Eric Flint - Time spike

Using cloths that Barbara and Lylah kept moist with frequent trips to the river, she did her best to keep him cooled as she talked. The day was long, drifting by in spurts and stops as he struggled to breathe.

"How will we destroy the prisoners?" Jenny didn't know the answer to that one, so she gently adjusted the makeshift pillow behind his back.

She then took a fresh cloth from Barbara and applied it to the back of his neck. The cool water felt good on her hands, and she knew it felt good on his fevered flesh. Suddenly, his eyes seemed to focus on her face. "You said we have keys. Which ones? Can we get into the supply house?" Jenny nodded. "Marie had a complete set. We have keys to every lock inside the prison." "You mean that, literally?" "Literally,"

Jenny answered. She placed a fresh cloth over his eyes and forehead and the two of them sat silent. The only sound was the lieutenant's labored breathing. Several minutes passed and then Joe tried to sit up. "No, Joe. Lie still," Jenny told him. Joe reached out and gripped her upper arm. "Okay, but you tell Andy, about the supply house.

There's… stuff… for bombs. Little bombs… but it would be enough to… make them surrender." "I'll tell him, Joe." She wondered how long this stage of the dying would last: the mental confusion. He was bleeding internally and his lungs weren't functioning properly. That meant his brain wasn't getting enough oxygen. It was no wonder he was talking a little crazy. And it would probably get worse. "Please, Jenny. Tell him." "I will, Joe. I promise I will." She would, too. Even though she knew there were no bomb parts hidden inside the prison, not in the armory and not in the supply rooms. Still, she would tell Andy everything his friend said and did before dying. "Paint, cleaners, bleach and ammonia." His breaths were labored. "Tell him!" He rolled over, his body shaking with the effort of coughing and dry heaves. Minutes passed. When it was over he moaned and said, "Glass jars with lids. Tell Andy about the jars and the nails. And gasoline. And tell him to ask the Boomers about it." He coughed again; it almost sounded like a laugh. "If there's… anyone in the world knows how to jury-rig a weapon, it's a con." "I will," Jenny said. "I will. Now you have to rest." But Joe didn't. He struggled to a sitting position. "No. I can't. You can't.

You have to tell him now," he whispered, his eyes dancing with fever.

"Now." Barbara Ray moved from the cave entrance over to where Jenny sat. "Go on, tell Andy what he's saying. I'll stay with him." Jenny reluctantly moved toward the small opening. She was afraid to leave, afraid he would be gone before she could return. Just as she got to the cave's entrance, Joe called out, his voice weak and raspy, but his eyes focused and determined. "I need to talk to him. And to Edelman.

We might even… have what we need to gas them." He coughed a deep, body-wrenching cough. He moaned and held his ribs. He then whispered,

"Catapults. I bet the Cherokees could build them. Tell them we can do it. We can take the prison. Hurry. I need you to hurry." Jenny stared at the man lying on the cave floor and then at Barbara Ray who was holding his hand. The lieutenant's eyes were clear. "Catapults.

Homemade bombs. Gas them," Joe whispered. Andy was easy to find; he was sitting next to the fire, talking to Chief Watkins. Edelman wasn't much harder to locate. He was asleep under the ledge, curled between two other guards, soaking in their body heat and snoring loudly. When she said his name he came instantly awake, and scrambled toward her.

It took less than three minutes. But those minutes were long and Jenny was scared. Andy Blacklock and Jeff Edelman stayed with Joe Schuler until he became unresponsive and his breaths changed to the silence, followed by short rapid breaths, common to the dying. Joe had talked in soft whispers for twenty minutes. The two men had knelt beside him, their ears almost on his mouth in order to hear. Occasionally he would stop his labored whispering and cough up the red-tinged froth that was everyone's reminder that they had to hurry. Several times Edelman would ask a question, or Andy would say, "You have to talk a little louder, Joe." And the man would take a labored breath and say one or two words loud enough to be heard by everyone inside the cave, but then the low whisper would return. At times the men were forced to hold their breaths in order to hear his words. It was a struggle. But they did hear, and when he finally fell silent, they understood what he meant. When the last rays of sunlight began fading away and the cave was almost dark, Joe took his last labored breath. Moments later, Barbara, Lylah and Jenny left the cave. They didn't say anything to those who watched them crawl out of the small opening; instead they sat next to the fire and quietly cried. Andy Blacklock and Jeff joined them, dried-eyed but looking haggard. After a while, Andy and Jeff got up and walked over to the Boomers. Without asking for an invitation, they sat down next to John Boyne. Andy got right to the point. "Before he died, Joe Schuler told us he thought there was enough stuff in the supply house at Alexander to make bombs. Maybe poison gas, too. I think he may be right, but it's not something I really know a lot about." He hooked a thumb at Edelman. "Neither does Jeff. Show him a rock and he can tell you what it had for breakfast two centuries ago. But he says he doesn't know much about what you might call practical chemistry." He stopped, and waited. Boyne tugged at his ear. "And you think we do." "Yeah. I figure you do. Some of you, anyway." Boyne smiled. "Captain Blacklock, if I didn't know you better, I'd think you was implying we have criminally inclined tendencies." "God forbid. Come on, John. You got your pardon.

Everything that happened in the past is a wash. But that doesn't mean it didn't happen-and I'm damn sure some of you know what I'm talking about." "Probably. I don't, myself. But…" He turned his head and gestured to one of the men sitting a ways back. "Front and center, Leffen." A bit reluctantly, a wiry man in his early fifties sidled up to the campfire. He had a wizened face and skin color like really old coffee with cream. Gray-brown, almost. "Yeah," he said. "I heard. I guess I might know a thing or two." "Cut it out, Carter," said Boyne tonelessly. "They nailed you for aggravated assault, but you know and I know and every alley cat in the south side of Chicago knows that you really made your living as an arsonist. Burning down tenements for slumlords looking to collect the insurance." Leffen looked alarmed.

"Hey! I never hurt nobody." "Didn't say you did. I said you burned down buildings. Even managed to make the fires look like an accident."

Andy had wondered about that. There had always been rumors that Carter Leffen was a professional arsonist, although the police had never been able to pin anything on him. Leffen looked mollified. Even a bit self-righteous. "Well, yeah. But I never hurt nobody. You can't, you wanna get a good reputation in the trade. A fire's a fire. The firemen put it out, the owner collects the insurance, and what else are insurance companies good for? But somebody gets killed…" He grimaced. "There's all hell to pay. Got to be careful not to set a fire so bad it'll kill a fireman, neither. Even hurt 'em. Then there's really hell to pay." Under the circumstances and all things considered, Andy decided this was not the time and place to get into a discussion of ethics with an arsonist. "Can you do anything with that stuff?" "What's in there, exactly? You guys always kept the supply room locked tight." "You bet your sweet ass, we did. I'm not sure of everything. But I know there's paint, and cleaning solvents of various kinds. That includes bleach and ammonia." Leffen's eyes closed, as if he were falling into a trance. After a minute or so, he said: "Yeah, I can manage something." His eyes popped open. "This ain't gonna hurt my pardon, is it?" "To the contrary," said Edelman solemnly. "You will have the thanks of your nation." "We a nation now?" That was a very good question, actually. One that, if they survived the next week or two, Andy thought they'd probably be spending the rest of their lives trying to answer.