Her mother started braying cumin seeds in a brass mortar and pestle. You didn't buy them already ground, the way you would in the home timeline. You didn't punch a button on a food processor, either. Here, you were your own food processor. If you didn't do the work, it didn't get done.
“Since I'm sorta stuck being me,” Liz said, as sarcastically as she could, “what do you think I should do about Dan?”
“I told you-put up with him as long as you can,” her mother answered. “If he really gets to be a pain, we can always send you back to the home timeline and say you went away.”
“I suppose.” But Liz didn't want to go back. “That'd put a black mark on my record, wouldn't it?”
“Well, it wouldn't look good.” Mom brushed the plucked chicken with olive oil. That was also a local product, and surprisingly good. Unlike apples, olives did great here. She started spreading the ground cumin and some chopped cilantro leaves over the bird. “Part of the reason you come to the alternates is to learn how to deal with the people who live in them.”
“Yeah.”' Liz couldn't have sounded gloomier if she'd tried. “'That's what I figured. Maybe I just ought to hit him over the head with a rock.”
“If you think you can get away with it, and if people here don't talk about you afterwards, why not?” Mom thrust a long iron spit with a crank handle at one end through the chicken's carcass and set the bird above the fire. “You want to turn that for a while?”
“Okay.” You were your own rotisserie here. too. Before long, the chicken started to smell good. Cooking over wood gave more flavor than gas or electricity did in the home timeline, though it polluted more, too. The work didn't keep Liz distracted more than a minute or two. “He's a pain, Mom, nothing else but. I ought to wear an ugly mask. If I pulled out two of my front teeth, he'd forget I was alive.”
“Mm, maybe not,” her mother said, which wasn't what she wanted to hear at all. “By now, you know, he doesn't just think you're pretty. You've fascinated him with your mind, too. Look at the questions he asks you.”
“He's trying to trap me, you mean,” Liz said. “He can tell I'm not from here. My cover isn't good enough. I don't think the way these people do. He knows.”
“Well, turn the chicken anyhow, dear,” Mom said. Liz did, feeling foolish-her attention had lapsed. Her mother went on, “I just think he thinks you're weird and he thinks you're pretty and he thinks the combination is interesting.”
She'd put enough thinks in there to make Liz need a few seconds to realize what she meant. When Liz did, she shook her head. “I wish you were right, but it's more than that. I can tell.”
“In that ease, maybe you should go back to the home timeline,” Mom said. “Nobody here can do anything with the crosstime secret-we both know that. But the company sure wouldn't be happy if the locals worked it out.”
That took no time at all to understand. If Crosstime Traffic wasn't happy with you, you'd be stuck in the home timeline forever. If Crosstime Traffic really wasn't happy with you, they'd throw you out on your ear. And who'd ever want to hire you if you couldn't hack it with the biggest, most important company in the history of the world?
Washed up at eighteen, Liz thought. She knew she was being silly, to say nothing of melodramatic. Part of her did, anyhow. The rest… She'd broken up with a boyfriend the summer before. It wasn't the end of the world, even if they'd dated for most of a year. She'd known that, or most of her had. It wasn't, no, but it sure felt as if it were. And this felt the same way. If you lost one boyfriend or one job, how could you be sure you'd ever land another one? You couldn't.
“Turn the bird, sweetheart,” Mom said gently. “The secret won't come out. and Crosstime Traffic won t blackball you forever. Right?”
“Right.” Liz knew she sounded shaky. She thought she was entitled to. For one thing, she couldn't be sure the secret wouldn't slip out by accident. She couldn't be sure she wouldn't get in trouble. And, for another, what business did Mom have reading her mind like that?
“We all may have to go back to the home timeline, and it won't have thing one to do with you,” her mother said. “If the war heats up again, if the Westsiders try to come back, staying won't be safe.”
“We're lucky. We can get away,” Liz said. “Everybody who lives here is stuck in the middle.”
“Turn the chicken,” Mom said one more time.
Six
“Attention!” Captain Kevin shouted. Dan straightened and froze in place. Morning inspection. It came every day, and he hated it every time.
Captain Kevin didn't inspect the company in person. Sergeant Chuck prowled through the ranks. Whenever he found somebody with a dirty weapon or ungreased boots or a missing button, he let the unlucky soldier hear about it. Chuck cursed as well as anybody Dan had ever met. No-he cursed as well as anybody Dan had ever imagined, which covered a lot more ground.
Chuck stared at Dan with red-tracked eyes. Dan looked straight ahead and pretended the sergeant wasn't there. After what seemed like forever, Chuck went on to share his good cheer with the next soldier. Dan didn't let out a sigh of relief. That might have brought the sergeant back, which was the last thing he wanted.
After the inspection was over and punishment handed out to soldiers who'd fouled up, Captain Kevin said, “'And now we have some good news.”
Dan blinked. He didn't hear that every day. A buzz ran through the company. “Silence in the ranks!” Chuck yelled.
Somehow, though, he seemed less ferocious than usual. “You better listen up now!” he went on. “ Captain Kevin 's got something important to say.”
Anything the company commander said was important, just because he said it. So it seemed to Dan, anyhow. He couldn't imagine any common soldier wouldn't think the same.
Kevin strode out front and center. The sling he still wore somehow lent him extra authority-it showed he'd been through the worst war could do. “We aim to be a modern army,” he said. “We aim to have the best weapons we can get. Now we've captured a big Westside arsenal, and so our army gets to take their weapons. Only fair, since we won-right?”
“Yes, sir!” the soldiers chorused, Dan loud among them. Who would say no?
“Cool,” the company commander said. “Because of that, we get to retire fifteen bows and arrows in this company and replace 'em with matchlocks.” He gestured. Two ordnance sergeants wheeled up a cart that probably went back to the Old Time. On it gleamed the modern muskets and their gear. Kevin fished a scrap of paper from his tunic pocket. “The following soldiers will turn in their bows and arrows and become musketeers.” He began reading names.
Dan wanted to hear his. He didn't really expect to-he was very junior-but he wanted to. A matchlock of his own! That would be something. It might even impress Liz. A musketeer had to be a much more important person than a mere archer.
Soldiers came up to claim their muskets and powder horns and leather bullet boxes and ramrods and lengths of slowmatch- string soaked in water and gunpowder that burned at a set, reliable rate. One by one, they returned to the ranks, their faces glowing with pride. Each of them thought he was a much more important person than a mere archer.
Then Captain Kevin said, “ Dan!”
Dan jumped. He hadn't expected to hear his name. But here he was, getting a matchlock of his very own! He hadn't been so happy since… since forever, as far as he could tell.
Sergeant Chuck poked him in the ribs. “Go on, kid, get moving,” the sergeant stage-whispered. “You don't put your fanny in gear, he's liable to decide to give somebody else the gun.”
Kevin wouldn't do that… would he? Dan didn't want to find out. He hurried forward. One of the ordnance sergeants took his bow and bowstrings and his quiver full of arrows. Just for a second, he wondered what would happen to them. Maybe some gray-bearded home guard would get them. Or maybe they'd sit in the arsenal for years and years.
But then Dan forgot all about them, because the other ordnance sergeant handed him his matchlock and everythin
g that went with it. “Take good care of your new stuff,” the sergeant growled.
“I will!” Dan shouldered the musket and returned to the ranks.
The first thing he noticed was that the gun and the bullet box were heavy. The musket weighed a lot more than his bow-stave had. Maybe the bullet box wasn't heavier than the quiver full of arrows, but it packed its weight into much less space. Matchlock bullets were balls of lead, each one as thick as his thumb. They weren't so deadly as the long, pointed rounds Old Time rifles fired, but you still didn't want to stop one with your face or your chest.
Chuck snorted like his father when Dad was exasperated.
“Here-you wear them like this.” The sergeant put the bullet box on Dan 's belt. The ramrod went there, too. He looped the powder horn over Dan 's left shoulder. He wrapped the slow-match around Dan 's right upper arm. Dan knew where everything was supposed to go, but he'd never had to worry about it himself before. Now he did. Now he was a musketeer.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” he said. Chuck only snorted again. Dan asked, “Now when do I really get to shoot?”
“New musketeers will start practicing this afternoon.” Chuck answered. “These aren't like Old Time rifles. We make the guns and the bullets and the powder ourselves. They aren't gone forever once we use them up-we can get more whenever we need them. So you'll have plenty of practice.” His smile turned nasty, even for a sergeant's. “And you won't have any excuses for missing what you aim at, you hear?”
“Yes, Sergeant!” Dan said loudly. Saying Yes, Sergeant! as loud as you could was almost always the right answer.
Sure enough, the Valley army had set up a firing range not far from the archery targets. Chuck scowled at the men who stood in front of him, and at the uncertain way they held their matchlocks. “I'm supposed to turn you into proper musketeers?” he growled, rolling his eyes. “It's like asking me to turn a bunch of jackasses into racehorses, and that's the truth. But it's what they told me to do, so I've got to do it.”
Sergeants always said common soldiers were the dumbest things on two legs, so Dan didn't get uptight about one more insult. He'd heard too many. He knew they didn't mean much. If Chuck didn't say crude things about the men under him, he probably wouldn't know what to say.
“Ground your muskets!” he ordered, and held his vertically with the stock on the ground so they would know what he meant. '“Now pour a charge of powder!”
Dan had already discovered that the tip of the powder horn came off. It made a miniature horn, one that held a single charge of powder. He poured in the gunpowder, and then carefully poured it down the muzzle of his musket. One luckless fellow spilled his powder instead. Chuck reamed him up one side and down the other. Dan thanked heaven he hadn't goofed.
“Stuff in your wads!” Chuck said.
In the bullet box, along with the musket balls and a flask of priming powder, were little squares of cloth. Dan took one, folded it up. and stuffed it down the muzzle. He used the ramrod to force it down toward the bottom of the musket barrel.
“Now the bullet!” Chuck said. A couple of men laughed. Chuck glared at them. “Think it's funny, do you? When you're really fighting, you can forget. You can-unless you're trained so you do it right without thinking about it. Most of you lugs don't think real good anyway, so you better get it down pat.”
The bullet in Dan 's hand felt heavy, as if it meant business. It wras a tight fit when it went into the muzzle. It had to be, or the gas from the burning gunpowder would get around it and not push it forward.
Chuck used the ramrod again. “Ram that baby home,” he said. “Really ram it down there. Don't be shy-you've got to seat it firmly.”
Dan imitated him in that step as he had in the others. He felt the sweat spring out on his forehead as he thrust with the ramrod again and again. You could shoot arrows faster than musket balls. Musket balls carried farther, though. And you were supposed to need less practice once you got the hang of using a matchlock, too.
Once you did, yeah. Till you did…
“Fix your match in the serpentine,” Chuck commanded. The swiveling piece that brought the match down onto the touch-hole had a groove into which the thick string would fit. “Leave a couple of inches sticking out. Now pour your priming powder into the touch-hole. Just a little, mind.”
The priming powder from the small flask in the bullet box was much more finely ground than the ordinary black powder in the powder horn. That made it burn faster and more reliably.
“Now if you were in battle, you'd already have your match burning, right?” Chuck said.
“Yes, Sergeant,” Dan chorused along with the rest of the new musketeers. When it rained, matchlocks weren't good for much. Luckily, that wasn't a worry very often in the Valley or on the Westside.
Chuck had a lighter-a real Old Time Zippo. “I have a devil of a time finding flints for this now, but I manage,” he said. He flicked the Zippo-and it lit. There was no more Old Time lighter fluid. He used strong spirits instead. The flame was blue and almost invisible. “Now nobody pull the trigger till I give the order, you hear?” he warned. “You'll be sorry if you do. Got it? Dig me?”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Dan said again. Chuck walked along the line of musketeers, lighting one length of slowmatch after another. The smell of burning gunpowder didn't make Dan think of battle. It smelled like fireworks, and reminded him of the Fourth of July and of October 23, the day the Valley's first king broke away from Los Angeles after the Fire fell.
“All right!”' Chuck shouted. “Aim at the target!”
Along with the rest of the new musketeers, Dan did just that. It wasn't much more than a hundred yards away, but suddenly it seemed very small. He tried not to let his hands shake. He wanted a bulls-eye more than anything.
Chuck got behind the soldiers with the matchlocks before he gave his next order: “'Fire!”
Dan pulled the trigger. Down came the serpentine. The burning match set off the priming powder around the touch-hole. The priming powder hissed and fizzed. Half a heartbeat later, the main charge went off-Boom! The heavy matchlock bucked against Dan 's shoulder. Flame and a big puff of gray smoke burst from the muzzle.
“Wow!” Dan said, coughing from all the sulfurous smoke. When matchlocks fired a volley, they almost hid what they fired at. Was that where the phrase fog of war came from? Dan wouldn't have been surprised. But now he'd shot off a gun. He really and truly had. He felt proud enough to burst.
“Now its sale to stand in front of you people again,” Chuck said. “I'm going to go over to the target and see how you did.”
“We slaughtered 'em!” a musketeer said.
“Yeah!” Dan nodded. He thought so, too. If he hadn't put his musket ball right through the center of the target…
Chuck walked over, took the paper down from the mound of earth that caught bullets, and carried it back. “Three hits,” he said, displaying the target. It was a lot bigger close up. “Fifteen of you shooting at it, and three hits. Maybe the rest of you would've scared the bad guys a little. Maybe. But three out of fifteen! I know a matchlock's not a real accurate gun. Even so, you can do better than that. You can, and you will, or I'll know the reason why. Reload!”
As Dan started the complicated job of getting another bullet into the matchlock, he realized being a musketeer wasn't just an honor. Like anything else, it was a lot of work.
The first thing Liz noticed when she opened the door and saw Dan standing in the street was the matchlock on his shoulder. The second thing she noticed was how proud of himself he looked. She didn't laugh, though she wanted to. He would have got mad-she could see that.
“You had a bow before,” she said gravely.
“I got promoted,” he said. “I'm a musketeer now.”
Athos, Porthos, or Aramis? she wondered. He might get that. The Three Musketeers was a book here, too. The breakpoint between this alternate and the home timeline lay more than a century after it was written.
But Liz didn't want
to talk about Alexandre Dumas with Dan. She just wanted him to go away. “Congratulations,” she said, and then spoiled it on purpose by adding, “I guess.”
“I think I was the youngest soldier in my company to get a musket.” Yes, he wanted to brag about it, no matter how much that made him sound like an idiot. He thought he was hot stuff. All he needed was a plume in his hat, and he could make like d'Artagnan. Never mind that his weapon would've been obsolete in 1750. He didn't care. It was more up-to-date than a bow and arrows, which was all that counted for him.
“Well, good for you,” she said. If he knew how pathetic he was… But she was judging him by the home timeline's standards. He wasn't pathetic here. By the standards of this alternate, he was way cool, and he knew it. A girl who took those standards for granted would think he was way cool, too.
Tough beans, Liz thought. I ain't that girl, even if Mr. Musketeer thinks I am.
And, all too plainly, Dan did. “Can I come in?” he asked. He didn't even dream she would say no. What he really meant was, Can I show off some more?
Liz wanted to tell him to get lost, at least as much to see the look on his face as for any other reason. She wanted to, yes, but she didn't dare. You were supposed to try to get along with the locals when they weren't impossibly obnoxious. If you didn't, you got a black mark in your database, one that would stay there forever. And Dan wasn't… quite… impossible. He ran his mouth, yeah, and he wondered whether Liz was some kind of spy, but he'd always kept his hands to himself.
She almost wished he wouldn't. If he tried feeling her up, that would give her a real excuse for having nothing to do with him afterwards. His silly talk and strutting weren't nearly enough, not by themselves. And since they weren't…
“I guess you can,” Liz said with a sigh she didn't even try to hide. Dan never noticed it. She hadn't thought he would. She would have bet a hundred Benjamin ’s against a dollar that he wouldn't, in fact. But winning the almost worthless dollar wouldn't have mattered to her.
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