“Well, I approve of your looser interpretation of chaos theory. But if any of you had changed history, it would be different right now, already.”
“It could be changed, right now, in ways that we have not noticed in the few seconds since I have returned. Judy and I must go back. Please join us.”
Steve sighed, but nodded. As much as he did not want to rejoin the team, he did like feeling needed. “I have one request, though, Hunter.”
“What is that?”
“Would you change your appearance back to normal, at least until this masquerade becomes necessary again? I can’t get used to this.”
“Oh, yes. Of course.”
Steve walked with him quickly back to Room F-12.
In the room, Judy was pacing anxiously. “Are we ready? Can we go right back?”
“One more moment,” said Hunter. He altered the shape of one forefinger slightly and plugged it into an electrical outlet. “I used an usually large amount of my stored energy during the night. Recharging from here will be very brief. Steve will come with us this time.”
“Ivana can’t survive the NKVD,” said Judy frantically. “We have to help her somehow. Let’s go right back.”
“No,” Hunter said firmly. “The NKVD took you because you happened to be with her. It was the result of our presence and I could justify taking you away again. However, the NKVD came for Ivana for reasons of their own. We did not precipitate her arrest in any way.”
“You mean you refuse to help her?” Judy’s eyes were wide with shock.
“I must. The First Law imperative to avoid changing history requires it.”
“Hunter,” she wailed. “Please. How can one elderly woman’s freedom change the course of history? How? Tell me that, will you?”
“The potential chain of events we could set in motion would be impossible to predict.”
“Maybe it won’t make any difference. If you can’t predict it, you can’t know.”
“The chance of harm to all the humans in the time line is too great to risk,” Hunter said patiently.
“All right. All right.” Judy took a deep breath. “Just indulge me for a moment, though.”
“How?”
“Give me an example of how saving Ivana might ruin history as we know it. She’s already old, Hunter. And she probably won’t survive long after this battle anyway, but her suffering could be eased.”
“Ivana alone is not the problem. We must also consider the NKVD agents with whom she is in contact. The agents are younger and may survive into the Cold War era at the end of World War II, less than four years from her time. Their actions and opinions may be influenced by what happens to her-”
“Specifically, Hunter? What could these agents do that would matter?”
“Perhaps these agents will be politically active when the Soviet Union comes to an end in the early 1990s,” said Hunter. “What if seeing the cruelty of their system to a helpless old woman in 1941 helped to change their opinion of the system they served? If we rescue Ivana somehow, maybe they will have one less doubt about their country.”
“That’s a very small change.”
“I hate to argue his side,” said Steve. “But in this case, I agree. These agents may have relatives who will remember family stories about this time, too, and be influenced.”
“Ivana has two sons in the Red Army,” Judy said slowly.
“They may die in the war or they may live into the Cold War years, too,” said Hunter. “What if the fate of their mother spurred them to participate in the later dismantling of the Soviet Union? If she is rescued, they might-”
“Might not turn against the system,” Judy finished for him. She sighed. “I get it. I guess I always did. I just wanted to hear you convince me.”
“I am already worried that vanishing with you out of the room the way we did may have disturbed the NKVD agents significantly,” said Hunter.
Judy nodded solemnly.
“Judy, did the agents photograph you?”
“Uh, no. They just put us in the room and made us wait Maybe they were working out what questions to ask or something.”
“You are still in danger of being recognized by the two agents who took you. We shall have to be especially careful to avoid them.”
“Yes, I see.”
“What’s my identity this time?” Steve asked. “I can’t be a slave, as I was in Roman times. But you still have to account for my not being Russian.”
“Judy, do you have a suggestion?” Hunter asked.
“You can be a Turk from Central Asia,” said Judy. “Or a Tatar, of old Mongol descent Both were in the Soviet Union at that time.”
“I took the sleep course for Russian, but not Mongol or any kind of Turkish,” said Steve.
“In Moscow, Russian will be sufficient,” said Judy. “Hunter, are we ready?”
“Yes. We shall go back to Moscow the following day, well after sunup, to look for Jane.”
“What if something happened to her during the night?” Steve asked.
“I want to avoid returning Judy during that same night,” said Hunter. “If something has happened to Jane, we shall return here and then go back earlier to find her if necessary. For now, we shall return after people have begun their daily routine, so that we can get lost in the crowd. Now that I have returned to my original appearance, the NKVD will not recognize me.” He turned to Judy. “Perhaps we should wait while you get some sleep. You will lose a night’s sleep with my plan.”
“I’m too upset to sleep now,” said Judy. “I want to go right back.”
“Let’s go,” said Steve.
Early the next morning, Jane woke alone in the corner after a nervous, fitful sleep. She got in line with her companions for breakfast and then returned to her corner to eat a thin, tasteless gruel. After returning her bowl and spoon, she queued up for the rest room.
Jane finally took her turn and moved into a stall. She flushed the toilet to cover her voice somewhat from her neighbors on each side. Then she switched on her lapel pin.
“Hunter? It’s Jane. Where are you?”
She waited for an answer as long as she dared. She repeated the message twice more, flushing each time to create more noise. Other people came and went. When she realized that Hunter could not or would not respond, she gave up and left the rest room. Now she was really alone.
Out in the main room again, she heard the rumbling of trucks outside. Everyone else gradually began moving toward the front door. She wanted to stay here, where Hunter could find her, but she did not dare risk attracting attention. To avoid that, she would have to stay with everyone else.
No one else spoke very much. Everyone plodded patiently out to one specific truck and climbed into the back, where picks and shovels were stored in barrels. For them, of course, this was an established routine.
Jane boarded also and soon found herself standing shoulder to shoulder with the other women out in the cold, clear winter morning. Their truck, part of a convoy, jerked and moved away. The convoy wound through the streets of Moscow, stopping at other large buildings that had been converted to emergency housing. When all the trucks were full, they snaked out along an unpaved highway to the west.
All the women in the work brigade were well bundled against the cold. Jane could not remember if Judy had told her how long they had been doing this. No snow lay on the ground right now, but Jane could tell by the way the truck bounced and rumbled on the unpaved road that the mud was frozen solid. At one point, she overheard a woman say that the temperature was about minus twenty centigrade.
Finally Jane saw the ditches appear in the distance. As the convoy turned to run parallel to them, heading for the ends still under construction, Jane looked down at them. She estimated that the nearest ditches were about eight meters wide and three or four meters deep.
When the truck creaked to a halt, Jane jumped to the ground with the others and accepted a shovel from someone. No one told her what to do, so she followed the other women. They walked down an earthen ramp into the middle of the ditch.
Some women stood in the center of the ditch, digging the deepest groove. They moved dirt to an intermediate ledge, where other women shoveled it up to the surface. There, a few more women began arranging the dirt into a ridge on each side of the ditch to make the ditch seem even deeper.