Eric Flint - Time spike

There are any number of them. Perhaps an incredibly advanced species has its equivalent of nasty children who like to torment ants. Perhaps we're the subject of some sort of bizarre experiment. Or an even more bizarre religious rite. Who knows? What I do know is that, first, I want to find out. Second, I have absolutely no confidence that the government will be of any help whatsoever. Certainly not under this administration. We'll have to see what the next one is like. Indeed, I expect that if they find out what we'll be doing they will try to impede us. And, third, to go back to where I started, I want this thing run by someone like Leslie Groves. No offense intended to all you splendid scientists, but I want a military man in charge." Karen frowned. "But who? We don't know any military people." She glanced at Morgan-Ash. "Well. I guess Richard…" Richard shook his head. "I was a lieutenant commanding a small unit of paratroopers. What Alex wants is someone with at least field grade experience. Preferably someone who has coordinated major and complex operations."

"Precisely," said Cohen. "And my dear Karen, it's absurd to say you don't know any such person. You have one sitting right here at the table." He pointed a finger at Nick. "Him." Nick stared at him.

Everyone else at the table stared at Nick. Cohen smiled serenely again. "I told you all, I have very good sources. And I have them in many places." "I'm a trash-hauler," Nick said. "Please. You were one of a handful of men in the Pentagon who coordinated the entire logistical effort for the first Gulf war." He cocked an eye at Brisebois. "Yes?" "Well… yeah. But… for Pete's sake. Groves was ageneral. I retired as a major. Didn't even make the cut to lieutenant colonel." "True. Perhaps the fact that you explained, much too bluntly, some logistical realities to a three-star general notorious for his vindictiveness had something to do with it, though."

Nick scowled. "How the hell-" "I told you. I have very good sources.

And a staff that is even better at compiling information for me. But leaving that aside, Nick, I was only using the Manhattan Project as a model. An example, if you will. Even with the influx of money I'll be providing The Project, the scale of its operations won't come even close to the scale of the Manhattan Project." He leaned all the way back in his seat, his hands folded over his stomach. He looked very complacent. "I think a major with extensive managerial experience who was willing to tell off a three-star general-andwho is already familiar with The Project-will do quite nicely." Nick didn't know what to say. Cohen said: "Do this much for the moment, would you? Call your office and tell them you need to take another week of your vacation time. That way-I'm planning to extend my own stay here for at least another week-we'll have time to discuss the matter at length and in detail." "Well…" "Please don't tell me you've used up your vacation time. Or, if you insist, let's make it a bet. I'm willing to bet you're the sort of fellow who has more vacation time piled up than you know what to do with." That wasn't… entirely true. When Laura and he had still been together, and with the kids, Nick had used all of it every year. But since the kids grew up, and the divorce…

"Well, yeah." Margo gave him that gleaming smile. "You can borrow my cell phone, if you need to." The smile did it. "Okay, fine. I'll make the call."

Chapter 35 Andy Blacklock sat next to the Cherokee chief, Geoffrey Watkins, comparing him to the Indians in the western movies he'd seen.

The results were… Disorienting, from head to toe. Literally, from head to toe. Watkins's hair, to start with, wasn't long and black and tied up in braids. It was reddish-brown and cut almost as short as Andy's own. He wore pants, not leggings; boots, not moccasins; and his torso was neither bare nor covered in war paint. He was wearing a shirt and a vest. There wasn't a feather anywhere in sight, much less a feather bonnet-and his English was fluent, colloquial and idiomatic.

That was the first half of the discrepancy between reality and the Hollywood version. The second half was more subtle, but was in some ways even more disorienting. Watkins hair was cut short, but the style was different. Parted at the top instead of the sides, like the hair in some old nineteenth-century sepia photos Andy had seen. The shirt and pants and vest had the same vaguely antique flavor about them, and the boots even more so. It wasn't that they were crudely made. In some ways, they were obviously better-made garments than mass-produced modern ones. Andy was genuinely envious of the boots. But they weren't quite as uniform as modern garments were, in some way Andy couldn't quite discern. Finally, and most of all, there was the English.

Fluent, yes. Andy and Watkins had had no difficulty understanding each other. Colloquial, yes; idiomatic, yes-but the colloquialisms and idiom weren't the same. Except when they were, and that was probably the most disorienting thing of all. Just when Andy thought he had a handle on Watkins' idiom-he'd figured out quickly that "bean't" meant "isn't" or "weren't"-Watkins would toss in a reference to the President of the United States, Martin Van Buren, as a "fucking asshole." It turned out, apparently, that whatever else changed in a language, its fundamental profanity was deeply conservative. Andy was rather amused, thinking of all the little perorations he'd heard in his life bemoaning the growing coarseness of public speech in twenty-first century America, to discover than people from the early-mid nineteenth century swore like troopers. At least, if acculturated Cherokees and mostly-immigrant U.S. soldiers were a valid sampling of the populace. He suspected they probably were. There was one difference, though. The Cherokees and the soldiers would use the notorious four-letter Anglo-Saxon words without hesitation. More so, even, than most modern Americans. But he'd yet to hear any of them use any of the religious varieties of cursing. The distinction between profanity and blasphemy, which had been all but erased in the America he'd come from, was still alive and well in this one. So, while Martin Van Buren was a fucking asshole, he was a "Gol dang" fucking asshole, and was surely condemned to tarnation in the afterlife. Andy had already quietly passed along the word to his people to try to hold down on their own unthinking use of expressions like "goddam" and "Jesus Christ." He'd noticed, on several occasions, a Cherokee or one of the soldiers frowning a little when they heard that. He found their religious attitudes a bit peculiar, overall. That these people, Cherokees and soldiers alike, had a deeply religious attitude on at least some level, was obvious. Even those Cherokees-a large minority, so far as he could tell-who had not adopted Christianity, at least formally, were quite respectful of it. If for no other reason than that, he'd discovered, it had often been white Christian missionaries working among the Cherokee who'd been among the few Americans to raise vehement public protests against the policies of the U.S. government toward the southern tribes. But there was very little formality involved. In the world Andy had come from, anyone who called themselves a Christian almost invariably belonged to a specific denomination-and could not only tell you exactly what it was, but could more often than not explain why their brand of Baptism or Methodism or whatever was distinct in XYZ ways from other denominations. With these people, so far as he could tell, being a Christian and joining a church were almost completely different things. Watkins, for instance, clearly considered himself a Christian.

But he'd mentioned to Andy, on one occasion, that his recently deceased wife had pestered him for years to join the church and he'd steadfastly refused; although, privately, he'd decided he'd do it just before he died, to placate the woman. Of course, he'd expected she'd probably outlive him, which she hadn't. Looking away, he could see Jenny. She was holding one of the Cherokee babies and talking to its mother. Several other women sat nearby, their own children playing in the dirt a few yards away. It all looked very serene, and on one level it was. There'd been no trouble of any kind from the moment Andy's people found the Cherokee town and established contact with them. But he knew the Cherokees-from Watkins down to small children-were watching every move made by every member of his party. So were the small group of soldiers. If anything, even more intently. Andy wasn't sure yet, what their attitude was. At least so far, the leader of the soldiers-that was Sergeant James Kershner-had been taciturn whenever Andy or Rod had tried to engage him in conversation. It didn't help any that with Kershner, they had to plow through a thick German accent along with the different idiom. If it was even a German accent at all, as such. From a remark Kershner had made on one occasion, he apparently considered himself a Swabian, whatever that was, more than a German. The tentative conclusion Andy and Rod had come to, though, was that Kershner and his men had been in the middle of working out their own accommodation with the Cherokees when Blacklock and his people showed up-and were now very uncertain how to handle this new complication. Of course, the same could be said for all three parties involved. Andy himself, as much as anyone. The greatest disorientation was also the biggest. Without really thinking about it, Andy had assumed that he'd be more or less riding to the rescue of a bedraggled group of downtrodden Indians, all but on their last legs due to the double hammer blow of the Trail of Tears and the Quiver. So much for stereotypes. Perhaps even, he'd guiltily wondered, some residual racial prejudices on his part. Well, not "prejudices." That was too strong a term. Andy wasn't a bigot, had never been, and despised bigotry. Still, any society imparts its subtle attitudes to its members, and those are shaped by its history. The Indians of Andy's world had been the product of centuries of victimization, which had been almost as complete as that suffered by any people in history.