The Shield of Time

by Poul Anderson

  Light strengthened. “I must leave,” he said. “Let me go, let me go.” He had to draw her arms from him before he could depart. She stood gazing after him till he had limped out of sight.

  XIV

  Tamberly brought her hopper across space-time and down through the snowfall to earth. She dismounted. Aryuk, who had held onto her waist on this as on other quick flights, left the rear saddle. For a span they were mute amidst the flakes and the gray morning.

  “Is it done?” he asked finally.

  She nodded. Her neck felt stiff. “It is done. As well as I was able.”

  “That is good.” His right hand fumbled about his person. “Here, I give you back your treasures.” Piece by piece he returned them—flashlight; audiovisual pickup by which she had seen and heard what he did, earplug receiver through which she instructed him, speaker that enabled her to talk Wanayimo for him, with lowered voice frequency and some spooky feedback resonance at the transmission end. She dropped them in the carrier.

  “What shall I do next?” Aryuk inquired.

  “Wait. If … if only I could wait with you!”

  He considered. “You are kind, but I think I would rather be alone. I have remembering to do.”

  “Yes.”

  “Also,” he went on earnestly, “if I may, I would rather walk than sit still. Your magic gave me some haleness back. It is ebbing, but I would like to use it.”

  Feel yourself alive while you can. “Yes, do as you wish. Walk onward until—oh, Aryuk!” He stood there so patiently. Already the snow had whitened his head.

  “Do not cry,” he said, troubled. “You who command life and death should never feel weak or sad.”

  She covered her eyes. “I can’t help it.”

  “But I am glad.” He laughed. “This is good, what I can do for Us. You helped me. Be glad of that. I am. Let me remember you glad.”

  She kissed him and smiled, smiled, as she remounted her timecycle.

  XV

  Wind brawled. The dome shuddered. Tamberly blinked into it, got off the vehicle, turned on lights against the gloom.

  After a few minutes she heard: “Let me in!”

  She hung up her outer garments. “Come on,” she replied.

  Corwin stalked through. The wind caught at the entry fabric. He had a moment’s fight to reseal. Tamberly posed herself at the table. She felt frozenly calm.

  He opened his parka as if he disemboweled an enemy and turned about. His mouth was stretched wide and tight. “So you’re back at last,” he rasped.

  “Well, that’s what I thought,” she said.

  “None of your insolence.”

  “Sorry. None intended.” Her gesture at the chair was as indifferent as her tone. “Won’t you sit down? I’ll make tea.”

  “No! Why have you been gone all these days?”

  “Busy. In the field.” I needed the terrible innocence of the Ice Age and its beasts. “Wanted to make sure I’d complete the essentials of my research, what with the season drawing to a close.”

  He quivered. “And what with you due for cashiering—mind block, or even the exile planet—”

  She lifted a hand. “Whoa. That’s a matter for higher authority than yours, my friend.”

  “Friend? After you betrayed—ruined—Did you imagine I wouldn’t know what had to be behind those … apparitions? What your purpose was—to destroy my work—”

  The blond head shook. “Why, no. You can continue with the Wanayimo if you see fit, as long as you want to. And then there are plenty of later generations waiting.”

  “Causal vortex—endangerment—”

  “Please. You told me yourself, the Cloud People will push on come spring. It is written. The moving Finger,’ you know. I simply gave it a little boost. And that was written too, wasn’t: it?”

  “No! You dared—you played God.” His forefinger jabbed toward her like a spear. “That’s why you didn’t return here to the moment after you left on your insane jaunt. You hadn’t the nerve to face me.”

  “I knew I’d have to do that. But I figured it’d be smart if the natives didn’t see me for a while. They’d have plenty else on their minds. I hope you kept well in the background.”

  “Perforce. The harm you did was irreparable. I wasn’t about to make it worse.”

  “When the fact is that they did decide to leave these parts.”

  “Because you—”

  “Something had to cause it, right? Oh, I know the rules. I’ve jumped uptime, entered a report, been summoned for a hearing. Tomorrow I’ll pack up.” And say goodbye to the land and, yes, the Cloud People, Red Wolf. Wish him well.

  “I’ll be at that session,” Corwin vowed. “I’ll take pleasure in bringing the charges.”

  “Not your department, I think.”

  He gaped at her. “You’ve changed,” he mumbled. “You were … a promising girl. Now you’re a cold, scheming bitch.”

  “If you’ve expressed your opinion, goodnight, Dr. Corwin.”

  His visage contorted. His open hand cracked upon her cheek.

  She staggered, caught her footing, blinked from the pain, but was able to speak quietly. “I said, ‘Goodnight, Dr. Corwin.’”

  He made a noise, wheeled, groped at the entry fastener, got the dome open, and stumbled from her.

  I guess I have changed, she thought. Grown some. Or so I hope. They’ll decide at the … court-martial… the hearing. Maybe they’ll break me. Maybe that’s the right thing for them to do. All I know is that I did what I must, and be damned if I’m sorry.

  The wind blew harder. A few snowflakes flew upon it, outriders of winter’s last great blizzard.

  13,210 B.C.

  Clouds loomed whiter than the snowbanks that lingered here and there upon moss and shrub. The sun, striding higher every lengthening day, dazzled eyes. Its light flared off pools and meres, above which winged the earliest migratory birds. Flowers were in bud over all. Trodden on, they sent a breath of green into the air.

  Just once did Little Willow look back, past the straggling lines of the tribe to the homes they were leaving, the work of their hands. Red Wolf sensed what she felt. He laid an arm about her. “We shall find new and better lands, and those we shall keep, and our children and children’s children after us,” he said.

  So had Sun Hair promised them before she and Tall Man vanished with their tents, as mysteriously as they had come. “A new world.” He did not understand, but he believed, and made his people believe.

  Little Willow’s gaze sought her man again. “No, we could not stay.” Her voice wavered. “Those moons of fear, when any night the ghost might return—But today I remember what we had and hoped for.”

  “It lies ahead of us,” he answered.

  A child caught her heed, darting recklessly aside. She went after the brat. Red Wolf smiled.

  Then he too was grave, he too remembered—a woman whose hair and eyes were summer. He would always remember. Would she?

  1990 A. D.

  The timecycle appeared in the secret place underground. Everard dismounted, gave Tamberly his hand, helped her off the rear saddle. They went upstairs to a closet-small room. Its door was locked, but the lock knew him and let them into a corridor lined with packing cases which served as overloaded bookshelves. At the front of the store Everard told the proprietor, “Nick, we need your office for a while.”

  The little man nodded. “Sure. I’ve been expecting you. Laid in what you hinted you’d want.” “Thanks. You’re a good joe. This way, Wanda.” Everard and Tamberly entered the cluttered room. He shut the door. She sank into the chair behind the desk and stared out at a backyard garden. Bees hummed about marigolds and petunias. Nothing except the wall beyond and an undercurrent of traffic bespoke San Francisco in the late twentieth century. The contents of a coffeepot were hot and reasonably fresh. Neither of them cared for milk or sugar. Instead, they found two snifters and a bottle of Calvados. He poured.

  “How’re you doing by now?” he aske
d.

  “Exhausted,” she muttered, still looking through the window.

  “Yeah, it was rough. Had to be.”

  “I know.” She took her coffee and drank. Her voice regained some life. “I deserved worse, much worse.”

  He put bounce into his own words. “Well, it’s over with. You go enjoy your furlough, get a good rest, put the nightmare behind you. That’s an order.” He offered her a brandy glass. “Cheers.”

  She turned around and touched rims with him. “Salud.” He sat down across from her. They tasted. The aroma swirled darkly sweet.

  Presently she looked straight at him and said low, “It was you who got me off the hook, wasn’t it? I don’t mean just your arguing for me at the hearing—though Lordy, if ever a person needed a friend—That was mostly pro forma, wasn’t it?”

  “Smart girl.” He sipped afresh, put the goblet aside, reached for pipe and tobacco pouch. “Yes, of course. I’d done my politicking behind the scenes. There were those who wanted to throw the book at you, but they got, uh, persuaded that a reprimand would suffice.”

  “No. It didn’t.” She shuddered. “What they showed me, though, the records—”

  He nodded. “Consequences of time gone awry. Bad.” He made a production of stuffing the pipe, keeping his glance on it. “Well, frankly, you did need that lesson.”

  She drew an uneven breath. “Manse, the trouble I’ve caused you—”

  “No, don’t feel obligated. Please. I had a duty, after I’d heard what the situation was.” He looked up. “You see, in a way this was the Patrol’s fault. You’d been meant for a naturalist. Your indoctrination was minimal. Then the outfit allowed you to get involved in something for which you weren’t prepared, trained, anything. It’s human. It makes its share of mistakes. But it can damn well admit to them afterward.”

  “I don’t want excuses for myself. I knew I was violating the rules.” Tamberly squared her shoulders. “And I’m not—not repentant, even now.” She drank again.

  “Which you had the guts to tell the board.” Everard made fire and brought it to the tobacco. He nursed it along till the blue cloud was going well. “That worked in your favor. We need courage, initiative, acceptance of responsibility, more than we need nice, safe routineers. Besides, you didn’t actually try to change history. That would have been unforgivable. All you did was take a hand in it. Which, maybe, was in the pattern of events from the first. Or maybe not. Only the Danellians know.”

  Awed, she wondered, “Do they care, so far in the future?”

  He nodded. “I think they must. I suspect this matter got bucked clear up to them.”

  “Because of you, Manse, you, an Unattached agent.”

  He shrugged. “Could be. Or maybe they … watched. Anyway, I’ve a hunch that the decision to pardon you came down from them. In which case you’re more important, somewhere up the line, than either of us today knows.”

  Amazement shrilled: “Me?”

  “Potentially, anyhow.” He wagged the pipestem at her. “Listen, Wanda. I broke the law myself once, early in my service, because it seemed like the single decent thing to do. I was ready for punishment. The Patrol can not accommodate self-righteousness. But the upshot was, I got tapped for special training and eventual Unattached status.”

  She shook her head. “You were you. I’m not that good.”

  “You mean you’re not that kind of good. I do still doubt you have the makings of a cop. Something else, however—For sure, you’ve got the right stuff.” He lifted his glass. “Here’s to!”

  She drank with him, but silently.

  After a while she said, tears on her lashes, “I can never truly thank you, Manse.”

  “Hm-m.” He grinned. “You can try. For openers, how about dinner this evening?”

  She drew back. “Oh—” The sound trailed off.

  He regarded her. “You don’t feel up to it, huh?”

  “Manse, you’ve done so much for me. But—”

  He nodded. “Plumb wore out. Absolutely understandable.”

  She hugged herself, as if a wind off a glacier had touched her. “And, and haunted.”

  “I can understand that too,” he said.

  “If I can just be alone for a while, somewhere peaceful.”

  “And come to terms with what happened.” He blew smoke at the ceiling. “Of course. I’m sorry. I should have realized.”

  “Later—”

  He smiled, gently this time. “Later you’ll be yourself again. That is certain. You’re too healthy not to.”

  “And then—” She couldn’t finish.

  “We’ll discuss it when the time is right.” Evérard laid his pipe aside. “Wanda, you’re about ready to keel over. Relax. Enjoy your applejack. Doze off if you want. I’ll call for a taxi and take you home.”

  PART FIVE

  RIDDLE ME THIS

  1990 A. D.

  Lightning flickered in darkness, bright enough to pierce through the lamps of New York. Thunder was still too distant to overcome traffic rush; wind and rain would follow.

  Everard made himself look squarely at the enigma who sat opposite him in his apartment. “I thought the matter was settled,” he declared.

  “Considerable dissatisfaction remained,” said Guion in his deceptively pedantic English.

  “Yeah. I pulled rank and wires, threw my weight around, cashed in favors owing to me. But I am an Unattached and it was, it is my judgment that punishing Tamberly for doing what was morally right would accomplish nothing except lose us a good operative.”

  Guion’s tone stayed level. “The morality of taking sides in foreign conflicts is debatable. And you, of all people, should know that we do not amend reality, we defend it.”

  Everard knotted a fist. “You, of all people, should know that that isn’t always exactly true,” he snapped.

  Deciding that he likewise had better keep this peaceable: “I told her I didn’t think I could’ve pulled it off if some kind of word hadn’t come down from on high. Was I right?”

  Guion evaded that, smiling slightly and saying, “What I came here for is to give you personal reassurance that the case is indeed closed. You will find no more lingering resentments among your colleagues, no unspoken accusations of favoritism. They now agree that you acted properly.”

  Everard stared. “Huh?” Several heartbeats passed. “How the devil was that done? As independent a bunch as ever bearded any king—”

  “Suffice that it was done, and without compromising their independence. Stop fretting. Give that Middle Western conscience of yours a rest.”

  “Well, uh, well, this is awfully kind of you—Hey, I’ve been mighty inhospitable, haven’t I? Care for a drink?”

  “I would not say no to a light Scotch and soda.”

  Everard scrambled from his chair and sought the bar. “I am grateful, believe me.”

  “You needn’t be. This is more a business trip than an errand of mercy. You see, you have earned a certain amount of special consideration. You have proved too valuable an agent for the Patrol to want you unnecessarily hampered by unwilling and incomplete cooperation.”

  Everard busied his hands. “Me? No false modesty, but in a million years of recruitment the outfit has got to have found a lot of guys a lot more able than me.”

  “Or me. Sometimes, however, individuals have a significance far beyond their ostensible worth. Not that you or I count for nothing in ourselves. But as an illustration of the general principle, take, oh, Alfred Dreyfus. He was a competent and conscientious officer, an asset to France. But it was because of what happened to him that great events came about.”

  Everard scowled. “Do you mean he was … an instrument of destiny?”

  “You know very well there is no such thing as destiny. There is the structure of the plenum, which we strive to preserve.”

  I s’pose, Everard thought. Though that structure isn’t just changeable in time as well as space. It seems to be subtler and trickier than they see fi
t to teach us about at the Academy. Coincidences can be more than accidents. Maybe Jung glimpsed a little of the truth, in his notions about synchrony—I dunno. The universe isn’t for the likes of me to understand. I only work here. He drew himself a Heineken’s, added a shot of akvavit on the side, and brought the refreshments back on a tray.

  As he settled down, he murmured, “I suspect the way has also been smoothed for Specialist Tamberly.”

  “What makes you think that?” replied Guion noncommittally.

  “On your last visit you were inquiring about her, and she’s mentioned an evening with you while she was a cadet. I doubt that … whoever sent you … would be so interested in the average recruit.”

  Guion nodded. “Her world line, like yours, appears to impinge on many others.” He paused. “Appears, I say.”

  Unease stirred afresh. Everard reached for pipe and tobacco pouch. “What the hell is going on, anyway?” he demanded. “What’s this all about?”

  “We hope it is nothing extraordinary.”

  “What are you hoping against?”

  Guion met Everard’s gaze. “I cannot say precisely. It may well be unknowable.”

  “Tell me something, for Christ’s sake!”

  Guion sighed. “Monitors have observed anomalous variations in reality.”

  “Aren’t they all?” Everard asked. And few of them matter much. You might say the course of the world has enormous inertia. The effects of most changes made by time travelers soon damp out. Other things happen that compensate. Negative feedback. How many little fluctuations go on, to and fro, hither and yon? How constant, really, is reality? That’s a question without any fixed answer and maybe without any meaning.

  But once in a while you do get a nexus, where some key incident decides the whole large-scale future, for better or worse.

  The calm voice chilled him. “These have no known cause. That is, we have failed to identify any chronokinetic sources. For example, the Asinaria of Plautus is first performed in 213 B.C., and in 1196 A.D. Stefan Nemanya, Grand Zhupan of Serbia, abdicates in favor of his son and retires to a monastery. I could list several other instances in either of those approximate times, some as far away from Europe as China.”