TIME PRIME (28 page)

“Because he came to me and I provided him with information he needed to hear, that’s why!” he said pointedly, noticing that Ulvarn looked startled. Sometimes the lower orders forgot the gulf that separated them from their betters and needed a reminder.

“Tell him that I have Hadron Dalla on my trail. I need help, or we’re all going to go down.”

Dalla arrived promptly at the Blake Institute of Engineering and Applied Research on Waupalani Drive off Atherton at 1400 hours. It was a big two-story building that covered about half a city block, an anomaly in the small college town of State College. It was out-of-the-way and a perfect place to conduct research out of the public eye, with the added benefit of having the main campus of the Pennsylvania State College nearby from which to draw scientific talent.

Verkan couldn’t join her; he was busy trying to interrogate some of the prisoners at Pol-Term. The Organization had cleared out of the Hartley Belt, but Verkan wanted to personally oversee the interrogation.

Dalla left her name at the reception desk and before she had time to sit down, a young man in a suit and hat came to escort her to Mr. Hartley’s office. Allan’s office looked like that of a college dean, but with more space devoted to bookshelves than plaques, photos and mementos. Then she recalled that in his previous “life” he’d been a successful writer. From the amount of documents and files on his desk, she doubted he was writing anything these days.

Allan rose up from his desk, as she entered. “Welcome, Dalla Hadron, to the heart of the Blake Institute.”

“Thank you,” she said, noticing that he didn’t put his hand out for a handshake.

She had a micro-needler inside a pocket in her short dress-jacket and a fullsized one in her purse. Dalla noted that besides his regular, almost handsome features, Allan had the piercing eyes of a man twice his age—which was appropriate, all things considered. It reminded her, despite his youthful appearance, that he was not a man to be underestimated; for the first time, she regretted not having insisted that Verkan join her.

“Please take a seat, Miss Hadron—or is it Mrs.?”

Somehow, Dalla had the feeling, he knew everything there was to know about her identity and job with Regency that was available on this time-line. She hadn’t been off-balance like this outtime in many years, and she didn’t like it.

“Miss Dalla Avon Hadron, if you don’t mind.” She needed to ease his suspicions. She made sure that he got an eyeful of her cleavage. This time-line had some revealing ladies wear and she had done some serious shopping in the big Philadelphia department stores while Verkan was in South Africa.

After she was seated, Allan said, “Okay, let’s cut the charade.” He removed one of the big file bundles and underneath was a brand new .357 Magnum Colt Python.

He didn’t touch it, but it was pointed in her direction. He continued: “I don’t intend to hurt you, I just don’t want you to underestimate me. After you and Dr. Vincent Verkan—now, that’s a very strange last name. I’ve had a top-flight linguist over at Penn State trying to trace its derivation ever since my father’s call. He’s the tops in his field and he hasn’t had a bit of luck finding out the root tongue or where it came from.”

Dalla shrugged. “Verkan’s just a colleague. How would I know?”

“You know a lot more than you’re pretending, Dr. Hadron. No luck with your name either; next time you travel to the past, I suggest you two do a better job of finding aliases.”

Dalla’s heart was racing: how many people would he have informed of their impersonation? Probably no one; he was still unmarried and, other than his father, didn’t have any close friends. Well, being chronologically three times older than all your friends probably made forming lasting attachments difficult. Despite the pistol, she was tempted to pull out her needler and finish Allan here-and-now, then find his father and discorporate him as well.

Still, he was
much
more interesting alive.

“As I was about to say,” he continued, his hand only inches away from the Colt, “after your visit, my father had some blank spots in his memory. He also remembered feeling dizzy when Dr. Verkan shook his hand. Dad put two and two together and came up with five—he suspected you two doped him up, then interrogated him. He called me and we discussed it. I contacted Regency and their head of personnel sent me to the Division of the Industrial Engineering Associates. Their records for both of you are very sketchy; your school records did not hold up under close scrutiny; they were obvious forgeries. That brought up more questions: I hired a PI to investigate both your backgrounds.

“Some of your colleagues could remember you two, but everything was still sketchy. Especially, for a woman who looks like a movie star and a man as distinctive as your Mr. Verkan, who could pass for a quarterback. My PI even had you both photographed; still, people had trouble remembering either of you, or only had a few memories regarding some trivial things. You two are like non-porous surfaces— nothing sticks. I talked it over with my father and we decided that the two of you must be time travelers. Perhaps I’ve unwittingly violated some time-travel protocol, or my actions will somehow upset the future? Am I in the right ballpark?”

Dalla briefly considered denying everything, but what was the use? In the best case scenario, Allan wasn’t going to tell anyone anything once he went through hypno-mech conditioning. In the worst case, she’d have to discorporate him now or someone else would have to do it later. In a way, it was a relief to drop her cover and all the usual lies: “You’re in the ballpark, just the wrong one.”

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“We are not from here—you’re right about that. However, we’re not from the future, either. We came here across time.” Dalla felt a frisson, as she realized she had just broken the most sacred commandment of Home Time Line;
thou shalt not
disclose the Paratime Secret!
If anyone but Verkan ever learned of it, she would be immediately discorporated by authority of the Paratime Commission—no matter how much time had passed or even if it was the wisest course of action. She shook it off.

“You mean there really are parallel worlds?”

She hadn’t expected him to comprehend it so quickly. “You read science fiction?”

Allan’s face colored, then he nodded, saying: “Yes, I do. I read a lot of it, but not the pulps. I read mostly
Astounding
and
Galaxy Science Fiction
and the occasional paperback novel. It helps me feel like I’m not alone—I guess that’s the way to put it.”

“Yes, there are alternate time-lines beyond measure. And we’ve come from an advanced one, but not for you—and this is
not
science fiction.”

“You’re kidding! Don’t tell me, you stumbled across me while visiting our world—right?”

“Something like that. Just because we’re technologically advanced and can travel across parallel worlds doesn’t mean that human nature has changed all that much. We still have our criminals and outlaws, beggars, thieves and murderers. We can treat criminal minds where we come from, but they’re not always recognized. A group of our criminals, who call themselves the Organization, setup shop on your time-line. We came here to stop it. It was while our people—call us the cross-time police—were researching your time-line that we discovered a major anomaly—you, Allan Hartley.”

“Where?”

“Did you hear about the big fuss in South West Africa, outside Swakopmund in the desert?”

“Yes, there was supposed to be some sort of Communist-supported take-over of the local uranium digs. They’ve been going crazy all week at the U.N. I gotcha; you’re saying it was your criminals who were behind the snatch—not the Reds.”

“Bright boy. The Communist angle was just a convenient cover-up. We use it a lot in this Sector.”

“Oh, my god. This is so deep. What does it have to do with me and my father?”

Dalla sighed. “Nothing, really. It’s just that we don’t like outtime mysteries, especially ones that change the future and could come back and bite us in the rear. Besides being a time cop, I’m also an expert on parapsychological phenomena. My colleague and I thought it might be valuable to learn exactly who you were and whether or not you presented a threat. At first, we thought you might be one of our people, or someone who’d been picked up by one of our cross-time travel vehicles and accidentally dropped off on this time-line.”

“That happens?”

“Yes, rarely, but it happens. Once we ruled those options out, we thought you might be a time traveler—a feat, by the way, we have not been able to accomplish. Now that we know you’re not a threat; well, we can all go our separate ways.”

“I don’t think so. You did something to my father, took some of his memories or got into his head somehow. I want to know how and why?” His fingers closed in on the pistol.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” she asked, coyly. She purposely leaned forward in her low-cut blouse to pick up her purse knowing it would capture his attention; at least, it had always worked before.

“No! Don’t—I guess it’s okay.”

She took out a pack of Pall Mall cigarettes and her hypo-injector disguised as a Ladies Slim Zippo lighter.

Allan now had the Colt Python in his hand and pointed at her chest. She purposely took a deep breath and held out her pack of cigarettes, tapping so several came to the front of the open package. Without thinking, Allan lowered his gun hand and reached for the nearest cigarette with his other hand.

Just as he took the cigarette in his fingers, Dalla leaned further, her breasts drawing his eyes like twin bulls-eyes. She flicked her Zippo which, at the same time, caused the pneumatic-injector to shoot a small dart containing a potent narcotic into Allan’s throat and into his blood stream. She’d used the full dosage so she had to cushion his head as he fell face-first onto the desk.

After putting her lighter away, Dalla stood up and walked around to the front of his large walnut desk. She started opening drawers; in the bottom desk drawer she discovered a reel-to-reel briefcase-sized tape recorder. She took it out and pressed the stop/record button. Then she rewound it, shuffled through her purse, found the de-magnetizer and blanked the tape. Finally, she put the small reel back on the spindle and into the desk. Allan would have fun figuring that one out.

Allan still appeared dazed, but he was holding himself upright now. She searched through his drawers until she found his day book; inside was the phone number of the detective he’d hired. Kostran or Ranthar would have to pay him a visit.

When he was ready, Dalla began the hypnotic induction. Allan went under very quickly.

“What is your name?”

“Hartley, Allan; Captain, G5, Chem. Research AN/73/D. Serial, SO-23869403J.”

“Where are you right now?”

“I’m on the battlefield, outside Syracuse, New York. We’re getting thrown back! My men are dying! The light! The city is gone. My god—” 

“It’s all right. You’re not there anymore. You’re back in your old home in Williamsport. Specifically, you’re in your bedroom. What do you see now?”

“My bedroom. It’s sunny outside, even through the tan curtains. I can see the chintz-covered chairs. Ahh. Now, I remember; I came back a long time ago, to be with my dad, to be safe again.…” 

“Very good, Allan.”

“Believe me, it wasn’t easy convincing him that it was me, a forty-three year old man in my adolescent body. He believed me though when I switched pistols and saved Mrs. Gutchall—” “Yes, Allan. I want you to go back to that other time—” 

“Okay.”

“Not the war, ten years before. And I want you to tell me all about what you see and what you know.”

Dalla got back to the Broadwood Hotel just before dusk. After the four-hour debriefing of Allan Hartley, whom she had wakened with nothing more than a headache and no memory of their conversation, she was exhausted. Verkan was sitting at the hotel desk dictating notes into his pocket recorder.

“How did it go darling? You look beat.”

Dalla sighed. “It was touch-and-go there for a while.” She quickly gave him a complete debriefing, using her own notes and button recording of Allan’s interrogation, only pausing when he suggested dinner. Dalla made sure to erase her incriminating admission off the data wafer recording before they left the room. Verkan then re-recorded the interview onto his micro recorder, playing it back before destroying the original. The interrogation was priceless, but so was Dalla’s well-being. The last thing either of them wanted was some sound tech to recover the original “destroyed” version with Dalla’s admission of the Paratime Secret. If word of her violation ever got out, not even Chief Tortha could save her from the uproar and political storm that would follow.

They ate an uninspired meal in the Broadwood dining room. Back in their room, Verkan said, “Do you think this will come back on us?”

“What do you mean? A slip of Allan’s tongue...?”

He nodded.

“No, I found Allan’s tape recorder and went over the room with a tell-tale alert. He didn’t have any backup devices on any microwave, light pulse or other spectrum that I could find. You will want to visit the private detective I told you about.”