The Empire of Time (54 page)

‘The cup,’ she says. ‘It has to be placed in Gehlen’s trunk, doesn’t it?’

I nod.

‘Then let’s do that. Let’s at least get
that
right.’

‘Okay …’ And as I think where Gehlen’s trunk is, I remember what else is in that room, and what Gehlen said to me no more than fifteen minutes back.

I’ve finished now … I’ve left it on the board. If you’re interested. Which I think you may be
…

Interested? I laugh, and Gudrun stares at me, astonished.

‘What?’ she asked.

‘Stay here,’ I say, grabbing up the cup. ‘I promise I’ll be back.’ And I hurry from the room, heading for the lift.

Diederich stares at the screen a moment longer, then looks up, giving me a beaming smile.

‘It’s all here. Everything we need. And more.’

‘More?’

‘Yes. He worked it out. Look.’ And Diederich flicks through several pages until he comes to what might as well, to my eyes, be ancient Babylonian.

‘What is that?’

‘It’s Ernst’s position in Space-Time,’ Hecht says, coming into the room. ‘Gehlen pinpointed exactly where it is, and thus where the leakage was going to. That’s the equation for it.’

‘I thought we’d
lost
Gehlen.’

‘We did. But now we’ve snatched him back. Or part of him …’

‘You’ve …’

‘No time,’ Hecht says. ‘We need to get a team back there to Orhdruf straight away. If we can plug the leak …’

Ernst will go free
.

‘A team?’ I ask.

‘Three of us,’ Hecht says, and looks to me meaningfully, as if to ask ‘Do
you
want to come?’

‘Why, yes …’

‘Then let’s go. Horst … make a copy of that. We’ll need it when we’re there.’

We jump back in – Hecht and Diederich and I –
directly
into the room where the singularity’s kept.

We’re suited up, of course, even though it’s switched off right now.

‘So what are we going to do?’ I ask, staring at that dark absence that’s at the centre of it all.

‘We’re going to flood it with energy, that’s what,’ Diederich says enthusiastically. ‘In fact, we’re going to push so much energy through it that it’s going to overload.’

‘And what good will that do?’

‘No good at all,’ Hecht answers, ‘
here
.’

‘But if we’re right,’ Diederich adds. ‘That is, if Gehlen’s figures are correct …’

I don’t understand it at all. Least of all why we’re inside here if we’re going to flood the black hole with energy – presumably its own.

‘But how do we …?’

In answer, Diederich takes something from his pocket and holds it up. It looks like a pebble. A tiny, silver pebble. ‘This here. We just toss it in like so …’

And, like a child playing a game, he casually casts the tiny, silver pebble into the heart of the singularity where it vanishes.

I’m about to say something when I hear voices from the room next door. Gehlen’s voice, and then my own.

‘But …’

‘Now out,’ Hecht says, placing his hand to his chest. And like ghosts, he, and then Diederich, and finally I, vanish.

‘No wonder,’ I say, back at Four-Oh, as I step out of my suit, thinking of the way the singularity changed colour so spectacularly while Gehlen and I were in the room with it. ‘But what
was
that?’

‘The gizmo?’ Diederich combs back his thinning hair with his fingers and laughs. ‘That’s something Gehlen came up with. And not before time. He’s been thinking on the problem for the best part of two centuries now.’

‘Ah … But has it worked?’

Hecht shrugs off the suit trousers and nods. ‘If you mean, has it freed Ernst, then yes. Only …’

‘Tell him,’ Diederich says. ‘It won’t harm.’

I frown. ‘Tell me what?’

‘He has his own platform,’ Hecht says.

‘He?’

‘Reichenau. At least, that’s what Gehlen now thinks. It’s the only thing that makes any sense. And we think we know how. The black hole, at Orhdruf. He stole it.’

I laugh. ‘He
stole
a black hole?’

Diederich nods. ‘So Gehlen reckons.’

‘And we think we know where,’ Hecht says.

‘Well,
where
?’

‘You remember that huge gap in space and time we ran across, after Seydlitz’s “Barbarossa” project in 1952?’

‘Yes.’

‘When we over-loaded the time-anchor, we made it unstable. In effect, it broke loose.’

‘And?’

Diederich looks away. ‘We didn’t realise …’

‘Realise
what
?’

Hecht gives a long sigh, then answers me. ‘Imagine you’ve got a really taut steel hawser, keeping a ship tight to the shore, and then you cut it. Imagine it flying back, all of the tension in the cable suddenly released, so that it whips back. Well … it was like that. When we made the time-anchor unstable, it whipped back through time, burning a huge great hole through it.’

‘A hole?’

‘More like a gash,’ Diederich says.

‘It’ll heal,’ Hecht says, ‘given time. Only …’

‘Only that’s why,’ Diederich finishes for him.

‘Why what?’

‘Why we can’t see him.
Reichenau
… Because that’s where he’s been. Inside that tear in Space-Time. Only now that we know where it is …’

‘Back in 1952?’

Hecht nods.

‘Then why don’t we …?’

‘Not yet,’ Hecht says. ‘Not until we know more. Anyway, there’s something else we have to do first.’

‘Ernst?’

Hecht nods. ‘Come on,’ he says. ‘Let’s go bring him home.’

The clearing is different this time. The bivouac-style tents are still there, and the stalls, yet there’s no sign of Ernst. The place is still and dark, no shining presence in the air.

I look to Hecht, alarmed, but he seems unperturbed. He walks on, towards one of the larger bivouacs and, ducking beneath the awning, goes inside.

I follow, and there, on the floor, surrounded by a kneeling host of pilgrims – two or three dozen of the ragged fellows – is Ernst. He looks deathly pale and his breathing is faint. As I step closer, he mumbles something and then groans, such pain in so weak a sound.

Hecht claps his hands. ‘Out!’ he yells. ‘Now!’ And he kicks out at the nearest peasant.

I’m shocked. I have never seen Hecht this angry. He turns and looks at me, raw emotion in his face.

‘If I
ever
get my hands on him …’

Reichenau
…

I nod, then get to work, clearing that dark, malodorous tent, the toe of my boot pushing the last, reluctant pilgrim from the place.

I turn and look. Hecht is kneeling over Ernst now, listening to his chest. He looks up, deeply concerned, then reaches out and, cradling Ernst, lifts him.

‘Burn the place,’ he says. And then he jumps.

I stand there, looking at that awful, disease-ridden pallet on which they’d lain him; then, shuddering with disgust, I draw the laser from my belt and aim.

They send him back six months and repair him physically. But mentally?

Mentally, Ernst is in bad shape. Whatever he went through inside the time-trap, we can only ever glimpse the tiniest part of it. Imagine Time standing still. Imagine it freezing about you. Just imagine yourself embedded in ice. Eternally.

Then imagine being conscious all the while it happened.

Ernst smiles up at me from his bed, then lifts his head and shoulders from the nest of cushions in which he lays.

‘Otto …’

He’s clearly pleased to see me, yet his smile is so pale, so wintry, that it chokes me up. This is the first time I’ve seen him since he came back, and I can see the difference.

Ernst will
never
be the same.

I sit down beside him on the bed, looking at him, studying his face, then reach out to embrace him.

He’s so light; there seems so little of him. Like a cancer patient. Only the problem isn’t physical. Physically there’s nothing wrong with him.

As I move back from him, I notice the cards and flowers on the table on the far side of the bed.

‘From the women,’ he says, seeing where I’m looking. ‘They came and saw me earlier.’

‘They’re glad you’re home,’ I say. ‘And so am I.’ I pause, then. ‘It must have been hard.’

Ernst says nothing. He doesn’t have to; the damage is in his face.

‘Are you okay?’ I ask, after a moment.

‘Yes … yes, fine.’

Both of his hands are in mine. I look down at them, noting the translucency of the flesh, the strange, angular thinness of the fingers. They lay there in mine, impassive,
switched off
.

I meet his eyes again. ‘What did they say? I mean … about getting you back into the programme?’

Ernst looks down. ‘I’ve not asked him yet. But I guess they’ll need to be careful.’ He’s quiet a moment, then: ‘I understand that. If I were him …’

I wait, then, when he offers nothing more, I say cheerfully, ‘I’ll speak to him, maybe. See if we can’t ease you back into things. Something simple. Familiar.’

He smiles wanly, like there’s only so much energy to generate it. ‘Thanks, Otto. It’s so good to see you …’

‘Time heals …’

Only, coming away from him, I wonder. Maybe there are experiences that leave so deep a scar they never properly heal.

I have to go back. To Orhdruf. To complete the circle. Only first there’s someone else I have to see. Someone else who thinks he’s seen the last of me.

Manfred is alone in the War Room. It’s late – after three in the morning – and he has sent the others to their beds. This is the last night. When the sun comes up, it will all blow away in the wind.

I appear in the shadows by the door, stepping silently from the air.

Sensing something, Manfred looks up. He doesn’t see me at first, but then he does.

‘Lucius … or is it Otto now? How did
you
get in?’

If he fears assassination, he doesn’t show it. But he
is
tired, I can see. I walk across, then sit, on a bench seat close to him.

‘How goes the war?’

‘It’s …’ He stops, then, remembering what happened last time we met, stares at me directly. ‘You
vanished
.’

‘I know.’

‘But how do you …?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’

The great map behind me is mainly black now. Manfred’s armies have routed the Russians. But it isn’t over. Far from it. The final phase is about to begin.

‘You know how they’ll respond,’ I say.

‘I know.’

‘Then why? Why destroy it all?’

But he has no answer. Only that he must. He stands up, towering above me, then turns as the great door on the far side of the room hisses open. It’s Tief.

‘Are you all right, My Lord?’

‘Yes, Meister Tief. As you see, Otto has returned. Stepped out of the air.’

Tief nods. ‘I saw, My Lord. One moment there was nothing, the next he was there.’

Manfred turns and looks down at me. ‘I always knew.’

‘Knew?’

‘That there was something strange about you. All that talk of alliances …’ He pauses, then. ‘But not a Russian?’

‘Never a Russian, My Lord.’

Tief clears his throat, and Manfred looks back at him. ‘Yes, Tief?’

‘They have an answer.’

‘They?’

‘The Russians, My Lord. To our ultimatum.’

‘Ah …’

‘And My Lord?’

‘Yes?’

‘The
Konigsturm
is burning. The Guild …’

‘I know, Tief. I know.’

It is civil war. Guild against King. Army against
Undrehungar
. As if one enemy wasn’t enough.

I watch Manfred walk across and climb up on to the raised, semi-circular platform. Across from him the great screen changes. The map dissolves and in its place appear seven seated figures, as over-large as they are in life; greybeards in pale grey full-length cloaks. They look curiously ancient – medieval, almost. This is the Russian
veche
– or seven of the nine, at least – their supreme council of rulers. Like Manfred and his kin, they form a genetic elite among their kind –
podytyelt
, as they’re known– yet they have nothing of Manfred’s grandeur. They’re poor specimens by comparison, and I find myself thinking that, like the Guildsmen, it needs full seven of them to match a single one of Manfred’s ilk.

The two who are missing are already dead, their leader, Chkalov, one of them, assassinated at the very outset by Manfred’s agents in the Kremlin.

‘Gentlemen,’ Manfred says, giving them a sweeping – ironic? – bow. ‘You wish to surrender?’

The eldest of the Russians – seated at the very centre of the group – leans forward slightly and looks from side to side before he speaks.

‘We have come to a decision.’

‘A
decision?
’ Manfred gives a short, humourless laugh, then shakes his head. ‘I’ll have no
terms
. You will surrender
unconditionally.
’

There’s a moment’s silence, and then the elder speaks again. His face is bitter now, his hatred for Manfred showing clear suddenly. ‘You leave us no choice.’

Manfred lifts his head slightly. ‘You capitulate then?’

The old man seems exhausted. Even so, he is defiant to the last. ‘Never. Not until hell itself freezes over.’

Or the Earth boils
…

Surprised, Manfred points towards their spokesman. ‘You
will
surrender. You have no choice.’

‘We shall destroy you first.’

And all of us
, I think. But this is all written. Unchangeable. Manfred has backed the rats – as he’s so often called them – into a corner from which they can’t escape. And now the rats are biting back. If they must die, they will die – as they see it – honourably.

Such pride. Such stupid, self-destructive pride.

‘So be it,’ Manfred says wearily. And he cuts contact. On the screen the figures vanish, the great map reappears.

I stand there, shocked. Knowing about this was one thing, but seeing it …

And I do see it. I see it in Manfred’s eyes, particularly; in the way he bends over the rail, like a runner whose energy is wholly spent. This isn’t war, it’s suicide. Only Manfred didn’t want to go alone. He wanted to take everyone with him. Like that bastard Hitler. That’s why he pushed them to the edge. Not to win. He could never
win
.