Time Loves a Hero (27 page)

Yet Murphy knew he had made his point when he saw the Vice President, just for an instant, nod in agreement.

Tues, Oct 16, 2314—1432Z

Mt. Sugarloaf rose from the middle of the Frontier Valley of the eastern Berkshires as a talon-shaped rock, its steep granite bluffs looming above the Connecticut River. During the twentieth century, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts had taken possession of the mountain and set it aside as a nature reserve; a winding asphalt road led up its rounded western side to its craggy summit, where a fieldstone observation tower had been erected as a scenic overlook. From here the entire valley could be seen, from the Holyoke Range at its southern end to the foothills of Vermont's Green Mountains in the north, with the river cutting straight through the flatlands spread across the valley floor.

At least, that was how it must have appeared three hundred years ago. As the
Oberon
cruised over the Pioneer Valley, Franc, Lea, and Vasili saw that even this placid corner of New England hadn't survived the catastrophe that had wiped out all life on Earth. The Connecticut River was covered with a thick sheet of ice; with the average global temperature now five degrees below normal, this place hadn't experienced summer for almost three centuries. Uncontrolled fires had ravaged the dense forests of the surrounding mountains, and acid rain had sterilized farm fields where corn, squash, and potatoes had once been cultivated in abundance. As the timeship closed in upon Mt. Sugarloaf, it passed over the burnt-out and lifeless ruins of nearby Amherst; the skyscrapers of the University of Massachusetts library and dormitories, oddly misplaced in the countryside, now rose above the decaying campus like soot-blackened tombstones.

The coordinates specified in the transmission they had received pinpointed Mt. Sugarloaf as the rendezvous site. Although Vasili and Lea agreed that there was no real reason to cloak the timeship, Franc decided to err on the side of caution; after all, they didn't know who might be down there, or what they wanted. So Metz reluctantly activated the
Oberon
's chameleon, yet they were almost a half kilometer from the mountain when they discovered that subterfuge wasn't necessary.

“Smoke,” Lea said softly, pointing toward the summit. “There. See it?”

Franc leaned over the back of Vasili's chair to peer through the porthole. A wavering brown plume spiraled upward from the mountaintop. “Could be a forest fire,” he murmured. “Maybe lightning struck there recently.”

“No, I don't think so.” Vasili nodded toward one of the screens above his console, where a tiny, irregular blotch of light glowed on the radar-topography map. “I'm picking up an isolated IR trace. Too small to be from a natural source.” He looked up at Franc. “Someone's down there. They've set a signal fire.”

“I think we're expected.” Lea glanced uncertainly at Franc. “You want to go down now, or do you want to hold back a little longer?”

Franc hesitated. “No … no, let's find out what this is all about.” He tapped Metz on the shoulder. “Deactivate the chameleon, then bring us in. Set down near the fire if you can.”

The pilot nodded, then he took
Oberon
out of chameleon mode. As the timeship closed in upon the mountain, they could see that the smoke rose from a rocky spur near the base of the observation tower. “We're going to have trouble finding a place to land,” he murmured. “I don't see any level …”

“Over there.” Franc pointed to a small clearing within the burnt-out remains of the woods just below the summit. “That looks flat enough.”

As the
Oberon
began to descend upon the mountain, the timeship was abruptly buffeted by crosswinds. As Lea grabbed the edge of the console for support; she happened to glance through the porthole. “Someone's down there!” she snapped. “See him? Look …!”

One of the screens above the porthole displayed a close-up of the summit. Just as Lea said, a lone figure stood near the fire, watching the timeship as it approached. He raised his arms over his head and began to wave them back and forth.

“I see him.” Franc grabbed the back of Metz's chair as the timeship was once again violently shaken by the wind. “How could anyone have lived through this?”

“We'll find out soon enough.” Gripping the yoke within his fists, Metz carefully moved it back and forth as he fought for control. “Hang on, this might be a little rough.” Metz waited until almost the last moment before he lowered the landing gear; despite his caution, the wind caught the flanges. Franc was nearly thrown off his feet as the deck tilted beneath him, and Lea yelled as she fell against the console. Then the flanges connected with hard surface and
Oberon
was down. Metz quickly shut down the negmass drive, then slowly let out his breath. “Sorry about that,” he murmured. “This just isn't my day.”

Franc smiled to himself, then glanced at Lea and found that she was grinning as well. Perhaps it was only fatigue, but Vasili was beginning to show a little humility. “You did fine,” Franc said, patting the pilot's shoulder. “We're in one piece, that's all that counts.”

“Yes, well, that's only half of it.” Lea picked herself off the console, headed for the hatch. “Let's go see who's out there.”

“Better put something on,” Vasili called after them as Franc moved to follow her. “Temperature gauge says it's just above freezing out there.”

The
Oberon
didn't carry any survival gear, so they had to make do with the clothes they had worn in 1937. However, Franc found a stun gun in one of the equipment lockers; he had nearly forgotten that it was there, although it was standard equipment for timeships, just in case a research team encountered hostile contemporaries. He contemplated the weapon for a moment, then shoved it into his coat pocket while Lea's back was turned to him. She probably would have objected to him carrying it, and under any other circumstances he might have left it behind, yet nonetheless he felt marginally safer for taking precautions.

The
Oberon
had landed in what appeared to have once been a small parking lot. Once upon a time, visitors to the overlook had parked their cars here, but now the asphalt was weather-beaten and broken, with weeds rising from its cracks. The air was brittle at the bottom of the ladder, the wind mournful as it groaned through the branches of dead trees. A short path led them past the blackened remains of a picnic shelter to the summit's barren crown, where the ruins of the observation tower loomed against the hostile sky. The gray clouds had parted somewhat, allowing the cold rays of the midafternoon sun to bathe the mountaintop with its sullen light. As they reached the base of the tower, they saw Earth's rings rising high above the distant mountains like a stone-colored rainbow.

The bonfire was a little larger than Franc expected, and the man who tended it said nothing as he and Lea cautiously approached him. Hands shoved in the pockets of what appeared to be a military-issue parka from the late twentieth century, he wore a dark blue baseball cap embroidered with the intertwined letters NY. The chill wind caught his brown-gray hair and blew it past his stooped shoulders, and his white beard smothered his mouth.

The old man barely glanced at Lea, but he regarded Franc with puzzlement which slowly turned to recognition.

“I … I know you,” he said, his voice a quiet stammer.

Franc stared back at him. “Have we met?” he asked. “I don't …”

“You don't remember me? It's been nearly twenty-five years, but …”

“Twenty-five years?” Lea asked. “How would you know him from …?”

“I only sort of remember your face.” Ignoring Lea, he pulled a hand from his pocket, pointed a trembling finger at Franc. “But your coat … that's what I remember the most. It didn't look right, even back then. That's the first thing that tipped me off …”

His coat? Franc self-consciously looked down at himself. He was wearing the same wool suit coat he had worn aboard the
Hindenburg
… yet hadn't he worn it a second time? Only a few hours ago, in Tennessee …?

“Oh, my God,” he whispered.

“Your name is …” The old man shut his eyes. “John Pannes. We met a long time ago, in a place in …”

“You're the man on the road,” Franc said. “The person I met when I …”

“When you made the phone call, yes.” The old man raised his eyes, took a deep breath. “My name is Zack Murphy … Dr. David Zachery Murphy. I've been brought here to meet you.”

Franc found himself unable to speak. “Brought here?” Lea asked. “By whom?”

For the first time, Murphy seemed to notice her. He opened his mouth and was about to answer when, out of the corner of his eye, Franc caught a sudden flash of light.

He turned around, looked at the observation tower. At its top, a luminescent halo had appeared: a corona of light, brighter than either the autumn sun or the bonfire beside which they stood. Within its nucleus, suspended within the phosphorescent glare, hovered a figure, featureless yet vaguely humanlike, save for the broad, wing-shaped appendages that spread outward from behind its back.

An angel.

“That's what brought me here,” Murphy said, his voice shaking. “It … it brought me here because …”

He suddenly stopped, glancing to one side as if he had just heard something. When he looked back at them again, his face was ashen.

“It tells me we're responsible for the end of the world.”

Thursday, August 6, 1998: 9:04
A.M.

“You're sure no one's going to find this place?” Murphy gazed at the towers of the University of Massachusetts as they drove past the campus on Route 116. “We're pretty close to town.”

“Right on the Amherst line, to be exact.” Baird Ogilvy kept his left hand on the wheel as he reached for the cell phone tucked beneath the Blazer's dashboard. “It's actually in Sunderland, but that's not much of a difference. Sure, someone's bound to notice. There's not too many places left where you can put something like this … at least, not unless you want to move out to the desert, and that's more trouble than it's worth, believe me.”

“Then why here?”

“The trick is to hide in plain sight. Now pay attention. This is how you get in.” Turning on the phone, the colonel switched to hands-off mode, then pressed a couple of digits on the keypad. The dial tone was replaced by the swift electronic beeping of a number being dialed, then the phone on the other end of the line buzzed three times before it was picked up. “ICR, may I help you?” a woman's voice asked.

“Extension 121, please,” Ogilvy said.

“One moment, I'll connect you.” Ambient music drifted over the speakerphone for a few moments, then the other line was picked up again. “Shipping, Roucheau speaking,” a man's voice said.

“Hi, is Gary in?” Ogilvy asked, giving Murphy a sly wink.

“Sorry, he's out sick today.” The voice sounded bored. “Wanna leave a message?”

“Thanks. Just tell him Jeff called, okay?”

“Jeff called. Right. Will do.”

“Thanks, bye.” The line was hung up, and Ogilvy reached over to switch off the cell phone. “Got that? As you're coming in, you call this number—555-8602—and ask for extension 121, then ask whoever picks up for Gary. He's always going to be sick or out to lunch … unless there's a site emergency, then he'll be out of town. Understand?”

“Right. Ask for Gary, tell 'em Jeff called.” Murphy was admiring the countryside. Woods, farmland, mountains on all four sides. The foothills of the Berkshires. Deer season was pretty good around here, or at least so he had been told, although he had a feeling he wouldn't get a chance to do much hunting. “What happens if there's an emergency?”

“Drive past. Go straight home and wait for someone to call you.” Baird shook his head. “Don't worry, it's just a precaution. We're not anticipating any problems.”

Murphy nodded. Although this part of western Massachusetts was as rural as you could get, they weren't exactly in the middle of nowhere. On the right, they passed a convenience store and log-cabin barbecue shack; on the left, a farm-equipment supplier and a vegetable stand. Hidden-in plain sight, he reminded himself. “What does ICR stand for, anyway?”

“Doesn't stand for anything.” The colonel smiled at him from behind his sunglasses. After seven months of working together in the Pentagon, Murphy was still getting used to seeing him in civilian clothes again. “Three letters a DOD computer selected at random. If anyone asks, though, we make precision machine parts for offshore oil rigs. Hope you like being a company VP.”

“It's a promotion,” Murphy said sourly. Although he was glad to get out of Washington, Donna had been upset when he resigned from OPS to take an unglamorous job in the private sector, until he pointed out that his annual salary would be three times that which he earned as a government employee and that Steven would be able to attend public schools where they wouldn't have to worry about him getting harassed by street gangs. And the place they were buying in Deerfield was a bargain: a refurbished turn-of-the-century farmhouse on two acres, with a clear view of Mt. Sugarloaf from the kitchen window. For the first time in years, they wouldn't have to worry much about traffic, crime, or smog. They would even be able to give Steven the dog he wanted so much. Life was looking up.…

So long as he continued to lie to his family about what he was really doing out here, and pretend that the words
Blue Plate
only referred to a restaurant dinner special.

“Here we are.” Ogilvy slowed down, clicked the turn indicator downward as he turned left into a paved driveway. “Your new lab.”

It didn't look anything like a government research facility: a large, flat-roofed factory building, the letters ICR painted across one panel of its beige aluminum-sided walls. Although a ten-foot chain-link fence surrounded the premises, there was no gatehouse, no armed guards patrolling the perimeter. Three sixteen-wheel trucks, each stenciled with the ICR logo, were parked beside the loading dock; Murphy spotted several men hauling crates from the trailers, some large enough to require forklifts. A black man riding a mower looked up as they pulled into the parking lot, then went back to cutting the grass. Everything was as boring as boring can be.