by Mickey Hunt
><
A man of medium height and dark,
receding hair stood back from the door and looked up at the imposing edifice.
The building was not particularly large, but it preserved memories of fear,
death, and unthinkable horror. Not a prison, but containing the memory of
prisons, the remembrances of prisoners. He put the keys into his pocket and
said to the young woman beside him, “It’s closed then.”
The man, Edward Slepyan, and his
fiancée Marisa Pavelich unlocked their bicycles and pushed them up the empty Wallenberg Place
toward the National Mall in Washington .
At the top of the incline, they mounted and peddled toward the bridge that
would take them across the Potomac River to Arlington and their separate apartments.
Without explaining, Slepyan veered
off the sidewalk. Under the shade of an elm tree, he dropped his bike and fell,
face-downward. Marisa put her bike on the ground and sat beside him in the
grass.
“I know what you’re feeling,” she
said.
“My whole life’s study, my life’s
work is closed,” he said from the hollow space under his arm.
“You were the last member of the
museum council to quit.”
“It made no difference.”
Just then an armored vehicle
rumbled up, and from it approached a man wearing an open-collared, dark green
shirt and dungarees. Slepyan sat up. Soldiers took positions around the
vehicle, but the man advanced alone.
“Dr. Edward Slepyan,” he said. “I
need to talk with you.”
“Who are you?”
The man smoothly crouched down on
his haunches, his thigh and shoulder muscles pressing against his clothing. “My
name is Colonel Weizman, and I represent the government of Israel . I heard
about the museum, and that your university has been closed for some time. I
have a job offer for you.”
Weizman showed Slepyan his
identification.
Slepyan glanced to Marisa for a
clue about the sudden appearance of Weizman, but she just shrugged her
shoulders. “Okay, I’m interested,” he said.
“It involves travel, much travel,
and time away from home. Much more than you’re thinking. Before I explain, I
must ask you a question.”
At that moment an explosion boomed
in the distance. No one flinched, though all looked in the direction of the
sound.
Weizman resumed. “What if the
Holocaust never happened?”
Slepyan scoffed. “Let’s go,
Marisa.” He moved to take up his bicycle. “He’s a lunatic.”
“No, no. I’m sorry,” Weizman said,
rising to his feet. “I mean, what if you could prevent the Holocaust from
happening? What if those millions of Jews, our people, had not been murdered?
What if seeds of Shoah had not germinated again?”
“My people too, sir,” Marisa
interjected. “I’ve adopted them.”
“I understand. Wouldn’t the world
be a better place? Think of the contributions to humanity the murdered could,
would have made. In culture, the arts, in medicine and technology. Is it
possible we could have saved the world from this looming darkness?”
Slepyan gave the man a penetrating
look. “I have to answer these ridiculous questions to get this job?”
“Answers are the job.”
Slepyan petted his stubbly beard.
“Okay. This is absurd, but you’d have to change human nature, or travel back in
time and intervene. Umm. Morally, we couldn’t kill Hitler as a child. You’d
have to stop him early in his career. That would be the simplest way, but
simple is impossible.”
“When exactly? When to stop
Hitler?”
“The latest possible moment, but
early enough to divert Germany ’s
course. Early 1930’s. How can reconstructing history save us?”
“One more question, Dr. Slepyan.
Would you have consented to Hitler’s assassination?”
“Yes, but he was supernaturally
protected, it seems.”
“Ah, supernaturally… I want you to
watch this film. Take it home. Watch it with Ms. Pavelich. And will you meet me
tomorrow at the Canadian embassy? That’s where I’m staying. As you know, our
embassy in D.C. was destroyed. Here’s my card, and the movie. This is what
we’re prepared to pay you.” He handed Slepyan a sealed envelope. “We can pick
you up prior to noon.”
“I think it’s safe enough to
ride.”
“Then, Dr. Slepyan, arrive at
noon, if you please. The embassy is on Pennsylvania
intersecting Constitution. I’ll meet you in the lobby. We’ll have lunch. And do
not talk about this with anyone.”
“Can others watch the movie?”
Marisa asked him.
“I don’t care.”
“Hey, I need to tell you
something,” Slepyan said.
“What is that?”
“My friends call me Eddie.”
“Am I a friend?” Weizman asked,
frowning.
“Can you call me Eddie?”
“I’m afraid not.” Weizman turned
and walked away.
Edward and Marisa watched him for
a moment and then rode their bicycles past the untended, weedy, graffiti-marred
FDR Memorial. Road traffic was light—mostly official governmental vehicles.
Midway across the bridge, Marisa stopped, leaned her bike against the parapet,
and gazed upriver. The smell was tolerable today because of a moderate breeze.
If possible, the Potomac was higher than it
had been in the morning. Within a month its stagnant marsh water would
certainly rise above the pavement of the bridge.
“What are you doing?” Edward
asked.
She opened the envelope from
Weizman. “Here’s an active draft upon the Defense Commissary for a month’s
rations. A gift.”
“Couldn’t be true.”
She smiled and said, “We can get
married now.”
“Why?”
“Our offer is” [she was reading]
“three years’ support for two, upon acceptance of the contract, and, after
successful or unsuccessful completion of the mission, a self-sustaining home in
Colorado at or
above 9,000 feet, with lifetime support, or 20 million dollars in gold… for you
or your survivors.”
><
In the evening they watched the
movie at Marisa’s penthouse apartment that she shared with five other single
women—formerly professional women, since most were now unemployed. The
apartment occupied two floors at the top of their building and overlooked the Potomac . In earlier days when it was standing, they would
have seen the Washington
Monument
A few roommates and their
boyfriends joined them. For supper Marisa prepared an elaborate hummus dip with
paprika and whole chickpeas that she served with fresh-made flatbread. Edward
brought some wine.
The movie told a variant of The
Time Machine, by H.G. Wells. The producers crafted the film as if a
documentary, but with well-known actors and the usual incredible special
effects.
Scientists found that as the
velocity of a space vessel pressed toward the theoretical speed limits of solid
objects, the mass of the ship actually reduced, which allowed the thrust to
grow, making it possible to break the light barrier in a year of increasing
acceleration.
The movie showed the UNSS
Ironcloud expanding and transforming into photons, the process preserving the
conceptual integrities of the ship and its living passengers. From an outside
observer’s perspective—of the audience—the ship appeared as an enormous, racing
comet.
Exactly when the Ironcloud exceeded
the speed of light, the engines seemed to stop, and the stars behind it
vanished. The ship maintained this rate for six and a half minutes, and
one-third of the crew disappeared without warning, without a sound. The
remainder of the crew returned to Earth. Surprisingly, as they neared Earth and
came within radio range, mission control asked no questions about the
disappearances.
“Why no questions?” Edward
mouthed.
When the captain and crew were
taken to be debriefed, all but a handful of the missing members were waiting
for them—they had somehow journeyed millions of miles unaided. Analysts
supposed that the crew members had made their daydreams of home into reality.
But when a crew member told that he appeared before he originally left Earth,
the analysts realized that the wandering crew members had transcended time.
The unrecovered people had become
lost in the universe.
At this point Edward whispered in
Marisa’s ear, “How does it relate to a job?”
“Shh!”
A crew now ventured to the past
and tried to save the Earth, but all attempts failed, and the reason didn’t
emerge until they traveled far into the future where humans had split into two
subspecies, one devolved into brutes and the other evolved into beings living
in airships. There the sky people’s historian explained a classic time travel
paradox: altering the past to change an undesirable present invariably
precluded the development of time travel.
When the film was over, everyone
stood up and stretched. One of the boyfriends said, “Decent movie, but we’re
still trapped by the present. I feel worse now.”
Edward and Marisa said nothing, as
Weizman requested. They hugged, said goodnight, and Edward left.
><
The Embassy of Canada was
surrounded by tanks and soldiers. Edward and Marisa locked their bicycles to a
light pole as the homeless people sitting on nearby benches watched the
activity around them. Weizman met the couple inside the initial
security-check/reception area and escorted them through. They rode the elevator
to a passageway below ground and entered a conference room with a domed ceiling
and walls filled with changing panoramas of Canada—silent moving images from
Canadian history, natural landscapes, and urban skylines. Twenty-four seats
were tucked around a large square table open in the middle. The table was set
with fine dinner service and glasses.
“Straight to the point,” Weizman
said, “what do you like for lunch?”
Marisa said, “What do you have?”
Weizman spread his arms, his hands
open. “Anything kosher. Everything. We’re well stocked. We have greenhouses,
too, for growing fruits and vegetables.”
“Then I’ll have salmon, grilled.
Asparagus, steamed. Do you have asparagus? [Weizman smiled a yes.] A green
salad with olive oil and vinegar, and boiled new potatoes, no butter, but in
parsley. And fruit salad for dessert.”
“The same,” Edward said.
“And for drink,” Weizman said,
“may I suggest a Pinot Noir?”
“Perfect,” Marisa said.
“Living well,” Weizman said, “is
the business of our meeting. The film you saw last night is not science
fiction. The story is invented, of course, but the science is genuine. Humans
who surpass light speed enter a state of being that enables them to travel
across time. Dr. Slepyan, you know more about the Holocaust than anyone else
alive. You know Hitler’s life. We’re sending an expedition into the past to
change Hitler if we can: to alter his personality, to help him be healthy, or
else to kill him. We need you as our guide.”
Edward jumped up and walked around
the room while gazing at the images. A mixture of anger and sadness darkened
his face. He reached out and touched the wall.
“We’re losing all the beauty,”
Weizman said. “Not only in Canada ,
but everywhere.”
“Eddie doesn’t believe you,”
Marisa said, suddenly tearful. “He doesn’t understand why you’re playing this
elaborate game.”
“Will you, Dr. Slepyan, will you
accompany us on a three-year space voyage? You and Ms. Pavelich. You’ll have to
suspend your skepticism and come along for the ride. If you do nothing else, I
guarantee the pay package.”
“Even if you are lying about time
travel?” Edward asked.
“Absolutely.”
“May we think about it overnight?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“Is there really even a
spacecraft? Let’s go, Marisa, I’ve heard enough from this crazy liar.” He moved
toward the door, but she remained seated.
The light in the room dimmed as
the scene around them changed to show a near object, with stars and Earth in
the background, the Earth turning below, the object spinning swiftly. If it had
been lying on a sandy beach in miniature, Edward and Marisa would have thought
it a pointed, spiraled sea shell.
“The UNSS Chariot,” Weizman said.
“That’s a live image.”
Edward sat down next to Marisa and
took her hand.
Now they saw the inside of a
comfortable home with wooden timbers and what looked like windows to a green
forest outdoors. A woman was running a vacuum cleaner. She stopped the machine.
“It’s almost ready, sir.”
“An onboard apartment, yours in
fact,” Weizman said.
The view moved into corridors and
proceeded to tour other sections of the vessel, including areas of command and
control.
“Okay,” Edward said. “I’ve seen
enough.”
“Will you join us?” Weizman
strangely emphasized the word “will.”
The image transformed into one of
stars, then the stars began swirling until they morphed into wooden barracks
with bunks stacked three high. Emaciated, rag-clad men, some immobile, some
shifting in slow motion, lay in rows on the bunks.
Edward’s face grew pale as he
gazed at the visual environment around him. “You removed one of my constructed
videos from the museum.” He seemed to be considering. Finally he asked, “What
do you think, Marisa?”
“I will, if you will. We don’t
have any other prospects. But imagine, we’ll experience pre-war Germany first
hand, and if we succeed, save so many lives.”
“Yes,” Edward said. “If Weizman is
telling the truth, if time travel exists, it’s the ultimate opportunity for a
historian—and to obliterate what he most loathes—it would be a kind of
redemption, a validation.”
“And yet I have a concern,” Marisa
said. “Preventing the Holocaust is a sufficient purpose, but there’s no
guarantee this will halt the collapse of civilization, as you said it will.
Most of the murdered were ordinary people and not leaders and innovators.”
Weizman looked at Edward. “Dr.
Slepyan has already addressed this issue in full.”
“I wrote a paper. Weizman and
those backing this project are counting on the redeeming nature of the Jewish
people, but there’s more. Even if the rhetoric is different, most governments,
such as they are, operate on principles developed by the Nazis. They studied,
applied, and are improving upon Nazi methods. In other words, the Holocaust was
a prototype, and we’re presently seeing a full implementation. The widespread,
systematic slaughter of the developing nations will be everywhere soon.”
“So,” Marisa said, “kill both
Hitler and the advance of his immoral philosophy.”
“That’s our hope,” Weizman said.
“And our calculations rate a strong probability of success.”
“How strong?” Edward asked.
“About 20%. It’s the only chance
we have.”
After a long silent pause, Edward
said, “Okay. One requirement. We want to get married first. Right, sweetheart?
[She nodded.] Right away at Marisa’s apartment, with as many friends who can
come. However, I don’t know if Rabbi Schildel can officiate.”
Marisa puckered her face in frustration.
Colonel Weizman glanced at his
watch. “Returning to your homes will allow you to collect personal items. But
you must be escorted there and back.”
At that moment the walls and
ceiling faded to white, the door to the conference room opened, and people
began entering and taking seats around the table until all were filled. There
was no time for introductions because servants began carrying in food for
everyone, and wine. There was little conversation.
Edward whispered to Marisa, “Did
you notice that everyone has what we ordered?”
“I did.”
“I don’t remember a waiter.”
After a few minutes of quiet
eating, Marisa said, “The food is good, but it could be better.”
Weizman stood up. “Most of you
know each other, but I’d like to introduce our newest members. We have Marisa
Pavelich, who as you are aware, is a renowned chef. She has served in the White
House and as a menu consultant for several museums. She also holds an advanced
degree in dietetics.”
Marisa nodded in acknowledgment.
“She’s engaged to Dr. Edward
Slepyan, former Chair of Holocaust Studies at Washington University
Murmurs of satisfaction around the
room.
“Anything either of you would like
to say?”
Marisa braced, but did not
otherwise move. Edward shook his head.
Weizman proceeded to introduce the
others in the room—the ship’s senior officers including Captain Therreal, the
ship’s physician and his assistant, the Israeli military contingent consisting
of two Mossad agents and eight combatants, and the cook and his helper.
“The Reverend Sonya Kim is our
chaplain. Rev. Kim is not only a theologian, but a recognized neurophysicist.
She’ll be our time-travel coach. Lastly, to her right we are honored to have
the esteemed astroengineer and nuclear physicist, Nobel Laureate, Ralf
Pachero-Nanez. Dr. Pachero-Nanez—”
“Call me Ralf,” a man said and
stood up, showing his remarkable height. “At some later time, I’d like to
discuss with you, Professor Slepyan, your research with the EQC.”
Edward bowed.
“Okay,” Weizman said. “Dr.
Pachero-Nanez developed the theory and created the propulsion systems that
enable us to transcend the light barrier. Without him, time-travel would never
have been possible.”
“Excuse me.” Ralf waved his arms
in annoyance. “Time does not exist, and therefore one cannot travel through
time any more than waltz through the intangible concept of a clock. We simply
will be transcending the material-energy universe, when—” Ralf faltered as the Rev.
Kim tugged on his jacket. “My lovely wife will explain later.”
“I neglected to mention that he
and Rev. Kim though mature in years, recently married,” Weizman said through a
laugh politely echoed around the room.
Following that remark, Weizman
adjourned the meeting. Marisa and Edward mingled until Weizman pulled them
aside. “There will plenty of time to get acquainted later. You have 18 hours
for personal business, then you’ll be shuttling to the ship at 0800 hours.
Blessings to you on your wedding, and be sure to bring your recent research and
notes. We already have your published material and the raw data from your EQC
work in Germany .”
“You have all that?”
“Yes. Yes, we do.”
“I thought I knew all the
locations of that data.”
Weizman said nothing.
Motionless, Edward thought a short
while then turned from Weizman. “Okay… Okay. Let’s get married.” He kissed
Marisa on the lips.
><
Regrets about leaving and anxiety
over the upcoming journey tempered the joy of the quickly arranged wedding.
None of Eddie’s or Marisa’s parents or other relatives was able to attend. The
guests comprised the crowd who watched the movie the evening before, additional
friends, and former coworkers. The newlyweds spent the night in a private
upper-floor suite at the Canadian embassy.
Weizman said the most difficult
part of space travel for novices would be the initial, alarming shuttle ride to
their ship, the UNSS Chariot, and this proved to be true if one discounted the
boredom of the following year in a closed vessel with no wide terrestrial
vistas, no weather, no change of seasons, no songs of birds and insects, no
environmental variety whatsoever, and limited social contacts. Indeed, the
Chariot became a prison, and the crew employed the coping mechanisms of
prisoners throughout the ages: competitive games, intellectual pursuits,
conversation, physical exercise, diverting food, dreams of escape or release,
and, of course, work.
Only three notable situations
occurred during the year of acceleration toward light speed. The first was that
soon after the Chariot’s departure, Marisa discovered she was pregnant—she and
Eddie had taken preventative measures, but, alas, in the zeal of first
intimacy, nature often thwarts and supersedes human intention.
The second notable situation was
the friendship that grew between Eddie and Ralf Pachero-Nanez. They met at the
“the Park,” as the crew called the common room featuring the same projection
system as the Canadian embassy. It was the only place in the vessel that felt
like an outdoor environment on Earth.
One day, Eddie and Ralf discussed
the Environment Quantum Computer.
“Reading quantum flips in the material
setting, classing them according to age by means of radioactive dating,
processing them into cohesive data, and then coding the data into a
visual/aural reproduction of historical events!” Ralf exclaimed. “Marvelous,
Eddie! You would have to screen out so much, however—all the superfluous
electromagnetism.”
“I didn’t develop the science, of
course,” Eddie said. “All I do—did—is give context to what we observed. We can
pinpoint dates pretty close. We took quantum readers into Auschwitz ,
the preserved site, for example, and within a week, we had colorized images,
and sounds, of actual events. Of unloading docks, of prisoner barracks, of the
showers… We used these films at the Holocaust museum as an educational tool.
They are tedious and slow, but all the more horrifying. We had scenes running
24 hours a day. Visitors stayed as long as they wished.”
“It’s almost time transcendence.
The Chariot contains your quantum libraries from Germany and elsewhere? Marvelous.”
“Only a fraction were ever
interpreted and rendered into imagery,” Eddie said.
“Certainly we brought every
potential resource, because we’ll never afford to make this expedition again. We’ll
need to improvise.”
“Ralf, your passion is time
travel—transcendence, that is—and yet you focused on space.”
“Speed, not space or time. My
parents and grandparents were scientists. You know, my grandparents were born
in Germany .
I was a dreamer and read all the speculative fiction. But even the best time
travel stories missed an essential factor. In order to travel through time, say
from a particular place in the south of England , one must also travel in
space. Why so? Because the island
of Britain
Eddie stared at the simulated
creation around him that had faded from the main street of his hometown into
tree silhouettes on the horizon, and above, stars and swirly galaxies, the
present becoming past and swiftly being left behind by an emergent present.
Eddie looked at Ralf with an
inquiring expression.
“An illustration is always
helpful,” Ralf said, smiling.
“I’m trying to imagine a fixed
point in the universe.”
Ralf laughed. “Don’t! If this ship
were moving at the correct velocity and on the right trajectory, it might
actually be standing still. We’re like a sailing vessel on the ocean, affected
by leeward drift and nearly imperceptible currents. I never took interest in
space travel, because space is too cold or hot and it’s void of life, and I
never believed time travel as such was possible, but if it were possible, we’d
have to reach great momentum. The discovery of time transcendence was
accidental.”
The door to the Park opened, and
light streaming in spoiled the artificial night sky. Marisa and Sonya entered,
Sonya carrying a biopolymer box. The door closed and Marisa looked up and said,
“Lovely.”
“I thought we’d join you for a
late night picnic,” Sonya said. “Marisa and I assembled some food.”
“What are we seeing now?” Marisa
said, still looking up until she bumped into a chair.
“The view from our exact location,
but without the gravity simulating spin,” Ralf said.
“And that location is?” Marisa
asked.
“It doesn’t really matter, does
it?”
“Marisa can’t cook anything not
exquisite,” Sonya said.
><
The third notable situation was
the training that Sonya began midway into the voyage. Nearly everyone,
including Weizman, attended the sessions. The Mossad agents and the combatants
kept apart from the others. They, apparently, had already prepared.
Sonya explained a fundamental
aspect of time transcendence. “In the dream world your powers of thought and
action are limited. Your mind floats along, flitting here and there, and you
have negligible control over imaginary actions within the dream. Your body is
all but immobile and paralyzed in bed. Consider that the supernatural world is
to the natural world what the waking world is to the dream world. In the
supernatural, you have incomparably more freedom and control over your mind and
body than you do in your ordinary existence. When we cross over, when we
accelerate past the light barrier, we will experience the true real.”
><
The birth of a son to Eddie and
Marisa coincided with the beginning of the vessel’s conversion from matter into
photonic energy. Marisa urged Eddie to name him Itai, and Eddie said, “Then,
his name is Itai.”
The couple found it difficult to
distinguish between their elation with their child and an acute, exhilarating
awareness of reality that came to them gradually during the final three months
of acceleration. Marisa described it by saying, “It’s like I’m waking up
slowly, rising from deep muddy water into consciousness.”
Sonya assured the parents that
their baby would transcend time with them, he being subject to their will and
love.
><
During the final formal
time-training session in the Park, Sonya summarized the essentials to the
assembled expedition members.
“We cannot overemphasize how
important it is that, once we penetrate the light barrier, you focus. We cannot
afford to lose anyone. Your will, the switch within you, propels you across
times. We’ve practiced synchronizing our wills from the beginning of this
program through consensus and submission exercises. Focus. We must will
together to move the ship with us. As we all move ourselves simultaneously into
1933 at a specific date and precise time and location in orbit, we’ll carry the
Chariot along. Minus the Chariot, we’ll be stranded, obviously, or worse,
emerge in vacuous space. As I have said, if our intention is to arrive precisely
together, it will be so.”
“A question,” Eddie said. “I
thought there was a separate team, one attempting to influence Hitler in his
youth, to save him from his mania. What happened to this plan?”
Weizman stood up. “I’m afraid we
abandoned it. The outcomes are too uncertain.”
Ralf gave a sudden start that
caught everyone’s attention, and Eddie and Marisa both felt bewildered.
Sonya continued as if there had
been no interruption. “Each of you will experience Infinity differently, likely
in a metaphor dear to you. I see it as a grand cathedral. You must start
visualizing it now, so you won’t be surprised. Some of you… Captain Therreal,
you haven’t told me what your metaphor is.”
“A wilderness trout stream,” he
said, and everyone laughed on top of him saying, “Fishing is paradise.”
As mirth subsided, Sonya said, “A
traveler will see each imagined time or world as from a distance, and go there,
if he or she wishes, but it takes experience to navigate, and that’s beyond
your purpose. We may be in the realm of Infinity for only a heartbeat. Once we
are in, you’ll move out quickly. I won’t be passing into 1933 with you. I’ll
remain inside Infinity as a medium, a link with our present.” She looked around
the room. “Any questions?”
Marisa spoke up. “Is there
additional personal preparation to make?”
Sonya seemed lost in thought and
then recollected herself. “Sorry. No. God is light; in him is no darkness. The
supernatural world is like the natural one—you’ll get along in one much the
same as in the other, no special moral qualities required, although there are
profound consequences for each action and idea, for good or evil.
“But not everyone is fit for
climbing a Himalayan peak or swimming the English Channel ,
and Infinity has its own challenges. As your escort I’m your protector, and
that’s sufficient. Alright. If there’s nothing else, this concludes our formal
training. If you haven’t yet, you must memorize our destination coordinates and
you will be tested on them under stress conditions.”
As people filed from the room,
Sonya said over Colonel Weizman’s shoulder, “I suggested that the commandos
attend our summary session today. Why weren’t they here?”
Weizman turned to her and did not
speak.
“And what about the scuttled plan
to save Hitler?”
He walked away.
><
One afternoon Eddie fell asleep
over his keyboard, which caused him to arrive late for his regular meeting with
Ralf at the Park. When the Park’s door slid open, he heard for an instant a
loud voice shouting in German. Ralf and Weizman were standing face to face,
both in an immobile attitude of suppressed anger. Weizman glanced at Eddie and
left the room. Ralf collapsed into a chair.
“What was that about?” Eddie said.
“An argument.”
“Did I hear ‘abscheulicher?’,
abomination?”
“Perhaps you did,” Ralf said
wearily.
“I never thought Weizman liked
you.”
“Does he like anyone? The only
reason I’m on this mission, Eddie, my friend, is to maintain the propulsion.”
“Yes, I suppose so.” Eddie pulled
up a chair, settled into it, and spoke in the tone of friendly debate customary
between them. “Recently I’ve been reading your philosophical works. Your ideas
about human free-will seem contradictory. You write that it’s a mechanism that
gave humans an evolutionary advantage, and then you say that will, like time,
doesn’t exist—but only the appearance of will—it’s an illusion. And you also
write that human will is the one true moral value, the one that gives dignity
to human beings. The singular characteristic of a person, you say, is the
ability to make and enforce decisions. I thought you might provide an
explanation for the apparent contradictions.”
Ralf had been scowling and he
leaped from his chair. “Forgive me,” he said. “I’m upset and fatigued. I don’t
think we can talk today. But, I look forward to next time. Excuse me.” And with
that, he left the Park.
><
As they approached light speed,
Eddie and Marisa noticed how every sensation, emotion, and thought became
deeper, more intense, more brilliant. Each word they uttered suggested not only
an entire spectrum of meanings and relationships with other words and the
history of words, but concepts that felt more tangible than the objective item
they represented. When they said “child,” the idea almost became an actuality
they could touch and hold. Speech between them became so substantial that it
was as unbearable as it was unnecessary, so they gave it up. They also gave up
eating and drinking, as there was no need.
They waited and it wasn’t waiting,
but only watching, listening, and thinking. Sonya called all the crew into the
Park. Everyone was present, reclining in comfortable chairs, Eddie’s arm around
Marisa as she cuddled Itai. Each person experienced an instant of illumination,
of clarity, recognition and infinite vision, of awe and fear, of agonizing
pleasure and pain, of ecstasy and despair. Sonya cried out, “Now!” and the next
thing they knew, the Chariot seemed to be dim and motionless.
“Well,” Ralf said, “is anyone
missing?” He skipped around the room. “No? Is baby Itai here? Good!”
Each person exhibited a unique
look of shock.
“We made it,” Ralf said. “We’re in
orbit around planet Earth and the date is… November 2, 1933. Congratulations,
everyone.”
“It’s normal to be depressed
afterwards,” Sonya said, standing in their midst, and she seemed to shimmer.
><
The Mossad agents took the shuttle
to the surface and bought a neglected farm outside a village north of Essen , Germany Israel in Exile
to ensure that they pursued the time transcendence project even if the
Holocaust never happened. Sonya’s ghost or spirit appeared from time to time.
Marisa and Eddie supervised the
household and farm activities, the latter of which, except for Ralf’s vegetable
garden, they conducted minimally for appearances. Eddie set up a laboratory in
the basement and continued analyzing EQC readings.
They reveled in the gentle
environment of Earth, with its brisk, bright winter; with winds, rain, and soft
sunlight, a relief from their stark abode during the previous year and compared
to the polluted, decaying world they left behind. They enjoyed watching their
baby boy grow. Weizman monitored everyone’s activities and restricted travel
away from the farm, but otherwise Marisa and Eddie relished their peaceful
day-by-day months of simple enjoyment and labor.
“If we aren’t successful in
preventing the Holocaust, I don’t want to return to our own time—not with
Itai,” Marisa said early one spring morning as they strolled in the woods
behind the barns. “Let’s go someplace quiet and safe here.”
><
Weizman, Ralf, and Eddie had
concluded that the best time to eliminate Chancellor Hitler would be during the
summer of 1934, prior to the September Nuremberg rally that initiated the
strongest flourish yet of Nazi Socialism. With Hitler dead, the influential
propaganda film, Triumph des Willens, would never be made. German President
Hindenburg, though ill, would still be alive and representing the old, more
civil order; and the Nazis had not yet seized total control of Germany .
By means of the EQC technicians’
research, Eddie determined the precise moment and place when Hitler should be
killed and the sniper team could safely egress. On June 28, Hitler would be at
a wedding reception at the Hotel Vereinshaus in Essen . On that day, before the “Night of Long
Knives,” Hitler’s paranoia about German political rivals and Ernst Röhm of the
SA, the Brownshirts, had risen to such a pitch and was so infective that the
assassination would not provoke anti-Semite reprisals.
On the given morning, the
combatants left from the farmhouse wearing ordinary street clothing and
carrying two suitcases. Later, in the afternoon, Eddie, Marisa, Ralf and the
others gathered in the parlor and listened to the radio, expecting news of
Hitler’s death to come across the airwaves soon after an effective result.
Captain Therreal joined them.
Deep into the evening, and the big
band music seemed as if it would never end. Eddie played with the baby on the
floor. Ralf played chess against himself. A fire burned low on the hearth. At
some point Captain Therreal looked up from the book he was reading. “Did you
notice the music skip backwards?”
“You fell asleep,” Eddie said.
Marisa entered the room carrying
pitchers of beer.
“Let me help,” Eddie said from the
floor.
“Tray of mugs in the kitchen. You
know, I felt dizzy in the keg room. It was weird.”
“Go to bed.”
“No, I’m fine. Whoa, there it is
again.”
Everyone had felt the skip this
time.
“Earthquake?” Ralf said with
unusual irony for him.
><
Not long after midnight, Colonel
Weizman and his team drove up to the farm in their panel trucks. The combatants
retired to their quarters in a remodeled barn, and Weizman wearily climbed the
steps to the farmhouse and sank onto a sofa before a cheerless, cold fireplace.
They waited for him to speak.
He shook his head, saying the operation
had failed. “Everything went smoothly. No one at the nightclub across the park
from Hotel Vereinshaus suspected that we weren’t businessmen waiting for a
train. The sniper team and I were stationed on the roof of the nightclub’s
building. Hitler stepped onto the hotel balcony for a breath of fresh air, as
we predicted. He was drinking tea. Our man had him in his sights. 400 meters.
Range, elevation, windage on his scope—all correct. The spotter accounted for
the breeze. The sniper squeezed the trigger and the weapon fired. We felt the
pressure of the cartridge’s explosion. Head shot. We saw the target jerk and…”
“Then what?” Captain Therreal
said.
“It was as if the weapon had not
fired.”
“What do you mean?”
“The weapon had not fired.”
“How can that be?” Eddie said.
“It just was. Hitler held a
teacup, just as before. I ordered for our spotter to check the figures, and our
man fired again with the same result. We saw the target react, and the next
instant all was as if it had never happened. The cartridge was intact—the
bullet never left the chamber.”
Weizman scooted to the edge of the
couch and continued.
“By then Hitler had re-entered the
hotel ballroom and we shot through the massive window, with identical results
but more obvious, since the bullet shattered the glass, which, the next instant
was undamaged. Afterward, there was no other opportunity.”
Everyone stared blankly, lost in
devastation—or denial—that the mission so essential for the survival of
civilization, and so heavily financed and outfitted, and so meticulously
prepared should progress so far and then fail at the critical moment, in the
final small action.
“Hitler’s survival is required for
the discovery of time transcendence,” Eddie said, trying to focus the group.
“That’s the only conclusion possible. He’s not only responsible for the
Holocaust, which is a provocateur of time transcendence, but the person Adolf
Hitler himself is an origin.”
“Or his descendant,” Weizman said
and eyed Ralf. “Why hasn’t our brilliant scientist spoken?”
“Eddie’s reasoning is intuitive,”
Ralf said, ignoring the inexplicable insult, “but transcendence theory isn’t
straightforward. Its paradoxes and contradictions are incoherent, not because
it’s too complex, but incoherent in essence. We’re operating outside of the
cause and effect universe. The laws within Infinity, or more properly,
Eternity, may be random.”
“Which is to say, what?” Weizman
asked.
“There might be another
explanation,” Ralf said.
“And that would be?” Weizman said.
Ralf didn’t answer.
“Divine Providence ,” Marisa offered. “A will superior
to ours. Anyhow, Adolf Hitler didn’t father any offspring.”
“We could investigate that,” Eddie
said.
“Trample a butterfly and modify
the cosmos,” Ralf said. “In whatever way Hitler affects time transcendence, it’s
certain what you witnessed, Colonel Weizman, is a causal loop. The rifleman
pulled the trigger: Hitler was killed and that revised the course of history so
that time transcendence never occurred. If it never occurred, then we never
crossed time and Hitler was never killed, which means that time transcendence
could occur, which means we did appear here in 1933 and we did set up the
assassination and our sniper placed his finger on the trigger.”
“All that happened in a moment?”
Marisa said.
“Perhaps,” Ralf said, “and it
appeared as if everything reset to the instant prior to the shot.”
“That’s the skip we felt,” Marisa
said. “What should we do next?”
“We could find a child born to
Hitler,” Eddie said.
“That won’t prevent the
Holocaust.” Weizman leaned back against a couch pillow and closed his eyes. “We
have a backup plan. The mission has changed. We can’t kill Hitler, but we can
annihilate as many high ranking Nazis as possible, and it may weaken Hitler
enough that he won’t execute his ‘final solution.’” He looked at Ralf. “Only
Rev. Kim can tell us if we accomplish our goal.”
“I expect her this evening, or by
morning,” Ralf said.
Marisa appeared to be listening
for the baby who was sleeping upstairs. When the room fell silent except for
the clock ticking on the mantelpiece, she said, “You all agreed that killing
Hitler was the least disturbing action having the best result, right? Why
should we give up? What if he produced a child instrumental to time
transcendence, but in the next couple years? They didn’t establish the ghettos
until when?”
“The first one, 1939,” Eddie said.
“Hitler had—has—a powerful effect
on the German people,” Ralf said. “His mere existence might inspire the
difference.”
They all were quiet for a minute
and the cook’s helper brought in soup, bread, and wine for Weizman.
He heartily ate a few mouthfuls
and then said, “We could talk forever. Dr. Slepyan, please research the Hitler
offspring idea. If we find a family link between Der Führer and time
transcendence—it’s the most easily discoverable of the multitude of factors,
isn’t it?—then we proceed with killing Nazis for the present and endeavor to
not disturb that linkage.”
“Producing his own children never
crossed Hitler’s mind,” Eddie said. “He was, in his perverse thinking, the
father of all Germans.”
><
Possible offspring of Adolf Hitler
were not so easily discoverable. While Hitler was alleged to have had half a
dozen affairs, two women appeared on the off-the-cuff high-probable list as
mothers: Eva Braun, of course, and the British devotee, Unity Mitford. Eddie
dismissed both of them as possibilities. Enough about them was known that they
couldn’t have concealed a pregnancy. If this person existed at all, it had to
be someone hitherto unsuspected—a female secretary or a simple admirer. There
were numerous women who might have been honored to serve a peculiar request of
his, though it would be out of his character to engage in sexual activity with
them. He was fastidious, Eddie thought. He married Eva Braun.
Eddie spent hours thinking about
how to narrow down the search. While they possessed vast amounts of data
recorded in a multitude of locations over long periods of time, it nevertheless
included only a fraction of the totality of Hitler’s life. They might not have
the needed information at all.
He and Weizman set up parameters
for an exhaustive data search. Much of the raw, unprocessed EQC material had
been cataloged and coupled with all pertinent information on the Third Reich.
The critical factors were person, place, and timeframe. With little hope of
success, Eddie set the search in motion and asked the technicians to inform him
if anything significant came up. Days passed while the computers plodded along,
seemingly in slow motion, while in fact they were processing at lightning speed.
Eddie quite forgot about the search. Indeed, in the pleasant daily routines of
family chores, the entire mission faded into the background, until one evening
in early September when a cool breeze foretold fall and approaching winter.
A tech ran up to him as he was
rinsing soil from the garden implements he had been working with long after
sunset. “The computers are done, Dr. Slepyan.”
He hurried to the workroom in the
basement. Marisa, Weizman and a few of the Mossad fighters had gathered—a
small, tense crowd. The tech beamed, relishing the drama. With an
all-but-imperceptible flourish, he hit a single key and the screen opened to
reveal a list of names, followed by places, timeframes, and percentages. The
list filled the page; it filled three whole pages.
Eddie read the first two entries
out loud. “1. Traudl Junge ,
Berlin Berlin
Chancellery, April 1945. Match: 83%.”
He accessed the referencing material
and summarized it out loud: “Reitsch and von Greim spent three days with Hitler
at the Berghof on the occasion of Eva Braun’s sister’s wedding. Reitsch at that
time said, ‘The Führer must live so that Germany can live. The people demand
it.’ She was 32 years old. Hitler gave her and von Greim poison capsules in the
remote chance of defeat and ordered that they mount a commemorative Luftwaffe
bombing of Russian Soviet forces. He also requested for von Greim to keep
secret watches on Himmler and Goering, both of whom Hitler suspected of
disloyalty. General von Greim committed suicide about a year later. Hanna
Reitsch died in 1979.”
Eddie jumped up. “Let’s start.
Reitsch first.”
Marisa groaned. “I’m going to bed.
I’ve got a baby to nurse.”
“If Reitsch bore a child,” Eddie
muttered to himself, “she must have given it up for adoption.”
><
Eddie and the two EQC technicians
worked through what remained of the night in the basement laboratory, Eddie
catnapping on a cot while the computer filtered data and processed images. Not
long after daybreak, the male technician said, “I’ve got something, Dr.
Slepyan.”
Eddie sat up from the cot in a
mental fog and said only, “Oh.”
“The Park would be better to see,
but… Plenty of love making at the Berghof—one duet in a closet… Quite a social
scene. We’ve not seen Hitler with anyone other than Eva. But what’s this?
Hitler is now on our monitor. He’s alone.”
Eddie stood up, and—with an
unconscious grimace—watched over the tech’s shoulder. The scene concluded and
he said, “You don’t want this in the Park. When did they develop artificial
insemination?”
The tech in a rolling chair flung
himself the short distance to a general-use computer. “In practice, the late
1940’s,” he said. “Semen storage a limiting factor.”
“Find out, will you? Who receives
Hitler’s semen?”
“Yes, sir.”
Eddie paced up and down the floor.
Marisa descended the stairs carrying a basket of fresh-baked cinnamon buns and
a pot of coffee. The female tech on her cot yawned and stretched.
“Good morning, dear,” Eddie said
to Marisa. “You look lovely.”
“You’re crumpled,” she said and
poured him a cup.
He bit into one of the sweet buns.
“No. No thanks, I’m not hungry,”
the male tech said to Marisa’s offer of a bun.
The female tech said, “I’m going
upstairs for a bath.”
Just as she left, Weizman came
down appearing worn, as if he, too, had slept little; he observed awhile and
left without saying a word.
“Okay,” the tech said. “Hitler
handed the vial to a nurse, then a woman took it, and… she applied it to
herself with a syringe-like device in a bathroom.”
“You’re quick,” Eddie said.
“Do you want to see the images?”
Weizman must have been waiting at
the top of the stairs because he noisily clattered down and glared at the EQC
monitor. A male combatant followed him and stood back.
“Let me see her face,” Eddie said
and waited. “Oh God, I was right. Hanna Reitsch. Though it’s not proof a child
ensued. We’d need to run her and Hitler’s DNA, and then search our entire
records, if not the population.” He sighed. “It will take months to collect
samples. And—”
“Not months, Slepyan,” Weizman
said, “Not months, but years for us to exhume Nazi war criminals and
significant sympathizers, so we have Fräulein Reitsch on record. Hitler’s DNA
we’ve collected since we arrived. June of 1944 is too late to prevent the
Holocaust, and early enough to limit its effect, but…”
He nodded to the combatant, who
left by a door that led to concrete steps against a retaining wall up to ground
level outside. “We also ran Herr Pachero-Nanez’s DNA overnight and believe he’s
the great-grandson of Adolf Hitler.”
“I’m speechless,” Eddie said.
“What you found, Dr. Slepyan,
settles the matter.” Weizman’s eyes burned with an intense fire.
A long, taut half-minute passed
with no one speaking, and then a muffled “pop” came from outside.
Eddie strode to the door, opened
it, and climbed the steps. Weizman and the technician followed him. Marisa and
crew members were standing on the back porch and looking toward the tree line
where combatants, a man and a woman in farmer clothing, were shoveling.
Marisa said, “We heard the
gunshot, too.”
Eddie ran over. The combatants
kept shoveling as Eddie gaped down into the deep trench. Still exposed in the
dirt, a hand, an arm in a jacket sleeve, and the jacket’s shoulder. Soil partly
hid a lumpish black bag.
“Who is it? What happened?”
Eddie’s voice trembled.
Weizman now reached the trench.
“The Führer and his followers massacred not only millions of Jews, they
destroyed generations of future descendants. We killed Hitler’s sole descendant.
The ledger is a bit more balanced.”
“Ralf? You murdered Ralf? Oh, my
God.” Eddie sank to the ground and eased into the trench. He struggled with the
black bag and undid the knot to see Ralf’s face and damaged head, the soil
beneath viscous with blood. Eddie looked up to Weizman. “What are you?” he said
fiercely.
“We are men and woman, progeny of
Shoah survivors,” a female combatant wearing camouflage fatigues said. A
beauty, she had dark, reddish hair. “You, historian, must teach the world that
tyrants will suffer the fate they inflict on others, they will lose all they
hold dear. What we have done is a warning.”
Suddenly tender, heartbroken,
Eddie spoke to her in Hebrew. “All these months, our sister, and no one told me
your name.”
She stiffened and looked away.
“She won’t disobey my silence
order again,” Weizman said. “Her name is Talia Hirsch. Her family’s vineyard
will soon be flooded in our present.”
“You, Colonel, you are evil,”
Eddie said coldly and crawled from the trench.
“Evil begets evil.”
“And evil begets evil forever and
ever.”
“There’s more you should know,”
Weizman said. “Pachero-Nanez planned to give nuclear secrets to the Nazis. His
computers contained formulas and schematics for an elementary neutron bomb.
With it, the Germans could conquer the whole world.”
“Ralf would never have done that.
You know it.”
“We don’t. Hanna Reitsch was a
loyal Nazi to the end of her life. Her only regret about the war was that Germany never invaded North
America . Pachero-Nanez would have fulfilled the demands of his
legacy.”
“He only wanted to explore
humanity,” Eddie said. “He was a child. Our humanity is a greater kinship than
blood, than family, than our Jewishness, or Aryanness. And you, you’ve lost
your humanity. The best people are murdered by the worst, and the worst end up
killing each other.”
“Well…” Weizman said.
“This is my final word to you,
Colonel. Repent.”
Eddie stumbled light-headed toward
the farmhouse where Marisa and the others had been held back by combatants.
Weizman benignly watched him for a few moments.
“Pack in the dirt and scatter the
overflow in the woods,” Weizman ordered. “Conceal the scar.”
A wail rose up from the direction
of the house.
><
Filled with anger, Eddie hoped to
convince Captain Therreal to arrest and confine Weizman. He first embraced
Marisa until she ceased shuddering, then he went to find Therreal, who was
tinkering with the shuttle concealed in an outbuilding.
Therreal set his palm computer on
a counter. “I’m appalled…” With Eddie following him, he walked outside and
gazed toward the farmhouse. “Plucky as they are, my crew fighting these
combatants? No. Off-ship, Weizman is autonomous. Since he and his commandos
don’t plan to return to the 21st century, indeed don’t intend to board the
Chariot again, regrettably, there’s nothing I can do. Weizman offloaded his
gold and supplies long ago. I liked Ralf. How is Sonya?”
“We haven’t seen her,” Eddie said.
“Do you believe Ralf would give nuclear technology to the Nazis?”
“No.”
Eddie left the outbuilding and
went up to his room.
“Hello… dear,” Marisa said weakly.
Her countenance was contorted with grief and fury as she played with the
giggling baby. “Sonya came to me. She wants to talk, but not in the house. In
the woods, in an hour.”
“You told her about Ralf, that
Weizman murdered him? How is she?”
“Hard to say.”
A light knock at the door. Eddie
went to see. It was Weizman. Eddie stepped into the hallway and closed the door
behind him.
“You probably won’t speak to me,”
Weizman said.
Eddie didn’t move.
“Okay, that’s fine,” Weizman said.
“The official project is ended. My plan now is to engage in guerilla warfare
against the Nazis. If we can’t stop the Holocaust, we’ll warn Jews to escape to
the United States or Canada , or at
least to avoid the ghettos. We will aid rescuers. Later we’ll organize partisan
forces and attack the death camps. With knowledge of events and our superior
weapons, we’ll have considerable effect in killing guards, disrupting camp
operations, and liberating prisoners.
“You and your family are free to
return to the Chariot. Once you enter time transcendence, you may go anywhere
in the universe. It’s only a suggestion—but I hope you’ll stay here. You’d be
invaluable in helping the American and Allied Forces. Convince them to make
preventing the genocide a priority. Advise them on military strategy. After the
war—if there is a war—you may settle down wherever you like. This is a much
nicer world than what we left. I’ll give you enough gold—your pay, in fact—to
be comfortable. Therreal said the Chariot departs in two days.” Weizman said no
more, but studied Eddie expectantly.
“I’ll consider it.” Eddie backed
into their room and shut the door.
“I heard,” Marisa said, picking up
an umbrella. “We should meet Sonya now. It might rain.”
They slipped baby Itai into his
coat and walked past the combatant quarters and across the field to the
invisible grave where Ralf was buried.
Marisa crossed herself and said a
silent prayer, and then they took a trail that led to a grotto beside a creek
with a curving, clear waterfall that dropped into a bubbly pool. Late season
wildflowers, purple and yellow, grew in abundance in the soft turf. Marisa and
Eddie sat on the rocks as the baby slept in Eddie’s arms. Beams of sunlight cut
down through the trees and suddenly Sonya stood before them. Though the air was
still and quiet, she appeared to be leaning against a strong wind that whipped
her hair around her face.
Marisa moved as if to give her a
hug, but Sonya stopped her with a gesture and said in a strained, aloof voice,
“The world is no better because of Weizman’s actions.”
“I’m so sorry about Ralf,” Marisa
said.
“I searched for him throughout the
Cathedral,” Sonya said, “but he’s far away. He followed the wrong path.”
As Marisa and Eddie stared, the
buffeted, iridescent Sonya transfigured into a being of dull flesh and blood,
and she screamed and collapsed onto the ground.
Trembling, Marisa knelt beside her
and folded the baby’s blanket under her head. “She’s so young and so old,
both.”
Sonya opened her eyes and said
feebly, “Shock of this corrupted realm. There’s a plague on this sphere, a
weight of sin. How do you endure the burden? Gravity… Muscles weak. My bones
thin. I’ve been absent… too long.”
“Get the doctor,” Marisa cried.
“Bring something to drink from the icebox.”
Eddie jumped up and ran to find
the doctor, who grabbed his medical bag. Eddie snatched a pitcher of juice and
told a grim combatant to bring a stretcher.
When they reached the grotto,
Marisa looked up with sad eyes and shook her head. “She didn’t last at all.”
The doctor confirmed she was gone.
More combatants arrived and gently placed Sonya’s body on the stretcher.
“Bury her beside her husband,”
Marisa said as the combatants bore the stretcher away, the doctor shadowing the
procession.
A gloomy cloud mass had been
creeping up, bringing with it a sudden gusty breeze. “Rain showers soon,
maybe,” Marisa said.
Now awake, the baby demanded a
diaper change.
“Pear juice?” Eddie asked when
Itai was fresh.
“Yes, please,” she said, rinsing
her hands in the stream.
They sat again on the rocks and
shared the pitcher back and forth.
“We should have accompanied the
body,” Eddie said.
“I want to talk first.”
Eddie sighed. “Sonya was an
angel.”
“She was a human being with an
angelic existence. Remember the science-fiction film we saw before our wedding?
The ending?”
“Sky dwellers in the future?”
Neither spoke for a time. The
waterfall seemed to grow louder and oppress them, but it was the weight of loss
they felt. The sky was growing darker. The baby waved a bare stick he had found.
“People live in solar-powered
dirigibles,” Marisa said at last. “Twelve hundred years from now they’re dying
out because they’re not having enough children anymore—the women are dying
young. But, it’s a beautiful way to live, drifting with the clouds. The world
is clean. The air and water are pure again.”
“Weizman said the movie’s story
was fiction.”
“Weizman,” she said with contempt.
“It’s real. Sonya visited there years ago and told me. Before we crossed the
light barrier, she taught me a little about navigating. I want to live in that
time and place.”
“What about helping here, in this
past?”
“Edward, my love, the role of a
historian is to remember the past.”
“I suppose we could leave a letter
and our gold for… for Raphael Lemkin. A heroic anti-genocide campaigner.
Polish. Jewish. All his relatives were, will be murdered by the Nazis. He saw
the Holocaust coming.”
“Sonya said young people in that
distant future fly gliders, high-altitude gliders for sport; I remember now…
she said that Ralf’s ‘Oma Reitsch’ would love this.”
Eddie thought for a moment. “So,
Ralf knew all along about his monstrous ancestor. Hanna Reitsch set gliding
records.”
They watched the baby attempt to
pull up and stand.
“I’m tired.” Eddie rubbed his
hands over his face. Marisa massaged the back of his neck. “Feels good,” he
said. “Oh, I can’t.” He drew in a deep breath and exhaled in a gust. “We can’t
leave this time period. We can’t run away.”
“I know. We were daydreaming.”
Eddie unconsciously crossed an arm
across his belly and propped the opposite elbow on the arm, pressing his fist
to his mouth. He stared ahead, searching his memory. “If we can’t eliminate
Hitler,” he said, thinking out loud, “what other simple change might alter
history for the better? What if the U.S. had developed the atom bomb
earlier? What if we actually deployed it?”
“Oh, Eddie. That’s so risky. We’re
not the right people to make that decision.”
“But people are alive who might
be. What if the isolationist Robert Taft had not been elected president in
1940? What if FDR had won an unprecedented third term? I believe Roosevelt
would have pushed to declare war against Japan
after the invasion of Pearl Harbor . All Taft
did was stage symbolic attempts to retake it and his old home, the Philippines .”
“Would Franklin Roosevelt rally
the American people?”
“He proclaimed he’d never send
American sons into foreign wars, but he actually prepared for war by supporting
the draft, for example. He gave ships and weaponry to England . And if
the U.S. had entered the
war, Japan probably wouldn’t
have conquered and held most of the Pacific Rim .
Germany wouldn’t have kept
north Africa, half of the Soviet Union, and every bit of Europe and the British Isles .”
“So, do we join Roosevelt ’s
reelection campaign?” She picked up the baby and began making faces at him. He
pointed upward and said, “Look, look.”
Eddie was silent while leaves
rustled overhead and the tree branches swayed in irregular rhythm. At last he
spoke. “We need to stop Taft from winning the Republican nomination in 1940. And
if instead, Wendell Willkie, who like Roosevelt was an interventionist, takes
the nomination, Roosevelt would be bolder in
his campaign. He’d likely win an electoral landslide in November.”
“So, it’s settled.”
“We might be able to keep the
Third Reich from spreading across the world and murdering 15 million of our
people by the time it collapsed in 2004.”
“If we’re staying here,” Marisa
said, “we should send letters with the Chariot to our family members.”
“And pictures of the baby.”
He took the baby from Marisa and
gazed at his grinning face. “It struck me just now… I know it, but I never felt
it so sharply; after what happened this morning and yesterday… Itai is not
merely our baby, he’s a person. A numinous person.”
“I’ve always felt it,” Marisa
said.
Eddie somberly kissed Itai on a
fat cheek. “Let’s give our respect to Sonya and begin packing.”
Just then the breeze shifted and
they heard noises rattling from the direction of the farmhouse. Gunfire. A
broken, black column expanded over the trees, showing them the house’s exact
position, and then they smelled smoke. A flash lit the sky and thunder rumbled
overhead.
“Hallo,” a female voice called.
Talia Hirsch ran up arrayed for battle, an autocarbine slung from her neck and
cradled to her chest. “We’re under attack,” she said. “We’ve been betrayed.”
She breathed twice in a quick pause and said with intense calmness, “The
Colonel says you must go to the outbuilding immediately to be evacuated via the
shuttle. He says, ‘Shalom.’” At that, she turned and trotted away.
“Wait!” Eddie said.
She stopped.
“How safe is it?”
“We’re holding the house until it
burns—to destroy your records and computers. We’ll cover your launch. Hurry.
Therreal is impatient.”
“Talia, why don’t you come with
us? How will you survive?”
She swooped down to pick a purple
wildflower, smiled, and said, “Don’t be afraid on my behalf. Someone in
Eternity is fighting for us.” She tucked the flower’s stem into a shirt pocket.
“You must hurry now.”
-END-
No comments:
Post a Comment