Read Online Borrowed Time by Jack Campbell - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jack Campbell
Tags: Science-Fiction, adventure, Military, Time travel, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Anthologies, Anthologies & Short Stories, Space Fleet, The Lost Fleet
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Soon after that I fell asleep despite my best intentions, waking only after the sun was well up the next morning.
As a result, it was mid-morning before I finally found what I was looking for. A personal ad. Mister Meyer Kampf wishes to inquire as to the whereabouts of Miss Leni Riefenstahl with whom he attended the Triumph of the Will lectures in Nuremberg. Anyone with information on Miss Riefenstahl please contact Mister Kampf at . . . The combination of names teased at my memory. “Jeannie, I need a fact check. Leni Riefenstahl. Triumph of the Will. Nuremberg. Identify any connections.”
“Leni Riefenstahl was the producer of a primitive video depiction of Nazi political rallies in the German city of Nuremberg. It was entitled Triumph of the Will.”
“Primitive? When was it made?”
“1934 CE.”
“Great.” The most common method of making contact, or just advertising your presence in a downtime Here and Now, was to literally place a personal advertisement containing anachronistic references. No one from downtime would realize the anachronism, but to someone from uptime it would stand out like a sore thumb. As a result, Temporal Interventionists were masters of historical trivia. Occasionally the anachronistic contact data got into permanent, widely distributed form, like when Swift got his hands on an accurate description of the moons of Mars and put it in Gulliver’s Travels quite a while before the moons were actually discovered. That particular blunder wasn’t my fault, though.
In this case, the ad confirmed that someone from uptime was operating in London. Moreover, I knew Germany and England had been at each other’s throats twice in the next few decades, so anyone citing Nazi trivia probably didn’t have London’s best interests in heart and might well be involved in the upcoming disaster. If they weren’t involved, they should be a potential ally for me. “Jeannie, how far away is this address from here?”
“About three kilometers.”
“Then let’s take a walk.”
Jeannie’s database is a wonderful thing. I don’t know what I’d do without her maps. She provided directions to “Kampf’s” address, and I set off, trying to walk in the same fashion as those men around me dressed like I now was. Not too arrogant but not very servile. I’d apparently mugged a solid member of the Here and Now middle class.
The weather wasn’t bad, though the sun shone a bit weakly through the haze of coal dust, smoke and other unhealthy substances suspended in the air. And the people didn’t smell too bad for downtimers, all in all considered. I enjoyed the walk for a while. Then my feet started to hurt again in the heavy, ill-fitting downtime footwear and I started coughing again and my stomach wondered what had happened to last night’s dinner and this morning’s breakfast.
“How much further, Jeannie?”
“About one-half kilometer straight ahead.”
I looked in that direction, and saw something that didn’t belong. A woman, not mincing along in confining clothing but striding along rapidly wearing something slightly loose and functional. Her bright blond hair glowed like a beacon because she wasn’t wearing a hat. That fashion error alone would’ve made her stand out on that downtime street, even if she wasn’t shoving through the crowds like a lioness ignoring a herd of hyenas. People on the street were stopping to stare, either at her clothes, her behavior or at her strikingly beautiful face. Beautiful, but also disturbing. Even from a distance there was something about her which somehow made me think of my one look at Caligula. Then those eyes rested on me, her face instantly lit with fury, and one hand swung upward holding something which looked disturbingly like a weapon.
I’m no hero, which has probably kept me alive in Here and Nows where heroes wouldn’t last long. My mind was still registering what my eyes had seen when my legs propelled me sideways into the doorway of the
As a result, it was mid-morning before I finally found what I was looking for. A personal ad. Mister Meyer Kampf wishes to inquire as to the whereabouts of Miss Leni Riefenstahl with whom he attended the Triumph of the Will lectures in Nuremberg. Anyone with information on Miss Riefenstahl please contact Mister Kampf at . . . The combination of names teased at my memory. “Jeannie, I need a fact check. Leni Riefenstahl. Triumph of the Will. Nuremberg. Identify any connections.”
“Leni Riefenstahl was the producer of a primitive video depiction of Nazi political rallies in the German city of Nuremberg. It was entitled Triumph of the Will.”
“Primitive? When was it made?”
“1934 CE.”
“Great.” The most common method of making contact, or just advertising your presence in a downtime Here and Now, was to literally place a personal advertisement containing anachronistic references. No one from downtime would realize the anachronism, but to someone from uptime it would stand out like a sore thumb. As a result, Temporal Interventionists were masters of historical trivia. Occasionally the anachronistic contact data got into permanent, widely distributed form, like when Swift got his hands on an accurate description of the moons of Mars and put it in Gulliver’s Travels quite a while before the moons were actually discovered. That particular blunder wasn’t my fault, though.
In this case, the ad confirmed that someone from uptime was operating in London. Moreover, I knew Germany and England had been at each other’s throats twice in the next few decades, so anyone citing Nazi trivia probably didn’t have London’s best interests in heart and might well be involved in the upcoming disaster. If they weren’t involved, they should be a potential ally for me. “Jeannie, how far away is this address from here?”
“About three kilometers.”
“Then let’s take a walk.”
Jeannie’s database is a wonderful thing. I don’t know what I’d do without her maps. She provided directions to “Kampf’s” address, and I set off, trying to walk in the same fashion as those men around me dressed like I now was. Not too arrogant but not very servile. I’d apparently mugged a solid member of the Here and Now middle class.
The weather wasn’t bad, though the sun shone a bit weakly through the haze of coal dust, smoke and other unhealthy substances suspended in the air. And the people didn’t smell too bad for downtimers, all in all considered. I enjoyed the walk for a while. Then my feet started to hurt again in the heavy, ill-fitting downtime footwear and I started coughing again and my stomach wondered what had happened to last night’s dinner and this morning’s breakfast.
“How much further, Jeannie?”
“About one-half kilometer straight ahead.”
I looked in that direction, and saw something that didn’t belong. A woman, not mincing along in confining clothing but striding along rapidly wearing something slightly loose and functional. Her bright blond hair glowed like a beacon because she wasn’t wearing a hat. That fashion error alone would’ve made her stand out on that downtime street, even if she wasn’t shoving through the crowds like a lioness ignoring a herd of hyenas. People on the street were stopping to stare, either at her clothes, her behavior or at her strikingly beautiful face. Beautiful, but also disturbing. Even from a distance there was something about her which somehow made me think of my one look at Caligula. Then those eyes rested on me, her face instantly lit with fury, and one hand swung upward holding something which looked disturbingly like a weapon.
I’m no hero, which has probably kept me alive in Here and Nows where heroes wouldn’t last long. My mind was still registering what my eyes had seen when my legs propelled me sideways into the doorway of the
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