He went on and on and on, telling me over and over, way after way that the Guard was wrong in this, wrong in that. And he'd never been in the Guard. I wondered if he hated his father for being such a hero. Obviously I wasn't going to have that problem.
I listened and didn't try to say a word until he finished.
"Thank you, Dad. Is there anything around here that needs to be done?"
He looked at me as if I'd climbed out from under a rock.
"You really don't understand, do you?" He flexed his forearms, ridged with the muscles developed from his years of manual self-sufficiency, and kept staring.
What was there to understand? For some strange reason, he was giving the Guard a trial and judging it guilty without any firsthand experience.
We sat there for maybe twenty units, neither of us wanting to say anything. An odd picture—a young man and a youth almost a man, yet one was father, one son. On Query you can't tell age by physical appearances.
Finally, Dad slipped off the stool, brushed his longish hair back off his forehead, and walked back into the house.
"You're welcome here as long as you want to stay, son." And damn it, he sounded like he meant it.
I kept watching the trees, as if I could see them grow or something. They didn't. Only thing that grew was their shadows.
The first few days of summer were like that. I couldn't take the sitting. Thought about Dad's comments on the Guard, the harsh conditions, the struggles, and I got scared. Just a little.
Why should I have been scared? I didn't know, but I Started in with the ax and split a winter's worth of wood in a ten-day.
Next came the running. If the Guard wanted toughness, I intended to be ready. I've got heavy thighs and short legs. Do you know what running over sandy hills is like with small feet and short legs?
I tried to chase down flying gophers. Never caught one, but within a ten-day I was getting pretty close before they disappeared into their sand holes.
At first, the temptation to cheat on the running, to slide a bit ahead undertime, was appealing, but I figured that wouldn't help my conditioning much. Besides, I could already slide from rock tip to rock tip without losing my balance.
Once when I was sprinting back across the meadow to the house, I caught a glimpse of Dad watching through the railings. I don't think he knew I saw him and the expression on his face—pride mixed with something else, confusion, sadness, I don't know.
Through all the quiet meals we shared those long ten-days, I knew they didn't understand, couldn't understand.
One morning a Guard trainee in black arrived with a formal invitation from the Tribunes for me to begin training.
Along with the invitation was a short list of what I was to bring with the notation that nothing else was required.
That made packing pretty easy.
III
Ten of us were ushered into a small Tower room with comfortable stools, a podium, and a wall screen.
Six young women, four young men, girls and boys really, we sat and waited. None of us knew each other, and with the reticence common to Query, no one said anything.
I couldn't stand it.
"I'm Loki." I glared at the tall girl. She had her black hair cut short, and, surprisingly, it suited her.
"Loragerd," she said gravely.
The other women were Halcyon, Aleryl, Shienl, Patrice, and Canine. The men were Ferrin, Gill, Tyron. I thought women and men, but we were all at that age of being neither youth nor adult.
Like rocks on the beach, waiting, we sat.
Through the open archway marched a small man dressed in the black singlesuit of the Guard. On his left collar was a four-pointed silver star. His hair was so black it was blue, and his dark eyes glittered.
"Good morning, trainees. I'm Gilmesh, and this will be your indoctrination lecture." He settled himself behind the podium, studied each of us for a fraction of a unit, cleared his throat, and went on.
"First and foremost, the Guard relies on voluntary subjection to absolute discipline. The rules are few and absolute. But why do you think we have to do it this way?"
Dead silence. No one was about to volunteer anything, which was just as well because Gilmesh rushed on as if he hadn't expected an answer.
"The Guard is a small organization with a big job. We don't have the personnel to coddle discipline problems. Minor offenses merit special work-assignments or dismissal. Major offenses normally result in a sentence to Hell and dismissal. High Crimes lead to a sentence to Hell and a chronobotomy."
I understood everything but the last term. Most of us must have worn the same puzzled expression because he stopped and explained.
"Chronobotomy—that's a condensation of a medical term I'm not certain I can remember, let alone pronounce. Means surgical removal of all time-diving abilities." At that point the room seemed a whole lot colder. "Well ... what does the Guard do?" asked Gilmesh, ignoring the chill he had created with his casual revelations. "The Guard is charged with the maintenance of civil order on Query, the elimination of possible threats to Query and other peace-loving races in our sector of the galaxy, and the encouragement of peace. That's it." Gilmesh surveyed the ten of us.
"Any of you may drop out of the trainee program at any time in the next three years before we get to field training—and probably half of you will. If you decide to leave the Guard after that, you're responsible for two years of administrative duties or an equivalent sentence on Hell. Administrative duties are routine clerical or maintenance functions. In return you'll receive restricted time-diving privileges to a number of systems. Is that clear?"
It was quite clear, even to a group of mixed-age youngsters.
Gilmesh went on outlining more guidelines, rules, regulations, without arousing much interest until the end of his spiel.
"Academic training will take four years roughly, and diving training will start about two years from now. You will not, I repeat, not, attempt any time-diving on your own during this period until you are cleared by the Guard. Here's why."
The screen flashed on again, and the narrator began cataloguing the possible dangers of diving by untrained personnel. Impressive—airless planets, planets with poisonous atmospheres, predators, black holes, everything that could possibly go wrong.
It ended with a condensation of the Last Law. "No time manipulation by a member of a species can undo the death of any other species member from that same base system." Translated loosely, once a Queryan dies, no amount of time-fiddling by the Guard can undo that death. If you blow it and die, you stay dead. Dead is dead.
As I recalled from school, the casualties among the earliest time-divers had been fantastic ... well over eighty percent. I was beginning to see why. You don't think about it as a child. You slide where you want to on the planet, and even if you back-time or fore-time on Query itself, you can't break-out. You feel safe.
Gilmesh ended the indoctrination lecture by giving room assignments in the West Barracks. He dismissed us after telling us to locate our rooms, drop off our gear, and report back in one hundred units.
We did and when we returned were directed to Special Stores for uniform fittings. We each got four black single-suits and a green four-pointed star to go on the collar.
That was the beginning of the routine.
The classroom work didn't seem all that hard, not to me, but within weeks Shienl and Gill had left.
I enjoyed the mechanical theory class, taught by a blond giant of a man called Baldur. Often he was units late or held us, and his explanations of the importance of mechanics in culture could be long-winded.
Baldur asked questions—lots of them—in a quiet light voice that penetrated, made you listen.
"Tyron, I know you're not the most mechanically inclined trainee, but you do have the capability to understand the basic outline of something as simple as a generator."
Tyron flushed and mumbled, "Is it that important?"
Baldur d
idn't raise his voice, didn't seem flustered, just asked another question.
"Tyron, most cultures have a ruling class or elite or power structure. That elite's position is normally based on its control of the available technology, directly or indirectly, and its ability to direct the use of resources. Control and direction are maximized when that elite understands the technology it directs. What happens when an elite loses its collective ability to understand the basis of the technology it controls?"
"I don't understand. What does that have to do with generators?"
I didn't understand either, but both Loragerd and Halcyon nodded as if they did, and Ferrin grinned.
"Loragerd?" Baldur asked.
"They begin to lose control. They aren't the elite anymore."
"What about the Guard?" countered Ferrin.
I thought it was a dumb question.
"It's all dumb," protested Patrice. "Ruling classes don't just disappear. And the Guard's no elite."
Baldur never let it go with a simple resolution. "Is the Guard an elite?"
Tyron suppressed a groan, I could tell, but I didn't see why. Sure the Guard was an elite. Pretty obvious.
"Yes," I burst out.
"Why don't you finish the logic for Tyron, then, Loki?"
What logic? I didn't have any, but I decided I'd better bumble through as well as I could.
"If the Guard is an elite," I started slowly, "then it must control some technology. If Guards don't understand technology, then the Guard will lose control." I paused before the immediate objection came to mind. "But the Guard has its powers because Guards can time-dive, and that's not based on technology."
"It's not?" responded Baldur. "How can you power stunners without generators? How can you stay warm and dry in storms without heat or housing, without becoming a rootless society that shifts with the weather? I'll admit the line is harder to draw for Query, but it's still valid."
He stopped, cleared his throat, and continued speaking. "That's something you all ought to think about. In the case of a mid-tech culture like Sertis, the example is clear ... "
He launched into a description of how the local monarchs ruled through control of the water supplies—the water empire model, he called it.
We got back to generators before too long, and this time Tyron paid attention. Why the digression would have motivated him I didn't see. That was because I thought generators were more interesting than all that speculative stuff about elites and control.
We had other courses, too, on the administrative law of the Guard, on meteorology, EQ biology, comparative weaponry—a whole mishmash.
The first year was a sort of crash backgrounder.
In the second year, along with more advanced mechanical and technical training, Baldur started us on simple equipment repairs in a side area of the Maintenance Hall.
Patrice protested.
"Why do we have to know how to put all this tangled junk back together? I'm not going to be a mechanic. I'm a diver."
Baldur just smiled. "Do you want an answer, or are you angry because it's difficult?"
Patrice glowered at him. "An answer."
"As a diver, you will be using this equipment, and you'll use it better if you understand it. Understanding only comes when you have a feel for it. Knowing how to repair it gives that feel.
"Incidentally, Patrice," he finished in a milder tone, "no one in the Guard is just a time-diver. We all have support jobs as well. If not in Maintenance, then in Linguistics, Medical, Assignments, Research, Archives, or what have you."
I remembered Gilmesh mentioning that, but hearing it and starting in with oily metal and dented wrist gauntlets was something else.
Not that it was all work, by any means. Less than half our day was taken up with academic training those first two years.
Every so often I saw Counselor Freyda. She had me over to her quarters in Quest for dinner two, three times, and told me about my grandfather. I guessed she followed my training because of old Ragnorak.
IV
In the third year the pace stepped up. Not only was the academic load heavier, but we began full-scale physical training. Not just conditioning, but physical flexibility, hand-to-hand combat, weapons familiarization, even life-support equipment training, which included deep space gear.
Carrine resigned a ten-day into the third year, leaving seven of us.
One of the more interesting courses was taught by a Senior Guard called Sammis. "Attitude Adjustment" was the title. That didn't convey half of it.
The day we started, Sammis lined us up in a field on the edge of Quest. We stood in the center of a series of posts of different heights. Each post had a tiny platform just big enough for both feet mounted on top.
Sammis waited in front of us until he had our attention.
"In this course you learn by doing. The first exercise is to slide from the top of one post to the top of the next. Like this."
He winked out and appeared on the platform top of the first post. Like a jagged bolt of black lightning, he slid from post top to post top and reappeared back on the ground in front of us.
"Now you try it." He pointed at Ferrin. "You start."
Ferrin slid undertime to the first post, broke-out with only one foot on the platform, lost his balance, tried to slide, and fell to the grass.
Halcyon giggled. Sammis turned on her.
"Halcyon, you're next."
She made it to the third post before tumbling off.
Eventually it was my turn. I took it carefully, and outside of wavering on the fourth or fifth post, made it through all fifteen platforms.
Sammis was frowning when I finished.
"Did I do something wrong?"
He shook his head. "No, no. Just ... nothing."
He left me standing there while he watched Loragerd fall off the platform on the second post.
No one else got past the fifth post that day.
Tyron called it a pointless exercise, but it wasn't. As Sammis explained after watching everyone (but me) fall off the tiny platforms, "This is to get you ready for real diving. In a lot of dives, where you end up could spell the difference between staying in one piece or becoming several. Some divers"—and he seemed to have someone in mind—"are gifted enough to dive out of the middle of a waterfall while being thrown head over heels. Most of you will find you can't dive except from a relatively stable platform."
Oh, it made sense, all right, and so did all the "attitude adjustments" exercises that Sammis introduced in the weeks that followed.
We each had a different "final"—supposedly based on what Sammis thought we should be able to handle.
Sammis trotted, or slid, me out to a site on the western cliffs.
"Loki, this could be more than you can handle. I want to make it clear. This isn't a test for passing and failing. It was designed to demonstrate what you can and cannot handle. If you get into trouble, just slide clear. Do you understand?"
His face was kindly, almost worried.
I nodded.
"The course is set up in increasing order of difficulty, but it's blind. You won't be able to see your next breakout stage until you reach the stage before. You are not to break-out except next to the locator flags."
"You mean, somehow when I reach the first point, I'll see the second one?"
"Tougher than that. At the first stage flag is a vector direction arrow for the second stage. The same is true for the next, and so on. You may have only a moment to absorb that information before sliding. There are ten landing points. After the last, or when you stop, return here."
I wiped my forehead. The more I heard about this test, the less I liked it.
Sammis pointed to a flag fluttering below the top of a cliff overhanging the beach.
I nodded and slid, but I didn't break-out immediately. Even though it's difficult, you can get some idea of what a landing point involves from the undertime, like looking up from beneath the water at twilight.
The ledge was narrow. Something white fluttered from the rock. I oriented myself undertime to break-out facing the white object.
The ledge was even narrower than I'd anticipated, and the wind gusted around me. The permaflex vector arrow attached to the flagstaff indicated a point on the rocks offshore. Even from the cliff tops I could see the surf crashing over them. In between the waves, I could see another banner. Belatedly recalling Sammis's injunction not to hang around, I slid again.
From the understream I watched the breakers and tried to locate the vector directions before I broke-out on the rocks. I'd never tried delaying a slide consciously before, but it seemed to work. The vector arrow was attached to the flagstaff.
I appeared on the wet and very slippery rocks right after a substantial wave, hoping the area would be water-free for at least a unit or so, and concentrated on the vector. The arrow pointed back to the cliffs further down the coast. The course pattern was apparently a zigzag along the coast line in order to conceal the next point from the previous point.
From the undertime, point three was on a thin spike of rock jutting out from the cliffs. The spike wavered as the flag fluttered in the wind. Was the rock wavering, or was it my undertime perspective? I decided to see if I could flash by it.
I'd never done a slide that way before either, but I didn't like that flag placement.
I actually put a little weight on the stone for an instant and felt it give before I ducked back undertime. The vector arrow pointed to the base of the cliff below.
Sammis be damned. This course had been set up for keeps. But I was going to finish it and find out why.
Point four was established on the rocks protruding into the surf, a fragmented peninsula. From the undertime I could see the white flag and the vague form of the vector arrow, but not much else.
What was the catch here?
Was there a tidal blow-hole? A rock-sucker flattened out under the flag waiting for me to step down? Physical reactions are an illusion in the understream, but I felt I shuddered as I hung there, thinking about the acid touch of a giant rock-sucker snapping up around me.
The Fires of Paratime Page 2