The Empire of Time (55 page)

‘You can’t,’ I say quietly, stepping towards him. ‘You
can’t
!’

He looks up, meeting my eyes, then turns and speaks to the air: ‘Code Black Cloud,’ he says. ‘Target: Moscow …’

My mouth works soundlessly. There have been exchanges of missiles already. Cities have already been destroyed. But thus far it’s been tactical. Brinkmanship. Now the
real
destruction begins. Hell itself will gape.

Already – even at that moment – the missiles are soaring upwards in great arcs towards their targets. German missiles, and Russian too.

Manfred looks to me again, and to my unspoken question answers: ‘Why not? Rather this than a world run by the Guild. It’s over, Otto.
Finished
.’

And as he says the word, so there’s a loud commotion outside and a sudden, violent hammering on the door, as if Thor himself is demanding entrance. A moment later it hisses open. Two Guildsmen step through and take up position, their weapons raised.

Adelbert enters a moment later, slowly, cautiously, his head swivelling from side to side. If he’s smiling, then he’s smiling deep within that nest of wires and plastic and metal that’s his head.

‘My Lord,’ he says, and bows, as if the title means anything any longer. For Adelbert has won. Germany is
his
now.

‘Guild Master,’ Manfred answers, and again he gives that low, ironic bow. ‘Or should I just call you … Master?’

Step by mechanical step he comes, until he’s just below Manfred, at the foot of the metal steps that lead up to the platform. He looks up, his turret of a head tilting slowly back.

‘You will be treated well …’

Manfred laughs tonelessly. ‘I will be dead. And so will you. Unless, of course …’

Adelbert seems puzzled. ‘
Unless
, My Lord?’

‘Unless you can stop the missiles in mid air.’

‘My Lord …?’

Manfred moves back a little, allowing Adelbert to see the map. On it now are a series of tiny, colourful streaks, to the right and left of the central mass, like tears – or claw marks – in the surface of the screen.

‘It’s the final phase,’ Manfred says, coming slowly down the steps until he’s on a level with Adelbert, facing him, towering over him.

‘But they …’

‘Told me to go to hell.’ Manfred laughs once more, then walks past Adelbert, towards where I’m seated.

‘Otto. You know what happens. Tell him.’

‘It’s over,’ I say, feeling sick to the stomach now that I’ve seen what really happened. ‘Nothing will survive.’

It’s not strictly true. Something
will
survive. The two deep bunkers for a start. And Reichenau, perhaps, if we’re right about him. But it’s as close to the truth as I can say.

‘But why?’ Adelbert says. And, strangely, there’s real emotion in his voice.

‘Because you bastards would fuck it all up. Make it a living hell.’

Adelbert doesn’t answer. He stands there, still and silent, like he’s been turned into a pillar of salt.

Manfred sits alongside me, his long legs sprawled out before him.

‘How long before the first one falls?’ he asks, his overlarge head turned towards me, his eyes – which I once thought wise – defying me to challenge what he’s done.

‘Eighteen minutes,’ I say.

‘And the last?’

‘Approximately four and a half hours.’

‘That long?’ Manfred gives a long sigh. ‘And you’ll be gone, I take it?’

‘Yes, My Lord.’

He nods, then turns away and, closing his eyes, yawns deeply. Getting to his feet, he walks back to where Adelbert still stands, silent and motionless.

‘What is it, Grand Master? Seized up? Rain got to you?’

Adelbert’s head swivels round. His voice is angry now. ‘You’re a fool, Manfred. A
wicked
fool.’

‘As if you care for a single one of them!’ Manfred huffs contemptuously. ‘No! Let the bombs fall! Let the earth be wiped clean of our kind! Let there be no more wars, no more
Rassenkampf
! Thirty centuries is quite enough!’

He falls silent. The colored streaks on the map have lengthened, reaching out from west and east, the foremost missiles crossing trajectories. In a while they will all cross over. More are joining them by the moment, as matters escalate. Soon the whole map will be cross-hatched with the trails of missiles.

For me, it’s time to depart. I have borne witness to the final act of this tragedy – this dark comedy of two nations, hell-bent on each other’s extinction. There is no more.

Or rather, there’s one last thing. One last person I must see.

I stand and bow, first to Adelbert, and then, finally, to Manfred.

‘My Lord …’

But as he shapes his mouth to answer I am gone. As he too will be gone before the dawn. Into the air. Ashes to ashes …

She is not in the sun room. The great lounge is empty and burned out, the great glass window cracked and darkened by smoke. I go up and find her on the battlements, staring out towards the east, her long, golden hair falling to her waist. Beyond her the sun is rising for the last time on a living world.

‘Gudrun?’

She turns to face me, her face in shadow. ‘Otto? Is that you? Have you come?’

‘I said I would.’

‘Yes, but …’

I go across to her and see, as I come closer, that her eyes are gone. Burned from her face. She is blind now. She will never see the dawn. Even so, she seems to stare down at me.

‘What is it?’

I am wearing protective lenses. Fast-reactors, that form a thick film immediately there’s a change in the light. And fortunately so … for as she speaks, there’s a blinding flash, like the whole world has been turned into a negative of itself. Gudrun’s dark shape is outlined in liquid silver.

As it fades – the light bleeding back into the dark – I feel a tingling on my face. My eyes hurt, but at least they’re not damaged.

‘Leipzig,’ I say.

‘Leipzig?’ And then she realises. ‘Oh, sweet mother …’

I step closer, reaching out to take her hands. ‘Your eyes …’

‘It surprised me,’ she says. ‘No one told me …’

Looking up into her ruined face, I could cry for all that spoiled beauty. Even so, she smiles, and as she does, I remember how she looked.

‘There can’t be many left,’ she says. ‘I’ve heard them. Felt the heat from them on my cheeks and on my arms.’

Her arms are burned, I realise. The flesh is peeling from them.

I swallow and make to answer, but at that moment the sound hits us in a wave, the air throbbing and growling, making us both clamp our hands over our ears, for it’s like the sound of a million souls howling forlornly on the wind.

Such an awful, bestial sound.

And then that too fades, and the stillness that follows is strange, for the silence is perfect. It is dawn, but not a single bird is singing. Not a single cock crows. There’s no sound of trains, or planes or—

Gudrun kneels, facing me, her hands reaching blindly for my face until she finds it. Her fingers cup my cheeks.

‘Otto?’

‘Yes, sweet lady?’

‘Do you have someone you love? Back where you come from?’

I am about to say no – not where I come from – but this is no time to be pedantic.

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Her name is Katerina. And she is as beautiful as you, my lady.’

‘As I am now?’

‘Oh, you are still beautiful.’

‘But my eyes.’

‘I remember your eyes. If I close mine, I can see them perfectly.’ Her fingers make a small movement on my face, then move back. She stands and looks about her, as if she’s sensing the air, her head turning slowly this way and then that.

‘When …’ Her voice breaks. She takes a moment, then begins again. ‘When do they bomb Erfurt?’

‘Soon, my lady.’

‘And you … you will be gone?’

‘Yes …’

And it feels like a betrayal. Like I could do something. Only I can’t.

‘Will you … will you come back and see me?’

‘See you?’

‘In the Past. You could remind me. Show me the cup. Maybe …’

She falls silent.

‘Maybe?’

She turns, smiling again, looking down at me, almost as if she can still see me. ‘Oh, it would never have worked … the size of me and the size of you …’

I shiver. ‘I—’

‘Oh, I know, Otto. You love Katerina. And you’re an honest man, not a rogue. But it would have been so sweet, to have had you, somewhere,
somewhen
. In some loose strand of time, maybe. You and I …’

I close my eyes, tormented, for there is nothing I can do. I cannot return. I cannot grant her wish. And even if I could …

‘I must go,’ I say, and find that I hate myself for uttering the words. ‘I …’

‘I love you, Otto. Did you know that?’

I give a tiny, surprised laugh, then look to her. But
why
is it absurd? Why could I not be loved by such a one as her?

Because she is a goddess, Otto. Because such unions are not meant. And besides, there’s Katerina
.

There is. Only this once, I feel, perhaps, she’d understand. For Gudrun, at that moment, burned as she is, still has an unearthly beauty. And maybe that’s why. Maybe such beauty had to perish, because …

But there is no ‘because’. Here at the end, all I can register is the pointlessness of it all. As the last bombs fall, what can I say but that this never should have happened.

Rassenkampf.
What madman conjured up the notion?

‘My lady …’

And I jump, because if I stay a moment longer my heart will break.

My lady
…

Dead
, I think, as the platform shimmers into being all about me.
She is dead
.

And my heart feels heavy like a stone, and when Hecht asks me what it is, I turn from him and walk away, unable, for once, to trust myself to speak. Wanting only to find some dark and lonely spot and grieve. For that’s what’s needed now.

‘Otto?’

I roll over on to my back and look up. Ernst is sitting there, in my chair, across the room from where I lie. ‘What time is it?’

‘It’s now.’ And he laughs at the old joke. For it’s always ‘now’ in Four-Oh.

He hesitates, then asks. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Me? Yes, I’m fine. You?’

‘It’s just that …’

‘Go on.’

‘Just that you seemed hurt.’

I give the faintest nod, then sit up, knuckling my eyes and yawning. ‘How long did I sleep?’

‘Two days.’

‘Two …?’ I laugh. ‘Urd help us, was I that tired?’

‘It would seem so.’

Ernst stands. ‘Hecht wants to see us.’

‘Us?’

‘Yes,
us
. And he wants to see us now.’

For once, Hecht comes to the point slowly. ‘It was Ernst’s idea … a good one as it happens.’

I glance at Ernst, who’s sitting cross-legged beside me, then look back at Hecht.

‘Go on …’

‘It’s a sector you both know. Somewhere familiar …’

‘1239,’ Ernst says.

I try not to look surprised. ‘1239?’

Hecht nods. ‘Novgorod. You both know it well, so there shouldn’t be any problems. The idea is to ease Ernst back into things.’

‘Right. And the pretext?’

‘To meet Nevsky,’ Ernst answers. ‘And to get in tight with him.’

‘But Nevsky is in Moscow all that winter.’

‘That’s right,’ Hecht says. ‘So you go to him. You and Ernst. It’ll allow you to acclimatise. To get to learn a bit more about conditions there.’

‘But …’

I stop. I don’t know why I’m objecting. It’s what I want, after all. To go back there and see her. But I’m concerned for Ernst. Worried that this might be too soon, that such a trip might prove too demanding for him.

‘When would we go?’

Hecht shrugs. ‘When everything’s prepared. Ernst will brief you. He’s come up with a neat little scheme. And besides …’ He meets my eyes. ‘… it’ll be good for you both to take things easy. These have been difficult times.’

That’s true, but when I get Ernst alone again, I ask him exactly what he’s got planned.

‘It’s a thank you,’ he says.

‘A what?’

‘For doing what you did. For freeing me. You put yourself in grave danger …’

‘Of course I did. You’d have done the same.’

‘I know, but—’

And he begins to spell it out, until finally I stare at him and laugh, surprised by just how devious he can be. Devious … and yet as honest as they come. I reach and embrace him, holding him to me tightly.

‘You’re a good friend, Ernst. The very best of friends.’

‘And you, Otto, are quite mad.’

I move a little away from him. ‘Mad?’

‘Yes, and me too … for pandering to you.’

I grin. ‘So just when did you come up with this little scheme?’

‘Oh, I had time,’ he says, and his eyes take on the slightest sadness as he says it. ‘Or do you forget? Six months lying on my back. That’s a long time. Time enough to come up with a dozen such schemes.’

I look at him thoughtfully. In the last few days he seems to have changed a lot. And all for the better. So just maybe …

‘Ernst?’

‘Yes, Otto?’

‘You mustn’t hide anything from me, understand? You must tell me if it ever gets too much.’

‘Of course,’ he says, and reaches out to clasp my hand again. ‘Of course.’

One dream, one final dream, before I let them ‘purge’ me of the memory.

It is of her, of course. Not Katerina, but Gudrun.

In the dream we are on the battlements again, at Orhdruf, standing side by side as the dawn breaks. Turning to me, she lifts me up on to her massive shoulders, my legs wrapped tight about her thick, exquisitely pale neck. And there I nestle, her long golden tresses like a blanket beneath me, the perfumed scent of her in my nostrils, as I look past her at the beauty of the surrounding countryside.

Slowly she turns, and as she turns, so she lifts, light as a feather, from the flagstones, and drifts out, as the birds freeze in the air and Time stands still.

Her head turns, until she’s looking up at me, her beautiful blue eyes smiling back; and then she speaks, her voice slow and deep, like the tape’s been slowed.

‘You see, Otto? You see?’

And I wake, cold and shivering and alone, and call out. And Urte comes and lies with me, holding me until the morning, until they can locate the memory and remove it.