THE H-BOMB GIRL, Stephen Baxter [ereader for android txt] 📗

believe that in any past life I was ever drawn to you, O’Brien.” She tapped another button on her keyboard, and the screen over their heads filled up with images of planes, ships, submarines, missiles. “This is what’s happening right now.”

“Cuba,” Laura said.

“You all slept a long time. It’s now six in the evening. Around one in the afternoon, in Cuba.”

“But it’s still Black Saturday,” Laura said.

“Oh, yes. And things are tense on the Q-line.”

Some shooting was going on. The Russians and Cubans had shot down some American warplanes, and a U-2 spy plane. In the water, American Navy ships were using depth charges on a Russian submarine. Behind the scenes Kennedy was talking to Khrushchev about his deal, how if Khrushchev got rid of the missiles on Cuba Kennedy would dismantle his base in Turkey.

“Let me tell you what’s about to happen, in my timeline,” Miss Wells said. “Which we call the ‘Phoney War.’”

Just as in Agatha’s old timeline, the Sunday War, the serious shooting would soon start in Cuba, by accident. An American warship would be sunk by a Russian sub. In retaliation the Americans would launch air strikes against the Russian missile bases. Panicking, the Russians would fire off some of their Cuban missiles at the American mainland. In retaliation again, the Americans would launch nukes from their bases in Turkey at southern Russian cities. Millions dead, within hours.

“So it begins,” Bernadette whispered to Laura.

But in this timeline the Soviets held back at that point. The Americans held their fire too. It was just chance, Miss Wells said. A line of communication got through between Washington and Moscow.

The bombing stopped. The political leaders on both sides, not yet dead, frantically negotiated.

“The whole world held its breath,” Miss Wells said. “And the combatants backed off. No more bombs.”

So this was a third way for the war to turn out, Laura saw. Or you could have the Sunday War, global bombing, which Agatha had lived through. You could have America annihilating Russia—the Nuclear Spring Agatha had hoped to set up. Or there was this more limited version, Miss Wells’s “Phoney War.”

“No wonder you’re frightened of radiation,” Bernadette said.

“And this outcome,” Laura said, “is what you’ve come back here to muck about with.”

Miss Wells smiled. “Come and see what we’ve built. I think you’ll be impressed.”

She led them down a narrow staircase to the floor of the chamber. Bernadette was stiff and a bit dizzy, and Laura helped her.

The chamber floor vibrated, as if huge energies were stirring all around them. And the computers hummed and whirred. Tape reels spun, paper tape and punched cards chattered, lights flashed and needles flickered.

“Data is pouring into this place, the Hub, from capitals and military bases across the planet,” Miss Wells said proudly. “In October 1962 we have recruits, like Mort, embedded in every major nation’s capital.”

“You have been busy,” Bernadette sneered.

Laura wasn’t all that impressed. “If you’re from 2007, why do your computers look like they’re from 1962?”

Miss Wells sighed. “Because they are from 1962. Look, time travel is very energy-hungry. In fact we’ve only got one shot at this; if we fail to change things as we wish, we won’t be able to try again—well, we can’t fail, that’s all.

“And we haven’t been able to carry much with us, into the past. Small things, like the mobile phone you swiped from my locker at school.

“Otherwise we’ve had to work with what’s here. Most of what you see around you is from 1962. And you can’t make a 2007 computer from 1962 components. Why, you still use valves! I know you have transistors, but you’ve never heard of a chip, a microprocessor, have you? There are whole industries that haven’t been invented yet.”

Bernadette walked up to the pool. It glowed with pulsing blue light. “I should have brought my water wings.”

“I wouldn’t go dipping in here,” Miss Wells said. “That’s our power source. A small fission reactor.”

“Nuclear,” Laura said.

“Yes. The water is for cooling, and for protection from the radiation. That blue glow is Cerenkov radiation. Electrons from the pile.”

“What do you need a nuclear reactor for?”

“To heat up all the valves in these ridiculous Bakelite computers. To run the Burrower. And to keep open the Time Portal.”

This was the odd doorframe that stood in the middle of the room, filled with a sheet of misty light.

“I suppose it looks like an airport metal detector,” Miss Wells said. “Ah, but you don’t have those yet, do you? It’s actually a wormhole mouth. But you don’t know about spacetime wormholes either. It’s a tunnel that connects two points.”

“Like the Mersey Tunnel,” Bernadette said.

“Yes. But this tunnel connects two points in time, not in space. You can walk through that doorway and pass straight from 1962 to 2007, without having to live through all the boring years in between.”

Laura asked Agatha, “Is that how you got here? A Time Portal?”

Agatha shrugged. “Our technology’s more basic. My time machine’s a bit like a car.”

Miss Wells looked down her nose. “Your timeline does sound a bit scruffy, I must say.”

“We lived through a global nuclear war,” Agatha said.

“Which is exactly what the Hegemony avoids.”

Laura said, “I think you’d better tell us what you’re doing here in 1962.”

“I’m here to save mankind from itself,” Miss Wells said. She smiled.

Chapter 25

The nuclear pool cast blue light on the faces of the big computer boxes. Laura saw that the pool’s water bubbled quietly, slowly boiling, and there was an acrid stink of acid.

“I don’t even know what ‘Hegemony’ means,” Laura said.

“The word means a power complex,” Miss Wells said.

“Why does that surprise me?” Bernadette asked.

In Miss Wells’s timeline, even though some atomic bombs had fallen, Kennedy and Khrushchev pulled back from the brink. The United Nations called a truce, hasty peace negotiations began, and each country, America and Russia, sent aid to the other.

But in the deep shadows behind the public actions, some big players weren’t happy.

Miss Wells said, “They call it the ‘military-industrial complex.’ The generals