TW04 The Zenda Vendetta NEW by Simon Hawke Read Free Book Online Page A

and with Mongoose, who’s been involved with us on more than one occasion in the past, specifically on that 17th-century adjustment. Five: I happen, just
    ‘coincidentally,’ to resemble both Rudolf Rassendyll and King Rudolf of Ruritania, who are principal parties in the historical scenario the Timekeepers have disrupted. Possibly, they discovered this resemblance by accident and acted because of it, but there are
still
too many coincidences interrelating here to be dismissed as a random progression of events.”
    “So you’re suggesting that it’s the Fate Factor at work?” said Forrester.
    “It has to be. Remember that old story about how a kingdom was lost for want of a horseshoe nail?
    All it takes is one seemingly insignificant action to set in motion a cause-and-effect chain that will eventually lead to one significant event. Trying to analyze such a situation in terms of temporal inertia practically erases the line between physics and metaphysics. It’s what finally drove Mensinger to kill himself. He realized that the whole thing is like a house of cards. Sooner or later, it’s bound to collapse under its own weight and all it takes is just one card to start the whole thing falling.”
    “But none of our actions have ever been temporally insignificant,” said Lucas. “We’ve even faced a timestream split before and managed to adjust for it successfully.”
    “Yeah, so far as we know,” said Finn. “The point I’m trying to make is that Mensinger’s theories refer to Fate in a literal fashion only obliquely. That’s because complete objectivity is impossible under any circumstances. It goes back to Heisenberg’s Principle. An observer of any phenomenon can’t get away from his subjective relationship to it merely by being there to observe it. Any action we take in Plus or Minus Time is a causal manifestation of our subjective relationship to the timestream.”
    “You’ve lost me,” said Andre.
    “Let me attempt to translate Delaney’s verbosity into layman’s terms,” said Forrester. “What he’s saying is that the Fate Factor governs not only the end result of any adjustment to the timestream, but it also governs the actions of those effecting the adjustment.”
    “Only in this case,” said Finn, “we seem to be confronted with a situation that’s eschatological in its implications. We may have adjusted for a split before, but now we’ve got the potential for a massive rupture on our hands. And what makes matters even worse is that all we’ve got to work from in terms of intelligence is some sort of drawing-room novel written in the 19th century. Without access to those diaries that Hawkins allegedly worked from, we have no way of knowing what really happened. The TIA is in no position to give us any help. Besides, even if they managed to get their hands on those diaries in time, we’d still only have Rassendyll’s word for what actually happened. He could easily have embellished the story for his own sake.”
    “I’ll agree that the element of uncertainty in this scenario is very large,” said Lucas, “but at least we know what the result was. History records a King Rudolf the Fifth on the throne of Ruritania, and Rassendyll obviously managed to get back to London in one piece to write about it in his diaries.
    Whatever it was he did, he was successful.”
    “Not any more he wasn’t,” said Finn. “I trust we have access to this novel Hawkins wrote?”
    “It will be included in the mission programming,” said Forrester.
    “Good. We’ll need all the help that we can get. We’re looking destiny squarely in the face here. The Fate Factor is trying to compensate and
we’re
a part of it!”
    “I wonder if the Timekeepers realize that?” said Lucas.
    “I wonder if they care?” said Forrester. “Their so-called movement has been effectively destroyed.
    There can only be a handful of them left. Can you think of a better note to go out on than having brought about