Necessary Evil (Milkweed)
Ian Tregillis
Language: English
Pages: 384
ISBN: 0765321521
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
12 May 1940. Westminster, London, England: the early days of World War II.
Again.
Raybould Marsh, one of "our" Britain's best spies, has travelled to another Earth in a desperate attempt to save at least one timeline from the Cthulhu-like monsters who have been observing our species from space and have already destroyed Marsh's timeline. In order to accomplish this, he must remove all traces of the supermen that were created by the Nazi war machine and caused the specters from outer space to notice our planet in the first place.
His biggest challenge is the mad seer Gretel, one of the most powerful of the Nazi creations, who has sent a version of herself to this timeline to thwart Marsh. Why would she stand in his way? Because she has seen that in all the timelines she dies and she is determined to stop that from happening, even if it means destroying most of humanity in the process. And Marsh is the only man who can stop her.
Necessary Evil is the stunning conclusion to Ian Tregillis's Milkweed series.
think of that at the time.” “I was just the tiniest bit preoccupied at the time.” “This is damn troubling.” “They’re only men, sir. What about Lorimer’s gadget? That would bugger them nicely, to hear him tell it.” The Scot had been more than a little annoyed when he learned that Marsh’s efforts had obviated the pixies before they ever saw use in the field. He was proud of his creation, and he wanted to stick one to the Führer. “And I think it would cheer him a bit.” Stephenson said, “Perhaps
same sense of something vast and ancient watching her from outside the time lines. Every exploration of the future—discarding, as always, the branches that end prematurely when she is shot, strangled, struck by lightning—ends with her tumbling into that abyss. Ends with a darkness so complete that even her fearless heart quails before it. Again and again and again and again she tries. But there is no avoiding this destiny. She learns what she can. The demons are called Eidolons. They are
hooted in St. James’ while I extricated myself from the hawthorn. Several minutes of cursing earned my freedom along with a bevy of fresh scratches. They bled freely as I staggered across Horse Guards to the park. Footing was precarious; many of the city’s parks had been turned over to gardening and home defense. I took a tumble in a trench that had probably been dug for the sake of filling sandbags. My head throbbed in time with the pulse of sweat down my temples. Another wave of nausea
of them. I already looked and sounded like the old bastards. Today I carried a carpetbag. Easy enough, as long as Will didn’t see me. Stephenson and Lorimer, too, for that matter, since they’d have recognized me based on Will’s description from our encounter in the park. But, if I knew John Stephenson, he’d be with Will and the others. He’d want to be there when the Eidolons located my doppelgänger. Lorimer, on the other hand, wouldn’t come within a quarter mile of the negotiations if he could
counteroffer, refusal, counter-counteroffer, refusal. Will saw, in the part of his mind that could still think rationally, how the experts struggled to reduce the blood price for such a simple act. Left on his own, this negotiation would have cost far more than a fingertip. What would happen when they asked for more than simple information? When they started fighting a war? Agreement: A single blood map, but new and unknown. Will beckoned to Stephenson. He coughed. “It must see new blood.” To