There had been a flash of light, an odd sound, starting low and going beyond the limits of my hearing, shaking the building. And suddenly I had lost all muscle control.
I had passed out, but I wasn't sure if it was from the weapon. I think I whacked my head on the corner of the table as I went down, and again on the floor.
My eyes hurt, too. I couldn't move them. I couldn't even blink. They were drying out.
For a second I thought I was dead, that this was what death was like. Then I discovered I was still breathing. I could feel the cold concrete floor under me, the cold air over me, and my chest rising and falling. I could see the lattice of steel roof girders and a couple dim lights.
That was my universe.
Broken neck, I thought. Quadraplegic. Catheters and iron lungs and feces bags and no sex life ...
But it didn't add up to a broken neck. I could feel my legs. One was bent slightly under me, and it was going to sleep. I knew when I moved -- if I ever moved again -- it would be pins and needles.
I don't remember a lot of the next few minutes. I was scared, I don't mind admitting it.
Something had happened I didn't understand. All I could do was lie there. I couldn't even look away from the ceiling.
"Then I found there was something else I could do. I could hear.
It was nothing loud, but it was the only sound in the hangar, so I heard it. I decided it was two people walking, trying to do it quietly. I never would have heard them if I wasn't listening so hard.
After a long time of that, I decided it was three people. Later, I was sure it was four. It was amazing how much I could hear if it was all I had to do.
I waited. One of them would come close soon enough, and they'd decide what to do with me.
One of them did. I saw him looming into my field of vision. He was looking down at me.
He turned, and whistled softly. I heard the others converging. They gathered around me. They made a circle and looked down at me. They were wearing what looked like scuba suits: all black rubber, covering everything but their faces.
"Who is it?" one of them asked.
"Who do you think?"
I knew that voice.
Well, she had said she'd see me tonight.
They debated whether or not I was alive. Then they moved out of my hearing; at least, though I could tell they were whispering about me, I couldn't hear the words. I had the impression some of them were not in English.
They came a little closer and took another look. This time I heard a few words here and there.
" ... shorted something out."
" ... stun beam ... focused ... "
"Damn lucky ... dead man ... "
"What the hell is he doing here now?" That was Louise .
" ... take the stunner?"
" ... Gate's due in twenty minutes ... hell out of here."
"He's sure sweating a lot."
That didn't surprise me. I didn't expect to sweat much longer, though. I knew I was a dead man. I'd stumbled into something I wasn't supposed to see, some kind of stun weapon. Since I couldn't move my eyes I hadn't gotten a good look at them, but I remembered vague shapes dangling from their belts, and everything about them shrieked commando. They weren't here to play games.
So I'd surely be killed.
About all I didn't understand -- at least in the tactical sense was why Louise had revealed herself to me so many times before now. Had she been trying to enlist my help in some way? I remembered how badly she'd wanted me to stay away from work today. Okay, so she was trying to keep me from being here when they made their search ... except that I hadn't even known I was going to be here until an hour ago. Normally, I wouldn't have been in this hangar at this hour.
Something had screwed up badly for them and I had no idea what it was, but l was sure the easiest solution for their present problem was for me to die.
I couldn't believe it when I heard them going away.
Then Louise was back. She loomed over me so suddenly that if I could have moved, I'd have jumped a foot. I could feel my heart hammering, and the drops of sweat flowing down the side of my face.
"Smith," she said. "You don't know me. I can't tell you who am. But you're going to be all right."
17 "When We Went to See the End of the World"
Testimony of Louise Baltimore
I had never seen Gate Operations as quiet as it was when I stepped through from Bill's hotel room.
These things are relative, of course. I wasn't there ten seconds before the Gate Congruency Duty Officer warned me to get out of the way, and I stood aside to watch about a hundred soldiers of the Roman Second Century fall down the chutes and into the sorting apparatus.
But when they were gone, the place was utterly quiet. On a slow day Operations is about as quiet as Chinese New Year.
I went up to Gate Control. Lawrence was there at his console, which was not surprising since he couldn't leave it. What was surprising was that out of hundreds of other duty stations, there were only five or six gnomes left. It was a little bit as if, on a trip to Nepal, one discovered most of the individual peaks of the Himalayas had taken a trip to Japan.
One station still occupied was Lawrence's second-in-command, David Shanghai. He was flipping switches one at a time, and each time he hit one a light went off on his console. He had a faint smile on his face.
"Hello, Louise," Lawrence said. "I hope the assignment wasn't too hard."
"He was hard enough," I said. "What's all this? Where's everybody? I thought there wouldn't be any more snatches until this paradox was resolved."
He shrugged.
"We didn't plan to. Then this situation in North Africa presented itself, and we just decided to go for it. I guess old habits die hard. We got ninety-three centurions in prime condition. They'll be a "lost battalion," or whatever they call it."
David's board was almost dark now. When he had it down to one glowing ready-light, he looked up at Lawrence.
"Good-bye," he said, and he nodded to me. He turned off the last light.
His eyes closed, and he leaned back in his chair.
"Good-bye," Lawrence said, not looking at him. The words were too late, anyway. David was already dead. He'd switched off his heart, located somewhere under his chair.
"Is that where everybody went?" I asked.
"That's it. Will you be needing me for anything?"
"Fuck you. What a thing to ask. Where's Sherman?"
"He's at your apartment. He said to remind you that your second time capsule is ready to be opened in thirty minutes. After you read it, he said, you'll know what to do."
I looked at Lawrence. He didn't look back, just gazed over the deserted Operations floor.
"Are you really ready to shut yourself off?"
"There's no hurry. I can wait until you've seen Sherman."
"It's a hell of a thing for me to ask," I said, "but I'd appreciate it if you would. Just until I see if he has anything else in mind."
"You know where to find me."
I went to the ready-room to get some clothes. There were three of my girls in there, dead, holding hands.
"Wipe those smiles off your faces," I told them. "This is going to look terrible on your records."
They didn't seem to appreciate the humor. I went to my locker and poked. through it. Talk about time's closet. I had outfits in there ranging from poorly cured leopard hide to a spacesuit you could carry in your hip pocket. But my last pair of blue jeans had been ruined about a million years ago while being worn by a wimp who was also wearing my face.
What do you wear when you go to see the end of the world? What's the proper outfit for an extinction? I chose the dress I'd worn when we took the Titanic. Those had been the good old days.