“I did?”
Delaney frowned. “He went out on that posse with you. He said he saw you. And he said you acted as if you didn’t know him. He figured you were under surveillance from someone in the posse and knew about it. What kind of game are you playing here. Scott?”
Scott had stopped dead in his drinks. “He saw me?”
Delaney looked at him with a frown. “What is this? Are you telling me you don’t remember?”
Scott gave a low whistle, “Finn. Lucas wasn’t with that posse. At least, not the posse I was on.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Of course, he was there! I saw him ride out! He saw you, for God’s sake!”
“No. He didn’t. He didn’t see me. I’m beginning to understand what’s going on here. And it’s even worse than I thought. Finn, everything that we suspected about this temporal scenario is true. Not just one of the possibilities we considered, all of them together. The S.O.G. is here. At least one of them that I know about, but there’s probably more. There’s got to be. The Network is here. They’re running an operation out of the Clanton ranch.”
“You mean Ike Clanton is a Network agent?”
“Not Clanton. And not Curly Bill, either. The other one, Johnny Ringo. Only he’s not really Johnny Ringo. His real name is Tim O’Fallon.”
“O’Fallon!”
“You know him?”
“Hell, yes. He was one of Jack Carnehan’s field agents. You remember the Mongoose?”
“No. Carnelian was before my time. But I’ve heard about him.”
“So that means he recognized me,” said Delaney. “I thought he was looking at me funny. He’s got himself a new face.”
“Yeah, Johnny Ringo’s.” Scott said. “They must have killed the real Ringo. “
“But I still don’t understand about you and Lucas. How could you be on the same posse together and not see each other?”
“Because we weren’t on the same posse.” Scott said. “We were on different posses. In different timelines. Only I didn’t realize until now that there’s another Scott Neilson in that other timeline. That puts an entirely new twist on things. Finn, this whole damn town is one big confluence point.”
Delaney stared at him, stunned. “The whole town?”
“I was able to piece it together from what Jenny told me.”
Scott replied. “And she doesn’t quite understand it all. As near as I can figure, the location of this town is also the location for a massive area of temporal instability. It’s a confluence, but more than that, it’s that one-in- a-million shot, a confluence where both timelines intersect at the same, exact corresponding space and time. You’re the one who went to R.C.S., so you probably understand the Zen physics a lot better than I do, but as a result, the temporal instability here is incredible. It’s like… like the town sort of flickers, like a strobe light, not so anyone here would actually notice, of course, but at different times, first you’re in one Tombstone, then you’re in the other.”
“Holy shit.” whispered Delaney.
“The thing I’ve been batting my brains out about is what the effect of temporal inertia is here. It doesn’t seem as if the people from this Tombstone can cross over into the other one, and I don’t even know if the Network and the S. 0. G. are in the same timeline together, but apparently, we can cross over. Or at least you can. You have, obviously, if you’ve talked to Lucas, because he and Andre are in the other timeline. Or at least they were. Maybe they’re here now. Hell, I don’t know. It’s a fucking mindblower. But it looks as if I may not be able to cross over, because there’s another Scott Neilson in the other timeline and temporal inertia is keeping us apart. Either that, Or I’ve become too deeply involved in this scenario and I’m part of whatever’s going to happen here.”
“So that’s what Darkness was talking about.” said Finn “That’s what he didn’t tell us. And that’s why he wasn’t able to tach back here, or at least he won’t be able to until a certain point in time.”
“I don’t understand.” said Scott.
“Darkness isn’t sure what effect crossing over would have on his subatomic structure.” Delaney explained. “It’s unstable and gradually disintegrating. He seems to have periods of remission, for lack of a better way of putting it, but he thinks that one of these days, he’s going to pass the point of no return and he’ll simply discorporate, depart at multiples of light speed in all directions of the universe. Being in the vicinity of temporal confluence could accelerate that.”
“Wow,” said Scott. “And he’s been living with that?” He exhaled heavily. “No wonder he’s so flaky around the edges.”
“There’s something else that you don’t know. Scott.” said Delaney. “Darkness is from the future. Not our time sector, but our future.
“I’ll be damned.” said Neilson, softly. He nodded. “That figures. It would explain a lot about him.”
“There’s more.” said Finn, grimly. ‘We’re not sure what time he came from, but whatever century it was, something devastating happened up ahead. Or is going to happen. Some kind of terrible temporal disaster He wouldn’t tell us what it is, but it’s got to be a massive timestream split, possibly even a chain reaction. And that’s what Darkness is trying to prevent. Actually, he isn’t trying to prevent it. because from his temporal standpoint, it’s already happened. He’s trying to change it. He’s trying to change history. Scott, and somehow we’re a part of it. Whatever it is that is going to bring on that temporal disaster is going to happen right here, in this scenario. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, maybe five seconds from now, for all we know. And-we haven’t got any idea what it is Darkness wouldn’t tell us. It could involve the S.O.G., it could involve the Network, it could involve Drakov or all or even none of them. But Darkness told us that we’re going to be in a position to change it. And whatever it is we’re going to have to do, we’re not going to know about it until we have to do it, until the very last minute. Now I know why. Darkness is taking a big gamble. He’s putting his life on the line. He’s got one chance, just one, to tach in and tell us what to do… because whatever it is, it’s got to be something heavy. Something he can’t even give us a chance to think about. And he knows that the instant he arrives here, he might discorporate.”
“But he doesn’t know for sure?” said Scott.
“No. how could he? He’s gambling that he won’t. Or that if he does, he’ll have enough time to tell us what to do before it happens.”
“God damn it. It’s even worse than I imagined.” Scott said.
Delaney suddenly had another thought. He recalled back when Darkness had appeared to them in the First Division Lounge. He had indicated that the three of them would be in a position to do whatever it was that would have to be done, he hadn’t said anything about Neilson.
He racked his brain for what he knew of the metaphysical complexities of temporal physics, popularly known as “Zen physics.” Trying to think back to the problem modules he had studied back in Referee Corps School. He had never graduated. He came close, but he had washed out, ultimately because of his personality, not because of any inability on his part. He was convinced of that, despite the fact that he always told people he’d washed out because he couldn’t cut the mustard academically. There was no shame in that. In all the world, only a handful of the most brilliant graduate students in the field of temporal physics were selected for R.C.S. and it was one hell of an achievement and an honor simply to be chosen. But Delaney had realized early on that he lacked two essential personality traits to be a Temporal Referee. Patience and detachment.
In the old days-they were the old days now, although it didn’t seem like so very long ago-when nations waged their conflicts through the medium of the Time Wars, the Referees had functioned as the temporal arbiters, choosing and defining the conflict scenarios and arbitrating their results. Now, they functioned as a son of temporal high command, the final guardians of temporal continuity, a Supreme Court of time travel. It wouldn’t have been easy, for R.C.S. was brutally demanding, but Delaney could have become a Temporal Referee after graduating from the world’s toughest post-postgraduate school and serving a lengthy tour of internship. He would have enjoyed the highest pay scale in the world, commensurate with the most prestigious job in the world, but he would have been an old man by the time he had finally achieved his goal. And about midway through R.C.S., he had realized that he had misjudged his aspirations.
He didn’t have the patience to finish his schooling and go through all those years of internship. And he lacked the personal detachment to play with human lives as if they were nothing more than chess pieces. What he really wanted, he had realized, was to be directly involved, hands on, with history. So he had dropped out of R.C.S. and enlisted in the Temporal Corps.
