Simon Hawke - The Nautilus Sanction

Land nodded, grimly. “I didn’t want to hear. I thought you were making fun of me. After what I’ve seen, mon aini, I would no longer doubt a thing you tell me.”

“Well, that’ll make things easier,” said Lucas, wryly. “The Underground is made up mostly of soldiers from the armies of the future. These soldiers have become deserters. Sometimes soldiers from the future become… well, lost, for lack of a better way of putting it. They become separated from their units. Sometimes they’re found again. Sometimes not. Some of them become trapped in the past through no fault of their own, others become deserters. Many of them make contact with the Underground. Either they find the Underground or the Underground finds them. If they wish to return to their own time, the Underground helps them. But if they wish to desert, the Underground takes them in. It’s a complex, loosely knit organization. They have methods of keeping in touch with one another, but they’re spread out through all of time. Some of them, by choice, remain in one specific time period. Others travel a great deal, to any time they choose. We met one of them once. His name was Hunter. He was responsible for taking Andre from the time where she was born, 12th century England, to 17th century Paris, where our paths crossed again. Andre became one of us. Hunter, unfortunately, was killed by a member of the same group Drakov once belonged to.”

“The Timekeepers,” Land said.

Lucas nodded. “Hunter lived in 12th century England most of the time, but he could visit any other time, any other place, anytime he wanted to. The Underground is an illegal organization. Technically, they’re criminals, but no one tries very hard to catch them.”

Land frowned, concentrating. “Why?”

“Because, for one thing, it’s very hard to do,” said Lucas. “For another, they may be deserters, but they also serve a purpose. It’s just as important to them that history not be interfered with as it is to us. They represent a certain danger, since they are people living in times where they do not belong, but they are very aware of the dangers and they take great care not to interfere. If any of them are ever caught, they are tried as criminals, but there are more important things to do than spend time actively looking for them.”

Land shook his head. “I’m not sure I’m understanding you.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“Why should they care about preserving history? If they’re criminals, deserters-”

“There are many reasons why people join the Underground,” said Finn. “Some of them just couldn’t take being soldiers anymore. Others became soldiers because they thought they’d find adventure, but what they found wasn’t exactly what they had expected, so they deserted to find what they were looking for. Still others prefer living in the past, or in a past, to living in their own time. Just because they’re in the Underground, that doesn’t mean they’re evil or criminals in the sense you mean. I liked Hunter a great deal. And he helped us that one time. He saved our lives.”

“There’s still more to it,” Lucas said. “Suppose, Ned, you got on board a ship heading out of Boston on a whaling expedition. You don’t really expect Boston to change very much in the time you’ll be away. You come back and it’s still the same old Boston, same old streets and houses, same people, nothing’s really changed. But imagine you’re in Boston right now and you decide to take a trip to Boston the way it will be three hundred years in the future. If you’re in the Underground, that wouldn’t be very different from going on your whaling expedition and then coming back. Boston three hundred years from now would still be familiar to you because you know its history. You’ve probably been there before. Only what would happen if someone like Drakov succeeded in altering the course of history somehow? Then the Boston you arrive in might not be the same place you expected you would find. It may no longer even be there. Some interference with the past may have caused a chain of events to take place which would result in a completely different future, a completely different world. In order for the people in the Underground to be able to exist, they need to protect the world they exist in. Do you understand?”

Land exhaled heavily. “I think so. If I’d not seen what I’ve seen, I’d say all this was mad.”

“It is mad,” Finn said. “But we’ve got to live with it.”

“If I take your meaning,” said Land, “these people in the Underground are like the gypsy-folks, except that they travel not only from place to place, but from one century to another?”

“That’s it, exactly,” Lucas said. “That’s a very good way of putting it.”

Land sighed. “Lord, what a life it must be! How many of them do you figure there be?”

“Nobody knows,” said Finn. “Thousands.”

“And there’s no way to tell who they are?”

“Could you tell who we were, Ned?” said Lucas. “We’re just people. Who’d suspect the truth? Who’d believe it? Even after all you’d seen, you didn’t want to believe it. It sounds crazy.”

Land stood up and leaned on the railing of the veranda, staring out to the sea, glinting in the moonlight. “Part of me keeps waiting to wake up and find all this is a dream,” he said. “This beats any tall tale I ever heard. If I ever told anyone about this, I’d be put in a madhouse for sure. From now on, I don’t think I will be so quick to not believe things. If someone tells me he saw a sea monster breathing fire, until I know better, I will think that there just may be a sea monster that breathes fire!” He looked down, then quickly leaned out over the railing and glanced from side to side. “Look here! There are no guards! Quick, now’s our chance!”

He vaulted the railing.

“Ned!” shouted Lucas.

“Hell,” said Finn, jumping to his feet. “We’d better catch him before he gets in trouble.”

They jumped down to the ground, rolled, came up running and caught Land after a hard sprint of about seventy-five yards. Finn grabbed the harpooner and spun him around.

“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” he said.

Land looked at him as if he had lost his senses. “What do you mean? This is our chance to get away!”

“And go where?” said Andre.

Land looked blank for a moment, then he snapped his fingers. “There are some of Drakov’s crew about,” he said. “A lot of them will be drunk. We can take them and steal those things they use for traveling through time! We’ll find one, knock him senseless, then-”

“Ned, your heart’s in the right place, but you haven’t thought it through,” said Lucas. “Besides, you really don’t understand how it all works.”

“But you said-”

“It wouldn’t be much trouble to knock a couple of Drakov’s crew out and take their warp discs,” Lucas said. “You’re right as far as that goes. But we can’t get back aboard the submarine without knowing where it is. Even if we could, Drakov still has a crew aboard it and they looked pretty capable to me.”

“Couldn’t you go back to your own time and return with more of your people?” Land said. “You could take Drakov and his entire crew-”

“Again, not a bad idea,” said Lucas, “but nothing short of an armed assault would take Drakov here on Barataria. Lafitte and his people would side with Drakov and fight the invasion. We can’t touch Lafitte. The British will be moving on New Orleans before too long and without Lafitte and his men, General Jackson will lose the battle and history will be changed. Drakov’s already interfered with history to a dangerous, perhaps even irreversible extent. You see, we’re the ones concerned with preserving history. Drakov doesn’t care. He has the advantage because of that and he knows it. There’s no way to attack him here and at the same time guarantee that no one on Lafitte’s side will be killed.”