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Authors: Roger MacBride Allen
Tags: Science-Fiction
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the assault, they had learned something. Learned the answer to what the intruders were, and why they had come. Or learned there was no reason to relieve the Upholder, no purpose to be served by the effort of sending a ship. Maybe the people on the uptime side already knew all would be well—-or already knew that disaster of some sort was foredoomed, that any attempt at rescue or relief would fail, and that there was no sense wasting more lives and treasure.
Or else there was no Chronologic Patrol anymore, on the upside of the timeshaft. Eight decades had passed, long enough time for things to change, to evolve or collapse.
Or else—
Hell and damnation! He stood up and began to pace the length of his cabin—something he would never allow his crew to see him doing. There was no end to the or-elses, the what-ifs. He could speculate until the end of time itself and it would do him no good.
Time itself was the problem. He was caught up in the tangled complexities needed to prevent paradoxes. That irony was far from lost on him.
His ship was lost in the fog of time, hemmed in by the hidden past and the unknowable future. He and his ship and her crew were marooned on a tiny island of present and known events, but cut off from all other knowledge by the endless expanse of the ocean of years.
He might as well head back up to the bridge and see if anything had happened. It was pointless, of course. The bridge crew would have summoned him if anything had. But there were limits to how long he could stay in that cabin. Besides, if he were on the bridge when things happened, he would know about them that little bit sooner.
He stepped out of his cabin and headed toward the bridge, his mind still chasing the problem around and around. Even in the midst of so much uncertainty, there were things of which he was absolutely positive. He had no logical or factual basis for the knowledge, but still it was there, solid and hard. He was utterly sure that, when the time to decide finally came, he would know no more than he did right now.
And he knew, deep in his heart, deep in his bones, that no uptime relief ship would come.
The Upholder was on her own.
Of that there was not the slightest doubt at all.
CHAPTER THREE Lost to the Past
Time ground down on them.
Nothing changed but the time left until the convoy ships would commit to final approach. There was no further word from the downtime relief ship, and no sign whatsoever of an uptime relief ship.
Nor was there any sign of the intruders, or any clue as to who or what they might be. Koffield checked over every record of events since the first intruder alert and studied all the tracks and contacts and reports and false alarms from detection and comm as they came in. But it did no good, told him nothing he did not already know. There was no brilliant, long-overlooked answer to this problem, no sudden insight.
Koffield made sure to be on the bridge well before final-approach commitment for the first of the convoy ships. Three hours before the last moment when he could order an abort, he was in the captain ’ s chair, hunched over its repeater displays, monitoring the situation.
He had to choose, but none of his possible choices was good. Again and again, the conundrum wheeled through his mind. If he ordered the convoy to hold on this side of the wormhole, he would likely be causing further casualties and suffering, in the Glister system. If he let the ships through before the downtime patrol ship signaled that she was ready on station and ready to receive clearance codes, there was at least some danger that a nervous downtime ship would fire on the convoy. And even if he lost his nerve and tried to make unauthorized communications with convoy or patrol ship, it was all but certain the other ships would refuse the contact anyway.
Koffield knew perfectly well that the act of not deciding was a decision in and of itself. With every second that passed, the convoy ships got deeper
Or else there was no Chronologic Patrol anymore, on the upside of the timeshaft. Eight decades had passed, long enough time for things to change, to evolve or collapse.
Or else—
Hell and damnation! He stood up and began to pace the length of his cabin—something he would never allow his crew to see him doing. There was no end to the or-elses, the what-ifs. He could speculate until the end of time itself and it would do him no good.
Time itself was the problem. He was caught up in the tangled complexities needed to prevent paradoxes. That irony was far from lost on him.
His ship was lost in the fog of time, hemmed in by the hidden past and the unknowable future. He and his ship and her crew were marooned on a tiny island of present and known events, but cut off from all other knowledge by the endless expanse of the ocean of years.
He might as well head back up to the bridge and see if anything had happened. It was pointless, of course. The bridge crew would have summoned him if anything had. But there were limits to how long he could stay in that cabin. Besides, if he were on the bridge when things happened, he would know about them that little bit sooner.
He stepped out of his cabin and headed toward the bridge, his mind still chasing the problem around and around. Even in the midst of so much uncertainty, there were things of which he was absolutely positive. He had no logical or factual basis for the knowledge, but still it was there, solid and hard. He was utterly sure that, when the time to decide finally came, he would know no more than he did right now.
And he knew, deep in his heart, deep in his bones, that no uptime relief ship would come.
The Upholder was on her own.
Of that there was not the slightest doubt at all.
CHAPTER THREE Lost to the Past
Time ground down on them.
Nothing changed but the time left until the convoy ships would commit to final approach. There was no further word from the downtime relief ship, and no sign whatsoever of an uptime relief ship.
Nor was there any sign of the intruders, or any clue as to who or what they might be. Koffield checked over every record of events since the first intruder alert and studied all the tracks and contacts and reports and false alarms from detection and comm as they came in. But it did no good, told him nothing he did not already know. There was no brilliant, long-overlooked answer to this problem, no sudden insight.
Koffield made sure to be on the bridge well before final-approach commitment for the first of the convoy ships. Three hours before the last moment when he could order an abort, he was in the captain ’ s chair, hunched over its repeater displays, monitoring the situation.
He had to choose, but none of his possible choices was good. Again and again, the conundrum wheeled through his mind. If he ordered the convoy to hold on this side of the wormhole, he would likely be causing further casualties and suffering, in the Glister system. If he let the ships through before the downtime patrol ship signaled that she was ready on station and ready to receive clearance codes, there was at least some danger that a nervous downtime ship would fire on the convoy. And even if he lost his nerve and tried to make unauthorized communications with convoy or patrol ship, it was all but certain the other ships would refuse the contact anyway.
Koffield knew perfectly well that the act of not deciding was a decision in and of itself. With every second that passed, the convoy ships got deeper
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