I was the only Guard in centuries to fight a Counselor, go to Hell, and return. Heimdall, on the other hand, had demonstrated that he had the power to attempt murder for insubordination and get away with it.
For whatever reason, few casual conversations were struck up with either of us when the other was around.
Many of the younger Guards would talk to me only at the Inns.
Heimdall led both a lonely public and private life, growing tighter-faced and more brooding with each year. The born-again Glammis found him too cold and had turned away, finally leaving the Guard.
In that late afternoon, as I walked through the echoing and nearly empty corridors, glancing at the holos of past glories standing out from the main walls, feeling the warmth and light of the slow-glass panels from a thousand suns, I wanted the silence, trying not to strain or bite my lip at the pain from my shoulder.
"Loki?" called a light voice. Verdis had left Personnel for the day, apparently, and was waiting by the South Portal.
She tossed her mahogany hair back over her shoulder. Usually she expressed her feelings with her entire body, but now her eyes were filled with concern. The rest of her body might as well have not been there, and that bothered me.
"Hera's Inn?" she asked.
I wanted to go somewhere like I wanted a quick dive through a black hole, but Verdis was up to something, and my gut instincts told me that refusal could cause more trouble than I was prepared for at the moment
I nodded to Verdis, signifying my assent, and slid, not to the Inn, but to the Aerie. There a quarter of the way around Query, the sun was still high, and the light glittered off the ice on Seneschal.
I staggered over to the cellular regenerator I had swiped from the Infirmary storeroom, lost as it had been behind three rows of time-protected supplies that hadn't been touched in centuries.
Underneath the light of the damped slow-glass, I stripped off my jumpsuit, peeled off the pressure dressing, and collapsed under the regenerator. I set the timer for five units, and when the bell sounded I sat up.
I put on another lighter dressing and changed from the black jumpsuit to a red one. Maybe it had been a stupid thing to use an equipment analyzer, but a standard tissue analyzer wouldn't have been equipped with the necessary memory. More important, all the medical analyzers were monitored by the Tribunes.
I washed my face, spent another few units taking care of bodily necessities, and arrived at Hera's Inn to face Verdis's scowl.
"Bodily necessities," I explained sheepishly.
"Bad manners," she retorted while accepting the explanation.
Inns were peculiar to Guard and Queryan life. In the first place, the doors were time-twisted, which limited entry to better than average planet-sliders or divers. The decor was best described as technological sword and sorcery, with holos and displays from the more spectacular planets visited by the Guard.
Hera had been a fair diver, but had retired into a quieter way of life, if the hustle and bustle of running an Inn could be termed quieter. She was plump, the closest thing to a fat diver or ex-diver I'd ever seen, with brassy blond hair she swore—and could she swear—was natural.
Her Inn was done in wood, real wood and mostly polished cedar from a place called Lebanon on Terra. Must have taken a good-sized forest, just from the expanse of the Inn, and a lot of divers to bring it all back. Either that or a few planks and the biggest synthesizer I'd heard of. With her connections, either alternative was possible. The floors were blue glowstone, also rare, and the illumination was provided by light-torches from Olympus.
Inns wouldn't have been possible without a sharing based on a sense of honor. Hera or any Innkeeper left a list of items she needed on a tablet by the door. Guards brought them back as they saw fit. Haphazard as it was, it worked. The Inns not favored perished or were taken over by more congenial proprietors.
Power was free, basically photovoltaic, and Hera's synthesizers would turn raw organics into a duplication of the master dishes in the files.
Verdis had already claimed a corner booth, which was a misnomer because all booths at Hera's were designed as corner booths. I sat down gingerly to insure I didn't hit my tender shoulder.
Verdis offered a smile that didn't quite make it. She cleared her throat before she began. "Loki, you've spent years now, since you were in Hell, aloof from everyone."
I couldn't say much to that. So I stared at the glass of Atlantean Firesong that Verdis held.
"For all your power and fame, you distrust the very people you work for. They distrust you. You bury yourself and the fire that springs from you in that cavern with your machines. When you do emerge, Odinthor and the Tribunes shake. All the younger Guards worship the glowstones you walk on, and if you deign to favor them with a word, they feel honored."
"And that means?"
"You could run the Guard, Loki, and yet you do whatever Heimdall or Frey or Freyda suggests. I wonder if they didn't go beyond the call of duty to plant the shark cluster on you."
I had thought about being Tribune, but for all the talk of running the Guard, I was fiftyish, looking twenty, and the Tribunes had tens of centuries of experience. The Counselors did too. Heimdall would not step down, nor would Odinthor, and Freyda of the cool voice and fires within certainly would not. I was not up to murder for ambition. At that, I laughed aloud.
"Loki?" asked Verdis, not understanding.
Loki, the man who destroyed a hundred thousand suns and a million years of life; the man who watched Zealor wipe out a gentle people at the behest of the Tribunes; the man who booby-trapped the gauntlet on Heimdall—good old thunderbolt-throwing, storm-stalking, fire-breathing Loki was the Guard who couldn't kill the greatest tyrants in Time because he knew them personally.
I looked at the planks above Verdis's head.
"Loki, can't you hear?" Her eyes were hard.
"Hear? What do you mean?"
As she pointed to the back room, the singing became clear.
"Who's the Guard that fired the stars and sank the sharks?
Who's the Guard that wired the gloves and gave them sparks?
Who's the Guard that went to Hell and almost died?
Who's the Guard that told no truths and never lied?
Loki! Loki! That's who,
the Immortal guard for me and you.
"Who's the Guard that tamed the techs and stole the sun?
Who's the Guard that faced the Tribs and made them run?
Who's the Guard that stood on air without a wing?
Who's the Guard that lives for life, the Guard we sing?
Loki! Loki! That's who,
the Immortal Guard for me and you."
There was more, but I lost it in studying Verdis. I wondered if she'd composed the damned song—awful lyrics and all—just to put more pressure on me.
I hadn't realized how many young Guards there were who could sing, and they turned that doggerel into a solid drinking song.
What was the purpose of it all? Had Verdis arranged the whole scene, song and all, to suck me into some sort of conspiracy? If so, how had she managed to persuade all the younger Guards to participate? But what could she want with me? Why the idea of my running the Guard? She knew I wouldn't listen to anyone if I took over. As if I wanted to. Who the Hell wanted to run a funeral procession? The way things were headed, that's all it would be, one way or another. "Just what are you asking?"
There was a long silence between us, though the Inn was filled with noise as the trainees and young Guards in the adjoining room launched into another round of song. Thankfully, it was a ditty about a seamier side of Odinthor's past.
"Loki, few of the really good divers know how important the Guard is to Query. I'm not talking about temporal meddling. I'm talking about supplies. The duplicators, the equipment bank, the simplified mechanical basis of Query make it easy to support, but what happens if anything goes wrong?"
Verdis should have been a political agitator. Her
eyes flashed as she threw the questions at me, demanding that I believe what she had to say.
Oh, she was right in a way, but was the situation all that pressing? "You know I'm not terribly sympathetic to the Tribunes," I responded, "nor Heimdall, but what could go wrong? Query is an incredibly fruitful planet, so fruitful no one knows how we evolved here or if we did. Ten million people are scattered over two major continents and the islands and geared to a simple life supported by a few machines with low power requirements.
"If the Guard went out of existence tomorrow and never brought another item back, it would be centuries before the system fell apart, if ever, unless the diving ability totally disappeared."
Verdis opened her mouth, then shut it, paused as if to catalogue the arguments filed behind her smooth forehead and dark red hair. "You admit, though, that the present course of the Guard will eventually lead to the downfall of Query?"
I wasn't about to admit to anything. For all I knew, while I doubted it, Verdis could be out to entrap me for Heimdall. I began to wish I'd never agreed to come. The stabbing pain in my shoulder was steadily getting worse, and the dressing I'd crudely slapped over it felt soaked through. I was not certain I was thinking clearly. "No. The present Guard policy might lead to the downfall of the Guard, which is a different question."
The second half of that statement, which I intended to keep to myself, was that the continued course of the Guard would pull down a lot of cultures whether or not the Guard structure went eventually or not.
"Are you supporting the Tribunes?"
"As you may know, I am supporting Loki, past, present, and future."
Someone had told me that, and I played the quote back, hoping it hadn't been Verdis. If she had been the one, she didn't comment.
I got up slowly and walked over to the synthesizer, hoping something to eat would clear my head. The Xerxian scampig looked good. I pushed the stud and waited for the machine to deliver. Verdis followed me over and selected something. I didn't see what.
A swig of firejuice and several bites of the scampig improved my stability. Verdis sat back down, finished a mouthful, then started in as if she hadn't left off. "Someone, or a number of someones, have been asking the Archives questions about critical turning points in any number of cultures which rivaled or could rival Query."
"So?" I asked with a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"We don't know who it is, but the fact that someone is asking that sort of question is ominous."
I leaned back into the padding behind me, trying to focus on Verdis, but the pain of contact seared my shoulder like a flame, and I missed some of what she said.
" ... may mean that since Query has so much inertia and so many Queryans outside the Guard are like sheep, that this group wants to set up a man on a white horse—"
"A what?"
"Man on a white horse. Great Black Father to take over in a period of crisis. Whoever it is doesn't want to wait centuries for a real crisis and may be searching for a crisis to create."
"Seems pretty far-fetched to me," I commented.
"Doesn't to the Tribunes."
That hit me like a flash of deep space cold. "Why do you say that?"
"Personnel has been asked to devise and issue priority codes to the Guard for the historical data banks, with a system so that no one, not even a Tribune, can use someone else's code."
I shook my head, not for the reason Verdis thought, of course. Someone was monitoring the Data Banks and my innocently programmed requests. I was glad I already had what I needed.
"We're afraid that one way or another this power game between Guard X and the Tribunes will bring down the whole Guard structure." Verdis had that intent look in her eyes again.
"Isn't that overreacting? I mean, the Guard has survived centuries of power plots."
"We don't think so. Not this time."
"Who's we, and why are you so convinced this time?"
"Dive again?" she asked.
"You keep talking about 'us.' And you keep avoiding my questions. You still haven't answered what you want from me. You haven't said why you think this rumored plotter, who could merely be a student of history, could do what no one else could do, and you haven't identified your mysterious group that's so involved with tracking down this rumored schemer."
As she cocked her head to think up an answer she hoped I'd accept, I had another thought. Was the whole meal a gimmick to see if I'd reveal anything?
"I'd rather not say more, not right now. A number of us are concerned. As for what we want from you, it's simple enough. You keep your word, and we want your word, that you won't meddle in the domestic affairs of the Guard or Query."
I had to laugh, and that surprised Verdis more than anything I could have said. "Verdis, does that mean I should promise your vague conspiracy that I won't try and set myself up as High Tribune? You make me sick. As if I wanted to become emperor of this time-flying gopher hole!" I wanted out of the Inn, then and there. "Or does it mean I should stand idly by as you and your company take over the Guard?"
"Loki, that's not what I meant at all!" Her protest was pretty loud at that. "You plod on in your own world, buried in Maintenance, oblivious to everything. Eranas is making noises about stepping down, and Heimdall is bluntly suggesting he ought to be selected to replace Eranas. Everyone wonders who is staking out past history, and why, and what really happened to Baldur, and in the meantime, Heimdall has gained a few more loyal followers. Frey is given more responsibility he can't handle, and Tyron covers for him. And you don't pay any attention at all."
I wished I'd left earlier. I could tell Verdis I cared, and blow myself out of the water, because what I intended wasn't what she wanted. Or I could say I didn't care and be lumped with the Guard establishment she'd so lovingly described. Like so many times before, I said nothing. The songfest in the other room had degenerated into assorted conversations. Phrases drifted through the archway as I looked down at the remnants of my scampig and Verdis looked at me.
" ... Guard'll last forever ... Loki for Tribune ... never happen ... not with the bitch goddess ... fly Kyra ... sheep, and they'll never care ... who'll do the dirty work? ... "
"Put that way," I said finally, because I had to get out of the Inn, "I guess I don't pay attention. But maybe I ought to. Maybe I ought to."
I pulled myself together and walked out into the antechamber. I jumped back to the Aerie. Every morsel of strength I had left was what it took to get undressed and sprawled under the regenerator.
XVIII
One night under the regenerator was enough to start my shoulder well on the way to healing and to remove the pain, though I was more than a little stiff when the morning sun floated into the Aerie.
The burn twinged when I moved quickly, but I was in a hurry in getting cleaned up and dressed. Heimdall was always punctual, and I wanted to be in the Maintenance Hall before he arrived at the Tower.
The Tower was deserted, except for the duty trainees, when I slid in and trotted down the ramps.
The production equipment I had set up in the corner didn't take more than a few units to ready. Shortly after I fed in the parameter formula, little, black boxes, each with a locator tag and a power cell within, began popping out the other end of the system into a time-shielded bin.
The shielding might have been an unnecessary precaution, but I had warped the plastic edges into the back-time easily enough, and with all the rumors being circulated I figured it might save me a bit of grief. Who wanted Locator to register a thousand "Lokis" in Maintenance?
After the first units dropped into the bin, I took one and ducked behind one of the older machines for a quick time-dive back to Abelard. I dropped off the little black box there, stuffed it under the roots of some plant, and dived back to Query.
As I broke-out in the Maintenance Hall, I checked around, but saw no one. If my black gadget worked as designed, it should already have been registering my "presence"
on Abelard.
Then I began my regular work by assigning the repairs which had been brought down by the duty trainees. Brendan arrived within units and carted off his share. I carried Narcissus's to his space, and Brendan came back and delivered Elene's.
Before he got out of sight, I gestured. "Would you start to work on setting up what Dercia will need? No hurry, but I'm leaving it up to you. Unless you run into something strange."
"Be happy to."
Brendan could be a real pleasure to work with, probably would end up a better Maintenance supervisor than I had ever been.
As I ran through the routine jobs I'd assigned myself, the equipment in the rows behind me continued to produce black boxes.
I needed access to a locator terminal, preferably when no one knew what I was doing. Terminals existed in three places—the Personnel Hall, under the scrutiny of Gilmesh and Ferrin; the Tribunes' spaces which were guarded full-time; and the Locator section, which had a full-time duty staff.
With all the concerns Verdis had mentioned, especially that bit about the Tribunes' interest, I wasn't too interested in a repeat of my imitation of Frey and the nighttime follies. While no Guard or Tribune would ever get me back on Hell, skulking around after hours would create more problems than it would solve.
Paradoxically, my success in Maintenance had denied me the one legitimate access to a locator terminal I used to have. When the Tribunes had made me the nominal supervisor of Maintenance, my name had been lifted from the emergency divers watch list. That particular watch list had been Ferrin's innovation to assure a first-class diver was always on call, but supervisors were exempted. Somehow, I had to get myself into rescue work, at least occasionally.
I turned off the phony tag producer and covered the bin, setting out to corner Ferrin. He was still in charge of the watch list, despite being in Personnel. He was also struggling along by himself at the moment I walked in.
After pleasantries, I hit him. "Look, you script-pusher. First I've gotten tied into support and administration. I never get anything routine or moderately interesting in the way of diving missions, just killers when Heimdall cooks up something designed to fry or freeze me."
The Fires of Paratime Page 21