Havig nodded; a tingle went along his nerves. “Some such thought occurred to me, sir. But, well, I hadn’t your single-mindedness. I definitely don’t seem to have accumulated anything like your fortune. And besides, in my period, time travel was so common a fictional theme, I was afraid of publicity. At best, it seemed I’d merely attract cranks.”
“I got those!” Wallis admitted. “A few genuine, even: I mean travelers whose gift had made them a little tetched, or more than a little. Remember, a dimwit or a yokel, if he isn’t scared green of what’s happened to him and never does it again--or doesn’t want to travel outside the horizon he knows--or doesn’t get taken by surprise and murdered for a witch--he’ll hide what he is, and that’ll turn him strange. Or say he’s a street urchin, why shouldn’t he make himself rich as a burglar or a bookmaker, something like that, then retire to the life of Riley? Or say he’s an Injun on the reservation, he can impress the devil out of his tribe and make them support him, but they aren’t about to tell the palefaces, are they? And so on and so on. Hopeless cases. As for one like me, who is smart and ambitious, why, he’ll lay low same as you and I did, won’t he? Often, I’m afraid, too low for any of us to find.”
“How. . . how many did you gather?”
“Sir.”
“I’m sorry. Sir.”
Wallis gusted a breath. “Eleven. Out of a whole blooming century, eleven in that original effort.” He ticked them off. “Austin Caldwell the best of the lot. A fuzzy-cheeked frontier scout when he came to my office; but he’s turned into quite a man, quite a man. He it was who nicknamed me the Sachem. I kind of liked that, and let it stick.”
“Then a magician and fortuneteller in a carnival; a professional gambler; a poor white Southern girl. That was the Americans. Abroad, we found a Bavarian soldier; an investigator for the Inquisition, which was still going in Spain, you may know; a female Jew cultist in Hungary; a student in Edinburgh, working his heart out trying to learn from books what he might be; a lady milliner in Paris, who went off into time for her designs; a young peasant couple in Austria. We were lucky with those last, by the way. They’d found each other--maybe the only pair of travelers who were ever born neighbors--and had their first child, and wouldn’t have left if the baby weren’t small enough to carry.
“What a crew! You can imagine the problems of language and transportation and persuading and everything.”
“No more than those?” Havig felt appalled.
“Yes, about as many, but unusable. Cracked, like I told you, or too dull, or crippled, or scared to join us, or whatever. One strapping housewife who refused to leave her husband. I thought of abducting her--the cause is bigger than her damn comfort--but what’s the good of an unwilling traveler? A man, maybe you could threaten his kin and get service out of him. Women are too cowardly.”
Havig remembered a flamboyant greeting in the courtyard, but held his peace.
“Once I had my first disciples, I could expand,” Wallis told him. “We could explore wider and in more detail, learning better what needed to be done and how. We could establish funds and bases at key points of ... m-m ... yes, space-time. We could begin to recruit more, mainly from different centuries but a few additional from our own. Finally we could pick our spot for the Eyrie, and take command of the local people for a labor supply. Poor starved harried wretches, they welcomed warlords who brought proper guns and seed corn!”
Havig tugged his chin. “May I ask why you chose that particular place and year to start your nation, sir?”
“Sure, ask what you want,” Wallis said genially. “Chances are I’ll answer ... I thought of the past. You can see from yonder picture I’ve been clear back to Charlemagne, testing my destiny. It’s too long a haul, though. And even in an unexplored section like pre-Columbian America, we’d risk leaving traces for archeologists to discover. Remember, there could be Maurai time travelers, and what we’ve got to have is surprise. Right now, these centuries, feudalisms like ours are springing up everywhere, recovery is being made, and we take care not to look unique. Our subjects know we have powers, of course, but they call us magicians and children of the Those--gods and spirits. By the time that story’s filtered past the wild people, it’s only a vague rumor of still another superstitious cult.”
Havig appreciated the strategy. “As far as I’ve been able to find out, sir, which isn’t much,” he said, “the, uh, the Maurai culture is right now forming in the Pacific basin. Anybody from its later stages, coming downtime, would doubtless be more interested in that genesis than in the politics of obscure, impoverished barbarians.”
“You do your Americans an injustice,” Wallis reproved him. “You’re right, of course, from the Maurai standpoint. But actually, our people have had a run of bad luck.”
There was some truth in that, Havig must agree. Parts of Oceania had been too unimportant for overdevelopment or for strikes by the superweapons; and those enormous waters were less corrupted than seas elsewhere, more quickly self-cleansed after man became again a rare species. Yet the inhabitants were no simple and simpering dwellers in Eden. Books had been printed in quantities too huge, distributed over regions too wide, for utter loss of any significant information. To a lesser degree, the same was true of much technological apparatus.
North America, Europe, parts of Asia and South America, fewer parts of Africa, hit bottom because they were overextended. Let the industrial-agricultural-medical complexes they had built be paralyzed for the shortest of whiles, and people would begin dying by millions. The scramble of survivors for survival would bring everything else down in wreck.
Now even in such territories, knowledge was preserved: by an oasis of order here, a half-religiously venerated community there. At last, theoretically, it could diffuse to the new barbarians, who would pass it on to the new savages ... theoretically. Practice said otherwise. The old civilization had stripped the world too bare.
You could, for example, log a virgin forest, mine a virgin Mesabi, pump a virgin oil field, by primitive methods. Using your gains from this, you could go on to build a larger and more sophisticated plant capable of more intricate operations. As resources dwindled, it could replace lumber with plastics, squeeze iron out of taconite, scour the entire planet for petroleum.
But by the time of the Judgment, this had been done. That combination of machines, trained personnel, well-heeled consumers and taxpayers, went under and was not to be reconstructed.
The data needed for an industrial restoration could be found. The natural materials could not.
“Don’t you think, sir,” Havig dared say, “by their development of technological alternatives, the Maurai and their allies will do a service?”
“Up to a point, yes. I have to give the bastards that,” Wallis growled. His cigar jabbed the air. “But that’s as far as it goes. Far enough to put them hard in the saddle, and not an inch more. We’re learning about their actual suppression of new developments. You will likewise.”
He seemed to want to change the subject, for he continued:
“Anyhow, as to our organization here. My key men haven’t stuck around in uninterrupted normal time, and I less. We skip ahead-overlapping-to keep leadership continuous. And we’re doing well. Things snowball for us, in past, present, and future alike.
“By now we’ve hundreds of agents, plus thousands of devoted commoners. We ruled over what used to be a couple of whole states, though of course our traffic is more in time than space. Mainly we govern through common-born deputies. When you can travel along the lifespan of a promising boy, you can make a fine and trusty man out of him-especially when he knows he’ll never have any secrets from you, nor any safety.
“But don’t get me wrong. I repeat, we aren’t monsters or parasites. Sometimes we do have to get rough. But our aim is always to put the world back on the path God laid out for it.”
He leaned forward. “And we will,” he almost whispered.
“I’ve
traveled beyond. A thousand years hence, I’ve seen--“Are you with us?”
8
“BY AND LARGE, the next several months were good,” Havig would relate (would have related) to me. “However, I stayed cautious. For instance, I hedged on giving out exact biographical data. And I passed the chronolog off as a radionic detector and transmitter, built in case visitors to the past had such gear in use. Wallis said he doubted they did and lost interest. I found a hiding place for it. If they were the kind of people in the Eyrie I hoped they were, they’d understand when I finally confessed my hesitation about giving them something this helpful.”
“What made you wary?” I asked.
His thin features drew into a scowl. “Oh . . . minor details at first. Like Wallis’s whole style. Though, true, I didn’t have a proper chance to get acquainted, because he soon hopped forward to the following year. Think how that lengthens and strengthens power!”
“Unless his subordinates conspire against him meanwhile,” I suggested.
He shook his head. “Not in this case. He knows who’s certainly loyal, among both his agents and his hand-reared commoners. A hard core of travelers shuttles in and out through time with him, on a complicated pattern which always has one of them clearly in charge.
“Besides, how’d you brew a conspiracy among meek commoner farmers and laborers, arrogant commoner soldiers and officials, or the travelers themselves? They’re a wildly diverse and polyglot band, those I met in the castle and those stationed in outlying areas. Nearly all from post-medieval Western civilization--”
“Why?” I wondered. “Surely the rest of history has possibilities in proportion.”
“Yeah, and Wallis said he did mean to extend the range of his recruiters. But the difficulties of long temporal trips, language and culture barriers, training whomever you brought back, seemed too great thus far. His Jerusalem search was an experiment, and aside from me had a disappointing result.”
Havig shrugged. “To return to the main question,” he said, “American English is the Eyrie’s official language, which everybody’s required to learn. But even so, with most I could never communicate freely. Besides accents, our minds were too different. From my angle, the majority of them were ruffians. From theirs, I was a sissy, or else too sly-acting for comfort. And they had, they have their mutual jealousies and suspicions. Simply being together doesn’t stop them regarding each other as Limeys, Frogs, Boches, Guineas, the hereditary enemy. How would you give them a common cause?
“And, finally, why on Earth should they mutiny? Only a few are idealists of any kind; that’s a rare quality, remember. But we lived--they live--like fighting cocks. The best of food, drink, time-imported luxuries, servants, bed partners, sports, liberal furloughs to the past, if reasonable precautions are observed, and ample pocket money provided. The work isn’t hard. Those who need it get training in what history and technology are appropriate to their talents. The able-bodied learn commando skills. The rest become clerks, temporal porters, administrators, or researchers if they have the brains for it. That was our routine, by no means a dull one. The work itself was fascinating--or would be, I knew, as soon as my superiors decided I was properly trained. Think: a scout in time!
“No, on the whole I had no serious complaints. At first.”
“You don’t seem to have found your associates really congenial, however,” I said.
“A few I did,” he replied. “Wallis himself could charm as well as domineer: in his fashion, a spellbinding conversationalist, what with everything he’d experienced. His top lieutenant, Austin Caldwell, gray now but whipcord-tough still, crack shot and horseman, epic whiskey drinker, he had the same size fund of stories to draw on, plus more humor; in addition, he was a friendly soul who went out of his way to make my beginnings easier. Reuel Orrick, that former carnival magician, a delightful old rogue. Jerry Jennings, hardly more than an English schoolboy, desperately trying to find a new dream after his old ones broke apart in the trenches, 1918. A few more. And then Leonce.” He smiled, though it was a haunted smile. “Especially Leonce.”
They rode forth upon a holiday, soon after his arrival. He had barely gotten moved into his two-room castle apartment, and as yet had few possessions. She presented him with a bearskin rug and a bottle of Glenlivet from downtime. He wasn’t sure if it was mere cordiality, like that which some others showed, or what. Her manner baffled him more than her dialect. A lusty kiss, within five minutes of first sight--then casual cheerfulness, and she sat by a different man practically every mess--But Havig found too much else to occupy his mind, those early days.
The proffered concubine was not among them. He didn’t like the idea of a woman being ordered to his couch. This was an extra reason to welcome Leonce’s invitation to a picnic, when they got their regular day off.
Bandits had been thoroughly suppressed in the vicinity, and mounted patrols assured they would not slip back. It was safe to go out unescorted. The pair carried pistols only as a badge which none but their kind were allowed.
Leonce chose the route, several miles through fields dreamy beneath the morning sun, until a trail left the road for a timber lot big enough to gladden Havig with memories of Morgan Woods. A scent of new-cut hay yielded to odors of leaf and humus. It was warm, but a breeze ruffled foliage, stroked the skin, made sun-flecks dance in shadow. Squirrels streaked and chattered over branches. Hoofs beat slowly, muscles moved at leisure between human thighs.
On the way she had eagerly questioned him. He was glad to oblige, within the broad circle drawn by discretion. What normal man does not like to tell an attractive woman about himself? Especially when to her his background is fabulous! The language fence toppled. She had not been here long either, less than a year even if temporal trips were reckoned in. But she could speak his English fairly well by now when she wasn’t excited; and his talented ear began to pick up hers.
“From the High Years!” she breathed, leaned in her stirrups and squeezed his arm. Her hands bore calluses.
“Uh, what do you mean by that?” he asked. “Shortly before the Judgment?”
“Ay-yeh, when men reached for moon an’ stars an’-an’ ever’thing.” He realized that, despite her size and brashness, she was quite young. The tilted eyes shone upon him from beneath the ruddy hair, which today hung in pigtails tied with ribbons.
When we doomed ourselves to become our own executioners, he thought. But he didn’t want to croak about that. “You look as if you come from a hopeful period,” he said.
She made a moue, but at once grew pensive, cradled chin in fist and frowned at her horse’s ears, until: “Well, yes an’ no. Same’s for you, I reckon.”
“Won’t you explain? I’ve heard you’re from uptime of here, but I don’t know more.”
When she nodded, red waves of light ran over her mane. “‘Bout ‘nother hun’erd ‘n’ fifty year. Glacier Folk.”
After they entered the woods they could not ride abreast. Guiding, she led the way. He admired her shape from behind, and her grace in the saddle; and often she turned her head to flash him a grin while she talked.
Her homeland he identified as that high and beautiful country which he had known as Glacier and Waterton Parks and on across the Bitterroot Range. Today her ancestors were in its eastern part, having fled from Mong who conquered the plains for their own herds and ranches. Already they were hunters and trappers more than smallhold farmers, raiders of the lowland enemy, elsewhere traders who brought furs, hides, ores, slaves in exchange for foodstuffs and finished products. Not that they were united; feuds among families, clans, tribes would rage for generations.
But as their numbers and territory expanded, a measure of organization would evolve. Leonce tried to describe: “Look, you, I’m o’ the Ranyan kin, who belong in the Wahorn troop. A kin’s a. . . a gang o’ families who share the same blood. A troop meets four times a year, under its Sherf, who leads ‘em in killin’ cattle for Gawd an’
Oktai an’ the rest o’ what folk here-aroun’ call the Those. Then they talk about things, an’ judge quarrels, an’ maybe vote on laws-the grownups who could come, men an’ women both.” Merriment pealed. “Ha! So we per-ten’. Mainly it’s to meet, gossip, dicker, swap, gorge, booze, joke, show off. . . you know?”
“I think I do,” Havig answered. Some such institution was common in primitive societies.
“In later time,” she continued, “Sherfs, an’ whatever troop people can go ‘long, been meetin’ likewise once a year, in the Congers. The Jinral runs that show: first-born to the line o’ Injun Samal, in the Rover kin who belong to no troop. It’d be a blood-flood, that many diff’rent kin together, or would’ve been at the start, ‘cep’ it’s at Lake Pendoray, which is peace-holy.”
Havig nodded. The wild men became less wild as the advantages of law and order grew in their minds--no doubt after Injun Samal had knocked the heads of their chieftains together.
“When I left, things were perty quiet,” Leonce said. “The Mong were gone, an’ we traded of’ner’n we fought with the new lowlanders, who’re strong an’ rich. More ‘n’ more we were copyin’ ‘em.” She sighed. “A hun’erd years after me, I’ve learned, the Glacier Folk are in the Nor’wes’ Union. I don’t want to go back.”
“You seem to have had a rough life just the same.”
Two in Time Page 29