The Khyber Connection (TimeWars 6)

“No, no, he’s all right,” said Darkness. “He’s running about somewhere. The important thing right now is to do something about these characters. I left that one alive to tell me where to find the confluence. I know it’s around here somewhere, but I can’t seem to pinpoint it.”

“So you know all about it then?” said Finn.

“Of course I know all about it, you cretin. What do you think we’re talking about? Vargas has already been warned, and I expect he’s gotten on to Colonel Forrester. However, there’s a certain question of timing involved, and a few other minor problems. But before I do anything else, I need to find the confluence point.”

“We can help you there,” said Andre. “It’s right below us. We spotted several of them coming through with jet-paks. There’s a narrow section of the pass down there, directly below this temple, where the walls jut out like two giant pillars. The confluence point is there.”

“Well, then it was fortunate for me I saw that little fellow sitting on the ledge,” said Darkness. “I was about to go right through there. I haven’t yet perfected a means of measuring for inertial surge. That’s the key, you understand. The phenomenon is truly fascinating. What we have here is—”

“Doc,” said Finn, “I don’t mean to sound rude, but we can get into temporal physics some other time, okay? You said there were problems. What problems?”

“0h, well, it’s a question of timing, partly. It appears as if their plan is to support Sayyid Akbar in his fight against the Tirah Expeditionary Force.”

“I knew it!” Andre said. “That must be where the others have gone, to check on the progress of the force. With their help, Sayyid Akbar will be able to set up an ambush, and then they’ll bring their own troops in to do the mopping up.”

“It’s bit more complex than that, I’m afraid,” said Darkness. “Sayyid Akbar is none other than our old friend, Nikolai Drakov.”

“What?” said Andre.

“He must have stumbled through a confluence somehow,” said Darkness, “or perhaps created one by actions of his own. He fell into their hands and now they’re using him to control the Ghazis.”

Delaney strapped on his warp disc. “I’m getting really tired of tripping over Drakov at every turn,” he said.”This time he’s not getting away.”

“This time he’s not a great priority,” said Darkness.

A tribesman came through the door. Before either Finn or Andre had a chance to move, the tribesman had collapsed to the floor as if felled by an unseen hand.

“Where was I?” Darkness said, apparently not having moved from his chair. “Oh, yes, Drakov. Forget about Drakov for the moment. There’s something much more important. When I tached to Plus Time and briefed Vargas about the situation, I discovered they had arrested one of the programmers in the archives section of TAC-HQ. He was caught tampering with the implant education and mission program files. A clear-cut case of sabotage. The historians were called in to run a scan check on the files, and they discovered a number of them had been tampered with. They ran a cross-check on the subknowledge of various adjustment personnel and confirmed that the sabotage goes back a number of years. I think you’ll find one of the discoveries made by the historians significant. All data pertaining to Winston Spenser Churchill had been altered. He was entirely erased from all the archive files.”

“That explains it!” Andre said. “We encountered Churchill while we were with the Malakand field force, but only Lucas knew who he was. Or rather, what he would become. Neither Finn nor I knew he would become prime minister of Great Britain, because there was nothing about him in our subknowledge or in the mission programming. Lucas couldn’t understand it. An omission like that seemed inconceivable, but then he realized that he didn’t know about Churchill through his subknowledge either. He remembered reading about him.”

“He gave his life to save Churchill’s,” Finn said.

“Yes, I know,” said Darkness.”I’m sorry.”

“We thought the incongruity had something to do with Churchill being the focus of a disruption, but that wasn’t it. It was sabotage. Christ, it’s all starting to fit together now. They must have discovered a confluence in Plus Time. Either that, or used the confluence back here to get someone through and clock ahead to the 27th century. They infiltrated someone into the archives section with instructions to delete all programming having to do with certain key historical individuals—targeted individuals. But they didn’t count on history books. Only a small group of dedicated scholars and antiquarians read books anymore. Everyone else uses information retrieval systems. They couldn’t have known one of the commandos sent back on the adjustment was a history fanatic. Lucas was a collector of old history books, specializing in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.”

“There’s an anomaly right there,” said Andre. “It’s one example of how their timeline differs from ours. Their Lucas Priest can’t be an historian, otherwise he would have suspected that ours might be.”

“Their Lucas Priest?” said Darkness.

“An identical twin from the alternate timeline,” said Delaney.”It’s scary. He’s the one in command of their advance force.”

“Incredible,” said Darkness. “The Fate Factor never ceases to amaze me. But you realize what all this means. The strike against the Tirah Expeditionary Force is only part of their overall plan. They’re out to create a massive historical disruption in the hope that it will force the two timelines apart and eliminate the confluence effect that endangers them both. What they don’t realize is that there’s every possibility a time stream split could only make matters worse by compounding the problem. It could result in three timelines experiencing a confluence effect. In fact, I believe the odds favor that possibility. Once such an effect was under way, it could be impossible to stop it. We’d wind up with four timelines, then five, then six, leading to God only knows

what. However, since they apparently don’t know that, they’re out to create a timestream split, and this scenario offers them an outstanding opportunity. Defeat of the Tirah Expeditionary Force could end British control of the frontier and drastically alter the picture in this part of the world. And assassinating Winston Churchill in the same scenario would not only further disrupt history in this time period, but it would disrupt it in the early 20th century as well. It could lead to not one, but two timestream splits.”

“That’s why they sabotaged the archives,” Finn said in a low voice.”They didn’t want an adjustment team to know that Churchill was a key historical figure and concentrate on covering him. We left him on the march to Chakdarra. Christ, he’s wide open.”

“And Priest and some of his men are gone,” said Andre.

“There’s not a moment to lose,” said Darkness. “You must find Churchill. I’ll help you if I can, but I need to keep track of their movements against the British Expeditionary Force, as well as maintain a watch on the confluence point. I need to recuperate, and besides, I can only be in two places at the same time.”

“We’ll find Churchill, Doc. You’ve got enough on your hands.”

“Here, take this,” said Darkness, handing Finn the disruptor. “Between that and the laser, you should have adequate firepower. Don’t hesitate to use it.”

“Count on it.”