Chapter 10

Claire too had seen the Shift, had seen Vega, then Deneb and Altair drop down to the southern horizon, only she made a quick estimate of the change in right ascension and declination then worked through the math – in her head. Judging from the positional change in just these three stars, the earth’s relative position in the galaxy had either moved ahead forty thousand years or retreated more than seventy thousand years. That meant, she deducted, that the sphere was a “cloud” created from one electron, but then what? By varying the charge rate the sphere could be made smaller or larger? But how could anyone do that? And what if, as many were beginning to more fully understand, there were particles smaller than electrons, protons, and neutrons. How would that change the calculus of the phenomenon?

‘There’s still so much we don’t know,’ she whispered, her inner voice tinged with frustration, then she thought about Oppenheimer’s warning, his ‘paradox of time.’ If time was a river, a constantly flowing river, and if the flow was disrupted by a traveler venturing into the past, and if the course was thereby altered, then everything that had happened after the alteration would be altered, too. The future would be altered…

“So if,” Oppenheimer continued, “one was to go back far enough and teach cavemen to make fire millennia before the original event, presumably mankind would be that much further along the curve.”

But then she had said something to the effect that: “But what if one went back and prevented man from learning how to make fire, or how to make a wheel? Couldn’t an unscrupulous agent move through time to completely undermine human progress?”

“But why,” Oppenheimer sighed condescendingly, “would anyone do something like that?”

“Why is it, Robert,” Albert Einstein said to the assembled group, “that you assume human actions will always be rational, or even benevolent, when all human history is full of direct contradictions of that notion?”

“Because destruction is creative, Albert. It always has been.”

“Yet what if, and one day soon, we take our destructive impulses too far? What then, Robert? What will we have created?”

“Renewal, I should think, Albert.”

“Renewal?” Einstein sighed. “Whose renewal, Robert? Perhaps those Hindu gods of yours? Chamunda, I dare say?”

And what had Benjamin said? We have to stop, now, or else. What did ‘or else’ mean, though? He was implying direct consequences, wasn’t he? So ‘or else’ meant there was someone, somewhere, who would take great offense at the Los Alamos groups tinkering with the fabric of time…

And she thought, just then, that ‘someone…somewhere’ was exactly the wrong way of looking at the problem. The real issue would most likely turn around the idea of someone, sometime. The idea that the river of time might be diverted in such a way that people in the future would be somehow negated, and so, perhaps, simply cease to be, had never occurred to her.

So what if Trevor and Benjamin had truly come from New London, Connecticut; if that was true, could Trevor indeed be her father? The idea washed over her for a while: Yes – but only if her father had been a time traveler. If he still was a time traveler. Yet they were trying to stop the Los Alamos group from studying the phenomenon. Why?

The only plausible explanation would be to keep their present intact, and to do that they couldn’t overtly intervene. To repair that kind of damage would require that they move backwards in time again and erase the damage done…but how could they – if their present could be, potentially, negated?

Then it hit her. Trevor had said he’d been born in the nineteenth century, and what if that was the truth?

But what about his eyes. And Benjamin’s, too. She’d never seen anything quite like them before, and they were identical. And both their heads were a little “off,” weren’t they. Not shaped quite right.

She shook her head, refused to think through the consequences of these little observations, the cause and effect of their presence, any further. She didn’t like where this path was leading.

Oh no, not at all.

+++++

Levy stood on the bridge, looked out over the stormy seas, at the scudding clouds whipped along by the storm. The Iowa plowed through these towering waves, throwing great white walls of blue water over the foredeck, but the escorting destroyers weren’t having so easy a time. He watched as one of them, one of the newer Buckley class DEs, struggled up and over a forty foot wave, the little ship’s helmsman obviously fighting to keep the hull from turning sideways to the wind and the waves – and broaching – in effect, being rolled over. The Iowa could take these seas head-on, and for days if necessary, but these five little “tin cans” could be seriously damaged, or lost, in a storm like this one.

But that wasn’t all Levy was thinking about.

No, and that was because, in the accounts he’d read about the Iowa’s role in the Tehran mission, she had never once diverted towards Portland, Maine. Roosevelt’s convoy had traveled, unmolested, directly to Norfolk, Virginia…so why had he decided to divert north? An extra measure of caution, perhaps? A sense that something wasn’t quite right?

He had known about the German Condors flying out of northern Spain, the Wolf-packs operating in the south- and mid-Atlantic, as well as the raiders patrolling south of Bermuda, but what didn’t they know about? The weather, for one, but then there were all the other ships and submarines, ships whose activities had never been recorded by history. Each was suddenly a great unknown, and now he wondered if, by altering the Iowa’s course two days before, he had begun to alter the flow of time. If that was true, the assumed outcome of this trip – Roosevelt’s safe return to Washington, D.C., was now in jeopardy.

+++++

Großadmiral Karl Dönitz read through the latest dispatches then looked over the assembled nautical charts; most showed the approaches to the Straits of Gibraltar, while two represented waters around the Azores. Next, he looked at the assumed track of the convoy on a chart that encompassed the entire North Atlantic, then he plotted last nights report that a Condor flying out of Spain had developed a positive track on the Iowa. The convoy had deployed some kind of new electro-magnetic weapon, and the ships had simply disappeared; when news of this development landed on Hitler’s desk that morning, an invective storm of terrifying proportion had enveloped the entire command hierarchy in Berlin. “One of our maritime patrol aircraft had Roosevelt in it’s sights, then the ship simply disappeared?! Find this convoy! Find Roosevelt, and kill him!”

Dönitz looked over the dispatch one more time, and once again he plotted the coordinates on the relevant charts, then he looked over his fleet readiness report. The Iowa was headed to New England, not Virginia, and his eye went to Norway.

Unencumbered by escorting destroyers, Scharnhorst could, conceivably, make a dash into the North Atlantic and intercept the convoy at the Georges Banks. The weather would be treacherous, but that might work to their benefit, too. The Condor’s pilot had remarked that the convoy was only making 15-16 knots, a fuel conserving rate, meaning the Iowa’s escorts wouldn’t need to refuel at Bermuda. So, the convoy would be approaching Halifax in bad weather, but in a perilously low fuel state. And air cover would be unavailable in such a storm, wouldn’t it…?

He picked up the phone on his desk. “I need to speak with Konteradmiral Eric Bey immediately.”

Three hours later, the Scharnhorst left Narvik and slipped quietly through the Vestfjorden – bound for the not-so-calm waters of the Georges Bank.

+++++

20 December 1943

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen it this bad out here,” the X-O said, and just as the Iowa’s bow disappeared inside yet another forty foot wave. The windshield wipers were working overtime now, having been set at maximum power for more than thirty hours, but this storm wasn’t abating – not in the least.

Captain McCrea looked at the Indiana, now about a quarter mile off their port quarter, through the ever-present binoculars that hung from his neck, and he held his breath as he watched the ship disappear briefly under a fresh sixty-foot wave. He resumed breathing only when he saw her forward guns break free of all that blue water.

“Signal Indiana to reduce speed to ten knots,” the McCrea said as he eyed a train of sixty footers bearing down on his ship. “Come left to two-six-zero; let’s take these waves head-on for a while, stop the rolling as best we can, and would someone see if Mr. Levy can make it back up to the bridge now.”

He heard men moving and instantly regretted the order. Most everyone below was strapped into bunks, though out of sheer desperation some tried to use a head from time to time. Only the truly insane aboard made their way to one of the ship’s dining rooms, but no matter what was eaten, the half-digested muck soon came right back up. Sending someone to fetch Levy meant a seaman would have to navigate three passageways and two stairways; almost a suicide mission under these conditions. He hoped Levy had his sea legs now…

“Indiana acknowledges ten knots and two-six-zero, Captain.”

“Very well,” McCrea said, glad he’d sent the lighter DEs south to Bermuda; they’d have had a truly evil time in these seas. Now, with less than five hundred miles to go he wanted to breathe easy. He wanted to believe the worst was over, but he knew, just knew, that wasn’t the case.

Because something was bothering him. Something important. But what was he missing?

“X-O, let’s fire up the radar, see if we have any company.”

“Aye, sir.”

The latest radar arrays were enclosed in small domes, small, stout structures perhaps 15 feet in diameter. The first convoys to make the Murmansk run lost radar when freezing spray and snow rendered radomes inoperable; now almost all naval vessels were operating with enclosed sets, yet, even so, the latest arrays were hardly any better when operating in a sea-state like this. Waves and rain conspired to make all but the largest targets hard to acquire, and the ship’s violent motion didn’t much help matters, too.

“Bridge, radar, I have a large target bearing zero-seven-two degrees, two-zero miles. Standby for a speed.”

McCrea and the X-O looked at one another. There was no allied shipped this far north, not in this storm, so it could only be one thing.

“The Brits got Tirpitz, right?” McCrea asked.

“Yessir, but the Scharnhorst is operational, and last I heard the Prinz Eugen was in the Baltic but ready for duty again.”

“Bridge, radar. Confirmed vessel track, speed two-five knots, positive radar emissions.”

McCrea shook his head. “Signal Indiana, let ‘em know the situation and tell them to come right to two-eight-zero, increase speed to flank. Helm, steady on two-six-zero, increase speed, all ahead full.”

“She has eleven-inch guns, right, sir?”

“Yup, but they’re not radar-controlled. In these seas she’d need all the luck in the world to even get close. Tell Indiana to run parallel when she’s five miles off our beam. If Scharnhorst manages to close we’ll converge and give her a broadside at ten thousand yards.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Is it Scharnhorst, Captain?” McCrea heard Levy ask.

“My, my, as I live and breathe…it’s Mr. Levy. And what a surprise, he knows the tactical situation, too.”

Levy ignored the sarcasm. “What’s his range, Captain McCrea?”

“About twenty miles.”

“Bridge, radar, now picking up a second target, same range, same bearing, two nine knots.”

“That will be the Prinz Eugen, Captain.”

“No kidding.”

“What speed can we make?”

“In these seas…twenty-seven? Those ships won’t be seaworthy after this beating, and the Prinz Eugen only has eight inch guns.”

“Both have 12 torpedo tubes, Captain,” Levy added.

“Won’t do them any good…not in these seas.”

Levy walked over to a barometer. “Rising?”

“That’s right, and this storm will clear from the southwest.”

“Air cover?”

McCrea shook his head.

“I see,” Levy sighed – as he left the bridge.

+++++

December, 1988

Naval Air Station Brunswick, Maine

“Mauler 7-0-4, clear to taxi runway one-niner left, altimeter two-niner niner one, wind one eight seven at twelve.”

“7-0-4 to one-niner left,” Lieutenant Noel Stevens replied, then he turned to his co-pilot, a nugget named Lieutenant-j.g. Dan Cox, fresh out of his S-3 course at Jax. “Got the TACAN freqs entered?”

“Yessir.”

“Gimme flaps 10.”

“Ten, aye.”

“Weps? How y’all doin’ back there?”

“Kewl beans, skipper. All checklists complete.”

“Okeedoke.”

“7-0-4,” Brunswick tower said, “taxi short of the runway and hold for the P-3 on final.”

“Four, holding short.” Stevens looked at the mottled gray Orion on short final, and he followed it with his eyes all the way to touchdown while he worked his controls and pumped the brakes a few times. “Arm spoilers,” he told Cox. “Set yaw-dampers to stand-by.”

“Got it.”

“7-0-4, clear for take-off. Contact departure 123.3, and good day.”

“Four rolling, departure on one-two-three – three,” Stevens said as he advanced the throttles to the Viking’s pre-set takeoff power.” The Lockheed accelerated smoothly down the runway and he listened to Cox call out their speeds; he pulled back on the stick at one forty and at three degrees nose up the S-3B climbed gently, quickly gaining speed.

“Portland departure, Mauler 7-0-4 out of Brunswick. We’re en route to check out a contact south of Halifax. We’ll maintain 500 AGL out of the zone, request 3-3-0 knots.”

“7-0-4, roger. No civilian traffic at this time, clear to depart your discretion.”

Mauler 704 was a Lockheed S-3B “Sea Control” variant of the S-3 Viking family, armed with two AGM-84 Harpoon anti-shipping missiles. An unidentified hostile surface contact, most likely a Russian trawler, had been picked up by an Ohio class SSBN transiting the Georges Bank, and as 7-0-4 was the closest aircraft armed with Harpoons Stephens and Cox got the call. Flying over the Gulf of Maine at 350 miles per was, generally speaking, great fun, but not when a potential hostile was lurking out there somewhere.

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky this morning, and the seas were mirror-calm as the Viking skimmed along a few hundred feet above the surface, and within forty minutes they were in the reported area…

“Weps? Anything?”

“Nothing, skipper. Just some X-band stuff going into Gloucester. Fishing boats, a couple of stinkpots. No vodka burners.”

“Well, fuck,” Stephens said, cutting the power and trimming the aircraft into a gentle climb. “Go ahead and light off the -137. Let’s see what we’re missing…”

Mauler 7-0-4 quickly reached fifteen thousand feet, but that was as high as he dared go out here. They were under the track of all trans-Atlantic traffic flying into and out of New York and Boston now, and he didn’t want to get tangled up in that mess.

“Skip? What if that Boomer picked up an Akula?”

“Wrong plant noise.”

“I read something a few weeks ago…the Akula apparently sounds pretty rough running on the surface.”

“Taylor? You shittin’ me? A nuc sounding like a diesel trawler? What are you smoking back there?”

“Hey, I’m just thinkin’ out loud, ya know?”

“And we haven’t got MAD gear on this crate either, let alone any torps,” Stephens added as he reefed the Viking into a tight climbing right turn. He scanned his instruments, then looked up into the sky…

“What the fuck is that?” he said, leveling out the wings, then turning hard to the left.

“What?” Cox said.

Stephens pointed across Cox’s chest, straight up towards space. “That!”

“Looks like a blue sphere,” Cox said. “It’s descending.”

Stephens leveled the Viking, checked his ECM panel. “Weps? Got anything airborne, maybe flight level five zero, descending?”

“Radar’s clear, skipper.”

“Ah, Portland, Mauler 704, you have any traffic overhead, say an extreme flight level, like five-zero?”

“7-0-4, only traffic we get up there is Concorde, and none are in the area right now.”

“Okay Portland, we’ve got a large blue sphere descending this location, and nothing showing up on radar, either. Doesn’t appear to be a conventional aircraft – and it looks too slow to be some sort of re-entry vehicle.”

“7-0-4, still negative radar contact.”

“Uh, skipper, that thing’s comin’ down real fast,” Cox said. “Maybe we should give it some room, ya know?”

“I want to get closer, be right by it when it passes.”

“It’s gonna be close alright…”

“Jesus,” Stephens cried, “look at the size of that thing…”

And in the next instant Mauler 4-0-7 disappeared from air traffic control radars in Halifax, Portland, and Boston.

+++++

And in the next instant Stephens fought to regain control of his aircraft…

The Viking had suddenly and without any warning entered a violent thunderstorm – he chopped the throttles and trimmed for level flight, fighting to keep his eyes on the panel in the violent motion.

“Where the fuck did THAT come from!” he shouted, trying to make his voice heard over the sudden roar of hail battering his windshield, flipping his radar display to WTX, ranging in on the nearest red cell.

“Skipper, outside air temp just dropped from 55 to 22,” Cox cried, “and we got blowin’ snow out there!”

“Get some bleed air goin’ on the leading edge, pitot and AOA anti-ice set to MAX,” Stephens said, cutting the power even more. “Uh, Portland, 4-0-7, do you read?”

Nothing…not even static.

“Check the breakers, maybe we took some lightning.”

“Checked. Nothin’ tripped.”

“Set COMM1 to scan then set COMM2 to Halifax, and better get the transponder to 7700 and squawk ident.”

“Skipper?” Weps said, his voice wary now, “I got four contacts. 0-3-4, and sixty miles.”

“Anything else out here?”

“Nada, skipper.”

“Okay,” Stephens sighed, “let’s get out of this crud and see what’s happenin’ down there by all them fishies,” he said, cutting power yet again and trimming for a steeper dive.

Then, over the radio: “Iowa, Iowa, we’re taking fire, repeat, we’re taking fire.”

“Roger, Indiana, come left to 2-0-5 magnetic. We’ll cross behind you, you target the first ship, we’ll fire at the second after we pass.”

“What the fuck?” Stephens said, looking at Cox. “Weps, start calling out range and speed to the first contact…”

“Roger…now 0-2-0 degrees and one-nine miles.”

“You got the frequency?”

“242.2,” Cox said. “Locked in.”

“Iowa, this is Mauler 7-0-4, what’s your sit-rep, over.”

“Mauler 7-0-4, identify.”

“Uh, 7-0-4, we’re an S-3 out of Brunswick, VS-32, and we got two Harpoons if you need ‘em.”

+++++

Captain McCrea looked at his X-O and shrugged. “Do you know what an S-3 is?”

His X-O shook his head as the Captain walked to the radio room.

“Okay, 7-0-4, this is BB-61 and we’ve got two bad guys on our ass. They’re about four miles behind us, and they’ve bracketed the Indiana twice with surface fire, and they’ve got torpedoes in the water.”

“61, 7-0-4, say again? You are engaged in surface combat?”

“Affirmative, 7-0-4. Two hostiles firing at us.”

Stephens looked at Cox and shrugged. “Light off the wing cameras. Weps, target vessel three.”

“Targeting. Target acquired.”

“Lock on target.”

“Locked on. Getting some radar bleed now, skipper.”

“Jam him.”

“ECM to active. No indication of radar locked on us.”

Stephens had his Viking 300 feet above the waves now, heading right for Contact One, whoever this BB61 really was…and then he saw the first ship dead ahead…

Then he saw three shells land in the sea on either side of the Iowa – just as his aircraft screamed overhead…

+++++

“And just what the devil was that!” Captain McCrea screamed. “You ever seen anything like that before?”

“No, sir,”

“Get Mr. Levy back up here, on the double!”

+++++

“Was that the Iowa?” Cox screamed.

“Yup. Weps, ready on one.”

“One ready.”

“Fox one.”

“Firing one.”

The first Harpoon, the missile hanging outboard of the Viking’s left engine, leapt off the rail in a searing white roar…

+++++

Rear Admiral Eric Bey saw the launch from the Scharnhorst’s bridge, but he had no idea what it was beyond a brilliant white light. Alarms starting sounding when lookouts spotted an aircraft on the horizon dead ahead, yet Bey couldn’t believe his ears. No aircraft could possibly be up in this weather, let alone engage in combat operations…

Then he saw the missile streak by, perhaps two hundred meters off his port beam and just above the wave-tops, and he ran out on the bridge-deck and watched it home-in on the Prinz Eugen. His hands on the ice covered rail, he saw the impact…indeed, he could feel the heat moments later…and despite the snow and the wind it took minutes for the his first view of the burning wreckage to emerge from the flames and billowing smoke.

“Radar! Where is that aircraft!” Bey called out, frantic now.

He saw the two battleships still ahead and shook his head…

“Hard right rudder, make your course zero two zero, make smoke and all ahead full!”

+++++

“Skipper?” the Viking’s weapons control officer said calmly. “Aspect change on the remaining target. He’s breaking off, sir.”

“Okay, I see him now,” Stephens said as he flew over the flaming hulk of the Prinz Eugen. “See the flag?” he asked Cox as 7-0-4 flew past the sinking battle-wagon.

“German?”

“NAZI German, as a matter of fact. Weps, safe your weapon.”

“Roger. Harpoon two to safe.”

“Make sure the camera is getting all this,” Stephens said to Cox.

“It’s recording, getting a good image.”

He cut power and trimmed his nose up a little, let more speed bleed off until he knew he needed to drop some flaps. Using the joystick, Cox centered the camera on the Scharnhorst’s stern, the vessel’s name and hailing port clear in the display.

“Scharnhorst?” Cox asked.

“Uh-huh. She went down in ‘44, I think.”

“What? You mean, in 1944? That we just engaged – and sunk – a German battlewagon that hasn’t existed in fifty years?”

“Yup, that’s what it looks like,” Stephens said, grinning. Let’s get some Mark I eyeballs on those two Navy ships…”

As Stephens reefed the little jet into a tight turn, and now on a reciprocal heading to the US ships, he barely felt the presence of the sphere again – then seconds later Mauler 7-0-4 burst out into radiantly clear skies. He checked the condition of his aircraft, knowing instinctively that the Iowa was gone now, then he checked-in with Brunswick as he changed course back to the base, not quite knowing what waited for him in the days ahead, and not at all sure what they had just experienced. Whatever had happened, he thought, it was more exciting than chasing phantom Russian trawlers…

(C) 2017 | Adrian Leverkühn | abw | fiction, all of it…

Chapter Nine

Goldberg’s “brother” was indeed a precocious, lovable bundle of contradictions, and yes, every woman at the closing ceremonial dinner – held in the British Embassy – was enthralled by him.

His name was Benjamin Levy, and he was not, as it happened, related to Trevor Goldberg. They were not brothers, Trevor said, they were instead more like friends.

“I see,” Claire had said. “And let me guess…he was born on the twelfth of April, 1877 as well?”

“Yes, of course.”

“In New London, I take it?”

“Certainly.”

“And he grew up near Cambridge?”

Trevor had turned and looked at her then: “My, we’re on a roll tonight.”

“He does seem to be a ladies man.”

“Oh, he is that. Ready to meet him?”

“I’m not sure. Does he know who I am?”

“Oh yes. He’s been looking forward to this evening for a long time, too.”

“Indeed.”

“Yes. Indeed.”

“Well then, I suppose we ought to get on with it.”

“Yes, tally-ho and all that. Into the fire, and into the fight.”

She looked at Benjamin as she and Trevor walked across the room; he was the same height as Trevor, the same general build, too, and more curious still, he had the same general raptor-like head – a little too large for his frame and the same odd shape. When she closed the distance she saw Benjamin had the same eyes, as well…not quite amber, not quite blue…like a color that phased between the two…

And Benjamin was talking with Cordell Hull just now, and she wasn’t quite sure why, but that troubled her.

“Ah, here she is now,” the Secretary of State said. “Dr. Aubuchon, may I introduce you to Dr. Ben Levy. He’s been working on a few of the same problems you have, only up at Cambridge.”

She held out her and Levy took it. “A pleasure,” she said.

“The pleasure is mine, dear lady,” and they smiled at one another for a moment, then she turned to Trevor – and saw Charles standing behind them both, casting a wary eye at Levy.

“Ah, Charles,” Hull said, “are you and Dean finished for the evening?”

“Yessir. We’ve established the framework for the monetary conference, and Mr. Acheson floated the idea of Bretton Woods again.”

“I see. And our Russian friends are still resisting that idea?”

“I think they’re pushing for one of the Black Sea resorts, sir.”

“No doubt. Well, stormy waters ahead. Charles? Have you met Dr. Benjamin Levy?”

“No sir, I’ve not had that pleasure.”

“He’s with the underground balloon corps, as luck would have it?”

“Ah,” Charles said, one eyebrow arching. “Well, it is indeed nice to meet you. I’m sure you have some interesting stories to share.”

“Well, well,” Hull added hastily, “perhaps some other time.”

Now both the Secretary of State and Trevor Goldberg cornered Charles, and they then led him away, to a far corner of the room, leaving Benjamin and Claire alone…suddenly and completely alone.

Claire looked at Levy, perplexed: “The underground balloon corps? What’s that all about?”

“You’ve not heard about us,” Levy said, now turning his predator’s gaze on her.

“No. Sorry. Should I have?”

“Well, no, as a matter of fact. I’m rather glad you haven’t. We’ve been charged with identifying top scientists working on the German heavy water project…”

“The bomb, you mean…?”

“Yes. And, well, we’re charged with either extracting them or, well, removing them from the equation.”

“You mean…?”

“I do.”

“So, you’ve penetrated their operations?”

And Levy only smiled, though he blinked rapidly a few times, and the reaction only served to heighten her perception of him. He was indeed a predator, and a dangerous one, at that.

“Your brother as much as told me that we’re to be married. Is that about the size of it?”

And again, only the blinking eyes gave any indication at all that he had even heard her, though now his face grew thoughtful, if a little puzzled. “Did he, now?” Levy said a moment later.

“Yes, he did.”

“Trevor has a…”

“A what? A warped sense of humor?”

“Questionable timing, I think I was going to say.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I’d have rather liked the whole courtship ritual to unfold with few such expectations, if you know what I mean.”

And this time it was she who smiled, gently, and she who remained silent.

“But yes, I think that’s the general idea.”

“My, but you really do know how to sweep a girl off her feet…”

And Levy laughed this time, a boisterous, fun-loving laugh. “Ah, indeed I do.”

“And if you don’t mind me asking, just how long will we be married for? A week? A month or two?”

His eyes turned more serious then: “1984, I believe. Forty-one years, then I’ll die, but I’ll leave you with two beautiful daughters.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you? I mean…”

“Oh yes. Quite.”

“How could you possibly know…” she began, then the implications of his words slammed into her – and she fell silent – yet she was aware he was studying her reactions, so she turned to face his penetrating stare head-on. “May I ask why? For what purpose have you chosen me?”

“Why, to save the universe, of course,” Levy said, but he began laughing again, then he took her hand and led her to a table. A table for two, and the only such table in the lavish room. She was being used, she knew then, but by who, or whom, and to what purpose?

Was that why Roosevelt had insisted she attend the conference? Certainly there was no other reason she could fathom, no real reason for her to attend a conference on the structures of post-war Europe. And why arrange this liaison here and now? She looked across the room, saw Charles looking at Roosevelt – and Roosevelt looking directly at her, grinning that sly grin of his.

“Why me?” she whispered, the sound more a plaintive sigh of despair.

“You don’t know?” Levy said, almost as quietly.

She shook her head slowly, suddenly unsure of herself, unsure like a girl she once knew. “No. No, I really don’t.”

“Ah, well, you will soon enough.”

“And…when are we to be married?”

“In New Mexico, I should think, though I don’t suppose we should rush things.”

“I beg your pardon? You’re telling me I’m going to spend the rest of my life with you, but that there’s no need to rush into this thing?”

“Precisely.”

“I see. You do know, don’t you, that this is rather like a bad dream? A very bad dream?”

“And what if I told you it was? What would you say to that?”

“That I had gone mad. Stark, raving mad.”

“Ah, well, there you have it…”

“What? What are you saying? Are you telling me this is all some sort of wild, paranoid delusion?”

“Why not?”

“Is it? Tell me, and I mean right now! Is this, or is this not, real? Am I in a ballroom, in Tehran, in 1943?”

“Oh, yes. This is as real as it gets, Claire; of that you can be most sure.”

+++++

Levy was on the same aircraft with Claire when Roosevelt’s group left Tehran, and the entire group flew on to Cairo, then, after a brief stay in Algiers, on to Morocco. The Iowa and her escorts arrived then, and were waiting just offshore as the group’s aircraft landed, but Roosevelt wanted to linger and visit Casablanca and Marrakech. Hull wouldn’t countenance any more delays, so gigs and launches ferried the group out to the Iowa, and within hours the ships set sail, steaming for Norfolk. Aircraft and submarines ranged ahead, looking for any signs of U-boat activity or other surface threats, but the first two days passed, generally speaking, with little anxiety. Then a lookout spotted a periscope on the second evening, and all hell literally broke loose. The escorting destroyers criss-crossed all around the Iowa, dropping dozens of depth-charges as they passed, but when nothing showed up on sonar the convoy resumed steaming straight for Virginia, only now at the greatest possible speed.

And then, Ben Levy asked to speak with the Iowa’s skipper, Captain John McCrea.

“There is a German surface raider working in the vicinity of Bermuda just now, Captain. I’d recommend heading a bit north, for Boston or Portland.”

“And where did you hear this, sir, if you don’t mind me asking?” the captain asked.

“I’m not sure I’m allowed to say, Captain, but I think either the President or Secretary Hull will vouch for me.”

“The Secretary already has. Any particular course you’d like me to steer?”

“Come right to two nine nine degrees and reduce your speed to sixteen knots. You’ll not need to refuel with this reduction, sir.”

“I see,” the captain said, more than a little incredulous now. “Perhaps you’d like to set a new watch-keeping schedule now, too,” McCrea added, not a little sarcastically.

Levy looked at the captain, understood the position he’d just put the man in and nodded his head. “Sir, a Focke-Wulf 200 C-4 is scheduled to depart San Sebastian at approximately 0430 tomorrow morning. This particular aircraft is equipped with the new FuG 200 Hohentwiel search radar, as well as one Hs-293 anti-shipping missile. There is a strong cold front approaching the area and visibility will be limited. I doubt they’ll fire based on radar returns alone.”

“I assume you work with the OSS?”

“Yessir, something like that.”

“So, what time will this aircraft intercept us on our current track?”

“It should be in the area sometime between 0830 and 0845. We’ll be out of range, by that point, for any allied aircraft to provide cover.”

“Well, why the devil don’t we head for Brazil, or even Argentina?”

“There are at least three large Wolf-packs operating in the area between Bermuda and Barbados, and I can assure you the German High Command is making a maximum effort to get to this ship.”

“You’re full of all kinds of good news, aren’t you, sir,” Captain McCrea said, but the man’s earlier sarcasm was gone now, replaced with something approaching genuine respect.

“Captain, if you don’t mind, I’d like you to meet me on the bridge this evening, call it 2100 hours. I’d recommend you get some sleep now…we may be in for a busy night.”

“And why would that be?”

“There may be additional air patrols.”

And with that, Levy walked from the bridge back through officer’s country towards his cabin, but he stopped outside Claire’s cabin and knocked gently on her door.

“Come on in,” he heard her say, and he smiled at the light, carefree sound of her voice, the genuine warmth her words conveyed.

“How’re you doing?” he asked when he saw her red eyes, not to mention the swollen, boggy cheeks under them. Her lips were reddish-blue, her nail-beds, too.

“Something about ships and the sea,” she said. “We just don’t get along.”

“The carbon-monoxide concentration in this room is too high. You need to come with me right now, get some fresh air.”

She nodded her head, started to stand but toppled over; he caught her and held her close for a long moment, let her pressures catch up for a moment before he led her through the confined walkways to a hatch that opened to the foredeck. When her face hit the fresh sea air she revived almost instantly, and just then a seaman came by.

“Is she alright, sir,” the young man asked.

“We’ve got some noxious fumes working their way into her cabin. You’d better round up the X-O, and tell the captain he’d better check on the president’s cabin, too.”

The kid ran off and half a dozen men, both officers and ratings, showed up within minutes. Levy told them his concerns and the men took off, and sure enough, Roosevelt was feeling ill too. Soon, most of the working group was gathered on deck, huffing sea air in great gulps, and soon enough more men carried out chairs and a small table; sandwiches appeared moments later, and pitchers of iced-tea, too.

“This your doing, Mr. Levy,” Claire heard, and she turned to see Captain McCrea walking their way.

“Yessir, ‘fraid so.”

“Well, we found some corrosion in a few pipes in that area, and a few shoddy floor welds, too. Quite possible we’d have had a few fatalities tonight without your intervention.”

“Yessir.”

The captain spun around and walked off, looking like he was about to go chew on some undercooked executive officer for lunch. Work details sprang into action all over the ship, while Claire looked at Benjamin with newfound respect in her eyes, suddenly quite sure she was falling in love with this kind-hearted stranger.

She turned and leaned into his shoulder just then, and when he put his arm around her she felt weak in the knees for a moment – until she remembered she really had no idea who – let alone what – this stranger really was.

+++++

It seemed most every one of the people in Roosevelt’s working group had surreptitiously found their way to the bridge just before nine that evening, and both Captain McCrea and the X-O were hunched over the chart table when Roosevelt was wheeled onto the bridge. All the servicemen snapped to attention and Claire could tell the President relished this little bit of pomp; nevertheless, he told them all to get back to their duties while Roy wheeled him over to windows that overlooked the foredeck.

“Why can’t I go out, Captain McCrea?” the President asked.

McCrea looked up, shook his head. “Thirty-eight degrees out, Mr President. Sea temp is fifty two, and sea state is, well sir, it’s going to be a rough night.”

“I see, John. Carry-on.”

Levy looked at a bulkhead mounted clock and walked over to the captain. “Any time now, sir.”

“X-O, bring the ship to general quarters, signal all ships: go dark now.”

“Aye, sir.” Moments later klaxons rang and men scrambled to their stations all over the ship, and forty seconds later the X-O announced “All stations manned and ready, Captain. Water-tight doors are all in the red, and the ship is ready for an air engagement…”

“Very well,” McCrea said.

Levy walked off the bridge to the radar operators compartment, and he looked at the screen for a moment…

“There he is,” Levy said, and the radar operator snapped to, began firming up the plot. Levy walked back out to the bridge.

“Captain, aircraft bearing zero two two degrees, fifty miles. Best guess is his altitude is ten thousand, possibly in a slight descent.”

“Alright. Keep your reports coming.”

“Aye, sir. Single aircraft is turning in our direction now, still in a shallow dive, now about four-six miles out, speed now one seven zero knots.”

“You think that’s another Focke-Wulf?” McCrea asked Levy.

“Right profile, Captain. There were, are four of them in the area right now.”

“You think he’s got us?” McCrea asked, trying to ignore the slip.

“Yup.”

“What kind of range does that missile of his have?”

“It’s altitude dependent, sir. Anywhere from two to five kilometers.”

“Any idea how big his warhead is?”

“Roughly 300 kilos of high explosives. Signal your escorts to move in close now, sir. As close as they possibly can – without risking a collision. And lets you and I go out on the bridge-deck, sir.”

“Alright…”

McCrea led the way, and he looked out into the night sky, saw a line of thunderstorms along the far horizon, the distant clouds silhouetted by flickering lightning.

“How far away?” Levy asked.

“Fifty, maybe seventy miles. Won’t do us a bit of good.”

They watched the cruiser and four destroyers sliding in closer and closer, the cruiser taking up station perhaps fifty yards off their starboard beam, the phosphorescence kicked up in its wake almost magnificent…

“Remind me, Mr. Levy, just why the hell did I let you talk me into this?” McCrea said, turning to look at the civilian – but Levy was staring straight up into the night sky now…

At something bright blue.

“What the devil is that?” McCrea hissed, suddenly feeling betrayed.

“A friend, sir.”

Whatever IT was, the thing was resolving into a sphere now – yet it was impossible to gauge any idea of its size, let alone how far away it was…

“What is that, Benjamin?”

He turned, saw Roosevelt and Hull looking up at the blue sphere – and Claire, too, looking at him, a million questions in her eyes.

He turned back to the sphere, saw it’s descent was slowing rapidly now, and its motion was apparent to everyone looking at it.

Then the X-O stuck his head out the hatch…

“Captain, radar reports zero bearing change, range now thirty-five miles and closing.”

“Got it,” McCrea hissed. “Mr. Levy?”

“Steady as she goes, Captain.”

McCrea shook his head. “Just how big is that thing, Mr. Levy?”

“Now about a mile in diameter. Its altitude is one hundred and ten thousand feet.”

“Jesus,” Hull sighed, “it’s huge. What did you say this thing is made of?”

“Pure energy, Mr Secretary,” Benjamin said, but he was looking into Claire’s eyes just then, trying to take the measure of her mood. She did not look happy, and he guessed because she had seen into the nature of his lie.

McCrea was looking up at the sphere now, and out of habit he checked his navigational stars: Vega was hovering just at the zenith, while Deneb and Altair were down a bit, now to the southeast, but soon enough the sphere commanded all his attention. He held out his clenched fist, tried to measure the sphere’s relative size against a known object, and just then the sphere was half the size of his extended fist. Thirty seconds later the object was as big as his fist…

Then the X-O stuck his head out the hatch again: “Sir, the Dawson is requesting weapons free; they want to engage the object overhead…”

“X-O, under no circumstances is anyone to open fire on that object. Make that clear to the C-O of each vessel in the group, and I mean NOW!”

“Aye-aye, Captain.”

“And where is that goddamn airplane!”

“Constant bearing now, Captain, and two-two miles out.”

“Mr. Levy?” McCrea said, “I’m getting a little nervous. Why is that?”

Levy smiled, though it was too dark out for McCrea to see. “Me too, Captain.”

“Oh, swell.”

“Ben?” He heard Claire say his name and he opened his arm to her, felt her slip in by his side. He furled his arm around her and pulled her tight.

“It won’t be long now,” Levy sighed, staring at the sphere.

McCrea guessed the object was only a few hundred feet above the gunnery mast now, and he saw the surface of the sphere did indeed look like pure energy…it’s surface was covered with hairy blue lightning, for want of a better word – and it was still closing. “Is this going to hurt when it hits?” he asked.

“No sir,” Levy answered, “though some power systems may be temporarily affected.”

And seconds later the Iowa and her escorts were literally encased within the sphere; instantly all seven ships went dark. The ever-present vibration of the ship’s power plant faded away, and in the same instant all power to every system on the ship simply tripped.

McCrea looked up, tried to make out the contours of the sphere – but it was gone now, and no trace of it remained. Then… “What’s with the goddamn stars?”

“What about them?” Roosevelt said.

“Vega was on the zenith less than ten minutes ago; now it’s low on the southern horizon, while Altair and Deneb are higher in ascension. And I’m sorry, but that just can’t be.”

Levy hadn’t counted on this happening, hadn’t thought anyone would notice the changes in stellar positions, and he nodded his head. “Spherical aberration of being within the sphere,” he lied. “It ought to change when we re-emerge.”

“X-O? Where’s that aircraft?”

“Sir, all systems are dark now.”

“Well hallelujah and no fucking shit! Any of the ship’s lookouts still at their posts, Commander?”

“Yessir, and no reported sightings.”

“How about helm? We got any rudder authority?”

“Yessir, the auxiliary kicked-in.”

McCrea looked at the escorts and noted that all the other ships were still – more or less – safely abeam and not closing in. “Mr Levy, any idea how long this is gonna last?”

“Thirty, maybe forty minutes.”

“Somebody bring me a sextant,” McCrea grumbled, and within moments a seaman carried over the Plath almost reverentially and handed it to his captain. “Thanks, son.”

“Yessir.”

McCrea grumbled while he walked the transit in the moonless night, trying to zero-in the horizon, and when he was sure he had it on the line he dialed the vernier until the two horizon lines met; when he was sure he had what he needed he walked into the chartroom and pulled out his tables, started reducing the angles.

He soon realized none of the figures he had worked so hard to take worked, so he walked back out onto the bridge-deck and shot almost-as-bright Altair, knowing that with this one higher in the night sky he had to be more careful with his horizons. Again he grumbled and growled, again he thought he got exactly what he needed, and again he walked to the chart-table, working through the tables and the math by candlelight.

The problem, he soon realized, was simple: neither Vega nor Altair were anywhere close to where they ought to be, and then he felt Levy by his side.

“Problem?” Levy said.

“You could say that, yes. Vega and Altair aren’t where they’re supposed to be, and I can’t account for it.”

“No sir, because your sight reduction tables don’t go back that far.”

McCrea felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. “What do you mean – that far?”

“They haven’t been at these stellar coordinates in roughly eighty thousand years.”

McCrea didn’t know what to say, so he said – nothing.

“We find it far easier to move through time, Captain. I’m sorry…I should have warned you, but I didn’t count on your familiarity with the stars.”

“We?”

“My group.”

“Is that sphere…your ship?”

“That…? No, it’s more like a tool. Once inside the sphere we slip through time.”

“Uh-huh. And where did the sphere come from?”

“Our ship.”

“And where, Mr Levy, is that?”

And when Benjamin Levy pointed up at the sky, Captain John McCrea shook his head. “And if you don’t mind me asking son, just where the hell are you from?”

“New London, sir.”

“Connecticut?”

“Yessir.”

“Uh-huh. Right.”

Levy chuckled. “Can’t say I blame you, sir. I wouldn’t believe me either.”

“How much longer?”

“Maybe ten minutes.”

“Well, let’s get back out there.”

“Yessir, but…could we keep this just between you and me?”

“Not on your fuckin’ life, Mr. Levy.”

And Levy laughed, laughed until he couldn’t stop. He laughed as he walked out on the bridge-deck, laughed while Roosevelt looked to McCrea, but the Captain simply shrugged and looked away,

A few minutes later the sphere seemed to spontaneously reappear, then, as it shot up into the night sky, the Iowa’s systems came back to life. The boilers had to be re-ignited, pressure had to come up again, but diesel generators restored vital systems before that happened and everyone breathed a long sigh of relief.

“Bridge, radar. We’re clear across the board here. Repeat, no radar contacts.”

McCrea shook his head again, then looked up again. Vega was back where she was supposed to be; Altair and Deneb were as well. He brought the sextant back out and shot Vega, then Altair, taking his time to double check all his angles. He shot them again, just to make sure, then he retired to the chartroom.

An hour later he had reduced all his new shots, and when he crossed the arcs he looked up and smiled. In the last hour and a half the Iowa had moved perhaps a quarter mile. And what…? Eighty thousand years?

He looked up, saw Levy watching him as he worked.

‘No,’ Captain John McCrea thought, ‘on second thought, I think for once in my life I’ll just keep my mouth shut.’

The X-O walked over to the chart table and looked at this seasoned navigator’s work, then up at his captain. “Orders, Captain?”

“Resume heading of two-nine-nine, speed sixteen knots, and you have the con, X-O. Mr Levy and I are going for a little walk.”

(C) 2017 | Adrian Leverkühn | abw

Chapter Eight

“Trevor Goldberg” tried not to watch as she rejoined her group and walked away, but he had been waiting for just this moment, and for a very long time. He rejoined his own group, diplomats from the British legation, and he listened to their talk of agenda items – mainly how to keep Churchill’s being pushed out of the main flow of the conversation between Roosevelt and Stalin – when he felt William Thacker’s eyes boring into his.

“Who was that?” Thacker asked.

“Who? The girl?” Goldberg replied. “Claire Aubuchon. I met her once, in D.C., I think. Rather cute, don’t you think?”

He watched as Thacker looked after the girl for a moment, then Goldberg continued. “I was thinking I’d try to ask her out – again,” he said, grinning conspiratorially.

“Oh, was she so interesting?” Thacker said, now eying Goldberg with renewed interest.

“I’ll never tell,” Trevor said, for indeed, he never would.

“What did she say?”

“I’m going to meet up with her when the afternoon session wraps up, or perhaps in the morning. Say, I’d bet you didn’t know she’s Charles Wilkinson’s sister.”

“Seriously? I hear he’s in the queue for an ambassadorship.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“They’ll probably send him to Oman.”

“Family has too much money for that.”

“Ah,” Thacker sighed. “So that’s where your interest resides, eh, Trevor?”

Goldberg grinned, looked sheepishly away.

“You sly dog,” Thacker joshed before he walked quickly to catch up with the ambassador.

Trevor groaned inwardly, then thought of the time they’d been apart. How many lifetimes ago had that been? A hundred? A thousand? And…that last night…

And just then, watching her disappear into the main conference room, he had to admit he really didn’t know her anymore, and that hurt most of all.

+++++

She listened to the introductory remarks, tried to take in Stalin’s ambiguous statement of greeting, his continued insistence that America and Britain open up a second front as soon as possible, then she listened as Roosevelt thanked Stalin for the sacrifices of the great Russian people. She looked at Churchill from time to time, too; at the old man’s chin resting on his chest, his hooded eyes barely concealing the anger seething away inside. Everyone in the room knew he was being pushed aside, that Roosevelt was, in a very real sense, relegating the United Kingdom to the dustbin of History, and Stalin, his wolfish eyes darting here and there, could barely conceal his glee. The sun would, his darting glances confirmed, set on the British Empire, and none too soon. Tehran would forever be remembered as the final changing of the guard; Japanese aircraft had put an end to any just claim that Britain had rights to a global empire now. The sinking of the battleships Prince of Wales and Repulse, on 10 December 1941 off the east coast of Malaya, and just three days into the Pacific war, simply codified for all time Neville Chamberlain’s grotesque appeasements. Those results were cast in stone now, and History’s judgment would be severe, and final.

It was odd, too, Claire thought. Churchill was by far the most astute wartime politician since Napoleon, and yet Napoleon, too, had squandered his empire. Were all empires doomed to rise and fall, she wondered? Was western civilization so doomed, as well? If mankind held firm to its stoking the fires of religious intolerance, could life on this planet survive the atomic age? Was that what she saw in Churchill’s eyes just now? Communist atheism running headlong into the Judeo-Christian impulse – the various crashing atoms smashing each other to bits?

And the Manhattan project was now teeming with scientists from both Britain and Canada, not to mention all the other European emigres that had fled Hitler’s spreading malignancy. The best, the greatest minds in the world, all gathered under the vast New Mexican sky. Her mind drifted to Santa Fe, to Taos, to the spine of mountains that ran between them…the Sangre de Cristos, the Blood of Christ mountains, snow-capped and brilliant. Her little house in Los Alamos, her casita, looked out on those mountains, and when she took walks in the sharp air her mind always drifted to them, and now, sitting in this faraway land, she found herself thinking about that jagged spine of rock once again.

How many civilizations had those mountains borne witness to? The various native tribes that came and went on their nomadic wanderings to and from Mesa Verde, only to give way to the Spaniard? The French, under Napoleon III had tried to push into New Mexico, too. Then the Republic of Texas had laid claim to the valley for a few decades, only to be absorbed by the United States of America. What would come next?

Yes, empires rose to the symphonic strains of a mighty roar, then whispered like a sigh as they faded in the spasms of their varied twilights.

Then the words ‘quantum mechanics’ drifted into her mind’s eye, and she saw the man again, in the same waking dream. She closed her eyes and tried to see him now as he was then, standing on that ship.

It was the same ship, wasn’t it?

Her eyes popped open in that instant and her eyes darted around the room again. Yes, there he was, sitting behind Churchill and Anthony Eden – and he was looking directly at her. Why, she wondered, did that not surprise her? And why did he suddenly seem so familiar? And, oh yes! Why had he said those two vexing words? There were not a hundred people in the world who knew what those two words, quantum mechanics, really meant, and most of those lived within a few blocks of her – under the gaze of those spiny mountains in New Mexico.

She wondered what he knew, too. Wondered if he had heard of the Aubuchon Shift.

Time was like an arrow, or so the saying went. Once loosed, that arrow went on and on, and in one direction only. But what happened before the arrow left the bow? What happened when you tricked time, and made it go backwards?

+++++

Her eyes burned and she rubbed them again, rubbed them until she felt the sclera detach  like old, dry paper – then she cursed under her breath and stopped.

“When are you ever going to learn?” she heard Charles say, and she looked up at him and grinned sheepishly.

She shrugged, then looked at the note in his hand. “What now?”

“Franklin would like to see you. I think Secretary Hull will be there too.”

“Why him, for God’s sake?”

Charles shrugged. “Hull is always around when the discussion turns to Stalin, or even to Russia generally. Get used to it.”

“He’s too serious,” she sighed. “I don’t like him, Charles.”

He chuckled. “Serious? Cordell? And why wouldn’t he be? He and Acheson have only been charged with creating the post-war political framework of the world.”

“Right. And just what the hell have I got to do with that?”

“Well, there’s been some talk of this shift you discovered…”

“Talk? How…”

“I think that’s the point. There’ve been some very serious discussions about it, I can tell you. The whole paradox thing that Oppenheimer brought up, as I guess you can imagine, shook a lot of people out of their reveries.”

“Myself included,” Claire didn’t have to add.

“Exactly. Now, I’d suggest you not try to conceal a thing. Answer Hull’s questions, but pay attention to Acheson. Dean has a better grasp of scientific matters, so if you see him struggling you’ll need to dumb it down a little.”

“Okay. Is Acheson the one you’ve been working for?”

“Uh-huh. He’s the brains of the outfit, and don’t you forget it. Roosevelt ain’t stupid, and neither is Hull, but Acheson is in another league compared to those guys. He’s smart, and his eyes don’t miss a thing. Don’t even think of lying when he’s in the room.”

“I wasn’t planning on lying, Charles.”

“I know. Now, come on.”

“Do you know a Trevor Goldberg?” she blurted.

“With the Brits, right? I’ve heard the name before. Why?”

“He said he wants to have a talk with me.”

Charles visibly stiffened when he heard that, and Claire noticed. “Don’t meet with him unless Hull gives you the go-ahead.”

“He assured me Eden would vouch for him…”

“Doesn’t matter. They’ll be probing, trying to get information on this Shift you’ve run across. My guess is Churchill is directing this contact, but he’ll keep very-very hands-off to avoid any semblance of impropriety. Anyway, you’d better scoot.”

“Is it still cold out?”

“You’d better take a coat, yes.”

She picked up something and walked out into the early morning air, took a deep breath then wrapped the coat around her shoulders as she walked over to Roosevelt’s quarters, unnerved by all the Russian guards standing around. ‘Well,’ she thought, ‘it is their embassy…’

An America Marine stood outside the president’s door, and he came to attention as she approached – yet the door magically opened as she arrived, and Carlton, the Navy captain who acted as Roosevelt’s aide, smiled from just inside the suite.

“Good morning, Dr Aubuchon,” Carlton said.

“And to you, Russ. Anything new overnight?”

“Nothing major. Some new fuel consumption figures from inside Germany; that’s about it.”

She nodded understanding as she walked inside, noted a fire crackling away in the fireplace as she took off her coat, then watched Carlton point at the ceiling. ‘Yes,’ she sighed inwardly, ‘I caught the signal, Russ. The place is bugged, they’re listening. I get that…’

“Secretary Hull will be right out,” Carlton added as he walked into his makeshift office off this ‘living room,’ and she wondered if Roosevelt would come too. He had looked like death warmed over by the end of yesterday’s sessions, and had reportedly gone straight to bed. The burden’s this man carried, she thought, were enough to crush anybody, yet he had carried the weight of the world for years now, and never seemed to flinch under the load. Now it was catching up with him…

Another door opened and Secretary Hull walked into the room – looking more than a little tired – and he came and sat across from her.

“Ah, the fire’s not out yet…good. Franklin slept with the windows open a little last night…it’s too cold for me in there right noe.”

“Yessir,” she said.

“I’ve a request from Churchill that you be allowed some time with this Goldberg fellow. Know anything about him?”

“No sir, not a thing. He approached me yesterday, on the way to the morning session, asked to speak to me then walked back to his legation.”

“Damned odd,” Hull sighed. “Should have put that request in writing. Damned odd. You’re sure you haven’t met before?”

“I’m not completely sure, sir. I might have seen him once before, in passing, but I don’t know him, or anything about his work.”

“I see. Well, I don’t need to mention that talk about this shift you’ve discovered will be off-limits.”

“Understood, sir.”

“And the president would like a follow-up ‘contact report’ when you wrap this up. And make sure Captain Carlton gets it as soon as you’ve written it up. Just the basics, but your impressions about why this contact was initiated, what you think they’re fishing for…that kind of thing.”

“Yessir.”

“Well, you best get at it. I understand he’s waiting for you now,” the Secretary of State added, pointing at the door.

“Thank you, sir,” she said, standing and picking up her coat. Another Marine opened the door now and helped her with her coat, then she stepped out into the courtyard. And there, standing in a swirling sea of autumn leaves, was this Trevor Goldberg. Not very tall, she thought, and almost too thin, his head a little too big for his frame, as well. As she approached she thought his eyes looked almost owl-like; large, predatory eyes, like a raptor’s, and she couldn’t decide whether they were darkest amber or blue-gray.

“So,” she said as she walked up to the man, “quantum mechanics? What’s on your mind?”

“Have you had breakfast?” Goldberg said, smiling.

“No, I haven’t, and I’m starving.”

“I’ve found a decent place, and not at all far away if you think you can stand a walk…?”

“Lead on, kind sir.”

“What do you think of Tehran?”

“It’s cooler than I thought it would be, that much is certain. Have you been to the Grand Bazaar?”

“That’s where we’re headed, as luck would have it. Have you been yet?”

“No, but I wanted to see it before we leave. Is it safe?”

He chuckled. “Don’t bother turning to look, but I think we have about a half dozen of your Marines following us, and God only knows how many Russians.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway, I’ve found Tehran quite lovely, and the people wonderful. I shouldn’t mind living here, if it came to that. You’re looking well, by the by. New Mexico agrees with you.”

She was instantly on-guard, now that he’d tipped his hand so obliquely. “You’ve been, I take it?”

“Only to Santa Fe, but that was years ago, before the war. Stayed at the LaFonda. Walking the square in the early morning? Magic.”

“And what were you doing in Santa Fe.”

“Pottery.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Looking for pottery. For my collection.”

“Ah. Find anything interesting?”

“Quite a bit, actually. Well, here we are…”

He led the way inside a small restaurant just across from a narrow passage that led into one of the Bazaar’s many entrances, and the varied scents coming from the small kitchen were almost intoxicating. Breakfast, teas, fruits and a mist of exotic spice hung in the air, apparent, the heady brew at once compelling and unnerving.

“Do you speak Persian?” he asked.

“You must be joking,” she deadpanned.

“Well then, shall I order for you?” he said, almost laughing.

“No sheep’s eyes, please, but other than that…”

This time he did laugh, openly and for a long time, then he spoke to the proprietress for a moment before leading Claire to a table. “Shouldn’t take long,” he advised, looking out the front door at the gaggle of confused security personnel gathered there, perhaps wondering what to do now.

“So,” Claire said, eyeing Goldberg as he sat, “quantum mechanics?”

“Yes, sorry. Kind of an odd way to introduce myself, I know. How far along are you?”

“Excuse me?”

“What are you calling it? The shift?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I understand. We’d like you to stop all research on this material. Now.”

“What research?”

“On time dilation and contraction.”

She stared at the man for a long time, not sure who or what he was now, then she simply looked down at her hands. “Oh, is that all?”

“Yes.”

“And who is ‘we’?”

He shrugged. “People who want you to stop, before you get into serious trouble.”

“Trouble? With whom? The Physics Police?”

His eyes turned deadly serious in the next instant. “Yes, something like that.”

It was the way he spoke, the look in his eyes that convinced Claire Aubuchon that this man, if indeed he was a man, was completely serious and on-the-level.

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?” she asked, her voice conspiratorially quiet. “On that ship?”

He nodded his head only once, an ambiguous gesture that left her feeling even more unsure of the moment.

“Where are you from?”

He grinned, slightly, still looking her in the eye: “Near Cambridge, I should think.”

“Uh-huh, sure. And before that?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes, very much.”

“New London. I was born in New London, Connecticut.”

“When?”

“When? You mean, when was a born? The year?”

She nodded her head, knowing what had to come next.

“1877.”

“And let me take a wild guess…on the twelfth of April?”

He smiled broadly now. “Yes, that’s right.”

She felt a sudden shift, like her understanding of the universe had quietly slipped from the room. Her father…her father’s date and place of birth…and now, after these 30 years it felt like some vast cosmic tumblers were finally slipping into place. This “Goldberg” should be seventy six years old, yet he looked, what? Twenty-five? Thirty?

“And you’re my father, is that what you’re telling me?”

He stared at her now, though he said not a single word.

“That’s not fair, and you know it,” she said as she confronted his silence.

“I know.”

“Can you tell me what this is really all about? Please?”

“I already have. Stop all work on the shift. You’re endangering everyone on the planet.”

“Because, again, I might upset some sort of Physics Police? Is that what you’re implying?”

“I’m not implying anything, Claire. It’s a warning. Stop, now. While you still can.”

“And?”

“And I’m going to introduce you to my brother this evening. You should fall in love with him. I should warn you, everyone does, sooner or later.”

“You’re telling me to fall in love with this man?”

“I am.”

“And if I don’t?”

Goldberg shook his head just as two plates of food arrived, and he looked at her reaction to the food. Some things never change, he thought.

 

(c) 2017 | Adrian Leverkühn | abw | fiction, and nothing but…

I’m churning along with this one now, but I’ll still post small chapters for a while until I’ve finished, then I’ll post a long, consolidated version of this story. Again, obvious tie-ins to NightSide/Asynchronous Mud abound. You’ll have to dig deeper to see the tie-ins with TimeShadow.

Chapter Six

Ten years later

She sat in the stuffy compartment, rubbing the burning circles under her eyes while looking out the window at a vast, snow-covered prairie rolling by in the darkness. Her eyes felt like molten pools deep within the frozen earth, and she felt a new line of perspiration beading on her forehead.

‘Oh, God no,’ she thought, ‘I can’t get sick. Not now…’

She shook her head, leaned back and palpated the glands in her neck – but they felt soft and small so she relaxed and picked up the sheaf of papers and found her place – again – then dove back into the text, rereading an exploration of transuranic radiochemical fractionation presented only a few months ago in Naturwissenschaften, a journal of physics and chemistry published in Germany. It hadn’t taken Oppenheimer’s team at Berkeley more than a few days to grasp the importance of Hahn and Meitner’s breakthrough, yet it turned out that several groups of physicists around the United States and Canada had made the same observation – and in roughly the same time-frame. Now, varied groups of engineers, chemists and physicists were en route to Washington to meet with the president.

She almost didn’t hear the soft knock on her compartment’s door, but she looked up and shook her head, then rubbed her eyes again before speaking: “Yes?” she said to the darkness.

And then a kindly faced old porter stuck his head in past the door. “Doctor Aubuchon? Doctor Oppenheimer would like to speak with you now, down in his compartment. He says, if you don’t mind.”

“What time is it?” Claire asked.

“Not quite six, Ma’am.”

“Morning? Or afternoon?”

“It’s five-forty-three in the morning, Ma’am.”

“Right,” she sighed, adding: “I need a glass of water” – then she fished for a bottle of aspirin from her purse as the porter slipped from away. She picked up the monograph, and her notes, after she downed the tablets when the water came, then she walked down the swaying corridor to Robert’s compartment.

The door was standing wide open, and her brother Charles stood anxiously when he saw her eyes. He helped her into the chair then closed the door on his way out, never saying a word to her. No words were needed, after all.

“I think you look worse than I feel,” Oppenheimer sighed. “I’d kill for an aspirin right now.”

She nodded, pulled the bottle from her purse and passed it over, wanting more than anything else in the world to pour ice water into her burning eyes.

“You’re rubbing your eyes too much,” Robert chided. “You’ll get episcleritis. Knock it off, and I mean right now. I can’t have you going blind right…”

“I hear you.”

“So? Any new conclusions?”

“We may have underestimated the forces involved. The energy release will be cataclysmic.”

Oppenheimer nodded his head slowly. “That’s my take, too.”

“Have you heard from Werner?”

“Heisenberg? No. And I don’t expect the Reich will let this kind of free exchange of ideas continue. The implications of this work are creating shockwaves throughout the community.”

“What did Bohr have to say about it?”

“I think he’s terrified, Claire.”

“So, he confirmed?”

Oppenheimer nodded his head.

“What are you reading now?” she asked, looking at the colorful book on the little table under the window.

“This? Oh, the Bhagavad Gita,” he said, passing the book over to her.

She opened the heavy tome and looked over a page or two, then passed it back. “You read Sanskrit?”

“Yes.”

She shook her head as she looked him in the eye: “Why?”

“I get the impression, reading this now, that these events have been foretold.”

She smiled, then looked out the window again and noted the prairie was shading from gray to purple, then his words registered and she wondered what he meant. “Foretold?”

“Eternal recurrence…something like that. Have you read Jung?”

She shook her head, then looked at him again. “Something about archetypes once.”

“Precisely,” he said. “You should try to get some sleep. We’ll be in Chicago around noon.”

“Straight to D.C. from there?”

“We should arrive tomorrow morning.”

“Have you met him before?”

“Who? Roosevelt?”

“Yes.”

“Only in passing. Why?”

“Oh, something that happened years ago.”

“Something? Like what?”

“I’m not sure, but I recall seeing him on a ship – and he seemed to know me.”

He looked at her for a long while, then opened the book on his lap and began reading aloud; moments later she felt herself falling…

+++++

He looked younger…of that much she was certain. He had looked pale and used up when she’d seen him on the strange ship, but now he seemed stronger – and very sharply focused. When she walked into the conference room he looked up at her briefly, but she saw no recognition in his eyes, nothing at all to indicate they’d ever met before, and his attention had soon shifted to something Harry Hopkins was whispering in his ear.

But it was him. It was Roosevelt she’d seen on the ship, and yet now – here he was. And here she was. In the same room, looking right at him, and everything about him seemed so familiar – again. She watched the way his hands moved – soft yet decisive – and the way his eyes seemed to suck up every detail in the room…like as soon as someone entered he made an inventory of their characteristics. A Navy captain stood behind him, a man named Carlton, talking with Hopkins just now – but the captain was looking at her much more frequently, like he knew something she didn’t.

Then her brother Charles walked up to the officer and the two shook hands – and that seemed to answer that question – for the moment, anyway, then Oppenheimer walked into the room. She watched Roosevelt look up – nothing dismissive in his eyes now – and she watched Oppenheimer work his way around the room to his place at the table – by her right side. Directly across from Roosevelt, she thought. Eye-to-eye. Man-to man.

So, she thought, the president wants to look him in the eye. Wants to see beyond the truth of the moment.

Then three more men walked into the room – three men she recognized from newspaper articles, and she watched them as they walked up to her brother and the Navy captain, then as they shook hands with the president – before moving off to the shadows where Hopkins waited.

Presently the naval officer, Carlton, called the room to order, and everyone’s attention focused on Roosevelt – who coughed once, his eyes bright and wet, before he looked up from a stack of papers on the table in front of him.

“Good morning,” the president said, and there arose a chorus of good wishes from those around the huge table. “I’ve read and reread the various synopses given me by the Navy, and I’ve called this meeting to see what the scientific consensus is about the threat posed by these findings. Dr. Oppenheimer? Care to get this show on the road?”

Robert laughed, then looked over at Claire. “If you don’t mind, Mr. President, I’d prefer that my associate, Dr. Aubuchon, run through our initial observations.”

“Very well.”

Claire cleared her throat and was about to speak when Roosevelt coughed again, this time a ragged, rheumy fit, and she watched as his face turned at first red, then faintly blue. A steward poured ice water and Hopkins was by the president’s side in an instant, helping him take the glass in hand. Looks were exchanged around the table as a bottle of cough medicine was produced.

“Damn bugs!” Roosevelt grumbled between spoonfuls of medicine. He put his hands out on the edge of the table – as if steadying himself against a storm-tossed sea – then he looked at Claire and smiled. “Tell me, Doctor Aubuchon, as succinctly as you can…can a bomb be made using the theories and techniques posited in this paper?”

“That remains to be seen, Mr. President. The techniques presented, those to stream off and produce isotopes from raw ores, simply do not exist at this time. Not in the industrial quanriries needed. These are issues related to electrical and mechanical engineering, not simply matters of theoretical physics, and one of the first items that springs to mind is the vast scale needed to produce even measurable quantities. for experimentation. To produce a fission bomb of the sort being characterized would require an industrial operation that simply exists nowhere in the world.”

“Explain.”

“Well, sir, imagine a trainload of ore, uranium ore. Perhaps fifty hopper cars worth of raw ore. With optimal efficiencies, and by that I mean utilizing efficiencies of extraction that simply do not exist anywhere on earth today, we might be able to prepare a sample size of, well, sir, a thimble full of the necessary isotope to conduct preliminary experiments on.”

“Alright. Say we lick that problem. How much ore would be needed to produce a bomb?”

Oppenheimer broke in just then. “Mr President, we simply won’t know the answer to that question until we can produce enough of the necessary isotope.”

“And?” the president sighed, “just how much do you think you’d need to get to that point?”

“Perhaps a hundred thousand metric tons, Mr President,” one of the naval officers standing in the shadows said.

“Oh. Is THAT all?” Roosevelt said, his face splitting into that famously broad grin of his. “Where can we lay our hands on that much ore, Captain Henry?”

“Canada, sir.”

The President turned and looked at the captain, then at another man standing by Hopkins. “Dr Kirby, is it your belief that the machinery to accomplish this is feasible? On the necessary scale?”

“Sir, we’ve never tried to regulate currents with this degree of precision, but yes, it’s possible. Assuming we can deliver a prototype for testing within a few months, get our testing done, then ramp up production…well…yes sir. We can do it.”

Roosevelt leaned back and looked up at the ceiling for a moment, then daubed his eyes with a handkerchief. “What are we talking about here, Dr Aubuchon? What kind of bomb?”

“Mr President, I don’t think we have a frame of reference here. There’s never been anything like this, not in all human history. We are talking about a vast, elemental power, sir. The power that fuels the universe.”

“Theoretically, Dr Aubuchon. How big?”

“Mr President,” Oppenheimer broke in once again, “once again, we simply don’t know, but initial projections are staggering. Certainly one such device would be enough to destroy a large city.”

“Alright, Robert. Now, one last question. How long will it take the Germans to get there?”

Oppenheimer looked down, shook his head slowly. “There are few sources available to the Germans outside of Africa, but they’ll need to overcome an even more important barrier, sir.”

“And that is?”

“Werner Heisenberg.”

“Meaning?”

“There isn’t a more ethical scientist in Germany, Mr President. Perhaps in the world.”

“I see. And what if Mr Hitler decides to kill this ethical scientist, Dr Oppenheimer? What then?”

“In that case, Mr. President, we’d better be much further along than the Germans.”

+++++

She went from the meeting to her brother’s house in Chevy Chase and rested, but only for a few hours. She and her brother, as well as Dr. Oppenheimer, were to dine with the President and Mrs. Roosevelt that evening, and her brother groused it would be necessary for her to ‘look presentable’ for the occasion…

“No, you may not wear that nasty old cardigan tonight!” he’d almost shouted at her. “It’s covered in chalk, let alone smells like it hasn’t been cleaned since 1919!”

“No doubt it hasn’t,” Claire sighed. “It doesn’t – ‘smell,’ so why should I?”

“Because it smells like a goat.”

She’s just left it at that. “Does Anne have something I can borrow?” she asked. Charles’ wife had impeccable taste, and oodles of time to go shopping.

“You two are hardly the same size, you know, but I’ll ask. Have you considered that she’s not at all happy about not being invited to dinner tonight?”

“No, not really. I’d assume most of the things under discussion will be somewhat classified. Does she have the necessary clearance?”

Charles turned and stormed out of her room, grumbling as he thundered down the stairs – leaving Claire to wonder about her brother’s moods one more time. She took off her sweater and dropped onto the bed, and was soon fast asleep – again. She felt urgent hands shaking her awake sometime later, saw the sun was now close to the horizon and that a heavy snow was falling. She rolled over and saw Charles standing by the bed, looking at her with concern in his eyes.

“Are you alright?” he asked.

“Yes…why?”

“I’ve been shaking you for ages. I wasn’t even sure you were breathing.”

She sat up slowly, yawning as she did. “How long was I out?”

“About three hours.”

“Do I have time to shower?”

“Well, you won’t be allowed in the White House smelling the way you do right now, so I’d hop to it.”

“I do not smell, Charles.”

“Oh. I see. Perhaps you can explain that to the Golden Retriever outside your door. You know, the one who’s been trying to burrow under the door for the past half hour.” She stood and promptly passed out, falling to the floor like a sack of rocks. She felt Charles’ hands lifting her, helping her to the side of the bed. “You’re burning up, Claire. How long have you felt bad?”

“Night before last, I think. If you have a couple of aspirin handy, I’ll be alright.”

“Can you handle some orange juice?”

“Yes, that’d be nice.”

“Alright, I’ll get that going – if you think you can handle getting to the shower.”

“Help me up, would you?”

He helped her to the bathroom, and when he was sure she was steady on her feet he left her to it; when she came out a few minutes later she found some of Anne’s things laid out on her bed and she dressed, then, looking out the window at the heavy snow falling, dried her hair with a second fresh towel. Charles knocked on the door a few minutes after that, asked if she was ready to go, and he took her arm when she walked out to him.

“Thanks, big brother,” she sighed.

“You’re welcome, little sister,” he said, taking her hand in his.

The Navy had sent a courier to take them to the White House, and as they arrived at the portico she saw Oppenheimer and a turtle-faced man get out of a sedan together, and the two naval officers who’d spoken at the conference earlier were with them, too. “Who’s that with Robert?”

“Leo Szilard.”

“The Hungarian?”

“Yes. He’s at Columbia now, I think. Einstein’s shadow, I think you could say.”

“So I’ve heard. We’re not the only ones invited tonight, I see.”

“I think the guest list has expanded somewhat since we left this afternoon. Einstein will be here, and I heard Thomas Mann may be, as well.”

“The writer? Why him?”

“He’s been helping get academics out of Germany, and is coming to be seen as kind of the father figure to the exile community.”

“But with…”

“He has clearance, Claire. He hates Hitler, and he has the president’s ear.”

She shook her head as Marines came to open their door, and she took Charles’ arm and walked with him into the White House.

After so many years in California, walking from a minor blizzard into the stuffy heat of the old building’s radiator heat was a shock, and almost instantly she broke out in a sweat. Charles, of course, noticed immediately.

“Your face is the color of a plum…what’s going on with you?”

“It’s the heat, I think. As soon as we hit this air I felt like I was going to melt – from the inside out.”

“You’re starting to perspire again.”

“I think I’m going to be sick…”

A steward helped her to the nearest restroom, then a physician was summoned – and she soon found herself in one of the upstairs bedrooms, laid out like a fish on a monger’s scale. Panting now, she tried to close her eyes again – but as soon as she did she was back on the ship.

And Roosevelt was with her again, looking out the thick glass port-light by her side. Looking out at Saturn’s rings, quailing before the implications of this place. The walls were bright red, and somewhat distorted – like the floors sloped up. Regardless of whether she turned to the left or the right, she saw she was inside some sort of vast, toroidal structure.

Then she felt an eyelid being forced apart between two soft fingers, a bright light shining in the middle of her skull, making her turn away – or trying to, at least.

“Ah, good. You’re still with us,” a man’s soothing voice said…then she felt a thermometer sliding between her lips. “Under the tongue, please, if you can,” the voice said.

She sat just in silence, her eyes darting around the bedroom, echoes of red fighting for supremacy. Fingers on her wrist found her pulse, then she saw the physician counting as he watched the motion of her breath. When he was finished, he pulled out the glass thermometer and looked at the scale.

“That can’t be right,” he murmured.

“What is it?”

“Ninety five-two.”

“Wouldn’t that account for the heat I feel?”

“It might, but then again, you’d probably feel rotten. More than you can imagine.”

“What makes you think I don’t?”

The physician was shaking the thermometer down again, then he placed it in a vial of alcohol for a moment before he wiped it down. “Let’s try this again,” he sighed, slipping it under her tongue a second time.

She listened to a clock ticking in the distance, then the gurgling of hot water flowing through the radiator across the room – and she could almost imagine blood flowing through her veins as another wave of heat washed across the room. In an instant, she was standing beside Roosevelt on the toroidal floor.

“I’ll never tire of looking at this place,” he sighed – then she noticed he was standing now. No wheelchair. No hint of disability – at all.

Then an overwhelming wave of ammonia caught her unawares, her eyes parting again, that noxious light shining inside her skull.

“You passed out again,” the physician said, “and now your temperature is ninety four-three.”

“What do you think’s wrong with me?”

“I’m not quite sure, but the rather annoying thing is that you and the president are experiencing the exact same symptoms. He has – all afternoon, too.”

“I need to speak with him, right away…”

“I’m not sure that’s possible, Doctor Aubuchon.”

“It’s important. I need to ask him something.”

But the door to the room opened, and she saw Roosevelt in his chair out in the hallway, looking on with concern in his eyes; then he was wheeling himself into the room, right up to her bedside.

“Leave us, doctor,” Roosevelt said, and the physician put his things away in his little black bag and left the room, closing the door as he went.

“You were there again,” Roosevelt said, reaching out now – and taking her hand.

His skin felt so familiar, so shockingly intimate and familiar. “What were we doing there?”

The president shook his head and sighed. “I don’t know, but whatever else it may be, it’s real. Your presence here, now, confirms that.”

“This morning, when I walked in the conference room, did you recognize me?”

“No, not right away. When you spoke I began to feel…something like an echo of meeting you. Something far away, something washing over me like a memory of tomorrow. Like something that hasn’t happened yet – but has somewhere else.”

“Some other time, you mean? Something that hasn’t happened yet, but how could that be?”

“Something, or someone, related to this morning’s conference? Something being manipulated?”

“Time?” she said. “But…how?”

“How isn’t as important as why right this moment, Doctor. If we’d simply shared a delusion, the how of this might be interesting – from a psychiatrist’s point of view – but understanding the why of things will be vital going forward. From a politician’s standpoint, I should say.”

“The why of things? Is that important?”

Roosevelt tried not to laugh, but failed – though he caught himself before he started coughing again. “The why is always the most important point to consider, young lady. Why do we need to consider making bombs of uranium? Why do we need to go to war with Germany? How is a question for engineers and economists; why is my purview right now, and with events in Asia and Eastern Europe spiraling out of control right now, the answer to ‘why’ you and I are sharing this vision is suddenly the most crucial thing I can think of.”

“The first time I saw you…well, it was almost ten years ago.”

“What?” Roosevelt said, suddenly exasperated. “When was this?”

“My brother and I were headed west. I was on my way to Berkeley, to begin graduate school, and I felt myself phasing in and out of time, experiencing different outcomes to events that had happened long before. My father’s death, the sinking of the Titanic…”

“The Titanic? Why, of all…”

“I was onboard, sir, the night she went down.”

“Good God. Why didn’t I read that in your dossier?”

She shrugged. “The night of our first encounter, she missed the iceberg. And I learned my father had passed away some two weeks before, not on that night…”

“So…time had been altered, and in more ways that one?”

“Yes.”

“And you met me, for the first time?”

She nodded her head slowly. “By that window…looking…”

“At those rings?”

“Yessir.”

“The walls inside that ship…what color are they?”

“Red, sir.”

Roosevelt looked at her, trying to come to terms with these revelations, then a sudden thought came to him: “I say, you’re looking much better now. Do you feel up to going downstairs?”

She nodded her head again. “Yes, I think so.”

“Good. Let’s give it a try, shall we?”

+++++

Sitting on the train, heading back to California a few days later, she thought about that encounter, and the evening that followed, for hour after hour. About the various discussions around the table, the palpable excitement surrounding the road ahead. Entire new industries would have to be created almost overnight…precision electromagnets capable of streaming off isotopes in electron streams. Vast new transport infrastructure to carry ores from Canada and Brazil, in wartime.

Yes, war. Roosevelt had made it abundantly clear that war with both Germany and Japan, and possibly Russia, now appeared inevitable. The United States would have to fight two well-armed adversaries on opposite sides of the earth, or risk being swallowed by an imploding wall of totalitarianism. It was as simple as that.

The last resort, Roosevelt said, might very well be the fission bomb under discussion – but then he’d asked: “What then?”

“If we win this war, how in God’s name do we win the unstable peace that must surely follow? What happens after we finally open Pandora’s box?”

When they made it down to the room, a large ballroom where both cocktails and heated conversations were being consumed in unhealthy quantities, people were just shuffling off to a dining room, and Roosevelt had mysteriously disappeared. Charles and Oppenheimer saw her coming through a doorway and both rushed to her side.

“Ah,” Oppenheimer said casually, “you didn’t die, I take it?”

Charles shook his head as he walked up to her, rolling his eyes. “You look better, the color of a tangerine now. Better than that plum-red you were sporting…”

“And I feel better, too. Thanks for asking.”

“We’ve taken the liberty of putting you next to Ben Goodman…”

“Benny Goodman? The…musician?”

“No, dear,” Oppenheimer sighed, as if he was talking to a child. “Ben Goodman, the physician. The physician who held your wrist and took your temperature when you were upstairs. He seems to think you need to go to the hospital.”

“The hospital?”

“Yes. Oddly enough, he thinks both you and Franklin have pneumonia.”

“Bosh. I have no such thing. I’ve not coughed in days.”

“Indeed. You must remind me…where did you take your medical diploma?”

Ignoring Robert, she turned to Charles. “Now, where am I sitting?”

“Follow me,” her brother said, and when they gained the table a dapper looking man stood and held out her chair.

“Well, you’re looking better,” Goodman said. “How’re you feeling? Still flushed?”

She smiled and sat, and Charles sat between her and Oppenheimer. “Aspirin seems to do the trick for me,” she said, “whatever it is I’ve gotten hold of.”

“Well, drink plenty of water tonight. They tend to over-salt the food here,” Goodman said, frowning.

“You come here often, I take it?”

“I seem to have taken up residence here – rather against my will, I should add.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, it seems I’ve become the President’s Personal Physician, or some such blather. That’s what’s on the door to my office, anyway. Are you Charles’ wife?”

“Sister.”

“Indeed? Splendid!”

She looked at Goodman and smiled. “Splendid? Truly?”

“Yes indeed. Take a look around, would you? There are three females in attendance, one is serving food this evening, and one of them is Mrs. Roosevelt. You’re the third, and I’m sitting next to you. So, yes. I think that’s very splendid indeed!”

“I see. You’re not married, I take it?”

“No, but the night is young.”

Claire grinned while she tried not to shake her head.

“So, why did Charles bring you along?”

“I’m Robert Oppenheimer’s assistant.”

“Indeed,” Goodman said, frowning. “A physicist, then?”

She nodded her head, smiled a little smile, not at all triumphant. “Yes. Isn’t that the bee’s knees?”

“Are you working on all this uranium stuff?”

“I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course. It’s just that I am, so I naturally assumed…”

“You are?”

“Yes. Well, you see, I’d been working on establishing new protocols for radiation exposure, primarily for use with or during diagnostic imaging, when Szilard tapped me to help out. When I’m not working here, I’m stationed at the Navy Yard.”

“Oh? You’re in the Navy?”

“Yes, and sorry…no uniform tonight. I was off duty when Harry called me in to check out the President.”

“Harry?”

“Ah, you’re not into politics, I take it? Harry Hopkins. He’s been with Franklin since day one. The New Deal is his baby, if you didn’t know. Harry is one of those Progressive Optimists you read about in the Times.”

She shrugged again. “If you say so.”

“Not interested, I take it?”

She shook her head gently, though she smiled at Goodman.

“Oh dear,” he sighed, “I may fall in love with you before we get to our salads. Where are you working?”

“Berkeley.”

“Yes, of course. How stupid of me. You did say you were working with Robert.”

“Where did you go to school, Doctor?”

“Annapolis, then Georgetown. I began working with x-ray imaging devices when I did my internship, and I’ve been fascinated by the things ever since.”

“And how did you get roped into being the President’s physician?”

“Harry was out at the Yard and he had a bad cold. I ended up seeing him and that was that.”

“Chance, then?”

“Yes. Bad luck.”

She smiled when he grinned again, and she looked at his eyes a little longer this time. Kind, gentle, and deeply inquisitive. A scientist’s eyes, in other words. “So, radiological dosing? You’ll be working on this so-called uranium project, I take it?”

“Yes. So I’d imagine we’ll see each other from time to time?”

“Would you like that?”

“Yes, you know, I think I would.”

She felt her face flushing again, felt a few beads forming on her forehead, then she felt a glass of ice-water being thrust into her hand. “Drink it down, and take some ice into your mouth, roll it around…”

And without asking she did so, then she felt him grasp her wrist, begin counting-off her pulse while he watched her face and neck. “You know, even as sick as you are, you have the most enchanted eyes I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“Enchanting, I think perhaps you meant to say?”

“No, enchanted. Like you’ve seen wild, magic things already. Like there’s little that makes you afraid.”

She could feel Charles looking at her, listening to this conversation, and she tried her best to ignore his eyes burning into the back of her skull, then she took a deep breath and leaned back in her chair. “You know, I’ve felt better.”

“I’d like to run you over to Georgetown, that is if you don’t mind.”

“Perhaps after dinner, Dr. Goodman,” she heard her brother saying – then she was wrapped in warm blankets of deep sleep, adrift on a sunless sea – and everywhere around her, she felt the deep vibrations of huge machinery…

(c) 2017 | adrian leverkühn | abw

This really should be considered the second half of Chapter 4, as the chapter presented here is a really, really short one, a snippet that is nothing more than a minor continuation of the earlier. It’s also a prelude, of sorts. Confused? If you haven’t seen where this story is headed yet, you will soon enough. Kinda. If you recall the NightSide series (NightSide and Asynchronous Mud), you might have felt that those two are parts of a larger whole. Still, I’m not giving away much here, am I? Enjoy…

Chapter Five

Her hands hurt; of that much she was sure. She looked at her fingers, and the joints in her hands now came to her as the roots of a gnarled oak might – if pushing up through the dry grass of late summer.

“Can this be me,” she gulped, the sight tearing at her mastery of the moment. “These can’t be my hands…can they?”

Yet, when she moved her fingers she felt overwhelming pain, and that searing sense of immediacy pushed aside all other awareness of the moment. She had been on the ship one moment, yet seconds later she had been with Charles in a train – but now…this? She was in a small compartment, at least it looked somewhat like a sleeping compartment, yet she was certain this was no train, and certainly not the ship she’d been on with her father. She sensed no movement here, nothing at all save for a distant humming, and the vaguest impression that air was being pumped into this small space.

Then, she felt more than heard a faint hissing sound – and as she watched a doorway slid open.

A man. She saw a man – in a wheelchair. He seemed familiar too, yet not quite – then she saw a naval officer was pushing the wheelchair, and, oddly enough, he looked familiar to her as well. She remembered the patch on his shoulder…

“Doctor Aubuchon?” the old man in the wheelchair said, his voice rheumy, tired and full of deep sorrow. “Claire? Is that you?”

“Do I…do we know one another?” she asked, now completely taken aback by the man in the chair, and then the naval officer coughed gently before he looked away – as if she had said something embarrassingly untoward.

“Claire? It’s me…Franklin?”

“Franklin?”

“Roosevelt? You don’t recall anything?”

“You were the president, weren’t you? I seem to remember something about that now.” She paused and looked around the room again. “Where are we?”

The old man wheeled himself over to a porthole of some sort, but there were no dogs on this port to keep a raging sea from pouring in, just a smooth oval of glass perhaps a foot wide, at most nine inches tall. She followed the old man to the window and looked out…

…and fell away when she saw the planet below. The surface she saw spread out beneath this ship was a mottled mass of flowing tans and mauves, and there was a vast ring encircling the orb, the sandy ring casting an immense, oblate shadow on the world below.

“What is this?” she gasped, “Saturn?”

“Yes, that’s right – or so they tell me – but I’m still not sure I believe them.”

“Them?”

Then she felt an inrushing, almost overwhelming pressure gripping her, the unexpected force pushing in from every direction – yet in the pressure she felt entombed in pure silence.

Then she saw the mountain. A vast horn, dark gray in swirling streaks of lighter mist, and she saw an old man watching her – seemingly from within the mist. His eyes glowing with anger, the old man was looking right at her now.

“Where have you been?” the old man asked. “I was expecting you hours ago…”

Yet she didn’t recognize the man, and before she knew what was happening she felt the pressure return, then she was standing beside the lookouts above the deck as the iceberg loomed “dead ahead, Mister Lightoller…”

But this time the rudder bit into the water and the great ship leaned perilously to starboard, and then it was immediately clear to her that the ship was going to miss the iceberg entirely this time. She leaned with the ship and looked down into the sea, and she could see the great white spur beneath them as they passed– and again, she could tell they’d escaped this time – that somehow the Titanic had escaped her fate, that History had come undone…

She was breathing deeply now, and one of the men standing watch heard her and turned to face the sound of her breath.

“‘Ere now, what be the likes of you standing up ‘ere, and in your night clothes and all…”

She looked down at her hands and bare feet – and she recognized her seven year old self, felt the biting cold air nipping at her legs and arms…

“Did we miss it?” she asked, not really sure what to make of the night now.

“Looks like it, Missy. Now, it’s best we get you back to your stateroom…”

One of the men called out and an officer from the wheelhouse came for her, then a steward walked her back to her father’s stateroom…

The kind-faced man knocked on the stateroom door and she heard her father rousing, then coming to the door – yet when the door opened she saw someone else. Someone she’d never seen before, yet this other man smiled when he saw her.

“Claire, have you been out exploring again? And…look at you – with no shoes on?”

“She was up with the lookouts, sir,” the steward said. “Don’t quite know how she got there, but the Captain asked that you try to keep her with you after hours.”

“Of course,” the man said sternly, looking down at her with scarcely concealed scorn in his eyes. “I’ll see to that.”

And she wondered who he was, and why he was here. And – where was her father?

The man held out his hand and without knowing why she took it, and she let him guide her into the room. When the door closed she turned to the man and stared – then: “Where’s my father?”

“Your father? Claire? Don’t you remember?”

“Remember? Remember what?”

“Your father passed three weeks ago.”

She felt the words more than she understood their meaning, but she fought to accept what little she understood of this new place –  even as she struggled to find her breath in the moment.

“Who are you?” she said after a long moment studying the man’s oddly recognizable features.

“I’m your grandfather, Claire. I came for you – and for the funeral. You don’t remember?”

She shook her head slowly… “No-o-o,” she sighed, then she thought about all she’d seen in the last few minutes and she intuitively understood she needed to keep these things to herself – lest people think there was something wrong with her. “I think I should go to bed now, Grandfather.”

“Right. Well, yes, but I think you need a hot bath first,” he said as he went to ring a bell for the maid. “Don’t you think so, too?”

“Yes, you’re correct, Grandfather.”

He turned and looked at her again – but shook his head after a moment – as if he had been confused by something. “Are you sure you’re alright,” he asked.

She nodded her head. “Yes, Grandfather,” but in the next instant she was standing in a vast mist – only now the air smelled strange. Like oil…burning oil – only sharper – and her eyes started to burn, then water. A moment later she heard an immense whining roar building in the near distance, and suddenly bright lights split the night so she turned from her quivering shadow and faced the glare, recoiled from the sight of a great winged machine hurtling down a concrete road of some sort, then she fell away when the machine leapt into the sky. Acrid smoke fell on her and she watched in horror as the thing disappeared into the deepening gloom.

“I’ve lost my mind,” she sighed. “I’m crazy. This is what it means to be mad…to see things that have never existed…”

She closed her eyes and shook her head, tried to squeeze these twisted images from her mind…then she felt the swaying motion, the clickety-clack – clickety-clack of the rails below and she opened her eyes again…

Charles was staring at her now, sniffing at the stuffy air in the compartment.

“What is that smell?” he asked. “Like something burning…?”

She shook her head as echoes of a man named Franklin Roosevelt danced in her mind’s eye, then she remembered the naval officer standing behind the president. A patch on his shoulder? She could see it now, more clearly than she imagined possible.

Something called Operation TimeShadow?

Why did that sound so familiar?

(C) 2017 Adrian Leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com | fiction, of course. Oh, the image above is of a 767-300 in the X-Plane flight simulator. It’s fun to keep those IFR skills sharp, don’t you know…

Okay, so this chapter is more a short fragment, but I wanted to post it now, before the driving starts, as I wanted to hear from you. Do you know where this is going yet? Let me know after…but this is nowhere near finished…and is just a couple of pages long…

Chapter 4

Charles stared at Claire’s berth, the porter by his side aghast at the sight. Seawater was running from the mattress onto the rolling floor of the compartment, while fist-sized chunks of ice continued to rain down from the ceiling – then he looked up and saw the vortex. Shimmering blue, like a tornadic sphere embedded with the woodwork, it made not a sound yet more and more ice fell out of it, hitting Claire’s hands as she tried to protect herself.

“What’s goin’ on in there?” the porter cried.

“Must be something wrong with the air conditioning,” Charles said, reaching in and pulling Claire from the compartment.

“They ain’t no air conditioning in this car, mister.”

“Then where’s this ice coming from?”

The old man stuck his head in the compartment and looked around. “I don’t know…I just don’t know.”

“Is it snowing?” Charles said, pointing to the window.

“No, sir, it sure ain’t. Why does…it smells like the ocean in there…what’s goin’ on?”

Charles bundled Claire in his robe and helped her to his compartment, and he grabbed a washcloth and tried to staunch the flow of blood coming from a shallow laceration on her scalp, and he heard the porter run to the end of the car, perhaps summoning the conductor.

And sure enough a gaggle of men appeared a few minutes later, inspecting the car generally then making a thorough inspection of Claire’s compartment – before coming by to check on her.

“We’re sure sorry about this, Congressman. We can’t find anything that might have caused this. Do you have any idea what might have happened?”

“No sir, I sure don’t.”

“We’ll be coming to Salt Lake City soon enough, if we need to summon a doctor…”

“Thank you. I’ll keep an eye on her and let you know.”

“Yessir,” the conductor said, then he shook his head and left, talking to his men as they walked to the vestibule.

“What happened, Claire?” he said when he was sure they were alone again.

Her breathing was strange now, deep ragged gulps followed by brief, shallow sighs. “I’m so cold,” she cried.

“It’s warm in here, Claire. What are you feeling now?”

“Water. Cold water. Icy pinpricks…”

“What do you see?”

“The ship…the bow was torn off in the impact, ice was falling on us…”

“Us? Who was with you…your father?”

“Yes, he’s with me now, speaking to me…”

“What is he saying?”

“‘Change course, now. Change your heading.’”

“Your heading?”

Her eyes flickered, then opened, and she finally seemed somewhat aware of her surroundings… “Where am I?” she asked.

“You’re safe now, on the train, with me.”

“The train?”

“Yes. We’re nearing Salt Lake, and you took a nasty blow to the head…”

“A blow? What…?”

“Ice. Your berth is full of seawater, too. More than the last time, I think.”

Her breathing became shallow and fast, and she looked around Charles’ compartment…the mahogany walls and the brass fittings seemed jarring to her. “Well fell, on the wheelhouse, then ice started falling…”

“What do you think your father meant? Change course…?”

“He shouted a warning to the wheelhouse but they didn’t react, they never saw it coming, and the ship just plowed into the berg.”

“They never saw…? You mean?”

“I don’t think there was anyone there. The ship felt empty, like we were the only two people onboard…”

There came a light tapping on the door, and Charles found the porter standing in the narrow corridor with a arm full of towels. “Thought you might be needin’ these, Congressman.”

“Thanks. Is there any alcohol onboard, anything I could use to clean this wound?”

“I don’t think so, but I’ll go see. Might be somethin’ in the kitchen…” the old man said as he scurried away, then Charles turned to Claire. “You say you were alone, with your father?”

“I’m not sure. It feels so far away now. Not real anymore…”

“That ice was real enough, Claire. The cut on your head is, too.”

“I could have done that to – myself,” she said, beginning to cry. “I could have scratched myself in my sleep…?”

“What? How? What are you saying? Do you want to go look at all that ice? There must be twenty pounds of it on your berth…and I saw it falling from something in the ceiling?”

“Something? What do you mean, something?”

“I don’t know what it was, but it looked like a blue sphere, spinning round and round.”

“Blue…? I saw something blue…just before the ship hit…”

And as suddenly she entered a trancelike state; her body grew rigid and her eyes settled into a blank stare…

“Claire?”

Nothing. He could see she was barely breathing now, too, so he shook her. Gently at first, then with more urgency – and still nothing but a vacant stare…until he noticed the room was suffused with a shimmering blue glow…

He looked around, saw he was on the deck of a ship, and that it was very cold out…

Then he heard someone overhead shouting “Iceberg, dead ahead!” and he turned, saw the looming mountain of ice not a quarter mile ahead. He felt Claire at his feet and looked down, but another man was leaning over her now, leaning over a seven year old girl, and he didn’t need to ask the man’s name.

Moments later he felt the berg ripping into the ship’s hull once again, and he wondered what it was going to feel like to die in these icy waters…

(C) 2017 Adrian Leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com

Another short chapter to round out your weekend.

Chapter 3

She was halfway through her senior year, at Radcliffe, when the bottom fell out of the stock market, and the panic that gripped the nation seemed to ripple across campus for days and days. When things finally settled down, Claire, like most people in the country, finally realized just how terrible conditions had become across the land, from the so-called “dust bowl” all the way out to California, but in Boston, as well as New York, conditions in the nation’s financial centers carried on with much less effort than was popularly imagined. Wealthy people continued getting wealthy, in other words, and as a result the Wilkinson family suffered not at all. Indeed, as Charles would soon point out, the family’s fortunes had increased significantly, thanks to some timely advice he received prior to the crash.

Yet Claire was not at all interested in those wheelings and dealings. She had, during her second semester as a ‘Cliffie, become interested in the world beyond music. She had her first opportunity to study advanced mathematics at Cambridge, which led her deeper into physics and chemistry, and when the country began to convulse as stock markets crashed she found herself immersed in the study of high energy physics – until news of that other world intruded.

Then she read about the effects of the crash spreading not only across the country, but around the world. She listened in history class as her professor talked about the implications of reparations imposed in Germany after the war in Europe, and about how cycles of reinvestment, between American and German banks, would soon grind to a halt. The ruinous inflation that had visited the Weimar Republic in the early twenties would return, her professor warned, and when that happened there would be trouble. Real trouble.

Because there were violent opposition parties in Germany now, most problematically the National Socialists – who were anything but socialist. He made mention of Mussolini’s National Fascist Party, which had taken power in 1921 by forming a tight alliance between fascists and existing corporate power structures in the Italian state, and he cautioned that German industrial might – if incorporated into a fascist regime – would prove ruinous to the aims of the League of Nations. If liquidity in the financial markets dried up, as it surely would in a crisis of this magnitude, there would be war in Europe again, and soon. Within ten years, he promised.

And Claire thought about this professor’s claims as she walked from class that afternoon.

What would war mean – to her, and to the future?

For the next few weeks she thought of little else, and when she went home for Thanksgiving she sat one evening with Charles and they talked about what she’d learned in class. They sat alone, in the library, and she talked for an hour or so – while her brother listened.

“The things your professor talked about, the collapse of reinvestment markets, is already happening. Inflation is already a concern.”

“So, hyper-inflation, rise of a populist, people’s party? You think that’s inevitable, too?”

Charles sighed, shook his head. “No, not inevitable, but probable. I’m just a junior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, but we’re getting the same briefings Hoover gets, and the specter of inflation has the President spooked. He’s practically begging the French and the British to relax terms of the treaty, but as their banks begin to lose liquidity they’re actually talking about accelerating German reparations payments. It’s insane but Mussolini is eating it up, pumping money into the National Socialist Party in Munich. If Hoover can’t reverse this trend, I’d say your professor is dead on.”

“Actions have consequences.”

“You’re damn right they do!”

“What do you think I should do now?” she asked.

“Regarding?”

“After graduation.”

“What are your options?”

“Get married, or go to graduate school.”

“In physics? Do they even let women in those programs?”

She looked away, shrugged. “It’s not impossible. My advisor wants me to, and he told me there’d be no problem getting into Harvard, but he thinks Princeton is where the action’s at.”

“What kind of action?”

“The physics of high temperature reactions.”

“And…what are you not telling me?”

“Theoretically, there are weapons applications. There’s a physicist over there, in Germany. Heisenberg, who is a leader in the field.”

“What kind of weapons?”

“Possibly – bombs. It’s a long way off, and even the physics may prove questionable.”

“And you’re studying this stuff?”

“No, not really; it’s more like I’m learning the theory behind what’s taking shape. The real work, if it gets that far, will be happening at places like Princeton, Chicago and Berkeley.”

“Why don’t you go to California? Weather’s nice, and that would give me an excuse to visit you out there. And…you’ll be far away from this mess in Europe.”

“That’s kind of what I’ve been thinking.”

“Well, let me know when you get in. We’ll go out together and get you settled.”

“What happened to that Cartwright girl? Not rich enough for you?”

Charles turned red. “Oh, her family is wealthy enough, but her old man is a staunch Hoover supporter. He’d murder Stephanie if she married a Democrat.”

“Father would murder you for running as a Democrat.”

Charles laughed, a little, as the thought played out across his face. “Yup, he would’ve. Do you ever miss him? I mean, I know he wasn’t really…”

“Oh, I miss him. And yes, he was. I was seven years old when that ship went down; I can barely remember my father now.”

“Do you remember that dream? The one…?”

“Yes.”

“Do you still have – dreams – like that?”

She turned away.

“Claire? It’s not like you to keep things from me.”

“The Navy Yard fire. I saw that coming, and Rupert’s death, too. I tried to tell him, but…”

“He shut you down. He never believed in all that stuff…”

“Do you?”

“I believe what I saw. Amanda does, too. Mother and Liz? I think they’d be more inclined to believe you’re a witch of some sort…”

And they both laughed. Nervous little laughs.

“Well, we’d better go see how that bird is cooking…” he said at last.

“I hope you’ve learned how to carve; after last year’s debacle…”

“Ouch…say no more… Anyway, it’s your turn…”

By Christmas it was clear the coming recession would be deep and prolonged, and Charles talked with Claire about a man named Hitler.

In July, she and Charles took the train across the country to California, where he proposed to buy her a rambling bungalow on a hill overlooking the bay.

+++++

After a night and a day crossing to Chicago, she and Charles finally boarded Union Pacific’s Overland and settled into the Pullman car for their journey. A porter brought them cups of beef broth before the train left the ornate station, yet Claire could see the effects of the Crash on the platform below: children begging, indifferent business men walking past with not even a glance, the station restaurant advertising soup for a penny, hamburgers for two cents, forgotten men sitting by the entrance – hoping for a handout.

“It’s awful out here,” she said, looking at the shattered landscape, this evolving land of broken dreams. “It’s worse than Pittsburgh, and I never thought I’d see anything like that in my life.”

“You should hear what we’re being told about conditions in Germany.”

“Why isn’t more in the papers?”

“Oh, I suspect we’ve had enough problems of our own. Enough so that the powers that be assume we wouldn’t be interested enough to give a damn.”

“This is awful, Charles. Just awful. A few years ago…all these people hard at work. And now, look at them. Reduced to begging for food, begging for their survival.”

“You took Tillerman’s economic geography class. You know the score. This is just dialectical materialism playing out before your eyes. Systemic imbalances seeking distributive realignment…”

“Don’t blather on with that jargon, Charles. Look out this window, look at the reality behind your textbook analyses, look at the toll in human suffering, the real cost behind all these economic rationalizations…”

“It’s the same story it’s always been, Claire. The same processes that have been going on for thousands of years, and with each iteration we improve, we progress.”

“But the cost…?”

“One generation is sacrificed, the next three or four will benefit, then comes the next realignment, the next round of suffering…”

“What? And then what? Another Golden Age?”

“We either progress or we stagnate. We take chances, or we wither.”

“Is it really as simple as that?”

“No, of course not. That’s why there are political parties fighting it out over what the road to progress looks like. Now we have trade unions fighting it out with capital…but who knows what tomorrow will look like…?”

The train jerked and billowing clouds of black smoke filled the platform, then cinders were raining down on the panhandling children as the huge steam engine chuffed away from the station. A boy standing on the bricks below their window looked up at her, and she watched as black dust settled on his brow – then she waved at him, and tried to smile.

He turned and walked away, and she wondered what it must be like to be so hungry you had no energy left for even a simple gesture – and she wondered why the boy reminded her of her father. Her real father.

+++++

Wyoming was the same, but darkness was coming on now and most children were gone from the platforms that glided past. Yet she saw squalid encampments outside each little town the train passed through, the same scarecrow children she’d seen in each big city they stopped in, and their porter brought them drinks while she looked down at the passing scenes.

But hadn’t the Titanic been the same? The “unsinkable” Titanic? A few first class passengers cloistered above thousands of steerage class cattle jammed in tight spaces below the huge ship’s waterline? She wondered what had become of those people? Had they drowned with the rats that fled from the icy water as it swept through the cargo hold? Had they not even made it to the boat deck? Did those people ever make it to the boat deck, so to speak; did they ever really have a chance? Or did wealth conspire to keep them down with the rats?

They had a dinner of roast beef and creamed spinach, with a fat round Yorkshire pudding fresh out of the oven rounding out the feast, yet she found she had no appetite for such things that night and only picked at her food.

“You should eat your dinner, Claire,” Charles said softly, as always aware of her every passing mood. “They simply throw away whatever’s left.”

She nodded her head and picked at her spinach a while longer, then she gave up and pushed the plate away.

“So, have you decided to join an order?” he asked. “Steal away into the night, fall into a life of splendid isolation and moral contemplation?”

She smiled at her brother, this man who was really anything but. “What about you? How are you going to weather the storm?”

He looked away for a moment, lost in thought, then he turned back to her. “I’ve applied to the Department of State for a posting to Germany.”

She tried to hide her surprise, but failed: “You…what? You’re turning your back on politics?”

“For the time being, yes.”

“Why Germany?”

“Berlin is the fulcrum, the pivot point of history right now. I want to be there. I want to watch what happens, if only so I can better understand the forces shaping our world.”

“And then what?”

“Someday I’ll return, perhaps run for the Senate.”

“And then…for president?”

He smiled. “You’re being presumptuous, aren’t you?”

“Aren’t you?”

“No, just making plans.”

The train slowed for the next station and she looked at the platform as it stopped, and she saw another boy standing down there, standing under a gaslight. Moths circled the light, and they circled the boy’s face too, but he ignored them – and looked directly into Claire’s eyes.

“Who is that?” Charles asked as he watched the scene unfold.

“He looks like my father, when he was young. He was in Chicago, too.”

“What? The same boy?”

“Yes.”

“He must be traveling with us on this train…”

“He isn’t.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because he isn’t.”

He watched Claire now, suddenly very aware of everything she said and did. She was in that place again, that place he found her in on another night, after the dream – yet now she simply stared at the boy on the platform.

She reached out for him, but the glass window kept them apart, then Charles watched as the boy reached out for her too, just as the train began pulling away from the station…then she turned to her brother.

He’d never seen such fear in his life. Fear, locked in her eyes, like a moth caught in the glare of an open flame.

She swallowed, hard, as she looked into Charles’ eyes, and she began to breathe more deeply, a little quicker, too.

“Claire? What is it?”

She stood and ran from the table, and he quickly followed.

+++++

She was standing with the lookouts in the crystal cold night, and she watched the reflections of stars on the mirror smooth sea while she tried to ignore the cold.

“Oh my God…” the lookout sighed, then he turned for the bell and began ringing it, then he was on the growler, shouting for the officer on watch in the wheelhouse.

“Iceberg, dead ahead!” the seaman yelled, and she turned and looked at the slowly building pandemonium as the ship woke up. Then she turned back and looked at the berg, willing the ship to turn, faster, even as she knew how this would end – again. But no, something was different this time.

The ship simply didn’t turn at all, and the seaman by her side groaned – and when she looked at him she saw her father standing by her side.

And then the bow of the great ship slammed into the iceberg, a frontal collision of such colossal force that the bow simply crushed inward – then fell away. Their lookout tower tore away too, and they fell on top of the wheelhouse just as an avalanche of ice rained down on them.

“Oh, God, it hurts!” she screamed, then she felt someone shaking her, and lights coming on in the darkness.

She opened her eyes, saw Charles and the Pullman porter standing over – shock and fear in their eyes. She looked at her hands and found they were covered in blood, and her berth was awash in briny ice.

(C) 2017 Adrian Leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com

So, onward, into the dreamscape. A very short chapter today.

The Deep End of Your Dreams

Chapter 2

In time – seven more years, to be precise – she knew her place in this odd new family, the Wilkinson family. Her nearest sibling, in age, anyway, was a boisterous jock named Elizabeth. Liz rode horses and rowed crew, an unheard of predisposition in 1919, and she was big-boned and coarse-humored, too. Liz had started college the year before, at Penn, and snuck home so Claire could help with her homework.

Her oldest sibling, her brother Charles, had been something of an adonis to her. Chuck was tall and possessed a fierce intellect, and he was scrupulously fair-minded, yet even at seven years old, when she first set eyes on him, she thought him special. Chuck was completely unlike Rupert in every way, so much so she wondered if Rupert had been the boy’s father, but in time Chuck became Claire’s protector – both at home and when he picked her up at school. When the war broke out in Europe, in 1914, he’d wanted to enlist, but Rupert had prevailed on him… “Finish college first! Who knows, maybe we won’t be sucked into this war…”

That was not to be, however.

By the time America formally entered the war, in 1917, Chuck was in the Navy, an officer, and he already had his eye on a career in politics. Rupert was devastated.

The fly in Claire’s ointment was her sister Amanda. Amanda was a devious, manipulative creature who enjoyed breaking things – then blaming the latest calamity on someone else, but usually on Claire. This might have been a serious issue had both Rupert and Chuck not seen through the Amanda’s actions – and intentions, but it seemed to Claire that there was something seriously wrong with Amanda. Who’s unjust causes were not in any way hampered by her looks. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, Amanda was regarded as one of the brightest lights in Mainline Society, and would-be suitors came calling for her on a nauseatingly regular basis – which bothered Claire not at all, but which, in the end, crushed Elizabeth. Amanda was a year younger than Chuck and so was away at college and blissfully out of the picture by this point in time, yet when she drifted by on weekends discord followed in her wake as naturally as winds precede a coming summer’s storm. So, when Claire felt the coming of Amanda’s treacherous laughter, she generally kept out of the rain by losing herself among the books in their father’s library.

Which was the safest place in her world, in this place called Philadelphia.

Rupert’s promise to move to Chartres had been as empty as all his other promises. In short, his words were exigent entreaties designed to forestall meaningful conversations about consequences, and Claire had read enough to understand the man’s various comings and goings. He was a type of con-man, affable and generous to a fault, but a con-man, yet The Law was his stock in trade. Anyone could tell he was addicted to making money, scads and scads of money, but he seemed to have little inclination to happiness. He read little else than the latest financial news, and had no interest in Claire’s accomplishments on the piano, though by the time Claire turned twelve he seemed to develop an unhealthy interest in Claire’s body.

Yet oddly enough, Emily, her mother, saw through these machinations and kept him away after the sun went down, and in time Claire learned that Rupert had visited his unseemly appetites on Amanda often enough to be of some concern socially. A hasty trip to Sweden had been arranged to take care of that problem, and all the attendant complications that came with such an undesired event.

Rupert was one of those men. His appetite severe, his sense of propriety impaired by proximity – and bourbon – he could have had affairs with any number of available women, yet he chose, often enough, to take out his lust on Amanda. And soon enough Claire saw through her sister’s actions and intentions, understood where her grief came from, yet the distance between Rupert and Amanda remained insurmountable. In time Claire learned, as well, that one of the complications of her sister’s Swedish misadventure was that she was barren: Amanda would never have children – and this was considered a Dark Family Secret. Perhaps the Darkest.

1919 saw the winding down of the war, and Chuck’s return from the North Atlantic became a cause for celebration – if only for a short time. He had two more years left of his commitment to the Navy, and as he did not want his father to intervene he planned to finish his stint then gather his wits about him and move on to graduate school – before running for congress. That was the plan, anyway.

Yet he was home for Christmas, and that was miracle enough for them all. The future would, so it seemed, have to wait for the present.

+++++

The dream came for her that year, on the night before Christmas.

She was on the boat deck and her father was lifting her up off the deck, placing her in the lifeboat; then there came an explosion and one of the great red funnels collapsed inwards on itself – and moments later everyone was in the water. A vice of pinpricks held her firm and she wanted to struggle and break free of the icy water but she felt a hand grasping her ankle, pulling her down. She stuck her head beneath the waves and saw her father trying to pull himself back to the surface and she knew if she didn’t kick free of him he would pull her down too…

So…she did…

And she watched his limpid, questioning eyes as he slipped into the yawning darkness, falling away, fading into the night…

Then she bolted upright in bed, drenched in sea water.

When Chuck heard her screams he ran to her room; Rupert and Emily were not far behind.

+++++

Everyone first assumed Amanda had poured buckets of seawater on Claire while she slept, but Amanda wasn’t in her room. She wasn’t, as it happened, even in the house. She had slipped out with an old boyfriend and was, at the time, in a nearby stable and most passionately involved. When she tried to sneak back into the house before dawn she was met by her family, all but Claire and Emily, anyway, and they angrily demanded to know why she had done such a thing…

“Done what?” Amanda cried, as she too wanted to know.

“You poured buckets full of seawater on your sister Claire!” Rupert fairly shouted.

“I did no such thing!” Amanda countered. “I was with Langston all night!”

“You were what?” Chuck seethed, and too late Amanda realized what she’d just admitted. Her father stormed from the kitchen, leaving Chuck standing there aghast. “What have you done now, you trollop!?”

But Amanda held her ground. “I am not a child, and I did no such thing!”

“Claire’s bed is awash in sea water. Go to her room, you can smell the sea yourself! If you didn’t do this, can you explain to me what happened?”

“Show me!” Amanda almost shouted, and Chuck led her up the back stairway to Claire’s room. Marie and Edith were just now stripping the bed and Amanda could see that easily two or three gallons of seawater had been deposited on her sister’s bed. Worse still, her room, indeed, the hallway outside Claire’s room smelled just like the seashore, and she walked into the room, held the sheets to her face. “It IS seawater…” she whispered.

“I told you it is, didn’t I?” Chuck grumbled. “Where did you find it this time of year?”

“What?”

“Did you drive to the shore?”

“No! I told you I had nothing to do with this!”

“Amanda, this is no longer funny. You simply must own up to these pranks of yours.”

“I’m telling you, Charles, for the last time – I had nothing to do with this…!”

Then he too turned and stormed away from the scene of the crime.

Amanda stood in the room, Marie and Edith staring at her now, shaking with unrepentant rage. Then she spied a strand of something on the oak floor and bent to see what it was…

“Seaweed…?” she sighed, bringing the ragged green scrap to her nose. “How could this be?”

+++++

Some semblance of normalcy had returned to the house by the time luncheon was served, and by that time the family had already gathered around the Christmas tree in the library and exchanged their simple gifts. Claire seemed none the worse for her ordeal, yet she paid not the slightest attention to Amanda until her sister leaned close after dessert and spoke to her.

“Claire, I didn’t do that to you,” Amanda pleaded. “Please believe me…”

Yet Claire had a faraway look in her eyes; faraway and preternaturally calm. “I was dreaming of the sea,” she said quietly. “Then I was drowning, screaming…”

“You were dreaming?”

“Yes. That’s right. I was on the Titanic again, but the ship turned on it’s side and I was thrown into the water – by my father…”

Everyone was looking at her now, and even Chuck seemed disturbed by what she’d just described. “You were in the water?” he asked. “By the Titanic? And then you woke up?”

“Yes. I was about to drown…”

Chuck looked at his father – who only shook his head, the expression on his face dour beyond anyone’s remembrance.

“Were you under the water, in the sea,” Rupert wanted to know.

“Yes,” she said.

“And your father was with you?” Rupert added.

“He was under me, trying to pull himself back up to the surface.”

“Under you? You mean…pulling you down?”

“Yes.”

“And that’s when,” Chuck interrupted, “you woke up?”

“Yes…”

“I found this on the floor in her room,” Amanda said defiantly, tossing the bit of seaweed on the table in front of her father’s place. He picked it up and turned it over in the midday light, then he handed the leafy piece to Chuck. “What do you make of this, son?”

Chuck turned it over in the light, too, then the blood drained from his face. “This is a deep water kelp, Father, of a kind we most often see around the Grand Banks. I’ve never heard of it being found along our shores.”

Rupert looked from his son to Claire, who was looking at Amanda now.

“I don’t think it was a dream, Amanda, and I don’t think you threw water on me.”

“Where do you think you were, Claire?” Emily asked.

“I was in the sea, with my father,” she repeated.

“At the Titanic? In 1912?” Chuck asked, and she nodded her head. “That’s not possible. You know that, don’t you, Claire.”

She continued nodding. “I know. Nevertheless, that’s where I was.”

“Has anything like this happened to you before?” her brother asked.

She shook her head, then her head canted sideways a little. “I’ve seen father in my dreams before, but not like this.”

“So, this was different? In what way?”

She turned and looked at her brother. “I don’t know how else to describe it, Charles, but this wasn’t a dream. I was there. I felt it happen…I felt him grab my ankle, and it felt like he would never let go of me again.”

+++++

Three days later they rode down to the Navy Yard and saw Charles onto his ship, then Rupert took the rest of the family to lunch at an old eatery near the Yard. Amanda was still seething about her mistreatment, while Liz seemed most unsure of herself once again now that Charles was out of the picture, and Claire felt a ripple in the currents that steered this family – like at some point over the last week Charles had assumed leadership of the clan. It was subtle, but it was there, and she thought of Count Ilya again..

And yet, no one had talked about her dream – or whatever it was – since Christmas Day. The wet bed and puddled water on the hardwood floors were evidence enough that something out of the ordinary had happened, but no one was willing to make the leap that Claire implied was needed to believe her version of events. And in truth, Claire had to admit she didn’t want to believe those things had happened.

Because, on the one hand, she knew she’d never left her bed. Simple enough. Yet she instinctively understood that she had been in the North Atlantic, if only for a few minutes – and the proof of that assertion lay in the watery residue everyone had seen in her bedroom.

What else could it be?

“Claire? What are you thinking about?” Rupert asked.

“How much I’ll miss Charles,” she said, telling only half the truth.

“Me too,” Liz added.

“It must be the uniform,” Rupert sighed.

“I can’t believe they’re sending that ship back to France,” Emily added. “Why do they need to do that?”

“They’re escorting troop ships, in case some U-Boat commander hasn’t gotten word yet.”

Emily shook her head, turned away from her time-worn fears. “Must we keep coming to this dreadful old place, Rupert?”

“Dreadful? What’s dreadful about it?”

“The food is rancid and the service inferior,” she said – just as their waiter walked up to the table. If the old man had heard a thing he was doing a fine job pretending he hadn’t, and after he took their orders he disappeared into the kitchen. “Check your food for broken glass and rat droppings,” she added a little too ruefully.

“Emily…really…” Rupert whispered, but he was looking at Claire just then. Looking at the fear in her eyes. “Claire…? What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Charles. There’s something wrong with his ship…”

“What? What do you mean?”

“There’s a fire on his ship. I see it. Right now.”

Rupert’s arched eyebrow was all the others needed to see. He was beyond skeptical now, almost to the point where he wanted to get Claire professional help. “Bah,” he growled as he turned to Emily and began talking about arrangements for getting the girls back to school next week. Their meals came and everyone ate in silence – everyone, that is, but Claire. She kept looking towards the windows at the front of the restaurant, her mind’s eye filling with images of burning men and flooding compartments –

Then without warning she stood and ran to the window, and Rupert watched her go with a growing sense of anger flooding his own mind’s eye…until he heard fire trucks rolling by on the street. Then crowds of people running towards the Navy Yard. He stood and walked to the windows and stood by Claire’s side.

“Down there,” she said, pointing.

Rupert saw boiling clouds of black smoke coming from the Navy Yard, roiled orange flames just visible above the buildings blocking their view of the grounds.

“Good Lord,” he whispered. “Claire, please go back to the table. I need to go see what’s happening.”

“Father?” she said, and as it was so infrequent that she addressed him as such, he turned and looked at her.

“Yes?”

“Don’t go.”

“What?”

“If you leave this place right now you’ll die.”

“What? What are you saying, Claire?” he said, fascinated by the faraway look in her eyes.

“The fire is spreading rapidly now. You won’t be safe.”

“Claire, to the table with you, now. Wait with your mother for my return.”

She turned to look at him as he left the building, but she had already seen the horse-drawn pumper unit that would run him down and kill him. She had seen the horses in a dream last night, just as she’d seen this fire. Hundreds of people would die in the next hour, but Charles would not be among them. No, he would escape immediate injury, then lead battalions of fire-fighters in a heroic charge to prevent the raging fire from spilling over into an ordnance depot. Days from now he would be hailed as the hero of the Navy Yard fire; his future in politics would be assured.

And Rupert would be gone.

As she sat at the table, she looked at her sisters and wondered how Amanda would react to the news.

(C) 2017 Adrian Leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com

 

Okay…I don’t have the slightest idea how long it’s going to take for this story to take shape. Or how surreal it’s going to get. These few pages will take you into the landscape, Claire Aubuchon’s landscape. You’ve read fragments of Claire in Vista Dome, but this will be another side of her story. And this is a draft…and I’m sure future revisions will alter the landscape a little… 

 

The Deep End of Your Dreams

 

I never think of the future. It comes soon enough.

Albert Einstein

 

17 April, 1912

She stood at the rail, looking down into the passing sea.

New York lay somewhere ahead, not quite another day ahead; the Titanic lay somewhere in the belly of the sea, now two days gone into a receding past. Her father was, she assumed, still onboard, down there in the darkness. Waiting.

She was alone now. Seven years old and all alone in the world. And yet, she was not frightened. Little things like death bothered her not at all, not in the least.

No, the world had risen up and taken everything she knew – her father chief among those things – and she had watched it all slip beneath the sea. Gone, in an instant. Nothing remained but the panic of getting to the boats, then the realization that her father wasn’t going to be by her side going forward.

She’d watched him standing at that other rail, their eyes locked-on one another’s as the distance between them grew insurmountable, and she’d tried to follow him as he moved aft – as the great ship settled by the bow. Amidst all the moaning and tears of the women around her, she’d watched in silence as the Titanic began it’s final journey, and then she’d turned inward, tried to come to terms with this new life.

Nothing is permanent, she realized in those first sundered moments. Nothing lasts forever.

Not even love.

+++++

“You’re alone, child?” a kindly old man asked. He seemed short and fat, then she realized it was his topcoat. Yet as she stared at the man’s face she smiled, for she had never seen such a colossal mustache and the man looked like a walrus.

She nodded her head, tried not to laugh.

“Marie! Come here this instant!”

A maid of some sort scurried to the old man’s side. “Sir?”

“Find Mrs Wilkinson, would you? And bring a blanket from our stateroom.”

“Yes, sir,” the cowed girl said, before curtsying and scurrying away.

The old man turned back to the little girl, his face now a contorted grimace of concern. “Were your parents aboard the Titanic?”

She nodded her head again. “My father was.”

“Where’s your mother?”

“She died, two years ago.”

“You have no other family?”

She shook her head.

“Well, blast it all,” the old man said, his eyes watering. “What’s to become of you?”

That did it. Something inside her broke and she started to cry – and the sight tore into the old man like nothing he’d ever experienced before. He knelt and held on to her as if she was his own daughter…and he did so until Marie, the maid, returned with a blanket.

“The Missus will be here shortly, sir,” the girl said, frowning at the sight of the old man down on his knees like that. It was all just so – undignified!

And when Emily Wilkinson twaddled up, blathering on about the chill in the air, Rupert Wilkinson stood and turned to his wife: “See here, Emily…it’s April, and this is the North Atlantic. It’s supposed to be cool out!”

“This is not cool, Rupert. It’s positively arctic out here!”

“Blast you, woman!” he said, pointing off the starboard rail. “That’s Long Island over there, not the North Pole! Pull yourself together!”

And so, of course, Emily huffed up. “You wanted to see me about something?”

So Rupert huffed up too. “Yes. This girl is off the Titanic and she’s all alone. I mean, all alone in the world. What are we going to do about that?”

The old woman looked at the girl – and her heart melted too. “Oh, you poor dear,” she said, then one eyebrow arched up and she looked at her husband of thirty years. “And just what do you have in mind now, Rupert Wilkinson?”

“If she’s alone it’s our duty to help.”

“OUR duty? How did you come to THAT conclusion, dearest?”

“Do you see anyone stepping forward to help the girl right now?”

“Surely there will be someone for her in New York…?” Emily said, her voice on edge now. She was used to her husband’s larkish misadventures, but this was altogether something else again. “Darling, what’s your name?”

“Claire Aubuchon.”

“Are you from France?” Rupert asked.

Claire shook her head. “No, but Daddy worked there.”

“And what did your father do?”

“I don’t know exactly, but he worked in the embassy. We live so close he can walk.”

“Well, I know Phil Knox, so we’ll get to the bottom of this in short order.”

“Who’s Phil Knox?” Emily asked.

“He’s the Secretary of State,” Claire said, a little too condescendingly.

“He sure is,” Rupert said, not a little impressed. “And you don’t know what your father did in Paris?”

“No,” Claire said, “it was a secret.”

“Oh, my,” Rupert sighed, “I see. Well, we need to find you some new clothes. Emily? Would you and Marie be so kind as to take Miss Claire to the shop? See if they might have something more becoming for her to wear when we arrive? I think I’ll head up to the wireless office, see if I have any new messages…”

+++++

After a night at the Waldorf, the Wilkinson entourage boarded the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Fast Express – after receiving assurances from Cunard that they would indeed have space on the Lusitania’s next sailing for Cherbourg – as they’d decided to carry little Claire to Washington, if only to guarantee her well-being.

Claire had reverted to type in the absence of her father; she had, in other words, pulled out a book and opened it to the page where she had last left off, and Rupert watched her every movement now, fascinated by the creature’s sure movements. At times she appeared listlessly dull and flat, but then he would watch her eyes. They were full of curiosity, sweeping here and there, taking everything in, and as he’d seen her reading last night he wondered what interested her.

“I don’t recognize that script,” he said, looking at the book’s cover. “What are you reading.”

“It’s called Resurrection. It’s in Russian.”

“You read Russian?”

“Yes.”

“English, too, I assume? Anything else?”

“French and German. I learned French first.”

“You can read all those languages?”

She nodded her head as she looked up from the book. “My father could read and write seven languages, but he didn’t count Latin.”

“Oh? Can you speak Latin?”

“Of course. But not as well as Father.”

“That book there…? Who’s it by?”

“Tolstoy.”

“I’m not sure I know the man. Is he famous?”

“I think so.”

“Well, don’t let me disturb you,” Rupert said, and when her eyes dropped back to the book he looked to Emily – who had watched the exchange with something approaching pure wonder in her eyes.

Emily had been to college and studied literature – though that had been decades ago – yet she grasped what the girl’s intellect must truly be…staggering, if, that is, she wasn’t exaggerating. Watching her now, the girl turned a page, on average, in less than twenty seconds – which was shocking enough for a seven year old – but she was reading in Tolstoy’s native language, not her own.

“Claire,” she asked, hating to interrupt her again, “I’ve not read that work. What’s it about?”

“About a man’s search for redemption, though, from what I can tell so far, most of the events are allegorical in nature.”

“Allegorical? For what?”

“Political and social injustice, the nature of corruption.”

“Do those things mean anything to you?”

“Of course.”

Emily smiled, though she was now shocked beyond belief. “Did you and your father read a lot, together?”

“Every night.”

“And what about your mother? What did she do?”

“She taught music, but she wrote music all the time, too.”

“Oh? What kind of music?”

“Symphonies, though she wrote chamber music too.”

“What about you? Do you play?”

Claire nodded her head again. “The piano, and I’m learning the violin.”

“Do you write music, as well?”

“Of course.”

Emily looked at her husband, her eyes taking in his apparent shock, too, then she looked at the girl again. “Claire? Would you like to live with Rupert and myself?”

The girl studied them both for a moment, then shrugged. “I don’t know you. I think the better question might be, do you want me to live with you? And then, I’d want to know why?”

“To take care of you,” Rupert said.

“To help you with your reading, and music,” Emily added. “Would that interest you?”

“Would I have any brothers or sisters?”

“Both, but they are all already on their own, so you wouldn’t live with them in the usual sense.”

“Where would I live?”

“In Philadelphia,” Rupert replied. “I manage a law firm there, but I travel a lot. Would that interest you?”

“What? Travel, or Philadelphia?”

“Both, I suppose.”

She closed the book and folded her hands on her lap, then she looked out the window – deep – into the passing landscape. A long sigh slipped from her lips, but she saw Rupert’s expression in the reflection she watched inside the glass, and she saw the man’s eyes were full of hope.

“I think I would miss Paris,” she said at last.

“We have a small villa outside of Paris,” Emily said hopefully. “That’s where we were going when…”

Claire smiled. “Oh? Where?”

“Near Chartres,” Rupert said. “Have you been to the cathedral there?”

She nodded her head carelessly, like the question was beneath contempt.

“What did you think of it?”

“I like the vaulting behind the altar. It’s like the web of creation came to life.”

He nodded. “We are going to retire there soon, in two more years. Would you like to live there?”

“Yes. Could I still go to Paris?”

“Yes, of course. As often as you like.”

“But for the next two years I’d live in Philadelphia?”

“That’s right. But who knows, you might enjoy that too. In fact, we’ll be stopping in Philadelphia in just a few minutes. We’re already in the north part of the city right now…”

Claire looked out the window for the next several minutes, clearly unimpressed as mile after mile of dowdy, red brick buildings slipped by. “Will we be able to see Independence Hall from the train?”

“No, I’m afraid not.”

“I’d like to see that. My father took me to the house Thomas Jefferson lived in, when he was ambassador to France. He told me how much Jefferson shaped the French Revolution.”

“Did he? And what did you think of that?”

“I would have liked to know Jefferson.”

“So would I.”

She turned and looked at the old man again, nodding her head as she thought things through. “Are we going to talk to Secretary Knox? About me?”

“Yes.”

“And you want me to live with you?”

“Yes, if you think you’d like that.”

She closed her eyes, nodded her head once again, then resumed looking out the window – wondering about life ahead.

+++++

She walked up the boarding ramp to the Lusitania’s promenade deck, following Rupert now, and she had to admit she liked the burly, grandfatherly ways of the man. She reminded him of Tolstoy’s Count Ilya Rostov, the compassionately careless patriarch in War and Peace, and that wasn’t an altogether bad thing to be, she told herself, as long as wealth wasn’t important. She’d read enough about money to understand the implications of being poor, yet she’d read enough to understand that money could be a poison, too. Rupert seemed wealthy – yet kind of careless, too – like Count Ilya.

She followed him to their stateroom and was surprised to find she had her own stateroom, and that Emily had arranged to have a piano placed in sitting area. She assumed she’d have to play for them, and that bothered her a little – yet she had to admit she’d missed playing since she and her father left Paris.

She’d enjoyed Washington, the cherry blossoms along the Potomac most of all, and her few hours in the Secretary’s office – in Foggy Bottom, as Rupert called it – had been pleasant enough. Once she told Secretary Knox she’d be happy to live with the Wilkinson’s things had sailed along smoothly enough, though after Rupert said he’d handle all the paperwork she’d felt a little like a puppy.

Yet their brief return to Philadelphia had been promising. Emily had taken her to one bookstore after another, and now she had, literally, a steamer trunk full of unread books to fill the days ahead, and all sorts of new clothes, too. Her father had never attached much importance to such things, so she’d watched Emily as she was lead from one store to the next, the old woman going on and on about which designers were promising and which were doddering incompetents, wondering about the woman’s sanity.

Another maid had been engaged, a younger girl, perhaps fifteen, who would do, as far as she could tell, nothing but keep her clothes in order and make sure she was suitably dressed for meals. The girl’s name was Edith, and at first blush she seemed quite simple.

So, after the Wilkinson’s belongings were unpacked Marie and Edith came in to get her things settled, so she sat behind the piano and began playing a Debussy prélude, La cathédrale engloutie, the soft, measured notes filling the stateroom with a deep blue melancholy. As she fell deeper inside the music she closed her eyes and let the music take her deeper and deeper into the despair she’d denied for the past two weeks, and when, minutes later, she fell away from the keyboard she saw Emily and Rupert watching her from the corridor outside her room, the maids almost in tears…

She stood and pushed herself away from the instrument, then she walked out onto the promenade deck and made her way forward – as tugs pushed the ship away from the city.

She felt the ship accelerate into the East River, the open sea ahead now – again – then she felt Rupert by her side, standing – silently – beside her as sea-borne breezes lifted her hair.

“That was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” he whispered.

She turned and looked at him, tried to read the emotions playing across his face. “I’m sorry,” she said.

“Sorry? Whatever for?”

She looked at the denial in his eyes and wondered where that came from, then she looked ahead.

“Will we pass where the Titanic went down?”

“I don’t know, Claire.”

“I’d like to…see that place again.”

He nodded. “I think I understand.”

She reached over and took his hand. “Thank you, Rupert.”

“Of course.” He sighed as he looked into her eyes, then he made up his mind. “Do you think, maybe one day, you could call me ‘Father?’”

She leaned into the old man, let him hug her for the longest time.

“Yes,” she said.

She heard his tears, and she smiled.

(C) 2017 Adrian Leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com

[note: the way ahead, the next several weeks, anyway, will see little time to write. I’ll continue to work on this one as circumstances permit, but events could keep me away. Sorry.]