Ortheris looked away guiltily.
“Come on, Chris,” said Andre, holding out her hand to him. “It’ll be all right. It’s over now.”
Learoyd looked from Mulvaney to Ortheris to Finn and Andre, then drew himself up. “Right. Fine. It was all a bloody hallucination then, was it? A damned mirage? We didn’t see a bloomin’ thing, right? Right Fine. Splendid. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Phoenix didn’t waste any time. He killed the guards in front of Drakov’s headquarters and moved fast, running across the courtyard and into the main house. He was dressed like a Ghazi, so the women in the main chamber paid him no mind as he headed for the upstairs section. He met Sadullah coming down the stairs, but the mul
lah took no notice of him. His face was as white as his hair as he hurried to the scene of battle.
Phoenix took the stairs two at a time. He peered cautiously around the corner, looking into the main room on the second floor. There was nothing there except for the opulent furnishings, the tapestries and the thick rugs and the cushions. He glanced at the balcony facing out over the pass and saw Drakov standing there, his back to him. He took aim with his disruptor and fired.
The figure on the balcony became briefly enveloped in blue mist and then was gone. Phoenix walked into the room and suddenly felt powerful arms around him. The disruptor was twisted from his grasp and he was thrown to the floor. Drakov stood behind him, wearing the clothes of one of his guards.
“I knew you’d be back for me, Martingale,” he said. “Or is that really your name? You were with them all along, weren’t you? Right from the beginning.”
“It’s over, Nikolai,” said Phoenix. “Your people have lost.”
“I expected as much when I didn’t find any of them at the temple,” Drakov said. “And when Priest did not contact me, I guessed that you had somehow foiled his attempt on Churchill’s life, as well. And that means the entire plan’s collapsed. No point in going on. They underestimated you, but they won’t do so again. It isn’t over. The war has only just begun.”
“What’s in it for you, Nikolai? They’re not your people. You belong in this timeline.”
Drakov shook his head. “I do not belong anywhere,” he said. “I must make my own world and find a place in it. And through this new conflict, I shall succeed. You are a survivor, Martingale, but then, so am I. We could have accomplished unimaginable things together, but you chose to serve the enemy instead. So be it. We shall see which of us survives in the end. Meanwhile the game continues.”
With a smile he threw the disruptor on the floor in front of Phoenix, and before the startled agent could react, Drakov had clocked out.
“Son a bitch,” said Phoenix. “He’s out of his fucking mind, but the bastard’s got style.”
He picked up the disruptor and made a thorough search of the house, destroying whatever modern weapons and equipment he could find. He discovered a hideous thing in the tower and put it out of its misery. Then, having done all he could think of doing, he took one last look around at the year 1897 and went home.
The attack on Blood’s brigade lasted for six hours. The British soldiers held and the Ghazis finally retired before the devastating, superior firepower of the troops. The losses among the British were astonishingly slight, considering the ferocity of the onslaught. The most serious losses were among the horses and transport animals. The Ghazis left behind over 700 corpses. General Elles arrived with his brigade the following day, and the Bedmanai Pass was forced. The rebellion in the northern sector of the frontier was broken.
Winston Churchill never discovered what became of Finn Delaney and Andre Cross. One moment they were both pinning him down to the ground, the next they were gone without a trace. He searched for them and made inquiries, but they were nowhere to be found and it was assumed that they were carried off and killed by Ghazis. Their bodies were never recovered. Churchill was tempted to mention them both in his dispatches, but two things prevented him from doing so. One was that he recalled the promise he had made to Andre Cross to respect her privacy; the other was that it was later discovered there was no subaltern by the name of Finn Delaney on the lists. It was suspected that he had committed some sort of crime and had assumed a new identity in order to escape its consequences. The officers of Blood’s brigade agreed that whoever and whatever else he might have been, the man they knew as Finn Delaney died a hero.
General Lockhart defeated the forces of Sayyid Akbar after a fierce battle and continued on with the Tirah Expeditionary Force to crush the uprising of the Pathans. He brought the tribes to their knees and they submitted, surrendering their weapons and paying the fines the British Raj imposed. Sayyid Akbar was never found. Sadullah, likewise, had escaped. The swift action of a specially formed Search and Retrieve Unit from the 27th century prevented the British troops from discovering the bodies of soldiers wearing strange gray uniforms and carrying weapons that would have defied any explanation. The confluence point had shifted, and in that period of history at least, temporal stability had been restored.
Privates Learoyd, Ortheris, and Mulvaney were decorated for bravery, and a special, posthumous decoration was given to the Hindu bhisti, Gunga Din. He was buried as a British soldier, with full military honors. None of the three of them ever mentioned seeing anything unusual in the Khyber Pass, although when Mulvaney got drunk, he was sometimes heard to mumble about “them bloody lights.” None of them ever mentioned an officer named Finn Delaney either. Before Finn left them to “escort Andre back to Peshawar and on her return journey to England,” he “confessed” to them that he was a deserter, wanted for a certain crime, and that it would be best for him if they did not mention his name. As men who were well-known for not being overfond of regulations, the three soldiers agreed to keep the secret. The only inquiries ever conducted were those made by Chris Learoyd on his return to England. He made a determined effort to locate a young woman named Miss Andre Cross, but he never found her.
EPILOGUE
The services were held for Major Lucas Priest in front of the Wall of Honor, where his name had been added to the list of those members of the First Division who had died in combat. The entire division had turned out in full dress, and Forrester, wearing his many decorations, delivered the eulogy. Director General Vargas was present and he awarded Priest a posthumous decoration, the Medal of Honor, the oldest and highest award a soldier could receive. At the close of the service, Forrester called the men to attention and Director General Vargas came forward to address them.
“Stand at ease,” he said. “A solemn occasion such as this may not be the best time for this briefing, but we are faced with a new and very serious threat. I leave from here tonight to go directly to the meeting of the Council of Nations in Geneva. As of this morning, an official ceasefire was called in all current temporal confrontation actions. I have been in contact with the Council members separately and we have been conducting informal negotiations. I have no reason to believe there will be any dissension during the session of the Council.
“The scientific evidence I will present at the session is overwhelming in its conclusiveness. We are faced with a confluence effect between two separate timelines, an effect rendering both timestreams unstable. Due to unthinking and tragic actions on our part, we have been confronted with hostile actions from the other timeline. There is, at present, no means of negotiating with the opposition and no reliable means of pinpointing the various loci of confluence. Every effort will lire made to pursue that course, but in the meantime we must be prepared to face further hostilities, further attempts at interfering with our history in order to cause a temporal split in our own timestream.
“For this reason a massive and rapid reorganization of our temporal forces and support apparatus is essential, and these changes are already under way. In order to meet this new threat, the Referee Corps has decided to merge the two units most experienced in temporal confrontation and adjustment actions. As of this moment, officially, the Temporal Intelligence Agency has been brought under the umbrella of the Temporal Army Command, and I will propose at the Council of Nations meeting that we establish a unified command among all temporal forces, to be headquartered here at Pendleton Base. Henceforth the quasi-civilian status of the TIA is converted to full military status, with an end to the covert nature of their activity in this timeline. The function of monitoring temporal inconsistencies and disruptions will be taken over by the Observer Corps.
“The First Division is henceforth incorporated into the TIA and Colonel Forrester is assigned as deputy director with the rank of brigadier-general. This new unit will be headquartered here, and additional quarters will be provided for the new incoming personnel. Special security procedures will be devised to guard against infiltration. The function of this new agency will be twofold: to conduct adjustment operations to maintain temporal integrity, and to conduct active, covert operations to create disruptions in the alternate timeline if points of confluence for crossover can be identified. You will be briefed as developments occur. In the mean time all leaves are cancelled and the entire unit is on Yellow Alert standby status. General Forrester?”
Forrester called the unit to attention.
“There remains one more item of business which I would like to personally take care of before I depart for the Council meeting,” Vargas said. “Lieutenant Finn Delaney and Sergeant Andre Cross, step forward please.”
They marched to the front and stood to attention.
“I would like to personally commend you on your performance,” Vargas said. He stepped forward and pinned the Temporal Star on both of them, then handed each of them a small plastic box containing insignia of rank. Andre was promoted to the rank of second lieutenant and Delaney, to his chagrin, found himself looking down at captain’s bars. As Vargas gave him the bars, he smiled. “Try not to strike anyone above the rank of major, Captain,” he said. “We need capable officers such as yourself.”
After Forrester dismissed the unit, most of them adjourned to the First Division lounge, where they all made a final toast to Lucas Priest. Forrester joined Finn and Andre at their table.