TW09 The Lilliput Legion NEW (20 page)

"It sounds to me as if you're trying very hard to justify yourself," said Andre. "It also sounds like you should have been relieved a long time ago. You should've been brought in. You need rest and you need help. You're a burnout case."

"Yeah? Well, maybe I am. Maybe there was a time when doing my duty was as important to me as it is to you. But as you've surmised, I've been at it for a long, long time now. And let me tell you, it's like pissing in the wind."

He leaned back in the chair, took a deep drag off his cigarette and exhaled the smoke in a sigh.

"You see, it's kinda hard to convince the folks back home that what goes down in some temporal backwater makes any difference to them. I mean, why should they care about a field office in 11th century Jerusalem? Why should they give a damn about some war in 19th century Africa or political instability in 20th century Latin America? That was all ancient history, right? Now the rising interest rates, the falling value of the dollar, the collapse of the service economy, bank failures, those things make a difference to them. They're relevant, you see. Why should they pay taxes to support operations hundreds or thousands of years removed from their own reality? All they can see is their own world winding down. They simply can't see that it's all connected. They're fools. They're like a bunch of mindless lemmings, running full tilt toward the edge of a cliff. So if they don't give a damn, why the hell should we?"

He backed away from them, keeping them covered with his gun, until he came up against a wooden table and some chairs. He pulled a chair out, sat down and casually crossed his legs, never once taking his eyes off them. He took out a pack of English cigarettes, shook one out and lit it with a lighter held in his free hand. He offered the pack to Andre, but she shook her head. He shrugged and put it away.

"It's all falling apart, you know. I figure it probably started coming to pieces back around Julius Caesar's time and it's been growing progressively worse ever since. The miracle is that it's all stayed together this long. Somewhere back in Roman times, some idiot decided that man's role on this earth was to conquer nature instead of being a part of it, so we've been bludgeoning nature to death ever since. And several thousand years later, we've just about finished the job."

"Time travel was the final straw," he continued, in his sleepy sounding voice. "The Greeks used to say, 'Those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.' Well, we've become the gods and we've driven nature mad. It's fragmenting into split personalities. Parallel timelines. And now that it's started, there's just no way to stop it. It's going to be like a chain reaction, building and building and building. No stopping it. No stopping it at all."

"What in heaven's name is he talking about?" Gulliver said, under his breath. "Do you understand any of this?"

Andre nodded. "I'm afraid I do," she said. "And I'm afraid he has a point, too, despite his twisted logic."

"Twisted logic?" the Network man said.

"I'd call it twisted," said Andre. "Things may be falling apart, but that's no reason to stop trying to do anything about it. You talk as if there's some kind of virtue in not caring, in simply giving up. Nothing can be done, so why bother? Live for today, forget about tomorrow, right?"

"That's only human nature," he said, with a shrug. "When the bombs were falling on London during World War II, people made love in the bomb shelters. Knowing that death could come at any second, they tried to wring as much out of the passion of the moment as they could."

"That wasn't why," said Andre, shaking her head. "That's what I mean about your twisted logic. They did it because the procreative urge is often activated during times of great stress and extreme danger. Because their innermost instincts, knowing, as you said, that death could come at any moment, were driven to reaffirm life. Faced with imminent extinction, the human animal fights to procreate, to create new life to carry on the struggle. That's why things have stayed together this long. Not because it was some sort of miracle or blind luck or entropy or whatever the hell you want to call it, but because we're a race of fighters and dreamers. We know things aren't going well, but we have a dream that they'll get better and we fight to make that dream come true. Because when you get right down to it, that's all there is. If you stop fighting for your dream, then it really is all over. If you give up your dreams, you die."

The sound of slow hand clapping echoed through the loft. "Bravo, Miss Cross! Spoken like a true dreamer! Bravo, indeed!"

Andre spun around toward the door at the far end of the loft. The freight elevator doors stood open and Nikolai Drakov had stepped out, dressed in an elegant, dark, wool, velour topcoat and a conservative worsted suit with a very fine pinstripe. His tie was impeccably knotted, his shirt was raw white silk and he wore a dark blue scarf draped around his neck. He looked more like a corporate attorney than the last surviving member of the terrorist Timekeepers, former leader of the notorious Time Pirates and master of the monstrous hominoids. Andre stared at him with disbelief.

"Yes, Miss Cross, I really
am
alive, as you can see," he said, with an amused smile, giving her a slight bow from the waist. "Only the good die young, as they say."

He turned around and motioned to someone behind him in the elevator. Two men came forward, supporting a third between them, a man with his hands and arms firmly tied behind his back. They dragged him out and shoved him forward, so that he fell sprawling full-length on the floor. He moaned and raised his battered face to look at Andre.

"My God," she whispered. "Hunter!"

They had brought their twenty-six tiny prisoners back to the apartment on Threadneedle Street, all bound with their own little ropes and carefully wrapped up in a section of the camouflage netting that had concealed their camp. Finn slowly unrolled the netting, taking care not to damage any of their little prisoners; then he gently laid them all out one by one on the table top, as if they were wounded combatants in a field hospital. They all suffered this treatment stoically, saying nothing, apparently resigned to whatever fate awaited them.

`"Maybe we can find some sort of a valise or something to transport them," Lucas said.

"Something soft. We can line it with some cloth or toweling, make sure they don’t get tossed around too much."

Delaney took out another parcel in which he had wrapped up the weapons they'd been carrying along with their floater paks and some of the supplies they'd found at their base camp.

"Check the closets," he said. "Maybe there's some bags in there. I just want to get the prisoners off our hands as soon as possible. I'm worried about Andre and Gulliver."

"I'm worried about them, too, Finn," said Lucas, we've got to wait for Darkness. He's the only one who'd know where they were taken."

"That's quite an interesting collection you've got there," said Darkness, suddenly materializing behind them. He projected himself forward through space/time in a rapid series of translocations, leaving behind a trail of ghostly afterimages.

He stood over the table and gazed down at the tiny prisoners. "If you're anxious to be rid of them, I'll take them off your hands.”

"You?" said Lucas. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why? What would you do with them?"

"Oh, I was thinking I could dress them up in little suits of black or white and use them to play chess," said Darkness, with a perfectly straight face.

"Oh, for cryin' out loud!" said Delaney. "We haven't got time for jokes!"

“Who's joking? They'd make a dandy chess set. Only I'd need thirty-two and you've got only twenty-six. Think you could manage to rustle up another half a dozen?"

“Forget about it," said Delaney. "What's happened to Andre and Gulliver?"

“They were abducted.”

Delaney rolled his eyes. "Yeah, right. We already
know
that. Where were they
taken?"

“New York City," Darkness said. "The 20th century. September 13, 1992, to be exact."

"Are you sure?"

"I am always sure, Delaney," Darkness said, wryly. "I do not make idle pronouncements. I observed the settings on their warp discs, and to be doubly sure, I followed them. They were clocked to an old warehouse building on Washington Street. They're in a loft, on the top floor. The man who took them prisoner is some sort of renegade T.I.A. agent, a member of the Network. I didn't hear him say his name, but he's a tall, dark-haired, rather bored-looking individual dressed like a giant boysenberry. He was holding them there alone, apparently waiting for someone."

"He was waiting for General Drakov," a small voice said from behind them.

They turned to face the table where the Lilliputian prisoners were all laid out.

"What did you say?" Delaney said.

The Lilliputian commander struggled to sit up. "I said, he was waiting for General Drakov. That warehouse on Washington Street was one of our base camps. And the man your friend described sounds like Victor Savino. I've met him. He controls a criminal organization known as the Family through a man named Domenico Manelli."

"Savino?" said Delaney. "Vic Savino? Tied up with the 20th century Mafia?"

He glanced at Lucas with astonishment. "Savino's the T.I.A. section chief in that temporal zone. Steiger's mentioned him dozens of times. They started out together. The man is something of a legend in the agency."

"And he's with the Network," Lucas said. "That means Drakov is not only still alive, but he's hooked up with the Network somehow. The most dangerous enemy we've ever faced, and our own people are involved with him. Christ, I don't believe it!"

"It doesn't make sense," Delaney said, shaking his head. "Why would the Network be involved with Drakov?"

"Because he has something they want," the Lilliputian commander said. "Us. Hominoids, tailor made to your specifications. All it took was just one demonstration and they let Drakov name his price."

"Why are you telling us all this?" Delaney said.

"Because I'd like to see the bastard burn," the Lilliputian said, to a chorus of grumbling assent from his men.

"Why?" Delaney said. "And why should we believe you?"

"The son of a bitch marooned us on that island," the Lilliputian leader said, bitterly. "I've seen him squash men underfoot as 'an object lesson in discipline.' We were never people to him. We were cannon fodder. A toy mercenary force that used live ammo. It was kill or be killed. When the hit on Gulliver went bad and he escaped, Drakov decided to evacuate the island. We're all that's left of the original regiment, the 'first generation,' as he called us. And he hung us out to dry. The second generation helped him do it. They just left us there for you to find."

"You mean he knew we were coming?" said Delaney.

"He said it was only a matter of time," the Lilliputian leader said. He grimaced. "No pun intended. When he found out Gulliver had escaped with the help of an Observer, he realized that Gulliver would be interrogated and you'd eventually find the confluence and discover the islands. He said that it would be a pity if there was nothing left for you to find."

"So he left you there," Lucas said, "to kill us when we arrived."

The Lilliputian nodded. "He said that our only chance to stay alive would be kill you. We'd have all died anyway. Our commanding officer was killed. A snake got him. I was the exec." He snorted. "Some great commandos we turned out to be. There were five hundred of us in the first generation. We're all that's left."

"Well, Lieutenant, regardless of whatever Drakov told you, you're not going to be killed," said Lucas. "We're going to clock you to our headquarters in the 27th century. And you're going to be treated humanely, like prisoners of war. Special arrangements will obviously have to be made for your detention, but nobody's going to kill you. I guarantee it."

"Wait, Lucas," said Delaney, "let's think about this for a minute."

Lucas frowned. "What do you mean? What's there to think about? We have to deliver the prisoners. Surely, you're not suggesting that we—"

"No, no, of course not," said Delaney. "You know me better than that. I was merely thinking that we might be overlooking an opportunity here." He glanced at the Lilliputian leader. "Lieutenant, how'd you like a crack at your old friend, Drakov?"

"Finn, no!" said Lucas. "Absolutely not! I know what you're thinking and you can just forget about it!"

"Why?"

"Why?
Are you serious? We can't simply clock to the 20th century with a suitcase full of Lilliputians! It's too risky! How do we know we can trust them?"

"When you get right down to it, we don't," said Finn. "But I believe him. Everything he's told us fits with what we already know about Drakov. And if the Network is involved, we're going to need help. We can't ask headquarters for backup because we don't know who we can trust back there."

"Maybe not in the T.I.A., but we can trust our own people, the First Division," Lucas said.

Delaney shook his head. "They wouldn't have anyone to spare. You don't know what it's been like, Lucas. Ever since Forrester uncovered the Network and set out to break it, it's been all-out war. The only people he can trust in the entire agency are our old First Division people and there simply aren't enough of them to go around. Most of them are on adjustment duty, just like we are, and most of the rest are engaged in ongoing undercover work, trying to help expose new Network cells and break them up. We're not only trying to preserve the continuity of the timeline, we're faced with hostilities from the parallel universe and from within the T.I.A., as well. And with the old man in the hospital, Steiger's going to have his hands full. We can't ask him to spare us any reinforcements. Lucas. And even if we could there'd be no way to be sure that word of their clocking out to help us wouldn't leak out and someone would clock back ahead of them and warn Savino."

Lucas nodded. "Yeah, you're right. I guess it's going to
have
to be just you and me, like in the old days. Only this time, we've got the Doc along to help us."