Rebel in Time

'Positive. The admiral and I worked it out very carefully. McCulloch will have been there for over a year now, so whatever his plans are they should be well under way. It is those activities that should enable me to find him. The war won't start for a year and a half yet, so not only do I have time to track him down, but there is still time enough to put a monkey-wrench into whatever bit of nastiness he is up to.'

'Sounds good,' Kleiman agreed. 'Now the other thing. You remember, you promised to let us know tonight how you would go about getting a message to us. Something that would tell us how the affair finished, what McCulloch was trying to do. Have you worked it out?'

'I have. A very simple idea. I am going to write up a report and seal it into a bottle. Really seal it, even try to get a glass blower to melt the neck of the bottle shut. I'll put that in a solid box and bury it about six feet deep in a spot where you will be easily able to find it.'

'Where?'

'Right there.' Troy pointed to the granite rock before them. 'Down on the north side. All you have to do is dig-'

'Great!' Kleiman said. 'Of course it will also mean moving all of the equipment out of the lab, then tearing up the concrete floor. I can hardly wait. We'll get onto it right away.'

'Well, at least wait until I have gone!'

They were silent then, all of them, staring at the grey rock where it projected up from the scuffed laboratory floor. Down there, under the foundations, under the ground, was the message. If Troy had indeed left that message in the past, then it must be buried there right now. It had been lying in that spot for well for over a century. Buried safely beside the rock, when this had been only farmland, before they had been born, before this laboratory was even built. It was an unnerving thought.

'We'll wait,' Roxanne said. 'This is important enough — and new enough — for us not to get involved with time paradoxes at this stage. We will have to think about them some time. But not just now.'

'Amen,' said the admiral.

'Seconded,' Kleiman said. 'Time paradoxes have to be avoided at any stage. You must beware of doing or saying anything that might affect events. We have no way of visualizing the consequences.'

Troy nodded and seized up the well-worn saddlebags. 'It's time to go,' he said.

'A good idea,' Kleiman agreed, pointing to the metal brackets fixed to the stone surface. 'I'm putting a wooden platform there. It will raise you about an inch above the surface of the stone. So you should drop that amount when you arrive — better bend your knees. I would rather have you above the stone than, well, inside it by a fraction of an inch. That is another matter that needs investigating. So here we go-'

Troy helped him fix the platform into place, then clambered up onto it. The admiral handed him the saddlebags and they were ready. There didn't seem to be much to say. The admiral looked grim; Kleiman and Roxanne were busy at the controls.

'All ready,' Kleiman said, his hand poised over the red actuator button. 'Count of three, okay?'

'Okay. Let's go. Geronimo.'

'One.'

Troy flexed his knees.

'Two.'

There was a frozen silence. Troy saw that Kleiman's hand was shaking, his lips working in silence.

'Do it, man, do it now.' Troy said.

'Three.'

Darkness.

Emptiness.

A sensation of nothing. Or a sensation of lack of sensation? It lasted an instant — or perhaps an eternity. Troy couldn't tell, it was too different. It could have been over even as it began, or it could have continued for an unmeasurable time. As he tried to think about it, even as he began, it ended.

Heavy, warm rain beat down upon his shoulders and something hard smacked against the soles of his boots, rough stone, tripping him. He tried to regain his balance in the rain-filled darkness but couldn't. He slipped and fell, slithering down the rock face into the mud, the breath half-knocked out of him. He had a moment of panic as he groped in the darkness for the saddlebags. They were there, it was all right.

Sudden lightning cut through the night, the bolt striking so close by that the rumble of thunder arrived right on top of the flash. The lightning flared and was gone, but for an instant there he had been able to see through the thick rain.

The black form of the projecting rock was clear, as well as the outline of trees against the sky. But the laboratory was gone as though it had never existed. Of course, it didn't exist, not here, not at this time. It still had to be built, its existence was still a probability in the distant future.

He had arrived. Fairfax County, Virginia. A few miles north of the nation's capital.

The summer of the year 1859.

Clutching the saddlebags he climbed to his feet and stood with his back against the rock, rubbing the rain from his eyes. He had done it. 1859. But it meant nothing to him. He felt numb, the truth of the situation just couldn't penetrate. Only the rain had any reality.