The Eternal War

‘If the course of your life was dependent on such marginal variables, you would be a minor sequential event, and your absence would not have caused this time wave.’ Bob cocked his head as he fished for an appropriate saying from his database. ‘Destiny has a plan for you.’

Lincoln gazed at the flames as if in their flickering momentary shapes hidden answers lay waiting to be discovered. ‘In other words … you are saying I must trust my instinct?’

‘All that you will be already exists in you,’ said Bob. ‘The human mind is a store of data … memories. The memories plus the behavioural template you inherit genetically define you.’

Lincoln nodded. He thought he understood the gist of that. He’d once had a conversation very similar to this with his father. A simple, uneducated man, but wise beyond the grime on his farmer’s hands.

We are all that we see and what our forefathers have seen.

And in the last few days he had seen some very questionable things, those creatures for instance. Creatures capable of intelligent thoughts and speech — reading and writing for God’s sake! — treated like possessions. Like objects, things to be dispensed with or recycled when broken. To know a creature has human-like intelligence and yet still treat it like a yard dog — worse, to treat it like cattle?

He nodded. ‘I believe you may have a point there, Bob. My father once — ’

‘Just a moment.’ Bob cocked his head and started blinking.

Lincoln scowled at him. ‘What the devil is the matter with you?’

Liam had stopped talking with Sal. Both looked across the campfire at Bob.

‘Bob? Are you — ?’

‘Affirmative, Liam. I am detecting tachyon particles.’

‘At last!’ said Sal. ‘What’s Maddy saying to you?’

Bob’s head remained cocked, like a dog listening for his master’s whistle. ‘Just a moment … I am compiling the message.’

Lincoln looked at the three of them, one to the other, as if they were all mad. ‘Are you saying he is hearing Miss Carter’s voice?’

Liam shrugged. ‘In a manner of speaking.’

Presently Bob nodded, straightened up and looked at Liam. ‘We have a rendezvous data-stamp.’

‘Where?’ asked Sal.

‘More to the point, when,’ added Liam.

‘Seventy-one hours, fifty-nine minutes, three seconds.’

‘Three days to you and me,’ said Liam to Lincoln.

‘Location is thirty-one miles due west of our present location. A location known as New Chelmsford.’

‘Thirty-one miles!’ Sal looked at Liam. ‘Jahulla! That’s … that’s quite a trek for us. Isn’t it?’

Liam thumbed his chin as he looked out across the night. The direction in which they needed to go was going to take them away from the north-south road they’d been walking along. Across countryside, away from roads clogged with refugees. Away from New York.

Quite deliberately. She’s found us somewhere safe to head towards.

‘It’s a walk, so it is … but it’s not so hard. We’ll make an early start tomorrow.’

CHAPTER 72

2001, New York

Wainwright sipped his coffee and smacked his lips approvingly. ‘And this is called “instant” coffee?’

Maddy looked at the jar on the side table beside their kettle. ‘That’s right. We’re a bit lazy in our time. Coffee’s as easy as slapping on the kettle and spooning granules into your cup.’ She laughed. ‘None of this roasting-and-grinding-your-own-beans hassle.’

It was a reassuring feeling having the power back on in the archway, seeing the soft glow of computer-Bob’s monitors and the hum of the displacement machine slowly recharging. Outside, out of sight but still chugging, the tank engine was turning over — a mechanized bad-tempered mutter that sounded like it was ready to throw in the towel at the first hint of criticism.

The men were embedded in the trenches now; both Confederate and Union soldiers merged into one full- strength regiment between them. Dark blue and grey tunics side by side staring out at the broad moonlit East River and the broken skyline of Manhattan beyond.

‘The British rarely do night assaults,’ said Wainwright, returning to a discussion of their preparations. He snorted a laugh. ‘Something to do with being jolly unsporting.’ He sipped his coffee. ‘Of course, that doesn’t mean they won’t try one this time.’

They had a small team of men over on the far side of the East River, watching for the first signs of the British approaching. The telephone cable was still running across the span of water. First sight and they’d make the call, give a rough estimate of the size of the force, then hasten back over the river in the motor launch.

‘I think, however, tonight we can afford to savour our coffee.’ Wainwright pulled a small dented hip flask out of his pocket. ‘Colonel Devereau? A little mule-kick to go with your “instant” coffee?’

Devereau smiled and raised his mug for the Confederate to pour a measure of whisky into his coffee. ‘Just a little … not enough to keep your mother up.’

‘Indeed.’ Wainwright tapped his mug against Devereau’s and they both slurped a mouthful.

‘Miss Carter?’ said Devereau. ‘Tell me more about time travel. The idea of it I find wholly fascinating, if a little confusing.’

‘What do you want to know?’

Devereau looked stumped. ‘Well … to start with, what is it like to actually travel in time?’

She closed her eyes. Thinking. ‘It’s … it’s very weird. Ghostly white. You’re in this space, sort of between space. In another dimension, really. Because that’s what you’re doing, leaving conventional space-time and re- entering it at another place, earlier or later.’

‘What’s the phrase you just used?’ asked Wainwright. ‘Another dimension?’

‘That’s it. You understand the three dimensions, right? Up, down, left and right, forward and back?’

‘Ah! You mean axes of motion, Miss Carter?’ said Wainwright. ‘You are talking of those things?’

‘Yup. “Spatial dimensions” — that’s what we call them. Well, in my timeline, physicists talk about something like eleven spatial dimensions. Eleven axes of movement.’

‘That makes no sense!’ said Devereau. ‘Once you have up and down, left and right, forward and back, what other direction is there?’

‘Well that’s just it. We humans can’t visualize dimensions beyond three because that’s the space in which we live. But those other dimensions do exist, whether we believe in them or not … whether we can experience them or not. Look, imagine a two-dimensional world.’ Maddy pulled a sheet of lined paper off a pad on the kitchen table and laid it down between the colonels. She grabbed a biro and drew a stick man on the page. ‘And here’s Fred living in this two-dimensional world. Now, Fred can see and move around in four directions: up and down, left and right. OK?’

They both nodded.

She scrawled another stick character, this time with a skirt and pouty lips. ‘And this is Loretta. Now, if Fred takes a look at Loretta he won’t know if she’s a boy or a girl. Why do you think that is?’

Both colonels stroked their beards thoughtfully.

‘What do you think Fred sees when he looks at her?’

‘A badly drawn stick lady?’ said Wainwright.

‘No. He sees nothing but a flat line. He can only look along the surface of the paper. And, if you put your head right down on the paper yourself, you can almost kinda see things from his perspective. Loretta is just a line. He’ll never see her luscious lips or girly skirt. He’ll only ever see a line because he can’t look down on, or more precisely, into, this page. He won’t know she’s a lady and so they’ll never fall in love.’

Devereau frowned. ‘But can Fred look up? Could he see us?’

‘No. Even though we’re right here leaning over him, because he can’t comprehend “in to” or “out of” this