Sideways In Crime Read online

“Oh, God.”

  My hand trembled as I pushed open the door.

  I’m a police officer.

  Had I been offered the choice, I would have refused this resonance. But the doughy young man, the killer, was on the other side of the pavilion, eyes widening as I stepped out of the booth.

  Don’t let him get away.

  “Halt,” I croaked. “Do not move.”

  There were attendants, three men in pale blue tunics, but they looked confused. The booths were widely spaced, unlike Grand Zentral, standing around the pavilion’s outer circumference.

  “Stop him,” I added.

  But the killer was running now, heading for the nearest vacant booth, and I didn’t think I could get there in time. And if I didn’t, was I willing to travel onward once more, maybe following him across the globe on a lengthening chase with a prisoner dying every time I or the man I was hunting stepped out at a new destination?

  No.

  I could run, but not that fast.

  Yet Solar fundamentalists are everywhere, so there were armed Border Police here, just as in Amerikan resonance sites. The killer was on the far side of the pavilion, almost at a booth, but the nearest uniformed officer was just feet away from me.

  I felt my lips draw back from my teeth as I leaped forward.

  You can still...

  A part of my mind popped up the suggestion that I could identify myself, but there are times when even a psychophysicist must let the reptile brain take over, moving fast.

  ...stop this.

  And I was on the officer, immobilizing his arm with my left hand as I ripped his sidearm free with my right. It was a Luger, and I had the safety off as I spun away, sinking my body weight, stabilizing, seeing the killer inside the booth and smiling at me, but I was--

  Exhale.

  --steadying as I squeezed the trigger. On the armored glass, a bullet hole spider-webbed into existence.

  Air, wavering.

  The killer was frozen but so was the bullet, suspended in mid-air just inches from the killer’s face as the resonance took hold. There was stasis for a second before the red tornado of exploding flesh, and he was gone.

  I threw the Luger aside and raised my hands.

  “Police officer!” I shouted. “Police officer!”

  I learned afterward it was a good job I spoke Deutsch, like the armed officers, because they nearly shot me.

  They offered me a choice of travel methods. I flew home on a Messerschmidt 787. Klaus met me at the airport at ten am, and drove me in an unmarked car to Headquarters. In the Eavesdropping Suite, I got a round of applause, from the members of my own unit as well as from Lisa Brown. I’d thought she might have already left.

  “I’ll be returning to London”--her smile shone with vindication--”the way you got here from Berlin. No resonance.”

  “That’s nice,” I said.

  “It’s been great to--”

  “No. We’re not friends. You betrayed me.”

  “Enabled you to do your duty. Would you have gone of your own volition?”

  I didn’t answer. We both knew I wouldn’t have, which was exactly the point.

  There’s no talking to some people.

  Not exactly profound psychophysics.

  “Hey, herr leutnant,” called Andre. “How did you figure about the manacles?”

  “Pure genius,” said someone else.

  “That’s why he’s a leutnant, and you’re a pleb.” In Klaus’s face, the grin was innocent triumph. “Right, Chief?”

  “If you say so.”

  Did I know? Did I work it out?

  I wasn’t sure of my own actions. Perhaps it had been ordinary anger, firing an armor-piercing round through the glass, or perhaps it was scientific intuition. I’m not convinced I’ll ever know.

  But if the prisoner’s flesh provided enough materials to reconstitute a breathing human body, then the manacles that held him in place were more than enough to reassemble a moving bullet, with all the momentum it had originally acquired.

  “Goodbye, Lisa.”

  “Where are you going, Peter?”

  “To pray.”

  Puzzled looks followed me as I left the Eavesdropping Suite, and took an elevator down to the first floor. I walked through the foyer, ignoring the duty sergeant who called my name, and out onto the street.

  Squinting, I stared up at the sun, wondering what was going on inside that complexity of vortices that so surpassed human cognition. I could write down the equations, but I could never grasp the solutions. No person could. No tiny, planet-bound primate could dream of it.

  “What does it mean?” I asked the sky.

  Passers-by stared at me.

  Had I expected an answer?

  Fate and the Fire-lance:--Stephen Baxter

  Years ago, I read an amazing story about the discovery of a final Beatles record that had slipped through from another universe where the Fab Four stayed together an extra year before dissolving the band. It was called “The Twelfth Album,” it was published in the April 1998 issue of the distinguished UK magazine Interzone, and it was my introduction to Stephen Baxter. A multiple award-winning author, and one of the acknowledged kings of big concept hard SF, Stephen Baxter is no stranger to alternate history. His “NASA trilogy” of Voyager, Titan, and Moonseed depicts an alternate timeline where John F. Kennedy survived his attempted assassination and the American space program did not lag as it has done in our reality. The tale that follows is part of his Time’s Tapestry series, which includes the books Emperor, Conqueror, Navigator, and Weaver.

  “Imogen. Oh, Imogen, you must wake up. He’s dead, Imogen. Gavrilo, the son of a Roman emperor, killed in London! It’s such a frightful mess, and I don’t know what I’m going to do...”

  The thin, tremulous voice dragged Imogen Brodsworth out of a too-short sleep. Her eyelids heavy, she had trouble focusing on the face before her: young, oval-shaped, with big eyes but a small nose and mouth, not pretty despite all the efforts of the cosmeticians. And Imogen, just for a moment, couldn’t remember where she was. The bed was big, too soft, and there was a scent of old wood, a whiff of incense--and, oddly, cigarette smoke.

  Incense. This was Lambeth Palace, residence of archbishops.

  The day was bright, the light streaming through the big sash window where a servant had pulled back dusty curtains. She glanced at the small clock on her bedside table. At least that was her own, an ingenious French-Louisianan contraption that told you the time and date on little dials. It was June 29, 1914, fifteen minutes past six on this summer morning.

  The girl before her, her face swollen with crying, was Alice, daughter of the English king Charles VII, a princess babbling of killing. She had a maidservant with her, who flapped and fluttered as Alice’s mood shifted.

  Imogen struggled to sit up. “Ma’am? What did you say of Gavrilo?”

  “That he’s been murdered, Miss Brodsworth.” That was a male voice, grave, and Imogen reflexively ducked back down under the covers.

  A soldier stepped forward, crisply uniformed, immaculately shaved, walrus moustache trimmed despite the earliness of the hour. He was perhaps forty. He held a small cigarette in his right hand. He kept his eyes politely averted. “My intrusion is unforgivable, but it is a bit urgent. We met yesterday at the reception at St. James’s Palace--”

  “I remember. Major Armstrong.”

  Imogen was a teacher of Latin and Greek, employed by a small private girls’ school in Wales. She had been attached as an interpreter with special responsibilities to support the Princess Royal at the reception for her fiancé, the second son of Caesar Nedjelko XXVI Princip. Major Archibald Armstrong was charged with the security of the party, working with a splendidly dressed Roman prefect called Marcus Helvidius.

  Imogen had little interest in politics, but she could imagine the implications of the murder of an imperial scion on British soil. “My word.”

  Alice’s tears were turning to temper. “What about me? Gavrilo
was my fiancé, if you’ve forgotten! I’m a widow before I was even married--I’m not even eighteen--everybody will look at me and laugh!”

  Imogen glanced at Armstrong. “Major, please...”

  Armstrong coughed, and turned his back.

  Imogen got out of bed. Her nightdress was thick and heavy, too hot but quite suitable for spending the night in the residence of the Archbishop of Canterbury. She faced Alice and took her hands; they were weak and clutched a soggy handkerchief. “My lady. You must be strong. Dignified. This is bound to be difficult, and your father will be relying on you today.”

  Admonished, Alice did calm a little. “Yes. I know. It’s just--is my whole life to be defined by this moment? I hardly knew the man, Imogen. I spent more time with him yesterday on his quireme than we’ve ever spent before. Even when I visited his palace in Moscow he was always off hunting. Marie Lloyd sang for us on the ship, you know. ‘Everything in the Garden’s Lovely’...”

  And you did not love him, Imogen thought. Of course not; how could you? “I’m sure the future will take care of itself. For now, I know you will do your duty.”

  “Yes...” Alice let her maid lead her away.

  “You’re good with her,” Armstrong said, back turned, puffing calmly on his cigarette.

  “I have pupils older than her. I think you’d better let me perform my toilet, major.”

  “Thirty minutes,” Armstrong said briskly. He nodded and walked out.

  On the bedside table, her little clock chimed the half-hour.

  In the event she took only twenty minutes.

  She checked her appearance in the mirror behind the door: her hair tied up in a neat, practical bun, high-necked blouse and long black skirt, her sensible schoolmistress’s shoes for a day she expected to spend on her feet. She was twenty-five years old, and prettier than at least one princess, she told herself defiantly. But she knew she had a sensible air about her, and tended not to attract the eye of any but the most sensible of men. For sensible, she meant dull, she conceded wryly. Certainly none of the exotic grandees from across the globe present at the sessions yesterday had noticed her, not like that. None, perhaps, save Marcus Helvidius, who had, she thought back now, smiled at her once or twice...

  She was woolgathering, and blushing like a girl. She glared at her own pink cheeks, ordering herself to calm down; she would not have Major Armstrong think she was a ninny. She picked up her handbag and left the room.

  Armstrong was waiting outside, puffing on another skinny American cigarette. Without a word he hurried her down a broad staircase and out of the palace.

  An automobile was waiting for them on the embankment. They clambered aboard. An armed soldier sat up beside the driver, and two more climbed in behind them. The driver worked the ignition bulb, the engine started up with a smoky roar, and they pulled away into the road. More automobiles joined them, so it was quite a convoy that headed up along the embankment toward Lambeth Bridge. They all sported Union flags, but like most of the automobiles on London’s roads they were Roman designs powered by Roman petrol; innovation in the automotive industry was driven by the demands of the empire’s huge battlefields in central Asia.

  The sun was still low but the sky was a bright cloudless blue, and the air was already warm. London’s buildings and bridges were adorned with wreaths, flags and streamers, marks of celebration for the coming of a Roman prince to the city. But there was no air of celebration this morning. Soldiers lined the route, alternating with police, rifles at their shoulders. Aside from them there was nobody to be seen, and only Navy boats moved on the Thames.

  Armstrong said, “I do apologize for hoiking you out of your bed like that. Had to force my way in to make sure the summons got through to you. And I know you were up to the small hours with those ecclesiastical types.”

  “Well, it’s true,” she admitted. “And coping with all that theological language does make the brain spin...”

  The Romans were in London for the formal announcement of the engagement of Princess Alice to Gavrilo. The marriage was essentially political, a way to unite the British Bourbon dynasty to the house of Caesar Nedjelko XXVI Princip, a Serbian line of emperors who had ruled in Constantinople for more than a century. The British government, ever eager to maintain a balance of power on the continent, had used the occasion to host a summit conference of the great powers, notably the French and the Ottomans, territorial rivals of the Romans in central Europe and Mesopotamia, and the Americans, locked in their own perpetual rivalry with the French over their long border with the Louisiana Territory. The churches had been communing too, and while the temporal leaders had been gathered at St. James’s, the Archbishop of Canterbury had used Lambeth Palace to host delegations from the Vatican and the Patriarchate of Constantinople to discuss theological issues and ecumenical ventures.

  Imogen murmured, “It was a long evening. Compared to the princes at St. James’s, the prelates might be long-winded, but they enjoy their wine just as much.” And a good few of them had roving eyes and wandering hands, she and the other girls had found.

  Armstrong laughed. “Well, I’m afraid you have another long day ahead of you today, Miss Brodsworth. Only a few of us are being summoned back to Saint James’s. He asked for you specifically.”

  “Who did?”

  “The prefect, Marcus Helvidius. He was impressed by your language skills, and your sobriety. I think he believes you will be an asset today.”

  Thinking of the prefect, she blushed again.

  They were crossing Lambeth Bridge now, and they both turned to see the centerpiece of the Roman presence in London. Drawn up at a quay not far from the shimmering sandstone cliff that was the Palace of Westminster, the Roman ship that had brought Gavrilo here was a quireme. With her rows of oars she might not have looked out of place in the imperial fleets of two millennia before. But smokestacks thrust out of a forest of masts, and rows of gun ports were like little dark windows in the hull.

  Having crossed the bridge the convoy turned right and sped up Millbank toward Westminster Abbey and Parliament Square.

  “That ship’s a remarkable sight, isn’t she?” Imogen breathed.

  “Oh, yes. But she’s more than a floating hotel, you know. And this morning, after the fuss yesterday--well, look what she’s disgorged.”

  The convoy drove up Horse Guards Parade, past the government buildings, and turned into the Mall. And Imogen saw that a row of massive vehicles had been drawn up here, great blocks of steel that towered over the automobiles speeding past. Mounted on caterpillar tracks, with gun nozzles peering from every crevice, these were the vehicles of war the Romans called testudos, and the standards of the 314th Legion Siberian fluttered over their ugly flanks.

  “A statement of strength,” Armstrong muttered. “Given we let their prince be assassinated, we could hardly refuse, though nobody’s happy about it. And besides it’s hardly our fault; this unfortunate incident just happened to have occurred on our territory, that’s all.”

  Of course there was an implicit assumption in what he said that the assassin had not been British. She wondered what basis he had for believing that. But she did not question him, knowing nothing of the case.

  More soldiers had set up a perimeter of sandbags and barbed wire around St. James’s Palace. Imogen and Armstrong were made to wait while a sergeant checked papers and telephoned his headquarters, and photographers wearing Roman insignia took their pictures. Armstrong accepted this delay laconically; he lit up another cigarette.

  Inside the palace, Marcus Helvidius was waiting for them. He was conferring with a Roman senator, representatives of the French and Ottomans, British commanders--and a stout, bristling man dressed in a drab black morning suit who Imogen, feeling faintly bewildered, recognized as the British Foreign Secretary, David Lloyd George. They were speaking in broken Latin, their only common tongue.

  When Imogen entered with Armstrong, Marcus turned to her. “Miss Brodsworth. Thank you for coming.” He spo
ke Greek. He was a prefect of the 314th Legion, which, supplementing the Praetorian Guard, had been given responsibility for the security of Gavrilo during this expedition. Yesterday he had worn an archaic ceremonial costume of plumed helmet, cloak, breastplate, short tunic, and laced-up boots; this morning he was dressed more functionally in an olive-green coverall, though the number and standard of his legion had been sewn into the breast. Aged perhaps thirty, he was a heavy-set, powerful man with thick dark hair; his look was more Slavic than Latin, she thought. But his blue eyes were clear, his jaw strong.

  She glanced around, and replied in Greek, “Am I the only interpreter you’ve called?”

  “My decision,” Marcus said firmly. “It’s not seven hours since Gavrilo was murdered. I think it’s best if we involve as few people as possible until we know what we’re dealing with. Don’t you agree?”

  “It seems sensible. But why me?” The party yesterday had included senior academics from the great universities, experts in all the languages of the empire: Greek, Latin, Serbian, Georgian, Russian, German. “I’m just a schoolteacher, you know. I was only attached because it was thought best that Princess Alice should be accompanied by somebody closer to her own age.”

  “You are too modest,” said the Roman. “I saw how you handled that most difficult of charges, a princess royal! You are evidently able, and sensible, Miss Brodsworth. I think you will be a great help today.”

  He smiled at her, and she thought she would melt. But he wanted her only for her sobriety, she reminded herself. “I’ll do my best, I’m sure.”

  Armstrong coughed. “Now, the only Greek I have is what they managed to beat into me at Harrow, Miss Brodsworth, and I think I can follow, but you’d better start earning your corn.”

  Imogen glanced at the party. The Foreign Secretary was waiting for her with a face like thunder. As she hastened over and slipped into her role, she seemed to become invisible to them--all save Marcus, who smiled at her again.

  Marcus led the party through a part of the palace Imogen hadn’t seen before. One particularly grand chamber must have been the Hall of the Ambassadors, with its famous ceiling depicting a vision of an austere Protestant heaven, painted by Michelangelo under the patronage of Henry VIII, who had built the palace in the first place. Imogen wondered how many other commoners had ever got to see it.