Eric Flint - Time spike

Perfectly understandable, although the accent was odd. James looked at Hulbert and Blacklock. He didn't think they'd heard anything understandable, that far away. So, he shook his head. "I don't know what he said." "Take a guess," Hulbert said. "I can't." Radford walked over and touched the old Cherokee's hand. "I was watching you, and I know you understood what he said. So, tell us." James took a step back. Damn! What a day! He wasn't going to tell these people anything.

They were stupid-too stupid to realize the old man understood everything being said. Stupid and nuts. And the old Indian was nuttier. He was claiming Spaniards shot him! Lieutenant Hulbert smiled, but it didn't touch his eyes. "By the looks of you when you came in today, I would say you need a rest. I'll send you back to your cell. You haven't been here long. You haven't had much time to get to know everyone. Or the way things work. Maybe we could let you have the rest of the day off; let you visit a friend. Luff, or one of the other boys in the cell house might invite you over for tea." The guards were no different from the cons. Everyone knew that. They would use you, then leave you to die. They were worse than wolves; they were vultures. Vultures that picked you down to the bones but kept their hands clean. You would be dead, but they could pretend their souls weren't sullied. But James didn't let any of his anger show on his face. "You want something from me, I'll give it. But you have to give me something first. I want a roommate transfer. I want…" He thought fast, picking through the information he'd gotten since he arrived. A lot of it was just scraps and rumor, of course. What James needed right now-needed desperately-was protection. That meant protection from one of the bosses, not the guards. Unless they kept you in solitary, the guards had no way to keep a man safe, and James didn't want spend the next twenty years in solitary. Even if he got out alive, he'd be a jibbering nutcase by then. He decided his best bet was Boomer. He was the only boss who didn't care what race you were, as long as you weren't full white. And he didn't care what got you behind bars as long as you hadn't done some kid. But even so, to be in his cell and not be one of his men, that could get you killed.

It was a gamble, but it was his best chance. "I want Boomer moved into my house, and no one knows why. And it happens today. Now. I don't go back to my cell until he's sitting on that bottom bunk. And you keep me here during the day, every day. You can let it out that I was an EMT in my former life." "You were?" Jenny sounded pleased. "I think he's lying." Hulbert shook his head. "And we don't bargain with the inmates." "Believe what you want. I don't care. But if I tell you anything, especially what this guy just said, my life's worth nothing.

We both know that. Rats don't make it. Besides, things are different now. You can strike deals. And if you had any idea as to what was happening behind those bars you would be stalking the walkways for anyone who'd ride your leg." Captain Blacklock gave a small laugh.

"Maybe. But I'm not sure I need to deal with you. The way I heard it, you're life's not worth much one way or the other. We know about the fight with Butch Wesson." "You knew about it and didn't do a fucking thing to give a fish a hand." He gave the men in blue uniforms a cold stare. "It doesn't matter. When I'm sent back to my cell I'm done.

That bastard has friends, and they'll be looking for revenge and to save a little face. So, why not send me back to a new roomie? You do that for me and I'll sing like a bird." Blacklock returned the gaze calmly, for a few seconds. Then, shrugged. "Okay, you've got it. But you've got to have two roomies. We're tripling everyone up." "Okay, then. The Boom and Adrian Luff." Hulbert chuckled. "Well, I guess that'd be one way to solve your Luff problem." James Cook shook his head. "I want to live. And if you haven't noticed, I'm not some lily-white-ass. I either get the Boom on my side, or I die." Andy thought about it. Cook was right. The guards couldn't protect him.

They hadn't even been able to protect the Martinez kid before the Quiver. Now, after it, no one was safe. "Okay, kid. You're in with Boomer. And if your records say you once worked as an EMT, you can have a permanent work posting here in the clinic. But I'm not giving you an upper-level Aryan to put between you and the Boom. You'll have to work it out on your own. I'll pull Paul Howard out of your cell for a few days. Six days, counting today. Then he gets popped right back in. The man is white, but he's level headed and doesn't mix with trouble. He and the Boom won't become the best of buds, but they'll be able to coexist." He then gave Cook a little headshake. "Just for the record, we didn't find out about the fight until it had already started. And by the time we got there, you'd ended it and were already gone. Believe it or not, I actually hope you live till tomorrow. But, just in case, what did this guy say?" Cook shrugged. "Ask him yourself. He speaks English."

Chapter 19 Jeff Edelman shook his head. "History isn't my area. I don't know any more about it than any one else does." "We don't need a historian," Joe Schuler hissed between clinched teeth. "We need a scientist. We need someone capable of reasoning this shit out. We have an Indian who swears he's from the mid-eighteen hundreds and was shot by a Spaniard named de Soto, who we know was from the mid-fifteen hundreds. He further swears that he ran across a small village filled with primitive people who can only be the early Mounds people. That culture existed still earlier. They're the ones who built the mounds you see around this part of the country. And to top it all off, everyone is fighting a bunch of animals they've never seen before, but which have to be things that died back in the Crustaceous Period. And, God help me, I believe every word of it." Jeff nodded, slow and easy.

"Okay, but I don't think there is any figuringthis shit out. I've already told you what I think. I think we've been dumped back in time.

Along the way we picked up hitchhikers, or maybe they got here first.

I don't know. But Joe, it doesn't matter. We just have to go with it.

See what we're dealing with, and do whatever we have to do." "It does matter." Joe scratched at his newly sprouted beard. "What happens if we do something to screw up the future? What if we do something that will let Adolph Hitler win World War II, or maybe prevent penicillin from being invented?" "Or kill our own grandfather?" Andy Blacklock stood up and walked to the window. "I don't think that's a problem. I think what we're doing now is actually in the present. We're still moving forward, but in another place." "Alternate universe?" Joe nodded. "Yeah, I've heard about them. On TV, and in books. It makes sense. In that other universe, or home place, the Cherokees are still traveling the Trail of Tears, de Soto is still butchering his way towards his own un-grieved demise, and the Mounds people are quietly disappearing from the face of the Earth. Yeah. That would be good.

Real good." "This is crazy!" Jenny exclaimed. "You're saying there are two of us now? Well, which one is the real one? Which one has the soul? The one back there or the one that's here?" Andy shook his head.

"I'm not saying that is the way it is. I'm saying an alternate universe makes the most sense." Jeff Edelman snorted. "Jenny, don't get pissy. If a theory makes any sense at all, we have to at least consider it. And I think Andy and Joe might be right. I think history is continuing. And I don't think we have to walk on eggshells because I don't think we can have an impact on the history of the world we came from. We're on a new timeline. And this change might have left behind a half-dozen or more possible universes. One for each disruption in the original line." From the window, Andy could see what had once been the parking lot and bluff. Now it was grasslands and sand. In the distance, he could see a volcano. Fortunately, it didn't seem to be active. "Does it really matter?" he asked. He turned to look at the others. "I don't believe there are now two of us. One at home and one here. I think we're gone. That the people back home are as confused as we are. I also don't believe we can change what happens in our future. I don't think we're in our own timeline or that we're in our own universe. Not that what I think matters. Even if everything we do and say is happening in our own past, we still don't have to worry about doing something that changes man's future." "Why?" Joe asked. Andy motioned for them to come to the window. "Look to the east, right above the tree line. See that bird? We're over a mile away. That thing is huge. It's a prehistoric creature. It died out when life on Earth was all but destroyed by a comet strike, or whatever. We had the Permian extinction about two hundred and fifty million years ago, according to Jeff. Then, about sixty-five million years before the Quiver, something-once again-wiped life's slate almost clean. "We don't know if that is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, or twenty million years from now. It doesn't matter.