Worlds of Maybe

by Robert Silverberg

  “There need be no trouble at all if we are released and our property returned,” he said.

  “I shall speak to my uncle,” she promised, “but even if I can sway him, he is only one on the Council. The thought of what your weapons could mean if we had them has driven men mad.”

  She rose. Everard clasped her hands, they lay warm and soft in his, and smiled crookedly at her. “Buck up, kid,” he said in English. She shivered and made the hex sign again.

  “Well,” said van Sarawak when they were alone, “what did you find out?” After being told, he stroked his chin and murmured thoughtfully: “That was one sweet little collection of sinusoids. There could be worse worlds than this.”

  “Or better,” said Everard bleakly. “They don’t have atomic bombs, but neither do they have penicillin. It’s not our job to play God.”

  “No . . . no, I suppose not.” The Venusian sighed.

  They spent a restless day. Night had fallen when lanterns glimmered in the corridor and a military guard unlocked the cell. The prisoners’ handcuffs were removed, and they were led silently to a rear exit. A car waited, with another for escort, and the whole troop drove wordlessly off.

  Catuvellaunan did not have outdoor lighting, and there wasn’t much night traffic. Somehow, that made the sprawling city unreal in the dark. Everard leaned back and concentrated on the mechanics of his vehicle. Steam-powered, as he had guessed, burning powdered coal, rubber-tired wheels, a sleek body with a sharp nose and a serpent figurehead; the whole simple to operate but not too well designed. Apparently this world had gradually developed a rule-of-thumb mechanics, but no systematic science worth mentioning.

  They crossed a clumsy iron bridge to Long Island, here as at home a residential section for the well-to-do. Their speed was high despite the dimness of their oil-lamp headlights, and twice they came near having an accident—no traffic signals, and seemingly no drivers who did not hold caution in contempt.

  Government and traffic . . . hm. It all looked French, somehow, and even in Everard’s own Twentieth Century France was largely Celtic. He was no respecter of windy theories about inborn racial traits, but there was something to be said for traditional attitudes so ancient that they were unconsciously accepted. A Western world in which the Celts had become dominant, the Germanic peoples reduced to two small outposts ... Yes, look at the Ireland of home; or recall how tribal politics had queered Vercingetorix’s revolt. . . . But what about Littorn? Wait a minute! In his early Middle Ages, Lithuania had been a powerful state; it had held off Germans, Poles, and Russians alike for a long time, and hadn’t even taken Christianity till the Fifteenth Century. Without German competition, Lithuania might very well have advanced eastward—

  In spite of the Celtic political instability, this was a world of large states, fewer separate nations than Everard’s. That argued an older society. If his own Western civilization had developed out of the decaying Roman Empire about, say, 600 a.d., the Celts in this world must have taken over earlier than that.

  Everard was beginning to realize what had happened to Rome. . . .

  The cars drew up before an ornamental gate set in a long stone wall. There was an interchange with two armed guards wearing the livery of a private estate and the thin steel collars of slaves. The gate was opened, and the cars went along a graveled driveway between trees and lawns and hedgerows. At the far end, almost on the beach, stood a house. Everard and van Sarawak were gestured out and led toward it.

  It was a rambling wooden structure. Gas lamps on the porch showed it painted in gaudy stripes; the gables and beam-ends were carved into dragon heads. Behind it murmured the sea, and there was enough starlight for Everard to make out a ship standing in close—presumably a freighter, with a tall smokestack and a figurehead.

  Light glowed through the windows. A slave butler admitted the party. The interior was paneled in dark wood, also carved, the floors thickly carpeted. At the end of the hall there was a living room with overstuffed furniture, several paintings in a stiff conventional style, and a merry blaze in a great stone fireplace.

  Saorann Cynyth ap Ceorn sat in one chair, Deirdre in another. She laid aside a book as they entered and rose, smiling. The officer puffed a cigar and glowered.

  There were some words swapped, and the guards disappeared. The butler fetched in wine on a tray, and Deirdre invited the Patrolmen to sit down.

  Everard sipped from his glass—the wine was an excellent Burgundy type—and asked bluntly: “Why are we here?”

  Deirdre smiled, dazzlingly this time, and chuckled. “Surely you find it more pleasant than the jail.”

  “Oh, yes. But I still want to know. Are we being released?”

  “You are . . .” She hunted for a diplomatic answer, but there seemed to be too much frankness in her. “You are welcome here, but may not leave the estate. We had hopes you could be persuaded to help us. There would be rich reward.”

  “Help? How?”

  “By showing our artisans and wizards the spells to make more machines and weapons like your own.”

  Everard sighed. It was no use trying to explain. They didn’t have the tools to make the tools to make what was needed, but how could he get that across to a folk who believed in witchcraft?

  “Is this your uncle’s home?” he asked.

  “No,” said Deirdre. “It is my own. I am the only child of my parents, who were wealthy nobles and died last year.”

  Ap Ceorn snapped something, and Deirdre translated with a worried frown: “The tale of your magical advent is known to all Catuvellaunan by now; and that includes the foreign spies. We hope you can remain hidden from them here.”

  Everard, remembering the pranks Axis and Allies had played in little neutral nations like Portugal, shivered. Men made desperate by approaching war would not likely be as courteous as the Afallonians.

  “What is this conflict going to be about?” he inquired.

  “The control of the Icenian Ocean, of course. Particularly, certain rich islands we call Yyns yr Lyon-nach—” Deirdre got up in a single flowing movement and pointed out Hawaii on a globe. “You see,” she went on earnestly, “as I told you, the western countries like Brittys, Gallis, and ourselves, fighting Littorn, have worn each other out. Our domains have shrunken, and the newer states like Huy Braseal and Hinduraj are now expanding and quarreling. They will draw in the lesser nations, for it is not only a clash of ambitions but of systems—the monarchy of Hinduraj and the sun-worshipping theocracy of Huy Braseal.”

  “What is your religion?” asked Everard.

  Deirdre blinked. The question seemed almost meaningless to her. “The more educated people think that there is a Great Baal who made all the lesser gods,” she answered at last, slowly. “But naturally, we pay our respects to the foreign gods too, Littorn’s Perkunas and Czernebog, the Sun of the southerners, Wotan Ammon of Cimberland, and so on. They are very powerful.”

  I see.. . .

  Ap Ceorn offered cigars and matches. Van Sarawak inhaled and said querulously: “Damn it, this would have to be a time line where they don’t speak any language I know.” He brightened. “But I’m pretty quick to learn, even without hypnos. I’ll get Deirdre to teach

  “You and me both,” said Everard hastily. “But listen, Van—” He reported what had been said.

  “Hm.” The younger man rubbed his chin. “Not so good, eh? Of course, if they'd just let us at our scooter, we could take off at once. Why not play along with them?”

  “They're not such fools,” answered Everard. “They may believe in magic, but not in undiluted altruism.” “Funny . . . that they should be so backward intellectually, and still have combustion engines.”

  “No. It's quite understandable. That's why I asked about their religion. It's always been purely pagan; even Judaism seems to have disappeared. As White-head pointed out, the medieval idea of one almighty God was important to science, by inculcating the notion of lawfulness in nature. And Mumford added that the early monasteries
were probably responsible for the mechanical clock—a very basic invention—because of having regular hours for prayer. Clocks seem to have come late in this world.” Everard smiled wryly, but there was a twisting sadness in him. “Odd to talk that way. Whitehead and Mumford never lived. If Jesus did, his message has been lost.”

  “Still—”

  “Just a minute.” Everard turned to Deirdre. “When was Afallon discovered?”

  “By white men? In the year 4827.”

  “Um . . . when does your reckoning start from?” Deirdre seemed immune to further startlement. “The creation of the world—at least, the date some philosophers have given. That is 5959 years ago.”

  4004 b.c. . . . Yes, definitely a Semitic element in this culture. The Jews had presumably gotten their traditional date from Babylon; but Everard doubted that the Jews were the Semites in question here.

  “And when was steam (pnenma) first used to drive engines?”

  “About a thousand years ago. The great Druid Boroihme O’Fiona—”

  “Never mind.” Everard smoked his cigar and mulled his thoughts for a while. Then he turned back to van Sarawak.

  “I’m beginning to get the picture,” he said. “The Gauls were anything but the barbarians most people think. They’d learned a lot from Phoenician traders and Greek colonists, as well as from the Etruscans in Cisalpine Gaul. A very energetic and enterprising race. The Romans, on the other hand, were a stolid lot, with few intellectual interests. There was very little technological progress in our world till the Dark Ages, when the Empire had been swept out of the way.

  “In this history, the Romans vanished early and the Gauls got the power. They started exploring, building better ships, discovering America in the 9th century. But they weren’t so far ahead of the Indians that those couldn’t catch up . . . even be stimulated to build empires of their own, like Huy Braseal today. In the 11th century, the Celts began tinkering with steam engines. They seem to have got gunpowder too, maybe from China, and to have made several other inventions; but it’s all been cut-and-dry, with no basis of real science.”

  Van Sarawak nodded. “I suppose you’re right. But what did happen to Rome?”

  “I’m not sure . . . yet . . . but our key point is back there somewhere.”

  Everard returned to Deirdre. “This may surprise you,” he said smoothly. “Our people visited this world about 2500 years ago. That’s why I speak Greek but don’t know what has occurred since. I would like to find out from you—I take it you’re quite a scholar.”

  She flushed and lowered long dark lashes. “I will be glad to help as much as I can.” With a sudden appeal that cut at his heart: “But will you help us in return?”

  “I don’t know,” said Everard heavily. “I’d like to, but I don’t know if we can.”

  Because after all, my job is to condemn you and your entire world to death.

  When Everard was shown to his room, he discovered that local hospitality was more than generous. He was too tired and depressed to take advantage of it . . . but at least, he thought on the edge of sleep, Van’s slave girl wouldn’t be disappointed.

  They got up early here. From his upstairs window, Everard saw guards pacing the beach, but they didn’t detract from the morning’s freshness. He came down with van Sarawak to breakfast, where bacon and eggs, toast and coffee added the last incongruous note of dream. Ap Ceorn was gone back to town to confer, said Deirdre; she herself had put wistfulness aside and chattered gaily of trivia. Everard learned that she belonged to a dramatic group which sometimes gave plays in the original Greek—hence her fluency; she liked to ride, hunt, sail, swim—“And shall we?” she asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Swim, of course!” Deirdre sprang from her chair on the lawn, where they had been sitting under flame-colored leaves in the wan autumn sunlight, and whirled innocently out of her clothes. Everard thought he heard a dull clunk as van Sarawak’s jaw hit the ground.

  “Come!” she laughed. “Last one in is a Sassenach!”

  She was already tumbling in the cold gray waves when Everard and van Sarawak shuddered their way down to the beach. The Venusian groaned. “I come from a warm planet,” he objected. “My ancestors were Indonesians—tropical birds.”

  “There were some Dutchmen too, weren’t there?” grinned Everard.

  “They had the sense to go to Indonesia.”

  “All right, stay ashore.”

  “Hell! If she can do it, I can!” Van Sarawak put a toe in the water and groaned again.

  Everard summoned up all the psychosomatic control he had ever learned and ran in. Deirdre threw water at him. He plunged, got hold of a slender leg, and pulled her under. They tumbled about for several minutes before running back to the house. Van Sarawak followed.

  “Speak about Tantalus,” he mumbled. “The most beautiful girl in the whole continuum, and I can’t talk to her and she’s half polar bear.”

  Everard stood quiet before the living-room fire, while slaves toweled him dry and dressed him in the local garb. “What pattern is this?” he asked, pointing to the tartan of his kilt.

  Deirdre lifted her ruddy head. “My own clan’s,” she answered. “A house guest is always taken as a clan member during his stay, even if there is a blood feud going on.” She smiled shyly. “And there is none between us, Manslach.”

  It cast him back into bleakness. He remembered what his purpose was.

  “I’d like to ask you about history,” he said. “It is a special interest of mine.”

  She nodded, adjusted a gold fillet on her hair, and got a book from a crowded shelf. “This is the best world history, I think. I can look up details you might wish to know.”

  And tell me what I must do to destroy you. Seldom had Everard felt himself so much a skunk.

  He sat down with her on a couch. The butler wheeled in lunch, and he ate moodily.

  To follow up his notion—“Did Rome and Carthage ever fight a war?”

  “Yes. Two, in fact. They were allied at first, against Epirus. Then they fell out. Rome won the first war and tried to restrict Carthaginian enterprise.” Her clean profile bent over the pages, like a studious child. “The second war broke out twenty-three years later, and lasted . . . hm . . . eleven years all told, though the last three were only mopping up after Hannibal had taken and burned Rome.”

  Ah-hah! Somehow, Everard did not feel happy about it.

  The Second Punic War, or rather some key incident thereof, was the turning point. But—partly out of curiosity, partly because he feared to tip his hand—Everard did not ask for particulars. He’d first have to get straight in his mind what had actually happened, anyway. (No . . . what had not happened. The reality was here, warm and breathing beside him, and he was the ghost.)

  “So what came next?” he inquired tonelessly.

  “There was a Carthaginian Empire, including Spain, southern Gaul, and the toe of Italy,” she said. “The rest of Italy was impotent and chaotic, after the Roman confederacy had been broken up. But the Carthaginian government was too venal to endure; Hannibal himself was assassinated by men who thought him too honest. Meanwhile, Syria and Parthia fought for the eastern Mediterranean, with Parthia winning.

  “About a hundred years after the Punic Wars, some Germanic tribes invaded and conquered Italy.” (Yes . . . that would be the Cimbri, with their allies the Teutones and Ambrones, whom Marius had stopped in Everard’s world.) “Their destructive path through Gaul set the Celts moving too, into Spain and North Africa as Carthage declined; and from Carthage the Gauls learned much.

  “There followed a long period of wars, during which Parthia waned and the Celtic states grew. The Huns broke the Germans in middle Europe, but were in turn scattered by Parthia, so the Gauls moved in and the only Germans left were in Italy and Hyperborea.” (That must be the Scandinavian peninsula.) “As ships improved, there was trade around Africa with India and China. The Celtanians discovered Afallon, which they thought was an island—hence the �
�Ynys’—but were thrown out by the Mayans. The Brittle colonies farther north had better luck, and eventually won their independence.

  “Meanwhile Littorn was growing vastly. It swallowed up central Europe and Hyperborea for a while, and those countries only regained their freedom as part of the peace settlement after the Hundred Years’ War you know of. The Asian countries have shaken off their European masters and modernized themselves, while the Western nations have declined in their turn.” Deirdre looked up. “But this is only the barest outline. Shall I go on?”

  Everard shook his head. “No, thanks.” After a moment: “You are very honest about the situation of your own country.”

  Deirdre shrugged. “Most of us won’t admit it, but I think it best to look truth in the eyes.”

  With a surge of eagerness: “But tell me of your own world. This is a marvel past belief.”

  Everard sighed, turned off his conscience, and began lying.

  The raid took place that afternoon.

  Van Sarawak had recovered himself and was busily learning the Afallonian language from Deirdre. They walked through the garden hand in hand, stopping to name objects and act out verbs. Everard followed, wondering vaguely if he was a third wheel or not, most of him bent to the problem of how to get at the scooter.

  Bright sunlight spilled from a pale cloudless sky. A maple stood like a shout of scarlet, and a drift of yellow leaves scudded across sere grass. An elderly slave was raking the yard in a leisurely fashion, a young-looking guard of Indian race lounged with his rifle slung on one shoulder, a pair of wolfhounds dozed with dignity under a hedge. It was a peaceful scene— hard to believe that men schemed murder beyond these walls.

  But man was man, in any history. This culture might not have the ruthless will and sophisticated cruelty of Western civilization; in some ways it looked strangely innocent. Still, that wasn’t for lack of trying; and in this world, a genuine science might never emerge, man might endlessly repeat the weary cycle of war, empire, collapse, and war. In Everard’s future, the race had finally broken out of it.