“What are we celebrating?” Finn said.
“The ultimate disaster,” Drakov said. “The end of time as you know it, Mr. Delaney. From today, the entire character of time will change. And you will have a ringside seat. All three of you. After we have our toast, Santos will prepare a disc for you, one which will send the three of you back to the 27th century, back to my father and the war machine he serves to tell him he has been defeated. You had assumed, no doubt, that I would emulate my old compatriots in the Timekeepers and attempt to blackmail the war machine into dismantling itself. Perhaps that might have worked, but it would not have provided an ult
imate solution. Perhaps nothing ever will. But I think I can increase the odds in its favor.”
He looked down at the submarine below.
“I have twenty chances,” he said, “twenty opportunities to make a better world, a better universe. I have had some of my people clocking out to various periods of time, preparing other bases for us, not as ambitious as this one, but they will serve. It has taken time, it has taken money, and it has taken backbreaking labor, but all is done now.”
He looked at Martingale, von Kampf and Benedetto.
“I am sorry to have kept you in the dark,” he said. “I felt it was necessary. There was too much at stake to share my plans in full with anyone. Everyone has had a task. Some worked on our new bases, others disposed of riches that we found in order to provide the funds for all the work, still others worked to establish connections for us in the places we shall be visiting. There was much groundwork to be laid. Many nights, while you thought I was resting in my cabin, I would return here to keep track of our progress. Shortly before we left Barataria, I learned that all was in readiness at last.”
Shiro brought out the wine.
“In order to create something new and clean, there must be a purging,” Drakov said. “I shall purge the human race, not once, but twenty times. Each ballistic missile in the Nautilus has been equipped with a warp disc in its guidance system. Each will be launched from here into a different time period. Each will change the course of history. One will strike the Soviet Union during the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Another will strike the state of Israel during the Six Day War. Still another will be targeted on New York City during the time of a crippling embargo against the USSR. All will strike different locations in different time periods. Each will result in events radically different from those of history as we know it. Each will result in a timestream split. We shall have twenty different timelines to choose from, my friends. We shall have twenty alternate universes to explore. By clocking back through time, starting with the most recent split we shall initiate, we can travel to our base moments before the split occurs and then clock forward, thereby finding ourselves in an alternate timeline. We will see the future we will have helped create and, if it is not to our taste, we shall clock back to the next most recent point before the split and try again, when that next timestream split occurs. We shall all be able to pick and choose our futures and work to influence them. And with twenty different timelines in existence, the effect on temporal inertia will be such that none of these timelines will ever rejoin. Yes, we will destroy, and that will be the purging. But just think of what we shall create!”
They were all speechless at the enormity of what Drakov proposed. Even Benedetto, who had accepted the worst excesses of the Timekeepers with indifference, was so stunned he dropped his glass.
“The three of you,” said Drakov, to Lucas, Finn and Andre, “will stand right here on this spot and watch each missile being launched. As the final missile leaves its silo, Santos will activate the disc and send you back where you belong. The Time Wars will end, because no one will have any way of knowing from then on which universe they will be clocking back to. And when you tell Moses Forrester of what I have done, tell him that I could never have accomplished it without him.”
12
Out of the corner of his eye, Lucas saw Martingale edge around slightly so that he stood just behind the guards who had their weapons trained on them. While all eyes were on Drakov, save those of the guards who were watching the commandos carefully, Martingale’s right hand went to the warp disc strapped to his left wrist.
Drakov reached into his pocket and removed a small communicator. He turned it on and as he spoke, his booming voice came through a speaker system, filling the interior of the volcano.
“Attention,” he said, looking out over the base. “Attention. We are now at T-Day minus one hour. All personnel have fifteen minutes to report to the assembly hall to begin transition. Clocking will commence by unit in twenty minutes. Control and missile crews of the Nautilus stand by your stations, all other submarine and tender personnel report to the assembly hall.”
Martingale was gone.
The scene barely had time to register on Martingale’s consciousness as he fugue-clocked into the briefing room. He prayed he had programmed the disc correctly. There had been so little time. He had only a momentary impression of seeing a man seated before him and a roomful of commandos in battledress before he shouted out the date and time coordinates and winked out again.
Forrester was on his feet in an instant, shouldering the floater-pak and buckling the harness. “Now, people! Move it!”
Not a second’s time was wasted. Those who were eating or smoking simply threw the cigarettes or food onto the floor and grabbed for their floater-paks. Warp discs were quickly programmed with the coordinates Martingale had shouted. Forrester repeated them loudly, several times, to make certain everyone had them right. As the floater-paks were secured and the discs were programmed, they took position where they stood, left arms cocked in front of their chests, discs facing up, right arms raised to indicate the discs were staged. Forrester didn’t wait to check that everyone was ready. The moment a significant number of hands were raised, he gave the order.
“Go!”
No one noticed the barely discernible confluence of atomic particles making only the vaguest hint of a shadow in a corner at the back of the room. The tachyonic essence that was Dr. Robert Darkness did not wait for Forrester to give the attack order. The moment Martingale disappeared, Darkness hurtled across parsecs of time-space with a speed faster than thought. The First Division could stop the time pirates, but it was up to him to save Martingale and the three commandos.
Drakov stared. A flicker of movement had caught his eye and he blinked, puzzled. What had he seen?
“Captain,” Verne said, finally finding his voice, “this is madness! If those explosives are as powerful as you say, hundreds of thousands will die!”
“More like millions, Mr. Verne,” said Drakov, staring at Martingale. “But it is necessary in order to-Martingale, what did you do just now?”
Martingale frowned. “What do you mean, Chief?”
Drakov quickly glanced at the commandos, then at Martingale. “You
… moved. I could have sworn-”
“Drakov, listen to me,” Lucas said quickly, realizing what Drakov hadn’t realized yet, but was about to. The fugue had been a second or two off. “You haven’t-”
“Be quiet, Priest. Something just happened-”
“Nikolai, look!” shouted Benedetto, pointing.