circumstances, I can't expect you to cope with all of this yourself. Do you want me to find out what became of Steiger and Delaney, as well?'..It could be important, Doc. Please.'
Darkness sighed. 'Very well.' He grimaced wryly. 'Do you think I could depend on you to remain in one place long enough for me to do that?'
'I'll try to think good thoughts, ~ said Lucas, sarcastically. 'Yes, do,' said Darkness. 'I'll be right back.'
He disappeared and almost immediately reappeared, standing directly behind
Lucas.
'I'm back.'
Lucas jumped, startled. 'God, don't do that!' He took a deep breath. 'You certainly cut it close. You only left about a second ago!'
'So?'
'So what if you'd arrived a second earlier and seen yourself leave?'
'So what? As long as I didn't tell myself what I'd found out in order to save myself a trip so that I couldn't have found out what I told myself I'd found out in the first place, it wouldn't have caused any problems whatsoever.'
'Huh? You want to run. that past me again?'
'Never mind. The important thing is that you were correct in what you had surmised. Something did happen here. Miss Cross and Gulliver were abducted at gunpoint by some character right out of a Frank Sinatra movie.'
'Frank who?'
'Never mind. He looked like a 20th century gangster dressed by a Hollywood designer. His. 45 automatic was what made the bullethole you found. He shot at the bottle, apparently to impress them with the fact that he wouldn't hesitate to shoot if they resisted. They seemed sufficiently impressed. He made them surrender their warp discs, then he replaced them with some he had brought with him. Evidently, they were pre-programmed with the desired transition co-ordinates.'
'What the hell is going on'?' said Lucas. 'Where did they go?'
'I haven't the faintest idea,' Darkness said.
'Great,' said Lucas, with resignation. 'Just great.'
'That isn't all,' said Darkness. 'I tached to the 27th century, as well, to check with your headquarters. I spoke briefly with Steiger.
There's been an attempt on Forrester's life. He's critically wounded. Steiger's had to remain at headquarters’ and assume command.'
'Good God,' said Lucas. 'What happened?'
'Steiger said a renegade T. IA. agent smuggled in a commando assault force in a briefcase and..' Darkness stopped and frowned. 'In a briefcase? No, wait, that can't possibly be right…'
'Lilliputians!' Lucas said.
'I beg your pardon?'
'Lilliput commandos!' Lucas said. 'They murdered Steiger's brother, right here in this very room. They were after Gulliver. They must have-'
'Wait a moment!' Darkness interrupted. 'Lilliputians? Gulliver' I knew I'd heard that name somewhere before.
You're talking about a novel by Jonathan Swift, for God's sake!'
'I can explain,' said Lucas. 'You see, Gulliver encountered Swift after he escaped from Lilliput Island and-'
'Never mind,' Darkness said, holding up his hand to stop him. 'This plot is becoming positively Byzantine. I'll simply try to follow along as best I can.'
'Fine. What about Delaney?'
'He should be here.'
'Well, he's not.'
'Obviously. '
'So where is he'?'
'How the devil should I know?'
'Didn't you ask?'
'Steiger simply said that Delaney had to go on without him,'
'Did you tell him what happened to Andre and Gulliver'?'
'No, I thought I'd keep that information to myself,' Darkness said, sarcastically.
'Of course, I told him. He was understandably distressed, but he said there was nothing he could do. '
'No, of course not,' Lucas said. 'He's second in command, He can't leave HQ with Forrester out of. commission. Finn must have gone on ahead, assuming we’d be here when he returned from scouting Gulliver's co- ordinates for Lilliput Island.
Only he hasn't returned and Andre and Gulliver have been' captured. The question is by whom?'
'The obvious answer would be the S.O.G.,' said Darkness. 'Yeah,' Lucas nodded,
'the Special Operations Group might have located another confluence and crossed over undetected, but there's another possibility, as well. It could be the Network,'
'The Network?' Darkness frowned. 'What the devil is the Network?'
'Something I've only learned about since my return,' said Lucas, grimly. 'Andre was telling me about it. You know about the Underground'? Well, the Network is like an Under-ground on the inside of the T.I.A., a secret agency within a secret agency, They're like moles within Temporal Intelligence, only instead of working for some foreign power, they've struck out on their own and set up a sort of black market, transtemporal corporation.'
'Enterprising of them,' Darkness said. 'And entirely predictable. It was only a matter of time before something like this happened. '
'If you're finished with the puns, we've got to figure out what the hell to do about it,' Lucas said.
'You have any suggestions?' Darkness said,
'Yeah, but it's going to be risky.'
'You're talking-to a man who's liable to discorporate at any moment,' Darkness said, wryly. 'Don't tell me about risk. What's on your mind?'
'I want you to go back to the time Andre and Gulliver got snatched again,' said Lucas. 'You've got to try and read those warp discs Andre and Gulliver were given, find out where they went. But you've got to make sure nobody notices. We mustn't do anything that could disrupt the scenario. Otherwise there's no telling where they might wind up. Meanwhile, I'm going to check out those co ordinates that Gulliver gave Finn.'
'You think that's wise?' said Darkness. 'You still haven't fully adapted to your telempathic chronocircuitry. You've been very fortunate so far. You took a hell of a chance translocating all the way back to Earth by yourself. Suppose something had gone wrong? You might have materialised in space and died in seconds.'
'What do you want me to do, Doe'! You went and turned me into a human time machine without even bothering to tell me about it. Now you want me to say
'mother, may I?' every time I draw a breath just because you're worried about your precious prototype? Well, screw that. I died back in 1897 with a. 50 calibre ball through my chest, remember? The way I see it, Doe, this isn't life, it's only special effects. We'll rendezvous back here exactly five minutes from now. And if I'm not back by then, you're on your own.'
Chapter 8
Finn groaned and opened his eyes. Shafts of painfully bright sunlight streamed down on him through a canopy of tree branches. He squinted against the glare and tried to turn his head. It felt as if someone had given his hair a sharp yank. He tried to raise his head and found he couldn't do that, either. In fact, he couldn't move at all. He had been bed down, immobilised by a large number of thin, crudely braided ropes that were firmly staked to the ground. He could have broken anyone of them with ease, but there were far too many of them. His floater pak had been removed and he had been dragged out of the thicket and turned over on his back, then spread-eagled on the ground
