She sat up and stared at him. “You allowed them to escape?’’
“I’m afraid so. Joseph, as Eric, reopened the time project, and created quite a mess for us to straighten out. The edge continued on, and his and his sister’s efforts greatly lengthened the war. All but a few of the great stockpiled weapons of planetary destruction have now been neutralized. Depending en the skill of our extraordinary team, it may soon be over. Then we will come down and liberate the Earth, not as conquerors but as children returning to aid their elderly and infirm parents. The leadership will pack up and escape to their rear time base, while giving the commands to destroy the Earth after they leave. They will go. It is too difficult to stop them. But the Earth will survive and they will not know it.”
She did not feel like Dawn, and she certainly didn’t feel like anyone’s mother, and so it was a great surprise to her that she felt sudden anger well up inside her at what he now said. “You deceived my children and turned them to evil? My Joseph and Ginny?’’ She half rose from her chair in anger, and only a steady gaze from his sad, dark eyes stopped her from going any further.
“Yes. Two lives dirtied so that millions, perhaps billions, may live. It is a sad choice of war. Our Lord went to the cross to save even more.”
“Yeah, but he could get up and go again stronger than ever!”
“And so may you and those children. Get some rest here, relax, get your mind and heart clearly in order. When you are ready, we can rejoin the children not long after you left. When the time comes for final victory, you will all go forward to join the future—human, if you wish, helping in the massive job of rebuilding the Earth, or the other kind of human, going out to explore and learn and claim the stars.”
She stared at him, and wanted very much to believe him, but she just wasn’t sure. And, of course, there was another problem. “You’re forgetting who and what I am now.”
“What are you? Nothing that Mary Magdalene was not at one time. She chose correctly and achieved greatness and eternal salvation.”
“But—them kids! They won’t take me as their mom! And I sure as hell don’t feel like no mom!”
“You are still very much their mother, and that love and bond is still within you. You have just proven that. The rest is cosmetic, and that is a trivial matter. Have I not just been saying that this is at the heart of that great and terrible war? If you knew what a Martian human looked like, you would not worry. Physical adjustments as minor as yours, using our biology or the old-time method meticulously controlled by the computer, are too minor to even mention.”
She had to grant him that, and for the first time felt some real hope. “But if I go through this last thing, if I close this last loop, then Eric won’t ever have existed. Won’t that screw up the plan?”
“Ron Moosic exists, and so do you. Eric will be cut off, a leftover at the edge of time. Remember, all that has happened so far actually happened. We wipe out only the record, not the event. What will happen to him, only time can tell, if you’ll pardon me.”
She felt suddenly very weary and very old, more accepting his proposition than understanding, let alone embracing, it. What was truth and what was lies? Who was real and who was just downtiming the night side?
Only time will tell, she thought, drifting off in the chair. If they let it.
EPILOGUE
LEADING EDGE, MAIN TIME LINE
It literally looked like Hell in the Party’s headquarters; half the place seemed to be on fire. Actually, dozens of frantic aides were rushing about pulling and destroying files, computer records, and all the basic control machinery that had managed Earth for so long a time from this tiny spot. Of particular import were all materials in any medium referring to time travel, the time project, or the master computer far downtime.
These were the lucky ones—the one hundred men and women who would be allowed to go back. There might have been more, but there were only one hundred time belts available and the prehistoric complex could comfortably house and provide for no more than a few hundred anyway.
A dozen were the Central Committee, of course, and that was to be regretted, but no project like this could go through to completion unless they were included, even if they were far older than would be useful. The rest were family, close associates, trusted aides, and their families.
Most of the complex of several thousand thought they were going, too, and awaited the transfer of the first hundred with nervous anticipation. The belts were then to be homed back to the time control complex and be used again, and again, a hundred at a time, until all were safe.
They didn’t know how limited the facilities were downtime, and never suspected for a second that those belts would never return.
Nor did they know that Chairman Shumb had already read in what were known as the Armageddon Codes into the master computers worldwide that would explode within an hour of the Chairman’s own farewell with such monstrous force that they might well shake Earth’s orbit and blow so much radioactive debris into the air that the world would be plunged into a horrible, cold darkness for years, while radioactivity scoured the planet of even the hardier forms of life.
They didn’t even know about the massive superbomb sitting underneath this very complex, which, when it went, would make their silly scramble to destroy all records and controls an exercise in childish futility.
Max Shumb sighed, looked at his watch, then got up from his big desk and looked around the office he’d occupied for so many years. He didn’t want to leave, didn’t want to give up what had become so much a part of him, but it was either do so or perish with the Earth. He had no intention of doing that. One of these days they might work out a way back there in the great prehistoric wasteland to keep this from happening, to prevent what was now inevitable. He liked to think so, if only because of the great art and great works of literature he would lose here.
The death of the population of the Earth did not trouble him in the slightest. Only a few human beings really mattered other than himself. The rest were mostly cattle, easily replaced if you had enough time and enough women.
General Kolodin entered and saluted smartly. “Sir, we are ready to transport and time is getting short. I must insist that you come with me immediately.”
Chairman Shumb nodded and sighed. “Yes, you’re right, Alexei.”
The general looked around the room and read his leader’s thoughts. “It’s not really gone, you know. Not so long as the belts work.”
Shumb grinned. “You know just what to say every time.”
“The Russian is a pragmatist at all times. It is the climate that does it.” He paused a moment. “There is still the matter of Eric Benoni.”
“Huh? Second Wave, isn’t he? Won’t that take care of itself?”
“Sir, he’s quite clever and he thinks well ahead for self-preservation. He is insisting on First Wave priority.”
“That son-of-a-bitch is a pushy bastard, isn’t he? He’s the one who was supposed to bail us out and instead we’re riding down the toilet, and now he expects to get a free ride. Where is he now?”
“In the reception area near the time project control center.”