Disclaimer: No luck with the Super 7 on Friday, so I still don't own Hogan's Heroes. (Probably should have actually bought a ticket - I always forget that.) However, since "Dr. Tall" will be introduced in this chapter, I will take this opportunity to add that he rightly belongs to the late Jack Finney. (If I did own him, "Time and Again" would have been made into a movie by now!) Fans of Jack Finney will not only know who Dr. Tall is now, but will also recognize the speech he gives Kinch. Even though I used different examples, it is almost the exact same speech he gives Simon Morley. (I figure that other people, like me, use the same arguments and even the same words if they're talking about something they have definite views on, and are trying to make the same point again and again.)

Chapter 9

"Cup of coffee?"

Kinch looked up from his seat in the small waiting room. The tall scientist from the interview room stood there, holding two cups of coffee, brandishing one towards him. Kinch took it and said thank you.

The other man sat down on the chair across from him and then stuck out his hand. "Dr. E. E. Danziger."

Kinch shook his hand. "I thought that I wasn't supposed to know who any of you are."

Danziger snorted and waved a large hand dismissively. "Personally, I've always believed that the easiest way to keep something under wraps is not to make it conspicuous by going around and stamping it "Top Secret". Besides, introducing myself seemed only polite." He leaned back, giving every impression that he was simply there to enjoy a casual cup of coffee.

"Do you know if we're going back to our camp soon?" Kinch asked. Morrison, aka Hans Teppel of the Abwehr, might have the clout with Klink to take them away for a few days of "questioning", but things could get hot for all of them if Klink worked up enough guts to pass his suspicions along to General Burkhalter.

"I believe so. The others are finished with Hogan, Newkirk and Lebeau. Their interviews were naturally a lot shorter than yours and Sergeant Carter's, and I don't think we have any more physicals or psychological tests scheduled."

"Thank heavens for that," Kinch said with feeling. "What exactly was all that for anyway?"

Danziger smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry if we were a bit overzealous, but you have to understand, here we have a man who has purportedly travelled through time, another who is - in some fashion - aware of a different reality, and three men who are supposed to be dead. You can perhaps see how anxious we might be for any evidence that could lead to an explanation." Kinch frowned, but then reluctantly nodded, admitting to himself that the man had a point.

"However," Danziger continued, "I wanted to talk to you alone before you left." Instinctively, Kinch found himself growing wary.

"Why?" he asked.

Danziger did not come closer - still giving the appearance that they were just speaking casually - but his voice grew much softer. "I may have made an error in judgement - one that may affect you and especially your friend Carter. This morning, after interviewing the Sergeant, I discussed a theory of mine with Dr. Burns - "

"Dr. Burns?"

"Sorry, of course. Dr. Burns was the other scientist in the interview room," Danziger explained. Kinch was surprised at Danziger's revealing another person's name to him. That's not the smartest move you might have made Doctor. Either you've got a real grudge against the military, or you're far more naïve about how the Army works than I would have taken you for, Kinch thought, but said nothing. "In any case Sergeant," Danziger continued, "I spoke of this theory with Dr. Burns in the same way I would with any colleague, as an idea to explore, not thinking that he would take it to anyone before we had proof. But now I have reason to believe that this is exactly what he has done."

"How does this theory affect Carter?"

"My theory is that the machine doesn't work."

"What? After all this - "

"Please Sergeant, you misunderstand me. I do believe that Sergeant Carter went back in time. I just don't believe that he used the machine to do it."

Kinch didn't know what to say. He had no idea of what the man was talking about.

"Sergeant Kinchloe, I've read Stahlecker's notes front to back and back to front, and probably sideways as well, and I think that Herr Stahlecker is exactly what he appears to be - a half mad eccentric with two dozen scattered theories that he's attempting to mash together into one viable idea. You were right when you said that Stahlecker's notes are nothing but a complete jumble. As far as I can see, there is no way that that machine could have worked."

"But then how did Carter do what he did?"

"It's my theory that Sergeant Carter thought himself back to the past."

Oh please God, Kinch thought, nearly two days without sleep is not the time I would have asked to be dealing with a lunatic. "Thought himself back into the past…uh huh," Kinch said. He knew it was rude but he couldn't keep the scepticism out of his voice.

But Danziger didn't seem put out. "Tell me something Sergeant - what day is it?"

"Friday. I think, anyway - I haven't seen daylight for about forty-eight hours."

"What's the date?" Danziger asked, leaning back and lighting a cigarette.

"If it's Friday, I guess it's the twelth."

"What month?"

"Look, what is this? What does this have to do with Carter?" Kinch asked as he put down his empty coffee cup.

Danziger smiled. "Hear me out, I will get to it eventually."

Kinch told himself that it was stupid to trust Danziger. He's playing the sympathetic ear, the man with the friendly warning, in hopes I've got something more to tell and I'll spill it to him. But he couldn't help believing the man. It wasn't just that he was amiable and charismatic - Kinch had been around Robert Hogan long enough to know that traits like that were very handy tools in getting what you wanted from people - no, it was the look he had had in his eyes in the intereview room, Kinch realized. Danziger had believed him. He'd more than believed him, he'd been thrilled. For all that he appeared to be a more composed, logical, down to earth, man of the world than Carter would probably ever be, the light of possibility had shone of of his eyes the same way they did out of Andrew's when he was talking about his explosives.

And suddenly that possibility was catching. "It's January," Kinch answered, intrigued now.

"And the year?"

"1945."

"Yes, yes it is. But how do you know?"

"What do you mean how do I know? Because last year was 1944."

"Forget the calendar, Sergeant. You know how you know? Because of who is president right now. Because you've got a box down in those tunnels of yours that has a switch on it and when you flick it on voices come out of the air. Because you were brought here in a truck, not a horse and buggy. Because women's hemlines are around the knee instead of around the ankle. Because of millions and millions of other reasons, millions of little indications tying you to this century, this decade, this year, even this month and day. Not only out there, but in here," he said, tapping his head. "In here is the important part. Here's where we know what things make it now, and what things don't. We know that, as Americans, we don't have to pay taxes to England anymore. That the Gibson Girl look isn't the latest thing, and hasn't been for a good while. That dinosaurs no longer roam the Earth and Jack the Ripper isn't the threat he once was. Imaginge now, that all of these things are like threads, millions of threads tying us to this place and time."

"So?" Kinch asked.

"So what if you could free yourself from them? Completely forget the present and focus so tightly on the past that you find yourself there?"

"Then you'd be crazy. You might think that you were there, but you really wouldn't be."

"How do you know Sergeant?" Danziger asked calmly.

Kinch thought for a moment. "Well, what about the Amish? They don't use trucks or radios. Amish women don't dress in short skirts. We say they're living in the past, but they aren't really. You can drive to Pennsylvania and see them."

"True. But they only ignore the present, they aren't completely unaware of it."

"Still…" Kinch protested. He didn't know how to argue with the man. "So then how did Carter forget two months of it?" he asked, trying a different approach. "And if that's all it took, don't you think other people would have tried? I mean no offence, but don't you think that in that case the past be filled with people trying to stop the deaths of their friends and loved ones? What could possibly have allowed Carter to think himself back in time when no one else has ever been able to?"

"As to no one else, I'm not so sure about that. There are some signs out there, some bits of evidence that I've gathered over the past few years that says it has happened - though I think the chances of it working for a specific individual are extremely high. God knows, it might only work for one in a hundred million. But in Sergeant Carter's case, I think the answer is quite simple." Danziger raised four fingers, "One, he believed in Stahlecker's notes and he was in what he firmly believed was a working time machine, which left his mind not only open to the possibility of time travel, but full of conviction that it would actually work. Two, he had a purpose that he desperately wanted to achieve, lending him even more focus and drive to get to that night. Three, his grief over his friends indelibly seared the details of the night they died into his memory. And four, that same grief meant that he was probably doing everything possible to forget the two months in between that night and the night he used the machine."

Kinch shook his head. "I'm sorry Doctor, but I still can't believe this. Using a machine to go back into the past is hard enough to accept. There are days when I don't believe that, even though I know that it happened. But the idea that Carter did nothing more than think himself back…no, I'm sorry, that's completely ridiculous."

Danziger leaned close and lowered his voice even further. "Sergeant, as you yourself said to us - I'm not here to prove anything. I'll admit to you right now that I have absolutely no way of knowing for certain what really happened. This is just a theory of mine, and one that you don't have to believe. But what I'm trying to do is to tell you that your friend may be in danger because of it."

"Why?"

"Because as long as the military thinks it's possible to make Stahlecker's machine work, then they don't need Sergeant Carter, and probably would be more than happy to keep him out of it and use their own people. But if they can't get it to work…"

"Then they'll want him."

"Yes."

--96--

After Danziger had left, Kinch leaned over and turned off the lamp on the table. He realized that sitting alone in the dark was a little odd, but somehow looking at his thoughts in the bleak artificial light made them worse.

He remembered the last time he had sat in the dark - the night Carter had been brought back after identifying Lebeau's body. After talking briefly to the others, he had come into the Colonel's quarters and had turned off the light because it had been too hard to look at all of the Colonel's things: his jacket, his cap, the coffeepot they had all stood around so many times. Darkness was easier.

He had sat down beside Carter on the bottom bunk. Kinch had thought that if Carter was going to break down, he could at least spare him the embarrassment of doing it in front of everyone, and if Carter needed to talk it out, then he could spare the others all of the painful details.

But Carter hadn't said anything, hadn't done anything, had only sat there looking broken and defeated - a look that Kinch had never expected to see on him. Kinch had felt helpless, wondering what to say. In the end, he too had remained silent, unable to offer his friend any consolation because he knew none would help. Day after day he had gone on, because that was what the others needed him to do, but inside he felt gutted, hollowed out by grief, not just for his friends, but for what they had had together. It was like everything they had done together these past few years had been blasted to dust along with that bridge; simply obliterated and then wiped clean. It was hard to believe that there had ever been a point to it all, not when it could all be erased by a stupid accident. He couldn't have imagined it - that the Germans would never find out and yet it would still all be taken from them.

Eventually Kinch had felt Carter's head loll against his shoulder as the sedative Wilson had given him had kicked in. Kinch had eased him down onto the bunk, and then moved to the chair at the Colonel's table so that he could be close by. He had spent the rest of the night there, staring into the quiet night and thinking about how quickly things could change.

"We didn't pull it off," he thought, unaware that he had spoken out loud.

"What?" a voice said, and suddenly the main light switch by the door flipped on and he was back in the waiting room.

Kinch jumped in surprise, blinking against the light. "Jeez, Colonel! Give a fella some warning next time."

"Sorry Kinch. But what are you doing here sitting in the dark?" the Colonel asked, walking up to stand in front of his radioman.

"Nothing sir. Just thinking."

"I see," Hogan nodded, his eyes never leaving Kinch's. It was a simple tone, one that would have had the other three already stammering out an explanation, but Kinch didn't fall for it quite as easily. He said nothing and after a few moments Hogan sighed and sat down next to him. Kinch smiled to himself as he saw his Colonel realize that, in this case, he was actually going to have to ask.

"So what's wrong?"

"Nothing really sir." Kinch thought about how to explain it. "I guess I was just thinking about how this time we didn't pull it off."

"What do you mean?"

"We always pulled it off before. Always. Sure, sometimes it was at the last minute, but still, we always managed to find a way. But this time… I don't know. I was thinking about the night I sat with Carter in your quarters, after he had had to identify Lebeau, and I remember thinking about how different it was."

"Different?"

Kinch squeezed the bridge of his nose, suddenly very tired. When he went on, his voice was softer. "Other times, when someone wasn't there, we were always worried, wondering about what had gone wrong, what was happening to him, how we were going to find him. Then the three of you were gone, but it was different. Because I knew. Because there was no hope. Because there would be no getting you back. You were all gone for good, and there was nothing I could do." He looked up. "I still remember that feeling Colonel. I mean, I know you're all here now, but I can still…" He broke off; there was no real way he could make his friend truly understand.

"And why are you here?" Kinch went on. "Not because we pulled off some scheme in the nick of time. For over two months it was all over, and now suddenly it's not. All because of some machine! Not because we were smart, or because we worked hard. We needed that damn machine to change what happened, instead of avoiding the trouble in the first place, like we've always done before."

"And that bothers you?"

"It bothers me because we can hardly count on having the same luck again!" Kinch exclaimed suddenly. "It didn't work out this time! We're only all safe and sound because of the intervention of some miracle that's so preposterous that it's ridiculous!" He looked Colonel Hogan in the eye. "And so I keep asking myself: What happens the next time?"

Hogan stood and smiled as he placed his hand on his best friend's shoulder. "You know, I think all of you are looking at this the wrong way. You and Carter, still scarred by grief. Newkirk, and even Lebeau a little I think, still obsessing about what should or shouldn't be. It's going to be hard for all of you - I know because it was hard for me - but you need to start looking ahead. What's in front of us is more important than what's behind. How can you avoid what's coming if you're not looking in the right direction to see it? And I have to say, there's a big part of me that's encouraged by all of this."

"Encouraged?"

"Look Kinch, think of it this way: the odds of a time machine just dropping out of the sky exactly when we need it are - you're right - miraculous to the point of being ridiculous. As far as I'm concerned, that means it can't be coincidence. So I figure that someone out there - God or Fate or whatever - must want us to succeed awfully badly. And even if that's not true, remember this: we've still got each other to depend on, each of us willing to do not just the possible to save each other, but apparently the impossible as well." Hogan patted him on the shoulder as Kinch thought about this. "Trust me Kinch," he finished, "I think we'll be fine."

Now, the nice thing to do would be to end it here. However, there is another chapter. I don't think you'll like it, but I can post it if you want me to. I'll let you decide.