"I guess it leaves us with a lot of questions to which there are no simple answers," said Delaney wryly. "And that's the 'simple truth' as a 'frontline soldier' sees it."
He watched the report later that night. They had, indeed, edited his answer. It ran like this: "We just want to hear the simple truth about the Temporal Crisis as a frontline soldier sees it."
"Well, the simple truth is the Time Wars were a terrific risk right from the start.
They just didn't give a damn until something went wrong. And something was bound to go wrong. It’s a Catch-22 situation. The whole thing is liable to collapse at any minute like a house of cards. And that's the simple truth as a frontline soldier sees it."
Delaney had to explain to Forrester about the editing. He received an official reprimand, which Forrester promptly "filed," and specific orders were issued to all military personnel not to speak to members of the media without special authorization. Paranoia settled in to stay.
Delaney wondered what would have happened if he had told them about the Special Operations Group, the First Division's counterpart in the alternate universe, and Project Infiltrator, a genetic engineering project headed by Dr. Phillipe Moreau, aimed at creating genetically engineered soldiers to be infiltrated into their timeline? What if he had told them that Drakov had kidnapped Moreau from the Project Infiltrator labs and set him to work creating hominoids, creatures bioengineered from human clones and modified with advanced surgical and cyber- netic techniques, turned into monstrosities that were no longer human, but something else entirely? And what if he had told them that aside from the Temporal Crisis, they were all fated with the threat of Nikolai Drakov, an insane criminal genius who wanted nothing less than temporal anarchy, or failing that, an apocalyptic entropy, an end to all of time?
He imagined the reporter saying, "Yes, but what's the answer?"
He imagined himself replying with a variation on an old zen koan. "If the shit hits the fan and there's no one left to smell it, is there a stink?"
He checked his watch. Ransome was late. He should have reported in by now and gone off to relieve Rizzo at Hesketh's apartment. And it would soon be time for him to wake up Steiger, catch a couple of hours sleep himself and then relieve Andre at Conan Doyle's house, so that she could get some rest. It was monotonous. Watching and waiting. Something had to break soon. The bathroom door opened and Christine Brant came in. having been relieved at
H. Wells' house by Linda Craven.
They wereusing the bathroom as a clocking in point, with each member of the team assigned a "window" during which they could make temporal transition. Using the bathroom as a temporal staging zone meant that they could all freely move about the rest of the apartment without having to worry about when someone might be clocking in at a certain point-it wouldn't do to be standing on the same place where someone was trying to clock in. The results would be very messy and very fatal. It also meant that in the unlikely event that someone else was present in the apartment, with the bathroom door closed, they would not see anybody suddenly materializing out of thin air. Someone clocking in could simply wait inside the bathroom until whoever it was had gone. As far as using the bathroom for its intended purpose was concerned, they resorted to the one in the adjoining suite.
"Anything?" said Christine Brant.
Delaney shrugged. "Ransome's late reporting in. Otherwise, no changes."
"How's Colonel Steiger holding up?" she said.
"I'm due to wake him in another hour. He's holding up about as well as could be expected, I suppose. He's getting anxious, as are we all. Any sign of Wells?"
She shook her head. "Not yet. Of course, there's no guarantee he'll be coming back to his house. Can I have some of that coffee?"
"Help yourself."
"Thanks." She sat down and poured herself a cup. "What do you think Moreau's going to do with him?" she said.
"I have no idea what to think," Delaney said. "I still don't see how Wells would fit in with what Drakov seems to have planned. Unless he's planning something separate that has t
o do with Wells." He shook his head. "There are just too many variables. The best we can hope for is that Wells will show up again, with Moreau, and we'll get a shot at taking out Moreau and snatching Wells. The problem is, what do we do with Wells once we've snatched him? He already knows too much, but can we risk having him conditioned to forget his part in all of this? Would that affect his writing?" He shook his head again. "I don't know, Christine. It's going to be very tricky. The waiting's hard, but it's not the hardest part.”
You know, a very unpleasant thought occurred to me while I was on the watch for Wells," she said. "It's bad enough that Moreau snatched him from right under our noses, but what are we going to do if he doesn't come back?"
Delaney's hand froze with his coffee cup halfway to his mouth. "Don't even think about it," he said.
6
They met in the rooms of the Beefsteak Society. The Sublime Society of Beef- Steaks was not in session at the moment. The tradition dated back to 1735, when John Rich, manager of the Covent Garden Theatre, founded the club for "men of noble or gentle birth," which net for a beefsteak dinner every Saturday from November to June. The badge of the society was a gridiron and its members wore blue coats and huff waistcoats, buff being a light yellow napped leather properly made from buffalo skin, though other skins were sometimes used. The motto of the club was "Beef and Liberty" and it met at the Lyceum Theatre. Grayson thought the whole thing was rather juvenile, but then there had always been a ritualistic fervor among the upper classes that he had never fully understood. If you want to meet once a week for a steak dinner, he thought, why not simply meet once a week for a steak dinner? Why make a bloody boys' club formality of the whole thing? In any case, it was a question that was never liable to concern him personally, as it was highly unlikely that he would ever he invited to join a gentleman's club. He was just a simple working class sod, happy with his station in life and if he wanted a steak dinner, he could bloody well just go down to the pub and get one.
Bram Stoker beckoned him to one of the chairs placed around the table. "Please sit down. Inspector. May I offer you something to drink?"
"No, thank you very kindly. Mr. Stoker, not while I'm on duty."
"Are you making any progress with your inquiries, Inspector'?" Stoker said. "I take it that is what you wanted to speak to me about?"
"As a matter of fact, yes, it was," said Grayson. " Itrust, Mr. Stoker, that we may speak in confidence?"
"Certainly, Inspector," Stoker said. "However, I should tell you that if what you have to discuss with me should happen to concern Henry Irving, I would be both honor and duty bound to take the matter up with him. He is both my employer and my closest friend."
Grayson nodded. "I quite understand. However, I don't think we will need to concern ourselves with Mr. Irving. There is certainly nothing to suggest that he is in any way involved."