“Wait a minute,” said Lucas. “1 knew there was something bothering me about all this. If the Referee Corps asked Dr. Darkness to help them with this, and you’re working for him, how could you have been involved before the sub was stolen?”
“It had nothing to do with the sub, initially,” said Martingale. “Darkness knew about the theft of the warp discs before your people did.”
Finn frowned. “How?”
“Who do you think owns Amalgamated Techtronics?” “Darkness?”
“You think a scientist can be bothered with manufacturing?” said Martingale. “He needs someone to turn out the gizmos he invents. You’d be surprised at what he controls.”
“But Amalgamated Techtronics! That’s one of the biggest corporations in the whole-”
“So? What do you think, he gave the Temporal Corps the warp grenade for nothing? When they found out about the stolen shipment, they didn’t dare report it until they’d had a chance to tell the Doctor. They couldn’t exactly call him. No one knows where he is. He just sort of… appears from time to time. Fortunately, he was due in to check on a shipment of weapons prototypes they were building for him. It’s a lucky thing Drakov didn’t steal those.”
“What sort of prototypes?” said Lucas.
“Disruptors,” Martingale said. “The Temporal Corps doesn’t even know about them yet. You’d better hope they work, because they’re probably what we’ll be using against Drakov’s base when the time comes.”
“What’s a disruptor?” Finn said. “Or shouldn’t I ask?”
“I haven’t seen one yet,” said Martingale, “but they sound impressive. It’s a sort of warp gun. Its transponder taps into the energy field of a neutron star by means of an Einstein-Rosen Generator link. A limitless supply of ammunition in the form of energy, leeched from a star through a time warp. Sounds like a lovely little sidearm, doesn’t it? You squeeze the trigger and you get a stream of neutrons.”
“You’re kidding,” Finn said.
“Just the thing for plinking, eh?” said Martingale, with a grin. “Bad analogy. There wouldn’t be a ‘plink.’ The target would be atomically disrupted. Disintegrated.”
“Jesus,” Finn said. “How the hell do you control a stream of neutrons?”
“Very carefully, I should think,” said Martingale. “I sure hope it works, otherwise we’re liable to have a very interesting experience.” He chuckled. “Sort of makes you want to think about gun control, doesn’t it? ‘If warp guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have warp guns.’ Make a great T-shirt.”
“What about radiation?” Lucas said.
“Most of it is supposed to be warped elsewhere, like with the grenades,” said Martingale. “At least that’s what the Doctor said. They haven’t been tested fully yet.”
“And we’re going to field-test them against Drakov’s base?” said Andre.
“I’d say that’s the least of our problems,” Martingale said. “Drakov has set up an impressive organization. He used time fugues to do it. Before your people even learned he’d hijacked a Soviet sub, he’d done something like ten years worth of organizational work. He learned a lot from the Timekeepers. He has everyone divided into subgroups. There are the Russian sailors on the sub. Then there are the crew of the Valkyrie.”
“Aren’t they part of the base personnel?” said Lucas.
“Is that what Drakov told you? Don’t you believe it. The Valkyrie hardly spends any time at the base. The crew has their own agenda, but I have no idea what it is. There’s also the fact that the base is rarely at full strength. A lot of them are always clocked out somewhere, doing God knows what in some other time period. I don’t know where. On top of that, there are the slaves Drakov got from Lafitte. They’re used as labor and a sort of ‘hostile native’ security force. Very showy. He has them dress up in loincloths and feathers and war paint, playing cannibals. They do a good job of keeping the curious away. Drakov is a real stickler for security. He hasn’t forgotten that the TIA managed to infiltrate the Timekeepers. No one is allowed to talk to anyone else about what they’re supposed to be doing. I have no idea how much von Kampf knows. I’ve tried to pump him, but he won’t talk. Santos doesn’t know all the details or at least he pretends not to. He genuinely doesn’t seem to care. He’s a burnout. Maybe Shiro knows the whole story, because Drakov has practically adopted him, only Shiro can’t talk and he’s about as easy to approach as a king cobra.”
“You said Drakov recruited people from different times,” said Lucas. “How many? What kind of people?”
Martingale shrugged. “I don’t know how many, exactly. At least several hundred. He’s got Celts, Huns, Romans, Spartans, Indians, Afghanis, Samurai, a regular melting pot of human savagery, all working together as a unit.”
“That’s bad,” said Finn.
“Not if the warp guns work out okay,” said Martingale.
“That’s not what I meant,” said Finn. “Drakov is smart.
He’s set it up so that we not only have to neutralize him and his submarine, but we have to take out the Valkyrie, as well, plus the base and all his personnel. And if what you say is accurate, then none of them are ever all there at the same time. If that doesn’t cheer you up, he’s got a force of temporally displaced persons. You want to talk about what the odds are of their removal from their natural times not affecting history? The cumulative effect, at least, would be bound to show up somewhere in the timestream.”
“That’s probably why he did it that way,” Lucas said. “Even if we can stop him from changing history, we’re liable to change history ourselves by changing the history of the people whose history he’s already changed.”
“You want to run that by me again?” said Martingale.
“Better not,” said Finn. “It sounded confusing enough the first time. Martingale’s right. The whole thing is a joke. No wonder Drakov isn’t worried about us. We might as well just kick back and get drunk.”