The Ocean of Time (41 page)

Breathless, I look about me. Ernst is okay, and Freisler. And there, not twenty yards away, is Frederick, mounting von Gotz’s pale grey horse. Safe now.

I turn back, looking for Gruber. At first I don’t see him, but then I do. He’s also down, lying there on his back, groaning.

I walk across to him.

Gruber stares up at me, blood and spittle on his lips. The wound to his chest is a bad one. He’s been burned deeply, and he’s ebbing fast, but as he sees me he smiles, as if he’s won.

‘Here,’ he mouths, and I kneel, leaning close to make out what he’s saying.

‘Your Katerina …’ he says, then coughs. ‘The Russians know … Cherdiechnost …’

And so he dies. But I feel a fist of ice about my heart. They
know
? Urd protect me, let it not be true!

No more delays
, I tell myself.
It’s time to see Hecht. Time to tell him everything
.

Only Hecht’s not in his room, and no one knows where he’s gone, so I go and see Ernst.

Ernst is bathing, washing the blood and sweat of the battlefield from his tired body, a happy man now that he’s ventured out in time again.

I talk to him through the frosted glass. Or try to. Because Ernst wants only to speak of the battle we’ve just fought; of saving Frederick, and killing the Russians. It’s only when I raise my voice, repeating what I’ve said, that he finally takes it in.

‘Gruber said the Russians know. About Katerina. And Cherdiechnost.’

Ernst’s head appears around the glass, eyes shocked. ‘They
know
?’

‘Yes. That’s why I have to tell Hecht. I have to go back there and get them out of there.’

Ernst cuts the flow of water, then grabs a towel. ‘He won’t like that.’

‘Then I’ll persuade him. Make him see that it’s in our best interests.’

Ernst looks at me as if I’m mad. ‘He’ll ground you, like he grounded me. Then where will you be?’

‘Where will I be if I don’t?’ I can hear that I’m pleading with him now, but I can’t help it. ‘I don’t exist without her. And my girls …’

Ernst stares at me. ‘Girls? You mean you and Katerina had children, and you didn’t
tell
me?’

I feel ashamed. ‘I’m sorry. I should have told you. Before I went to Christburg. There just wasn’t a good time to raise the subject. And then there was Seydlitz’s Barbarossa project, and the fall-out from that …’

Ernst pulls on a long tunic, then turns to me again. ‘Urd save us, Otto! This changes things. Hecht will
never
allow you back there! It’s bad enough you had a woman – but
children
! It wouldn’t surprise me if he went in personally and erased the whole of that timeline.’

‘But that’s it. He
can’t
. I’m in a loop, and a long one, at that. I go back there, sometime in my future. That’s when I have them.’

Ernst whistles.

‘So what do I do? I can’t just leave it. You know I can’t. She’s my life, Ernst. You of all people should know that.’

Ernst sighs. ‘I know. Only Hecht won’t see it that way.’

‘But he must do. I mean, it was he who let me go there. To Cherdiechnost. To the estate. He sent me there, for a break.’

‘Hecht?’ Ernst stares back at me sceptically. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Well, Zarah was the one who actually sent me back. But she acts on Hecht’s instructions. He knows everything she does. It’s all in the record. If he
didn’t
know …’

No. It’s not possible. I’ve seen Hecht’s ‘Haven’ for myself. Seen how he keeps track of it all. He and his brother.

Ernst touches my shoulder ‘You’ve not told this to anyone else, have you, Otto?’

‘No one.’

‘Then let’s go and see Zarah. Take counsel with her. If there’s a way, she’ll know it. Besides, if you
are
in a loop, maybe she knows something about it.’

Maybe
, I think. After all, they knew where to check for me. That figure at the end of my bed must have known the lay-out of my house extremely well to jump in so accurately.

‘What if she says, “see Hecht”.’

‘Then you go see Hecht. But not until you must. Not unless you’re really desperate.’

On my way, I remember something Zarah said to me, months ago, when I first came back from Cherdiechnost. Before Christburg and Operation Barbarossa and that whole bloody business at Zorndorf. Something about there being reasons. Explanations.

I want to know now what they are.

Zarah greets us and takes us through to a large room I’ve never been in before, an anteroom at the back of the platform. She seems to be expecting this, and that too is somewhat disconcerting. She makes us sit, then paces up and down nervously, talking all the while, like she’s giving a lecture.

‘I knew you’d come. I knew at some point you’d work it out.’

I make to speak, but she doesn’t let me. It’s like she has to keep talking or she’ll never get said what she has to say.

‘It must have become obvious to you long ago, but we’re sure of it now. At least, as sure as we can be.’ She pauses, glancing at me, then carries on. ‘It’s like this. The rules of engagement have changed, Otto. The Game itself has changed. It was little things at first. Things that didn’t quite make sense, perhaps because we were reading them as old-style phenomena, interpreting them under the old way of thinking. Why, even Gehlen missed it at first. But slowly, bit by bit, we began to glimpse what it was.’

She stops, looking directly at me. ‘Something’s happened, you understand. New equations, possibly, or new technologies, further up the line. Put simply, the ceiling has gone. Agents are coming back from the future. Hecht was the first, at least, the first we knew about, but there have been others since. Ours
and
theirs.’

‘So how does this …?’

‘Wait, Otto. Hear me out. That’s where Hecht is now. Up the line. Trying to work out just what’s going on.’

‘But if he’s already met himself … well, he must know, surely?’

‘Not everything. In fact, not much outside the bare bones, really.’

‘But …’

My mind spins, like all of the gears have come loose. They must come from no-space bunkers like this one, surely? Because nothing else exists up here at the end of Time. It was all destroyed. Or is that the old way of thinking?

‘Does Hecht know?’

Zarah meets my eyes. ‘About the estate? No.’

‘No?’

‘We thought it best not to trouble him. We thought …’ She sighs. ‘Okay. Here’s the bottom line. We’ve done a deal with you, Otto. Upriver. We help you and you … you help us.’

‘Impossible.’

‘No. It’s true. You help train us. The women, I mean. Show us how to operate in Time. For our part—’

‘Wait a minute,’ Ernst says. ‘You’re talking about going behind Hecht’s back. You’re talking about out-and-out treason.’

Zarah stares back at us. ‘That’s not so. We were always loyal. Loyal beyond the call of duty. But things are about to change. You could say they
have
changed, already. You see, Hecht …’ She swallows, then forces herself to say it. ‘Hecht is about to die.’

We travellers are used to change. It is the medium in which we exist. We work night and day to promote it. Only …

Some changes are much bigger than others. Harder to accept.

Hecht’s death, the thought of it fills me – fills all of us, I’m sure – with dread, for Hecht is our ‘Father’, our Helmsman. He steers our no-space ship through the timestreams. He is the Guardian of the Tree of Worlds. Our Master, and not just in name.

Was that what he came back to tell himself? That he was going to die? If so, what preparations did he make? Or is that a paradox? Can one ever be prepared for death?

Not only that, but … did he tell himself how futile it would be to try to evade his fate? Was that why he broke his own rule and met himself?

And what significance does it have for us?

A new Master, for sure. But who? For who, of all of us, could possibly step into his shoes? Who, for Urd’s sake, has been trained?

Freisler, perhaps. Only Freisler would be a disaster. For a start he’s not got the respect of the
Reisende,
many of whom hate the man. No. There would be war – civil war – if Freisler took command.

Who then?

No. Don’t even say it. I’m not ready. I don’t know enough, not a tenth enough, to step into his shoes. Besides, after all I’ve done – after all the rules I’ve broken – it would hardly do for me to put on the Master’s cloak. How, after all, could I look a fellow agent in the eye and tell him he has strayed, when, I know for a certainty that my very existence in the future flouts those same rules I would be sworn to uphold?

It can’t be me. Not Master in Hecht’s place. Not now. Not even if, perhaps, he meant it ultimately.

Then who? For there’s no other candidate
.

‘Do we have much time?’ Ernst asks, breaking the long silence.

Zarah looks to him, her face pale and troubled. ‘A month. Thirty-seven days, to be precise.’

‘But if he knows …’ I begin. Then, with a shock, I understand the relevance of the timing. ‘New Year’s Day,’ I say quietly. ‘New Year’s Day, of the year 3000.’

‘That’s right,’ Zarah says. ‘The new millennium.’

We both know that it isn’t. Not technically. But someone does. Someone thinks the date significant enough to kill Meister Hecht on that day.

‘Do we know …?’

‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘Hecht won’t say. Only that he can’t prevent it.’

‘But that’s ridiculous!’ Ernst says. ‘Anything can be changed. That’s what we’ve been taught, haven’t we? And if we know in advance …’

‘He won’t allow it,’ Zara says, something in her face telling me that she’s already argued this one out fiercely with Hecht himself.

‘Then do it anyway!’ Ernst says fiercely. ‘Thor’s teeth! Are we to stand here, hands bound and weapons sheathed, while the finest of us is taken?’

‘You’ll do as the Master says,’ Zarah answers. ‘It is his explicit order.’

‘But—’

I know how Ernst feels. It feels like giving up, like, well, like a kind of suicide. Because if he knows and doesn’t act …

I stand up abruptly, throwing my chair back away from me, sheer exasperation propelling me to the door.

‘Where are you going?’ Zarah asks.

‘I’m going to find Hecht, and I’m going to ask who killed him.’

‘And if he tells you?’

‘Then I’ll track him down and kill him.’

Only it’s not that easy. I wait there by the platform for two hours, and then a third, and still he doesn’t come.

Eventually I go back to my room, but only after making Zarah promise to summon me the instant he returns. I don’t want to sleep, but, lying there, tiredness overwhelms me and I succumb.

I wake, to darkness and to silence, thinking about what Zarah said. And not just about Hecht, but about the ‘deal’ I’m supposedly going to make – no, that I
have
made – up the line somewhere. The rest of it doesn’t surprise me quite so much, because for some time now I’ve suspected that things have changed. It’s only the how that bothers me.

New equations
, she said;
new technologies
.

Ernst’s voice breaks the silence. ‘Otto. I need to see you.’

I sit up and, sensing my movement, the lamp comes on. ‘What is it?’

‘Hecht’s back,’ he says, his voice sounding clear in the air. ‘Only before you go and see him, you need to know a few things. I’ve been talking to Zarah.’

I stare across the room thoughtfully, then get up and walk across.

‘Otto?’

I hesitate a moment, then press the pad. The hatch hisses open. Ernst is standing there. He gives me the briefest smile, then moves quickly past me. As the door hisses shut again, I turn to find him staring at me strangely.

‘
What?’

‘It’s you, Otto. You’re the one the Elders choose to replace Hecht. Only …’

‘Only what?’

‘It’s unclear. I mean, they’ve only just begun to piece it all together, but something happens. And then you’re gone.’

‘Gone?’ I laugh. ‘But I can’t go. I have to be there. The loop.’

‘As I said, it isn’t clear. They’re finding out more about it by the hour. They’ve agents coming back all the time now. There’s a lot of conflicting stuff, but the reports are consistent in one respect: you aren’t there.’

‘They’ve looked for me, then? Followed me? Seen where I went, what I did?’

‘No, it’s … it’s apparently not that easy. It’s like, well, it’s like you step outside of things suddenly. One moment you’re there, the next …’

I frown at him. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, the machines stop tracking you. One moment you’re there, a pulse on the screen, like every other
Reisende
, the next … nothing! Not a trace of you. Like you’ve vanished from the Game.’

‘Or died …’

‘No. Zarah was quite adamant about that. There’s a distinct signal pattern when an agent dies. It’s not instantaneous, apparently. It takes an instant or two for the body to shut down, for the focus to stop sending back its trace. Likewise if the focus was cut out of your chest …’

I look down. ‘Maybe I was nuked. That would be pretty damn instantaneous.’

‘Yes!’ Ernst laughs, then recollects himself. ‘Sorry …’

‘It’s okay. So what
does
she think happened? Where does she think I went?’

‘That’s it,’ Ernst says. ‘They’ve none of them a clue.’

‘And Hecht? Does Hecht know any of this?’

‘Why don’t you ask him? As I said, he’s back, and he wants to see you.’

I don’t know how many times I’ve gone to see Hecht in his room, but this time it’s different, as different as it could get and remain familiar. Different because I know now that in thirty-seven days this man will die, this man who has been central to my life for almost half a century, who has shaped and guided me and always –
always
– been there, like a rock at the centre of it all. Or, better yet, like the still, strong trunk of a tree rooted in Four-Oh.

His manner is no different. He looks up as I enter, his grey eyes taking me in and weighing me up at a glance, while his fingers continue their quick, precise movements across the keyboard.