The Six-Gun Solution (TimeWars 12)

Neilson clocked back into Tombstone shortly before dawn. P.R.T. (Present Relative Time). He had been gone slightly longer than twelve hours, but only three minutes had elapsed in 19th-century Tombstone since he had left. He had “gained” a day, a phenomenon of time travel that was one of the most difficult things fin rookie temporal agents to grow accustomed to. They would depart upon a mission to the past, or Minus Time, and could be gone for days or weeks or months or even years, yet when they returned, often no more than several hours had passed. And duty spent in Plus Time, or in the 27th century, was all that counted toward the completion of an enlistment period. This was always made very clear to new recruits, but the consequences of it were often overlooked, Since there were two different pay scales in the service-one for duty served in the present and one for time spent in the past, with the latter being far more lucrative. The pay scale for Temporal Observers, for example, was higher than that found in almost any other career, and if one was able to avoid the hazards of the duty and survive to complete his tour of enlistment, he could retire a very wealthy man.

But it was not, by any means, a route to easy street. As Neilson had already discovered. It was an exciting way to make a living, but it was highly dangerous. as well. Most temporal agents found that they had to leave their former. civilian lives completely behind them. After Neilson had returned from his first assignment to the past, he had taken some leave and gone back to Tucson to visit his family and his girl. It had been a shock to them to discover how much he had changed. For them, from the time he had gone off to join the service to the time he returned from his first tour of Observer duty in the past, only a month or so had elapsed. For Scott, it had been four years. Four years in which he had grown immeasurably older and more experienced He had found it difficult to connect with them. His girl, whom he had loved with all the fierce intensity of youth, had suddenly seemed immature and superficial. And the concerns of his family seemed suddenly irrelevant to him. He was still his mother’s little boy.” but he had returned a man and found that she could not snake the adjustment Since then, he had not gone back home again. It was a different time and place

As he reappeared inside his room in the Grand Hotel, it looked no different than when he had left, about twelve hours earlier. Only minutes had passed here. The outline of Jennifer’s head was still impressed into the pillow. He gazed at the rumpled sheets on the bed and thought about her. He found those thoughts disturbing.

It was hard to believe she was a prostitute. He was not naive about the subject. He was in the service, he’d been with prostitutes before. Only this had been different. He’d only had a couple of experiences with hookers and, at first, there had been a sort of illicit thrill to it, but it was a thrill that was very short-lived. He knew that some men liked going with prostitutes because it was easy, uncomplicated sex, coupled with a sort of sleazy thrill, but he had found it frustrating and unsatisfying. He’d heard it said that prostitution victimized women because it made them into objects, but in another sense, it also victimized those who patronized them-to the hookers, they were objects, too. There was really no personal connection. It was, in many respects, a lot like masturbating. He had found it even less satisfying, because there was another human being involved, yet there was no real emotion, no affection, no genuine desire or intimacy. And when it was over, he was left with an empty feeling.

Only with Jennifer, it had been different. He had expected a relatively quick coupling, with little or no foreplay, and with her making all the obligatory expressions and sounds of sexual passion, only it had not turned out that way. It had started with that damn calico dress. It made her look like something out of Little Women, for God’s take, demure and innocent. The moment they entered the room, he had expected her to start stripping in a matter-of-fact way, only she hadn’t done that. She had approached him rather shyly, put her hands upon his shoulders and stood on tiptoe to kiss him softly on the lips. It was a hesitant, gentle kiss, almost chaste. They had exchanged several kisses like that, very brief and tentative, and then she had sighed as he pressed her against him and started undoing the buttons on the back of her dress.

In bed, he had marveled at the soft, lithe suppleness of her, the flawless, creamy skin, the gentle curves, the silky texture of her hair… They spent almost half an hour languorously exploring one another’s bodies, kissing and caressing and whispering endearments to each other, and when they moved beyond the foreplay and started making love, that too had been nothing like what he’d expected. There were no melodramatics; rather there had been a genuine, loving intimacy that took him completely unprepared. He could not believe she was that good an actress. He had climaxed quickly, carried away by the intensity of his feelings, yet she had not gotten out of bed to use the washbasin, dressed and gone away. Instead, she had lingered, and they had held each other and talked, and then they made love once more, and the second time, as she reached orgasm, she had cried out softly and wept real tears. She left shortly before dawn, after hugging him and holding him close for a long time, and it was only after she had gone that he had realized she had never even mentioned money.

He wondered what the hell he was getting into. Was he falling in love with a hooker? Jesus, that would be really stupid. Stupid and destructive. And yet, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. What they had shared was real. He had no doubt of that. He did not know how he felt about it. Logically, he told himself, he should forget it. Don’t get involved. He had a job to do and he could not afford dis

tractions. Nor could he afford to fall in love with someone who, when he was born, had already been dead for over eight hundred years.

He could not reconcile the image of the tender and loving young woman he had made love to with the image of a girl who worked in a saloon and hustled drinks and would have sex with any cowboy who could afford the price. A hooker with a heart of gold? Come on, he told himself, get real. Don’t be an asshole. Yet, he kept thinking of her lying on top of him, with her hand gently placed against his cheek, her beautiful blue eyes gazing deeply into his, as if in wonderment

…

Don’t do this, he thought to himself. It was just a brief sexual encounter, nothing more. She had been excited by the prospect of making it with a handsome, dangerous, young gunfighter and there was nothing more to it than that. Hell, it was probably only a come-on. Next time, she’d charge him. If there was a next time. He knew it would be stupid. There would be no next time, he told himself. However, his resolution lacked conviction. He sat down on the bed and touched the pillow where her head had lain Jesus, he thought, she had actually cried.

Why had she cried?

Hop Town was west of the Tombstone business district, just past Third Street, yet it might as well have been on the other side of the world. It was Tombstone’s Chinatown, home to some five hundred Chinese immigrants, “coolies.” as they were often called, who came to work on railroad construction gangs and in mining operations and in laundries and whatever other menial labor they could find. For most of the Chinese residents, it was a temporary situation, a way to find some work and make some money and return to the homeland, so they made little attempt to become acculturated to American society. As a result, Hop Town was like a little slice of China dropped into the frontier. Most of the residents of Tombstone never ventured there, preferring their own saloons to the Chinese opium dens and gambling houses. There was one exception.

Jennifer Reilly entered the opium parlor and held her breath as she walked through the smoke-filled room with its tiers of wooden couches, like cramped little bunk beds, most of them occupied by Chinese men reclining in states of drug-induced stupor. Jennifer had often thought that if there really was a Hell, it must be a lot like this. Heaven, she imagined, with a childlike simplicity, would be like some Elysian field, with waving heather and wildflowers and dreamy little thatch-roofed cottages from which harp music emanated while laughing little children, those innocents who had tragically died young, ran barefoot through the grass with little lambs and goats. It was a wistful vision, made melancholy by her certainty that she would never go there when she died.

She wasn’t sure if she would go to Hell. She was a sinner, of that she had no doubt. She never went to church. Aside from the fact that it would have scandalized the respectable women of Tombstone if she had done so, she knew that she did not belong there. Church, like Heaven and Hell, was a place where people went. Real people. Not creatures like herself.

Often, when she looked in the mirror, she thought to herself that she looked real. She looked pretty-she knew that because so many men had told her so, and she knew they could not tell that she was not what she appeared to be. When she examined her own image in the minor, she thought that she could not tell, either. But she knew. She would often think to herself, longingly, ‘How am I different?” And yet she knew she was. Because she had not been born. She had been made.

The nature of her creation was something that she didn’t really understand. God created Man and Woman. The Master had created her. He was the closest thing to God that she would ever know.

He had made her in his laboratory, where she had been born not of a woman, but of an artificial womb, and he had molded her mind and placed her with others like herself, a man and a woman who had acted as her parents, though they were not her parents and could not be parents, ever, for they were just like her. She could never have a child. She could never be like other people. Real people. Those who had acted as her parents, until she was old enough to be of use to the Master, had taught her all about who and what she really was. She was not a human being, but a creature called a “hominoid, someone who only looked human but was really something less. She owed her existence, and her unquestioning allegiance, to the Master. And she had never questioned it, till now.

That she could even think of questioning the Master’s wishes frightened her. Yet, it seemed impossible for her to think of Scott as being an enemy. The Master said he was. He had told her that he was one of those who came from the future, to seek him out and kill him. She knew that Scott could kill. She found it hard to believe that he could kill the Master, because the Master was so powerful and his enemies had always failed in the past. Yet the Master was concerned about them, concerned that they could interfere with his plans. If he had told her to kill Scott, she would have done it, without question. Only now, after what had occurred between them, she was not so sure.

She had been with many men since she had come to Tombstone. She had been told what to do and she had done it, though prior to coming to Tombstone, she had never been with a man and was not sure what to expect. The Master had told her, in brief, clinical terms, and explained that all she had to do was whatever the men wanted and act as if she enjoyed it immensely. She had not found it enjoyable. The first time, it had been painful and. despite her efforts, the man had not been pleased. She had cried afterward and felt terrible. But, as time went on, she found that it became less unpleasant, though it was never really pleasant. Most of the men were coarse and rough. Some of them had hurt her. A few, like Doc, were not so bad. She did not really mind doing it with Doc, though when he’d been drinking, he could be very rough, and Katie had told her that if she ever found out she was with Doc again, she’d cut her face up. Katie would do it, too. But Scott… with Scott, it had been different.

She’d felt differently about him from the very first. She knew that he was dangerous and that he was the Master’s enemy, but she still found herself drawn to him. He was nicer than the other men. Cleaner. More of a gentleman. And he had been gentle. Tender. It had never been like that with anyone before. The orgasm she had experienced with him had been her first and she did not really understand what it was, but when it had happened, it had overwhelmed her. It had both thrilled and frightened her. So that’s what it’s like, she thought to herself later. That’s what love feels like. Until then, she had not known. She had not thought herself capable of feeling it. Love, after all, was something only humans felt.

She had wept when it had happened, both because of the powerful feelings it had released in her and with joy, because she had discovered that she could feel those feelings, and at the same time, with utter misery, because she had deceived him. She had cheated him. She was not a real person and he believed she was. She had cheated others in that manner before, but it had never really mattered to her because she knew that she had never really mattered to them. Only Scott was different. She was in love with Scott. And she had no right to be in love. Not with any man, and especially not with Scott, who was the Master’s enemy.

As she walked through the opium parlor toward the back room, no one except the attendants paid any attention to her. For most of them, she could have walked past them stark naked and it would have made no difference, but the attendants backed away from her, bowing deferentially, keeping their eyes averted. Not because of who she was, but because of who the Master was.

The people of Hop Town did not quite know what to make of the Master. He frightened them. He spoke their difficult language as well as any of them and he knew and understood their customs in a way no other white man did. He could do things that reduced them to a trembling awe. They believed that he was a powerful magician and it puzzled them, because they had not thought that there were wizards among the white men, yet he unquestionably was one. He had demonstrated to them what would happen if they did not do exactly as he said. As a result, he had become the lord of Hop Town. They would do his bidding, no matter what he asked. The penalty for disobedience was too terrible to contemplate.

Jennifer knew that what the Master did was not magic. It was science, which seemed like a sort of magic, since she didn’t fully understand it. There was no need for her to understand. If there was a need for her to know or understand anything, the Master would give her that knowledge. He would also, if she performed her duties for him well, give her a child one day, and a man to live with, someone like herself, to act as father to that child. It would not be the same as having a child of her own, but it was the closest she would ever come to it and she had always dreamed of having that chance, that honor. Only now, she dreamed of something else. She had not thought she could feel love, but she had discovered that she could. Perhaps, if that was possible, there might be a way for her to have a child, as well.

She stepped through the door to the back room, where crates of supplies were kept, and continued on to a small closet at the very back. She unbolted the wooden door and opened it. Inside, assembled on the floor, were the softly glowing border circuits of a chronoplate. She took a deep breath, bit her lower lip, and stepped into the circle.

The weakness and dizziness struck her as soon as she stepped out into the room, a room that was thousands of miles away from Tombstone, and hundreds of years away, as well. She felt ill. Someone took her arm and steadied her.

“Come on,” he said, “the Master’s waiting.”

She was conducted through a door and into an elegant living room in the penthouse of a luxury apartment building. Through the sliding glass doors at the back, leading out to the terrace, she could see the sun setting on 23rd-century London.

She knew it was the 230 century, but she would not have guessed it from the furnishings. Nikolai Drakov was, at heart, a 19th-century man and he always liked surrounding himself with the trappings of that time. The wall-to-wall carpeting had been taken up when he moved into the apartment,