Worlds of Maybe

by Robert Silverberg

  For what? He could not honestly say that this new continuum was worse or better than his own. It was different, that was all; and didn’t these people have as much right to their existence as—as his own, who were damned to nullity if he failed to act?

  He shook his head and felt fists knot at his side. It was too big. No man should have to decide something like this.

  In the showdown, he knew, it would be no abstract sense of duty which compelled him, but the little things and the little folk he remembered.

  They rounded the house and Deirdre pointed to the sea. “Awarlann” she said. Her loose hair was flame in the wind.

  “Now does that mean ‘ocean’ or ‘Atlantic’ or ‘water’?” asked van Sarawak, laughing. “Let’s go see.” He led her toward the beach.

  Everard trailed. A kind of steam launch, long and fast, was skipping over the waves, a mile or so offshore. Gulls flew up in a shrieking snowstorm of wings.

  He thought that if he’d been in charge, there would have been a Navy ship on picket out there.

  Did he even have to decide anything? There were other Patrolmen in the pre-Roman past. They’d return to their respective eras and—

  Everard stiffened. A chill ran down his back and into his belly.

  They’d return, and see what had happened, and try to correct the trouble. If any of them succeeded, this world would blink out of spacetime, and he would go with it.

  Deirdre paused. Everard, standing in a cold sweat, hardly noticed what she was staring at, till she cried out and pointed. Then he joined her and squinted across the sea.

  The launch was coming in close, its high stack fuming smoke and sparks, the gilt snake figurehead agleam. He could see the dwarfed forms of men aboard, and something white, with wings. It rose from the poopdeck and trailed at the end of a rope, mounting. A glider! Celtic aeronautics had gotten that far, at least—

  “Pretty thing,” said van Sarawak. “I suppose they have balloons too.”

  The glider cast its tow and swooped inward. One of the guards on the beach shouted. The rest came running from behind the house, sunlight flashed off their guns. The launch sped for the shore and the glider landed, plowing a furrow in the beach.

  An officer yelled, waving the Patrolmen back. Everard had a glimpse of Deirdre’s face, white and uncomprehending. Then a turret on the glider swiveled—a detached part of his mind assumed it was manually operated—and a cannon spoke.

  Everard hit the dirt. Van Sarawak followed, dragging the girl with him. Grapeshot plowed hideously through the Afallonian soldiers.

  There came a spiteful crack of guns. Men were emerging from the aircraft, dark-faced men in turbans and sarongs. Hinduraj! thought Everard. They traded shots with the surviving guards, who rallied about their captain.

  That man roared and led a charge. Everard looked up to see him almost at the glider and its crew. Van Sarawak leaped up and ran to join the fight. Everard rolled over, caught his leg, and pulled him down.

  “Let me go!” The Venusian writhed. There was a sobbing in his throat. The racket of battle seemed to fill the sky.

  “No, you bloody fool! It’s us they’re after, and that wild Irishman did the worst thing he could have—” Everard slapped his friend’s face and looked up.

  The launch, shallow-draught and screw-propelled, had run up to the beach and was retching armed men. The Afallonians realized too late that they had discharged their weapons and were being attacked from the rear.

  “Come on!” Everard yanked Deirdre and van Sarawak to their feet. “We’ve got to get out of here—get to the neighbors—”

  A detachment of the boat crew saw him and veered. He felt rather than heard the flat smack of a bullet into turf. Slaves were screaming around the house. The two wolfhounds charged and were gunned down.

  Everard whirled to flee. Crouched, zigzag, that was the way, over the wall and out onto the road! He might have made it, but Deirdre stumbled and fell. Van Sarawak halted and stood over her with a snarl. Everard plunged to a stop, and by that time it was too late. They were covered.

  The leader of the dark men snapped something at the girl. She sat up, giving him a defiant answer. He laughed shortly and jerked his thumb at the launch.

  “What do they want?” asked Everard in Greek.

  “You.” She looked at him with horror. “You two—” The officer spoke. “And me to translate—No!”

  She twisted in the arms that held her and clawed at a man’s face. Everard’s fist traveled in a short arc that ended in a lovely squashing of nose. It was too good to last: a clubbed rifle descended on his head, and he was only dimly aware of being carried off to the launch.

  The crew left the glider behind, shoved their boat into deeper water, and revved it up. They left all the guardsmen slain, but took their own casualties along.

  Everard sat on a bench on the plunging deck and stared with slowly clearing eyes as the shoreline dwindled. Deirdre wept on van Sarawak’s shoulder, and the Venusian tried to console her. A chill noisy wind blew across indifferent waves, spindrift stung their faces.

  It was when the two white men emerged from a cabin that Everard’s mind was jarred back into motion. Not Asians after all—these were Europeans. And the rest of the crew had Caucasian features . . . grease paint!

  He regarded his new owners warily. One was a portly, middle-aged man of average height, in a red silk blouse and baggy white trousers and a sort of astrakhan hat; he was clean-shaven and his dark hair was twisted into a queue. The other was somewhat younger, a shaggy blond giant in a tunic sewn with copper links, legginged breeches, a leather cloak, and a horned helmet. Both wore revolvers at their belts and were treated deferentially.

  “What the devil—” Everard looked around. They were already out of sight of land and bending north. The engine made the hull quiver, spray sheeted when the bows bit into a wave.

  The older man spoke first in Afallonian. Everard shrugged. Then the bearded Nordic tried, first in a completely unrecognizable dialect but afterward: “Taelan thu Cimbric?”

  Everard, who knew German, Swedish, and Anglo-Saxon, took a chance, while van Sarawak pricked up his Dutch ears. Deirdre huddled back wide-eyed, too bewildered to move.

  “Ja" said Everard, “ein wenig” When Goldilocks looked uncertain, he amended it: “A little.”

  “Ah, aen lift. Gode!” The big man rubbed hairy hands. “Ik hait Boierik Wulfdasson ok main gefreond heer erran Boleslav Arkonsky”

  It was not any language Everard had ever heard of —it couldn’t even be the original Cimbrian, after all these centuries—but the Patrolman could follow it tolerably well. The trouble would be in speaking; he couldn’t predict how it had evolved.

  “What the hell erran thu maching, anyway?” he blustered. “Ik bin aen man auf Sirius—the stern Sirius, mit planeten ok all. Set uns gebach or willen be der Teufel to pay!”

  Boierik Wulfilasson looked pained and suggested that the discussion be continued inside, with the young lady for interpreter. He led the way back into the cabin, which turned out to be small but comfortably furnished. The door remained open, with an armed guard looking in and more on call.

  Boleslav Arkonsky said something in Afallonian to Deirdre. She nodded, and he gave her a glass of wine. It seemed to steady her, but she spoke to Everard in a thin voice.

  “We’ve been taken, Manslach. Their spies found out where you were kept. Another group is supposed to capture your machine—they know where that is, too.”

  “So I imagined,” replied Everard. “But who in Baal’s name are they?”

  Boierik guffawed at the question and expounded lengthily on his own cleverness. The idea was to make the Suffetes of Afallon think that Hinduraj was responsible. Actually, the secret alliance of Littorn and Cimberland had built up quite an effective spy service of its own. They were now bound for the Littornian Embassy’s summer retreat on Ynys Llangollen (Nantucket), where the wizards would be induced to explain their spells and the great powers get a sur
prise.

  “And if we don’t. . . ?”

  Deirdre translated Arkonsky’s answer word for word: “I regret the consequences to you. We are civilized men, and will pay well in gold and honor for your free cooperation; but the existence of our countries is at stake.”

  Everard looked at them. Boierik seemed embarrassed and unhappy, the boastful glee evaporated from him.

  Boleslav Arkonsky drummed on the table, his lips compressed but a certain mute appeal in his eyes. Don't make us do this. We have to live with ourselves.

  They were probably husbands and fathers, they must enjoy a mug of beer and a friendly game of dice as well as the next man, maybe Boierik bred horses in Italy and Arkonsky was a rose fancier on the Baltic shores. But none of it would do their captives a bit of good, not when the almighty Nation locked horns with its kin.

  Everard paused briefly to admire the sheer artistry of this operation and began wondering what to do. The launch was fast, but would need something like twenty hours to reach Nantucket if he remembered the trip. There was that much time at least.

  “We are weary,” he said in English. “May we not rest a while?”

  “Ja, deedly!" said Boierik with a clumsy graciousness. “Ok wir skallen gode gefreonds bin, ni!”

  Sunset smoldered redly to the west. Deirdre and van Sarawak stood at the rail, looking across a gray waste of waters. Three crewmen, their brown paint and Asian garments removed, poised alert and weaponed on the poop; a man steered by compass; Boierik and Everard paced the quarterdeck, talking. All wore heavy cloaks against a stiff, stinging wind.

  Everard was getting some proficiency in the Cimbrian language; his tongue still limped, but he could make himself understood. Mostly, though, he let Boierik do the talking.

  “So you are from the stars? These matters I do not understand. I am a simple man. Had I my way, I would manage my Tuscan estate in peace and let the world rave as it will. But we of the Folk have our obligations.” The Teutons seemed to have replaced the Latins altogether in Italy, as the Saxons had done the Britons in Everard’s world.

  “I know how you feel,” said the Patrolman. “It is a strange thing, that so many should fight when so few want to.”

  “Oh, but it is necessary.” Almost a whine there. “You don’t understand. Carthagalann stole Egypt, our rightful possession.”

  “Italia irredenta” murmured Everard.

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. So you Cimbri are allied with Littorn, and hope to grab off Europe and Africa while the big powers are fighting in the East.”

  “Not at all!” replied Boierik indignantly. “We are merely asserting our rightful and historic territorial claims. Why, the king himself said—” And so on and so on.

  Everard braced himself against the roll of the deck. “It seems to me that you treat us wizards rather hardily,” he declared. “Beware lest we get really angered at you.”

  “All of us are protected against curses and shapings.”

  “Well—”

  “I wish you would help us freely,” said Boierik. “I will be happy to demonstrate to you the justice of our cause, if you have a few hours to spare.”

  Everard shook his head and stopped by Deirdre.

  Her face was a blur in the thickening dusk, but he caught a forlorn defiance in her voice: “I hope you are telling him what to do with his plans, Manslach.”

  “No,” said Everard heavily. “We are going to help them.”

  She stood as if struck.

  “What are you saying, Manse?” asked van Sarawak.

  Everard told him.

  “No!” said the Venusian.

  “Yes,” said Everard.

  “By God, no! Ill—”

  Everard grabbed his arm and said coldly: “Be still. I know what I’m doing. We can’t take sides in this world, we’re against everybody and you’d better realize it. The only thing to do is play along with these fellows for a while. And don’t tell that to Deirdre.”

  Van Sarawak bent his head and stood for a moment, thinking. “All right,” he said dully.

  The Littornian resort was on the southern shore of Nantucket, near a fishing village but walled off from it. The embassy had built in the style of its homeland, long timber houses with roofs arched like a cat’s back, a main hall and its outbuildings enclosing a flagged courtyard. Everard finished a night’s sleep and a breakfast made miserable by Deirdre’s eyes by standing on deck as they came to the private pier. Another, bigger launch was already there, and the grounds swarmed with hard-looking men. Arkonsky’s eyes kindled, and he said in Afallonian: “I see the magic engine has been brought. We can go right to work.”

  When Boierik interpreted, Everard felt his heart slam.

  The guests, as the Cimbrian insisted on calling them, were led into a great room where Arkonsky bent the knee to an idol with four faces, that Svantevit which the Danes had chopped up for firewood in the other history. There was a blaze on the hearth against the autumn chill, and guards posted around the walls. Everard had eyes only for the scooter, where it stood gleaming on the floor.

  “I hear it was a hard fight in Catuvellaunan,” remarked Boierik to him. “Many were killed, but our folk got away without being followed.” He touched a handlebar gingerly. “And this wain can truly appear anywhere it wishes, out of thin air?”

  “Yes,” said Everard.

  Deirdre gave him a look of scorn such as he had never known. She stood haughtily away from him and van Sarawak.

  Arkonsky spoke to her, something he wanted translated. She spat at his feet. Boierik sighed and gave the word to Everard:

  “We wish the engine demonstrated. You and I will go for a ride on it. I warn you, I will have a revolver at your back; you will tell me in advance everything you mean to do, and if aught untoward happens I will shoot. Your friends will remain here as hostages, also to be shot on the first suspicion. But Tm sure we will all be good friends.”

  Everard nodded. There was a tautness thrumming in him, and his palms felt cold and wet. “First I must say a spell,” he answered.

  His eyes flicked. One glance memorized the spatial reading of the position meters and the time reading of the clock on the scooter. Another look showed van

  Sarawak seated on a bench, under Arkonsky’s drawn pistol and the rifles of the guards; Deirdre sat down too, stiffly, as far from him as she could get. Everard made a close estimate of the bench’s position relative to the scooter’s, lifted his arms, and chanted in Temporal:

  “Van, I’m going to try to pull you out of here. Stay exactly where you are now; repeat, exactly. I’ll pick you up on the fly. If all goes well, that’ll happen about one minute after I blink out of here with our shaggy comrade.”

  The Venusian sat wooden-faced. There was a thin beading of sweat on his forehead.

  “Very good,” said Everard in his pidgin Cimbrian. “Mount on the rear saddle, Boierik, and we’ll put this magic horse through her paces.”

  The big man nodded and obeyed. As Everard took the front seat, he felt a gun muzzle held shakily against his back. “Tell Arkonsky we’ll be back in half an hour,” he added; they had approximately the same time units here as in his world, both descended from the Babylonian. When that had been taken care of, Everard said: “The first thing we will do is appear in midair over the ocean and hover.”

  “F-f-fine,” said Boierik. He didn’t sound very convinced.

  Everard set the space controls for ten miles east and a thousand feet up and threw the main switch.

  They sat like witches astride a broom, looking down on a greenish-gray sweep of waters and the distant blur which was land. The wind was high, it caught at them and Everard gripped tight with his knees. He heard Boierik’s oath and smiled wanly.

  “Well,” he asked, “how do you like this?”

  “It ... it is wonderful.” As he grew accustomed to the idea, the Cimbrian gathered enthusiasm. “Why, with machines like this, we can soar above enemy cities and pelt them with fire
.”

  Somehow, that made Everard feel better about what he was going to do.

  “Now we will fly ahead,” he announced, and sent the scooter gliding through the air. Boierik whooped exuberantly. “And now we will make the instantaneous jump to your homeland.”

  Everard threw the maneuver switch. The scooter looped the loop and dropped at a three-gee acceleration.

  Forewarned, the Patrolman could still barely hang on. He never knew whether the curve or the dive had thrown Boierik; he only had a moment’s hideous glimpse of the man plunging down through windy spaces to the sea.

  For a little while, then, Everard hung above the waves. His first reaction was a cold shudder . . . suppose Boierik had had time to shoot? His second was a gray guilt. Both he dismissed, and concentrated on the problem of rescuing van Sarawak.

  He set the space verniers for one foot in front of the prisoners’ bench, the time unit for one minute after he had departed. His right hand he kept by the controls—he’d have to work fast—and his left free.

  Hang on to your seats, fellahs. Here we go again.

  The machine flashed into existence almost in front of van Sarawak. Everard clutched the Venusian’s tunic and hauled him close, inside the spatiotemporal field, even as his right hand spun the time dial back and snapped over the main switch.

  A bullet caromed off metal. Everard had a moment’s glimpse of Arkonsky shouting. And then it was all gone and they were on a grassy hill sloping down to the beach. It was 2,000 years ago.

  He collapsed shivering over the handlebars.

  A cry brought him back to awareness. He twisted around, looking at van Sarawak where the Venusian sprawled on the hillside. One arm was still around Deirdre’s waist.

  The wind lulled, and the sea rolled into a broad white strand, and clouds walked high in heaven.

  “I can’t say I blame you, Van.” Everard paced before the scooter and looked at the ground. “But it does complicate matters greatly.”

  “What was I supposed to do?” There was a raw note in the other’s voice. “Leave her there for those bastards to kill—or to be snuffed out with her entire universe?”