Firehand

by Andre Norton

  that point, and everything we'd managed to accomplish thus far would

  probably be undone as well."

  Ross sighed deeply. "No, Eveleeni EA Riordan," he said wearily,

  purposely stressing the Dominionite version of her name. "It's back to

  Terra and no rank or reputation for both of us. I think I've known that for

  a long time and just haven't had the guts to face it."

  The Time Agent's eyes were dark, somber. He had surrendered the land

  and the place in it that he loved, and soon he would probably lose the rest

  as well.

  There was no point in postponing that break if it must come. "Does our

  relationship still stand?" he demanded bluntly.

  "What the hell do you think I am, Ross Murdock?" the woman flared,

  fury blazing from voice, face, and body in equal measure.

  "I don't think you're a fool," he snapped coolly. "We could've made it

  big here, really carved out something for ourselves. That won't be true

  back home. Plain Ross Murdock's no prize, and I just want it clear that

  you've got an out. I won't try to chain you…"

  "I fell in love with 'plain Ross Murdock' long before Firehand raised his

  head… Or maybe you're the one who's thinking he hasn't made so

  marvelous a match. I won't bring you any great glory or fatten your bank

  account on Terra, either."

  "No!"

  His anger was sufficient rebuttal to that fear, and Eveleen's eyes slitted

  as her lips curved into a hunter's smile. "I'm so far from wanting out of

  our partnership, my Dear, that I've got every intention of redoing the

  ceremony according to Terran specifications as soon as I can arrange to

  have it performed."

  "You what?"

  The woman's face remained impassive for several seconds, then she

  took pity on him and laughed softly. "No standing at the altar rail dressed

  like an undertaker," she promised, "but the church service is important,

  and so's the presence of my father and brother… Ross?"

  Murdock knew he would agree. This really did mean a great deal to her.

  Hell, he would have given in had she asked for the whole show. "Whatever

  you want, Lieutenant. I don't mind the idea of showing off that I've won a

  most beautiful woman."

  Murdock kissed her softly, then turned toward their mounts. "We'd

  best be getting back. There's a lot to be done yet before we have to call for

  a pickup."

  The three months that followed passed in a blur of activity, but at last,

  Ross Murdock stood once more on the narrow crest. The heart in him felt

  dead and heavy enough to drag him down to the planet's core. Soon now,

  the chopper would come, and he would lose this beauty, lose everything it

  represented, for all the rest of his life.

  Gordon was beside him. He said nothing, but his hand rested on his

  friend's shoulder, its pressure firm and warm.

  "I'm glad I spoke up for Karara," the younger man said suddenly.

  "She was lucky." Ashe's eyes rested on him. "I am, too, I guess. I'm

  deeply sorry this didn't work out for you, Ross, but I value our friendship. I

  didn't want to lose it."

  The other forced the shadow of a smile. "Breaking in a new partner has

  to be a pain."

  "A royal pain… I'd have missed Eveleen, too. She'll be one major asset to

  our team in the future."

  Gordon caught his sharp look. "I doubt she'll be sent back to the

  classroom. She's too good."

  Murdock glanced downslope to the place where his wife was waiting.

  She had not been sure enough of her control following their parting with

  Luroc I Loran and their springdeer to stay with her comrades.

  His eyes closed. That severing had been as painful as the wound that

  had so nearly finished him…

  The Ton of Sapphirehold alone had been told of the off-worlders'

  imminent departure and had insisted on accompanying them most of the

  way to the rise, as far as they dared permit him to come. When he had

  turned back, he had taken the mounts who had served them so well,

  promising that all three would be left to run free with the breeding herd,

  never again to be brought by humankind into danger and certainly never

  to be set to heavy labor. They, too, had served Sapphirehold with

  uncommon valor, and the domain was prepared to honor them for it even

  if it was to be prevented from honoring those they had so often borne.

  Ross's head lifted sharply. There was a sound, distant yet but clear, in

  Dominion's still air.

  Grief twisted in him, so sharp that he feared for a moment that he

  would not be able to master it. He turned to the archeologist in

  desperation. "It'll be just a quick jump once we reach the gate, won't it,

  only a shot to our own time and then aboard ship and home? We won't

  have to stay there?"

  "Don't you want to know if we succeeded?" Ashe asked in surprise.

  "We'll be told that. —This is the Dominion I want to remember, not a

  tamed, citified, modern planet with Luroc, Allran, and all the others so

  long dust that not even a memory of them remains, as if they had never

  lived at all."

  Gordon looked closely, carefully, at him. "Yes," he said quietly. "I agree

  with you. I'll see that it's arranged."

  31

  THE TIME AGENTS stepped through the gate into the age in which

  they had been born.

  They found themselves inside a building of some sort. Ross resolutely

  turned toward the door but then stopped, as if frozen or held by some

  powerful compulsion. "We—I have to go there," he said abruptly, "to

  Sapphirehold or what used to be Sapphirehold."

  Gordon looked sharply at him. "You said…"

  "I know, but if I don't make myself see it, I'll be running, and I'll spend

  the rest of my life running." He hesitated. "Do you think they'll let us?"

  "You heard the pilot. We managed to save the whole damn planet. I

  doubt the brass here'll be too slow in granting us a simple request like

  that… Through the door with you, Firehand! We'll find out in a few

  minutes."

  The archeologist sighed as Eveleen's fingers caught his arm, staying

  him. She looked as if she could cheerfully murder him.

  "Gordon," she hissed.

  "He's right, Eveleen. He'll do it anyway. He has to do it, and if we try to

  block him, he won't see us as being there for him if he needs us."

  "We'd both better start praying, then, hard, Gordon O Ashean. I don't

  want to see Ross ripped open."

  "Nor do I, Lieutenant."

  Murdock shut his eyes. Their copter was completely closed, and he had

  no way of seeing the countryside over which they were flying.

  The combination space and surplanetary port from which they had

  lifted appeared to be part of an urban area, but he understood that this

  modern Dominion still retained a great deal of cultivated and undamaged

  land as well. Which one or what combination characterized the

  once-embattled island, he had not been able to nerve himself to ask.

  Eveleen's hand squeezed into his, and Ashe moved a little closer on

  Ross's other side so that their shoulders met in a silent declaration of

  support. For a moment, the fog of his dread lightened. T
hey were doing

  their best for him, doing all that could be done. Fate and time had taken

  the rest of it out of their hands.

  What if it was gone, he wondered in despair, the very land as well as the

  ancient, long-superceded political division? He swallowed hard. The fact

  that Dominion of Virgin lived was their victory. Intellectually, he accepted

  that, but it was not all of Dominion that had taken his heart, just one

  small, exquisite part of her. One small part as it had been distant

  millennia ago…

  His muscles tensed. There was a change in the motion of the chopper.

  They were beginning to descend.

  Eveleen followed Ross through the narrow door space. The machine had

  brought them where they had requested to come but had set down at the

  base of the rise rather than at its summit to avoid the never-ending sweep

  of the wind rushing over it. That much, at least, remained constant with

  the conditions they remembered from the past.

  They started to climb, Murdock first, his companions a few steps

  behind him. The grade itself, the vegetation around them, did not seem

  terribly alien, and the weapons expert gathered herself in one fierce

  prayer, one all-consuming hope, that the world soon to meet their eyes

  would prove as little jarring. It would not be the same. That, no one could

  expect, but, Lord of Time, let it be whole.

  Let it be alive. This man of hers must always push himself, punish

  himself, to the end. Gordon was right. He had to do this, but if he found

  desolation or degradation only, she feared it would break something

  within him, a core part of his fine spirit and much, the best, of his heart.

  They mounted the crest. Ross Murdock looked upon the scene he had

  watched with such infinite anguish both scant hours and a near eternity

  ago.

  A sharp breath that was more than half sob rose to close his throat.

  Time had changed a little of what lay below, humanity a great deal more,

  but this realm still stood erect, unbroken, and in its essence unravaged.

  He blinked misting eyes, trying to clear them and at the same time

  conceal his need to do so.

  It might only have been that his vision was blurred, yet for an instant,

  perhaps a second or two, another landscape veiled the one of the present

  age. Ross's hand, the left, went out to it without conscious command from

  his mind. The scarred fingers curved, as if he would draw what he saw

  there to him.

  "This land," he said in a voice that was no more than a whisper. "It is

  mine!"

  His head raised. He had spoken the truth, affirmed the truth. What

  now lay in his body's and in his soul's eyes was his and would be his

  forever.

  32

  ROSS EXAMINED THE shelves covering the walls with satisfaction.

  Eveleen and he had taken the two-bedroom suite, and this room was going

  to house the books they both would be moving into it, plus those he knew

  would be added as time went on. Some of the odd bits of knowledge he

  had picked up in the course of his seemingly random program of reading

  had proven useful on Dominion, and he doubted either he or the weapons

  expert would slow down on their unofficial research into topics of interest

  to them in the future.

  As if in response to some mental call, the door opened, and Eveleen

  Riordan came in. She was still wearing her cream-white suit and looked

  stunningly beautiful despite her long, busy day.

  "I thought I'd find you here," she said. "We'll start filling those shelves

  tomorrow. There's a lot to be done in these two weeks Kilgarries kindly

  gave us off."

  "Kindly? We're entitled to a furlough."

  "Well, we're not really entitled to quarters this spacious, so we can

  thank the Major for that at least."

  "With so pretty a bride, how could he refuse us a decent wedding

  present?" he countered.

  Murdock laughed softly, to himself. Half the men on the Project were

  kicking themselves right now. Eveleen's abilities and aloofness had

  effectively blinded the lot of them to much of the rest of what she was,

  even as he himself had been blinded. Now that he had made his move, his

  comrades could all see this aspect of her, and he enjoyed their envious

  looks every bit as much as he had imagined he would.

  "Speaking of wedding presents," the woman said, "here's my offering."

  Ross took the long, narrow package she was holding from her. It was

  neatly and appropriately wrapped. He shook it and then started to slide

  the ribbon off. "Did you have to use so much tape?" he grumbled.

  "It makes for tidier corners," she responded. "Hurry up, will you? I

  brought this all the way from Sapphirehold for you. I had it made

  specially."

  Delaying no longer, he got the package open and the lid off the box

  inside. It held what looked like a leather belt, very thin and supple and

  extraordinarily wide but lacking any kind of buckle. He stared at it,

  puzzled for a moment, then his breath caught as he realized its purpose.

  The woman nodded eagerly. "It'll cover your jeweled one so you can

  wear it and no one'll be the wiser. You couldn't go on keeping it under

  your clothes like some old-time monk's hair belt."

  She looked up at him anxiously. "Do you like it, Ross? A watch would've

  been more traditional…"

  Laughing, he took her in his arms. "I like it very much, Lieutenant EA

  Riordan. I just wish I'd shown equal imagination." She was wearing the

  pearls he had given her.

  "I'm a very traditionally minded person," she responded, "about some

  things, anyway."

  A buzz from the front door caused them to draw apart. "It's open!"

  Murdock called out.

  A few moments later, Gordon Ashe joined them. He glanced admiringly

  at the shelves. "They won't be empty long," he commented.

  "Not if we can help it," his partner agreed. The lightness had gone out

  of him. "What's the news, Gordon?"

  They knew, of course, that Dominion of Virgin and her people did live.

  The almost deliriously enthusiastic reception of their colleagues had told

  them that, but Ashe had not delayed long in getting their party off-world

  once they had returned from the crest. There were so many things, subtle

  and gross, that might have altered with the change they had made in the

  planet's history. What if something, something terrible, had gone wrong

  as a result? Their people might not even have known to tell them then…

  The other's broad smile put an end to that worry. "The only changes

  appear to be for the better, for the Dominionites at any rate. They're a

  feistier bunch now, with a lot more good old Terran spirit even if they're

  no more warlike than they were. They're also a damn harder crew to deal

  with in a trade situation. There'll have to be a great deal more give on our

  part before we get what we want out of them."

  "I can't say I'm sorry to hear that," Eveleen remarked. "Our kind gets on

  better with those who can successfully stand up to us than with the totally

  meek and mild."

  Ashe's eyes twinkled. "There's more, of personal interest to us."

&n
bsp; Ross was willing to walk into that snare. "Such as?"

  "We're fondly remembered, my Friends, the whole lot of us."

  "What?" Ross demanded incredulously. "That's not possible, Gordon.

  It's been millennia…"

  "Dominionites always were almost fanatical when it came to keeping

  records and histories. That didn't change when they came back, and they

  started doing it so early that we were still historical figures at the time,

  albeit already moving well toward the legendary… Firehand, for example,

  though his accomplishments are realistically reported, is himself viewed

  as a sort of combination of Robin Hood and St. Michael the Archangel."

  Eveleen broke into an open laugh at Ross's groan. "What about me?"

  she managed at last.

  "You're Brunnhilde with a happy ending."

  The woman made a face at him. "What of yourself, Healer O Ashean?"

  "I am Merlin," he announced grandly, "except that I wave a scalpel and

  a bag of herbs instead of a wand."

  "What about Luroc?" Ross asked quietly.

  "A King Arthur whose Round Table never broke… Zanthor I Yoroc

  doesn't come attached to horns, tail, and cloven hooves, but otherwise you

  can guess how he's recalled and regarded."

  The archeologist sat down on a folding chair, the only piece of furniture

  in the room, apart from the waiting bookcases. "I'm afraid we can expect

  to take some ribbing on account of our new-found notoriety."

  He looked from one to the other of them, suddenly deadly serious. "It

  also means that we're now considered the Project's top team, its star

  troubleshooters. When we get sent out again, it'll be on something big,

  and it'll be tough—if you two are still willing to go on with this."

  Eveleen Riordan shrugged, an odd-looking gesture in the formal, very

  feminine wedding suit. "I'm not interested in going back to teaching

  school. I have certain talents, and I think they were meant to be put to

  use."

  "Ross?" the older man asked gently. "None of our past missions

  together have been easy, and those to come are likely to be worse still. If

  you want out, no one'll hold it against you. You've paid your dues. In

  spades."

  Murdock's eyes fixed on the empty shelves but stared beyond them. The

  terror of the run downriver, the searing of his hand, the never-ending

  dread of exile when that derelict had taken off with them aboard, the