But we saw no contrails, Abdikadir said calmly. Come to think of it, I havent noticed a single contrail since the crash.
Once again, Grove said with irritation, I have not the first idea what youre talking about.
I mean, Bisesa said, I fear a nuclear war has broken out. And thats whats stranded us all. Its happened before in this area, after all. Its only seventeen years since Lahore was destroyed by the Indian strike.
Grove stared at her. Destroyed, you say?
She frowned. Utterly. You must know it was.
Grove stood, went to the door, and gave an order to the private waiting there. After a couple of minutes the bustling young civilian called Ruddy came to the door, slightly breathless, evidently summoned by Grove. The other civilian, the young man called Josh who had helped Abdikadir get Casey out of the downed chopper, came pushing his way into the room too.
Grove raised his eyebrows. I should have expected you to sneak in, Mr. White. But you have your job to do, I suppose. You! Peremptorily he pointed at Ruddy. When were you last in Lahore?
Ruddy thought briefly. Threefour weeks ago, I believe.
Can you describe the place as you saw it then?
Ruddy seemed puzzled by the request, but he complied: An old walled citytwo hundred thousand and odd Punjabis, and a few thousand Europeans and mixed racelots of Mughal monumentssince the Mutiny its become a center of administration, as well as the platform for military expeditions to see off the Russkie threat. I dont know what you want me to tell you, sir.
Just this. Has Lahore been destroyed? Was it, in fact, devastated seventeen years ago?
Ruddy guffawed. Scarcely. My father worked there. He built a house on the Mozang Road!
Grove snapped at Bisesa, Why are you lying?
Foolishly Bisesa felt like crying. Why wont you believe me? She turned to Abdikadir. He had fallen silent; he was gazing out of the window at the reddening sun. Abdi? Back me up here.
Abdikadir said to her softly, You dont see the pattern yet.
What pattern?
He closed his eyes. I dont blame you. I dont want to see it myself. He faced the British. You know, Captain, the strangest thing of all that happened today was the sun. He described the sudden shift of the sun across the sky. One minute noon, the nextlate afternoon. As if the machinery of time had come off its cogs. He glanced at the grandfather clock; its faded face showed the time was a little before seven oclock. He asked Grove, Is that correct?
Nearly, I suppose. I check it every morning.
Abdikadir lifted his wrist and glanced at his watch. And yet I show only fifteen twenty-sevenhalf past three in the afternoon. Bisesa, do you agree?
She checked. Yes.
Ruddy frowned. He strode over to Abdikadir and took his wrist. Ive never seen a watch like this. Its certainly not a Waterbury! It has numbers, not hands. There isnt even a dial. And the numbers melt one into the other!
Its a digital watch, Abdikadir said mildly.
Andwhat is this? Ruddy called out the numbers. Eight six 2037
That is the date, Abdikadir said.
Ruddy frowned, working it out. A date in the twenty-first century?
Yes.
Ruddy strode over to Groves desk and rummaged in a heap of papers there. Forgive me, Captain. Even the formidable Grove seemed out of his depth; he raised his hands helplessly. Ruddy extracted a newspaper. A couple of days old, but it will do. He held it up for Bisesa and Abdikadir to see; it was a thin rag called the Civil and Military Gazette and Pioneer. Can you see the date?
It was a date in March 1885. There was a long, frozen silence.
Grove said briskly, Do you know, I think we could all do with a cup of tea.
No! The other young man, Josh White, seemed very agitated. Im sorry sir, but it all makes sense nowI think it doesoh, it fits, it fits!
Calm yourself, Grove said sternly. What are you jabbering about?
The man-ape, White said. Never mind cups of teawe must show them the man-ape!
So, with Bisesa and Abdikadir still under armed guard, they all trooped out of the fort.
They came to a kind of encampment a hundred meters or so from the fortress wall. Here a conical tent of netting had been erected. A group of soldiers stood casually around, smoking foul-smelling cigarettes. Lean, grimy, the backs of their necks shaven, the troops gazed at Abdikadir and Bisesa with the usual mixture of curiosity and lust.
Something was moving inside the netting, Bisesa sawsomething alive, an animal perhapsbut the setting sun had touched the horizon, and the light was too low, the shadows too long for her to make it out.
At Whites command, the netting was pulled back. Bisesa had been expecting to see a supporting pole. Instead, a silvery sphere, apparently floating unsupported in the air, had provided the tents apex. None of the locals gave the sphere a second glance. Abdikadir stepped forward, squinted at his reflection in the floating sphere, and passed his hand underneath it. There was nothing holding the sphere up. You know, he said, on any other day this would seem unusual.
Bisesas gaze was drawn to the floating anomaly, to her own distorted face reflected in its surface. This is the key, she thought, the notion bursting without warning into her mind.
Josh touched her arm. Bisesa, are you all right?
Bisesa was distracted by his accent, which sounded to her ears JFK-Bostonian, but his face seemed to show genuine concern. She laughed without humor. In the circumstances, I think Im doing pretty well.
Youre missing the show He meant the creatures on the ground, and she tried to focus.
At first Bisesa thought they were chimps, but of light, almost gracile build. Bonobos, perhaps. One was small, the other larger; the big one cradled the little one. At a gesture from Grove, two squaddies stepped forward and pulled the baby away, grabbed the mothers wrists and ankles, and stretched her out on the ground. The creature kicked and spat.
The chimp was a biped.
Holy shit, Bisesa murmured. Do you think thats an australopithecine?
A Lucy, yes, Abdikadir murmured. But the pithecines have been extinct forwhat? A million years?
Is it possible a band of them have somehow survived in the wild, in the mountains maybe
He looked at her, his eyes wells of darkness. You dont believe that.
No, I dont.
You see? White shouted excitedly. You see the man-ape? What is this but another time slip ?
Bisesa stepped forward, and peered into the haunting eyes of the older pithecine. She was straining to reach the child, she saw. I wonder what shes thinking.
Abdikadir grunted. There goes the neighborhood.
8. On Orbit
After hours of fruitless calling, Musa sat back in his couch.
The three cosmonauts lay side by side, like huge orange bugs in their spacesuits. For once the coziness of the Soyuz capsule, the way they were pressed against each other, was comforting rather than confining.
I dont understand it, Musa said.
You said that already, Sable murmured.
There was a grim silence. Since the moment they had lost contact, the atmosphere between them had been explosive.
After three months of living in such close quarters, Kolya had come to understand Sable, he thought. Aged forty, Sable came from a poor New Orleans family with a complicated genetic history. Some of the Russians who had served with her admired the strength of character that had taken her so fareven now, in NASAs Astronaut Office, to be anything other than male and WASP was a disadvantage. Other cosmonauts, less charitable, joked about how launch weight manifests had to be recalculated if Sable was onboard, on account of the immense chip she carried on her shoulder. Most agreed that if she had been Russian she would never have passed the psychological tests required for every cosmonaut to prove suitable for space duty.