The Shield of Time

by Poul Anderson

  He touched a point on the shell. The cylinder vanished. Air popped. Please come back soon, he begged. Please bring comfort.

  It reappeared. His hands were shaking too much for him to activate the displays. “V-v-verbal report,” he stammered.

  The synthetic voice uttered his nightmare for him. “There was no establishment to receive me. Nothing reached me on any Patrol communication channel. As policy directs, I have returned.”

  “I see.” Volstrup’s tone was more flat and small. He rose. The Time Patrol no longer guards the future, he knew. It never did. My parents, brothers, sisters, old friends, youthful sweetheart, homeland, none of what shaped me will ever be. I am a Crusoe in time.

  And then: No. Whoever else among us was pastward of the fatal hour, they are still there and then, as I am. We must find each other, join together, seek for some way to restore what has been destroyed.

  How?

  A little resolution stirred within his numbness. He did have his communication devices. He could call around the world of today. Afterward—He couldn’t think beyond that, not at once. This wasn’t for an ordinary corpsman like him. Nobody less than a Danellian would know what to do. Or if the Danellians were gone, annulled, then maybe an Unattached agent—if any were left—

  Emil Volstrup shook himself, like a man come out of surf that has nearly drowned him, and got busy.

  1765 B. C—15,926 B. C—1765 B. C.

  A breath of autumn went over the foothills. Chill rang in streams hurrying down slopes and before sunrise laid hoarfrost on grass. Here forest had broken apart into stands of timber, large or small; fir remained dark but ash was yellowing and oak showed early touches of brown. Outbound birds passed aloft in huge flocks, swan, goose, lesser fowl. Stag challenged stag. Southward the Caucasus walled heaven with snowpeaks.

  The camp of the Bakhri boiled. Folk struck tents, loaded wagons, hitched oxen to those and horses to chariots while youngsters with dogs rounded up the herds. They were on their way to winter in the lowlands. Yet King Thuliash accompanied the wanderer Denesh a little distance, so that they could bid each other a quiet farewell.

  “It is not only that there is something secret about you, and surely you have powers not given to most,” he said earnestly. He was a tall man, auburn of hair and beard, lighter-skinned than most of his followers. Clad in ordinary wise, fur-trimmed tunic, trousers, leggings, he carried on his shoulder a bronze-headed battle-ax trimmed with gold bands. “It is that I have come to like you, and wish you would stay longer among us.”

  Denesh smiled. Lean, thin-faced, gray-haired, hazel-eyed, he topped the other by two hands’ breadth. Nevertheless he clearly was not of the Aryas, who lifetimes ago made themselves masters of the tribes throughout these parts. Nor had he pretended to be. He related nothing of himself save that he fared in search of wisdom. “They were good months, and I thank you,” he replied, “but I have told you and the elders that once more my god beckons me.”

  Thuliash made sign of respect. “Then I ask Indra the Thunderer that he bid his warrior Maruts watch over you for as far as their range may reach; and I shall cherish the gifts you brought, the tales you told, the songs you sang for us.”

  Denesh dipped his own ax. “Fare you ever well, O King, and all who spring from your loins.”

  He stepped up into his chariot, which had jounced slowly along beside them. His driver was already there, a young man who must belong to a native breed—stocky, big-nosed, hairy—but who had been taciturn while he and his master abode with the Bakhri. At a shout, the two horses trotted off, slantwise across the hillside toward the heights.

  Thuliash stood watching until the chariot was gone from sight. He did not fear for them. Game was plentiful, highlanders were hospitable, and wild men would not likely attack when the pair went equipped like the northern conquerors. Besides, although Denesh had made no show of powers, he was clearly a wizard. If only he had stayed … the Bakhri might well have changed their minds and crossed the mountains…. Thuliash sighed, hefted his weapon, returned to camp. There would be fighting enough in years ahead. The tribes owing tribute to him were growing too big for their pasturelands. He would presently lead half of them around the inland sea and thence eastward to win themselves a new country.

  —Neither aboard the chariot spoke much. Keeping their balance as it rocked and swayed had become automatic, but they were suddenly overwhelmed by memories, thoughts, hope tinged the least bit with regret. After an hour they came onto a ridge, a realm of wind and loneliness. “This will do,” Keith Denison said in English.

  Agop Mikelian drew rein. The team snorted wearily. Light though the vehicle was, pulling it on such terrain, long before horse collars were invented, or stirrups and horseshoes for that matter, wore them down fast. “Poor beasts, we should have stopped sooner,” he said.

  “We had to be sure nobody was watching,” Denison reminded him. He sprang to the ground. “Ah, this feels almost as good as homecoming will.” He saw the look on Mikelian. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

  “That’s all right, sir.” His assistant came down likewise. “I’ve got places to go to.” The Patrol recruited him in 1908, following the massacre at Van. Helping trace the dim origins of the Armenian people heartened him to live with their history. Resilient, he grinned. “Like California in the 1930s, trading on William Saroyan’s publicity.”

  Denison nodded. “I remember you telling me.” They hadn’t had much chance to get acquainted, as busy as their job kept them. Personnel—total available lifespans—were so few, to map a field so vast as the migrations of the early Indo-Europeans. Yet the task was vital. Without a record of them, how could the Patrol guard events that had shaken the world and shaped the future? Denison and his new helper went straight to work.

  Still, he thought, the fellow had proved steady and intelligent. Having gained experience, he could take a more active part in the next expedition.

  “Where’d you say you’re bound for, sir?” Mikelian asked.

  “Paris, 1980. Got a heavy date with my wife.”

  “Why just then? I mean, didn’t you tell me she’s an attached agent in her own birthtime, closer to the middle twentieth century?”

  Denison laughed. “You forget the problems longevity brings. Somebody who didn’t grow visibly older in the course of several decades would cause her friends and neighbors to wonder about her. Cynthia was winding up our affairs when I left, prior to moving away. She’s to begin a new identity—same name, might as well, but different location—in 1981. And me in my persona as her peripatetic anthropologist husband, of course. How better for us to segue into the manners and mores of a later generation than by taking a twelve-month holiday amongst them, and where better to start than Paris?”

  And, by God, I’ve earned it, he thought. She too, yes, yes. The time between my leaving and my return will have been much shorter for her than it was for me, and she’ll have had her clerical duties in the Patrol to keep her mind occupied, as well as making our move away from New York plausible to our acquaintances there. Still, she’ll have worried, and chafed at the rule that she mustn’t skip ahead those few weeks to make sure I do come back alive. (Even so slight a loop in causality could breed trouble. Not likely, but it could, and we must often take chances as is, without adding needlessly to the hazard. How well I know. Oh, how very well.) But I have roved for more than a quarter year among those herdsmen.

  Sun, stars, and campfire smoke, rain, lightning, and a river in spate, wolves, stampede, and a cattle raid, song, saga, and ancestral epic, birth, death, and blood sacrifice, comradeship, contests, and lovemaking—Cynthia didn’t ask about more than he chose to tell. He knew that, beneath her silence, she had guessed there was somebody in an ancient Persia whose history had been subtly altered. He’d been working ever since on putting Cassandane behind him. But months away from home added up, and if he’d declined Thuliash’s kindly offer he might never have gained the king’s confidence, which it was necessary for him to do, and�
��And he wished little Ferya all the best in her nomad world, and this second honeymoon in Paris should bring him back closer to Cynthia, whom the Lord knew was a dear and valiant lady—

  His exuberance had faded. He lifted the ax that marked him as of warrior class, worthy to speak with chieftains. It was also a communicator. “Specialist Keith Denison calling milieu headquarters, Babylon,” he said in Temporal. “Hello, hello. Talk freely; my associate and I are alone.”

  The air crackled: “Greeting, Agent. Glad to hear from you. We were growing worried.”

  “Yes, I’d planned to get away a little sooner, but they wanted me to take part in their equinox rite and I couldn’t well refuse.”

  “Equinox? A pastoral society keeping a solar calendar?”

  “Well, this particular tribe observes the quarter days—which is a possibly useful datum. Can you fetch us? We have a chariot and two horses, Patrol stock.”

  “At once, Agent. Only let me get a fix on your location.”

  Mikelian danced in the grass. “Home!” he caroled.

  A carrier appeared, no hopper but a large cylinder that hovered on antigravity a few inches above ground. It hadn’t skipped through time, merely across space. Four men in Mesopotamian costume of the period, complete with curled beards, emerged. Quickly, they got team and vehicle aboard. Everybody embarked, the pilot took his seat, the Caucasus Mountains blinked from sight.

  What appeared in the viewscreens was a plain where grass billowed to the horizon. Tree-shaded, a set of timber buildings and a corral stood nearby. Two women clad for rough work hastened to greet the newcomers. They took charge of Denison’s transportation. The Patrol could safely maintain a ranch in North America before humans arrived. Mikelian patted the horses an affectionate goodbye. Maybe he’d get the same ones on his next trip.

  The carrier jumped again. It emerged in a secret vault below the Babylon where Hammurabi still reigned.

  The director of the base met the anthropologists and invited them to dine. They’d be here a couple of days, downloading the information they had gathered. Most was of purely scientific interest, but what was the Patrol for if not to serve civilization in every possible way? Too bad that the knowledge couldn’t be made public for thousands of years, after time travel had been developed, Denison thought. Meanwhile scholars would exhaust their lives following merely archaeological clues, often onto wholly false trails…. It wasn’t for nothing. Their labors carved a bridgehead from which Patrol Specialists launched the real quests.

  Over the dinner table, he related those of his findings that were operationally significant. “Thuliash and his confederation will not cross the mountains. They’ll be migrating east instead. So he won’t augment Gandash’s forces on this side, and I believe that is why the Kassites don’t make any more gains against the Babylonians, nineteen years from now, than history records.”

  “Which means we have a somewhat less complicated military-political situation to keep track of than I feared,” said the director. “Excellent. Great work.” Obviously he was thinking of lifespan released to mount guard over other potential trouble spots.

  He arranged for his guests to tour the city, properly disguised and under close guidance. It was Mikelian’s first time, and Denison always found such a visit interesting. Nevertheless eagerness seethed in them, and release at last was joy.

  They got shaves and haircuts at the base. It didn’t keep twentieth-century clothes in stock, but their field outfits were durable, comfortable, pungent in a clean outdoor way that evoked a lot of memories. “I’d like to keep mine for a souvenir,” Mikelian said.

  “You’ll probably want it again for use,” Denison told him. “Unless our next assignment is to a very different region, and I don’t expect that. You would like to join me, wouldn’t you?”

  “Would I ever, sir!” Tears stood forth in the brown young eyes. Mikelian wrung his hand, leaped aboard a hopper, waved, and vanished.

  Denison selected one for himself from among those that waited in the whitely lit garage. “God be with you, Agent,” said the attendant. He was a twenty-first-century Iraqi. The Patrol tried to match somatotypes to eras, and race changes far more slowly than language or faith.

  “Thank you, Hassan. Likewise.”

  Having mounted, for a moment Denison sat half adream. He’d arrive in a cavern little different from this, register, obtain garments and money and passport and whatever else he needed, then walk from the office building that fronted for the Patrol yonder, forth onto the Boulevard Voltaire, Saturday morning, the tenth of May, most beautiful of all Parisian months…. Traffic would be frantic, but in 1980 the city hadn’t yet suffered its full monstrous overgrowth…. The hotel where Cynthia was to make a reservation and meet him stood on the Left Bank, a charming, slightly dilapidated anachronism where croissants for breakfast were fresh-baked on the premises and the staff liked guests who were lovers….

  He set for his destination and touched the main switch.

  1980 α A. D.

  Daylight flooded him.

  Daylight?

  Shock froze his hands on the control bars. As if by a lightning flash at night, he saw a narrow street, high-peaked walls, a crowd that howled and recoiled in pandemonium from him, the women all wore dark ankle-length gowns and kept their heads covered, the men had some color to long coats and baggy pants, the air was full of smoke and barnyard smells—As instantaneously he knew that no vault existed and his machine, built not to arrive within solid matter, had brought him to the surface of some place that was not his Paris—

  Get out of here!

  Untrained for combat missions, he reacted half a second too slowly. A man in blue leaped, tackled him around the waist, dragged him from the saddle. Denison had barely time and drilled-in reflex to hit the emergency go-button. A vehicle must never, under no circumstances whatsoever, fall into outsider possession. His disappeared. He and his assailant tumbled to the pavement.

  “God damn it, stop that!” Denison did know martial arts, they were part of his Patrol education. The blue-clad man got fingers on his throat. Denison struck the edge of his palm into the neck, under the angle of the jaw. His attacker gasped and sagged, a dead weight upon him. Denison could breathe anew. The rags of darkness cleared from his eyes. He scrambled free and onto his feet.

  Again too late. The civilians stumbled over each other to get clear—through the general yelling he made out “sorcier!” and “juif vengeur!”—but another man in blue rode a well-trained horse through the midst of them. Denison saw boots, short cape, flat helmet, yes, some kind of trooper or policeman. Mostly he saw a sidearm drawn and pointed at him. He saw, in the clean-shaven face behind, the fear that can kill.

  He raised his hands.

  The trooper put whistle to mouth and shrilled thrice. Thereafter he shouted for order and silence. Denison followed his words with difficulty and gaps. They weren’t any French he knew, different accent and a lot of what seemed to be English, though this wasn’t franglais either, he thought dazedly: “Calm! Control yourselves! I have him arrested…. The saints…. Almighty God…. His Majesty—”

  I’m trapped, hammered in Denison. Worse than I was in Persia. That was at least rightful history. This—

  Surprisingly fast, the near panic died down. People stood where they were and stared. They crossed themselves repeatedly and muttered prayers. The man whom Denison had hit groaned back into consciousness. More mounties showed up. Two bore some kind of carbines, though no firearm was familiar to the prisoner. They surrounded him. “Declarezz vos nomm,” barked one with a silver eagle on his breast. “Quhat e vo? Faite quick!”

  Sickness closed Denison’s gullet. I am lost, Cynthia is, the world is. He could only mumble. A trooper unhooked a billy from his belt and stuck him with cruel precision across the spine. He reeled. The officer reached a decision and barked an order.

  Turned stiffly silent, they marched him off. It was a walk of about a mile. Shambling at first, he regained a blurred alert
ness on the way and began to look around him. Hemmed in by the riders, he couldn’t get more than glimpses, but they told him something. The streets he went on were constricted and twisting, though smoothly enough paved. No buildings stood higher than six or seven stories and most seemed centuries old, many of them half-timbered and with leaded windowpanes. Pedestrians were numerous, brisk, men often animated as he remembered from his France but women subdued, decorous. Children were few; were they generally in school? Once away from the scene of action, the party drew little more than glances, now and then a sign of the cross; were captives an everyday sight? Horses pulled wagons and an occasional ornate carriage, leaving their droppings behind them. When he reached the bank of the Seine, he saw barges tugged by twenty-oared rowboats.

  From there, too, he spied Notre Dame. But it wasn’t the cathedral he remembered. It seemed to cover nearly half the island, a mountain of soot-gray stone soaring up and up and up, tier upon tier, tower above tower, like a Christian ziggurat, till the topmost spires raked heaven a thousand feet aloft. What ambition had replaced the lovely Gothic with this?

  He forgot it when the squad brought him to another building, massive and fortress-like above the river. A life-size crucifix was carved over the main door. Within were gloom, chill, more guards, and men in hooded black robes, bearing rosaries and pectoral crosses, whom he took for monks or lay clergy of some kind. His awareness continued vague, as stunned and heartsick as he felt. Not until he was alone in a cell did he come fully conscious.

  The room was tiny, dark, its concrete walls bedewed. Light straggled in from the corridor, through the locked and iron-barred door. The furniture was a pallet, with a thin blanket, on the floor, and a chamber pot that he found, dimly surprised, was rubber. Well, he could have used a hard one for a weapon. A cross was chiseled into the ceiling.