“They should have been back by now," said Andre, nervously drumming her fingers on the tabletop.
"But they have been gone only a few minutes," Gulliver said.
"They should have been back."
"Perhaps it's taking them longer than they expected." "You don't understand," said Andre. "We're talking about time travel, Lem. They said they'd be back in about two minutes. Our time. It could have taken them two days to meet with Forrester and pick up the floater paks, and they could still have set their warp discs to clock back in here two minutes after they left." She checked her disc. "And that was fifteen minutes ago."
She smashed her fist down on the table, almost upsetting the wine bottle.
"Damn it! First Lucas disappears, God only knows where to, then Darkness takes off after him and now Finn and Creed are overdue. Something's gone wrong. I just know it."
"What can we do?" said Gulliver.
"For this moment, nothing," Andre said, with a tight grimace. "They're supposed to be coming back here. And Dr. Darkness will be coming back as soon as he finds
Lucas. We've simply got to wait, but I hate not knowing what's going on."
"How do you think I feel?" said Gulliver, with a sigh. "At least what you are doing makes sense to you. You understand it, whereas I.. I can only marvel at these things because I can’t even begin to comprehend them. Time travel; a dead man coming back to life because somehow he didn't die and yet he did; a transparent, ghostlike man who lives upon some other planet, farther away than I can even imagine… it all defies belief, and yet I cannot dispute the reality of any of it. I tell you that if this table were to suddenly come alive and start to stroll around the room, I would not be surprised."
"You asked for it," said Andre. "You could have told us what we wanted to know and that would've been the end of it. You can still get out of it, you know."
"Yes, but I would miss the adventure of a lifetime," Gulliver said, with a grin.
"Poor Mr. Swift. He so liked my story about the little people. I wonder what he would have made of this!"
"For your own good, you'd damn well better make sure he never hears of this, " said Andre. "You've 'told him more than enough already!" She shook her head.
"Frankly, I still don't understand why Forrester let you come along on this mission.
It's simply too damn dangerous. How did you ever talk him into it?"
"Ah, well, he's a soldier," said Gulliver, picking up a small clay pipe and packing it with some shag tobacco. "And a general, at that. As a ship's surgeon, I have had some experience with serving under military men and I have seen my share of strong-willed commanders. Emotional appeals are wasted on such men. One must appeal to their pragmatism, to their sense of efficiency."
Andre looked at him with interest. "What did you tell him?"
"Simply that removing my memory of what had happened and sending me back home after all that I had seen and experienced would be a waste of a potentially valuable resource," he said, lighting up the pipe and filling the room with- the pleasant, rich smell of red Virginia tobacco blended with some Turkish leaf. "Sandy Steiger, may he rest in peace, obviously fulfilled some sort of function here. That it was a military posting was not difficult to surmise from all that I subsequently heard. And after I discussed the matter with General Forrester, I came to a clearer understanding of what it is that soldiers, Temporal Observers such as Sandy Steiger, do. Perhaps I could not fulfil that function myself, but I could certainly provide assistance as a son of liaison and subordinate. Why waste a man when you can put him to good use?"
"I don't believe it," Andre said. "You volunteered to be a field agent?"
"'It seems there is some precedent for this," said Gulliver, with a smile. "Yourself, for instance. The general also explained how certain agents had employed people from the time periods to which they were sent and I submitted that I was eminently qualified. I am better educated than most people in this time and I already have some experience in these matters. I told him that the potential benefits of accepting my services would seem to far outweigh the risks and he agreed. "
"Lem, you're an amazing man," said Andre, with a smile. "Indeed, Miss Cross, I quite agree," said a voice from behind them.
As Andre started to turn around, there was the cough of a silenced semi-automatic pistol and the empty wine bottle on the table burst apart into fragments of green glass.
"Please make no sudden moves, either one of you. I don't intend to kill you, but I will if you force my hand…
"Lord, now what?" said Gulliver. "And who is this?"
Andre stared at the gunman in the custom-tailored, mauve silk suit and slowly shook her head. “Lem, I haven't the faintest idea. “
The first thing Lucas thought was that he had materialised directly in the path of an oncoming train. The ground was' shaking and there was a rumbling sound, an incredible din, and a fierce trumpeting and then a Roman legionary knocked into him and sent him sprawling.
"Oh, Jesus.. “ Lucas said, and then there was no time for anything, not even thought, as the elephants came charging.
Another Roman soldier shouldered him aside, not even registering his strange garb in his panic to escape the charging monsters and then Lucas found himself born along by the tide as the Roman phalanx broke and ran before the terrifying onslaught.
He had been here once before. In fact, he was probably here right now. It had been one of his first missions and one of his worst ones, as well. He had been clocked out to fight with Scipio's legions against Hannibal of Carthage in one of the bloodiest struggles in history. Chances were that if he looked around, he might even see himself, dressed as a Roman legionary, running along with the others.
However, there wasn't any time to look. The elephants were upon them and Lucas was plunged right back into one of his worst nightmares. And he knew exactly why.
He had no one to blame but himself. Ever since this awful mission, whenever things had gotten tough, he always referred back to this debacle, the rout of the Roman soldiers before Scipio managed. miraculously, to turn it all around. “You think this is tough?” he used to say at such times. “Try going up against a charging elephant with nothing but a Roman short sword and a spear. '" Often, he would refer back to his stint with Scipio Africanus whenever he became exasperated.
"Christ, it almost makes me wish I was 'back facing Hannibal and his fucking elephants!"
Well, his telempathic chronocircuitry had granted him his wish. He had become exasperated with Dr. Darkness and the old thought had occurred to him I really need this, he had thought. Hell, I'd rather be back with Scipio facing Hannibal and his damn- Elephants!
He leaped to one side and rolled as the massive, trumpeting creature came charging past him, stomping Romans into jelly, and then he rolled again as another elephant missed him by scant inches. And they came on, one after the other, and Lucas found himself scrambling panic-stricken, choking on the dust and leaping around like a grasshopper on speed, trying to avoid the tremendous feet that came down like gigantic grey pistons, threatening to crush him. The dust was so thick that he could barely see. He kept diving to one side, then the other, rolling, jumping, desperately trying to avoid being trampled and then, miraculously, they were past him and he was crouching on the ground, coughing from the dusty fog that enveloped him, his eyes red, his throat raw, every muscle fibre screaming in protest from the strain…