The Shadow Dragons - James A. Owen [130]
“It was necessary,” said Bert, “because it would have been impossible to hide Rose otherwise. To some, she is all but invisible. But to those who know how to look, she shines like a beacon. There was nowhere and nowhen in space and time where she could be safely hidden—so we arranged for her to skip ahead in time to the point where she would be needed most. The point the Shadow King never wanted her to reach. But more important, we needed the three of you to skip ahead in time as well.”
“Why?” asked John.
“Because,” Bert answered, “according to a future History, you already had.”
“Did you know?” Jack asked, looking at Ransom. “Did you know the Trump would move us in time as well as space?”
Ransom shrugged, then shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I, ah, suspected it was possible, but I couldn’t have said for sure. We were whistling in the dark, really. Making things up as we went along. Hank has more of a knack for time travel than I, and Rappaccini’s daughter is better at spatial concepts. But yes, I did think merging the two was possible. We’d just never tested it before, nor assessed the risks.”
“I don’t think it would have worked,” Charles remarked, “if it hadn’t been for that old man in the infinite white room.”
“We have some associates looking into that,” said Ransom. “We don’t know who he is, but we do suspect you’re right, Charles. Somehow he aided you. We just can’t tell how. Or why.”
“The old man’s technique may work,” said Bert. “Using a Trump twice. But we have too few agents to have risked anyone in a test.”
“As you did with us,” said Rose.
Bert sighed. “Yes. We had to try it. And the theory was sound.”
“That was a dangerous way to test the theory,” John said, casting a watchful eye at the girl, “given Rose’s importance.”
“But won’t that danger still exist now?” said Jack. “If she’s there, in the Archipelago where she can be discovered, won’t the work we accomplished be undone?”
“The work has already been done,” said Bert, “but your concern is also ours—so Jules plans to take her Elsewhen to continue her training.”
“Elsewhere?” asked Charles.
“No,” said Bert, signaling to Flannery for more drinks, “Elsewhen. And Tamerlane House is as safe as . . . well, houses. At least in the Archipelago.”
“We still have a lot of questions,” said John. “Almost all of them about the Caretakers. I just can’t seem to keep the rules straight— but I suspect in part it’s because you haven’t yet told us what all the rules are.”
“Secrets make you sick,” Fred commented.
“Didn’t Freud say that?” asked Charles.
The badger shook his head. “Beats me if I know. I figured that out watching Magwich.”
“All the secrets are out now,” said Bert, “and the Prophecy has been fulfilled. There’s no need for more secrets, so ask what you will.”
“So we have to stay in England, while all of this unfolds, without changing anything,” said Jack. “How is that resolving the war that will come?”
“You already have,” said Bert. “When Ransom sent you into the, ah, ‘future,’ you changed the events that needed changing. So there’s no need to do it again. But if you try, if you alter anything now, and in the coming years, you risk the very victory that you’ve already won.”
“But there will still be a war,” said John. “We know it’s coming, and we know how and where it’s going to start. Shouldn’t we try to do something about that? Isn’t it the right thing to do?”
Bert sat down across from John and clasped his hands together in thought. After a moment, he looked up and answered. “That’s how a man should think, John, yes, and it’s to your credit that you would take such a large thing upon yourselves. But there is, as always, a greater canvas to consider, and the matter of free agency among the rest of humanity.”
“Haven’t we already tampered with that,” said Jack, “and more than once? We’ve gone back in time two millennia when it was necessary. Wasn’t that considering the greater canvas and taking away the free agency of two thousand years’ worth of the entire world?”
“You didn