“Wake up,” she said in a hushed tone, shaking him gently. He stirred, moaned a little, then said, “ ’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.
Tiny Alfie, almost smothered in the enormous suit, faded out. Almost immediately her hands went to her own belt, and she pressed the “Home” key.
Now there was only one thing left to do.
THE TWISTED CIRCLE
“In many ways, this is the most important operation of this team,” said Chung Lind, looking over maps and diagrams on a huge table. “It may also be nothing at all. Still, a chance at Eric, perhaps at their whole operation, is worth the risk.”
A number of them had studied all the material and made suggestions one way or the other, but the truth was, they were severely handicapped, as they were in almost any operation directly against the other side.
That was why it was so surprising that Earthside had been able to commit everything to the Trier operation. True, they had the savants, which Ron had called gargoyles, but they needed a smart human boss to do almost anything. Those humans suffered from the same limitations as the ones on the team. When you spent too much time in any period, you gave up some of your freedom of action forever.
In point of fact, only three Outworlders had any margin of safety in the time frame, and one of those was Dawn.
When such a situation developed, there was nothing to do but actually hire people in the frame to do most of the work. A cover, some sort of excuse, could always be manufactured, and, of course, the date of the actual action they were trying to prevent, and the specifics of it, were a matter of record.
And so a team of excellent American detectives had been hired and extremely well financed. Some were tracking down one or another members of the radical party, but the main focus was on the one on the inside, Dr. Karen Cline. At some point she had to make contact either with the radicals or with the Earthsiders directly. If not, they would have to stop it in the parking lot, and that would be pretty damned bloody.
Cline’s activities had been perfectly normal and almost robotically regular and precise until just six days before the operation. Since then, regular purchases had nearly stopped, and her routine was varied occasionally by trips to a travel agency, a car rental company in Washington, and other such odd behavior. The agents shadowing her had problems keeping out of sight of the government agents regularly assigned to follow and check on her, but those agents didn’t seem unduly alarmed. Apparently, she had a vacation coming in late May, and had indicated she was going to take it.
Outworlder agents, who already knew something was going on, had the advantage here, and one slick operative noted that Cline’s only charge card was an infrequently used American Express card, but she had not used it either at the rental agency or the travel agency, paying by check instead. Why not?
She had arranged to rent a small van, but for later pickup. That van, it was realized, could carry the radical team and its equipment. Agents were put on the car rental agency to see just who picked up that van and where it went.
Chung Lind was particularly irritated that he had to go through all this the hard way, but there really was no other way to do it. A monitor by the master computer specifically on Cline, however, had picked up one thing of vital importance.
Cline, as of six days before the incident, was not totally in phase with the time frame.
“That explains the last of it,” Doc noted. “The only reason we didn’t see it before was that she was a highly educated woman, a Ph.D., in a very important project.”
Dawn frowned. “You mean she’s one of them!”
“Most likely the woman heading the second team in Trier,” Doc replied. “If you get rid of the surface, it fits. She’s a loner, both parents dead, no romantic entanglements and, as far as can be seen, no interest in them. She’s a competent technician, but has no imagination or genius. They managed to fit her into the most perfect slot imaginable.”
Lind sighed. “So we’re dealing with a smart, extra-competent Earthside agent. She won’t have to get into direct contact with them, though. She’s done all she can to set things up; now all she has to do is settle back and wait for it to happen. Eric probably arranged for the team to be recruited and he’ll bring the elements together, probably in a period identity of his own.”
The date for the attack was Monday, May 14. On Saturday, May 12, John Bettancourt picked up the van and drove it south to the county seat of Prince Frederick, Maryland, not much of a drive from the plant, and checked into a motel under the name of Donald Hartman. He did not leave it again until the next morning, so tapping his calls was impossible, but, after eating breakfast, he drove a few miles north and turned off onto a road leading to a small summer cottage right on Chesapeake Bay. The cottage, rented by a young couple named Freeman, clearly had other visitors as well.
“That’s it, then,” Lind sighed. “There is no sign anyone left before dark, so that’s when and where we’ll hit them. It was an ideal location for them, and it makes an ideal location for us. Almost no locals in the area, few cops—quiet. Doc, I hate to ask it of you, but it’s all yours now. Be careful.”
Kahwalini nodded and turned to Dawn. “Come. Let’s go back and talk this over.” They went back to her office.
“Dawn,” Doc said carefully, “now is the time to think a little about not only this but what comes next. Louis is already uptime with the agents, as Jerry Brune, a laid-off steelworker. I’ll be going up just before the raid, to handle the stakeout on Cline’s apartment. If she gets spooked, we hope she’ll make for her belt, and that will turn the tables.”
“You think Eric is in that house, as somebody else?”