Ghosts of Time (24 page)

The smell of whiskey might have been overpowering, but it was already overlaid by another aroma: that of smoke. And to the south the glow of flames was lighting the sky.

“They’ve carried out the council’s other order and fired the tobacco warehouses along the riverfront. And the fire is already spreading.”

“Yes. I remember.” Even as Jason said it, he felt a stiff southerly wind begin to blow.

As they watched, the flames leapt from building to building, igniting the old colonial-vintage timber of many. As the roaring, crackling, hissing inferno rolled up from the waterfront, consuming the commissariat, the heat and smoke grew stifling and even the rioters fled. Old buildings came crashing down in showers of sparks and flying bricks and plaster as their beams split.

They stumbled on, until Gracchus recognized a black man—particularly black, with soot—up ahead. They spoke briefly, and Gracchus turned grimly to Jason.

“The rest of my people have already headed northwest, toward Capitol Square. Lots of people are sheltering there—at least it’s away from the burning buildings.”

“And maybe the Transhumanists are up there,” Novak speculated, coughing on the smoke that made it increasingly difficult to speak.

“Maybe,” said Jason. He summoned up his implant’s digital clock display, and frowned. His eyes met Mondrago’s in an instant of shared understanding. “We’re going to have to be very cautious in that area. You see . . .” He decided not to explain why; there was no time, and Gracchus wouldn’t have understood anyway. “All right, Gracchus, lead the way.”

CHAPTER THIRTY

They headed west along Cary Street, until the canal basin was on their left, its water reflecting the flicker of flames to the southeast. To the right, up Eleventh Street three blocks, they could glimpse the darkened expanse of Capitol Square, on Council Chamber Hill. They started to turn in that direction.

It was at that moment that a tiny cluster of blue dots flickered at the edge of Jason’s field of vision . . . to the west, further along Cary Street.

“Gracchus, the Transhumanists are this way.”

Gracchus didn’t bother asking how Jason knew. He pointed north. “I’ve got to go find my people.”

“All right. We’ll find you later.”

“Or I’ll find you.” And Gracchus was gone, up the hill.

“Let’s go!” Even as Jason said it, the dots flickered again, and were gone. Cursing the short range of the bionics-detector function, he led the way by the light of the flames to the south, past the packet office from which the last canal packet boat had long since departed and on across the railroad tracks that ran along the center of Eighth Street. There, the blue dots blinked tantalizingly, only to vanish as the Transhumanists again opened up the distance between them. He urged greater speed on the others. Ahead, the fire was spreading and they went cautiously between burning buildings, wary of collapsing walls. Just ahead and only a block to the right, at Fifth and Main, the flames had engulfed the United Presbyterian Church, and its tall steeple was swaying drunkenly.

“Commander!” gasped Dabney, struggling to keep pace. “Surely you realize we’re headed in the direction of—”

“I know,” said Jason impatiently. “Remember, I was here before.”
And, in fact, Jason Mk I is here right now
, he reminded himself. He consulted his clock display. It was almost three A.M. “But we’ve got a little time. In fact—”

All at once, an idea occurred to him.

The Transhumanists, aside from a few not-very-well-regarded specialists, have no interest in history—in fact, such an interest is slightly suspect among them. Stoneman will, of course, have been briefed by those specialists. But he may be hazy on the exact sequence and location of events tonight.

Maybe . . . just maybe. . . .

“Come on!” he snapped, and continued along Cary Street.

Dabney was openly jittery now. Even Mondrago looked a little nervous. “Uh . . . sir, are you keeping an eye on your clock? We’re headed toward—”

At that moment, just a block to the right, the burning, tottering United Presbyterian spire finally toppled over and, with a rending crash and a shower of fiery debris, crashed to the street amid the screams of the watching crowd.

It was so startling and so distracting that Jason didn’t notice the reappearance of the little blue dots until it was too late.

“Halt! Don’t move!” came a horribly familiar voice, this time with the undertones of a vocal enhancement implant. Caught unaware, they were susceptible to that subsonic suggestion for the second or two before they could nullify it by conscious resistance. They froze as commanded. By the time their mental defenses had taken hold, four goons had stepped out from an alley, aiming Colt revolvers. They stayed frozen under those guns, in hands whose trigger fingers were actuated by genetically upgraded reflexes. Jason had a feeling the goons were under instructions to watch his face for indicia of the mental concentration required to activate his party’s “controllable” TRDs, and that their retrieval would return four bullet-riddled corpses to the Authority’s displacer stage, leaving one red-haired one lying in Cary Street until April 5.

Behind the goons came Stoneman, smiling.

The fleeing, panic-stricken people in the street paid no attention. On this night of horror and lawlessness, one group of Confederate soldiers pointing guns at another was hardly to be noticed, and certainly not to get involved in. No one interfered as one of the goons relieved them of their own revolvers under the watchful eyes and steadily aimed Colts of the other three. Stoneman sauntered up before Jason, wearing his infuriating smile. His revolver was, Jason noted, held nonchalantly.

“So you’re still here,” Jason observed in a tone he hoped was as irritating as Stoneman’s smirk.

“Quite. I remained in northern Virginia for some time after your escape, during which time I informed my superiors of what had occurred via message drop.” (
Meaning,
Jason mentally interjected,
that you weren’t using a “controllable” TRD. Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean the Transhumanist underground doesn’t have them.
) “So these reinforcements were dispatched.” Stoneman indicated the goons. “They brought the cache you have located on Belle Isle, and which I gather you haven’t already destroyed, doubtless for some reason connected with the Observer Effect. Now, of course, you’ll never destroy it.”

“Speaking of which,” asked Jason levelly, “why are we still alive?”

“You won’t be for long. But to answer your question, there are two reasons.” For an instant, Stoneman’s mask of insouciance slipped to reveal sheer, gloating malice. “The first is that before you die I want you to know what a chance you missed when you blew up my cabin. All the delicate advanced equipment was destroyed, true. But
this
survived the blast, as I discovered when I sifted through the rubble afterwards.” With a theatrical gesture, he reached inside his tunic pocket and produced a tiny lozenge-shaped plastic case. Jason recognized it, for it was standard: what appeared to be simple plastic was in fact a superhard composite laminate substance, for this was a damage-resistant casing for a data chip.

“The chip,” Stoneman explained, “was one which we required for various functions. It also bears certain data which needs to be returned uptime. Otherwise I would have destroyed it after finding it, to eliminate any possibility of you subsequently obtaining it. For, you see, it contains a great deal of incidental data about our technology—including our time travel technology—which you would have liked very much to possess. Oh, yes: very, very much!”

Jason commanded his face to expressionlessness, not wishing to give Stoneman the satisfaction of revealing that which the Transhumanist so avidly wanted to see there. But inwardly, his thoughts were raging.
My God! A clue to the hole in Weintraub’s math that causes our temporal displacement hardware to be almost prohibitively massive and inefficient and energy-intensive, while theirs is compact enough to be concealable and even semi-portable. There’s nothing we wouldn’t give for it!

“You indicated that there’s a second reason,” was all he said.

“Yes.” Stoneman seemed slightly miffed by Jason’s seeming impassivity. “I want to know if you have any more men at large in or around this city, and if so where they are. I advise you to tell me. Remember, you can go quickly and cleanly, or else . . . otherwise.”

Once again, Jason kept his features immobile with an effort, for now his earlier half-formed idea came roaring back. He summoned up his clock display. Yes. Almost 3:00 A.M.

It might actually work.

I’ve got to play it very carefully, though. I can’t fall down at Stoneman’s feet, slobbering and begging for mercy. He’s too smart—he’d know it was fake.

“What makes you think I’d tell you?” Jason infused the question with the truculent defiance Stoneman would expect, but he insinuated the barest quaver, the subtlest hint of underlying apprehension.

“This.” Stoneman seemed to seize on the slight suggestion of weakness. He held up his seemingly standard Colt Model 1860 .44 caliber Army. “It incorporates an undetectably miniaturized but quite effective nerve-lash.”

It took very little acting skill for Jason to break out in a sweat. In his time, the nerve-lash was seriously illegal to possess, much less use. But in the nightmare years of the Transhuman Dispensation, a century and a half before that, it had been a common instrument for control of “lower life-forms.” Thankfully, it was only usable by direct contact. By direct neural induction, it stimulated the human nervous system to the ultimate capacity of its pain receptors short of driving the mind in question, shrieking, into the refuge of insanity.

But even now, he knew Stoneman wouldn’t buy a too-facile surrender. And thus he knew, with gut-churning certainty, what had to be done next.

“You’re lying,” he made himself say.

At once, a goon grasped his arms from behind and pulled them up into an immobilizing position. With a smile, Stoneman touched an invisible control on the side of his revolver and, very gently and briefly, brushed the muzzle against the side of Jason’s neck.

At that fleeting contact, his entire body, mind and soul contained nothing but excruciating agony. Heedless of the relatively trivial pain in his arms, he arched convulsively in the goon’s grip, then went limp, shuddering, as the nerve-lash was instantly withdrawn. The goon released him, to fall in a shivering, nauseated heap.

“All right,” he gasped, “I’ll tell you.” He wished, in defiance of the negative results of centuries of research, that there had been something to telepathy, so he could mentally command his followers not to queer the pitch. Because this was crucial.

He needn’t have worried. Dabney understood, because he knew what was about to happen, and the Service men grasped it at once. In fact, Mondrago comprehended it so well that he broke in with his own contribution. “Don’t tell him, Commander! God damn it, don’t betray the others!”

Stoneman gestured impatiently to one of the goons, and a pistol barrel was backhanded across the side of Mondrago’s head, not hard enough for him to lose consciousness but sufficient to send him to his knees, dizzy and bleeding. Stoneman turned back to Jason. “Well, Commander?”

Jason got unsteadily to one knee (but
not
to his feet, for he knew what was coming) and consulted his clock display again.
Yes, it must be just about time.
He gestured southward. “A couple of my men are waiting at Seventh and Arch Street. They’re still there, even though the fire is spreading into that area.”

For an instant, the look on Stoneman’s face made him fear he had blown it after all. But then he realized it was a look of mildly surprised disappointment, not one of suspicion. The Transhumanist gave rapid orders to two of the goons, who departed in the indicated direction. The other two, with two revolvers each, kept the prisoners covered.

“I must admit to a degree of disillusionment, Commander Thanou,” said Stoneman. “Even under nerve-lash, I expected better from you, Pug though you are. But one never knows, does one?” He shook his head, then turned brisk, playfully tossing the little case up and catching it. “Now, as to the manner of your death: I know what I said before, but assurances to Pugs of course mean nothing, so—”

A flash to the south suddenly flooded the scene with light. At the same instant the night was shattered by a deafening roar and a concussion that sent everyone staggering, as the fires reached the National Arsenal and thousands of artillery shells exploded in a blast that shook Richmond’s seven hills, shattering windows and sending chimneys toppling over blocks away as a great pulse of heated air and smoke spread outward, bearing a shower of fragments . . . including the fragments of two goon-caste Transhumanists.
The best use to which the Confederate States of America’s munitions were ever put,
flashed through Jason’s stunned mind.

It was, he knew, only the beginning of Richmond’s climactic agony. One after another, a hundred thousand shells, including those on the Confederate Navy ironclads that had been run aground on the riverbank, would explode all through the remainder of the night and into the morning, without letup: four nerve-wracking hours of continuous, ear-bruising blasts, worse by far than a Union bombardment would have been.

Jason, who was expecting it and was kneeling, remained steady. The Transhumanists were sent stumbling forward by the shock wave from behind them. Stoneman practically fell onto Jason, who grasped the wrist of his gun-hand. At the same time, he dropped the tiny case, which went skittering and bouncing playfully off along the cobblestones. He and Jason grappled, the latter handicapped by apprehension that the nerve-lash feature of the Colt his opponent was still grimly clutching might still be activated.

A succession of shots distracted his attention, and he saw out of the corner of his eye that one of the goons was getting off a succession of rounds from his two revolvers—probably fewer rounds than he would have with one, and the other hand free to “fan” the hammer. But he was doing so while off-balance, and his shots went wild. Novak went under those shots and sent him sprawling with a
savate
kick, then rushed him and grappled for the pistols. The other goon, whom the concussion had sent to his knees, was unable to get off a shot before Aiken brought a knee up into his face and sent him sprawling over backwards, dropping one of his revolvers. With the resilience of his gengineered breed, he sprang back to his feet—only to be shot through the midriff by Mondrago, who, though still exhibiting the after-effects of dizziness, had scooped up the dropped pistol.

All of which distracted Jason just enough for Stoneman, with a surge of genetically upgraded muscles, to bring his Colt’s muzzle into contact with Jason’s cheek. For the second time, he convulsed with sickening agony, and Stoneman broke free. He started to bring the Colt—no doubt also useable as an ordinary pistol—to bear on the uncontrollably shuddering Jason.

Then, as though in slow motion—or so it seemed to Jason, in what he was coldly certain was the last second of his life—Mondrago swung around to bring his revolver into line on Stoneman. At the same instant, Novak smashed his opponent’s left hand against the cobblestones, forcing him to drop the pistol it was holding. In appreciably the same motion, he brought his right elbow down on the goon’s throat, crushing the larynx, then swept up the dropped pistol and brought it around.

In that fractional second, Stoneman must have instantly analyzed the situation and decided he had more important business than a gunfight he probably wouldn’t win.

Without even pausing to shoot Jason, he dived to the street, sliding along on his stomach as Mondrago’s and Novak’s bullets whizzed over him, grabbed the little laminate case, then sprang to his feet and sprinted east down Cary Street. The Service men fired after him, but the Colts were inaccurate beyond short ranges, especially in the flickering light of burning Richmond. He was soon gone.