Two Graves

“We can stop this!” Forty-Seven shouted. “Now!”

Alban took a step back, the pistol leveled at his father. Oberfuhrer Scheermann rapped out an order and the soldiers—lined up and heavily armed—raised their weapons.

“Go back to your fields!” cried the Oberfuhrer. “Or we shall fire!”

But Alban knew that they would not—could not—fire on the defectives. Except for a handful of the latest iteration of twins—the best and most advanced, like himself—the others could not, if push came to shove, actually kill their siblings with their own hands. And if the Nazi officers, their minders, tried to shoot the defectives… It was all coalescing in Alban’s mind with horrifying clarity. It would be the end of the program, the colony, an abrupt and shocking end to more than half a century of scientific research. The defectives, for all their hideousness, were essential. For the first time, he realized they were as essential to the project as he was. One could not exist without the other. Why had he not seen that before? Why had nobody seen that before? The whole plan had been based on a false hypothesis—a bluff. And now his own twin was calling that bluff.

This realization, this sudden reversal of fortune—unexpected and dreadful—left him stunned.

The crowd of defectives continued to jostle forward toward the line of soldiers, less tentative now, shouting, gesturing with their crude tools. Alban could feel the heat of their fury.

Now. He squeezed the trigger and fired at Pendergast.

But his father had anticipated it. Somehow, he had begun to move even before Alban fired, like a flash, incredibly quickly and unexpectedly—how did he do it?—evading the shot. Alban fired a second time but this shot was ruined by a volley of stones that came flying out of the crowd toward him, striking him and forcing him to fling up his arms in self-defense.

Pendergast had veered away and now lunged at him, launching himself in the air. Alban evaded with a pirouette, his father just striking him in the side. He fired again, but it was impossible to aim with the pelting rain of rocks and he was forced back, turning and hunching, his arms raised to protect his head. He could hear Scheermann crying an order to his regulars: Fire over their heads! With the lieutenants repeating it down the line, there came a massive volley of shots, and then another, like thunder.

It gave the defectives pause in their headlong rush. They halted in a kind of confused, chaotic milling, and the incipient fight abruptly turned into a standoff. Alban cast about and found his father, back up again, standing next to his twin, Forty-Seven, at the head of the crowd. Once again, he raised his weapon. But as he did so he saw in his mind the inexorable turning of the wheel, the crooked pathways of time growing straight… and he backed up, horrified by what he saw, as Pendergast stared at him with those terrible eyes. It was useless: every branch, every road of time led to a dead end, a checkmate at the end of every time line.

All at once he turned and fled, running through the line of soldiers, who parted to let him pass, as he knew they would. He needed to get to the lake and get a boat to the fortress, to find Fischer.

And to warn him of what was about to happen.

82

PENDERGAST WATCHED ALBAN RUN, AND HE UNDERSTOOD why. Alban’s own gift had allowed him to see far enough ahead to—in essence—defeat himself. His genetically enhanced ability to sense just far enough into the future to carry out the Hotel Killings with such success, to elude his father’s pursuit with ease, to kidnap his brother from the Riverside Drive redoubt, to survive and prevail in almost any imaginable confrontation—this gift had now turned against him. Knowledge of the future—even a brief, ten- or fifteen-second glimpse—turned out to be a double-edged sword with the keenest blade.

Meanwhile the standoff continued. Tensions were escalating to the breaking point: the defective twins were lined up on one side, furious, disorganized, raging; and on the other side was the Twins Brigade, lined up in disciplined ranks, silent but deeply rattled. And in the middle, the small cadre of Nazi officers who were only now realizing their dilemma as the two sets of twins, each about a hundred strong, faced each other in a standoff.

“Submit!” screamed Scheermann at the defectives. “Go back to your camp!” He pointed at Pendergast. “Take that man into custody!”

Tristram, at the front of the crowd, cried out: “Touch my father, and we attack!”

A murmur of assent. The Oberfuhrer hesitated. Pendergast waited. And then he saw the moment had arrived.

Without warning he strode toward the lines of twin soldiers and seized one by the collar of his uniform, as a teacher might seize a truant schoolboy.

“Stop him!” screeched Scheermann, removing his own sidearm, but in the standoff he seemed paralyzed to act, obviously surprised by the sudden, unexpected flight of Alban. Pendergast ignored him and dragged the astonished, passive soldier across the gap while with his other arm he snatched one of the defectives—the soldier’s twin—by his ragged shirt, yanking him out, bringing the two men together.

“Meet your brother!” he cried at the soldier. “Your own brother!” He turned to the groups of twins facing each other. “All of you, right now—seek out your brothers and sisters! Your own flesh and blood!”

And he could see the eyes of the twins roving despite themselves, locking one after another on their opposites. There was a restless muttering, and the orderly lines of twin soldiers began to slacken, grow loose.

“That’s enough,” Scheermann said, raising his pistol toward Pendergast.

“Lower your pistol or we attack!” cried Tristram.

“You, attack? With hoes? You’ll be slaughtered,” Scheermann said contemptuously.

“Slaughter us—and there ends your grand experiment!”

Scheermann hesitated, his eyes darting along the line of ragged twins.

“These men—” Pendergast pointed at the Nazi minders—“they’re your real enemy. Dividing brother from brother, sister from sister. They’ve turned you all into guinea pigs. But not them. They haven’t participated. And they remain in charge. Why is that?”

The Oberfuhrer’s pistol hand was shaking ever so slightly. The seething crowd moved toward him. “Fire and you die!” came a voice, and another.

“Go back to your brigade, soldier,” Scheermann said contemptuously.

The soldier did not move.

“Obey or face discipline!” Scheermann screamed, swiveling the pistol from Pendergast’s head to point at the soldier.

“Lower your weapon,” the soldier said slowly, “or we’ll kill you all.”

The commander’s face was white. After a moment, he dropped his arm.

“Step back.”

The Oberfuhrer took a careful step back. Then another. Suddenly his arm flew up again, and he fired into the soldier’s chest. “Attack the weak twins!” Scheermann screamed to the Nazi minders. “Fire at will! Destroy them!”

A roar of anger and dismay rose from the twins on both sides of the battle lines. There was a moment of terrible stasis. And then it was as if a dam had burst. The disorderly crowd of twins rushed the Nazi officers, their crude weapons raised.

Scheermann backed up, firing into the crowd, but he was immediately mobbed by the crowd of defectives, surging forward at a roar. There was a fusillade of shots from the soldiers and their commanding officers as the battle was joined, hand-to-hand, the Nazi officers firing every which way into the crowd at point-blank range, causing a dreadful slaughter. All was confusion, a fearful firefight erupting in the open field, soldiers struggling with the ragged defectives, the roar of automatic weapons, the clang of shovel and scythe against rifle, the screams of the wounded coming out of the fury of dust and blood.

“Brothers and sisters!” Tristram’s voice rose up. “Don’t murder your own kin!”

Something was happening. Many of the Twins Brigade were breaking ranks, changing sides, some throwing down their weapons and embracing their siblings—others turning their weapons on their officers. But a small cadre