The Lilliput Legion (TimeWars 9)
“Yes, sir.”
“I didn’t hear you.”
“Yes, sir!” said Steiger, snapping to attention.
“Oh, stand at ease, for God’s sake. Roberts, get the colonel one of my fresh shirts.
He seems to have torn his.”
“You okay?” Delaney said. Steiger was wired so tight, he seemed to be vibrating.
Steiger took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Yeah, I guess I’ll live.” Then he seemed to notice Gulliver for the first time. He looked at him and blinked twice, taken aback at not having realized there was a stranger in the room with them. “Who the hell is that?”
Gulliver had followed the preceding conversation with incomprehension and alarm. Now he rose uncertainly to his feet and hesitantly extended his hand.
“Dr. Lemuel Gulliver, at your service, sir.”
“Col. Creed Steiger.” They shook hands.
“I perceive you have been wounded. I do not have my instruments with me, but ...”
Steiger shook his head. “Thank you, but it wasn’t very serious. I’ve already had it seen to.” He frowned. “What did you say your name was?”
“Dr. Gulliver is the man mentioned in your brother’s report,” said Forrester.
Steiger stared at him. Gulliver had been given a suit of disposable green transit fatigues to wear, so there had been nothing to mark him externally as a T.D.P., a temporally displaced person.
“Sandy was your brother?” Gulliver said. “There is a strong family resemblance. He was very kind to me.” There was a pained expression on his face. “If not for me, he might have … I … I wish … it really should have been me, instead.”
Steiger stared at him for a moment, then nodded sympathetically. “No one’s blaming you, Doctor.” He glanced at Forrester. “Sandy sent him through?”
“Yes, to tell us what he couldn’t,” said Forrester, with a tight grimace. “You saw him?”
Steiger nodded. The tension had started to go out of him, though he was still wired from the news of his brother’s death and the attempt on his life. Roberts brought him one of Forrester’s black fatigue shirts and Steiger accepted it gratefully, wincing as he removed his own torn and bloodied one.
“They homed in on him with this,” said Forrester, handing Steiger the plastic envelope containing the implant transmitter.
Steiger examined it, frowning. “It doesn’t make sense. If they had him long enough to surgically install a cybernetic implant, they had him long enough to kill him. Why fit him with an implant, let him go, and then track him down and kill him?”
“Maneuvers?” said Delaney. They all turned to look at him.
“What?” said Steiger.
“I was just thinking out loud,” Delaney said. “Maybe they installed the implant and let him go so they could practice long range assault tactics. Track the target, home in on the target’s co-ordinates, clock in, hit hard, take out the target and clock out again. Suppose you had a target area that was hard to get to, maybe you could only get one man in or you had the co-ordinates, but a full-scale assault would be impractical for whatever reason. Too well defended, not enough room to maneuver... but if you could clock in a miniaturized assault force…”
“Jesus,” Steiger said. “That could be a bloody nightmare!”
“It is a bloody nightmare,” Forrester said, grimly. “What’s more, we’re not even sure who’s responsible for it. Is this some new wrinkle from the Special Operations Group in the parallel universe or has the Network somehow managed to come up with this?”
“Either way, we’ve only got one lead,” Delaney said. He looked at Gulliver.
“You’re not going to ask me to go back there, are you?” Gulliver said, in a hollow voice.
“Our Archives Section has been unable to find any record of such an island, Dr. Gulliver,” said Forrester. “I realize you’ve already been through a great deal, but perhaps if you could help us to locate this island, or at least show us its location on a chart, then we’d require nothing further from you.”
“And what shall become of me then?” Gulliver stared at them all anxiously.
“Have no fear. You’ll be returned to your own time,” said Forrester. “And we shall arrange it so that you have no memory of this experience.”