Simon Hawke - The Zenda Vendetta

Finn Delaney was shaking his head.

“What is it, Delaney?”

“There are entirely too many coincidences here,” he said. “I can’t believe that the Timekeepers arranged them all.”

Forrester frowned. “What are you getting at?”

“Just this. The whole thing is beginning to shape up as the sort of nightmares we used to construct as theoretical problem modules back in RCS when we were studying the effects of the Fate Factor on temporal inertia. We used to call it ‘zen physics,’ because it bends your brain around just thinking about it, like one of those old Japanese koans, you know, ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping?’ Only this is even worse.”

“How so?”

“Because trying to figure it out logically will make you crazy,” said Finn. “More cadets washed out on zen physics than in any other course. Temporal inertia works in ways that not even Mensinger fully understood. Look at the complete picture here. Everything that’s gone down so far bears directly on our actions in 17th-century Paris during that adjustment mission involving the three musketeers. The adjustment was successful and it enabled the TIA to arrest most of the Timekeepers, but we have no way of knowing just how much temporal inertia was affected. Remember that the Fate Factor works as a coefficient of temporal inertia, determining the degree of relative continuity to which the timestream can be restored. That depends on the effects of the disruption itself in the first place and the manner in which it was adjusted in the second place.”

“In other words,” said Andre, “ ‘relative’ is the operative term. Temporal inertia can still be affected in some way that might show up at some later point in time.”

“Exactly. Coincidences are a natural part of a random world, but too many coincidences indicates that there has to be more than randomness at work. That’s what we’ve got here. Too damn many coincidences. One: what the Timekeepers have done in disrupting 19th-century Ruritania is directly related to what we did to them in 17th-century France. Cause and effect. Two: Falcon appears to have been very high up in the terrorist organization, perhaps one of their leaders, which connects her to what we did in 17th-century France. Three: as Elaine Cantrell, she was involved with Colonel Forrester and now, as Falcon, their paths have intersected once again. Four: as Elaine Cantrell and later as Sophia Falco, she was involved with the TIA and with Mongoose, who’s been involved with us on more than one occasion in the past, specifically on that 17th-century adjustment. Five: I happen, just ‘coincidentally,’ to resemble both Rudolf Rassendyll and King Rudolf of Ruritania, who are principal parties in the historical scenario the Timekeepers have disrupted. Possibly, they discovered this resemblance by accident and acted because of it, but there are still too many coincidences interrelating here to be dismissed as a random progression of events.”

“So you’re suggesting that it’s the Fate Factor at work?” said Forrester.

“It has to be. Remember that old story about how a kingdom was lost for want of a horseshoe nail? All it takes is one seemingly insignificant action to set in motion a cause-and-effect chain that will eventually lead to one significant event. Trying to analyze such a situation in terms of temporal inertia practically erases the line between physics and metaphysics. It’s what finally drove Mensinger to kill himself. He realized that the whole thing is like a house of cards. Sooner or later, it’s bound to collapse under its own weight and all it takes is just one card to start the whole thing falling.”

“But none of our actions have ever been temporally insignificant,” said Lucas. “We’ve even faced a timestream split before and managed to adjust for it successfully.”

“Yeah, so far as we know,” said Finn. “The point I’m trying to make is that Mensinger’s theories refer to Fate in a literal fashion only obliquely. That’s because complete objectivity is impossible under any circumstances. It goes back to Heisenberg’s Principle. An observer of any phenomenon can’t get away from his subjective relationship to it merely by being there to observe it. Any action we take in Plus or Minus Time is a causal manifestation of our subjective relationship to the timestream.”

“You’ve lost me,” said Andre.

“Let me attempt to translate Delaney’s verbosity into layman’s terms,” said Forrester. “What he’s saying is that the Fate Factor governs not only the end result of any adjustment to the timestream, but it also governs the actions of those effecting the adjustment.”

“Only in this case,” said Finn, “we seem to be confronted with a situation that’s eschatological in its implications. We may have adjusted for a split before, but now we’ve got the potential for a massive rupture on our hands. And what makes matters even worse is that all we’ve got to work from in terms of intelligence is some sort of drawing-room novel written in the 19th century. Without access to those diaries that Hawkins allegedly worked from, we have no way of knowing what really happened. The TIA is in no position to give us any help. Besides, even if they managed to get their hands on those diaries in time, we’d still only have Rassendyll’s word for what actually happened. He could easily have embellished the story for his own sake.”

“I’ll agree that the element of uncertainty in this scenario is very large,” said Lucas, “but at least we know what the result was. History records a King Rudolf the Fifth on the throne of Ruritania, and Rassendyll obviously managed to get back to London in one piece to write about it in his diaries. Whatever it was he did, he was successful.”

“Not any more he wasn’t,” said Finn. “I trust we have access to this novel Hawkins wrote?”

“It will be included in the mission programming,” said Forrester.

“Good. We’ll need all the help that we can get. We’re looking destiny squarely in the face here. The Fate Factor is trying to compensate and we’re a part of it!”

“I wonder if the Timekeepers realize that?” said Lucas.

“I wonder if they care?” said Forrester. “Their so-called movement has been effectively destroyed. There can only be a handful of them left. Can you think of a better note to go out on than having brought about ultimate entropy?”

“Is that actually a possibility?” said Andre.

“Delaney seems to think so,” Forrester said.

“But that would mean…” Andre’s voice trailed off.

“The end of time,” said Lucas, softly.

Drakov was impatient. He kept pacing back and forth in the small turret atop the keep of Zenda Castle, rolling his massive shoulders and stretching to get the kinks out of his muscles.

“Sit down, Nikolai,” said Falcon. “Your constant pacing back and forth is distracting me.”

Drakov gave her a look of mild irritation. She was reclining on one of two small cots in the tiny room that was otherwise bare except for some equipment and supplies piled in a corner. Her ash-blond hair was pulled back in a pony tail, and she was dressed in low black boots and black fatigues. Drakov was similarly attired, though he added a sheepskin vest to his army-surplus clothing.

“You may find it distracting,” he said, “but I find it necessary to move about. The chill and dampness of this place is making my bones ache. While you’ve been out there socializing as the Countess Sophia, I’ve been cooped up here for days with nothing but rats and silverfish for company. I don’t know how people ever managed to live in such places.”

“It may be uncomfortable, but it’s an ideal base of operations,” she said, still intent upon the screen of the small computer she held in her right hand. “No one’s set foot in this part of the castle for years and even if the adjustment team suspected that we were holed up in here, they’d have a hell of a time trying to get at us.”