The Shield of Time

by Poul Anderson

  “Individuals who don’t seem to belong anywhere in this milieu, whether racially or culturally or … any hallmark that struck your notice. I was told the gang may be a mixed bunch.”

  Lamplight flickered over a bleak smile. “You, coming from when you do, think of Arab terrorists? No, there were a pair of Arabs, but I have no reason to believe they were anything but the spice dealers they said they were. Irishmen, however—Yes, conceivably two Irishmen. Black hair, marble-white skin as if this Asian sun had never touched it, fine features. If they are of that stock, they cannot well be contemporary, can they? The Irish at present are barbarian headhunters.”

  Everard must struggle to show no more interest than Holbrook would in any other potential suspects. He trusted the Indian, but when you stalked such an enemy as his, you didn’t willingly add the slightest hazard to those you already confronted. The Exaltationists surely realized that at least one historical worker was intermittently in town. If they decided there was reason to take the trouble, they might well manage to identify him. Cover your own trail!

  “What did they themselves claim to be, do you know?” he asked.

  “I didn’t listen to their talk with Zenodotus. He’s a Greek convert, the most active mundanely of these monks. I tried to pump him afterward, but of course I was under orders never to show excessive curiosity. He did tell me that they had told him they were Gauls—civilized Gauls, from the neighborhood of Marseilles.”

  “Could be. A long ways from home, but wanderings like that aren’t unheard of. Like this persona of mine.”

  “True. It was mainly their appearance that set me wondering. Shouldn’t southern Gauls more or less resemble southern Frenchmen of our time? Well, perhaps their family immigrated from the North. They told Zenodotus they liked this city and inquired about the prospects of starting a horse-breeding farm in the hinterland. I haven’t heard that anything came of the idea. Since then I have glimpsed them, or persons remarkably like them, in the streets a time or two. Judging by gossip, a courtesan who has recently gained notoriety may have been of their party. That is all I can say about them. Is it of any use?”

  “I dunno,” Everard grunted. “My job is only to pass whatever you tell me on to the real operatives.” Cover up, cover up. “What more? Any strangers who called themselves Libyans, Egyptians, Jews, Armenians, Scythians—any kind of exotic—but didn’t seem quite to fit the nationality?”

  “I have paid close attention, round about in the city as well as at this house. Mind you, I am scarcely qualified to identify anomalies in most persons. Greeks and Iranians have ample ethnic complexities for me to cope with. However, there was a man from Jerusalem, let me think, about three months ago. I’ll give you my recorded notes. Palestine is under Ptolemy of Egypt, you know, with whom Antiochus has been at loggerheads. This man said nothing about difficulties in traversing Syrian territory—”

  Everard half listened. He felt sure the “Gauls” and Theonis were the objects of his hunt. But he didn’t want to give Chandrakumar that impression. “—a half-dozen Tocharian tribesmen from beyond the Jaxartes, who’d come down through Sogdiana with furs to trade. How they got permission to enter—”

  Somebody cried out. Feet fled down the corridor. Behind them, hobnails thudded and metal rattled.

  “What the devil!” Everard surged to his feet. He’d come forth weaponless, as a civilian must, and his secret gear also rested in the house of Hipponicus, lest somehow it give him away. It’s for you, Manse, he cried to himself, crazily, foreknowing.

  A hand ripped the curtain aside. Vague light shimmered on a helmet, breastplate, greaves, drawn sword. Two other men hulked shadowy at the back of the first. Maybe more were in the hallway. “City guard,” rapped the leader in Greek. “Meander of Illyria, you’re under arrest.”

  They’d’ve learned at the front door what room I’m in, but how do they know what name to call me by? “Great Heracles!” Everard yelped. “Whatever for? I haven’t done anything.” Chandrakumar crouched into a corner.

  “You’re charged with being a spy for the Syrians.” Law did not require the squad chief to tell, but the unease that harshened his voice made him talkative. “Step out.” His blade gestured. He’d need a single stride and a thrust to put it in the belly of a resister.

  Exaltationists behind this, got to be, but how’d they know, how’d they arrange, and so fast?

  He who hesitates is bossed. Everard flung an arm around and knocked the lamp from its shelf. Oil blazed for half a second and went out. Everard had already shifted his weight the opposite way and dropped to a squat. Suddenly blind, the Macedonian roared and lunged. Everard’s eyes, adapted to gloom, found shapes in this deeper dark. He rose with the upward-rocketing heel of his hand. It crashed into bone. The other man’s head snapped back. His blade clattered free. He lurched against his followers and collapsed in a tangle among them.

  A fist would have meant broken knuckles if it had connected wrongly, when Everard had only the barest vision and neither time nor room to maneuver. Across his mind flitted a hope that he hadn’t killed a man who was merely doing his duty, who doubtless had wife and kids—It was gone. His mass smote the confusion at the entrance. Seizing and twisting with his hands, levering with a shin, he got past them. Ahead of him a fourth guard yelled and flailed about, bare-handed, afraid his steel might strike a comrade but able to delay escape long enough for them to act. Light-colored, his kilt was a visible mark. Everard gave him the knee. His shouts became screams. Everard heard another soldier stumble over him where he writhed.

  By then the Patrolman was in a common room. Three monks scrambled aside, aghast. He charged by, through the front door, out.

  The map in his head told him what he should do—turn left at the first corner, take the third lane beyond because it met an alley which joined a jumble of similar crooked paths—Distant halloos. A lean-to, booth for cheap wares during business hours, that looked fairly sturdy. Chin yourself up and lie flat on top, in case a pursuer comes past.

  None did. After a while Everard descended.

  Twilight was thickening into night. One by one, more and more, stars glimmered forth above shadow-cliff walls. Quiet had fallen; before streetlights, most people were indoors by dark. The air had cooled. He snatched it into his lungs and started off….

  The Street of the Gemini stretched satisfactorily gloomy, well-nigh deserted. Once he passed a boy with a torch, once a man with a horn-paned lantern. He himself now went at the pace of a reputable citizen, belated unexpectedly and thus forced to walk by star-glow, trying not to step in too much muck. He did carry a flashlight, his sole anachronism. It lay among the coins in the purse at his waist, disguised as a religious charm. But it was for extreme emergency. Did somebody see it shine, he couldn’t explain that away as he could the rankness of sweat in his tunic.

  Occasional windows faced the street, mostly in upper stories. They were shuttered, but light leaked yellow through cracks. Behind them the dwellers would be eating a light cold supper, drinking a nightcap, swapping news of the day, playing a game, telling a bedtime story to a child, making love. A harp twanged. A snatch of minor-key song drifted like a breeze. All seemed more remote than the stars.

  Everard’s heart slugged at its wonted beat. He had willed the tension out of his muscles. Reaction wouldn’t set in till he allowed it to. He could think.

  Why the trumped-up charge and the attempt to haul him off? Mistaken identity? That was implausible at best, and the fact that the squad knew his name denied it altogether. Somebody had told them it in connection with giving the orders, along with a physical description. Obviously the idea was to avoid possible foulups which could alert him or any companions he might have. The Exaltationists were as anxious to stay undercover as he was.

  Exaltationists—yeah, who else? But they scarcely had secret control of the government… yet. They could not dispatch bullyboys disguised as garrison troops; too risky. Nor could they personally send legitimate soldiers. No, they w
orked through somebody who did have the power, or at least the political influence, to make such arrangements.

  Who? Well, that led back to the question of who had fingered Everard.

  Zoilus. I see it now, with the dazzling clarity of hindsight. A big wheel, and an infatuated customer of Theonis. She must’ve given him a song and dance about enemies who’d seek her out even in this distant refuge. He was to tell her if any newcomer started inquiring after foreigners of her peculiar type. With a wide acquaintance among a gossipy people, he had a good chance of hearing about that.

  By sheer bad luck, Zoilus was one of Hipponicus’ guests yesterday and heard personally, immediately. Everard muttered lurid phrases.

  So today, I guess, he informed her. Though he probably didn’t think Meander had been anything but idly curious, she—suspecting otherwise—talked him into sending the squad after me. That’d take some hours. He isn’t in the army himself; he’d have to scare up an officer he can control. Especially since everything must be kept very discreet.

  My size and looks make me noticeable enough that the men could eventually track me down.

  Everard sighed. They’ll bring Chandrakumar in. Possible accessory; and they’ve got to show some result, if they don’t want to suffer worse than five or six lashes with a weighted whip for letting me skite off. Poor little guy.

  He hardened his feelings. Once the Exaltationists have established that he’s conditioned to silence, they’ll know there’s no point in torture, unless for fun. Of course, the fact of the conditioning will prove he’s from uptime. If they have a kyradex to break it—well, the beans he spills will be fake. My good luck is that Shalten coached me before I left, gave me a supply of red herrings to strew around.

  His other assets—training, knowledge, strength, agility, mother wit, a well-stocked purse of money—were also on hand, for whatever they were worth. He had more, but aside from the flashlight, they lay in Hipponicus’ house. A finger ring held a transmitter for brief messages. The wattage was proportionately minuscule, but Patrol receivers could handle individual photons, and no manmade interference existed today. A medallion of Athena’s owl was a more powerful, two-way communicator. In the hilt of a knife rested a stun beam projector with charges for twenty shots. The haft of his sword doubled as an energy gun.

  He was not alone on Earth. Historical investigators like Chandrakumar, other kinds of scientists, entrepreneurs, esthetes, esoterics numbered in the hundreds around the globe. More to the point, the Patrol kept stations in Rome, Egyptian Alexandria, Syrian Antioch, Hecatompylos, Patalipushtra, Hien-yang, Cuicuilco … and regional posts in between. They were aware of this operation. A distress call would bring help on the instant.

  If he could recover the means to make it.

  At best that would be a desperation move. The Exaltationists must be taking every precaution available to them. Everard didn’t know what they had in the way of detectors, but at the minimum they could surely monitor local electronics for nearby transmissions and tell when a timecycle appeared in this vicinity. They’d keep ready to scramble, flee into tracklessness, at the first sign that the Patrol might be after them.

  Probably not every one of them at every instant could skip on half a minute’s notice. Their activities were often bound to take them, individually, away from their vehicles. But probably, too, they were never all of them gone at any given moment. A single one who escaped would be too many, an ongoing mortal danger.

  Mental map or no, it wasn’t easy finding your way with neither lamps nor signs. Everard lost his a couple of times, and cursed. He was in a hurry. When the Exaltationists learned the arrest had failed, they’d surely, through Zoilus, send the men on to Hipponicus’ place to confiscate Meander’s belongings and lie in wait for him. Everard had to get there ahead of them, feed the merchant some story, gather his gear, and clear out.

  He didn’t think a second group had gone there separately. Zoilus would have had problems aplenty, cashing in favors, obtaining the services of four guards. Moreover, two bands would double the risk of an uncorrupted officer finding out and demanding to know what the hell went on—which would compromise Theonis.

  Regardless, I’d better be careful. Good thing the telephone hasn’t been invented yet.

  He slammed to a halt. His guts contracted. “Oh, heavens to Betsy,” he groaned, for no swear word sufficed. Where was my brain? On vacation in Bermuda?

  At least it didn’t return absolutely too late. He stepped aside, into the darkness under a wall, pressed himself against rough stucco, gnawed his lip and beat fist in palm.

  The night had grown coldly brilliant with stars and a gibbous moon had risen over the Eagle Tower. The street where Hipponicus dwelt would be equally illuminated. He would be clearly visible as he arrived, knocked on the door, waited for a slave porter to come unbar it and admit him.

  He glanced up. Vega glinted in Lyra. Nothing stirred but the trembling of the stars. A timecycle could hang unseeably high while its opticals brought the ground close and day-clear to the rider. A touch on a control, and it would instantly be down there. No lethal shot; a stun beam, the fallen man slung over a saddle, and off to interrogation with him.

  Sure. When she learned what had happened at the vihara, which she soon would, Raor could dispatch a comrade of hers downtime to lurk above the merchant’s dwelling until the fugitive showed up or the troopers came in ordinary wise. The Patrol had no vehicle anywhere close, and Everard had no way to call one in. Not that he would. Nabbing the rider wasn’t worth alarming the rest into flight.

  Maybe she won’t think of it. I almost didn’t.

  Everard gusted a sigh. Too dicey. The Exaltationists may be crazy, but they aren’t stupid. If anything, their weakness is oversubtlety. I’m just going to have to let my outfit fall into their hands.

  What would they make of it? They might or might not have the equipment to probe its secrets. If they did, well, they wouldn’t discover anything they didn’t know already, except that Jack Holbrook was not a complete fool.

  Small consolation, when Manse Everard was completely disarmed.

  What to do? Depart the city before the Syrians reached it, strike out for the nearest Patrol station? Hundreds of miles, and he’d likeliest leave his bones along them, the scraps of knowledge he had gained blown away on a desert wind. If he did survive the journey, the corps couldn’t well hop him back to carry on where he’d left off. Nor could it spend more man-years on insinuating a different agent by the same kind of tortuous devices as for him. He’d used up all the good opportunities.

  That wouldn’t matter to Raor, if she faced this dilemma. She’d double through time, annul her original attempt, and start on a fresh one. To hell with the possibility of generating a causal vortex, unforeseeable and uncontrollable consequences to the course of events. Chaos is what the Exaltationists want. Out of it they’ll make their kingdom.

  If I quit here, and somehow convey a warning to the Patrol, it can only come in force, an escadrille of timecycles swooping secretly into this night. Probably it can rescue Chandrakumar. Certainly it can put a stop to Raor’s plot. But she and her buddies will escape, to try again at a place and year we’ll know nothing about.

  Everard shrugged. Not much choice for me, is there?

  He changed direction, toward the waterfront. According to his neural briefing, yonder lay several low-life taverns, any of which could provide a doss, a hidey-hole, and perhaps some more palaver about Theonis. Tomorrow—Tomorrow the king came home, the enemy at his heels.

  I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised at how things have worked out. Shalten and company crafted a fine scheme. But every officer knows, or should know, that in every action, the first casualty is your own battle plan.

  1987 A.D.

  The house was in a bedroom community outside Oakland, where you encountered your neighbors as little as you chose. It was small, screened by pines and live oaks at the end of an uphill driveway. Entering, Everard found the interior coo
l, dim, anachronistic. Mahogany, marble, embroidered upholstery, deep carpet, maroon hangings, leather-bound books with gold-stamped French titles, molecularly perfect copies from Toulouse-Lautrec and Seurat, hadn’t much business nowabouts, did they?

  Shalten noticed him noticing. “Ah, yes,” he said in English whose accent Everard couldn’t identify, “my preferred pied-à-terre is Paris of the Belle Époque. Refinement that will turn into revulsion, innovation that will turn into insanity, and thus, for the foreknowledgeable observer, piquancy becoming poignancy. When required to work away from it, I take souvenirs along. Welcome. Have a seat while I fetch refreshment.”

  He offered his hand, which Everard clasped. It felt bony and dry, like a bird’s foot. Unattached agent Shalten was a wisp of a man, features wizened on a huge bald head. He wore pajamas, slippers, a faded dressing gown, and, though he was presumably not Jewish, a skullcap. When the arrangements for this meeting were being made at milieu HQ, Everard asked where-when his host-to-be originated. “You don’t need to know” was the answer.

  Still, Shalten bustled about hospitably enough. Everard took an overstuffed armchair, declined Scotch because later he must drive back to his hotel but accepted a Nevada Pale. Shalten’s tea with Amaretto and Triple Sec didn’t fit his French affection; he seemed uninterested in personal consistency. “I will remain standing, if you do not mind,” said his rusty voice. A churchwarden lay beside a humidor on a bureau. He filled it and kindled a rather nauseatingly perfumed tobacco. Partly in self-defense, Everard stoked his briar. Nevertheless the atmosphere was companionable.

  Well, they shared a purpose, and belike Shalten was wise to tone grimness down.

  Gab about weather, traffic strangulation, and the food at Tadich’s in San Francisco occupied the first minutes. Then he turned oddly luminous yellow-green eyes on his visitor and said, tone unchanged, “So. You have thwarted the Exaltationists in Peru and disposed of several. You have captured your runaway Spanish Conquistador and put him back in his proper setting. You have thwarted the Exaltationists again in Phoenicia and, again, disposed of several.” Lifting a hand: “No, please, no modesty. It required well-coordinated teams, yes. Yet though the cells of the body be many, the works of the body are naught save that the spirit order them. Not only did you lead these undertakings, when necessary you worked solo. My compliments. The question is simply, have you since had sufficient free time, on your world line, to recuperate?”