Department of Temporal Investigations: The Collectors by Christopher L. Bennett
Author:Christopher L. Bennett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket
Published: 2014-12-08T00:00:00+00:00
* * *
“This is most unfortunate,” Director Andos said when the agents relayed the news to her office over subspace.
“ ‘Unfortunate’ is putting it mildly, ma’am,” Garcia said. “We need to find out what happened—will happen—to our people. It’s time to consider going to get them.”
“You miss my meaning, Agent Garcia,” said Andos. “Ranjea, I trust you understand?”
Garcia looked up at her partner, disturbed by the grim resignation on his face. “If we’d found their curve went downtime,” he said, “we’d be obligated to retrieve them to prevent timestream disruption. But since they’ve gone uptime, our hands are tied.”
“What?”
“Remember your training, Teresa,” said Andos. “Part of our brief is to prevent the future from contaminating the present.”
Garcia had remembered all along, but she hadn’t wanted to accept what her training implied. “So we have to leave them stranded uptime, maybe even dead, just because they might bring back information from the future? Ma’am, if anyone can be trusted not to reveal prochronistic knowledge—”
“Yes, I know. No one is more responsible than Agents Lucsly and Dulmur. But, by the same token, they would be the first to agree that they cannot be allowed to return and risk some inadvertent contamination to the timestream.”
“And who defines what counts as contamination? Ma’am, our history has been shaped by uptime intervention and knowledge before.”
“But our Accordist partners in the future have their history as well, and that is the history that would be endangered should Lucsly and Dulmur return. They have as much right to want their version of the timeline protected as we do.”
“So we strand our best agents up there out of, what, professional courtesy?”
“Agent Garcia,” Andos went on, her sharper tone puncturing Garcia’s swelling anger, “you have not yet had occasion to learn how much we depend on the cooperation—and, to a large extent, the indulgence—of our uptime counterparts. We are by far the junior partners in that relationship, despite being very much their seniors in linear terms. We are barely even qualified to make a decision with such impact upon them, let alone entitled to do so.”
Andos softened. “Agents Lucsly and Dulmur have served the Department faithfully for a large portion of their lives, and their impact on our temporal security has been immeasurable. It will be a terrible blow to lose them. But we cannot honor their legacy unless we accept the necessity of their loss.
“Let us take comfort in the probability that the agents will still be active in a future century and, if possible, will continue the good fight to preserve the most natural flow of history—perhaps with far more potent resources than they had access to in our time. We, in the meantime, will simply have to carry on without them as best we can, and strive to live up to their example.”
After a respectful silence, Andos straightened. “You’ve done exemplary work there, Agents, but your work is concluded. Please return to headquarters for debriefing, after which counseling will be available.
Download
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
Sita - Warrior of Mithila (Book 2 of the Ram Chandra Series) by Amish(53778)
The Crystal Crypt by Dick Philip K(36403)
Cat's cradle by Kurt Vonnegut(14729)
Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han(14446)
Ready Player One by Cline Ernest(13947)
The Last by Hanna Jameson(9779)
Year One by Nora Roberts(9279)
Persepolis Rising by James S. A. Corey(8938)
The remains of the day by Kazuo Ishiguro(8361)
Never let me go by Kazuo Ishiguro(8276)
Red Rising by Pierce Brown(8229)
Dark Space: The Second Trilogy (Books 4-6) (Dark Space Trilogies Book 2) by Jasper T. Scott(7894)
The handmaid's tale by Margaret Atwood(7424)
The Circle by Dave Eggers(6820)
Frank Herbert's Dune Saga Collection: Books 1 - 6 by Frank Herbert(6678)
The Testaments by Margaret Atwood(6467)
Legacy by Ellery Kane(6377)
Pandemic (The Extinction Files Book 1) by A.G. Riddle(6166)
Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty(5801)
