Downtiming the Night Side Page 9

  Both of the radicals blanched at the name, even the old man who was almost too far gone into the time frame. The one man they couldn’t scare. The one man who’d scared them.

  “Who is this person?” Marx wanted to know.

  “An American capitalist agent,” Sandoval told him. “ ’Is job is to make sure it stays theirs.”

  “So vat vill you do? Shoot them and fade away?” Marx asked him calmly.

  “No. We’re just all going out to that wagon. You, too, sir, Oi’m afraid. Everybody in front of me. Nobody needs to be ’urt in the least.”

  “E’s gonna shoot up the suits!” Sandoval exclaimed, understanding it all. “Leave us ’ere all stuck good’n proper!”

  He gestured with the revolver. “All roite, let’s get it over with. All of you, up and out. Oi don’t wanna shoot nobody, but Oi will if Oi hav’ta. Now—move! And no tricks! Just all noice and pleasant-loike.”

  They stood up, and even Marx looked hesitant. Alone, Moosic guessed, he might have tried something, but with his family in the house this was no time to make a move.

  They walked out into the hallway leading to the double door, and he followed, eyes on them. As he walked through the doorway into the hall, someone suddenly made a grab for him from the side. Powerful hands grabbed his arm, but so hard and sudden was the grab that the pistol discharged—once—then he was on the floor and Helene Demuth was on top of him. The pistol fired three more times before she got it away, screaming and banging his head against the floor. He was unconscious before the cop reached the porch.

  OF ANGELS AND DEMONS

  Medical science had progressed only a small amount from the Middle Ages by 1875. It was true that physicians were now true scientists and knew a great deal. The trouble was, they also couldn’t do very much more about it than their Aristotelian forebears could with their leeches and bad humors. All doctors really knew in 1875 was how futile all that old stuff was.

  He was mostly in a coma—a strange dreamlike state that produced few dreams and mostly only a sense of floating, with occasional snatches of an unreal reality. The prison surgeons were not exactly in the forefront of medical skills and research, either, but they were competent and did what they could. He was aware, at times, of people flitting about and even discussing him, and once or twice it seemed like some people were asking him questions, but he could neither make out the questions nor form an answer.

  When he finally did regain consciousness, he wished he hadn’t. The doctors and nurses were hard and cold and could do little except load him with morphia for the pain. They would answer no questions. Within a few hours of coming out of it, though, there appeared a young man in a neat business suit who asked many and would answer some.

  “I am Inspector Skinner of Scotland Yard,” he told the patient, who listened through a drugged haze that still didn’t quite blot out the pain, “I think you should give some answers.”

  “Uh—’ow long ’ave Oi been here?” he croaked.

  “You’ve been in a coma almost seven days,” the inspector told him. “The old woman did a job on you, she did.”

  Seven days. That would make this the twenty-seventh of September. He tried to think about why that was important, but couldn’t quite manage it.

  “Now, then,” continued the detective, “I think it’s time for a statement of sorts.” He took out a fountain pen and a small notebook. “First of all, I’ve told you who I am. What’s your name?”

  “Alfie,” he rasped. “Alfie Jenkins.”

  “How old are you, Alfie?”

  “Dunno. Never got to countin’.”

  The inspector nodded. “Do you remember last Monday night?”

  He thought back. Something… Some kind of shooting. “It’s all kinda dim.”

  “You shot two people, Alfie. You broke into a man’s home and shot him and a guest of his. You remember that?”

  Alfie nodded, getting a little handle on what had happened, although still somewhat confused as to why. “Didn’t mean to shoot nobody. The old hag grabbed me gun.”

  He nodded. “Nevertheless, you broke into the house and you brought the gun. You understand that, don’t you?”

  Alfie managed a nod. “Yes, sir. ’Ow are they—the two wot got shot, that is?”

  “Dead, Alfie. Both dead.”

  Somewhere in the back of his mind something screamed, My god! I just killed Karl Marx!

  “The old peddler lingered on for a few days, but it was just too great a shock to his system.”

  Things were coming back to him now, in little bits and pieces. “The old boy ’ad a daughter. Wot’s ’appened to ’er?”

  “They say she fled screaming in panic. Got on the cart and went. We haven’t found her as yet, but we’re looking.”

  He felt totally lost and alone. Worse, after all that, he might swing for murder or be sentenced to life in prison, which was as sure a death to somebody like him. Marx was dead, and at his hand. History had been changed. And the important one had gotten away and was now—where and when? At least it answered one big question, that of why Sandoval had brought the woman along. He needed somebody to wear the suit to get it back—for Marx.

  As the intellectual part of him stirred in response to the questions, it found itself being pushed back, almost as if under attack. It took a supreme effort just to bring those thoughts up, and they were fading almost as they were made. The combined effect of the morphia and the additional seven days were having full effect. Not that it mattered, of course. He was in a prison hospital somewhere in London, with no real hope of ever getting out in time to reach the suit. He had mucked up everything with his failure to act coldly and decisively, and now the villain was free to roam again, while he faced a short and unhappy future as Alfie Jenkins.

  “Wot—wot’ll ’appen to me now?” he asked plaintively, knowing the answer.

  “Ordinarily, you would stand trial as an adult because of the seriousness of the offense, and you know what that result would be. There are mobs outside the prison demanding that they be allowed to save the Queen the expense. Doctor Marx, you know, was a famous and well-loved man.”

  “Oi’d ’eard that, sir.”

  “However, you may be lucky here. There is no liking for making a big trial with a roaring crowd that could become a circus or, worse, a scene for rioting and violence. You’re quite ill, Alfie. Did you know that?”

  “Just a cough, sir.”

  “It’s far more than that. You have a very bad lung disease. We can do little for it. Do you understand that?”

  He managed a nod, feeling oddly better at the news. It beat hanging—maybe.

  The inspector sighed, put away his pen and notebook, and looked down at him. “Just rest and relax, Alfie. You’ll not come to trial while gravely ill—we’ll see to that.”

  After the inspector left, he thought it over as much as he was able to do so. They expected him to die here. It would be better for everybody if he did, in fact. Marx wanted revolutions, he remembered, and he was smart enough to see that Her Majesty’s government wanted none of that here, no symbol to rally everyone against.

  With that thought, he drifted back into sleep.

  “Wake up,” a woman’s hushed voice said from somewhere near. He felt hands gently shake him, and when he stirred and opened his eyes, he frowned, thinking the vision a dream.

  She had a chubby, freckled face and hair cut very short, like they used to cut the boys’ hair at the orphan asylum. She was dressed entirely in some strange black body-garment that looked like dull leather but was soft, like cloth. Around her waist was a thick, black, belt-like contraption that seemed more like a misplaced horse collar, but had a bunch of red lights on it, both on top and around her middle. The tight-fitting garment emphasized her chubbiness, and was not very complimentary. A pair of goggles sat atop her head, ready to be pulled down at a moment’s notice.

  “Ho’re you? Some kind of prison nurse?”

  “No,” she whispered, “and
keep your voice down. Time is very short, and the amount of power required to allow me to be here without assimilation is enormous.”

  He was in great pain, but much of the morphia had worn off, allowing the Moosic personality a little latitude. He mustered all his will to force himself forward, reminding himself that Sandoval had done it. “You—you are from the future.” It was a statement, not a question.

  “In a way, yes. I’ve brought you something you need desperately, but you’ll have to move fast. Can you make it out of bed?”

  “Oi… think so.” He tried and, with her help, got to a shaky standing position. It was then that he saw it, there on the floor. “The toime suit!” he breathed.

  He sat back on the bed and she helped him into it. It was enormous for the body of Alfie Jenkins, far too large to be practical, and he said so.

  “Don’t worry. Once you punch out, it’ll be O.K., and both Alfie and Ron will live. Understand?”

  He nodded dully.

  “The power pack is on full-charge now—I did it before coming here. And I’ve set it for the correct time and place. There is still a chance of catching Sandoval.”

  “But ’istory—it’s already changed.”

  “Very little. Marx would have died in a few years anyway, and all his important work was done. He was killed by a boy in the pay of anti-Communists, a boy who then escaped from gaol. That’s all the change. Now—helmet on. Check the pouch when you arrive. And remember— Sandoval’s power is nearly gone. He’s landed a hundred miles from his goal. You can beat him there. Now—seal and go!”

  “But wait! Just ’ho are you?”

  But the seal snapped in place and he was in silence, although nearly swimming in the suit. If he stood up, he knew he’d sink below and out of the helmet, so he didn’t try. The mysterious woman reached out and touched the suit activation switches.

  Reality faded. The suit’s anti-glare shield snapped on, and all around was blinding light. He was falling again, falling through time and space…

  The journey this time was the same in all physical respects, but not for the man himself. Suddenly he felt the cramping and pinching of the suit once more and realized, with a start, that he was Ron Moosic once again in form.

  Mentally, the trip was stranger. Slowly, ever so slowly, the personality of Alfie Jenkins came to equal status with his own. There was a period of terrible confusion in his mind, as he lost all true orientation of self. It was a strange, indescribable feeling of being, at one and the same time, not a rider in someone else’s head, but two people simultaneously.

  Now, rapidly, the elements of Alfie Jenkins’ life and personality began to merge with his own. The process was strange and total, and he realized, with a shock, that he was still Alfie Jenkins, would always be Alfie, but only a part, only a small part…

  He knew, intellectually, that this would change him, perhaps in subtle ways, but in a permanent fashion. He also realized that he would not really be aware of that change, that the new whole would be natural and normal and right for him.

  This was something Silverberg and the others had not warned him about. Lives created could be absorbed, but not destroyed once they were real. And yet, now that he thought of it, it was logical. And, somewhere, he knew, Alfie Jenkins was free and happy at last…

  But where—and when—was he going now?

  After Sandoval, that was clear. And, for now, that was enough. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder about this fourth player in the game and why she had come to him and helped him. He wished he’d had more of his wits about him and had been able to ask more questions. It was quite certain she was on his side, and the simplicity of her time mechanism, compared to the bulky suit he wore, made it certain that she was from some future time. So the “leading edge” of the time stream was not his own origin time, but rather farther into the future. How far ahead? he wondered. Or did that matter as much as the fact that she seemed definitely on his side. An enemy of any sort would have let him rot. Still, if someone from the future was assisting him, that presupposed a fifth player in the game. Perhaps the one that initiated all this? The one that converted Dr. Cline? But, if that were so, why had they needed the help of some radicals from the past at all? Why not just go back with their superior equipment and do it themselves? Questions, always more questions, and no one to get the answers from.

  For now, it would have to be enough to know that history’s alteration had been a mere ripple, of no major consequence in the long run, no matter how much pain and sorrow he’d caused Marx’s innocent family. And he could still complete the mission.

  This time I won’t hesitate to shoot for a moment, Sandoval, he swore.

  The falling sensation stopped, and he felt himself fall forward onto solid ground. He had forgotten that he’d left in a more or less sitting position. This time it was also night, but the area looked quite different from England. Releasing the seals on the suit, he was also relieved to find that it was relatively warm. He couldn’t help wondering what happened when his naked self was forced out into a sub-zero February for a couple of hours, with no fire able to warm him.

  The instruments on the suit indicated a charge at still well over ninety percent, which meant he couldn’t have come far. The month and year he could make out by simple subtraction, but the geographic coordinates were beyond him.

  The time was some point in June, 1841. The closeness of the date surprised him. Silverberg had said something about a “twenty year window,” which would cover Alfie, barely, but hardly the girl who had been Sandoval. Clearly, the scientist had been wrong—or the date the mysterious woman had set for him was wrong. That latter worried him, but only a little. He had more than enough power to get home now, and all he had to do was set the controls to zero. Perhaps, he surmised, it was not a flat twenty years but an individual thing. Running into the twenty-year barrier in one case would cause the scientists to clamp down a limit and accept it. In his time, after all, time travel was in its earliest stages.

  Perhaps those who’d coached Sandoval had more experience.

  He spent a little time scouting the area. It was a city, certainly, old but not very large. It was immediately evident by the signs that it was in Germany, but he had no knowledge of German and so couldn’t get more than vague information. Certainly the central square contained some relatively tall buildings for the time, at least one of which rose six stories to a flat-topped pyramidal structure that went up perhaps two or three more. The centerpiece to the square was an ornate European fountain which looked ancient even for 1841, but it still functioned.

  To one side of town was a mammoth structure that made even the medieval fountain seem new. A massive structure of weathered stone, it was clearly an ancient city gate, with portals to pass two-way mounted traffic, two levels on top of the portals, and two towers, one the same height as the rest of the structure, the other with yet an additional story on it. He really didn’t recall them being much in Germany, but damned if the thing didn’t look kind of ancient Roman. It stood majestically in the middle of the roadway, with incongruous German-style buildings adjoining its taller tower on one side and a park on the other.

  He was conscious of the press of time now, and he searched frantically for some place to hide the suit. He finally decided on a heap of rubble very near the Roman gate. The stones were fairly easy to move and replace, not likely to be quickly disturbed, and the ruin itself was a proper landmark. Still, it was a major undertaking to get the cavity made, the suit put in, then covered to his nervous eye. This time, if possible, he’d do what the radicals had done in 1875 and retrieve the suit as soon as possible.

  He was still positioning and repositioning stones when he felt the nausea and dizziness strike him. In a matter of minutes he’d passed out.

  Holger Neumann had been born in Trier in 1805, which made him thirty-six now. He was the only child of an attorney with a small local practice, and he’d been rather spoiled early on. His father had been something of a wimp at
home, and it was his mother who dominated almost everything either one of them said or did. He’d gone to good schools and received a solid middle-class education, but, despite his father’s hopes, he found the law did not appeal to him. College had interested him for a while, but after his mother’s death while in his third year, it no longer seemed interesting or important, and he hadn’t gone back after the funeral.

  His father seemed to shrivel a bit each day after his wife’s death, and just lost the will to live, or so they said. He followed her in less than two years. Holger was surprised to discover that there was a substantial estate, grown even fatter when he sold the family’s house and his father’s office. It was not enough for champagne and the Grand Tour, but as long as he was quite modest in his lifestyle, it was sufficient to support him.

  He’d gotten to Bonn, Cologne, Berlin, even Paris, although he found the French intolerable and his inability to learn their language impossible. At the moment he was, in fact, back home for one of his annual conferences with the bank that managed his money. He was living in Cologne, so it wasn’t much of a trip, taking odd jobs here and there as the spirit and his needs above the annuity dictated, but he was now trying to decide where to move on to. He required a major city, but one in which he could keep a certain amount of anonymity. He was tempted by Austria, and particularly by Vienna, which had an open atmosphere like Paris but also spoke the correct tongue.

  He was a pure blond with large, soft blue eyes and a complexion so fair that he appeared far younger than his years. If, in fact, things had been different, he might well have gone far in any profession he chose, but he did not have that freedom. Position meant being a public person, and he could not afford that luxury.

  He had simply never been able to get close to, or feel anything for, any woman except his mother. All other women had seemed rather boring and shallow, and certainly unappealing sexually. From his earliest sexual awakenings, Neumann had been attracted to young men.

  In a town like Trier that meant total suppression, but in the open atmosphere of Heidelberg things had been different. Within a year he’d discovered that there were others like himself, and that revelation hit him with tremendous force. It had, in fact, been a graduate assistant assigned to help him with the exams who had spotted in him what he thought he had so completely concealed. Through him, he’d discovered a secret society, a brotherhood of sons, that had made life turn on its head. Still, there was fear, constant fear, of being exposed.