CNN, and ten minutes later we get them in the Golem history variation data.”
“It’s all still in play,” said Paul. “We have a nexus open here now, and that Russian ship is creating one as well. The longer Argos Fire remains in the past, the greater the likelihood that a nexus will form around that ship as well. In fact, that has probably already happened.”
“I still don’t see how this single Russian warship can wreak such havoc,” said Maeve. “How in the world will we operate to cure this? It’s catastrophic damage to the continuum. And now we learn of these physical rifts in time, yet we have no idea what caused them.”
“Fairchild knew more than she was telling me,” said Paul. “Once Kelly runs his numbers, I’ll get back there and find out all I can. They clearly have information that we’ve been unable to turn up.”
“Alright,” said Maeve. “The keys are at the heart of this. You seem to think that ship was there to look for the very same key you were after. This Fairchild woman knew about it, and she also had yet another key in her possession. That makes her a very suspicious character in my book. I’d go so far as to suspect she might even be an operative from the future.”
“She said nothing of that,” said Paul. “But I’ll take the matter up with her when I get to the meeting in the Azores. Yet one thing struck me. She used terminology right out of my own lexicon on time travel—Grand Finality.”
“She used that exact terminology?” asked Maeve.
“Yes! I even told her I was the one who first coined the phrase. Now look—no one in the past would know of that, and only we know of that in our time. Correct? So if this woman used that term, then she had to hear it from someone—”
“In the future,” said Maeve with equal finality. “Alright. You’ve convinced me we have work to do here, particularly after what you said about these natural time fissures. What would happen if they continue to develop?”
“Who can say,” said Paul, “but it will not be pleasant. Think of it like cracks spreading slowly through glass, or a mirror, and here we are peering into that looking glass, seeing a reflection of the history in all this data we collect. In the beginning the glass holds, the mirror still reflects properly with only mild distortion. But, as they progress, things get worse. The glass weakens, and at any moment it could completely fail. The mirror becomes so riddled with fissures that everything it reflects is now badly distorted. See what I mean? Grand Finality. We’ve seen that time has the ability to smooth over some minor alterations—like that variation Robert turned up concerning Marshall Ney. There were no consequences—no cracks forming from that event. Yet time can only take so much punishment. Operations in the past create circumstances that may be very stressful. Perhaps even the annihilating power of Paradox cannot account for these things, or prevent permanent damage to the continuum. Once that happens, it can spread, progress, become fatal. Then, all at once, like the sudden triggering of an earthquake, the glass shatters, the mirror breaks, and then when we look, we see nothing at all. That’s a Grand Finality. Time simply ceases to function as we have known it.”
“The ambassadors from the future reported odd things happening,” said Maeve. “They wouldn’t say much, but it was clear to me that it was causing them great distress, and they did not know how to handle it. If something as powerful as Paradox cannot cure this, then what chance do we have?” She gave him a frustrated look, the anguish obvious on her face.
“I know how you feel, Maeve,” he said, “But we have to try. We might be able to do some good here. Perhaps these keys were an attempt by future generations to try and stem the damage, and halt the progression of these natural time rifts. We have no idea how long it might take them to spread to a fatal failure state. In fact, we have no idea how far off their future is.”
Maeve nodded, realizing there was nothing more they could do but try. They had a functioning Arch complex, and fuel to operate. A nexus point was open here and they were all standing in the center of that maelstrom. So her steely logic pressed forward, girded for battle.