“Don’t brandish that thing. She was expecting me. She’s been expecting both of us, in fact. She says either you or she is going to have to die here, because she’s not going back.”
Ranke sighted along the barrel of the pistol at Medlin’s sternum. “Pretty tough talk for an old lady. Did she say what she expects you to be doing while she and I are all locked together in mortal combat and everything? You going to be the scorekeeper, the cheerleader? The prize?”
“I’m getting just a little sick and tired of having guns pointed at me.”
“All in fun.”
“Even in fun. Especially in fun.”
Ranke chuckled and lowered the pistol. “You won’t always be so special, you know. Even with Garrick gone. Sooner or later, the agency’ll land someone who knows the same tricks.”
“You know it’s not tricks. It’s talent. Talent’s rare.”
“Not as rare as you think.”
Medlin had never seen anyone look so smug before. He said, “You’ll never be a traveler. You pitch wild.”
“We’re not alone here.”
“I’ve seen them, too. I saw them the first night I was here.”
“If you could see what I see—” Ranke gestured vaguely at the tableau outside the window. “All these different trails, like blurs of light on time-exposed film. They’re threaded through the streets and criss-cross the hills up there. It looks like weaving with airplane contrails. There’re a dozen people here who—” he grinned his predator grin and wagged a finger in the air admonishingly “—shouldn’t be here. Most of them, sure, are passengers. But at least one of them has to be a traveler, and maybe there’s more than just one. If they’ve come to this little hellhole, they must have travelers to spare.”
“They may not be as accommodating as you’d like. I didn’t get the time of day out of them.”
“I guess eventually we’re going to find out just how accommodating they can be. The day when we all just pretend not to notice other time travelers and don’t get involved with them is over. There’s a plan now, and it’ll only work if everyone sticks to it and does what they’re supposed to.”
“Ah yes,” Medlin said, “the coming world order. Or should I call it the coming world re-order?”
“The world’s in a mess. Things’ve got to change. From now on, whenever we run into other visitors, whoever they are, wherever they’re from, they’re going to have to listen to us. We’ll tell them, These are our rules, you have to obey them from now on. You want to hear Lincoln talk at Gettysburg or see Catherine the Great screw the pony, you have to do things according to our rules. Otherwise, there’s chaos.”
“Garrick told me a little about those rules.”
Ranke rolled his eyes ceilingward. “We both know what a talent she has for description. I’m sure she’s told you there’s some great mischief afoot.”
“I’m not as convinced as she is,” said Medlin, “that temporal engineering’s possible. I’m more concerned about being on a leash.”
“Ah. I thought she’d try to get you to go maverick with her if she had the chance.”
“She may yet succeed.”
“Listen to me, Medlin.” Ranke stopped toying with the automatic and slipped it back into his pocket as a token of his own seriousness. “You and I have always cordially detested each other. I know you think I’m jealous of the interest she’s always shown in you. You think her interest is affection. It isn’t. It’s self-interest. She thinks of you as her only peer and also as her only rival. She’s always kept you close, by her side and on her side, so you couldn’t be used against her some day. She wants to run now, but she can’t leave you behind. She’d always be looking over her shoulder if she did. But if she did talk you into going with her, you think you wouldn’t be on a leash then? She’d never let you out of her sight. Whether you stick with us or go with her, she’ll end up trying to kill you.”
Medlin’s face felt as hot as the volcano’s.
“I also know,” Ranke went on, “you think I’m jealous because you’re a traveler. Nothing is farther from the truth. I do pitch wild, and it’s inconvenient. It forces me to rely on you. But inconvenient is all it is. I’m the world’s best tracker, and only some of that’s thanks to that old woman. As soon as it gets dark, we’ll get on her trail.”
“Waiting for dark’s not such a great idea. Voodoo worshippers’ve taken over the streets at night.”
“All the more reason,” Ranke said, “for us to get a move on,” and he grabbed Medlin’s arm to haul him up. “Come on, it’s check-out time.”
“Let me go. I’m already worn out from walking. I hurt my leg the first night I was here, and I’m still limping.”
“Pobrecito.” Ranke had pulled him up and out of the room, and now they plunged down the stairs, almost upsetting Madame, who was carrying a tray with cups and coffee pot. Ranke seemed not to notice her at all. He went straight to the door and unbolted it. Behind them, the woman shrieked a protest and dropped her tray. Ranke still had hold of Medlin’s coat and jerked him outside into the street by it. Snarling, Medlin twisted free, just in time to see the door slam shut. He heard the bolt go home with resounding finality.
“Nice going,” he said. He was trembling with anger. “She wouldn’t let Jesus himself back in now. Were you Custer in a previous life? Between Garrick and us are probably hundreds of voodoo worshippers!”
Ranke did not reply at once. He stood very quietly in the middle of the street, lost in thought. He was still clean—entirely too clean for St. Pierre—and the few passersby not in a wholly numbed state looked at him in wonder. Medlin thought for a moment that he saw uncertainty in the vertical groove that appeared between Ranke’s eyebrows, and he guessed that atmospheric phenomena might indeed be interfering with the man’s ability to locate Garrick’s trail. But then Ranke smiled and swatted him on the arm and said to him as cheerily as though they had been bosom pals forever, “Come on, let’s get moving.”
They got moving. The volcano began to grumble and sputter again. It was all Medlin could do to keep from staring at it. It was all he could do to keep walking. Ranke completely ignored the demonstration and strode with the purposeful air of a hunting dog that knew exactly where its quarry was hunkered down. He was the one happy person in St. Pierre. The volcanic tumult did not last long, and when it subsided, silence descended over the town. Ash lay drifted like dirty snow against walls and in corners. All shutters were closed. It again occurred to Medlin that everyone was already dead, that the glowing cloud, when it came, would sweep through a city already extinct. The sun was setting as they reached the Avenue Victor Hugo. Ranke walked easily, almost sauntering. Medlin marched along with his fists deep in his coat pockets, choking on ash and fury, mad at Ranke, mad at the volcano, mad at the world. A number of refugees, men, women, children, sat or crouched in the doorways. They murmured among themselves if they talked at all. Most of them simply sat and stared at nothing that Medlin could see.
An elegant coach and pair came gliding ghostlike down the street. It slowed as it approached a group of soldiers and stopped before them just as Medlin and his companion passed behind them. The door was flung open, and a thick-bodied man wearing an ornate uniform struck a pose with one foot in the cab and the other on the step. He obviously expected to be recognized, and looked slightly crestfallen when the soldiers regarded him incuriously.
“I,” he announced, “am Governor Mouttet!”
The soldiers exchanged looks among themselves and shuffled to suggest a military unit dressing its ranks. Behind them, Medlin heard Ranke snicker softly and said, “Wait,” and stopped walking. Ranke looked annoyed but waited. Medlin’s head filled with crazy ideas. He wondered if he might not somehow get Ranke’s automatic away from him and force this Mouttet at gunpoint to evacuate the town. He wondered if he might not shoot Mouttet on principle, and Ranke as well, now that he thought about it. He wondered, as he realized the futility of grappling with Ranke, if Ranke might no
t shoot him, not fatally, just on principle.
Anger and perplexity were struggling for supremacy on the governor’s face. He looked from one soldier to the next. “What,” he demanded, “are you doing here?”
“Waiting, sir,” said one man, “for the bourhousses to strike again.”
“Again?”
“At dawn this morning, sir, the soldiers guarding the road to Fort-de-France were attacked by the voodoo worshippers. Two soldiers were strangled.”
This obviously was all news to Governor Mouttet. He withdrew his head into the coach and conferred with another man, less flamboyantly attired, and a woman whom Medlin took to be Madame Mouttet. She was well-dressed but looked very anxious. After a moment, the governor thrust himself out again. He had begun to look somewhat choleric.
“Where,” he demanded, “are the soldiers who are supposed to be patrolling the road?”
The corporal shrugged. “Somewhere in the town, sir.”
“On whose authority?”
“I do not know, sir. Perhaps their own, sir!”
Governor Mouttet opened his mouth, closed it, and retreated into his coach. The driver cracked his whip. It was the crispest sound Medlin had heard in days, and it galvanized him. Before Ranke could have known what he was about, he pushed past the soldiers and leaped after the coach as it began to move. He got a foot on the step and the fingers of one hand around the frame of the door. “Governor Mouttet!” he yelled. “Order the immediate evacuation of the town!”
The two men and the woman gaped. Medlin heard the whip an instant before it wrapped itself around his neck and head and tried to slice off his ear. He screamed and lost his grip and landed on what must have been the last patch of uncushioned cobblestone pavement in St. Pierre. The side of his head was on fire.
The coach moved away without a sound and vanished into the gloom. Ranke was speaking to the soldiers in conciliatory tones. When he turned from them toward Medlin, his big friendly smile became the reptilian grimace of a crocodile. He helped Medlin stand, and while making a show of helping him brush himself off said, “Would’ve served you right if the coachman’d taken your ear off.”
Medlin carefully felt along his scalpline. His fingers came away bloody.
“Don’t do that again,” Ranke said conversationally as he started tying his handkerchief around Medlin’s head. “I mean it.”
“Ranke, I know how scary you are. But—”
“Good. Now let’s get out of here before these soldiers become any more curious about us. I told ’em you’re drunk, so act it.”
“But I’m not afraid of you.”
“Meaning, of course, that my threats and implied threats don’t faze you, because you’re my ride home. Fine. Be scared of whomever, whatever you like. But just don’t make any more sudden moves like that, or I’ll really hurt you,” and he pulled the handkerchief too tightly over Medlin’s injured ear, “and I mean, really, really hurt you.”
Gripped by a hand he could not resist, Medlin made himself a drag on the other man’s arm and said, “Listen.”
Ranke barely slowed and barely looked his way. “Well? You have something to say?”
“No, listen.”
They listened. The drumming was beginning. Medlin heard someone—several people—running on the street behind them. He looked over at Ranke. “The voodoo people are about to put in an appearance.”
“What’re they going to do, come at us with cute little wax dolls?”
“Come at us with cute little steel machetes, more likely. Try to strangle us. Do something unpleasant to us, in any case. We’ve got to get indoors.”
“More delay,” Ranke said, shaking his head. He took out his pistol.
Medlin looked at him aghast. “You can’t go around indiscriminately gunning down denizens!”
Ranke laughed. “You can’t go around indiscriminately trying to save them! These people’re all going to be dead in a few hours anyway. They’re fair game. Besides, you moron—we’re about to get mugged!”
A torchlit procession surged along the street toward them. At its head, men and women sang and danced. Some were trying to dance and drink; they splashed more liquor on themselves than in, but appeared not to mind. Behind them were the drummers, and next came three fantastic-looking figures. One of these held a squirming form, and Medlin thought, incredulously, A child? Then he saw that it was a bound goat. Each of the other two wizards carried aloft a fluttering, protesting chicken.
As soon as the celebrants saw the two white men, a howl went up. Several men armed with machetes ran out ahead of the procession. Medlin saw Ranke check the chamber of his pistol and take aim.
“Christ, Ranke!”
Fist on hip, Ranke glanced sideways at him and said, “Now don’t go away.”
“Shoot over their heads, scare them off!”
“They’ll be scared a lot farther off if I nick the paint off a couple of them.”
“If we’re after Garrick, let’s go get her, but—”
There was a flash of fire from the pistol’s muzzle, and a shuddering little report. One of the advancing men gave a yelp and hit the ground like an empty suit of clothes. It enraged his companions. They raced forward, yelling, and Ranke yelled back and fired again into the rushing dark forms. Torches dipped, shadows elongated weirdly, brown-stained metal blades were raised. Medlin, already bac‹ing away, already turning and drawing his arms up and going into a crouch preparatory to pushing off at a dead run, saw Ranke’s eyes slitted and his teeth bared in a puma’s snarl. He looked very happy. Then his automatic jammed, and he had only enough time to say “Shit!” before the first machete blade and then the second and the third and the fourth descended in arcs and chopped him apart as if he were merely some obstinate jungle growth.
Medlin had already sprung away.
Once, as he ran, he tripped and went sprawling on the rough pavement, but there was yelling close behind him, and he scrambled forward on his toes and fingers like a dog for a short distance until he regained his feet. The air scourged his throat and lungs; it was like breathing hot sand. The buildings closed in on him from either side. Something reached up out of the earth itself to trip him. Something else gave a triumphant cry as it landed on his back. A wire or cord whipped about his throat. A knee as hard as teak pressed into the small of his back, and there was warm stinking breath on his cheek. Then he heard another gunshot and a startled grunt. The wire was suddenly gone, and the knee. Medlin, gasping, felt himself being lifted up, felt himself weightless. There were voices, but he was unable to concentrate on them. Everything receded for a time, and then returned more slowly than it had gone away. Serpents, he thought, wild pigs.
He was lying on ashy ground in what he took to be a small clearing. He could see a treetop-edged patch of red-tinted sky above. There were four, five, or six glowing people present, some of them moving about, making it impossible for him to get an accurate count. One, however, was kneeling over him, examining his throat. Another stood behind this man and looked down over his shoulder at Medlin.
“Where am I?” Medlin croaked.
“Safe,” said the kneeling man. “Inside the botanical gardens.”
“Relatively safe,” said the person standing behind him. “This is no place for tourists.”
Medlin recognized the second speaker as one of the luminous men he had seen—how many nights before?
“Civilization’s falling apart here,” the flat-faced man said.
Medlin said, “Who the hell are you?”
A familiar voice said, “Fine way to talk to folks who just saved your life,” and Garrick’s nimbused head appeared over the shoulder of the flat-faced man. “Med, this is Doctor Leonard Beers, and that’s his assistant, Frank Cooley, checking your neck. Doctor, Mister Cooley, this is my young friend Medlin whom I’ve told you about.”
Medlin looked up at Beers and said, “Doctor, we probably could’ve avoided a whole lot of melodrama just now if you hadn’t been so stuck up a fe
w nights ago.”
Beers did not look concerned. “Frankly, Mister Medlin, I thought you were a drunken tourist at the time. In any case, we have no interest in anyone’s business here but our own.” He turned to Garrick then and said, “You’ll have to excuse me now, we’ve got a lot of work to do,” and strode off without waiting for a reply.
“Bit of a cold fish,” Medlin said.
Garrick shrugged. She was wearing a broad-brimmed hat and men’s clothing, loose shirt, loose trousers. “He just really isn’t too keen on getting involved in our affairs, or letting us get involved in his. I’m sure he’d despise our little intrigues if he knew much about them. Here.”
She handed him a cup of water and a foodstick. The water was cold and delicious but hurt his throat. The foodstick was stale, chalky, and impossible to swallow.
“The voodoo people killed Ranke,” he gasped after draining the cup.
Garrick gave a soft snort. “I guess they didn’t buy his rough-tough act,” she said. “I never could make him understand that machismo will get you hurt faster than anything.”
Medlin looked around. The strangers were fiddling with odd devices or packing equipment. Beers cut in among them like a factory foreman, barking instructions.
Medlin said, “Who are these people?”
“What we started out to be—scientists, historians. They’re here to study and record the eruption. Pelée, Tambora, Krakatau, they’re recording all the biggest and most famous ones. Nobody, no competent observer, anyway, ever saw a glowing cloud until Pelée. Nobody was set up to study Pelée until after the Ascension Day eruption, or even had the instruments. Volcanology was barely a science in nineteen oh two. Anyway, they’ll be clearing out as soon as they finish setting up their monitoring devices. They’ve got an observation station set up on the heights south of the destruction zone.”
The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection Page 49