Dr. Darkness was from the future. A future in which, it seemed, some cataclysmic temporal disaster had occurred. He would not reveal what it was, nor would he reveal if he’d been sent out on a mission by people from the future or was simply working on his own, he revealed very little, but it was obvious that he was trying to effect a complex temporal adjustment in an effort to avert whatever disaster had occurred in the time from which he came. And the three of them were somehow a part of the mission he was on.
Delaney groaned and shut his eyes. “Oh, God. Don’t tell me. He isn’t really here. I’m just having a bad dream.”
I’m equally pleased to see you, too. Delaney.” Darkness replied, wryly. “I’d sooner have a case of indigestion. Regrettably, one has to make do with the tools one has at hand. And you, Delaney, are unquestionably a tool.”
“Doc. I’m almost afraid to ask,” said Lucas, “but the last time we saw you, you said something about one more key mission we’d have to perform.”
Darkness nodded “That’s right, Priest. This is it.”
“Shit,” Delaney said. “I knew it. We’re all going to die.”
3
“I sincerely hope that none of you is going to die,” said Dr. Darkness, toying with his walking stick. “Otherwise all the work I’ve done will have been wasted.”
Suddenly, there was a drink in his hand. He had tached over to the bar and helped himself, then tached back, faster than the speed of light, so that it seemed as if a glass of Scotch had simply appeared in his hand out of thin air. He took a sip. “Ahh. That hits the spot.”
“I’m touched by your concern for our lives,” said Lucas, wryly.
“Spare me your sarcasm, Priest.” Darkness replied. “You owe your life to my concern, as you may recall.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” Lucas said. “And I’m grateful. However, I’m also apprehensive. It has to do with your irritating habit of not telling us your plans.”
“That’s unavoidable,” said Darkness. “I’m afraid it’s necessary for you to function on what you’d call a ‘need to know’ basis. You have to realize that from my perspective, this is the past and I need to be very careful not to interfere with certain actions you must take. At least, not until the proper time.”
“So why bother telling us at all?” asked Andre.
“Because Forrester deduced the truth about me. And, as a result, it’s necessary for me to impress upon you the importance of what I have to do.” said Darkness. “The fate of the future rests almost entirely in your hands. When the time comes, I cannot afford to have you hesitate. You will have to do exactly what I tell you, exactly when I tell you. Without question.”
“That’s asking us to take an awful lot on faith,” Delaney said.
“Yes, it is. However, I had hoped that by now, you would trust my motives.”
“Don’t get us wrong, Doc, “ Lucas said. “It’s not that we don’t trust you. You’ve saved our bacon in the past, no pun intended. You even brought me back from death. I think. I’m still not entirely sure what happened. But the point is that we’ve got a job to do and it’s hard enough doing it without your doing a job on us.”
“What Lucas means is that what we do requires peak concentration,” Andre said. “That’s hard enough to achieve without knowing that at some point, you’re going to show up and yank the rug out from under us. You’re asking us to trust you. And we’d like to do that. It doesn’t seem unreasonable, under the circumstances, for you to trust us, as well.”
“I see your point.” Darkness replied. “And I appreciate your position. But I need you to understand mine, as well. When you clock out on one of your temporal adjustment missions, one that involves your interacting with significant historical figures, you can’t very well approach them and tell them who you are and what you’re doing, can you?”
“Of course not,” said Delaney, “but that’s different. They wouldn’t believe us. They’d think we were insane. This is hardly the same situation. We know about time travel. We know you’re from the future. And we know that, somehow. we’re involved in something-or we’re going to be involved in something-that’s going to have a significant impact on what happens in the time you came from. We can understand and accept that. And we’d like to help you. But we could do a better job of it if we knew just what it was we were supposed to do.”
“I’m not convinced of that.” said Darkness. “In fact, I’ve already told you a great deal more than I should have. much more than I had planned to. My hand was forced when Forrester realized that I was from the future. The fact that you know that alone could jeopardize what I must do. It could affect your actions in a way that would sabotage my mission.”
“So then you are on a temporal adjustment mission,” Andre said
“That much is obvious.” Darkness replied. “However, that isn’t what you’re asking, is it? You want to know if I’m your counterpart from the future, if I’ve been specifically sent back here on a mission or if I’m working on my own. And that’s something I’m not in a position to tell you. I can’t stop you speculating, of course, but I can assure you that it would be pointless. It really makes no difference, either way”
“Damn it, Doc, you’ve got to tell us more than that!” exclaimed Delaney. with exasperation. “What happens in the future, where you came from? Does it happen because of something we did, or something we didn’t do?”
For a moment. Darkness did not reply. He seemed to be considering. Finally, he sighed. “It really was unfortunate that Forrester discovered the truth about me. I should have anticipated that, only I didn’t. I underestimated his resourcefulness. As a result, without meaning to, he’s endangered my mission. That’s why I had to tell him that I would have no further contact with him. It would have been too dangerous. If you hadn’t known… only you do know. And that knowledge could affect your actions. A moment’s doubt or hesitation at the crucial time…
He drained his glass and set it down on the table.
“I can tell you this much,” he said. “Nothing that you have done-and I’m speaking from a future perspective, of course-served to bring about what I’m trying to prevent. However, you are going to be in a position where you will be able to do something to significantly alter the scheme of events in the future. I have seen to that you were chosen very carefully. Telling you much more at this stage would be risky. You are approaching a key focal point in time. And when that time comes, you must do exactly as I say. Without even a second’s hesitation I had tried to improve your odds for success with those particle level implants that I gave you, but unfortunately. I was unable to perfect them and they ultimately failed. Perhaps that was my fault, perhaps it was the influence of the Fate Factor. It’s like trying to swim against the current. I’m struggling to overcome temporal inertia at almost every turn.”
“Like when I was supposed to die back in Afghanistan?” asked Lucas, softly. “What really happened, Doc? Did you change history? Was that Ghazi sniper supposed to kill me?”
Dr Darkness gazed at him steadily. “No.” he said.
“But then, how-”
“That sniper was not a Ghazi.” Darkness said. “And he was not supposed to be there.”
“What?” said Lucas. “Are you saying that…”
But suddenly, the chair was empty. Darkness had simply disappeared. Except for the empty whiskey glass standing on the table, it was as if he’d never been there.
Neilson clocked back into Tombstone shortly before dawn. P.R.T. (Present Relative Time). He had been gone slightly longer than twelve hours, but only three minutes had elapsed in 19th-century Tombstone since he had left. He had “gained” a day, a phenomenon of time travel that was one of the most difficult things fin rookie temporal agents to grow accustomed to. They would depart upon a mission to the past, or Minus Time, and could be gone for days or weeks or months or even years, yet when they returned, often no more than several hours had passed. And duty spent in Plus Time, or in the 27th century, was all that counted toward the completion of an enlistment period. This was always made very clear to new recruits, but the consequences of it were often overlooked, Since there were two different pay scales in the service-one for duty served in the present and one for time spent in the past, with the latter being far more lucrative. The pay scale for Temporal Observers, for example, was higher than that found in almost any other career, and if one was able to avoid the hazards of the duty and survive to complete his tour of enlistment, he could retire a very wealthy man.