Great Kings' War

by John F. Carr

  Tortha used his own not inconsiderable girth to bump back and Barton turned, with fist raised, until he recognized his former boss. "Oh! Sorry, Chief."

  Barton had once thought he was on the fast track to being the new Paratime Chief, but Tortha had gradually shunted the bean-counter aside for Verkan, who was as good in the field as he was in the office—maybe better. Tortha had never liked nor trusted Barton Shar, and had assigned him to a place where he thought he couldn't do any harm—Stores and Equipment. Somehow Barton, over the past century, had managed to turn it into a rather large fiefdom.

  "In a rush, Inspector? What's the emergency? I don't see any Code Yellow or Red signal?"

  "No emergency. I was just in to ask Verkan for a budget increase, and he turned me down flat! With all the credits flying down the exhaust hole with his Kalvan Project, I'm forced to make appropriation cutbacks in other Sectors. It's not fair!"

  Fair, thought Tortha, now there's a novel view of the world. He'd stopped believing in fair about the time he passed his sixth birthday, when his father had given his younger sister his favorite stuffed animal because she could wail louder than him. In retrospect, it was a valuable lesson: there was nothing fair about the universe; indifferent and inexorable certainly, but fair—never!

  Maybe he'd made a mistake in not dealing with Barton a long time ago, but as Chief in charge of a hundred thousand Paracops, it was tough to get to know even the men you depended upon.

  Barton's face tightened up as if he realized he'd said too much. He gave Tortha a sticky sweet smile and said, "How's life on your plantation? Enjoying your own time-line?"

  That was another thing Tortha hadn't liked about Barton; he was an inveterate rump sniffer. He also spent a lot of his time in the company of politicians. "It's been different."

  Barton stiffened at the rebuke, spun on his heels and left the room.

  Same old Barton, he thought. He'd fawn over you at the drop of a hat, but if you didn't preen he took it personally. I really should have fired him a long time ago; saved Verkan the trouble!

  As he entered the room, the secretary was already on the screen, informing Chief Verkan Vall about his visitor. A familiar but slightly distracted voice replied, but there was no picture with it. "Tell the ex-Chief to come in, if he can entertain himself for a minute or two."

  The secretary was red in the face as he turned to face his former Chief, but Tortha only chuckled. "Sounds as if the Chief has the right spirit. Finish the job, even if the world's about to fall down on your head."

  The office hadn't changed much since Tortha Karf last saw it, a ten-day after leaving it to Verkan Vall. Most of the movable furniture had been his private property and had gone with him; most of the fixed furniture, except for the horseshoe-shaped desk, was data-processing equipment intended to resist any effort to move it without using chemical explosives.

  Verkan Vall was seated at the Chief's desk, apparently watching a visiscreen with one eye and a keyboard with the other. Both arms of the desk had acquired the inevitable litter of papers, photographs, discs, data wafers, charts and filmspools. Without raising his eyes from his work, Verkan waved him to a chair that gave him a clear view of the whole office and one of the transparent walls.

  A luxurious couch squatted by the rear wall; it was made from carved dark wood with leather upholstery and had a Fourth Level Europo-American look to it. It was hidden from the outside by an obviously Indo-Turanian ornamental screen of ivory plaques set in lacquered bronze frames.

  Another artificial alcove held several overstuffed reclining chairs, probably from Fourth Level Julian-Roman or Macedonian Empire Sector. They looked comfortable, although Tortha Karf wasn't prepared to be as charitable about the colors. Above the chairs several elaborately woven decorative hangings draped a carved wooden screen. He recognized the work of Vall's adopted sister-in-law Zinganna, who'd been raised from prole to citizen because of her help in breaking up the Wizard Traders. (Or at least in breaking it up as much as it had been broken up, Tortha added by way of a mental footnote.) She now had a happy marriage to Paratime Police Inspector Kostran Galth and a growing reputation as an artist.

  At one end of the screen was a wooden liquor cabinet of the sort that seemed to be universal in every civilization that reached the level of inventing distilling. At the other end was a long case with transparent sides and several glass shelves. He walked over to it and studied the contents, then began to laugh softly.

  The rest of the decorating showed the firm hand of Verkan Vall's wife Hadron Dalla. This case was Vall's, the souvenirs from some of his most important outtime cases.

  There was the .357 magnum revolver from Fourth Level Europo-American, Hispano-Columbian he'd used to kill an escaped Venusian night-hound. One the second shelf were two thumbscrews from Fourth Level Spanish-Imperial, where Verkan had once rescued a missing Paratime damsel from the Holy Office of the Inquisition. To the right was an ugly jade idol of a crocodile with wings like a bat and knife blades for a tail from the Crocodile-God Case. On the next shelf were a knife and a more sophisticated solid-projectile pistol Vall had used on a Second Level Akor-Neb time-line when Dalla (then between marriages to Verkan) got herself into trouble over a reincarnation fracas.

  Trouble was one of Dalla's natural habitats, of course, but that batch was worse than usual.

  There were half a dozen models of Paratime Police-issue weapons, needlers and slug throwers—even a beam weapon, two or three swords, depending upon whether one of them was considered a long knife, an ivory harpoon and a flintlock pistol from Kalvan's time-line.

  There was also a lady's handbag, and Tortha remembered rather too well how it had earned its place in the case. Dalla had used it to disarm a would-be assassin from the Wizard Traders, or Organization as they called themselves, saving Vall's life and proving she had the makings of a good policeman. She'd done well, but she shouldn't have had to do it at all. Now, he was inclined to believe the Paratime Police had been too restrained in their dealings with the Wizard Traders; politicians, trade magnates, industrialists and stranger bedfellows were involved. He'd never gotten to the bottom of it. Even now, after ten years of hard work, mostly Vall's, Tortha still wasn't sure if the Organization was dead or just lying quiet until trouble elsewhere diverted the Paratime Police attention.

  A polite cough drew his attention toward the desk and the man now rising from behind a darkened visiscreen. "Welcome home, sir. How are the rabbits in Sicily?"

  "Breeding like rabbits, as usual. I've tried everything short of importing cobras, but I can't do that because they have no natural enemies on the island. So I suppose I'll just have to be content with exporting what vegetables the rabbits are gracious enough to leave for me." He gestured toward the screen. "What had you by the leg there?"

  "Somebody on a Fourth Level Alexandrian-Roman time-line has reinvented the steam engine and one of the local kings has decided to conquer the world with a fleet of steamships. He has a nasty habit of burning cities to the ground, and he's on his way toward the island of Crete. Exotic Food and Beverages has a central conveyer-head there, for their wine imports. It's also a major tourist trap; Dalla spent a ten-day there as a girl. I was trying to get a computer evaluation of the risks of teaching some of our pearl divers from Fourth Level Sino-Polynesia to attach limpet mines to the king's ships. The time-line has gunpowder, so it's only a minor secondary contamination at worst."

  "What did the computer say?"

  "That it wasn't going to say anything for several hours. I was going to have dinner sent up, and Dalla can join us when she gets back from the Bureau of Archives. She wanted to check their artifact collection on limpet mines so that if we decide in favor of training the divers we can produce a mine that looks as right for that time-line as possible."

  "Any other problems?"

  "Yes, more trouble on Europo-American."

  "I'm not surprised," Tortha said. Europo-American, Hispano-Columbian Subsector, was an area of about ten thousand
parayears' depth in which the major civilization had developed on the Major Land Mass and from there spread to the Minor Land Mass, Northern Continent. The Hispano-Columbian Subsector had been very volatile since the Big War had concluded there twenty years ago, when it fractured into half a dozen new subsectors and belts. Ever since, the major power (usually two, sometimes three or four) had been acting like participants in a mutual suicide pact. Since they had nuclear weapons, the subsector had been under observation by a Paratime Policy study-team. The same political polarization had happened all over most of Third Level, where only a few time-lines had escaped nuclear destruction.

  There were a near infinity of time-lines, all on the same planet and each needing to be policed. The humans of First Level had reached civilization first, but in the process exhausted the earth's resources some twelve thousand years ago. All that had saved First Level, from a world-wide economic collapse and descent into barbarism, was the development of paratemporal transposition and the discovery of an uncountable number of exploitable time-lines. Ghaldron, working to develop a faster-than-light space drive, and Hesthor, working on linear time travel, combined their research and discovered a means of physical travel to and from a second, lateral time dimension. Once paratemporal transposition was discovered, the First Level race began to send its conveyers to this near infinity of parallel worlds, bringing wealth and unlimited resources back to Home Time Line.

  Over the course of twelve thousand years, First Level civilization developed a parasitic culture so nearly perfect that the host worlds never suspected its existence. This was the Paratime Secret; Home Time Line's one vulnerability. The Secret had to be protected and was the Paratime Police's primary mission. If this secret were to be exposed, the very existence of the First Level race would be in jeopardy—to say nothing of the devastation that knowledge of their predations would cause the billions of host worlds!

  When it didn't interfere with their primary duty, the Paratime Police also tried to prohibit flagrantly immoral conduct by First Level traders, tourists, observers, criminals and out-and-out fools. It was a difficult job, and it sometimes seemed the Paracops spent more time covering up dislocations than apprehending and punishing wrongdoers. This was one reason why Chiefs tended to retire early, along with First Level politics and headaches like the one Verkan was facing on Fourth Level Europo-American. Tortha had come close to quarantining the entire Sector during the last Big War.

  Fourth Level was the biggest level. It was divided into a number of sector groups based on where human civilization had first reappeared. There were four major sector groups: Nilo-Mesopotamian, Indus-Ganges-Irrawaddy, Yangtze-Mekong and Andean-Mississippi-Valley of Mexico. The Nilo-Mesopotamian Sector Group, the largest, was the home of Europo-American, Alexandrian-Roman, Sino-Assyrian and Macedonian Empire Sectors.

  Europo-American Sector was now the home of the a brand-new subsector, the Kennedy Subsector, which included those time-lines where the major ruler of the Northern Continent, Lesser Land Mass had survived an assassination attempt. John F. Kennedy's assassination had left other Hispano-Columbian subsectors moving quickly into instability.

  "I'm beginning to think we're going to have to close the entire Hispano-Columbian Subsector," Verkan said, as he paused to pick up his pipe and light it. "It's only a matter of time before this new undeclared war on the Major Land Mass has the two major powers in a missile-throwing contest. When that's finished, there won't be much that passes for civilization on that Subsector—just a long dark night. And this is getting to be a continuing danger throughout most of Hispano-Columbian, especially those dominated by the Nazi and Communist sects."

  "I agree. I've had my eye on that Sector ever since the first Big War to Free the World. I only held back because of pressure from the Executive Council. Some of the biggest outtime trading firms—Sharmax Trading, Paratime Petroleum, Holnyt Art House, Consolidated Outtime Foodstuffs and Synthax Spectacles move a lot of product out of that Subsector. Before you make up your mind, I suggest you have a talk with Councilman Lovranth Rolk to see what kind of support he can drum up from management in the Executive Council.

  Verkan Vall's face, normally as expressionless as a pistol-butt, relaxed visibly. "That's good advice, Tortha. I'm glad you came in today. I don't want to tell you how to live your new life any more than you want to tell me how to do my job, but I have this to say: I think you may have left for Sicily too fast and stayed too long. I could have used your advice a few times."

  "I'm sure you could have," Tortha said. "That's why I went. I might have yielded to the temptation to give that advice. Then where would we be?" He answered the question with a Sino-Hindic phrase from a time-line extraordinarily rich in scatological allusions.

  "It's not just the people who have some real grievance against you, Vall. It's everyone in and out of the Paratime Police who isn't happy with the youngest Chief in five thousand years. One who has appointed his wife as Chief's Special Assistant—" Tortha held up his hand to stop Verkan's objections. "I agree Dalla was the best-qualified candidate, but not everyone knows her as well as I do. Even you have to admit, her record is spotty.

  "Not to mention that you're an aristocrat with a rather peculiar hobby time-line that's going to make or break the careers of a lot of Dhergabar university professors. I'd rather desecrate a temple to Shpeegar Lord of the Spiders than beard a professor who thinks he's lost a publication opportunity because the Paracops meddled!"

  Verkan laughed, but Tortha could hear the strain in it. Guiltily he realized he'd been doing exactly what he'd left for Sicily to avoid—giving unasked-for advice. He also realized that Verkan looked—older? More strained? Tired? None of the words seemed completely wrong, or completely right either; all implied more emotion than Vall was letting show even now. He finally decided that Vall really looked like nothing more than a handsome man just into his second century who also happened to have the most nearly impossible and by far the most thankless job on Home Time Line.

  "Vall, tell the computer and the limpet mines to wait. Or put a limpet mine on the computer, for all I care. I'm taking you and Dalla out to dinner at the Constellation House—"

  "But I can't—"

  Tortha drew himself up into a posture of mock attention and saluted with the precision of a new recruit who hadn't learned which superiors insisted on salutes. "Sir, if I can't obtain your cooperation, I'll be obliged to inform Chief's Special Assistant Doctor Hadron Dalla that you have refused."

  Verkan pulled his face into an expression of mock horror. "No, no, anything but that!" He emptied his drink and set the glass back on his desk while reaching for his green uniform jacket with the other hand.

  II

  Sesklos, Styphon's Own Voice and Supreme Priest of Styphon's House, sat alone in his private audience chamber, wondering why fate had permitted him to live so long and rise so high, only to fall so low. He sat shivering before his charcoal brazier; Sesklos would have cursed all twelve of the so-called true gods—had he believed any of them were other than humbuggery. Wasn't it bad enough the Daemon Kalvan had fallen upon Styphon's House On Earth like a blazing rock out of the night sky? Did he need to hear from the lips of Archpriest Dracar that First Speaker Anaxthenes, his most trusted advisor and one he considered like a son, was the head of a conspiracy that threatened to turn priest against archpriest?

  The Styphon's Great Council of Balph, already halfway through its second moon, seemed as interminable as the winter wind and just about as likely to abate.

  Just thinking of the howling wind outside brought on a fit of shivering to his frail body. He quickly added more charcoal to the brazier. The additional heat stopped his tremors, but did not reach his fingers or toes. These days they were always cold; the price of ninety winters. Despite his discomfort, he hoped it would not be his last—the grave would be far colder.

  Sesklos' eyes lovingly caressed each of the treasures that furnished his private chamber in Styphon's Great Temple: a rainbow-colored feather
tapestry of a plumed serpent from the Empire of the Mexicotal; a Thunderbird buffalo skull layered with hammered gold and turquoise from the Great Mountains; a twisted ivory narwhal horn from the White Lands beyond farthest Hos-Zygros; a great stone battleaxe from the time of the Ancient Kings; a sacred golden bull from the Ros-Zarthani of the Western Sea; a fist-sized gold torc from a long-dead Urgothi Warlord in the Sastragath...

  Too many priceless objects to count even on a hundred lonely nights; the treasure of kingdoms, yet only the merest fraction of Styphon's House's great wealth. How could it be that one man, arriving out of nowhere, could place all this wealth and power in jeopardy? Or had he? Was it possible the golden throne of Styphon rested upon mere sand?

  Treasure was only one of the Temple's strengths. Styphon's House was as rich as any two Great Kingdoms combined. The Temple ruled the trade in corn, chocolate, cotton and tobacco. Owned the Five Great Banking Houses. At sea, Styphon's House had two fleets of galleasses and galleys and more merchant ships than a scribe could count beans in a long summer day. Granaries filled to bursting, armories with enough pikes, bills, halberds, swords, arquebuses, calivers and muskets to fill a valley. Magazines filled with tons of Styphon's fireseed—perhaps not as good as this new Hostigos mixture, but good enough.

  In soldiers, Styphon's House could count twenty-five thousand of Styphon's Own Guard, forty thousand Zarthani Knights, and enough gold and silver to buy every free companion in the Five Kingdoms; Sesklos refused to count Hos-Hostigos as a true Kingdom. Plus scads of rulers, from petty barons to Great Kings—one and all in Styphon's pocket.

  A sharp rap at the door brought Sesklos out of his musings. "Enter."

  First Speaker Anaxthenes came through the door in his yellow robe, followed by two of Styphon's Own Guard in their silvered armor with Styphon's design etched in black on the breastplate, matching silvered glaives and bright red capes.

  Sesklos gave a nod of dismissal to the Guardsmen. When they had departed, he asked, "What are these rumors I hear about you and the One-Worshippers?"