The Khyber Connection (TimeWars 6)

“Well, you’e a mite young, me son—sir, I mean,” Mulvaney said. “It’s all very fine to get yourself a transfer from the 4th ‘Ussars so you can write up this here campaign for the London Daily Telegraph—nice way to get a bit o’ action an’ pick up an extra quid or two, if I say so myself—but there’s a world o’ difference between writin’ dispatches and anticipatin’ Pathans, sir. For the one you need a bit o’ learnin’, which you seem to ‘ave done plenty of, sir. For the other you need experience, which you ain’t ‘ardly old enough to ‘ave received very much of. Now me mates and I ‘ave been out ‘ere for so long our skin’s startin’ to turn brown, an’ we’ve learned a thing or two about your Pathan fightin’ man. ‘E ain’t no fool, that’s what, sir.”

“Meaning exactly what, Private Mulvaney?” Churchill said,

“Meanin’, sir, that ‘e’s got a bloody good reason for not ‘avin attacked us by now,” Mulvaney said.

“There’s been plenty o’ opportunity for ‘im, but ‘e ain’t done it, so why’s that, I ask meself? Because ‘e’s got ‘imself a better opportunity ahead, and like as not we’re walkin’ right into it.”

“But we’re almost at the Malakand fort,” said Churchill. “It would seem to me that our strength has intimidated him, otherwise he would have attacked before we could have an opportunity to join forces with the troops at the garrison.”

“Or ‘e’s waitin’ to knock off two birds with one stone, sir,” said Mulvaney.

“I’m afraid Mulvaney’s got a point, sir,” said Learoyd. “Put yourself in the Mad Mullah’s place. You’ve got some of your men pressing the Chakdarra garrison, others harryin’ the fort at Malakand. Here comes a large relief force on its way, and in order to attack them, you’ve got to split your own troops further to take them on. The Malakand is situated in a large depression, sort of a valley ringed by cliffs. If you can command the heights, why not wait until the relief has arrived and then ring them ‘round, cuttin’ them and the garrison off from Chakdarra?”

“Rubbish, man,” said Churchill. “I’ve seen the map of the area. In order to command the heights around the Malakand, it would require a very large force indeed. Thousands, I should say.”

“Now you’re catchin’ on, sir,” said Mulvaney. “You can be sure you’ll ‘ave yourself a bloody entertainin’ dispatch to write before too long.”

The terrain they were covering was rough, extremely difficult for a large detachment with pack animals and guns. They had made good time, but making good time in the Hindu Kush range still meant going slow. Nevertheless they were within sight of the garrison at Malakand before too long, and throughout the entire journey they had encountered no resistance whatsoever, not even so much as one stray shot, which was unusual in the extreme.

Lucas and Andre travelled at the middle of the column, slightly behind Churchill. They rode on horseback, moving along at a slow walk since they were travelling with mostly infantry. Din, their Hindustani attendant, was just behind them, proudly leading their pack mule and keeping so ramrod straight a posture in his brand new khakis that it looked as though his back would break. He had managed to obtain a battered bugle somewhere, which he carried proudly and clutched to himself protectively whenever anyone came near.

“Something’s wrong,” said Lucas in a low voice, so that only Andre could hear him.

“I know,” she said. “You’ve been preoccupied throughout the entire journey. It’s this Churchill fellow, isn’t it? You keep staring at him.”

“This Churchill fellow?” Lucas said.

“Yes. What’s so special about him?”

“Good Christ, you really don’t know.”

“Should l?”

“Well, actually, you’d be about the only one I could think of in the service who’d have a good excuse. He’s not a part of your history. You went straight from the 12th century to the 27th. That leaves one hell of a big gap, though you still ought to know about him. I find that puzzling.”

She frowned. “So do I. I thought my implant education was complete. If he was—is—an important historical figure, even if I didn’t remember anything about him consciously, the subknowledge of the programming should have triggered my awareness of him the moment I heard his name. And there was nothing in the mission programming about him either.”

“I know. That’s what’s wrong. There’s simply no way for that to be possible. Or at least there shouldn’t be. That young subaltern riding up ahead grew up to be one of the most important men of the 20th century. One of the greatest political figures of his time. He became prime minister of Great Britain and led that nation through the Second World War.”

“My God,” said Andre. “And the programmers missed that? How could they?”

Lucas shook his head. “They couldn’t. I just can’t see it. Even if someone was somehow negligent, the data banks have built in failsafe for vital information. It’s been driving me crazy. And you put your finger on it. The subknowledge. I knew something was missing, but I couldn’t figure out what it was until you said that. I knew about Churchill, but I couldn’t figure out why there was a gap. Why did I know about Churchill, but didn’t know about him being on this campaign? Because I didn’t know it through the subknowledge of my implant education either! I remembered. I just plain remembered about him on my own, because I like to read history. But it’s been a while since I’ve read any British history, or any 20th century history for that matter. I didn’t remember completely. It just goes to show you how dependent we are on our subknowledge. And that’s the common denominator. There was nothing about Churchill in our mission programming, and neither of us could extract anything about him from our programmed subknowledge because it simply wasn’t there. And that’s impossible.”

“You’re right,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense. It should have been there.”

“You still don’t understand,” he said. “It can’t not have been there! I can only think of one possible explanation. A temporal disruption. There isn’t any record of Churchill in our subknowledge or in our supplementary mission programming because there was no record of a Winston Churchill as a pivotal figure in history.”

“But that doesn’t make sense either,” Andre said. “If that’s the case and a disruption occurred that has prevented—or will prevent— Churchill from following his historical template as we know … as you know it, then how could you know about it in the first place?”

Lucas stared at her. “You want to run that by me again?

“I’m not even sure what I just said.” She shook her head. “What I mean is, if there isn’t any historical record of Churchill, then how could you remember reading about him in your history books?”

“I see what you mean,” he, said. “It has to be an anomaly of Zen physics. Whatever happened that caused Churchill to be wiped from history must have happened after I read about him.”

“I’m confused,” said Andre. “How could something have happened during his lifetime and yet have taken place after you read about him in the 27th century?”

“You’re confused because you never studied Zen physics,” Lucas said. “I only have a well-versed layman’s knowledge of it. Delaney’s the only one I know who’s taken the full course, and he said it almost gave him a nervous breakdown. I take that back.