Study groups had to determine the exact moment and circumstances of the change. The wrangling over methods went on interminably. Everard glared out the window, into the pre-human night, and wondered if the sabertooths weren’t doing a better job after all than their simian successors.
When he had finally gotten his various gangs dispatched, he broke out a bottle and got drunk with Van Sarawak.
Reconvening next day, the steering committee heard from its deputies, who had run up a total of years in the future. A dozen Patrolmen had been rescued from more or less ignominious situations; another score would simply have to be written off. The spy group’s report was more interesting. It seemed that two Helvetian mercenaries had joined Hannibal in the Alps and won his confidence. After the war, they had risen to high positions in Carthage. Under the names of Phrontes and Himilco, they had practically run the government, engineered Hannibal’s murder, and set new records for luxurious living. One of the Patrolmen had seen their homes and the men themselves. “A lot of improvements that hadn’t been thought of in Classical times. The fellows looked to me like Neldorians, 205th millennium.”
Everard nodded. That was an age of bandits who had “already” given the Patrol a lot of work. “I think we’ve settled the matter,” he said. “It makes no difference whether they were with Hannibal before Ticinus or not. We’d have hell’s own time arresting them in the Alps without such a fuss that we’d change the future ourselves. What counts is that they seem to have rubbed out the Scipios, and that’s the point we’ll have to strike at.”
A nineteenth-century Britisher, competent but with elements of Colonel Blimp, unrolled a map and discoursed on his aerial observations of the battle. He’d used an infra-red telescope to look through low clouds. “And here the Romans stood—”
“I know,” said Everard. “A thin red line. The moment when they took flight is the critical one, but the confusion then also gives us our chance. Okay, we’ll want to surround the battlefield unobtrusively, but I don’t think we can get away with more than two agents actually on the scene. The baddies are going to be alert, you know, looking for possible counter-interference. The Alexandria office can supply Van and me with costumes.”
“I say,” exclaimed the Englishman, “I thought I’d have the privilege.”
“No. Sorry.” Everard smiled with one corner of his mouth. “No privilege, anyway. Just risking your neck, in order to negate a world full of people like yourself.”
“But dash it all—”
Everard rose. “I’ve got to go,” he said flatly. “I don’t know why, but I’ve got to.”
Van Sarawak nodded.
They left their scooter in a clump of trees and started across the field.
Around the horizon and up in the sky waited a hundred armed Patrolmen, but that was small consolation here among spears and arrows. Lowering clouds hurried before a cold whistling wind, there was a spatter of rain; sunny Italy was enjoying its late fall.
The cuirass was heavy on Everard’s shoulders as he trotted across blood-slippery mud. He had helmet, greaves, a Roman shield on his left arm and a sword at his waist; but his right hand gripped a stunner. Van Sarawak loped behind, similarly equipped, eyes shifting under the wind-ruffled officer’s plume.
Trumpets howled and drums stuttered. It was all but lost among the yells of men and tramp of feet, screaming, riderless horses and whining arrows. Only a few captains and scouts were still mounted; as often before stirrups were invented, what started to be a cavalry battle had become entirely a fight on foot after the lancers fell off their mounts. The Carthaginians were pressing in, hammering edged metal against the buckling Roman lines. Here and there the struggle was already breaking up into small knots, where men cursed and cut at strangers.
The combat had passed over this area already. Death lay around Everard. He hurried behind the Roman force, toward the distant gleam of the eagles. Across helmets and corpses, he made out a banner that fluttered triumphant red and purple. And there, looming monstrous against the gray sky, lifting their trunks and bawling, came a squad of elephants.
War was always the same: not a neat affair of lines across maps, nor a hallooing gallantry, but men who gasped and sweated and bled in bewilderment.
A slight, dark-faced youth squirmed nearby, trying feebly to pull out the javelin which had pierced his stomach. He was a slinger from Carthage, but the burly Italian peasant who sat next to him, staring without belief at the stump of an arm, paid no attention.
A flight of crows hovered overhead, riding the wind and waiting.
“This way,” muttered Everard. “Hurry up, for God’s sake! That line’s going to break any minute.”
The breath was raw in his throat as he jogged toward the standards of the Republic. It came to him that he’d always rather wished Hannibal had won. There was something repellent about the frigid, unimaginative greed of Rome. And here he was, trying to save the city. Well-a-day, life was often an odd business.
It was some consolation that Scipio Africanus was one of the few decent men left after the war.
Screaming and clangor lifted, and the Italians reeled back. Everard saw something like a wave smashed against a rock. But it was the rock which advanced, crying out and stabbing, stabbing.
He began to run. A legionary went past, howling his panic. A grizzled Roman veteran spat on the ground, braced his feet, and stood where he was till they cut him down. Hannibal’s elephants squealed and blundered about. The ranks of Carthage held firm, advancing to an inhuman pulse of drums.
Up ahead, now! Everard saw men on horseback, Roman officers. They held the eagles aloft and shouted, but nobody could hear them above the din.
A small group of legionaries trotted past. Their leader hailed the Patrolmen: “Over here! We’ll give ’em a fight, by the belly of Venus!”
Everard shook his head and continued. The Roman snarled and sprang at him. “Come here, you cowardly.…” A stun beam cut off his words. He crashed into the muck. His men shuddered, someone wailed, and the party broke into flight.
The Carthaginians were very near, shield to shield and swords running red. Everard could see a scar livid on the cheek of one man, the great hook nose of another. A hurled spear clanged off his helmet. He lowered his head and ran.
A combat loomed before him. He tried to go around, and tripped on a gashed corpse. A Roman stumbled over him in turn. Van Sarawak cursed and dragged him clear. A sword furrowed the Venusian’s arm.
Beyond, Scipio’s men were surrounded and battling without hope. Everard halted, sucked air into starved lungs, and looked into the thin rain. Armor gleamed wetly as a troop of Roman horsemen galloped closer, with mud up to their mounts’ noses. That must be the son, Scipio Africanus to be, hastening to rescue his father. The hoofbeats made thunder in the earth.
“Over there!”
Van Sarawak cried out and pointed. Everard crouched where he was, rain dripping off his helmet and down his face. From another direction, a Carthaginian party was riding toward the battle around the eagles. And at their head were two men with the height and craggy features of Neldor. They wore G.I. armor, but each of them held a slim-barreled gun.
“This way!” Everard spun on his heel and dashed toward them. The leather in his cuirass creaked as he ran.
The Patrolmen were close to the Carthaginians before they were seen. Then a horseman called the warning. Two crazy Romans! Everard saw how he grinned in his beard. One of the Neldorians raised his blast rifle.
Everard flopped on his stomach. The vicious blue-white beam sizzled where he had been. He snapped a shot, and one of the African horses went over in a roar of metal. Van Sarawak stood his ground and fired steadily. Two, three, four—and there went a Neldorian, down in the mud!
Men hewed at each other around the Scipios. The Neldorians’ escort yelled with terror. They must have had the blaster demonstrated beforehand, but these invisible blows were something else. They bolted. The second of the bandits got his horse und
er control and turned to follow.
“Take care of the one you potted, Van,” gasped Everard. “Drag him off the battlefield—we’ll want to question—” He himself scrambled to his feet and made for a riderless horse. He was in the saddle and after the Neldorian before he was fully aware of it.
Behind him, Publius Cornelius Scipio and his son fought clear and joined their retreating army.
Everard fled through chaos: He urged speed from his mount, but was content to pursue. Once they had gotten out of sight, a scooter could swoop down and make short work of his quarry.
The same thought must have occurred to the time rover. He reined in and took aim. Everard saw the blinding flash and felt his cheek sting with a near miss. He set his pistol to wide beam and rode in shooting.
Another fire-bolt took his horse full in the breast. The animal toppled and Everard went out of the saddle. Trained reflexes softened the fall. He bounced to his feet and lurched toward his enemy. The stunner was gone, fallen into the mud, no time to look for it. Never mind, it could be salvaged later, if he lived. The widened beam had found its mark; it wasn’t strong enough at such dilution to knock a man out, but the Neldorian had dropped his blaster and the horse stood swaying with closed eyes.
Rain beat in Everard’s face. He slogged up to the mount. The Neldorian jumped to earth and drew a sword. Everard’s own blade rasped forth.
“As you will,” he said in Latin. “One of us will not leave this field.”
9
The moon rose over mountains and turned the snow to a sudden wan glitter. Far in the north, a glacier threw back the light, and a wolf howled. The Cro-Magnons chanted in their cave, the noise drifted faintly through to the verandah.
Deirdre stood in darkness, looking out. Moonlight dappled her face and caught a gleam of tears. She started as Everard and Van Sarawak came up behind her.
“Are you back so soon?” she asked. “You only came here and left me this morning.”
“It didn’t take long,” said Van Sarawak. He had gotten a hypno in Attic Greek.
“I hope—” She tried to smile—“I hope you have finished your task and can rest from your labors.”
“Yes,” said Everard, “we finished it.”
They stood side by side for a while, looking out on a world of winter.
“Is it true what you said, that I can never go home?” Deirdre spoke gently.
“I’m afraid so. The spells…” Everard swapped a glance with Van Sarawak.
They had official permission to tell the girl as much as they wished and take her wherever they thought she could live best. Van Sarawak maintained that would be Venus in his century, and Everard was too tired to argue.
Deirdre drew a long breath. “So be it,” she said. “I’ll not waste of life lamenting. But the Baal grant that they have it well, my people at home.”
“I’m sure they will,” said Everard.
Suddenly he could do no more. He only wanted to sleep. Let Van Sarawak say what had to be said, and reap whatever rewards there might be.
He nodded at his companion. “I’m turning in,” he declared. “Carry on, Van.”
The Venusian took the girl’s arm. Everard went slowly back to his room.
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Document creation date: 17.03.2011
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