Hellbound Fury Mark Ellis(1)

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same reason all three of you-and Domi-encoun-
tered him during your interphaser-induced time
travel. The quantum mechanics in use are essentially
the same."
Kane's eyes and voice were cold when he said,
"It's not a mystery why Colonel Thrush was the cen-
tral figure in all of those casements."
Lakesh looked at him in surprise. "It isn't?
Why?"
"Thrush intends to conquer them all, all the lost
Earths, one by one until humanity is either enslaved
or extinct. And I don't think he plans to overlook this
particular casement, either."
"How do you know this?" Grant challenged.
Kane gave him a level stare. "He told me."
Chapter 13
Grant, Kane and Brigid all retained exceptionally un-
pleasant memories of their first meetings with Colo-
nel C. W. Thrush. Even Domi had her own tale to
tell of how she saw Thrush execute Adolf Hitler on
April 30, 1945.
Brigid had watched Thrush issue the orders to
cover up the Roswell Incident in 1947.
Kane had witnessed Thrush's involvement in the
assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963.
On January 19, 2001, Grant observed Thrush per-
sonally setting the timer on the nuclear warhead con-
cealed within the Russian embassy. The warhead det-
onated twenty-four hours later, triggering the global
apocalypse known to later generations as the nuke-
caust.
In each time period, Colonel Thrush had sensed
their disembodied presence, and he had even told
Grant his name was derived from a poem by T. S.
Elliot, a verse that asked: Should the deception of the
thrush be followed into our first world?
When Kane and Brigid finally confronted him,
,face-to-face in the past of an alternate temporal plane,
Thrush claimed versions of him existed in all times
to prevent the interference in human history from be-
ing undone.
According to Lakesh, he had seen him in the Over-
project Whisper testing facility, back in the 1990s,
where he claimed to be a colonel in the Air Force.
Swiftly and grimly, Kane related what he had seen
and been told during his brief communication with
Thrush when he held the Black Stone.
Lakesh paled, but he tried to keep his voice steady
when he said, "It's possible-indeed probable-that
all of the alternate worlds, the lost Earths, came about
due to Thrush's actions throughout time."
"Makes a certain amount of sense," Kane said.
''A version of Thrush exists in all of those parallel
casements.''
''And more than likely so do analogues of all of
us," Lakesh stated. "You most certainly."
"And apparently," Brigid ventured, "all of those
versions of you are in conflict with all of the versions
of him and his agenda."
"But Thrush was an Archon agent," Grant ob-
jected. "His agenda is the Directorate's agenda."
"He never actually admitted to working for the
Directorate," Brigid replied. "He said, 'do you think
the Archons would entrust one of you creatures with
my responsibilities?' He made an oblique reference
to his employers, but he never identified them."
Everyone knew better than to dispute Brigid's per-
fect and total recall, but Kane declared, "The Archon
Directorate still had something to do with him."
Brigid cast him an irritated, impatient glance.
"Don't state the obvious, Kane. Of course he was
involved with the Archon Directorate."
''An Archon Directorate," Lakesh interjected.
"Not necessarily 'the.' Perhaps a Directorate on par-
allel casements where they went about their conquest
and subjugation of humanity differently than here."
His lips compressed contemplatively and after a
silent second of pondering, he said, "On our Earth,
the Archons allied themselves with the Third Reich,
but the Nazis lost the war. Perhaps on the casement
you visited, Kane, they were victorious and therefore
there was no need to rig a global nuclear holocaust.
"On another casement, perhaps they established
more overt contact, using diplomacy to get what they
wanted."
"On the other, an all-out open state of war exists
between Earth and the Directorate, a conflict that ex-
tended to space itself, where perhaps they had estab-
lished beachheads on some of the planets in the solar
system."
"It seems likely in retrospect that Thrush was
more than a chrononaut, guarding the temporal
streams. When you visited the past, it was that of an
alternate Earth, a branching probability universe cre-
ated by an alternate Archon Directorate."
Kane was only half listening, his thoughts leaping
ahead. "I figured that out myself. But if the visions
I saw of three alternate Earths were true, I wasn't just
witnessing them, I participated in them."
"Which might explain," Lakesh replied, "the
three ghostly afterimages of you friend Grant saw in
the jump chamber."
He poked at intercom button on his desk. "De-
Fore?"
After a moment, the woman's slightly waspish
voice filtered from the speak. ' 'Yes?"
"Have you interpreted Kane's electroencephalo-
gram yet?"
"Almost I'm-" Her voice trailed off, as if she
had walked out of range of the trans-comm. The si-
lence lasted so long Lakesh called her name again.
She responded with a terse, "Is Kane there with
"you?"
"He is."
"Have.him meet me in the cafeteria in about five
minutes."
DeFore closed the connection. Lakesh regarded
Kane gravely. "I think it's safe to assume the good
doctor found some abnormalities in your brain-wave
patterns."
Apprehension rose up in Kane, forming a hard
lump in his throat that made swallowing difficult.
Noticing his anxiety, Lakesh said reassuringly, "I
doubt it's anything serious. DeFore wouldn't have
chosen a public place like the cafeteria to discuss
anything life-threatening with you."
Stiffly, Kane pushed himself out of the chair, winc-
ing at the pain lancing through his left hip. "Let s
all find out what she found out"
The four people made their way along the softly
gleaming corridors and down a elevator to the cafe-
teria. Most of the briefings were held there, even
though there was a formal briefing theater on the
third level.
DeFore was already seated at a corner table. Farrell [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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