‘And the thing is,’ she added, ‘none of you would have a memory of this war, because … well — ’ she shrugged — ‘because it will have never taken place.’
Sergeant Freeman nodded. ‘I say “Amen” to that.’
Devereau adjusted the collar of his tunic. ‘And what, pray tell, is a “time wave”?’
‘A vibration through space-time that leaves behind it a recalibration of reality,’ replied Becks.
‘A wave of reality overwriting reality,’ added Maddy.
Devereau frowned. ‘I would become someone else?’
‘Correct, Bill,’ said Becks. ‘Everything and everyone is recalibrated.’
His eyes narrowed. ‘Then surely my allowing you to alter history would be like … well, not to put too fine a point on it, ladies … it would be like killing myself.’
Maddy pursed her lips. He was, of course, in a sense quite right. A time wave would erase Devereau and everyone else and in its wake leave other versions of themselves or, quite possibly, in many cases leave absolutely no version of them at all.
She looked back at the slideshow of images. There were plenty of things wrong with the 2001 she and Becks had come from, but it had to be better than this war-torn Hell. She could see Devereau’s eyes, Freeman’s too, eyes that glistened with a deep melancholy. After all, she guessed they were both men who had spent most of their lives living in concrete bunkers and staring across the rubble and the river at men just like themselves.
These images on the screen were a beacon of hope … of what could have been.
‘Something else I should explain to you,’ said Maddy. ‘There’s no guarantee this reality is stable … that it will hold. Things are unbalanced right now and somewhere at some quantum dimensional level reality is sort of “considering” whether this timeline is stable enough to stick with … or whether it needs to adjust itself again.’
‘Adjust itself? What do you mean?’
‘Another time wave could just as easily come along and wipe this reality away and replace it with something far worse.’
Devereau frowned. ‘Worse?’
‘OK …’ She gave it a moment’s thought. ‘For example, a world in which the South has already won this war.’
‘Good God! A victory for the Anglo-Confederacy?’
‘Or much much worse,’ she added.
‘Worse!’ He stiffened. ‘Worse than that?’
‘Oh yeah.’ She nodded. ‘Trust me, Bill. You ought to see some of the crazy stuff we’ve seen. It’d turn your hair white.’
CHAPTER 40
2001, somewhere in Virginia
In stunned silence Liam watched the enormous vessel that had loomed above the farmhouse settle lightly on the ground, jets venting blasts of ice-cold nitrogen gas, filling the air around them with an arctic mist and a blizzard of snowflakes. From within the swirling fog he heard the heavy clanking of chains and winches and finally the thud of something smacking the ground heavily. A moment later he heard the clatter of horseshoes on metal, the throaty snort of horses and men’s voices softly calming them.
Presently, something began to emerge from the mist.
Bob shifted position, preparing himself to defend Liam.
‘Easy there, big fella,’ whispered Liam, and patted Bob’s side.
He could just about make out several dozen bulky four-legged beasts … but certainly not horses, as he’d first thought. They seemed to be heavy up front by the look of their faint silhouettes, with much more slender hindquarters. He squinted into the mist and the dancing flakes of snow, beginning to thin now as the sound of venting jets ceased.
He heard an ooofff of exertion from someone and the soft thud of boots on the ground. A figure was approaching them.
‘Uh? Hello over there?’ The figure drew close enough for Liam to see it was a man in a well-tailored army uniform.
‘Ahhh … there you are!’
He drew up in front of them, a trim man in his late twenties. Beneath the pointed peak of his white pith helmet Liam could see a clean-shaven face with a friendly smile spread across features that seemed artfully chiselled specifically to melt the hearts of women. He was wearing a smart crimson tunic with brass buttons that led down to an equipment belt cinched tightly round his waist.
‘Best not to run, gents,’ he said, and offered a hand in a crisp white glove. ‘Captain Ewan McManus. Third Company, Fourth Battalion, Black Watch Regiment.’
Liam offered his hand. ‘Uh … hello.’
‘I suspect you chaps have just had a nasty run-in, haven’t you?’ He cocked his head. ‘Some bother, was it?’
Liam nodded. The last few moments of shock, confusion, dismay, bewilderment were beginning to blow away like the thinning mist around them. He remembered Sal was out there, perhaps nearby still.
‘Yes! Oh Jay-zus! They took our friend. They …’ He was saying ‘they’ but he hadn’t the slightest idea what ‘they’ were.
‘Dammit! That’s not good news.’ Captain McManus grimaced. ‘You’re saying they’ve taken captives?’
‘Yes! She’s just a young girl, a child, really! And another one, a man. They were here just minutes ago … minutes ago!’
‘I know,’ said McManus. ‘We’ve been on their trail. Animals. We think it’s these ones. They raided a farm town about a dozen miles west of here earlier this afternoon. Awful mess. A blood bath. Killed the lot of them. Women, children.’
The officer turned round and cupped his mouth. ‘White Bear, up here, please!’
Over the man’s shoulder Liam could see a platoon of soldiers in similar tall helmets and red tunics sitting astride those beasts that he’d yet to actually identify. One of the men hastily dismounted and hurried forward to join them. He had long black hair in braids and dark skin pebble-dashed with faint smallpox scars.
‘Chief?’
‘White Bear’s our tracker. He’s a Mohawk. Absolutely the very best,’ assured McManus. He turned to the Indian. ‘Get me a heading. We’re going to follow them on the ground. All right?’
‘Dah.’ White Bear nodded and trotted off towards the farmhouse.
‘I suspect they’re heading north-east towards the Dead City. That’s where others of their kind have headed to in the past. We’ll do our best to catch them before they get in there.’
‘What are they?’ asked Liam.
The officer looked at him, surprised. ‘You don’t know?’
He shook his head. ‘No. I thought they were …’ He didn’t know where to begin. Monsters? Demons? He ended up offering a confused, harried shrug. ‘Me and Bob … we’re sort of new here.’
McManus looked up at Bob, acknowledging him for the first time. ‘Good grief, you’re a big chap!’ He turned back to Liam. ‘Jolly big, isn’t he?’
Liam nodded impatiently — like he needed to be told that. ‘Those things? Those creatures?’
‘Well now … yes, I suppose you must have at least read about this in the papers. That we’re using some more experimental types of genics to work on the plantations over here.’ He shook his head. ‘The Evening Times and the other newspapers were ranting about that when we were shipping out from London. We’ve had simple-minded eugenics working in factories and farms back home for ages, but these recent innovations — the dextrous hands with thumbs, and the larger brains; awfully clever stuff, if you ask me — well, that’s become a heated issue. They don’t like it, the idea of genics being smart enough to change the oil on an auto-locomotion engine, or being able to write their name.’
McManus looked at them. ‘But you must know about that, of course?’
Liam nodded convincingly. ‘Sure … yeah, of course.’
‘So,’ the officer continued, ‘we’re trying out these more advanced types over here in the southern states. Generally these smarter genics are really jolly good. Very impressive, actually. But we do get problems every now and then. They can flip out occasionally and turn exceedingly nasty.’