Phoenix frowned. “What are you getting at?”
“A peculiar temporal phenomenon occurs,” said Drakov. “The chronocircuitry in a warp grenade, as I understand it, is designed to clock the surplus energy of the explosion through an Einstein-Rosen Bridge to the Orion Nebula, where it can do no harm. Correct? Eminently practical for military applications, one would think. You can focus the energy of a nuclear explosion with pinpoint precision while the major force of its destructive power is teleported elsewhere. Only such massive expenditures of energy are never totally predictable, especially when coupled with the delicate alignment of chronotransitions.”
“Which means?” said Phoenix.
“It means, my friend, that this latest insane escalation of military weaponry has thrown off the chronophysical alignments of the bridges Einstein-Rosen Generators tap into. The people in the alternate timeline have been the unfortunate victims of this phenomenon. You have been waging nuclear war upon them.”
“My God,” said Phoenix. “That would mean…” His voice trailed off.
“Thousands have been annihilated,” Drakov said. “Hundreds of thousands. And they never knew the reason for the holocaust. They had no idea who was behind it. Until now.”
Chapter 8
They clocked into a large, shadowy hall inside a dark, cavernous building. The atmosphere was dank and musty, with a feeling of great age. Massive stone columns supported a domed ceiling, and torches flickered in stone sconces. At the far end of the hall, atop a giant altar, was a huge obsidian statue of the goddess Kali, arms held out like an arachnid, skulls around her neck, tongue lolling. Their footsteps echoed on the stone floor.
“Where are we?” said Finn.
“In an old, deserted lamasery high above the Khyber Pass,” said the twin Priest. “It used to be the temple of a thugee cult, which accounts for the statue and the grotesque carvings on the columns. It makes for a suitable base of operations. From below it’s virtually invisible. An observer won’t even spot it with field glasses unless he knows what he’s looking for.”
They saw a number of Pathan tribesmen standing guard and a few gray-uniformed soldiers moving about briskly, carrying equipment. They were taken to a small chamber, lit by portable lamps which generated their own power. There was a long table in the center of the room, with about a dozen chairs around it. Priest directed them to sit.
There were a number of soldiers in the room, all standing around the perimeter, watching them. A number of the faces looked unfamiliar, but Delaney spotted one he thought he knew.
“Bryant?” he said.
The officer looked back at him, deadpan.
“Bryant, but not Bryant,” Finn said.
The officer gave him a faint ghost of a smile.
“Martin,” said Andre, seeing another man.
The husky, bearded lieutenant gave her a brief nod.
“It’s amazing,” said Delaney. “A mirror-image universe.”
“Not quite,” said Priest. “But close.” He walked up to Finn and pulled off his turban. “If you have a counterpart, I haven’t met him.” He turned to Andre and yanked off her turban. Her long blonde hair cascaded down.
There was a strange look on his face. “Tell me about the other Lucas Priest,” he said. “What was your relationship to him?”
“We were a team,” she said. “The three of us. Lucas was my friend.”
“For what it’s worth, I’m sorry he’s dead. How did it happen?”
“He died saving a man’s life.”
Priest nodded. “As good a way to go as any, I suppose. I wanted very much to meet him. I’d heard a great deal about you three.”
“From whom?” Delaney said, frowning.
Priest smiled. “From a man named Drakov.”
“Drakov!” said Delaney.
“Nikolai Drakov arrived in our timeline escaping from you. Exactly how he managed to arrive is a complex question which we’ll save for the time being. He was unaware at first that he was not quite where he thought he was. As a result he made several mistakes which led to his arrest. Imagine his surprise, and ours, when we learned the truth. He was put through an exhaustive interrogation, the purpose of which was to learn as much about your timeline as we could. I use the term we generically. I was not personally involved. At least not at that point.
“The discovery of your timeline’s existence explained a great many things for us. It also raised a number of extremely difficult questions. For a number of years we had enjoyed uninterrupted peace. Our history, it seems, p