The Cleopatra Crisis

They had all been trying to spend as much time with Priestas possible. Priest needed the support of his friends just now. he was under agreat deal of strain. Forrester visited as often as he could, but the duties ofcommand left him with little spare time.

They all got to their feet as he entered.

“As you were.” he said.

Darkness glanced up at him from behind the bar. “You wantedto see me, Moses?”

He was tall and slender, a gaunt-looking man, with dark, unrulyhair, deep-set eyes. a sharp, prominent nose, and a neatly trimmed moustache.He was wearing a Norfolk tweed shooting jacket in dark brown herringbone, withrust-colored suede leather elbow patches and a matching, quilted shooter’s padon the right shoulder. He had on a dark brown vest with a gold watch chain, awhite Oxford shirt and maroon silk paisley ascot, dark brown tropical woolslacks and light brown calfskin jodphurs. He looked like the ghost of anEnglish country gentleman. Forrester could see the back of the bar rightthrough him.

“I have a few questions and I’d like some straight answers,Robert, if you don’t mind,” Forester said.

Everybody else called him “Doc” or “Doctor,” but Foresterand Darkness were on a first name basis, based upon a curious blend of mutualrespect and cordial dislike.

“Ask.” said Darkness, suddenly appearing about two feet infront of Forrester, holding a glass of whiskey. Instinctively, Forrester backedoff a step and grimaced, annoyed with himself for doing so. Darkness smiled.

“I’ll never get used to the way you pop around all over thedamn place.” Forester grumbled.

“You said you had some questions,” Darkness said. His voicesounded cultured. vaguely Continental. There was nothing about the way he spokethat was overtly arrogant or condescending, but that effect came across justthe same. He was, thought Forester, an irritating bastard.

“What’s the long-term prognosis on Priest’s condition?”

“We were just discussing that.” said Lucas.

“Yes,” said Darkness. “Unfortunately, it would appear thatthe long-term prognosis is not very favorable. There’s been a dramaticallymeasurable decay. It’s apparently irreversible.”

Forester glanced at Priest with alarm. “You mean-”

“He means his particle gizmo,” Lucas said. “not me.”

“Particle gizmo, indeed!” said Darkness, rolling his eyes.

“Well, whatever you want to call the damn thing,” Lucassaid. “It seems the good doctor hasn’t quite got it figured out yet. It’sfailing. Looks like it’s eventually going to stop working altogether.” Hegrinned. “Ain’t that a damn shame?”

“What does that mean in terms of his health?” askedForrester.

“His health?” said Darkness. “His health is excellent andwill undoubtedly continue to remain so. unless he manages to get himself in theway of another bullet. I cannot be held responsible for his propensity forfoolish heroics.”

“He means I’m going to be all right,” said Lucas, smiling.He looked better than he had in weeks, as if an enormous burden had been liftedfrom him. “But the doc’s going to have to go back to the drawing board. Lookslike his thought-controlled transponder is a long way from being perfected.

“You needn’t sound so damned smug about it,” Darkness saidirritably.

Forrester felt enormously relieved. “You mean there’s nochance of his experiencing discorporation

“None whatsoever.” Darkness replied. “There was very littlechance of that to begin with. I was reasonably certain that I had the problemsolved, but it seems that the transponder itself is still unstable. It simplywon’t hold up. I can’t imagine why.” He grimaced. “It’s really quite annoying.”

“So you mean to say he’s going to be the same way that hewas before?” asked Forester, his hopes rising. “Completely normal?”

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Darkness with a sigh of exasperation. “Giventhe rate of decay. I would say within a week or two, at most. Perhaps only in amatter of days. Then he can once more revel in being the same, depressingly ordinaryclod he always was.”

“Thanks,” said Lucas wryly.

“Don’t mention it.”

“That brings up my next question,” said Forrester. “With theexception of the people in this room, nobody knows that Priest is still alive.Or perhaps I should say, alive again. That presents us with a problem. Ishould have informed Director General Vargas of what you’ve done, only I’vedone as you asked and I haven’t. At least, not yet. I’m not at all sure I’vedone the right thing in not telling him at once, but I was more concerned aboutPriest’s health and emotional well-being. Now that that issue seems to havebeen settled, there are a few things I need to know. Is there any reason why Ishouldn’t tell Director Vargas about what’s happened?”

“I suppose not.” Darkness said. “although I really can’t seewhat purpose that would serve. They’d only bury you in official inquiries. Itwould cause them to start running about like chickens with their heads cut off,flying to figure out if there’s been a temporal disruption.”

“Has there been a temporal disruption?”

“I wouldn’t concern myself with that.”

“Perhaps you wouldn’t. but I’m afraid I have to.”Forrester replied.

“The world isn’t going to end merely because Priest issitting there, grinning like a Cheshire cat over the fact that my transponderis decaying,” Darkness said.

“How can you know that for certain?” Forrester asked.

“Take my word for it,” said Darkness.

“I’d like to. Robert, but how can you know that for sure?”Forester persisted. “Unless, of course, you’re from the future?”

The others stared at him.

“You are, aren’t you?” Forester said quietly.

Darkness regarded him with a steady gaze. “Very good. Moses.Very good, indeed. I see I’ve underestimated you.”

“Jesus Christ.” said Finn Delaney. “Now it all suddenlymakes sense!”

“When did you first suspect’?” asked Darkness.

“I’m not sure when the idea first occurred to me,” said Forrester.“I’m just amazed that it didn’t occur,to me sooner. I’ve been doing a lot ofdigging, trying to cheek you out. I didn’t get very far. Everything about yourbackground is classified. Even I can’t get to it. It’s restricted to anaccess code that no one seems to know.”

“I know you couldn’t have cracked the code,” said Darkness.

“No. I wasn’t able to,” Forrester admitted. “But I have afeeling that if I had, I would have discovered that the records had somehowbeen erased. Or something like that, right? There would have been some sort ofmalfunction that would have rendered them inaccessible, because past a certainpoint, your background would either be a forgery or it would simply stop. So,frustrated in that endeavor, I decided to do the next best thing. Find out whohad the clearance to access your file.”

“Only you could not discover that, either,” said Darkness.smiling.

“No. I couldn’t. However. I’m not the sort of man to give upon a problem. So I began to trace the authorization for the file’s beingclassified.”

“And you couldn’t find it.” Darkness said.

“That’s right.” said Forrester. “I couldn’t find it. Only Ishould have been able to find it. You see. that’s the trouble with coveringyour tracks. Robert. Sooner or later, it becomes obvious that they werecovered. And that’s when I knew. You were worried that someone might getcurious, find the authorization order, and clock back to the date that it wasissued to investigate. So you buried the order. If there even was an order tobegin with. The whole thing was a sham. But I wanted to be absolutely certain.so I put a research team from Archives Section on the project and had them doit the hard way. They clocked back as far as we could trace you and starteddigging. And the trail just ran out. Past a certain point, you simply ceased toexist. That’s why none of your peers in the scientific community can understandyour work. It’s why you’ve always been so far ahead of them. Because you were,quite literally, ahead of them. Years ahead.” He paused. “How many years,Robert?”

“As you people in Temporal Intelligence are so fond of saying,”Darkness replied laconically, “you have no need to know.”