The Crosstime Engineer

by Leo Frankowski

  The next time the waitress came by, I asked her again about the group from the station.

  “Well, sir, it’s going on eight o'clock, and I'd guess that if they're not here by now, they won't be getting here. They don't always come. Another beer, sir?”

  “No. No more beer, please. Vodka. A large glass.”

  I repacked my knapsack, seeds and all, and settled down to a monumental drunk.

  Eventually the waitress got fairly adamant about my leaving—we were the last ones up-so I settled the surprisingly large bill and walked for the door with my pack on my back. I then decided that another trip to the rest room was in order. The rest room was in the basement, and I had made the trip quite a few times that evening.

  But this time there seemed to be a lot more steps than before, and the lights were out. I must have stumbled around for twenty minutes without finding either the rest room or a light switch. I sat down to rest.

  For the past two weeks, I had been sleeping in meadows and on rock piles. I could be comfortable anywhere. I relaxed, laid down, and fell asleep.

  Chapter Two

  I awoke with fluorescent lights shining in my face. My back and arms were simultaneously sore and numb; I had fallen asleep wearing my knapsack. My forehead was trying to split just above my eyebrows to relieve internal pressure. My bladder was painfully full, and my teeth were rusty.

  I had not the slightest idea where I was, and I had to slowly and painfully rehearse in my mind the events of the previous day. Ali. Yes. The magnificent bitch. The idiot seeds. The inn. I must be in the basement of the inn.

  Slowly, I got to my feet, half wishing that my head would explode and be done with it. I had been sleeping on sacks of grain, probably barley. Oh, yes. They brewed their own beer. I must be in the storeroom.

  My pack seemed undisturbed. I checked my wallet, and everything was in order, though yesterday’s stupid spending had left me with barely enough cash to pay my bus fare home.

  The double door out was weird-thick steel like a bank vault or like something you might find in a submarine. Old buildings sometimes collect strange features. Perhaps it had been a bomb shelter.

  But I couldn’t waste time puzzling that out. It had become urgent that I find a rest room.

  Beyond the strange doors was a large room filled with boxes and bales; it was nothing like the hallway with the rest room. I found a staircase, which I climbed frantically. If I was in a basement, then up had to be out. I could always go in the bushes.

  Through the doorway at the top of the stairs, I found myself in the familiar hallway, dimly lit with gray light from a high window. I must have been in a subbasement. As I rushed to the rest room, the door closed behind me with a solid click.

  But there was no rest room, just another storage room filled with huge, foul-smelling crocks of sauerkraut.

  My bladder could stand no more, and the room was dark. I walked behind the door and urinated on the wall.

  Please understand that I was a civilized, educated, and profoundly housebroken young man. I felt extremely guilty about desecrating someone’s storeroom. As my bladder deflated, other problems occurred to me. How was I to explain my presence in the basement? At best, the owners might demand of me the price of a night's lodging, which I didn't have. At worst, they might accuse me of being a thief, and no end of trouble would come of it all. Best to leave as quietly and quickly as possible.

  I tiptoed to the ascending staircase that began directly in front of the door at the top of my previous climb. But the door that I had just come through had become a solid fieldstone wall without the slightest hint of a crack.

  Well, I was severely hung over and probably still a bit drunk. I had never had hallucinations before, but I knew that such things were possible. But it was probable that I was in serious trouble. So, pack still on my back, I climbed the staircase, unbarred a door, and walked quickly down the trail without looking back.

  I went at least a kilometer before I dared to stop, dig out my canteen, and drink it dry. As my fear of being caught lessened with each step, so did my mood become darker. Instead of returning from my vacation refreshed and eager for a new project, I was broke, sore, hung over, and horny. Hangovers always make me horny, and the “affair” with the redhead had not helped a bit. The weather had turned gray and cold, and I was not in a tolerant mood. Then a lunatic medievalist trotted toward me down the trail.

  In retrospect and at a distance, he was not a bad sight. He rode a massive black stallion and wore a white surcoat with a huge black cross. His white shield also bore a black cross, which was repeated again by the eye-and-nose slit on his authentic-looking barrel of a helmet. He was sheathed in chain mail from his neck to his toes. A lance was at his back, a sword was at his waist, and various instruments of mayhem hung over his saddlebow.

  As we approached each other, the idealized image faded and details became visible- The surcoat was shabby, and the shield was dirty. His chain mail was not of the fine rings seen in museums but of circles as big as a man’s wedding ring and of iron that would have been better used for coat hangers. His helmet and weaponry were of poorly beaten wrought iron, and his horse was not well fed.

  I must confess that Poland has its fair share of lunatics and more than its share of medievalists. Once a year, the whole city of Cracow is turned over to those strange people-mostly students-for a weekend. Actually, the Juvenalia is a pretty good party, but I was not in the mood in the Tatras.

  Still, I needed to find a bus home, so I flagged him down.

  “Hi there!” I waved as he drew up alongside.

  He stopped abruptly, stiffened his back, and removed his dented helmet, which he balanced on top of the other ironmongery on his saddlebow. His hair, at least, was authentic. It was very long, very blond, and very greasy. His eyes were ice-blue, his nose had been broken, and scars crossed his forehead and cheek. I had the feeling that he was doing what he was doing because he could not afford a motorcycle.

  He shouted at me in something that was probably German. My American was quite good, and I could speak a little English, but German was quite beyond me.

  “That’s very nice. You are very good at keeping in character, but would you please speak Polish?”

  “I talk some Pole. What hell you want?”

  “Okay, stay in character if your ego needs it, but I would like to know how far it is to the main highway to Cracow.”

  “You on road, Horse Ass.”

  “I’m on a trail, but I need to catch the bus to Cracow. Now, please cut out the nonsense.”

  “You need bashed head, you.”

  There comes a time when you must stop being polite to an idiot. I was a Polish Air Force Reserve Officer, and I spent some months in a basic training camp. There is a thing called a ’command voice.' It is very loud, very deep, and very penetrating. It is guaranteed to shake the socks off the average recruit. So: “Now listen up, you baseborn moron! I have had quite enough of your archaic nonsense! I have asked you a simple, civil question: How far are we from the main road? Now, you will answer up, and smartly, or you will regret it! Do I make myself clear?” It is important that you never actually swear at an inferior, since this puts you down on his level. You can come close, however.

  His eyes widened, and he started to draw his sword. Then he dropped it back into its sheath.

  At the time I thought I had him buffaloed, but on more mature reflection I think that he simply didn’t want to dirty his sword on me.

  He searched among his ironmongery and pulled out a meter-long chain with a long stick at one end and a big iron star at the other. He swung this thing at me.

  I was sufficiently startled that my reaction time was slow. I did manage to turn and start running, such that I caught the star mostly on my pack and only glancingly on the back of my skull. The impact was sufficient to knock me some ways from the trail and into a thorn bush. I decided to remain there until he went away.

  He never looked at me again. He slung
his gadget back over the saddlebow, put his helmet back on his head, and continued south.

  God! He wasn’t a lunatic so much as a bloody maniac!

  I disentangled myself from the thorn bush and sorted through my pack for a clean cloth. The wound at the back of my head did not seem to be bleeding much, and I guessed that it would last until I could get to a hospital. Actually, it hurt less than the throbbing hangover in my forehead. I would live, but I would definitely report the homicidal moron to the police! Besides damage to my pride and person, he had punctured my tent, ripped my knapsack, dented my mess kit, and smashed my flashlight into three pieces! Damn it, I would sue the bastard!

  I got everything back together, keeping the damaged equipment for evidence, and continued north.

  The weather that had been bad turned absolutely foul. Overcast turned into fog and mist that turned into sleet and snow. I stopped and put on the long johns that my mother had insisted I take. I traded my tennis shoes for heavy hiking boots. Then I put on my nylon wind jacket and sweater over my sweat shirt. I soon covered this with a plastic poncho and was at last reduced to wrapping my sleeping bag about me under the poncho.

  My hangover had not lessened a bit.

  This was totally insane weather for mid-September.

  According to my map, I should have crossed the highway hours ago. I supposed that I could be on the wrong trail, but only one was shown on the map. Nor had I seen another trail since leaving the inn. Perhaps I should have turned back to the inn and followed the gravel road down to the main highway, but there was always the chance that someone had seen me sneaking out. No. The likely solution was that, what with hangover and wounds, I was just slower than usual.

  It was hard to tell, but I think it was about noon when my stomach began to protest. I was hungry.

  I found a small stream forded by large rocks, which was strange; the Tourist Directorate usually bridges them. Not far from the trail was a cliff that sheltered some squaw wood from the sleet and snow. Squaw wood, for the benefit of you Polish city folk, is what my American friends called the dead, dry branches that stick out below the living branches of a tree. They are the best firewood in the forest, and taking them reduces the tree’s burden, so no harm is done.

  It didn’t take much Sterno to get a fire going, and within a half hour I had a mixture of water and freezedried stew boiling in one aluminum pot and water for powdered coffee going in another.

  The coffee went down well, but my stomach was still upset from the previous night’s drinking. I was debating between (a) throwing away the uneaten half of the stew, (b) forcing it down anyway, since it was warm and I wasn't, and (c) trying to carry it along. I then met my second lunatic of the day, this one heading north, as I was.

  I decided that some sort of festival was being held to pep up offseason business. At least this person was completely in character. He was wearing a great, thick, shabby brown monk’s robe with a huge cowl pulled far over his head. He carried two large purses-rather like military musette bags-made of real leather. One was securely, buckled, but the other was covered with a loose flap. The food I had eaten had cheered me some, and after my run-in with the maniac knight, I didn't want to irritate anyone.

  “Hello, Brother!” I shouted. “You look cold. Join me by the fire!”

  The fellow jumped at least a meter. His cowl had been pulled so far down that he had not only missed seeing me sitting by the cliff but had missed the fire and smoke as well.

  “What? Oh! Bless you, my son! What did you say?” His accent was strange, but I could make out what he said.

  “I said welcome to my fire! And welcome to some food as well!” By this time it was necessary to shout because a full blizzard Was howling through the trees.

  “Bless you, my son, bless you!” He hobbled over to my small cooking fire.

  Good God! The man was barefoot! With the snow, he’d probably be frostbitten in an hour and dead of pneumonia within a day. Sitting alongside the fire I was warm enough that I really didn't need the sleeping bag wrapped around me. By the time he got to the fire, I had it spread on the ground. “Come on, Brother. Sit down right here.”

  “You would give me your own cloak to sit on?”

  “It’s not exactly a cloak. Please, sit down.”

  “You do me a great honor, my son.” He bowed before he sat down.

  “I do you no honor at all. I am merely trying to save your life.” I started zipping up the bag around him.

  “Jesus Christi! It grows together!”

  “No, it just zips up. Here, see? Now, stop making a fuss and eat this stew.” A mercenary redhead and twocount ’em, two!raving lunatics in a single twenty-four-hour period. My mother said that I should have gone to the beach.

  “You give me your dinner, besides?”

  “No big thing. I cooked too much and was about to throw the leftovers away. Look-you don’t mind, do you? I've only got the one spoon.”

  “Of course not, my son. You honor me again.”

  “Right.” The high honors of a dirty spoon. I fined the coffeepot again with water from my canteen and went out in search of more squaw wood.

  I returned with an armload of wood and heaped up the fire. The monk had finished the stew and had taken the trouble to wash out the pot with snow.

  “This is the lightest silver that I have ever seen.”

  “No, Brother. It’s aluminum, and of no great value.”

  There was certainly nothing halfway about his psychosis. Apparently he had studied hard to get there. I mixed up some instant coffee with the hot water and poured half of it into his pot.

  “Drink up, Brother. It’s good for you.”

  “This is some infusion of herbs?”

  “A close approximation. Coffee. It will warm you up.”

  The next step was to see just how badly his feet were frostbitten. I dug out my spare socks and the pair of light tennis shoes I carry. Then I unzipped the bag from the bottom and got my next major shock.

  His feet were huge! They were rough-red and incredibly widehalf again wider than my tennis shoes. The calluses were fully a centimeter thick! I didn’t know what the disease was, but it was nothing like frostbite. I touched his feet, rubbed them. They were warmer than my hands!

  “And you would Wash my feet besides, my son?”

  In fact, the snow was melting on my poncho and dribbling all over. Score one for him.

  “And you would have given me your own sandals if my feet had not been too big. But this goes too far, and the day is passing. We must be on our way if we are to find shelter tonight. Come, my son. Take back your cloak and let us go. Cracow is still a long way off.” With that, he got up and started for the road.

  “Hey! Wait! That’s stupid! You'll get lost in this blizzard! We should wait here for a rescue party!”

  “Those who follow God are never lost, my son,” he explained slowly, as if to a child. “In any event, our way from here is down, and even a blind man can find ’down.' As to this rescue you speak of, I suspect that God will not see fit to grant that to me for some years yet.” And then he was gone.

  Lunatic or not, I could hardly abandon the man to die in a snowstorm. I quickly repacked my equipment, even though most of it was wet, and threw the remainder of the wood onto the fire. There was no possibility of a forest fire in this storm, and our fire might attract some attention. I put on my pack and took off after the madman at a trot.

  His short, quick stride had taken him a remarkable distance before I caught up, but there was no missing his footprints in the shin-deep snow. I stopped to stamp out an arrow to indicate our direction of travel.

  “Ali, my son, and here I had assumed that you were a good Christian.”

  “What? Of course I’m a good Christian, Brother. And better Catholic, for that matter. I used to be an altar boy. Why should I not be a good Christian?”

  “Why, those pagan marks you are making.”

  “Pagan? Goodness no, Brother. I’m simply showing
the direction of our travel to aid rescue teams. The Hiking Society will be out, as will the Forestry Service, the police, and, likely, the Air Force. There must be dozens of people caught in this storm. Darned freakish weather for mid-September.”

  “Well, if you are only leaving a sign to your friends, I suppose it’s all right. And while I quite agree that this would be strange weather for September, I must point out that today is the twenty-fifth of November.”

  “Brother!” We walked down the trail. I was surprised at how short the man was. He barely came up to my armpit.

  “That brings up another point. While I dislike to be continually correcting a benefactor, please allow me to mention that my title is not Brother. It happens that I am an ordained priest, and perhaps Father would be more appropriate.”

  “As you like, Father.” I don’t think that insanity and the priesthood are mutually exclusive sets, and in any event, it would do no harm to humor him. “How did you know that I was going to Cracow?”

  “Did I say that? If I did, I should not have mentioned it, since I obtained the information in the confessional. However, before he confessed, a good Christian knight told me that he had killed you-at least I assume that he referred to you. There can’t be that many giants wandering about, and you do have a slight head wound. He asked me to give you extreme unction, which I agreed to do, although that sacrament no longer seems appropriate. ”

  Giant? I was fairly tall- 190 centimeters-but hardly a giant.

  I stopped to stamp out another arrow in the snow. “Good Christian knight! He’s a bloody homicidal maniac! He wanders around trying to murder people! He makes an unprovoked assault on me and you send him on his ay to say a few Ave Marias.”