Dawn took several minutes to get hold of herself, to try to control her emotions. Finally, she managed, “And me? Where do I fit in all this?”
“Your bond to the kids is strong. Stronger, I think, than their bond to you, as bad as that sounds,” Doc replied. “You have the same choices, although, in the case of the assimilation, they’re more limited. You’ve established a pattern which time finds easiest to continue. So you can come back here and go to the edge with them, or you can pick a person and place and return there.”
She swallowed. “What you’re telling me is that I can be a whore in any time and place I want.”
Doc was grim. “Yes. Except on the edge.”
“I wouldn’t be permitted to stay—human—up there, isn’t that right?”
“Most likely not,” Lind confirmed. “They just no longer have the facilities for it. I can’t tell you whether it’s good or bad becoming one of them, and that’s honest. I have trouble even imagining what they’re like, let alone being one, even though I’ve been hundreds of human beings. But I like to think that a side, any side, in a war that tries to save as many lives as possible has to be better than one that’s going to blow up its own people in a snit at losing.”
There was silence for a while. Finally, Doc asked gently, “What do you say, Dawn? Do we close off the loop?”
“Can I… talk this over with the children before answering?”
Lind looked at Doc and then at Herb. No words were exchanged, but their thoughts were easy for him to read. There was no reason to put it off any longer, for the longer it was put off, the harder it would ever be to get the job done—and people were needlessly suffering. They didn’t like the situation any more than Dawn did, and they didn’t like the choices, either, choices that, eventually, they themselves might have to face, for the war, inevitably, would end.
“We’ll give you forty-eight hours,” Lind told her. “Time is running out.”
RIDING THE LOOP
She had her showdown with Ginny, and it only told her that Doc had been right, as usual.
“You shouldn’t have the baby.”
“Why? What’s wrong with what I did? You and Daddy did it all the time!”
“But that was different!”
“How!”
How, indeed, did you explain such things to one raised as Ginny had been? They went around and around with it, but got nowhere. Finally, Dawn gave up, recognizing defeat. Doc and the others would have to deal with it, by force if necessary, but probably just by giving them the uptime experience they desperately needed.
They, all the children, even young Mark, would have to make their own decisions on their futures. She could not and would not do it for them.
Finally, during a walk outside, she told them she had to leave them.
“Like Daddy?” little Sarah asked worriedly.
“No, not like Daddy. I have to work for them now. I have to pay them back for all they’ve done for us.” And to us, she added silently.
“I don’t like them,” Joseph said flatly. “They took Dad away.”
“No, no! You must never think like that! Your father was a fighter in their fight, just like I was. Fighters sometimes don’t come back. Let them show you what uptime is like and what it’s like to live in it. Then maybe you’ll understand.”
“Are you not gonna come back, too, Mommie?” Cathy asked.
“I hope I am,” she told them sincerely, “but I don’t know. There are some very bad people on the other side and they’ve done some very bad things. I have to try and stop them, try to undo some of the bad they’ve done. I—your father and I—sort of accidentally helped the bad things happen. I have to put it right.”
“Why?” asked Mark.
“Well, if you know something bad’s going to happen, and you can do something about it and don’t, then you’re just as bad as the ones who did it. You let it happen when it didn’t have to.”
That more or less went over. At least she and Ron had taught some moral lessons, although she was beginning to see where they’d fallen down on the job in some respects.
It was tough to leave them, but she really had no choice. Not only did the moral lesson make sense, but, disregarding the morals of the thing, she really had no choice. In every sense of the word, they held her and the children hostage.
The plan that was worked out was both direct and clever, although they knew that there would have to be elements of improvisation. As Lind had warned, they would expect an attempt at reversal and would have some nasty surprise waiting.
She was both surprised and delighted to find that Herb could go, but the other three were team members she knew only slightly, despite the long time at the base. Nikita she knew slightly; the small, weasel-like man was not the friendly type, but he had been civil to both her and the kids. Lucia was a tough but tiny woman who looked like a born gymnast. Her dark brown skin and wooly hair bespoke a central African origin, but, of course, it was difficult to determine anyone’s true origins around here.
The fourth member was Faouma, whose name sounded vaguely Arabic but who was an enormous, Nordic-looking woman, fully six-three or better. She had a hard, permanently mean and nasty expression, and was all business.
“This has been mapped out so that each of you knows your part in the plot. The important thing is to do your assignment. Only when it’s over should you move to cover someone else. Dawn, Lucia, and I have specific things to do; Faouma and Nikita will assist as needed. Dawn? You understand the weapon?”
She nodded. “I’ve test-fired it, but with the kind of spray it gives I couldn’t miss even without the goggles.”
“Good. Remember your time schedules. It’s critical. Jump only to save your own life before we’re all out of there. Understand?”
“We’re ready,” responded Faouma. “Let’s do it.”
Just in case, all belts were set to return to an individually specified date when none of them had been in the Safe Zone in the old time and location. To return to where they were supposed to be, they would have to perform an extra setting, known only to them, on the time and location board before pressing home.
There was a certain order to it, because of relative time. Dawn and Nikita had to go first, for her initial action was crucial to the rest. Although they might miss Dawn in the scan, in the time it would take them to do their job and work down to the square, they might well be spotted by the opposition, which might then adjust its game plan.
Dawn and Nikita stood there, and on Herb’s count pressed their time controllers. Both “fell” uptime.
Dawn had half expected to become Neumann when they started with this, a personality and existence she barely remembered at all, but no longer. Neumann was Ron; she was Dawn, a nightsider. The same person could not exist in the same time period at the same time, but at this stage they were two different people entirely.
As soon as she felt solid ground and the sensations of time travel had ceased, she pulled down her goggles. At night, in this darkened position along the road, she had better vision than Nikita. She had started her watch with the others, but now could read it. It read 01:43. Nikita faded into the neighborhood, giving her backup and cover. She checked the weapon, very much like a rifle, although weighing only ounces and feeling like a child’s toy. All the settings had been perfect, but everything would be for nothing if they had made one mistake and if Marx was not, in fact, taking this route to his assignation in the square. If not, they would have to jump back no later than 01:50 and a new plan would have to be improvised.
She crouched there in the darkness, watching the road and trying to avoid the occasional oil lamps and torch lighting that smudged her vision. She checked her watch. 01:46. She began to worry that he wouldn’t come.