The Zenda Vendetta (TimeWars 4)

“You’ve lost me,” said Andre.

“Let me attempt to translate Delaney’s verbosity into layman’s terms,” said Forrester. “What he’s saying is that the Fate Factor governs not only the end result of any adjustment to the timestream, but it also governs the actions of those effecting the adjustment.”

“Only in this case,” said Finn, “we seem to be confronted with a situation that’s eschatological in its implications. We may have adjusted for a split before, but now we’ve got the potential for a massive rupture on our hands. And what makes matters even worse is that all we’ve got to work from in terms of intelligence is some sort of drawing-room novel written in the 19th century. Without access to those diaries that Hawkins allegedly worked from, we have no way of knowing what really happened. The TIA is in no position to give us any help. Besides, even if they managed to get their hands on those diaries in time, we’d still only have Rassendyll’s word for what actually happened. He could easily have embellished the story for his own sake.”

“I’ll agree that the element of uncertainty in this scenario is very large,” said Lucas, “but at least we know what the result was. History records a King Rudolf the Fifth on the throne of Ruritania, and Rassendyll obviously managed to get back to London in one piece to write about it in his diaries. Whatever it was he did, he was successful.”

“Not any more he wasn’t,” said Finn. “I trust we have access to this novel Hawkins wrote?”

“It will be included in the mission programming,” said Forrester.

“Good. We’ll need all the help that we can get. We’re looking destiny squarely in the face here. The Fate Factor is trying to compensate and we’re a part of it!”

“I wonder if the Timekeepers realize that?” said Lucas.

“I wonder if they care?” said Forrester. “Their so-called movement has been effectively destroyed. There can only be a handful of them left. Can you think of a better note to go out on than having brought about ultimate entropy?”

“Is that actually a possibility?” said Andre.

“Delaney seems to think so,” Forrester said.

“But that would mean…” Andre’s voice trailed off.

“The end of time,” said Lucas, softly.

3

Drakov was impatient. He kept pacing back and forth in the small turret atop the keep of Zenda Castle, rolling his massive shoulders and stretching to get the kinks out of his muscles.

“Sit down, Nikolai,” said Falcon. “Your constant pacing back and forth is distracting me.”

Drakov gave her a look of mild irritation. She was reclining on one of two small cots in the tiny room that was otherwise bare except for some equipment and supplies piled in a corner. Her ash-blond hair was pulled back in a pony tail, and she was dressed in low black boots and black fatigues. Drakov was similarly attired, though he added a sheepskin vest to his army-surplus clothing.

“You may find it distracting,” he said, “but I find it necessary to move about. The chill and dampness of this place is making my bones ache. While you’ve been out there socializing as the Countess Sophia, I’ve been cooped up here for days with nothing but rats and silverfish for company. I don’t know how people ever managed to live in such places.”

“It may be uncomfortable, but it’s an ideal base of operations,” she said, still intent upon the screen of the small computer she held in her right hand. “No one’s set foot in this part of the castle for years and even if the adjustment team suspected that we were holed up in here, they’d have a hell of a time trying to get at us.”

“Unless they decided to try clocking in here,” said Drakov.

“The risk factor would be far too great,” she said. “They would never attempt it without transition coordinates. They could wind up inside a wall that’s eight feet thick. However, it’s possible that they could try an assault with floater-paks, which is why I’ve moved us up here to this turret. It might be colder and windier up here, but we can see out over the entire castle. Once I’ve got the tracking system set up in those embrasures, there’s no w

ay they’ll be able to drop in here without setting off a laser.”

“What is to prevent them from obtaining their coordinates the same way we did?” Drakov said.

Falcon raised her eyebrows. “By seducing Rupert Hentzau in the dungeon?”

“Don’t be crude,” said Drakov. “You know very well what I mean. One of them might arrange a visit with Black Michael and ask to see the castle. You might have done the same when you attended the ball in his chateau, only you chose to appeal to Hentzau’s prurient sensibilities, instead.”

Falcon smiled slyly. “That’s true, but I’d never done it on a rack before. There are all sorts of interesting devices down there. You should go down with me and take a look. You never know, it might help take the chill out of your bones.”

“Thank you, but no,” said Drakov.

“You know, you really are a very pretty boy, Nikolai, but you’ve got the mind of a neanderthal. That’s the trouble with implant programming. It can teach you things, but it can’t make you unlearn a lifetime of social conditioning. Perhaps I should have had you totally reeducated, but I liked your personality the way it was when I first found you. It has its own charm and appeal, despite your Victorian attitudes. But for God’s sake, you’ve lived in the 27th century! Haven’t you learned anything?”

“I have learned a great deal,” Drakov said. “I have learned that your ‘modern era’ is degenerate and decadent, and not in ways that pertain just to sexual morality. You have replaced quality with quantity, substance with artifice and principles with expediency. Forgive me, but I find little in your time to admire except your technological achievements, and even those you use irresponsibly.”

“You’re a fine one to take such a lofty moral tone,” she said. “When I found you, you were a jaded playboy who could buy everything except the things you really wanted. Your money couldn’t buy you peace and it couldn’t buy you a sense of purpose. I gave you both.”