to his own time and universe, assuming he was lucky. Confluence pointswere invisible. Their focal points varied in size and they were incrediblyunstable. There was no telling how long they would last. The time streams wouldripple and a confluence point would come into existence, a ‘window” intoanother time and another universe. The ripple effect would move on and theconfluence point would disappear. It could last for hours. days. weeks, or onlyseconds. It could lead to a point in the middle of an ocean or a desert in theother universe, or even to deep space. in which case death was instantaneousand horrible.
In the face of such a threat, international conflicts hadbecome utterly meaningless. The Time Wars as they had once been fought hadceased, escalating into a far more frightening conflict. Each universe was nowthreatened by the very existence of the other. Each was now faced with threeprime necessities.
The first was to map as many confluence points as possible.If a confluence point could be located, it could be used to cross over from oneuniverse into another, to stage temporal disruptions in the opposite timeline.Ranger Pathfinder units whose job was to map confluences and the territory onthe other side had the most hazardous duty in the entire Temporal Corps. Theyhad no idea what they might find on the other end of the confluence and theycould never be sure that they would be able to get back. If the scouts did comeback, with detailed accounts of what they had encountered in the paralleluniverse. further action could be contemplated. If they did not return, theworst was assumed and no one else was sent through that confluence point. Ineither case, the confluence was secured for its duration, to make sure no oneblundered into it and that no one or nothing came through from the other side.In some cases, it was to no avail. Occasionally, something could come throughthat nobody could stop, as had happened at Tanguska. in Siberia. where a meteorcame through a confluence point and caused incredible destruction.
The second imperative both universes were confronted withwas the Time War that they waged between themselves. Each attempted to locatesafe confluence points that the other had not yet managed to discover, so they couldsend agents through to disrupt the continuity of the opposing timeline.
Apparently, temporal physicists in the parallel universe believedthat a temporal disruption of a magnitude sufficient to bring about atimestream split in the opposing universe would work to overwhelm theconfluence effect and separate the two timelines once and for all.Consequently, they were sending across agents and temporal strike teams fromtheir Special Operations Group to gather intelligence and stage temporaldisruptions in an attempt to split the timestream. There was a chance thattheir thinking was scientifically sound, however, temporal physics-or Zenphysics, as it was often called-was a nebulous and elusive area of science. Itwas where scientific logic merged with metaphysics. Temporal relativity wasnever absolute. There was also a chance that a timestream split in eitheruniverse, aside from the potentially devastating consequences in the universein which it would occur, could result in the creation of yet another timelinethat would compound the confluence effect and make it even worse, with
The third problem faced by each universe was safeguardingthe temporal continuity of their respective timelines. The confluencephenomenon dramatically increased the chances of temporal disruption. It wasnecessary to clock as many Observers as possible into the past. so that historycould be preserved. In order to facilitate this seemingly impossible task. themajority of the temporal forces of all nations had been converted to TemporalObserver status, with the best and brightest assigned as L.T.O.’s, to keepwatch on figures of historical significance. C.T.O.’s. or Chief TemporalObservers, functioned as field commanders. supervising the T.O. units in theirrespective sectors. Any sign of a disruption was immediately reported toTAC-HQ. so that a team of temporal Intelligence agents could be dispatched toMinus Time to deal with it. Yet, this task was akin to bailing a rapidlysinking rowboat with a thimble. No matter how many Observers were dispatchedinto the past-and thousands upon thousands were-they could not possibly coverall of human history. And the increased presence of people from the future inthe past served by itself to increase the odds of temporal disruption.
Waging the war with strategic weapons would have been toodangerous. for there was no way of telling if a nuke launched at the opposinguniverse would actually explode there, or if it might become caught in aconfluence and cause untold destruction, and possibly a timestream split, inthe universe that had launched it in the first place. So the war was foughtthrough the means of historical disruption. But there were more than just twosides.
The conflict was complicated further by the existence of the‘temporal Underground. a loosely organized confederation of deserters from thefuture who had fled into the past in order to escape the madness. No one wasquite certain what to do about them. Technically. they were criminals,fugitives. It was up to the Temporal Intelligence Agency to track them down andapprehend them, but the particularly the covert field section. had neverseriously considered them a priority. In fact, many of the old covert fieldagents had maintained contacts among the members of the Underground andsometimes called upon them for assistance in their missions. When Forrester hadassumed the directorship of the agency, he had put a stop to such practices. aswell as to the corruption in the T.I.A. he had discovered that many of thecovert field agents, as well as their section chiefs, had been running an extensivetrans-temporal black market operation to enrich themselves. The corruption wentall the way up to the previous director.
Their immensely profitable and highly illegal sideline was referredto as-the Network’ and it involved such things as using time travel tomanipulate the stock and commodities markets, smuggle rare coins from the pastto sell in future time periods, practice piracy on the Spanish Main and sellthe booty in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Network had hijacked gold andworks of an from the Nazis. They were involved in the East India Company. Theyused time travel to scam betting operations, and the list went on and on andon. They were the ultimate soldiers of fortune. less interested in their dutiesas temporal agents than in their
Crosstime financial ventures. Forrester had tried to put astop to their dangerous and illegal activities, but he had not been entirelysuccessful. He had disbanded the covert field section and put every agent hecould get his hands on, from the lowliest records clerk to section chiefs andsenior administrators, through a scanning procedure in an effort to ferret outthe ones who were involved in the Network. However, word got out and many ofthem simply disappeared, going underground in time and becoming a trans-temporal.Mafia, the ultimate organized crime family. They had put a price on Forrester’shead. There had already been several attempts on his life. He had no doubtthere would be more.
And what of the man who had started it all? As he walkeddown the corridor from his quarters to the lift tubes. Forrester thought thatperhaps it was unfair to blame it all on Robert Darkness. Darkness had notstarted the Time Wars. The Time Wars had come about when nations had decided touse time travel to settle their conflicts by having their troops do battle inthe past, in order to protect the present from the ravages of war. There was noreal evidence to support that it was the invention of the warp grenade. and notthe actions of the Time Wars, that had brought about the confluence phenomenon.Yet. Darkness himself seemed to accept responsibility for what had come about.
He was not on Earth when the confluence phenomenon came intobeing. he had disappeared mysteriously and no one had any idea what had becomeof him. Forrester later learned that Darkness had established a research laboratoryon some far-off, desolate planet and had gone there to perfect his process oftachyon conversion. Darkness had discovered a way to focus a tachyon beam andsend it through an Einstein-Rosen Bridge, which amounted to instantaneoustransmission. No time lag whatsoever. Going from Point A to Point B withouthaving to cover the distance in between. His next step was to start working ona process whereby the human body could become converted into tachyons, whichwould depart at six hundred times the speed of light along the direction of thetachyon beam, through an Einstein-Rosen Bridge. His main concern had been thattachyon conversion might violate the Law of Uncertainty. The beam was focusedby means of gravitational lenses, but there was no receiver, so in order toinsure that what would materialize at the other end would not be some kind of ablob, he had incorporated a timing mechanism into the conversion process. whichwould reassemble him in the proper order, at the proper time and place, basedon the temporal coordinates of transition. What he was seeking was the ultimateform of transportation, something that would surpass even the chronoplatedevised by Dr. Mensinger.
Unfortunately, when Darkness tried the process on himself.he had discovered that it was ultimately restrained by a little known law ofphysics called the Law of Baryon Conservation. When he had arrived at his pointof destination, he discovered that he could not move from the spot on which hestood. Something had happened to his
