“Ho’re you? Some kind of prison nurse?”
“No,” she whispered, “and keep your voice down. Time is very short, and the amount of power required to allow me to be here without assimilation is enormous.”
He was in great pain, but much of the morphia had worn off, allowing the Moosic personality a little latitude. He mustered all his will to force himself forward, reminding himself that Sandoval had done it. “You—you are from the future.” It was a statement, not a question.
“In a way, yes. I’ve brought you something you need desperately, but you’ll have to move fast. Can you make it out of bed?”
“Oi… think so.” He tried and, with her help, got to a shaky standing position. It was then that he saw it, there on the floor. “The toime suit!” he breathed.
He sat back on the bed and she helped him into it. It was enormous for the body of Alfie Jenkins, far too large to be practical, and he said so.
“Don’t worry. Once you punch out, it’ll be O.K., and both Alfie and Ron will live. Understand?”
He nodded dully.
“The power pack is on full-charge now—I did it before coming here. And I’ve set it for the correct time and place. There is still a chance of catching Sandoval.”
“But ’istory—it’s already changed.”
“Very little. Marx would have died in a few years anyway, and all his important work was done. He was killed by a boy in the pay of anti-Communists, a boy who then escaped from gaol. That’s all the change. Now—helmet on. Check the pouch when you arrive. And remember— Sandoval’s power is nearly gone. He’s landed a hundred miles from his goal. You can beat him there. Now—seal and go!”
“But wait! Just ’ho are you?”
But the seal snapped in place and he was in silence, although nearly swimming in the suit. If he stood up, he knew he’d sink below and out of the helmet, so he didn’t try. The mysterious woman reached out and touched the suit activation switches.
Reality faded. The suit’s anti-glare shield snapped on, and all around was blinding light. He was falling again, falling through time and space…
The journey this time was the same in all physical respects, but not for the man himself. Suddenly he felt the cramping and pinching of the suit once more and realized, with a start, that he was Ron Moosic once again in form.
Mentally, the trip was stranger. Slowly, ever so slowly, the personality of Alfie Jenkins came to equal status with his own. There was a period of terrible confusion in his mind, as he lost all true orientation of self. It was a strange, indescribable feeling of being, at one and the same time, not a rider in someone else’s head, but two people simultaneously.
Now, rapidly, the elements of Alfie Jenkins’ life and personality began to merge with his own. The process was strange and total, and he realized, with a shock, that he was still Alfie Jenkins, would always be Alfie, but only a part, only a small part…
He knew, intellectually, that this would change him, perhaps in subtle ways, but in a permanent fashion. He also realized that he would not really be aware of that change, that the new whole would be natural and normal and right for him.
This was something Silverberg and the others had not warned him about. Lives created could be absorbed, but not destroyed once they were real. And yet, now that he thought of it, it was logical. And, somewhere, he knew, Alfie Jenkins was free and happy at last…
But where—and when—was he going now?
After Sandoval, that was clear. And, for now, that was enough. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder about this fourth player in the game and why she had come to him and helped him. He wished he’d had more of his wits about him and had been able to ask more questions. It was quite certain she was on his side, and the simplicity of her time mechanism, compared to the bulky suit he wore, made it certain that she was from some future time. So the “leading edge” of the time stream was not his own origin time, but rather farther into the future. How far ahead? he wondered. Or did that matter as much as the fact that she seemed definitely on his side. An enemy of any sort would have let him rot. Still, if someone from the future was assisting him, that presupposed a fifth player in the game. Perhaps the one that initiated all this? The one that converted Dr. Cline? But, if that were so, why had they needed the help of some radicals from the past at all? Why not just go back with their superior equipment and do it themselves? Questions, always more questions, and no one to get the answers from.
For now, it would have to be enough to know that history’s alteration had been a mere ripple, of no major consequence in the long run, no matter how much pain and sorrow he’d caused Marx’s innocent family. And he could still complete the mission.
This time I won’t hesitate to shoot for a moment, Sandoval, he swore.
The falling sensation stopped, and he felt himself fall forward onto solid ground. He had forgotten that he’d left in a more or less sitting position. This time it was also night, but the area looked quite different from England. Releasing the seals on the suit, he was also relieved to find that it was relatively warm. He couldn’t help wondering what happened when his naked self was forced out into a sub-zero February for a couple of hours, with no fire able to warm him.
The instruments on the suit indicated a charge at still well over ninety percent, which meant he couldn’t have come far. The month and year he could make out by simple subtraction, but the geographic coordinates were beyond him.
The time was some point in June, 1841. The closeness of the date surprised him. Silverberg had said something about a “twenty year window,” which would cover Alfie, barely, but hardly the girl who had been Sandoval. Clearly, the scientist had been wrong—or the date the mysterious woman had set for him was wrong. That latter worried him, but only a little. He had more than enough power to get home now, and all he had to do was set the controls to zero. Perhaps, he surmised, it was not a flat twenty years but an individual thing. Running into the twenty-year barrier in one case would cause the scientists to clamp down a limit and accept it. In his time, after all, time travel was in its earliest stages.
Perhaps those who’d coached Sandoval had more experience.
He spent a little time scouting the area. It was a city, certainly, old but not very large. It was immediately evident by the signs that it was in Germany, but he had no knowledge of German and so couldn’t get more than vague information. Certainly the central square contained some relatively tall buildings for the time, at least one of which rose six stories to a flat-topped pyramidal structure that went up perhaps two or three more. The centerpiece to the square was an ornate European fountain which looked ancient even for 1841, but it still functioned.
To one side of town was a mammoth structure that made even the medieval fountain seem new. A massive structure of weathered stone, it was clearly an ancient city gate, with portals to pass two-way mounted traffic, two levels on top of the portals, and two towers, one the same height as the rest of the structure, the other with yet an additional story on it. He really didn’t recall them being much in Germany, but damned if the thing didn’t look kind of ancient Roman. It stood majestically in the middle of the roadway, with incongruous German-style buildings adjoining its taller tower on one side and a park on the other.
He was conscious of the press of time now, and he searched frantically for some place to hide the suit. He finally decided on a heap of rubble very near the Roman gate. The stones were fairly easy to move and replace, not likely to be quickly disturbed, and the ruin itself was a proper landmark. Still, it was a major undertaking to get the cavity made, the suit put in, then covered to his nervous eye. This time, if possible, he’d do what the radicals had done in 1875 and retrieve the suit as soon as possible.