All the Colors of Time (8 page)

Below, the Admiral made a clicking noise and said, “Visual
off. Advise Commander Li that we will send reinforcements immediately. Then
contact Colonel Darnell and have her dispatch a company of troops and aerial
support units. I believe the closest air squadrons are aboard the UNS
Crazy Horse.
Have the air support sent
in from there.”

“Yes,
sir.
”

“When you’ve completed that, put me in touch with General
Dreyfus in Juneau.”

The Admiral turned as a second officer approached her,
carrying what appeared to be a handcomp. He made what Caldwell felt was a
half-ass salute.

“So, Mr. Krasnik,” said the Admiral, not bothering to return
the gesture. “What new hot spots do you have for me today?”

“Actually, sir, it looks very much as if we’re going to have
an unusual situation in Florida. Cuba Station has already begun tracking.”

The Admiral jerked a thumb at the odd machine to her right. “Show
and tell, Mr. Krasnik,” she said.

“I have General Dreyfus, Admiral,” announced Technician
Mendez.

The Admiral signaled Krasnik to go ahead. “On audio.”

“Admiral Halleck, sir,” said a disembodied voice. “Good to
hear from you,”

“I noticed you were out from under. What’s your status,
Vinnie?”

“Pretty bad. We’ve been hemmed in for the better part of
four days. Everything was grounded. Today . . . it’s terrible.
The sheer number of corpses, sir—it’s devastating. The bio-med team has been
doing its best, but we—we’ve had to put so many of them down.”

Caldwell’s mind froze and threatened to recoil. What in the
name of all things holy had they come to in the last thirty years—putting the
injured down? His lip curled in disgust. He supposed they called it euthanasia
or some such nonsense. Murder—that’s what he called it. Sheer brutal laziness.
He glanced again at the map. Or had the enemy weaponry become that hideous?

Beside Caldwell, Hilyard frowned thoughtfully and rested his
elbows on the catwalk’s padded guardrail.

General Dreyfus finished his report, noting that he could
use something larger than his present complement of destroyer, cruiser and
corvette to help “mop up.”

“More men would be appreciated too, Admiral. We’ve got our
hands more than full disposing of the bodies. It’s gonna take one helluva pit
to bury all of them.”

Caldwell almost puked. He gripped the guardrail, all but
oblivious to Hilyard’s bemused expression. It
couldn’t
be that bad. It could never be so bad that you had to—

Officer Krasnik turned from his machine and whispered
something in Admiral Halleck’s ear.

“My tactical officer informs me that you have about five
days to get your situation in hand. You’re evidently going to be hit fairly
hard from the northwest again.”

Dreyfus swore.

“Sorry, Vin. We’ll get your reinforcements to you on the
double. The battleship
Walesa
is in
Anadyr. I’ll have her deployed to your waters. How many men do you need?”

“I could use a battalion,” said Dreyfus.

Halleck snorted. “Take two, they’re small.”

“I wasn’t joking.”

“I didn’t think you were. Casualties were that bad?”

“Thousands upon thousands, Admiral. Worst I’ve seen in a
situation like this. The
Apah Param
couldn’t have struck at a worse time of year. Shit, it’s hard to believe one
damn boat could do so much damage!”

One
boat!
One!
Caldwell swallowed and found his
throat too dry for the activity. And what the hell was an
Apah Param?
He had the sudden horrible thought that perhaps the
Enemy wasn’t even human.

“They will insist on year-round activity,” said Halleck.

“
We’ve
certainly
advised them against their bad weather jaunts, but who can reason with them? It’d
take another Gorbi, God bless him.”

Caldwell’s mouth popped open.
Gorbi?

“Well, do your best, Vinnie,” urged the Admiral. “Of course,
you always do. Then, when this is all over, why don’t you take a nice vacation
somewhere sunny and warm?”

“Oh, sure. So I can come back and do it all over again next
year!”

“Well, you could transfer to Yosemite in the spring. We’ll
be sending in a couple of battalions to rebuild.”

“Yeah,” sighed Dreyfus. “I
like
trees.”

Caldwell shook his head. The conversation was getting hard
to follow. His assumptions about the situation shifted beneath him like dune
sand as he tried to make sense out of it.

Admiral Halleck signed off, then and turned her attention to
Krasnik and his machine. “Show and tell time, Mr. Krasnik,” she said.

In response, the officer touched an instrument panel on one
side of the machine’s black base. The column of muted light became a colorful
multi-leveled sea of three-dimensional images, flowing in stately
waves—advancing, retreating.

They reminded Hilyard of the “plasma clouds” he used to
generate as a kid, using fractal equations on the family computer.

Krasnik tapped and keyed and adjusted and the images settled
into patterns that almost made sense. Vibrant green formed hills and vales
below wisps and billows of subtly changing hues.

Hilyard frowned and leaned farther out over the rail,
flicking a glance at his superior officer.

“And who have we here?” asked the Admiral, nodding at the 3D
display.

“This is Mariella.” Krasnik indicated a violently eddying
orange area high in one corner. “And this,”—he indicated the rolling greens— “is
the coastal area we’re afraid will be hardest hit when she rolls ashore.”

Halleck frowned. “Poor Cuba. That’s twice in three years.
What’s the prognosis for Florida?”

“Not so good, if this continues to gain velocity. This mass
here,”—he gestured with a sweeping, circular motion—“is strengthening rapidly.
We may be looking at a full-fledge blow before tomorrow morning.”

Caldwell’s stare changed to a stunned scowl.

“What’re the chances of seeding her to force the
precipitation?”

Krasnik shrugged. “Cuba’s on it. Along with a wing of storm
bombers from Mexico. We can but pray and send troops to help Florida batten
down.”

Admiral Halleck nodded. “Too bad we can’t get Mariella to
dump her load on Yosemite. Coax Nature to put out her own fires. Wouldn’t that
be poetic justice?”

“We’re working on it,” said Krasnik soberly.

Caldwell’s fists tightened on the catwalk rail. Confusion
and anger swept up from his gut in a hot spray, warring with something
blasphemously like relief.

“I’ve seen enough,” he whispered and went to the Grid.

oOo

“What the hell was that place? Where the hell did they
send us?” Caldwell turned on Hilyard the moment he stepped off the Grid. “It
sure as hell wasn’t a War Room!”

Hilyard blinked at him, feeling only slightly disoriented. “No
sir, of course not. It was a Tactical Center.”

“That was no Tactical Center like
I’ve
ever seen, Major.”

“No sir. I don’t imagine anyone else has ever seen one like
it either.”

“And that—and that holographic machine—some sort of—of—”

“It was an atmospheric model, sir.”

“A what?”

“An atmospheric model. A three dimensional projection of—”

“Yeah, yeah... Doctor!” Caldwell launched himself at
Oslovski as she stepped into the room. “Where did you send me? What was that
place?”

Oslovski glanced from Caldwell to Hilyard. “We sent you to a
Tactical Center, just as you requested.” She spread her hands in a gesture of
bemusement. “I can’t tell you more than that. You were there just now, I wasn’t.”

Caldwell swung back to Hilyard. “Major, what do you make of
it? What was that all about?”

“I’d say sir,” said Hilyard, his voice soft and almost
patient, “that we were sent to a military Tactical Center. I’d also say that
they seemed to be fighting battles on several fronts.”

“Battles? What battles? They weren’t fighting—”

“They were fighting all right, sir,” said Hilyard
imperturbably. “The enemy just wasn’t . . . people.”

“What did you see?” asked Oslovski.

“A farce!” erupted Caldwell.

Hilyard ignored him. “Evidently in the future, we’ll be
battling forest fires and hurricanes and oil spills . . . or so
it seems.” He shrugged. “Maybe reforestation will replace demolition as a
specialty—an environmental defense specialty.”

“That’s absurd!” snarled Caldwell. “Fighting men
fight,
dammit. They don’t damn garden!”

“What’s wrong with killing forest fires instead of people?”
asked Oslovski. “Or planting trees instead of land mines? Wouldn’t you rather
be the heroes of a constructive process instead of the villains of a
destructive one?”

“Villains?”

Oslovski looked him in the eye. “Most of us don’t like war,
General. We hate it. We’re not likely to thank anyone who perpetuates it when
peace is within reach. I know you don’t understand that. Nor will you likely
understand that most of us look forward to a day when the military is obsolete.
Well, it looks like that day isn’t going to come. It looks like the future
needs the military, after all—needs it for construction instead of destruction.
I’d think you’d be happy about that.”

Caldwell stood glaring darkly at the floor.

“Looks like our interference in history didn’t accomplish
anything after all,” observed Hilyard. “Maybe even made Gorbachev more of a
hero than he already seemed to be.”

“Hell,” muttered Caldwell. “What’m I supposed to tell the
Chiefs?” He started toward the door. It scooted obediently out of his way.

Oslovski shrugged and watched him pass. “You could find
another historical crux and try again.”

“We don’t have the funds. Dammit, we were so sure that was
the right time and place—the right enemy.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to know who the enemy really is,”
observed Oslovski. “Or if there’s even an enemy at all.”

He threw her a scathing glance and passed through into the
hall. She found herself eye to eye with Major Hilyard.

“We have met the Enemy and he is us?” he murmured, quirking
an eyebrow.

She smothered her reaction and followed the two men into the
corridor, steering them toward the Conference Room. The rest of the Team was
already there, along with Colonel Ferris, but Caldwell ignored them, dropping
into a chair at the far end of the table.

Hilyard seated himself next door and sat back in his chair,
watching Oslovski make her way to the head of the room.

“We have evidently failed in our mission,” said Caldwell. He
glanced at Ferris’s suddenly pale, tense face. “The military of the
future,
”—he said the word as if it were
odious—“is apparently more of an environmental defense mechanism than a
national security force.”

“Those people were defending more than the environment, sir,”
said Hilyard quietly. “They were helping the people of this country defend
themselves against natural disaster. They were helping devastated areas
rebuild.” He smiled. “I’ll bet they see a lot more ticker-tape parades than we
do.”

Caldwell gritted his teeth. There was that unholy feeling of
relief again, of something stronger. “What do we do, then? Slink on home with
our tails between our legs and admit all the money we’ve spent went down the
rat hole?”

“We could get a head start on the future,” suggested
Hilyard. “It looked pretty interesting to me, sir.”

Caldwell glanced at him, pinning his lower lip between thumb
and forefinger. “I suppose we could float some ideas around the Hill . . .
before they sack all of us.”

“May I make a suggestion?” asked Oslovski.

Caldwell nodded.

“First, let us put history back the way it was.”

“How can you do that?” asked Ferris.

“By sending you back to the time of the incident and having
you
not
shoot Gorbachev.”

Ferris shook his head. “But then, we’d be there twice.”

“Not possible,” said Shiro. “If we got you there a
millisecond before your initial materialization, the pattern of the first event
will adjust itself to the second. Think of time as light waves. The first
temporal event—your first visit—set up a waveform, if you will. If the second
temporal event—the second visit—sets up its waveform just prior to the first
one, it will cancel it out, engulf it, re-form it.”

“Then what?” asked Caldwell.

“Well, to paraphrase Reinhold Niebuhr,” said Oslovski. “Have
the courage to change what you can, the serenity to accept what you cannot
change and the wisdom to know the difference. Accept peace. Get used to it, and
to the idea that you
do
have a
peacetime role that’s more than just training for the next war—the war that won’t
come. We can help you do that. Dr. Keller could help you set up a program to
ease you into that peacetime role. The future doesn’t have to be miserable just
because you have no enemies.” She nearly crossed her eyes at the sheer
absurdity of the thought. “Judging from Major Hilyard’s description of the
future, I’d say you’ll have lots to do . . . and lots of support
in doing it.”

Caldwell chewed his lip and thought. Then he glanced at
Hilyard. “What do you think, Major?”

“I think it’s worth a shot . . . sir.”

“Ferris?”

“I—I can’t say, sir. I . . . I don’t know.
This peace . . . it isn’t real. It
can’t
be.”

“Only time will tell,” observed Oslovski. “You know, back in
the early 20th century a gentleman named Abdu’l-Bahá Abbas said, ‘Why not try
peace for a while? If we find war is better, it will not be difficult to fight
again.’” She spread her hands toward Caldwell, pushing the ball into his court.

“You’d be willing to set up counseling clinics, uh,
reorientation, or whatever?” he asked.

“Whatever it takes,” said Oslovski.

“Damn!” Caldwell slapped the table with the flat of his hand,
making everyone jump. He pointed a finger at Oslovski.