Gordon Dickson - Time Storm

I saw the pattern of this situation evolving ten days before the rest of them did. It solidified in my mind on the first day of hard fighting in which they pounded the enemy positions with artillery and confidently advanced afterwards, only to be cut to pieces by machine gun fire. I saw it; and I raged inside at the inevitable delay it implied for Paula’s plans of world conquest. Doc was overdue for one of his periodic visits, and for the first time, I found myself fearing, rather than hoping, that he would bring me word that Porniarsk had found the ultimate universe pattern possible to the viewing tank. If the avatar had found it, I had no choice. I could not delay going home, with the risk that, in the meantime, some chance here might kill me, cripple me, or somehow prevent me from returning at all.

On the other hand, I told myself, I did not want Paula still on the North American continent when I left her, without leave, and headed once more for my own territory. I wanted her on the other side of the world, by preference; or at least across the Atlantic, so that the trouble and expense of sending forces after me to bring me back would be so great she would delay as long as possible in doing so. It was, I believed, a reasonable reason for wishing her success. Therefore, as the week of fighting went on and casualties mounted, I looked grim along with everyone else in the Empress’ camp—but for my own private reasons.

About Thursday, Doc finally arrived.

“Porniarsk’s found it?” I said, the moment we could get off someplace where we were safe from being overheard. In this daylight instance, that meant a training area behind the field hospital, where we could see there was no one else within earshot.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

“Good!” I said. He stared at me for a fraction of a second.

“Never mind,” I told him. “I’ll explain later. What’s the rest of the news?”

“I was going to say,” he said, “Porniarsk doesn’t have it yet, but he thinks he’s close—”

“Hell’s bloody buckets!”

This time he really did stare at me, his tanned young face stretched smooth-skinned with puzzlement.

“I’ve got a reason,” I said. “Go on.”

“I was saying, Porniarsk hasn’t found the furthest possible future configuration the device can show; but he did find a sort of sticking point—some point where he got hung up for some reason. He’s pretty sure he can get the tank to go beyond it, with a little more work; but he says to tell you he thinks this sticking point is some kind of sign he’s close to the ultimate.”

I took a deep breath.

“All right,” I said. “If he has, he has. I’ll talk to you about that in a minute. Anything else important? How’s everybody? The community running the way it should?”

“Nothing else. I’ve got some letters for you, of course.” He tapped the leather wallet that hung from one of his shoulders. He always brought me a bundle of personal mail, that being the ostensible reason for his coming. “But everyone’s fine. And the place’s running, like always, on the button.”

“Fine. Let’s go back to my tent.”

We headed toward it. It was a matter of elementary caution not to talk to him for more than a few seconds as we were now, for fear of triggering off suspicions. Given the important and general news, we could do a fairly good job of discussing matters in hyperbole while I went through the home mail, even if there might be ears listening.

At the tent the Old Man leaped up to seize my hand, then turned to grasp one of Doc’s as well. He walked with us to a pair of armchairs, still hanging on, and hunkered down between us.

Since he and I had been away from home, he had become more dependent, not only on me, who had been the only human, originally, he would get close to, but on Doc during Doc’s brief visits.

“Make yourself a drink,” I said to Doc now, “while I go through these letters.”

“Thanks,” he said enthusiastically. He pried his hand loose from the Old Man’s and went over to the table that did duty as my liquor cabinet. Doc was, in fact, a nondrinker as well as a non-smoker. But he always carried cigarettes with him, and he was expert at making a show of both smoking and drinking, these being only two of a large number of casual acts he had perfected, apparently on the off-chance that the misdirection in them might prove useful-someday. I ripped open my letters and read them.

They were perfectly ordinary, personal mail from home; and in spite of the fact that they were intended primarily as camouflage, I found myself going through them as eagerly as anyone else would, away from home and family against his will. Marie was still worried about Wendy, who herself had written me a few lines of pure prattle—under duress probably. Ellen had written almost as brief a note, saying that things were fine, just the way I’d left them, and there was no need to worry about anything. I read the last line as a hint to take Marie’s motherly concern with a certain amount of advisement. Ellen’s language could not have been any more spare and stiff if she herself had been a soldier in the field; so that the word “love” at the end looked incongruous. But I knew her.

Bill wrote he was pleased with the way things were going. From him, this would be a reference to Porniarsk’s work. Also, he mentioned that he had finally refined the “emergency harvest plans,” which would be a reference to my orders that they all split up and scatter if Paula suddenly decided to take some of them hostage as insurance against my noncooperation. Porniarsk sent no message.

“Good,” I said to Doc, when the last letter had been read. “Things seem all right at home.”

“They are,” he answered. “Have you got letters for me to take back?”

“Over on the writing table, there,” I said. He went to get them. “Were you planning on heading back right away?”

“Unless there’s something to keep me here.”

He tucked the letters I had written into his wallet, came back and sat down. The Old Man took his hand again.

“I was just thinking—why don’t you stick around a day or so until we’ve taken this local area? They’re putting up quite a fight, and if you stay you’ll be able to go back and tell the women personally that I didn’t get hurt in the process.”

“Glad to,” said Doc. “You’ve got a good life here. Far as I’m concerned, it’s a vacation with all expenses paid.”

He had a nice, light tone to his voice as he said it; but his eyes were sharp on mine, ready to read why I was asking him to stick around. I shook my head very slightly, to tell him not now, and started to talk about the situation, saying nothing that wasn’t highly complimentary to Paula and confident about her eventual achievements here, but filling him bit by bit with data on the actual state of affairs militarily. When I was done, he knew what the facts were, but not what the connection was between these and the reason I wanted him to stick around.

That was the third day of the battle for control of the area. It was not until Sunday that Paula’s soldiers overran most of the strong points of the opposition and not until Monday afternoon that they finished mopping up.

“As long as you’ve stayed this long, you might as well stay for the victory celebration, too,” I told Doc.

“Suits me,” he said. His voice sounded a little thickly from one of the couches in my tent where he sprawled with a glass in his hand; but his eyes were as clean and steady as the eyes of a sniper looking along the sights of his rifle.

I was more glad to have him there than I had thought. I had seen the pattern of the battle’s consequences building all week. Paula and Aruba, in particular, must be seeing the same thing themselves, now that the fight was over and the returns were in. So, while the rank and file survivors whooped it up in celebration, Paula herself and her immediate staff would now be biting into the bitter fruit of a win that had cost so highly. The way they would react, I had told myself, could tell me a lot more about their patterns; and part of what I might learn might be useful information to send home with Doc.