TIME PRIME (29 page)

“I’ll go to his suite later tonight with Ranthar. Hartley’s detective is part of a twenty-man firm; not quite the Pinkertons, but not an outfit I’d want to fool with. We’ll remove and erase all records relating to the Hartley request and hypno-mech all the operatives involved, including the detective. We should be out of here by tomorrow evening with a clean slate.”

“Good. I take it you’ve finished the Wizard Trader interrogations. How did they go?”

“Three more hypno-triggered deaths and one real suicide. The others don’t know anything of value. The Hartley Teams are still working their way through the Belt; they should have it cleared in another ten-day.”

“How were our losses?” she asked.

“Overall, we’ve only lost about a hundred and seventy field agents. Not bad for an operation this size. Now, what are we going to do about some of that data you peeled out of Hartley?”

“I don’t know,’ Dalla answered. “It’s obvious from Allan’s psychic state and his accomplishments that he’s from the future, or at least
this
time-line’s future. He’s unique in the annals of Paratime travel. Reputations could be made and broken based on the evidence he can provide proving that parapsychological time travel
is
possible. Unfortunately, he doesn’t have the faintest clue as to how or why. It was only the threat of imminent death that
caused
him to return to his own past. Of course, that doesn’t rule out other triggers, but Allan’s never had a repeat psychic time-travel experience. In fact, other than his superior mental abilities, he is in all other aspects a typical Europo-American Sector outtimer.

“Did he provide you any information on the Big War?” Verkan asked. “That could be very useful on any other time-lines that have a similar history to the Hartley Belt. The entire Europo-America Sector is highly unstable and it would be nice to know when to pull our people out before the shooting starts.”

“He told me about something called the Philadelphia Project and Operation Triple Cross. The Indonesian Campaign of 1962 and 1963 E.A.S.T. Most of this forecast is particular only to the Hartley Belt and the Islamic Kaliphate Subsector. The triple power bloc and resulting political instability is unique to the Kaliphate and not representative of the Europo-American Sector as a whole.”

“What’s the divarication point for the Kaliphate?”

“While you were gone, I had time to go over the Survey reports on the Kaliphate,” Dalla reported. “From what I can deduce, it was Harry Truman’s defeat in the 1948 Presidential Election that defines this branch. However, the actual divarication point is unclear: it may have been the attempted assassination of Strom Thurmond, which gave him a big boost in the Southern States, drawing off enough votes from Harry Truman in the 1948 Election to guarantee his defeat. Unlike Truman, President Thomas E. Dewey went along with Britain’s anti-Israeli policy, forcing the Israelis to withdraw from the Negev Desert, which, without the Faluja pocket, denied hero status to Abdel Nasser of Egypt. In the Kaliphate Subsector Nasser never toppled King Farouk to become President of Egypt or start the United Arab Republic.

“With Israel weakened and deprived of US support, there was a shift in the balance of power among those states bordering Israel, enough to provide Khalid ibn Hussein an opportunity to create the new Kaliphate. Khalid has managed to merge the Muslim states into an effective power bloc, strong enough to face off the Soviet Union and United States.”

“The Department doesn’t have a big presence in the Kaliphate Subsector,” Verkan said, “so let’s fill in the Chief and let him make the call. I’ll suggest that he set up some watch posts in Basra on at least a score of Kaliphate time-lines.”

Dalla let out a sigh of relief. “Good idea, hubby.”

“What, are you going
native
? Calling me hubby—Fangs of Fasif, no! Next thing I know, you’ll be hanging out in one of those retro Old Town Dhergabar ‘joints,’ listening to jazz.”

She laughed, then quickly sobered. “What do I tell the Rhogom Foundation about young Hartley?”

Verkan shook his head. “Not a word.”

“Look Vall, I know you don’t like Director Volzar Darv, but the Foundation does a great deal of excellent work in psychic research which, by the way, nobody else is doing. And, don’t kid yourself, the Foundation is always going to be a part of my life.”

“I know that, Dalla. But if we were to tell them about Allan Hartley, it’s not going to do them any good. It’s not like Allan can go back and forth between the past and the future—”

“We don’t know that,” she said. “Maybe with the proper stressors—”

“Like another A-bomb going off!” Vall exclaimed. “That’s what scares me about you...I mean, the Foundation. Your Fellows keep at it, worry the subject to death. So, what if Hartley can move his ego component through time, but only under a credible threat of discorporation? The Foundation will keep almost-killing the poor son-of-a-bitch until they actually succeed or he dies of old age. If something happens to him, then they’ll grab another Allan from one of the other Hartley time-lines and subject him to the same processes. Or maybe they’ll abduct hundreds of Allans and subject them all to different tortures. When nothing works, what happens to the survivors?

“And, what do
you
think they’re going to learn from all that, Dalla? Probably, not a damn thing. Allan, from what you told me, is the kind of guy I’d like to meet and have a cup of coffee with. I like his father, too.

“Give the guy a break. All the poor bastard is trying to do is save his world from nuclear annihilation; not a bad goal. He’s one of the good guys. I’d hate to see Allan broken and twisted inside some cell in the Foundation’s basement, hidden away from the world while
your
psychists conduct their experiments.”

Dalla threw up her hands. “This is some male shared-identity thing, isn’t it? Okay, I’ll keep it to myself. Not because you brought it up, but because I do believe that’s exactly what will happen. Hey, I liked the guy, too.”

“Oh. Should I be concerned?”

Dalla gave him a Cheshire cat smile. “Ultimate power, total wealth and a forty-six year old’s mind in a twenty-four year old’s body. What do you think?”

Verkan shook his head. “During our first marriage, I might have been worried. Not now.”

“Silly, Allan may have a forty-six year old man’s mind, but he’s still too young for me. Besides he called you a quarterback. You’re worth at least a half-dollar.”

Verkan took Dalla in his arms and gave her a big kiss.

The End