"It seems to be old home week," Benedetto said, looking down at them and grinning wolfishly. He looked older and even thinner, but beyond that, he hadn't changed. He still dressed habitually in black and his sharp features and neatly trimmed black beard gave him the look of a Renaissance assassin. His knowledge of cybernetics combined with his training in psycho-conditioning made him doubly dangerous and he had no scruples whatsoever. Once a passionate moralist, a scientist who had enlisted in the Temporal Preservation League out of a genuine concern over the Time Wars, he had gravitated toward the radical militants who had made up the Timekeepers. Terrorism had destroyed his ethics and he was reborn a consummate cynic without any hope or optimism. Drakov conceived his mad plans in deadly earnest, but to Benedetto, they were merely fascinating games, complex entertainments for his jaded appetites.
"We're going home, Santos," Drakov said.
"Before or after we take care of our intruders?" Benedetto asked.
"Our guests will accompany us," said Drakov. "I think they'd enjoy meeting the professor."
"I wasn't referring to our commando friends," said Benedetto. "I meant the two men who came in after you."
Drakov glanced up at him sharply. " What two men?"
"Really, Nikolai," said Benedetto, "you're becoming careless. Two men managed to slip inside before I could close the door. Talos isn't exactly state-of-the-art design, you know. Certain operations are cumbersome and they take some time. I told you we should have used nysteel construction."
"Translocate, Santos! Immediately!"
"As you wish."
He turned around and returned to the controls. A moment later, the V-20 warp disc suspended overhead started to glow. Drakov motioned the three agents over to the bed and indicated for them to sit down, then he sat in a chair across from them, in a position where he could keep them covered and at the same time observe the opening in the floor.
"If we've been penetrated by agents of the Special Operations Group," he said, tensely, "things might become a bit more interesting than I care for. We'll be better able to deal with the threat when we reach our home base."
"Our home base?" said Finn.
"Certainly," said Drakov. He smiled. "We are working together in this venture, are we not?"
"Where is 'our' home base?" said Andre.
"On a small island in this very time period, Miss Cross," said Drakov. "We shall arrive at the Greek islands well ahead of your former shipmates."
"How do you manage to hide a robot of this size on a small Greek island?" asked Delaney.
Drakov smiled. "I don't bother to try. I keep Talos right out in the open, standing astride the entrance to the harbor of Rhodes."
"The Colossus of Rhodes," said Steiger. "One of the ancient wonders of the world. Very nice. Only how does the population of the island react when he disappears every now and then?"
"They never notice," Drakov said. "A careful log is kept of each temporal transition Talos makes. We merely clock back in a fraction of a second after we have left." He frowned. "Whoever our friends below are, they are apparently hesitant to join us. They think to catch us as we go back down. So much the better. They will shortly find themselves caught squarely in the middle.."
"In the middle of what?" said Delaney.
Drakov smiled. "You shall see. Santos, have we arrived?"
"We're here," said Benedetto, from above them. "I've got the hominoids standing by. Want I should let them in?"
"By all means," said Drakov. "We mustn't keep our two guests downstairs waiting."
Benedetto threw several levers and opened the door in the giant's ankle.
"This should prove to be amusing," Drakov said. He beckoned them to the opening in the floor with his pistol. "Why don't you lead the way?"
Delaney went down first, followed by Steiger and then Andre. Drakov went behind them, keeping them covered with his pistol. Benedetto remained behind. They descended the metal stair to the landing inside the hollow of the giant's chest. Below them, they could hear the sounds of battle. The report of plasma weapons being fired echoed up to them, accompanied by the screams of frenzied hominoids attacking the two men below them. Steiger ventured a quick glance over the metal guardrail. Below him, the interior of the robot lit up several times with the reflections of plasma blasts and he could see blue flame down there as figures burned, but as those who pressed the two intruders died, others replaced them. They heard more screaming and shouts and then the sound of booted feet on metal as someone came running up the steps toward them, moving fast.
"Drakov!" shouted Delaney. "We're going to have company in a minute."
"I can hear," said Drakov, calmly.
"So what the hell are we supposed to fight with?" said Delaney.
"Think positive, Mr. Delaney," Drakov said. "Perhaps my hominoids will catch up with whoever it is and kill them before they reach you. If not, why then you'll have to use your ingenuity. Don't be concerned, I'll cover you."
"Somehow I don't find that very reassuring," said Delaney. He glanced back at Steiger and Andre.
"Nowhere to go," said Steiger. "Someone's coming up toward us with plasma weapons and Drakov's behind us with a plasma pistol of his own. We're caught between a rock and a hard place." He glanced over the side. "And it's a long way down."
The running footsteps came closer, followed by the sounds of others pursuing from below. There were no more plasma blasts. Whoever was coming toward them wasn't wasting any time stopping to fire at those below.
"They're coming fast," Delaney said, tensely.
A figure came running up onto the landing just below them. Drakov fired over their heads and the heat of the plasma blast singed their hair as it passed above them and slammed into the inside wall of the robot, just ahead of the running man below them. He jerked back from the wash of flame as melted bronze dripped down the wall and the superheated guardrail just ahead of him started to sag.
"Drop your weapon!" Drakov shouted.
The man started to raise his pistol, then saw Delaney standing just above him and he froze.
"My God, "he said.
"Drop it, I said!" Drakov repeated.
The pistol clattered to the metal floor of the landing, bounced, and skittered over the side to fall to the bottom of the robot's leg. Drakov kept his pistol pointed at the man, but it was Delaney that the soldier stared at.
"Jesus Christ," said Delaney, softly, staring at the man's face.
Andre didn't say a thing. She stood frozen to the spot, speechless, staring at the face of a man who couldn't possibly be alive, the face of Lt. Reese Hunter.
"The sight of you took about ten years off my life," said Hunter. "I saw you killed, torn to pieces, then some thirty seconds later, there you were standing right in front of me."
They were locked in a room in the cellar of Drakov's palace on the island of Rhodes. They were in almost total darkness, with the only light coming from a small barred window high above them, level with the ground outside. The window was out of their reach and too small to squeeze through, even if they could have reached it and defeated the iron bars.
The man who spoke, addressing his comments to Delaney, was Reese Hunter, and yet he wasn't Hunter. The Reese Hunter Finn and Andre knew had been killed in 17th century Paris, assassinated by the Timekeepers. This was his doppelganger, his twin from the future of the congruent universe. The face, the name, everything about him was the same, except that he was a captain in the S.O.G., the Special Operations Group of the Temporal Army of the congruent universe, their elite commando force assigned to deal with temporal disruptions, specifically to conduct the war against the universe from which the temporal agents came. They knew him, and yet they didn't know him. And he "knew" them, as well.