that all along … but very few reach the point of achieving space travel, and even fewer learn how to construct wormholes. The ones that do, though, soon discover that if they're able to bridge space, they're also able to bridge time. If you're able to accomplish one, then the other comes naturally. Follow me so far?”

“Sure. That's the way it happened with us,” Franc said. Lea shook her head at him, but he ignored her. At this juncture, there was no sense in hiding anything from Murphy; his future was their past, even if on different worldlines, and right now none of them had anything left to lose. “Where we came from, humankind launched the first hyperspace starship in 2257. We started exploring chronospace about twenty-five years later. And you're right … we've found plenty of eetees, but none of them are capable of space travel, let alone time travel. So far, at least.”

Murphy nodded. “Well, they're out there … or at least, the ones that survived. Apparently, time travel is the most dangerous thing an intelligent race can discover, because a civilization capable of exploring its own history is likewise capable of changing it. When that happens, more often than not they destroy themselves … and sometimes they take other races with them.”

He paused to heave a deep sigh. “That's what happened to the angels. First they began to explore chronospace, and then they began to change history. They caused paradoxes which eventually destroyed not only their own home world, but also those of all the worlds within their dominium, until virtually none of their kind were left. The handful that remain alive have taken it upon themselves to make sure that this sort of thing never happens again.”

“So they're … what? Time policemen?” Metz was skeptical. “Who appointed them?”

Murphy raised his shoulders in an empty shrug. “If you want to call them that, sure. They seem to see themselves as sentries. As for who appointed them … I guess you could say they appointed themselves.” He smiled slightly. “Maybe you can argue with that idea, but I don't think they'd listen.”

“Well, if they're listening right now, I've got two words for them …”

“Metz, just shut up, all right?” Franc glared at Vasili until he pointedly turned away, then he turned back to Murphy. “So they see themselves as sentries. You mean they monitor other races who are capable of time travel?”

“Exactly, yes. When they detect disturbances in space-time, they investigate the source, and if it turns out that they're being caused by the creation of artificial wormholes, then they observe the race that constructed them to see if they're using them to travel back in time. If that's the case, and if they believe that race is acting irresponsibly then they … well, they intervene.”

“That explains the other sightings.” Lea hugged her knees as she stared into the fire. “The angels other CRC expeditions reported … those were angels observing us, trying to determine what we were doing.” She looked at Murphy. “We've seen them before, but we didn't know what they were.”

“So now you know.” Murphy picked his cap, pulled it back on his head. “When you went back to 1937, you caused a paradox that changed history and created a new worldline, and when you crashed in 1998, you caused yet another paradox which compounded the mistake.…”

“Which, in turn, led to humankind developing time travel two hundred years earlier than it originally had,” Lea finished.