Time's Chariot

by Ben Jeapes

  The last man was made of the sternest stuff of all, which perversely made Rico take an immediate liking to him. He was pale beneath his naturally dark skin, but he shifted his feet into a slightly firmer position, braced himself, looked Rico in the eyes and brought his spear to bear as the Field Op touched down in front of him. Rico cancelled the blazing light and smiled, holding his hands out: look, no harm. The man feinted, then lunged at him. Rico didn't even need the fieldsuit: he twisted to one side, caught the man as he ran past and rendered him unconscious with a simple jab at the right spot on the neck. The man crumpled, face down, next to the student.

  Sorry, thought Rico.

  Su was already tending to the stricken, groaning Home Timer so Rico turned the native over, checking him for damage. He would live.

  'Kill him!'

  Rico looked up in surprise at one of the other students. A young woman, late teens or early twenties. 'Kill him!' she spat. She could have looked attractive if her face hadn't been twisted with hate. 'He's an animal!'

  Rico stood up slowly to face her, then, more quickly than she could react, tapped her lightly on the cheek. 'He's as human as you are, and he's probably an ancestor, so show a bit of respect.'

  'He killed Veci! He could have killed us!' Back in the Home Time, her social preparation would have taken over. Her symb would have transmitted her mental condition to the central systems and positive images of peace and calm would be pumping into her brain right now. But here, her fear and anger could go unchecked.

  Rico glanced down at Su, still kneeling beside the boy. She shook her head. 'They used a curare dart on him, but he'll live,' she said.

  She rose to stand next to Rico and glared at the other two students, waving the dart she had pulled from the boy under their noses. 'Not that he deserves to: his suit's neutralizer and defences were switched off. The poison would have killed him in another minute if we hadn't got here. Weren't you listening?'

  Su and Rico had carefully briefed the students on fieldsuit protocol and a host of other issues before the transference. Properly managed, the suit would have detected the incoming arrow and switched on its repulsion field. And if any dangerous toxins had made it into the bloodstream, the neutralizer would have taken care of it.

  'They attacked us!' the girl repeated, ignoring her.

  'I'm not surprised.' Rico had just noticed what was hanging in the bushes behind them. He didn't know exactly what the carved bits of wood were meant to be but he recognized a shrine when he saw it. 'You're probably blaspheming against their gods, or something, just by being here. We should move.'

  The girl turned to follow his line of sight. 'Oh, that,' she said with a complete lack of interest.

  'You don't think much of it?' Rico said.

  The other student, a young man, spoke for the first time.

  'We have the greatest respect for their religious practices,' he said: smooth, calm, patronizing in a way that made Rico grit his teeth.

  'But . . . but we know they're a load of superstitious bygoner nonsense,' Rico said with a friendly, baffled smile. The student chuckled, a bit strained after his shock but trying at sophistication.

  'Well, of course, we know that . . .'

  'Don't have a lot of respect for them, then, do you?' said Rico, leaving the student stranded by the abrupt turn.

  'Where were you, anyway?' the girl demanded. 'You're meant to be protecting us.'

  'Are you dead?' said Rico.

  'No, but . . .'

  'Then what's the problem?'

  'Our sensors misinterpreted the threat,' Su said quietly. 'With all this biomass around us they can get confused.'

  'I'm suing the College when we get back!'

  'Fine.' Su finally lost patience. 'We'll leave you here. As for the moment, your friend's laziness nearly cost him his life, and you three's disregard for bygoner sensitivities probably provoked the attack in the first place. As Senior Field Op, I'm abandoning this mission. When your friend can walk, the three of you are coming with me. Rico, round up Onskiro and the rest and rendezvous at the recall point.'

  'I love you when you're angry.' He quickly touched a knuckle to his forehead when Su glared at him. 'Right away, ma'am.'

  There was the usual disorientation as the shadows of the fourteenth-century Brazilian rainforest faded out and the lightly glowing walls of the transference chamber appeared around them. It was a hollow sphere with a floor provided by a carryfield that sliced it in half. The top hemisphere in which they stood could have held fifty adults. Even experienced transferees like Rico and Su always needed a moment to collect themselves, remember where they were and what they were doing.

  Rico was amused to see looks of relief on the faces of some of the students, which they tried to hide, when it finally dawned on them that they were back home. He knew they were slaves of their conditioning. The past was officially a nasty, dirty place where people had no social preparation and were cruel and mean to each other, as recent events had shown. For these poor sods, Rico thought, when the past was compared and contrasted with the controlled environment of an ecopolis, coming back to the Home Time was like returning to the womb.

  And that was why the authorities were happy to let the impression abide. For Rico, on the other hand, returning to the Home Time was more and more depressing every time he did it.

  Su was discharging the last of her duties. 'All of you, shut your eyes until I tell you to open them.' They all did so, and felt the warmth of the decon field flow around them, making them safe for reentry into the Home Time. 'You can open them now. Place your specimens in those containers there, please, for scanning . . . Thank you. I now declare this excursion to be over. Walk slowly through the exit . . .'

  They were the last two to leave. Like Su, Rico held up his arm and touched the 'release' icon that appeared there. By his elbow a small flap of skin appeared, which he took between thumb and forefinger and pulled. There was a tingling as the computer disengaged from his nervous system and what looked like the skin of his forearm peeled away, leaving the real skin reddened but healthy beneath it. His arm was shaved but still he winced as it snagged on a couple of budding hairs.

  'Thank you for the trip, Register,' Su said as they walked out of the chamber and into the huge, multi-tiered vault of the transference hall.

  'My pleasure, Op Zo,' said a friendly voice out of the air.

  'But before you go . . .' said another voice behind them. Rico groaned beneath his breath, and they turned to face the red-outlined symb projection that had appeared in the middle of the room. The eidolon showed a short, squat man: Rico had heard him called 'Toad Face' and had never understood the epithet, until he had actually seen a toad on a field trip. Then he had understood perfectly.

  'Supervisor Marlici,' said Su, taking the initiative as senior partner. 'What can we do for you?'

  'I'll come straight to the point,' Marlici said. He had full, wet lips which, Rico reflected, seemed made to quiver with indignation. It was the state in which he usually saw them. 'No beating about the bush, no prevarication. I've received a formal complaint from the office of the Commissioner of Correspondents about you, Op Garron, and by extension, you, Op Zo. Well?'

  The vindictive bitch! Rico opened his mouth—

  'May we know the substance of this complaint?' Su asked.

  'The complaint,' Marlici said, 'is that Op Garron bothered the Acting Commissioner in the late Commissioner Daiho's apartment this morning. I won't go into details –' he smiled thinly – 'but the words "absurd speculation" and "grotesque fantasies" were heard to be uttered.' Rico's cheeks began to burn. 'None of this would be my concern, of course, if you were off duty, but at the time you were on duty. I'm consumed with curiosity as to what you were doing in the Commissioner's suite, and why Op Garron impersonated a Security Op, and why you, Op Zo, let him. Well?'

  Something inside Rico snapped and he took a step forward. 'This is—'

  Su put a hand on his arm. 'We were there on official busines
s, sir,' she said.

  'Re-ally?' Marlici seemed to enjoy drawing out the word. 'Do tell me how, when I knew nothing of it.'

  'Rico?' Su said. Rico breathed deeply, twice, before answering.

  'On my last but one field trip,' he said, 'I failed to download all the information I had stored in my field computer. I needed to get the computer back. When I asked for it, I learned it had been signed out again.'

  'You think you have a special right to equipment?' said Marlici. Rico suspected that his explanation was sounding far too reasonable and Marlici was determined to find fault somehow.

  'I don't recall saying that, sir,' he said. 'It had been signed out again by Commissioner Daiho. I tried to contact him so that I could copy the data over. He wasn't available but the Register arranged things with his household so that we could go there and retrieve the computer ourselves. Which we did, and met the Acting Commissioner.'

  So there, he added silently. Stick that in your chamber and transfer it.

  'I see.' The smile had left Marlici's face the moment Rico mentioned the Register. What the Register chose to do was not subject to the whims of any Supervisor. However, Marlici rallied quickly. 'And impersonating a Security Op?' Su opened her mouth. 'I was addressing Op Garron,' he said.

  'I identified myself as Op Garron,' Rico said. 'I said nothing about Security.' He tried not to smile. Two points down: Marlici was running out of ammunition. 'Now, sir, if you'll excuse us . . .'

  'One moment. The last thing.' Damn. 'These, ah, theories with which you regaled the Acting Commissioner?'

  'Theories, sir?' Rico said with reluctance. Su was looking at him and very slightly shaking her head.

  'Apparently you speculated as to whether the agravs were sabotaged.'

  'I did not!' Rico exclaimed. 'I just said—'

  'Op Garron,' Marlici said, 'you're a Field Operative. You escort away parties upstream. You are a hired gun, you are not a detective and you don't pursue your paranoid delusions on College time, is that understood? And you, Op Zo, as senior partner should know better than to let this . . . this spoo—'

  Marlici caught himself, though Rico was wishing him on. Go on, say it! Spookboy! And then I can report you for abusive language, and won't that be fun?

  'Individual,' said Marlici – and Rico thought, damn! – 'get into situations beyond the capacity of his atrophied brain cells to comprehend.' He drew himself up and looked down his nose at Su, the only one of the pair he could look down at. Official prat pose number one, Rico thought. 'Op Zo, unofficially, you are warned. Op Garron, officially, you are reprimanded.' He paused to savour Rico's expression. 'Do you know, that's a total of two reprimands on your record,' he murmured in an aside to himself. 'Dear oh dear.'

  The eidolon vanished, leaving them both looking at the space where it had been.

  Su spoke first. She reached out and touched Rico's shoulder. 'I'm sorry, Rico.'

  'Bitch!' The word burst out and Su looked taken aback, until she realized it wasn't directed at her. 'That spiteful, malicious . . . bitch!'

  'Rico . . .'

  'A reprimand? A reprimand, for . . . for what? Was I rude to her? Did I insult her? Did I assault her? Su, did I even mention Security? Can I help it if she got it wrong? I thought maybe, just maybe she might be a teensy bit more human than the other high-and-mighties, worked up through the ranks and all that, but no, she's Acting Commissioner for five minutes and suddenly she's as bad as the rest of them.'

  'Rico . . .' Su said again.

  'And I wanted her on our side! Well, forget that—'

  'Op Garron, shut up,' Su said. 'We don't have a side, remember? You'd love there to be foul play but there wasn't. He died naturally and if there was something about the agravs, Security will find it. For us, it's over, Rico.'

  Rico was silent for a moment. He reached up and fondled her hand that was still on his shoulder. 'Yeah, it's over. Su, there's two reprimands on my record now. I can't afford a third.' A third, they both knew, meant automatic suspension pending a formal inquiry into conduct.

  'You won't get it if you behave.'

  Rico snorted. 'Yeah, easy to say, Su. How many have you had? Somewhere between nought and none, isn't it? But not me. The spookboy makes another balls-up. You noticed that, didn't you? He almost said it.'

  Spookboy. Or spookgirl, of course. Someone not born in the Home Time, and in certain quarters, a term of purest contempt.

  'Oh, Rico . . .'

  'I'm sorry I got you into it too, Su. Next time my paranoid delusions start to take over, say to me, "Op Garron, your paranoid delusions are taking over." I promise I won't mind.'

  'I'll remember that. Shall we get the Register to witness?'

  Rico twitched the corners of his mouth, but it was more to make an effort for her than to show genuine mirth. 'Nah. I enjoy getting paranoid. Senior Field Op Su Zo, I believe we're off duty?'

  'We are now.'

  'Then I'm off to pursue my fantasies. Should be safe as long as it's not on College time.'

  'Fancy a drink?'

  'Thanks, but . . .' He shook his head. 'Go and see your family, Su.' He walked towards the exit of the hall with his resentment like a dark, heavy lump, deep inside him. It was festering nicely.

  Rico was still angry as the taxi approached the sheer white coral cliffs of Azania ecopolis. The breathtaking view as the taxi passed over the ecopolis' organic building clusters and parks, lights glowing in the night, had a slightly pacifying effect. It reminded him of how far he had come in his life. To keep his ire going, he started to mutter 'bitch, bitch, bitch' under his breath.

  The taxi threw itself at the land coral cliff that was the residence cluster where he lived, and dropped effortlessly into one of the taxi ways that ran sponge-like through and around the structure. After another minute, it drew to a halt as close to his community module as it was going to get. Door-to-door service wasn't an option at his social level. Community modules in this section were arranged around a large mock Aztec plaza, complete with looming jungle in the background and insect noises, which at this time of night was empty, so he was spared having to mix with his neighbours. He and they never really got on: technically their memeplexes all contributed equally to the consensus running of the module, but when you're in a minority it's easy to be over-ruled and overlooked by the majority. It is especially easy when that majority is afraid of you because they know full well you have more relaxed social preparation than they do and that you actively prefer not being in the Home Time.

  His anger was nicely peaking as he reached the door of his own module. Externally, it seemed to be an adobe hut. The suites here were all for single persons and he shared the module with nine others, but they too were all asleep and he could get to his own place without breaking his pace or train of thought.

  'Aggression therapy,' he said out loud as he walked into his main room. Inside was very different, comfortable and minimally decorated in a completely Home Time style. 'Level five.'

  'Welcome home, Rico. Would you not rather shower and change first?' The voice of the household made him look down at himself. He was still in the fieldsuit he had worn for the Brazil trip. Normally he would have showered and changed back at the College; indeed, normally he would have showered, changed, and had a meal and a drink with Su, or perhaps been invited back to the Zos' suite in a Pacifican multi-family module where Uncle Rico was already a hit with the next generation, in his capacity as mobile climbing frame.

  Normally. Today was different.

  'I'm already hot and sweaty,' he said. 'Let's go.'

  'Very well,' said the module.

  Rico walked into the aggression room, which was white, sterile and padded, without anything hard to fall against. The dummy was waiting for him, poised for combat. Level five meant it would make at least a few moves to fight back. He hurled himself at it without warning, bringing it down in a tackle around the hips. While it wriggled to get free he pinned it down, sitting astride its chest, and proceeded to pumme
l its blank, yielding face.

  This was no good. Too easy.

  'Stand and go to level ten,' he said. He and the dummy squared off, and this time the dummy came for him. He seized its arm, twisted round and sent it over his shoulder. The dummy recovered and spun round, and its foot came for his head. He ducked under it and kicked both feet out at the dummy's groin, breaking his fall with a roll that brought him back to his feet again.

  'Full attack and defence,' he said. This would be no holds barred and he spent a joyous five minutes blocking, parrying and lunging, occasionally letting one of the dummy's safely padded blows get through his defence. He had programmed it with the full course that any field operative had to undertake – a blend of the best of the many forms of unarmed martial arts from humanity's history. It was as good as any machine was allowed to get when it came to possibly hurting a human; in other words, it was as close a match as social preparation would ever allow him to have with anyone.

  'Enough,' he said eventually, with a broad grin on his face. He collapsed against one of the walls and slid down it, panting. On the other side of the room the dummy did likewise. Even at those times when the victory was clearly and distinctly his, it somehow diminished the triumph of the moment to have him lying panting on the floor while the dummy stood passively over him. 'Assess,' he said.

  'Blows that connected: seventy-two per cent of your own, forty-eight per cent of the dummy's.'

  'Pretty good. Pretty bloody good.' If he had actually tried to hurt a human being within the Home Time then social preparation and his symb connection would have done their best to immobilize him, but there was nothing to stop him pretending that the dummy had been Acting Commissioner Marje Orendal.

  'Now,' he said, 'about that shower.'

  After a stinging hot needle shower, a massage and a light meal, and with a drink in his hand, he felt much better. Warm, relaxed, contented. He lounged in his favourite chair, legs stuck out so far in front of him that he was almost lying down, and looked around him with a dour smile. Maybe he could get used to it here. His recent demotion had meant moving to a smaller suite, but even the last had been smaller than Daiho's Himalayan pad, which was practically a module in its own right. But in this (slightly smaller) suite of which he was master there was a main room, a bedroom, a bathroom and an aggression room – four rooms that were entirely his. Not bad for a spookboy from the crèche; a child no one wanted to adopt, to give some kind of start in life to, because – well, because he was a spookboy, he came from the past and the past was bad. By sheer hard work and without any kind of sponsorship, he had worked up to this.