The Eldridge Roster Read online

“I’ll tell you something about myself if you do something for me.” He looked around. Eddy and Enrique were in the pilot house. “Check out Eddy and Enrique—make sure that they’re truly on our side.”

  Dee thought about it for a moment, weighing the ethics against the need. “Okay,” she said finally. “But no roaming about between their ears, understood?”

  “Understood.”

  “And I don’t want you to just tell me you have two sisters and a cat, collect Hokusai prints and consider that a fair exchange.”

  “I had a sister,” he volunteered. “Never a cat—allergies. But I once owned a Hokusai print of Mt. Fuji.”

  “Did it have a cat in it?”

  “No. More likely that would have been Hiroshige. They were competitors. But I think you knew that,” he smiled.

  “All right,” she said. “I’ll do it. It shouldn’t take long.”

  It wasn’t actual thoughts she first sought out—it was harmony or the lack of it, a thing of intermingled light and emotion, a quick gauge of the degree of serenity or of discord within each mind. No two minds were ever the same.

  Eddy was a riot of vibrant colors and feelings—no surprise there—and happy, genuinely happy, though she saw as she looked just a bit deeper that his immediate happiness was from tonight’s forthcoming action, a possibly desperate battle of good against evil. It was the sort of fight Eddy lived for and rarely had.

  Still enjoying the warmth of Eddy’s good-heartedness, she turned her mind to Ricky—and gasped as fierce hatred burned through her, the smoldering incandescence of a sacrificial pyre, its sickly sweet stench so real that she gagged.

  Experience let her see it as a core of black despair within Ricky, a dark torment that had long ago taken the light from him even as it devoured him. Fearing to do so, yet obligated, Dee steeled herself, probing deeper. From afar, she was aware of Musashi’s growing concern. After a moment, she had what she needed and withdrew.

  “You don’t look so good,” said the Japanese as she leaned weakly against the rail.

  “That young man,” said Dee, “is a piece of work.”

  Musashi’s eyes flicked to the pilothouse, then back to Dee. “How so?”

  She took a deep breath, as always appalled at just how vulnerable she was to the emotions ravaging her fellow man. “He’s a contract killer, but,” she said resting her hand on Musashi’s arm as his face hardened, “he’s not after us. Eddy gave the kid a job after he got out of prison for knocking over a liquor store. Enrique looks up to Eddy as a sort of role model...”

  “Oh my.”

  “...but mostly, hatred is what defines Enrique. It fills him, consumes him. Nightmarish childhood, alcoholic mother, his uncle raped him when he was ten.” She wanted to stop, but it just kept pouring out. “Killed a girl in ninth grade who made fun of his sexual awkwardness, went back and killed his uncle when he was sixteen. Does hits for some drug dealers he met in jail, occasional jobs for Eddy, like this one. Eddy has no idea that he’s harboring a sociopathic killer. Thinks Enrique’s a nice kid, just too quiet and a little rough around the edges. Admires the kid’s fearlessness, but it’s only a death wish.”

  “Are you all right?” asked Musashi, as she continued staring fixedly out toward the dark sea.

  Dee shrugged. “I’ll be okay.” She gave him a weak smile. “It’s like walking through a sewer. Takes time for the results to fade. And now, sir, what about you?”

  “Human,” he said. “Male, thirty-two years old. And the reason you can’t read me, is that I’m skilled at keeping people with your abilities out of my head.”

  “Are you one of us?” she asked hopefully.

  “No, but I do have some complimentary skills, though nothing as profound as yours.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Two reasons. To prevent the names of the Eldridge sailors and their families from passing into the wrong hands.”

  “Whitsun and Schmidla’s?”

  “Theirs would be but the first. And also, to ensure that tonight goes as it should.”

  “As it should?” she repeated, picking up on something in his voice. Regret? She wasn’t sure.

  “Yes,” he said and abruptly walked away.

  Chapter 25

  Maria was so happy whenever Uncle Richard brought her special new friends. It was lonely on the island, a loneliness she only partially overcame by exploring the beaches and hills, the small wonders left by the receding tide in the pools among the seaweed and the barnacled rocks. And playing with whatever few other kids might visit her from school on weekends—something that didn’t often happen, as she was a shy and aloof girl, brilliant and beautiful.

  But with special friends, like Angie and Tim, she could go anywhere and be at ease.

  First, she took them to the Old Man’s House. He wasn’t there today. In fact she’d only seen him once, in his library, a shawl over his legs, the fire dying before him. A nice girl, not wanting to disturb him, she’d left as quickly as she’d come.

  “Where are we?” asked Tim, looking about him, still disoriented.

  “Not in Kansas anymore,” said Angie, lightheaded. “How do you feel?” she asked Tim.

  “Dizzy. Strange.”

  “Where are we, Maria?” Angie asked gently. “How did we get here?”

  Maria had taken a sextant from the ornate desk in the middle of the room. She held it close, looking curiously at the figures etched into the brass, then losing interest, dropped it back on the desk. Calling “Catch me!” she ran out the double doors into the garden.

  “What’s she on?” asked Tim.

  “Whatever we’re all on,” said Angie, staring through the doors after Maria, now skipping across the grass. It was a lovely garden, mostly roses, with a tall well-tended hedge marking its far boundary. A white-pebbled path led into the hedge, an arbor of yellow roses at its entrance. The path forked and disappeared before a second row of hedges just beyond the first. A maze? she wondered.

  Before following Maria she turned back for a last about the room. There were candles, set in brass chambersticks and candelabrum around the wainscoted room. An ornate chandler, but no electrical outlets. A fireplace, but no sign of central heating. And books – row upon row of leather-bound books stretching to the blue-domed ceiling. An iron spiral staircase led to the balcony circling library’s second tier.

  A flintlock pistol with worn silver-chased grips lay on the desk. “I think we’re a long time from home,” she said. “And a long when.”

  “If we’re really here at all,” he said, following her gaze as it moved around the room. Their eyes met. “Let’s find our conductress,” said Angie.

  Jim stepped away from the window and the empty Chamber that only a few moments ago had held his daughter, Angie and O’Malley.

  “Flop-transition?” he said to Schmidla.

  “We probably have some time,” said Schmidla. “You know about the Eldridge and the ship invisibility experiments. Do you have any idea what made those ships vanish?”

  “They were, what? encased in some sort of magnetic field and subjected to some sort of energy...” Jim managed, feeling stupid.

  “Obviously you don’t,” said Schmidla dismissively. “It’s quite simple, exquisite even. Our sister project, the one which is so heavily funded,” he shot a dark glance at Budd, “has replicated the Philadelphia Experiment many times, remotely, with even larger inanimate objects.”

  “Why do you think that?” asked Budd.

  “I’ve been involved with this work for over half a century, Mr. Budd,” said Schmidla. “One hears things.”

  Budd glanced at Whitsun, standing next to Lokransky by the observation window.

  “Our sister project’s problem,” continued Schmidla, “and ours, has always been one of control—control of the phenomenon once it’s initiated.” He paused, collecting his thoughts, then continued, pacing in a small slow circle, hands behind his back. “It’s been recently theorized that all subatomic particles ar
e comprised of strings of energy. And that it’s the interrelationship of these strings-often called superstrings—that determine the structure of all matter and energy. Specifically, these strings, of differing contours and tension, vibrate and determine through their harmonics the constituents of all matter and energy, of time and space. The universe, indeed, the multiverse—the endless sweep of time and dimensions—is the product of the oscillation of these tiny strands of energy.”

  Right on Angie, thought Jim, recalling her seemingly long-ago lecture on particle physics, string theory and Eldridge.

  “What the United States, Germany and Japan did, we may theorize, was to alter the vibrations, the different patterns of oscillation, of the energy strings comprising their vessels, thus altering the structure of ships and crews and setting them moving through a what? a series of dimensions, time, perhaps? ultimately returning to their points of origin.”

  As Schmidla spoke, Jim glanced at the others in the room. By their expressions this was new information only to Lokransky—the Russian stood by the door, rapt with attention. Whitsun and Budd had the disinterested looks of men hearing a tale retold.

  “If this is a new theory,” said Jim, “how did it come to be tested out in the 1940’s? How did anyone know to try it?”

  “They didn’t,” said Schmidla. “What they were trying to do was to alter the properties of the ships’ materials, make them undetectable to radar yet retaining their structural integrity. Radar was very new, but as soon as the theory of radar was known, everyone of course began working on countermeasures. Opinion among researchers was evenly divided as to whether success would also render the ships totally invisible. Only Einstein in the U.S. and Kowamoto in Japan thought that far more profound effects might result.

  “Three nations—Germany, America and Japan—succeeded in altering the properties of their test ships, such that they weren’t detectable by radar,” he continued. “An unlooked for side effect was the removal of the vessels from their own reality.” He shook his head, amused. “Manipulate those little strands of energy just right, set them to resonating with just the right harmonics, and you may just create enormous quantum fluctuations—tearing the fabric of space-time and sending an object through what is popularly known as a wormhole. A flop-transition.”

  “Tiny little strings can do that?” said Lokransky skeptically.

  Schmidla stared at him, startled, as though his housekeeper had interjected herself into his dinner conversation. It suited him to reply. “It’s theorized that just one of those tiny little strings, Colonel, each but the size of a dust mote, can generate one thousand kilowatt hours of energy. Enough to run a large, energy-hogging American household for a month.”

  “Where do these objects emerge?” asked Jim, intrigued despite himself. “Where do they go?”

  “Someday we may know,” shrugged Schmidla. “Space and time are permeable and curve back in on themselves. We’re still decades away from the mathematics that could help us understand the phenomenon or equipment that can record it.”

  “And the people aboard those ships?” asked Jim, sensing what was to come next, for once you admitted that a piece of metal could be made to go Elsewhere...

  “That is the most amazing thing of it all,” said Schmidla. “The experiments created in the descendants of those crewmen the potential—hence Potentials—to alter their own string vibrations—alter, but not control. And rather than diminishing, Potential increases with each generation. Plays hell with convents of heredity, genetics and information theory, doesn’t it? This aspect of Project Telemachus, the human aspect, was founded to research that potential, to see if it was inherent in all humans and, if so, how it could be actualized and controlled. Manifestations of extrasensory ability, also uncontrolled, are symptomatic of the possession of Potential.”

  “Surely everyone with paranormal abilities isn’t descended from one of those sailors?” asked Jim.

  “No, but all ships’ descendants have paranormal abilities,” said Schmidla.

  “You didn’t succeed.”

  “We haven’t yet succeeded—our terms of reference have changed. We know now that we can’t give humans the abilities possessed by Potentials. We’ve recently demonstrated that Potentials aren’t human—they’ve far more genetic material to play with than do we. About twice as much.”

  Jim felt Kaeko’s warm little five year-old hand in his as they used to stroll along the beach at Shimoda, Angie’s nasty mouth and her musical laugh. “You’re definition of what’s human is very limiting.”

  “Both species can’t be human. And despite the ability to interbreed, we aren’t the same species, so profound are the differences. I suspect our successor species will decide we’re not human and dispose of us as we did the Neanderthal. Displacement of the inferior by the superior is a tenet of natural selection. But,” continued Schmidla, “knowing that there’s a physical difference between the Potentials and ourselves is very liberating. It inspires us to strive for perfection, to engineer for the physical and intellectual attributes of the ultimate human being—Homo Supernus—a being I’ve long believed attainable, a being whose creation I’ve long championed.” Something hard had slipped into his tone.

  “We know your antecedents, Dr. Schmidla,” said Budd.

  “And have you succeeded?” prompted Jim.

  “If,” said Schmidla, “our three Potentials return to us, alive and well, I’ll have demonstrated that Homo Supernus is possible, even inevitable. The ability to traverse time and space, to manipulate energy and matter, will raise the Potentials from the status of genetic oddity to that of a quantum evolutionary leap.” His voice rose excitedly. “What must come next is a generation carefully crafted, one whose members will have and can control extraordinary abilities, but most of all, control matter and energy. Think of it—to control matter and energy with your mind. The tools of the biotech revolution put that goal within our reach. Its attainment is a vision that Admiral Whitsun and I have long shared.” He turned to Budd. “All we need is money.”

  “We’ll see how this plays out,” said the CIA officer.

  “This has been tried before,” said Jim. “By you and others like you. It failed. Superman’s still confined to the comics.”

  “In retrospect, it was darkly comedic. Of course we failed! The time wasn’t right—we didn’t have the science, the technology. We went about it crudely, pursuing not so much a vision as an inspiration. It was all so coarse, so primitive. Forced eugenics, euthanasia, Aryan breeders.” He shook his head, embarrassed by his younger self’s indiscretions. “Such enthusiasm. Such bumbling. But our vision inspired us—it gave us the resolve and the courage to attempt a better humanity. That vision never died. And now,” he closed his fist before their faces, “we will attain it!”

  They heard Maria playing somewhere in the maze. “Can’t catch me!” she called happily, her voice muffled by the verdant walls of hedge.

  “Is that a castle?” asked Tim. He stood with Angie at the entrance to the maze, gardens around them, woods beyond that, staring at the expanse of Norman stone rising behind them.

  Angie looked back at the long mullioned windows, the towers, remains of crenellated battlements. “It may have begun as a small castle,” she said. “Or perhaps a priory. Now it’s a manor house—probably had some major Late Renaissance renovations.”

  “Thirty bedrooms, one toilet?” Tim speculated.

  “And lots of books.”

  “Come and get me!” Maria called again.

  “She got us here—let’s hope she can get us out,” said Tim.

  Something about him has changed, thought Angie. He’s calmer, less prone to hysteria. Wonder what this is doing to me?

  “Where are the people, the animals?” she asked. They saw stables, ponds, a river, outbuildings, woods and the long stretch of a dirt road. In the distance a square church tower rose above the trees. “No life at all. You see an insect, a bird?”

  O’Malley shook his
head. “No. And not a hint of breeze.” He sniffed one of the arbor’s yellow roses. “Vanilla. Different. There’s no evidence any this is real,” he said, waving a hand.

  “Never guess you were an engineer,” smiled Angie. “There’s no evidence it isn’t real. Whatever process brought us here is part of Project Telemachus, derived from the Philadelphia Experiment. Disappearance was the goal, moving the unintended consequence. All physics, not biochemistry. Schmidla wants power and that doesn’t come from hallucinations Is this place a part of ours or any universe? I don’t know. But whatever or wherever it is, it is. And to leave it we need Maria.”

  “I haven’t played hide-and-seek in a long time,” he said, following her into the dark coolness of the maze.

  “It’ll come back to you,” she said. “Maria! Here we come, ready or not!” she called, plunging into the cool green labyrinth.

  “It’s been over six hours,” said Whitsun, looking at the clock.

  “Perhaps it’s been a few days where they are,” said Schmidla.

  “What happens when they come back?” asked Jim, leaning against a console. Except for the guards, everyone else sat in a chair. No one had offered him one.

  “If they come back,” said Schmidla. “That’s often been a problem. If they come back, they’ll be altered, their abilities enhanced—it is the only way that they can come back. Alive. To return intact they must all share their abilities, and through sharing, each gains some of the others’ Potential—Maria’s partial memories of her previous voyages have told us that. In terms of string harmonics, look at it as musicians teaching each other how to play their special instrument. Their skills become shared skills, held in common.”

  “Have any returned before?” asked Jim.

  “Returned, yes. Survived, no. Of all of them, only Maria has lived through the experience. We believe her abilities have been augmented by the process—a process to which I’ve tried to make her mind amenable.”

  “How?” Something in Jim’s voice brought Lokransky’s gaze his way.