The Empire of Time (39 page)

‘
And yet?
’

Reichenau seems almost affronted. It seems he is perversely proud of the regime he wishes to bring to its knees. A revolutionary he may be, yet he is also, curiously, a patriot.

‘And yet the Russians, who have no similar power source, appear your equals.’

‘Our
equals
?’ He roars with laughter. Beside him, his daughter is strangely silent, her face never changing from its sombre expression.

‘But of course,’ I say, sensing how restless Burckel is becoming beside me. ‘Why else would the war have continued so long? If Germany is so much more powerful …’

‘Oh, my friend, do you understand nothing? The war is not prolonged because we are incapable of winning it, it is prolonged because it is
necessary.
If we wished, we could crush those vodka-swilling peasants in a single day, a single hour.
Eradicate
them. But that would not suit our masters’ purposes. Oh no. For them the war is a means of control – each German who dies on the front, dies to keep that scum in power. So long as the war continues, then their rule is safe, the status quo maintained. But as for
equality
…’

I am silent a moment, as if considering his words.

‘It may be so. And yet …’

‘Oh damn your “And yets”! It
is
so. But things are changing. Even now …’ He hesitates, as if he’s said too much, then sits back, glaring at me.

‘What is it?’ I ask, confused by his sudden change of mood. It feels almost like I’m facing a different person.

‘Your interest in the source,’ he says quietly. ‘It proves … convenient.’

‘Convenient?’

He nods his huge head. ‘We need to know.’

‘Know?’

‘Why the power is fading.’

It’s the first thing he’s said that genuinely surprises me. Burckel, beside me, tenses. The atmosphere in the room has changed. It has a sudden, dangerous edge.

‘I don’t understand,’ I say. ‘How can it be fading? The black hole … the power from that won’t run out for half a billion years.’

His eyes search mine. ‘And yet it is,’ he says, as quietly as before. ‘Oh, they don’t know it out there – the feed to the city is but the smallest fraction of its total power – but the Guild is worried.
Very
worried. These last three days …’

Ernst
, I think.
The power-anchor to Ernst is draining the black hole’s energy.
Yet how could that be? The total energy to be tapped from a neutron star was phenomenal. Almost incalculable. To drain it in the fashion they were talking of was impossible, surely? Or was I missing something? Some crucial piece of information? Maybe they could only channel so much. Maybe …

But Reichenau is talking again, and I jerk my attention back to him.

‘ …was the only reason I agreed to see you. Your interest seemed, how shall we put it, much more than
coincidental
.’ He pauses, then. ‘It would suit the Russians perfectly, after all.’

I smile coldly. ‘We are not Russians. Nevertheless, what you say is true. Were the power to be …
diminishing
…’

The thought astonishes me. This has never happened before. Not, at least, in any of the time-lines we have explored. Yet if the time-anchor is new and untested …

It makes me wonder if the Russians actually know just how dangerous this is. If so, maybe the effects of their tampering is accidental, and not some deliberate plan to undermine the structure of what follows.

For this is where it all starts – where the loop begins and ends.

You see, certain things
must
happen here. If they don’t then time travel will never come about, and without that …

My head spins. It
has
to happen.
Has to.

Unless the whole damn thing gets blown to hell and back.

Reichenau has been silent, staring at me as if trying to make up his mind. Then, abruptly, he puts his hand out and snaps his fingers. At once the girl stands and, going over to one of the nearby shelves, takes something down and hands it to him. He stares at it a moment, then hands it across to me.

It’s a map, a simple, hand-drawn map like something a child might have sketched. I take it in, memorising all of its aspects, then hand it back to him.

He’s surprised, maybe even impressed. ‘You don’t want this?’

‘I have it.’ And I touch my forehead.

He smiles, then screws the piece of paper up and throws it away.

‘How do I get in there?’ I ask.

‘You don’t. No one does. Unless they’re authorised.’

‘So I get authorised.’

He laughs, a laughter that rolls on and on and on. ‘You are so funny, Otto. So very, very amusing.’

Heinrich sees us home. I can sense he’s not happy. He’s still polite, but now he’s monosyllabic in his responses to my questions, and when I ask when we’ll see him again, he simply shrugs. I don’t understand his sudden change of mood, but it doesn’t matter. I have what I need. All I have to do now is find a way in.

Burckel wants to talk; wants to chew it all over and make plans. But I’ve already made my own plans, and I tell him so.

‘But Otto …’

‘No. You stay here. Until I get back. If I get in trouble I’ll jump.’

He’s unhappy, but he does as I say. Leaving him there, I return to the gaming club. It’s mid-morning now, and most of the population are at work, but there are a scattering of people in Van Richtofen Strasse. All seems normal, until I step into the side alley and see, where the Club Rothaarige should be, a smouldering ruin. The place is cordoned off, visored SS officers – State Security – standing in the alley talking.

I stare for a time, pretending to be a curious bystander, and in a moment am moved on, but my heart is hammering in my chest.

What happened here? Was it gang related? Or was it an attempt on the Guildsman’s life? If so, was it successful? And what about Dankevich?

I decide to jump back. To find out just what went on after I’d left the club. But first I decide to go back and tell Burckel what’s going on.

Only Burckel’s not there. He’s gone AWOL again. I curse him, then, because time is of the essence, I jump back.

Hecht is waiting there, like he’s expecting me. And maybe he is. We
are
time travellers, after all. Yet for once it seems strange.

‘Trouble, Otto?’

‘They burned down the club.’

‘I know.’

You
know
?’

‘It’s in the histories. Only a footnote, admittedly, but …’

‘Ah.’

This is the part I don’t like. The thought that Hecht knows more than I about the situation. It makes me feel
exposed.

‘I was going to …’

He interrupts. ‘Otto. I want to show you something.’

And so we jump. Back to the clearing. Only the clearing is no longer clear. There are makeshift tents among the surrounding trees – crude bivouacs – and there, about Ernst’s glowing form, a dozen or more pilgrims kneel, praying to him.

I shake my head, astonished, then look to Hecht, speaking quietly, so as not to disturb the pilgrims.

‘How much time has passed?’

‘A week subjective.’

‘Urd save him. And he’s conscious?’

‘We’re not sure. But if he
is
…’

It’s a dreadful thought. One of the kneeling party notices us and, with a bow to Ernst, breaks away from his prayers and comes across.

‘Sires,’ he says, in that ancient, heavily slurred Russian that they speak in these parts. ‘Have you come to make offerings to the angel?’

He’s relatively young, but his hair is long and his beard thick, and he gives off the air of a priest. His clothes however are rough, undyed, and he smells like an unwashed peasant.

Hecht stares at the young man a moment, then brushes him aside with the disdain of an aristocrat. What’s more, it works. The young man, noting our manner, backs off, bowed low, like he’s in the presence of a great lord.

I turn, looking across at our trapped ‘angel’.

Seen close, I note how much clearer Ernst now is. One cannot touch him, however. The air surrounding him crackles with static and I can see from the dark, burned patches on the ground nearby that those that have tried have been badly shocked for their pains.

‘There,’ Hecht says, indicating what appears to be a lump on Ernst’s left hip.

I look closer, feeling the hair bristle on my head as it’s drawn towards the field.

‘What is it?’

‘We think it’s what’s generating the field. We scanned him, a few days back, and that seems to be one end of the anchor.’

The lump is small and fleshy – no bigger than a largish coin – yet it seems to sit
beneath
the surface of his skin.

‘It’s made of his own DNA, of course. That’s why it’s taken hold so firmly. We can’t cut it out. We tried and almost lost a man doing so. But if we could switch off the power …’

‘I have a map,’ I say. ‘I know where it is.’

‘Good.’ And Hecht looks to me and smiles. But it’s quickly gone, even as he turns back and looks at Ernst. In its place I see a great compassion fill Hecht’s eyes.

‘You mustn’t fail, Otto,’ he says. ‘This time you
must
succeed.’

I shower and change, then return to the platform, wondering all the while what Hecht meant by
this time
. Have I been before? Are we trying again and again until we somehow get it right? Or have I already failed? Am I stuck in a loop, forever repeating this futile succession of actions, forgetting what I’ve done each time, as the field about Ernst grows stronger and stronger?

Only I don’t ask, and Hecht doesn’t offer. He isn’t even there to see me off.

And so I go back again. Back to Burckel’s room. Back to Neu Berlin, my head full of Ernst and the burned-down club – and Katerina.

Standing there, just before I make the jump, I wonder how I might persuade Zarah to send me there, to see Katerina briefly, to hold her and kiss her and tell her that I love her, only … how to ask? How to explain that, for me, seeing her is almost as urgent a need as freeing Ernst? As urgent as saving every last one of us, here at Four-Oh?

How to ask, indeed. And so I find myself back in Burckel’s room, waiting on the man; wondering where he’s gone this time, and who he’s talking to. And while I sit there on the edge of his bed, I take a piece of paper and, from memory, begin to sketch her face, looking upward and to the right, her bright eyes shining with the morning light.

Katerina
.

Finished, I fold the paper and place it in my inside tunic pocket, feeling now that I have at least some small part of her with me.

Two hours pass, and I’m about to go out and start looking for him, when Burckel reappears.

‘Well?’ I ask, keeping my temper.

‘I had to deliver something. For Hecht …That package you brought with you.’

I narrow my eyes. It seems he’s telling the truth. Only now he’s got me wondering why Hecht didn’t ask
me
to deliver it.

‘So where did you go?’

He turns away, as if he’s looking about for something. ‘Oh, in the north city. I found the man …’

I’m tense now. Strangely angry. ‘Man? What man?’

He glances at me, almost unable to meet my eyes. ‘Otto, please. I can’t tell you. Hecht was very insistent. So don’t ask. You
mustn’t
ask.’

It all seems very stupid, but I acquiesce. After all, Hecht must know what he’s doing. Mustn’t he?

I squash the doubt even as it rises in my mind. The only thing I’ve got to worry about is getting to the power source and turning it off somehow. Nothing else matters. If Hecht is playing other games, then that’s not my concern, even if – this once – he chooses to exclude me from them.

‘Have you heard about the club?’ I ask, wondering if he, like Hecht, already knows.

‘No … what’s happened?’

So I tell him, and see the genuine surprise in his eyes. ‘Do you know why?’

‘No. But I’d guess it has something to do with Dankevich and that Guildsman we saw. In fact, I’d bet a small fortune on it.’

Burckel nods then turns away, once again seeming to be looking for something.

‘Have you mislaid something, Albrecht?’

‘No, I … Ah, here it is.’

I frown. ‘What is that?’

He holds it up, the chain winking silver in the light, then slips it over his head.

‘It’s a charm,’ he says. ‘A lucky charm.’

We return to Van Richtofen Strasse. It’s mid-morning now, and the sky threatens rain. Burckel and I tour the bars nearest the club
Das Rothaarige
, asking questions of waitresses and barmen, trying to piece together what’s known. It’s not much but we get a clearer picture. Rumour is that the first alarm was sounded just after four. And then – and this everyone agrees on – there was an explosion.

A bomb. It
had
to be a bomb.

No one seems to know anything about casualties, however, and so we keep going, hoping to find someone who knows something a bit more specific. Here Burckel’s a help for once, for he seems to know most of the owners, and at a club some hundred metres or so from the ruins, we are brought drinks by a man named Meissner, whom Burckel seems to have known some years. With an air of secrecy, he tells us that he has a friend who’s got the inside track on what happened, and would we like to meet him?

I hesitate, then nod, and, taking our drinks, we go through, into a back room. And there, sitting in a chair behind a desk, gun in hand, is our old friend Dankevich.

As the door closes behind us, I see the anger burning in his eyes and realise we’ve made yet another mistake.

‘Sit down!’

His voice is cold, no-nonsense. The gun is aimed at me, as if Burckel is of no consequence.

‘Andreas—’ Burckel begins, but Dankevich barks at him.

‘Shut up and sit!’

There are two chairs, like we’ve both been expected. We sit.

‘Well?’ I ask. ‘Do you know what happened?’

‘You were there,’ he says coldly. ‘You saw him. You
knew
he was there.’

‘Who?’ I say. But I know who he means. The Guildsman. And I know now that Dankevich
was
in the club when Burckel and I paid our visit, probably watching us on one of the club’s security cameras.