Wyatt stared at him for a long moment_ Neilson met his gaze.
“The next stage leaves at noon tomorrow.” Wyatt said. “If you’re smart, Kid, you’ll be on it.” He touched the brim of his hat. “Jenny.
He turned around and left.
“If I were you. Kid. I’d do as he said,” said Holliday.
“I haven’t done anything wrong, Mr. Holliday. Or is that how you people do things here in Tombstone? Fine the outlaws a few dollars, but run law-abiding people out of town?”
Holliday shook his head. ‘You’ve got Wyatt wrong. He’s only trying to do his job. And he’s looking out for you, as well.”
“I can look out for myself.”
“Is that right? Tell me, what would you have done if I hadn’t come along when I did?”
Scott looked up at him, then made a quick movement with his wrists, crossing them and pulling two slim throwing knives from concealed sheaths strapped to his forearms, turning quickly in his chair and hurling them. They stuck in the wall by the entryway, exactly where Frank McLaury and Ross Demming had stood.
Jenny gasped, as did a number of other people in the dining room. Someone invoked the Lord’s name, softly, and there was an undertone of excited murmuring.
Holliday stared at the knives. You seem to be a young man of many talents,” he said. “You practice that back on the farm, as well?”
“There a law against carrying knives in Tombstone?” Scott asked him.
“Not to my knowledge,” Holliday replied. He walked over and pulled the knives out of the wall. He examined them before he gave them back to Neilson. “Clever-lookin’ things. Never seen any like ’em before.”
Neilson slipped them back into their sheaths. “I had them made special.”
Holliday nodded. “Maybe it’s too bad that I came in when I did. I’ve never seen two men dropped with knives at the same time before. You got any other tricks up your sleeve?”
“If I have to leave town, you might never find out,” said Scott.
Holliday coughed several times. “I’ll speak with Wyatt. See if I can get him to back off a bit. I have a feeling that having you around might prove to be quite interesting. Quite interesting, indeed. Be seein’ you, Kid. You too, Jenny.”
“‘Bye. Doc,” she said. Her eyes were shining as she looked at Neilson. “I’ve never seen anything like the way you threw those knives in my whole life!” she said. He felt her foot rubbing up against his leg under the table. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”
Neilson cleared his throat. “Waiter? Check, please.”
2
Neilson looked a little green around the gills as he stood in the private quarters of General Moses Forrester in the TAC-HQ building at Pendleton Base, California. Part of his ill feeling was due to what was known as “warp lag,” the effects of traveling through time. Some people got used to it, others never did. Even veteran time travelers occasionally puked their guts out after temporal transition. Most everyone at least felt dizzy and queasy in the stomach. Complicating the situation was the fact that Neilson was in the presence of the Old Man himself
Forrester was a large man, built like a bull, with a massive chest and arms that were as big as Neilson’s thighs. Even at his advanced age-and no One knew precisely what his age was-he could still run a marathon, do fifty pull-ups without pausing and curl an eighty-pound dumbbell with one hand. His face looked positively ancient. It was lined and wrinkled and he was completely bald. His bright green eyes. However, looked youthful and alert.
Also present in Forrester’s quarters were Colonel Lucas Priest, Captain Andre Cross and Major Finn Delaney. Priest, as usual, looked smartly turned out in his sharply creased black base fatigues and highly polished boots. Dark-haired, slim and very fit; he was a handsome, thoroughly professional looking officer. By contrast, the burly Delaney looked like an unkempt longshoreman. He looked about as military as an old sweat sock. His base fatigues were rumpled, his boots were unshined, his dark red hair was uncombed and his full beard gave him the aspect of a drunken Irish poet. His facial expression, even when neutral, conveyed a wry insolence that had often provoked senior officers throughout his military career. That, together with his insubordinate nature, was one of the reasons why he held the record for the most reductions in grade in the entire Temporal Corps. He also held the record for the most promotions, due to exemplary service in the field. Lucas Priest had often chided him about it, saying that if it wasn’t for his temper, he would have surely been a general by now, to which Delaney always responded with an irate scowl. At heart, he was a noncom and had always detested officers. And now he was a major. The rank did not sit well with him. He still felt funny being saluted.
Andre Cross sat between the two men on the couch, looking less like a soldier than a model hired to pose for a recruiting poster. Her straw-blonde hair was long and straight, falling to her shoulders, and her sharp, angular features were more striking than pretty. She had the physique of a bodybuilder, with long legs, a narrow waist, small hips and broad shoulders. Neilson had always thought that there was something catlike about her, in the way she moved and in the way she held herself.
Their presence made him feel somewhat more at ease, as he had served with them once before on a mission in the past, that assignment to Victorian London where half the mission team had died. People who had gone through something like that together achieved a special camaraderie that only other soldiers could fully understand. But the Old Man still had Neilson feeling a bit shaky in the knees. It felt a little strange standing before them, dressed the way he’d been in Tombstone. Almost as if he were a boy playing dress-up in a roomful of adults.
As soon as he’d clocked in and made his report. Forrester’s adjutant had decided that “the Old Man should hear about this.” And Forrester had summoned the others, the agency’s number-one temporal adjustment team. Neilson had just finished briefing them on what he had discovered when he had clocked out to check on Observer Outpost G-6898. And now he stood at parade rest, awaiting their response.
“At ease, Sergeant, — said Forrester. “Have a seat, please.”
Neilson took one of the living room chairs.
“What do you think?” asked Forrester, addressing the others.
“If Neilson thinks those Observers were killed by laser fire. I’m not inclined to question it.” said Delaney. “He doesn’t leap to hasty conclusions. Of course, we won’t know that for a fact unless we send an S amp;R Team back to exhume the bodies, but under the circumstances, I’m not sure if we should risk that.”
“I agree.” said Lucas, nodding. “If we’ve got an infiltration in that time sector, they could be on the watch for that. The Observers blew their cover and the opposition, whoever they are, probably know where they’re buried. They could be keeping their graves under surveillance, waiting for a Search amp; Retrieve team to clock back for them.”
“It wouldn’t be very hard to keep Tombstone’s Boot Hill under surveillance, sir.” Neilson added. “A small remote unit concealed nearby would do it.”
“I’m a little disturbed about the fact that Scott has become involved in the scenario to the extent that he has,” said Andre. “I don’t mean that as a criticism. It looks as if the situation just turned out that way. But as a result, he’s become highly visible.”
“Maybe,” said Lucas, “but we could turn that to our advantage. If he’s going to attract attention, we can stay in the background and see just what kind of attention he attracts.”
“Which is another way of saying we can use him as a Judas goat.” said Andre. “I don’t like it. It leaves him very vulnerable.”
“None of us are paid to play it safe. Andre.” said Delaney. “Besides, Scott can take care of himself. And we’ll be there to provide backup.”
“That’s always assuming that we’ll have the chance to do that,” Andre replied. “We don’t know what we’re going up against. That particular scenario doesn’t seem to have a great deal of temporal significance offhand, but if there’s a confluence point somewhere in that sector and agents of the S. 0. G. have crossed over from the parallel timeline, it would be an important staging area for them. We’d be at a disadvantage. They’d know where the confluence point was and have control of it. We’d be going in cold with no idea where it might be located.”
“On the other hand, maybe it’s not the S.O.G.,” said Delaney. “Maybe those Observers stumbled onto a
