Andre swallowed hard. "That used to be my name," she said. "I changed it."
Hunter nodded. "Hell of a thing, isn't it? And you have a Lucas Priest, as well?"
"Had," Delaney said. "He died on our last mission."
"So did ours," said Hunter. "He was waiting for it, I guess. He never came back from the last one. From what I heard, it was a real killer. You people got us good."
Delaney had no response. What could he say, that he was sorry? The situation was difficult enough as it was without his telling Hunter that he was the one who had killed their Lucas Priest. Andre felt numb. In their own timeline, she had always felt very close to Lucas Priest. In the congruent universe, her twin and that of Lucas had married. It might have happened to them, too, had her Lucas lived long enough. She could not get the image of Hunter's Lucas Priest out of her mind as he stood before her in 19th century Afghanistan, pointing a laser at her chest. She was the enemy and he should have fired, but he had hesitated. There had been a tortured look upon his face as he had briefly lowered the laser, then raised it once again, resigned to what he had to do. That moment's hesitation was what killed him. He had said, "Forgive me, Andre," then just as he was about to fire, Delaney had bayoneted him from behind. She hadn't understood what happened then, why he had hesitated. Now she knew and she wished she didn't.
"So there's a Reese Hunter in your timeline, as well," said Hunter.
"Was, "said Delaney.
"Was?" said Hunter. "I see." He shook his head. "Man, that's strange. It's like being told I died."
"Tell me about it," said Delaney.
"Yeah, it's a macabre situation, pilgrim. 1 keep having to remind myself that you're really not my partner, just like you're probably having a hard time remembering that I'm not the Reese Hunter that you knew. What was he like?"
"He was a lot like you," Delaney said. "Hell, he was you, only his history followed a slightly different path. He was an officer in the Airborne Pathfinders who became separated from his unit in 12th century England."
"Christ," said Hunter. "The same thing happened to me."
"Only you apparently came back," Delaney said. "Our Hunter decided to go underground."
Hunter chuckled. "I thought about it. Almost did it, too. It was tempting as hell. How'd your boy make out?"
"Pretty well," Delaney said. "He had quite a setup for himself back there in Sherwood Forest. Built himself a cabin and stocked it with all sorts of goodies from various different time periods. He had all the conveniences. Sound system, generators, microwave oven, briar pipes, smoking jackets, various kinds of ordnance, fine wines. . . The locals believed he was a wizard and he played up the idea to keep them from bothering him. Grew his hair long and dressed up in some kind of crazy silk robe from Japan with dragons on it. Then he got mixed up in one of our missions. Complicated story."
Hunter glanced at Andre. "He bring you back from the 12th century?"
"Yes," she said. "How did you ... oh, of course. But we went to 17th century Paris first. That was where he... died."
Hunter sighed. "Glad I never went to Paris," he said. "We clocked straight back home. Christ, it's really something. Alternate universes, almost exactly identical. And we're at war." Delaney remained silent.
"Look," said Hunter, "if you don't want to answer this one, just forget I asked, but I've always wanted to know something. Why'd you people start this? I realize you're only grunts, like I am, so maybe you don't really know, but it strikes me that there had to be a better way. All right, so the confluence phenomenon was endangering both our time-streams, but maybe if we got together, we could've figured out a way to lick this thing. But after what you did-"
"We didn't know," said Steiger.
Hunter sighed. "Well, I guess I sorta figured that. Hell, it wasn't your decision. You people are just soldiers, like me."
"You don't understand," said Steiger. "I meant we really didn't know. Until your people attacked us in 19th century Afghanistan, we didn't even know that you existed."
"Come on," said Hunter. "Is that really the line they fed you? Your people bombed the hell out of us. You wiped out entire colonies, killed millions of people-"
"And we didn't even know we were doing it," Delaney said. "He's telling you the truth. We have a temporal nuclear device known as a warp grenade. It allows you to utilize a specified portion of a highly controlled nuclear explosion and it clocks the surplus energy through an Einstein-Rosen Bridge out into space somewhere. We thought we were disposing of the surplus energy in the Orion Nebula, but apparently sending such massive amounts of energy through space warps somehow affected chronophysical alignment. We were clocking nuclear explosions into your timeline and we didn't even know it."
Hunter stared at him. "Are you serious?"
"I can't make you believe me, Hunter, but what I told you is the truth, I swear it."
Hunter sat silent for a long moment. "Hell, ain't that a kick in the head?" he said, his voice heavy. "The most dangerous war in the history of both our timelines and it got started by accident."
"Well, we were the ones to start it, even if it was an accident," said Steiger, "but your people are the ones who have a chance to end it."
Hunter snorted. "Not bloody likely, pilgrim," he said. "You want to know what kind of hatred the people in this timeline have for you? You know what kind of image you people have here? You guys are the living incarnation of evil, according to the politicians and the media. Mass murderers without a conscience. Imperialist warmongers determined to drive us straight into temporal chaos or oblivion to safeguard your own timeline. The only way to deal with you is through force, because that's all you understand. Nobody believes you'll negotiate. And nobody really wants to try."
"Is that how you feel?" Andre said. "I'm not hearing any hatred in your voice."