The final installment.

Outside The Sheep’s Head, December 3, 1903, 8:15 p.m.

Werner was afraid that he had frightened Dr. Reed with all that talk about murder and the end of the world. It didn’t matter. Soon enough the assistant professor would chalk it up to too much wine and forget all about it. What he’d said was still true, though. Someday he would have to answer for it. In the meanwhile, the air was crisp and smelled like trees, which was getting rarer and rarer nowadays, and the stars outside were beautiful. Just outside the reach of the restaurant lights he stopped to look up at them.

A blow to his chest knocked all the air out of him and flung him against a wall. The man who wrestled him to a standstill was too strong to be a beggar, though there was madness in his eyes and it looked like he hadn’t cut his hair in years. Something long and thin prickled at Werner’s neck.

“An island! An island in the Pacific Ocean! Do you even realize how long it took me to figure out what hemisphere I was in?”

Werner gasped, trying to get his breath back. He would have liked to put a hand to his throat but they were both being held down.

“Longer than I expected,” he said as soon as he could manage it. “You’re not the brightest bulb, are you?”

“I’m going to kill you!” The man growled and dug the knife in deeper. Werner winced, but that was all. His attacker looked confused. “Well? Aren’t you going to beg?”

“Why should I? I’ve already had my fun. My life’s been an anticlimax for years.”

The knife slackened. Then the man seemed to remember himself and punched Werner, then shoved him so hard he sprawled onto the icy concrete.

“Yes,” said Werner, not trying to get up. He’d bitten his tongue on the way down and now tasted blood in his mouth. He wanted to laugh, though this was the last possible place for something like that. “You know, I was going to send you to the moon, Albert.”

Albert, who’d been poised to kick him, lowered his boot. “What?”

“Or deep space, or the middle of an iceberg. I had to interrupt the show to change it at the last minute. I still don’t know why I did that.”

There was no reply. No blows came for a while, so Dr. Werner sat up painfully. Albert was standing over him, watching.

“You’ve ruined my life.”

“Oh, yes,” Werner nodded, rubbing his head. “It was quite unfair. The arrangement still holds, you know. If you survive the experience, you’re a free man.”

“God damn it!” Albert flung the knife to the ground and kicked it. “I was going to kill you! All those nights sleeping on rocks, it was the only thing keeping me going…”

“Then do it, already.”

There was a long pause. “I really did you a favor, didn’t I? You got to feel so pleased with yourself, being the wronged one.” He squatted on the ground and rubbed his head. “Now what are we going to do?”

The Sheep’s Head, December 3, 1903, 7:35 p.m.

Dr. Werner had developed a habit of going to the Sheep’s Head for dinner in the past few years. It had nice wood walls, well-lit, didn’t see a lot of riffraff of the city but wasn’t too expensive, either. Since his famous lab accident he’d gotten to working in the lab at all hours, and, well, it was not much of a surprise that he was still a bachelor. He had moved on to other projects than the teleportation machine, of course. It had been too spectacular a failure, too public, to continue the work. It was only because he’d had such a solid reputation at the University that he’d been allowed to keep his job at all. Oh, well.

He scissored away at a veal cutlet across the table from one Dr. Reed, a very new assistant professor who’d barely been added on to the University the year before last. Werner had taken him under his wing so the department would not eat him alive. He had some very promising ideas about the nature of the atom. Werner sighed to himself. He was getting old, wasn’t he? All the good ideas were coming from somebody else now.

“I just received the latest Rutherford paper about radioactivity,” Reed was saying. “He thinks it happens in a mathematically predictable manner. The hazards of the work are enormous, of course, but if the burns–“

“Have you ever done something you regretted, Klaus?”

His friend was so startled by the sudden change of subject that his train of thought stalled. It took him several seconds to decide what to say. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, just an idle thought.” Werner paused, looking at the color of his drink by the light. “Probably brought up by all this talk about radioactivity. We live in dangerous times. The physicists are on the verge of making actual progress in the field. We’re scientists, we’re supposed to be pure, right? Knowledge for its own sake.”

“I should hope so,” said Reed, with a puzzled look.

Then Dr. Werner brought up what would have looked like another non sequitur. “Have you noticed how the great powers don’t do anything but shake their swords at each other anymore? They’re wound up so tight that they will absolutely have to fight each other. Maybe not next year, maybe not for another ten years. But when it comes, it’s going to be the end of the world.”

“You’re acting very strangely tonight, and I wonder if we had not better go home right now.” Reed very nearly stood up from the table. “All this talk about the end of the world. Europe is a civilized place. A few wars would help to blow off steam.”

“That’s because you haven’t seen war, my friend. War is hell.” He put his drink back down. “They left me for dead, you know.”

Dr. Reed gave up his plan to leave the table and blinked. “The German unification?”

“I had to crawl all the way back to camp with a couple of French bullets in my ribs. I was furious with them for it and nursed a grudge for decades.”

“I didn’t realize you were a war hero.”

At that Werner laughed. “There aren’t any heroes in a game like that. Every year the powers develop ever more sophisticated ways of killing each other. And we scientists unwittingly serve them. There is a lot of energy inside an atom. The year we figure out how to get it out, that is when the end of the world will come.”

Reed was beginning to look really frightened. “We work for peaceful purposes!”

“The teleportation machine works!”

“But it was a disaster. And begging your pardon, Dr. Werner, but your career–“

“It works perfectly, on rats and humans. I’ve done it on myself many times. What a miraculous technology, right? We could move food and products across the ocean in the blink of an eye. Troops. We could teleport a bomb into the inside of a certain world leader’s home… But you know how these things go. I had an accident. The machine was a dismal failure, it got put on a shelf, and everybody forgot about it.” He paused to sip from his drink, seeming to remember things from long ago. “I shall have to answer for that someday. Somehow I thought it would be more fun.”

He really shouldn’t have done that, Werner thought. Not out of any fear of getting arrested – it was quite impossible – but the poor assistant professor looked just about ready to flee the restaurant.

Reed calmed himself. “Dr. Werner,” he said finally, looking the older doctor intently in the eyes. “You must tell me something in the utmost of confidence. Have you murdered that convict who disappeared?”

Werner gave that some consideration before he answered. “Probably not. It depends on how smart he is. But with every year that goes by, I think more and more that I have.”

Heidelberg University Square, August 12, 1897, 10:10 a.m.

“Dr. Werner, are you all right?”

The doctor started at the sound of the constable’s voice. In his head he’d been somewhere else entirely, going over bloody events from long ago. He came to himself a little and turned. The constable who was assisting him with his experiment had climbed up onto the platform. Down in the square, somebody had called the rest of the police and they were doing their best to escort the audience out in an orderly fashion.

“Hmm?”

“I said that I think I’d better escort you home. You must be shaken.”

“Oh, yes,” Dr. Werner said, as if just realizing what they were talking about. “What a terrible accident.”

To be continued…

Gravelotte, August 18, 1870, 9:45p.m.

It was a losing battle in the middle of a winning war. Albert’s platoon had retreated to the ridgetop for the night, hopefully to lick their wounds and attack the French again in the morning. No fires, of course. Wouldn’t want any of them to get seen from down the hill. Every once in a while sporadic shooting broke out, and they all jumped, but the fighting had mostly died down for the night.

He’d never dare say to his superiors that it was a badly conceived idea to attack the French flank with only a couple of divisions, but he could feel it all that he liked. That day kept rattling around his skull no matter what he did. The French artillery pits. So many of his men dying. And the fear. War, it forced you to do things that were inexcusable if they happened anywhere else. But with war you had reasons.

He knew he’d never be able to stand the sight of the inside of his eyelids tonight, so he sat, awake and alone, on the edge of the encampment, staring out into the dark. It was healthy to keep a certain distance from the regular soldiers. Familiarity breeds contempt, and that would be the end to organization in the Prussian king’s army. The air was muggy. It was pitch black down the hill, but he knew the remains of the battlefield were down there.

The soft crunch of feet treading on the grass. Somebody was out there. Albert froze. A person or a creature moving around unseen outside their camp, erratically by the sound of it, stumbling at one point with a soft grunt, then the feet trudging forward again. Albert knew he ought to raise the alarm, but he didn’t. It was unreasonable, totally unreasonable, the idea that had just gripped him. But still he couldn’t bring himself to make a noise. The scouts would find out soon enough without help.

They did. There was sudden confusion in the camp of just-woken soldiers stumbling about without lights. Then somebody got a lantern on. Albert stepped forward; he needed to get that thing turned off and bawl Ackerman out before it gave away their position to the French. Godard had his rifle pointed out into the darkness down the hill. The thing out there had stopped momentarily. Then it started moving again.

It must be wounded, surely, to be traveling so slowly. A wounded man. No, it was impossible. Albert was imagining things, because of the awful memory of that afternoon. Godard used the sound to aim into the dark.

Yes. Yes, just shoot him, shoot him and get it over with…

“Wait!” Ackerman grabbed Godard’s arm. The creature got far enough into the light of the lantern to be recognized. It was one Franz Werner, common soldier, whom everyone knew to have been killed on the battlefield today. He was staggering and clutching his bloodied side.

“Mein Gott!”

One man lost control of his wits entirely. “He’s come back to take revenge on us all!”

“No, you idiot, he’s alive,” said a more practical one. “Somebody get the medic!”

The men had to act by themselves. All this time Albert was failing to command them, because he was unable to speak. There was his mistake, staring him in the face. Franz, having accomplished the goal that was holding him together, collapsed and passed out. His compatriots rushed around to help him. Nobody was any the wiser. Nobody knew, and Albert’s job was not in danger. They would think it was a perfectly honest mistake.

Unless Franz recovered, and he chose to tell…

“Sir?” It was Ackerman. He must have noticed that Albert had been doing nothing for several minutes. “Sir, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Gravelotte, August 18, 1870, 4:03p.m.

The battle was going wrong. Their infantry platoon had been sent to cut off the French from the side, so the king’s armies could continue their steamrolling advance into Gallic territory. It was a strategy that had worked all summer. But something was wrong out there, and Albert’s platoon found itself outnumbered two to one and isolated from the rest of the Prussian Army, and the French were slaughtering them out there.

Albert couldn’t take it. He never should have taken a military career. But that’s what you had to do to get ahead, wasn’t it? He should have been a clerk. Could have been. Rifle fire. Death all around. The smell of blood. Fear for the men of his platoon, but above all, in a dark corner of his mind, there was the fear that he was going to get shot.

So it was then that Albert decided, without consulting his superiors, to order a retreat.

Word got out and the men started turning around. He would get exonerated for this in the end, surely. They could not do any good here, and to stay longer would only get more soldiers killed. Soldiers who could serve the Prussian state better if they lived, and fought in another battle. They fled.

In that disorganized charge back up the hill to the safety of the ridge Albert didn’t look back to see if the French were chasing. There were so many corpses they couldn’t run in a straight line for dodging them. He stepped on a stuck-out foot, and heard a groan.

It was one of their own. Franz Werner, common soldier. He vaguely recalled the man’s name, but didn’t remember that he had ever distinguished himself for anything. Shot in the ribs, but still alive.

He’d have to get some of the men to carry him and see what they could do for him once they were safe. Albert looked back. The French looked like they was about to give chase. Carrying a wounded man would slow them down considerably. And if they got caught – there would be even more lives lost.

For someone who– He might be going to die anyway, right?

Two men of his platoon saw that their commander had stopped, and they stopped, too, though he knew they would have liked to keep running. Ackerman looked at him questioningly.

“I found Franz,” he said, by way of an explanation.

Franz was still semiconscious despite the shot. He moved his head a little and looked up at him. Asking for help.

Albert swallowed. “He’s already dead. Let’s get out of here.”

Second Floor of the Natural Sciences Building, August 9, 1897, 2:30 p.m.

Dr. Werner’s laboratory was a dusty and ill-lit room, mostly full of books. There were shelves of them, stacked badly, and scattered among the books were clipped-together chunks of a manuscript the doctor kept meaning to write about the structure of the atom. On balance it didn’t look like a physics laboratory at all: not with the bad light and the cages of rats, a whole wall full of them. The doctor also had a habit of collecting things that his naturalist friends gave him and displaying them in jars of preservative. His laboratory was decorated exactly the way he wanted it.

Right now, Albert was sitting on a cleared-off space on a table in the middle of the room (he’d had to push aside some electrical equipment whose function the doctor alone knew) and Dr. Werner was listening to his heart with a stethoscope.

“Just some routine tests. The procedure is completely safe, but we wouldn’t want you to get hurt, would we?” His ironic tone was quite obvious.

Albert just sat there with a horrified expression.

Dr. Werner removed the stethoscope and smiled. “It’s been a long time, Commander.”

Still no response from Albert.

“What? Is something the matter?”

“Franz, I’m sorry!” he burst out. He covered his face.

“I’m not. Not at all. They told me you were court-martialed for cowardice in battle,” Dr. Werner said, as if making small talk. “That’s appropriate, isn’t it?”

“I swear, I’m going to call this whole thing off! I didn’t know the doctor was going to be you!”

Dr. Werner fell into a chair with a satisfied sigh. “Oh, it’s just too wonderful.”

Albert looked defiant. “You’re going to kill me now, aren’t you? All right, get it over with.”

“No. Not now. When you land in my lap like this, it’s more proof that a just God rules the universe. This is going to take planning.” He became very still. The rats rustled in their cages. “I’m going to make you feel the way I felt in 1870.”

Albert looked mortified. “Franz, I really am sorry. It was wrong.”

“Then you should have told them I was still alive!”

Heidelberg Prison, August 9, 1897, 1:45 p.m.

The jailer was making conversation while he led Dr. Werner through the prison cells. It should have been a disturbing experience for a gentleman such as him, the sunken faces, the cries, and that all-pervasive smell. But the doctor followed along with equanimity, listening politely. Prison was far, far less gruesome than some of the sights he had seen earlier in his life, in the Franco-Prussian War.

“He’s really a very well-behaved prisoner,” the jailer was saying. “When the word came down that you needed a volunteer for your experiment, and that he would be pardoned for his contribution, we immediately thought of him.” He stopped at one of the barred alcoves. “Here we are.”

Dr. Werner stopped abruptly, mouth open. There was his volunteer, sitting on the edge of his cot, chin in his hand and looking gloomy. Their eyes met and the prisoner went pale.

“No.”

“If there’s something wrong we can go with another man,” the jailer said.

Dr. Werner’s mind was racing. He had to choose exactly the right words because he could not, could not allow the prison to replace this man with somebody else. Not when oh, good God, it was Albert who was going to be his volunteer!

“I think … I think he will do just fine,” he said. That was an understatement if there ever was one. “It’s only that … you said he used to be a commander? I am amazed something like this could happen to somebody so high up.”

The jailer gave a curious look to Albert, then to Dr. Werner. “Do you two know each other? I can’t let you go on if you do. It wouldn’t be ethical.”

Albert started to say something, then closed his mouth. Typical of him. He’d been a coward before, and he still was now. He was too afraid of the gallows to back out of the experiment even now – afraid enough to put himself on the doctor’s mercy. This was going to be precious.

“I’ve never seen this man before in my life,” Dr. Werner said flatly.

Heidelberg University Square, August 12, 1897, 10:00 a.m.

Albert, the convict, was having serious second thoughts about the deal he’d worked out with the court. The constable kept trying to get him to climb onto the stage, but he dithered, and the other man was getting quite frustrated with him.

“Do you want to do this or not, man?”

“I – I don’t know.” Albert tugged his hair. It was queer-looking for a man this tall and sturdily built, with red hair and ruddy cheeks, to be acting so distraught. He didn’t move, which was what the constable wanted him to do.

“It’s either onto the stage and whatever awaits you, or back to prison and get in line for the gallows,” he cried. “I haven’t got all day.”

Albert found himself unable to speak. He didn’t dare reveal the real reason he was unsure about this, or they’d never allow him to participate and he’d be hanged for sure. But maybe the experiment was a fate worse than death. Damned if he did and damned if he didn’t, and especially damned if he said anything.

“I don’t trust him!” he burst out finally.

Heidelberg University Square, August 12, 1897, 9:55 a.m.

Three of the workmen were having a difficult time with Dr. Werner’s power amplifier. They stood around the thing, which looked something like a filigree pepper shaker, and tried different angles to pick it up without shattering it to pieces.

“Excuse me, dear fellows.” The doctor pushed past some power cables and approached them. “I apologize for interrupting like this, but I need to make a last-minute adjustment.”

They hopped out of the way with the alacrity of people who were being paid quite a lot to do this job. Dr. Werner knelt by the device, not caring that he risked dragging the tails of his frock coat in the dirt. He delicately changed the settings of a few knobs. Then he pushed himself up, hands on his knees, and dusted himself off.

“Very well. Carry on, then.”

Heidelberg University Square, August 12, 1897, 10:04 a.m.

It was hot. Morning light hit the trees on the edge of the street up with an ambery gleam through the heavy, motionless air. People crowded together in the square despite the heat, accidentally elbowing each other in most unladylike and ungentlemanlike ways, and some enterprising boys had even climbed up onto the rooftops to see. Practically everybody in the city of Heidelberg (and quite a few people had traveled in from other cities to see this, too) wanted to see the celebrated Dr. Werner and one of his physics experiments.

The experiment was running a few minutes late. The doctor was already on stage, but around him workmen were still hauling things up and setting connections. The audience was getting restless. They didn’t understand what the machinery was all for and they’d already been waiting here an hour. The one thing they did understand was the wire mesh cage directly behind the doctor, as big as a man. It had to be for something.

Dr. Werner seemed totally unaffected by the heat and the crowd’s impatience. He was an affable man in a rather out-of-date frock coat, veering towards forty-five. His unimpressive appearance belied his amazing accomplishments. He’d looked inside atoms, built new weapons for the Kaiser, lectured in England and given interesting ideas to a promising young graduate student by the name of Ernest Rutherford. He had a civil Pour le Mérite.
He clapped his hands, and the crowd went silent.

“Thank you all for honoring this demonstration with your attention,” he said. “Lately I have been doing research, with the help of the university, into the nature of teleportation, that is, the moving of objects over great distances. This procedure is completely safe – I have done the same experiment many times on rats and never so much as harmed a fur on their head. I was going to do this first public demonstration myself, but the university has managed to convince me otherwise, since, indeed, it has never been done on a human being before.”

The people gathered in the square were all ears. Somewhere a baby cried.

“They have provided me with a volunteer.”

That was the cue for a pair of police officers to lead a man in prison drab up onto the stage. He looked extremely nervous, sweating too much even for this weather.

“He assuredly will survive the demonstration. When he does, he will receive a full pardon in honor of his contributions to science.”

Somehow the volunteer didn’t seem very voluntary at all. Dr. Werner, on the other hand, was enjoying himself thoroughly. Public demonstrations of science were nine parts theater anyway, and he was building up to the big reveal.

“I am going to move this man across the square. He will step into the cage here,” he indicated it with a flourish, “and when I activate the apparatus, he will move to that spot there.” He pointed to an area at the back of the square that had been kept onlooker free with ropes.

He turned to the convict. “Are you ready?”

The man didn’t answer. He gave the doctor a stony look.

The policemen conducted him into the cage. Dr. Werner pushed a button. Not one of those heavy, sparking levers it took both hands to throw down that you’d see in magic shows. Just a button, painted black, hardly noticeable. Theater, at times, took subtlety.

The volunteer seemed to have changed his mind at the last minute about being a volunteer. He lifted his arm as if to ward something off.

“Wait!”

He vanished.

There was a rustle as everybody in the square turned around in a half circle. They eyed the roped-off place where the convict was supposed to appear and waited. The seconds passed by. Seconds passed into minutes.

One of the ladies in the crowd screamed and fainted.