— You’re right," she said. "It doesn’t make sense. It should have been there."
— You still don’t understand," he said. "It can’t not have been there! I can only think of one possible explanation. A temporal disruption. There isn’t any record of Churchill in our subknowledge or in our supplementary mission programming because there was no record of a Winston Churchill as a pivotal figure in history."
"But that doesn’t make sense either," Andre said. "If that’s the case and a disruption occurred that has prevented-or will prevent-Churchill from following his historical template as we know … as you know it, then how could you know about it in the first place""
Lucas stared at her. "You want to run that by me again"
"I’m not even sure what I just said." She shook her head. "What1 mean is, if there isn’t any historical record of Churchill, then how could you remember reading about him in your history books""
"I see what you mean," he, said. "It has to be an anomaly of Zen physics. Whatever happened that caused Churchill to be wiped from history must have happened after I read about him."
"I’m confused," said Andre. "How could something have happened during his lifetime and yet have taken place after you read about him in the 27th century""
— You’re confused because you never studied Zen physics," Lucas said. "I only have a well-versed layman’s knowledge of it. Delaney’s the only one I know who’s taken the full course, and he said it almost gave him a nervous breakdown. I take that back. Our friend Dr. Darkness understands it. Hell, he could probably teach the course in his sleep. I wish to hell there was some way of getting in touch with him so we could ask him about this. Let me try to follow it through with you. Assume that some action originating in our time, in the 27th century, kicked off a chain of events that led to the disruption. For the sake of argument, let’s set up a simple hypothesis. Say somebody clocked out to Minus Time, to this scenario, on the day before we went in for our mission programming. And let’s say that someone killed Churchill."
"You’d have a paradoxical situation which would have to be resolved by a disruption," Andre said.
"Right. Up until that someone clocked out to the past in order to cause the disruption, that is, killing Churchill, there was no disruption and Churchill was part of our history. If we assume that the disruption wasn’t massive enough to overcome temporal inertia — and frankly, I don’t see how Churchill’s death wouldn’t qualify as a disruption massive enough to cause a timestream split-then temporal inertia wouldn’t be overcome. It would simply be affected significantly. You remember the analogy Delaney used, the timestream seen as a river" The river has a current, and that current is temporal inertia. An act that’s insignificant, that is, not historically disruptive enough to affect the timeflow, is like tossing a small pebble into the river. The current or the inertia overcomes any possible effect. You wouldn’t see any ripples from where you tossed the pebble in. Next, take a large rock and toss it in. The rock has mass sufficient enough to affect the current, if only temporarily. You’ll see the splash, perhaps a very brief rippling effect, and then the force of the current eliminates it or compensates for it. Now take a huge, behemoth boulder-something the size of one of these damn mountains-and toss it in the river. The effect of the current is overcome. It either dams up the river somehow, or more likely, splits the flow-creating a timestream split. The river comes back together again on the other side and you have both effects working one against the other. A historical timeline in which Churchill died and one in which he didn’t. Nobody knows how the hell that would resolve itself. It would either create a parallel universe or screw up the future six ways from Sunday. Trying to work out the possibilities has driven more than one scientist right off the deep end. Whatever it is that’s happened back here-or, from where we stand now, is about to happen-has. affected the timestream to the point that we have no historical knowledge of Churchill. It wasn’t in the mission programming because the programming session took place after whatever event it was that originated in our time affected history in this time."
Andre shook her head. "That doesn’t work," she said.
Lucas frowned. "Why not""
"Granted," Andre said, "the information could be missing from my subknowledge because my implant education took place fairly recently, relatively speaking. But when did you get your implant education""
"Why … when I enlisted, of course. But I still don’t see what that has … " His voice trailed off.
"Uh-huh," said Andre. "When did you take up reading history as a hobby""
"Not until well after I enlisted," Lucas said. "Damn! I shouldn’t remember anything about Churchill either.
"I’d say we’ve got ourselves a real problem," Andre said.
"To which no solution can possibly exist," said Lucas, "because the problem can’t exist. Only it does."
"Maybe Finn will have an answer," she said hopefully.
"Which brings up another question," Lucas said. "Will Finn remember anything about Winston Churchill" "
"What are you getting at"" said Andre.
"Suppose he doesn’t"" Lucas said.
"Okay, so suppose that. What of it""
"If Finn doesn’t have any subknowledge of Churchill, then the whole explanation works, except in that case, I’ll be the anomaly."
"I still don’t see your point."
"Remember our hypothesis. What if something I’m about to do-or something I’ve already done-is the cause of the disruption"" He bit his lower lip. "Jesus, what if I" m the guy who’s going to kill Churchill""
Chapter 5
Their arrival at the Malakand was like an entrance through the doors of Hell. The troops of the garrison were worn out from fighting. Many were wounded. Many had been killed. The broken ground was littered everywhere with bodies, far too numerous for the burial details to dispose of, even if they’d had the time. The lizards and the carrion birds were feasting.
The fort itself was situated on a hill overlooking the depression known as The Crater. The position of the garrison had been spread out when the attack commenced on the twenty-sixth of July. Malakand Post, the fort itself, was in a virtually impregnable spot, but its surroundings were its weak point. To the north-north-east of the fort was The Crater, where the largest concentration of buildings stood. There was the bazaar, which now stood ruined and blackened from flames; the commissariat; the brigade offices and the mess, on a rise overlooking the depression; and an area known as Gretna Green, site of the quarters of the 45th Sikhs. To the north of the depression was a giant rock formation known as Gibraltar Tower, which was in the hands of the enemy tribesmen, who possessed superior firing position from its heights. West of the depression was a water-filled nullah. Across the nullah, through the rocks and to the north-north west, was North Camp. The camel and transport lines were there, as well as Camp Malakand, the site of Number 8 Mountain Battery, the 31st Punjab Infantry, and a large detachment of the 11th Bengal Lancers. Back across the nullah, to the southwest of the fort, was the 24th Punjab infantry. Communications between North Camp and the Malakand Post were by telegraph. Two roads, separated by rock formations, ran parallel cast of the fort to Dargai — the graded road, and the older Buddhist Road.