by Ben Jeapes
Alan was quiet for a few moments, digesting this. Then:
'Morbern,' he said. 'Supposing I were to look up everyone of that name now living . . . I wouldn't even have to use violence, just get them sterilized . . .'
'He's still several centuries off,' Rico said. 'I don't even know who his parents were, let alone his triple great-grandparents, and at that generational distance, all that would happen is that someone else would be his triple great-grandma instead.'
'Then I wait until that individual is born! I can—'
'But you won't be around that long,' Rico said, surprised.
'Why not?' Alan asked with a frown.
'Recall Day!' Rico said.
He wasn't sure what reaction he expected: Alan to slap his forehead and say he had forgotten? What he didn't expect was:
'Oh, that.' Alan could not have sounded less interested. 'That's another Home Time myth I gave up believing a long time ago, Mr Garron.'
'A myth?' Rico said. 'It's not a myth! It's—'
'It's something the Home Time told me,' Alan said, 'and therefore it's another lie, like everything else they've said.' He crossed to the table and pressed a button. 'Come in now.' He looked up. 'I was prepared to believe you were different, Mr Garron, but if you're as much a liar as your masters, you have nothing useful to tell me. Not of your own free will.'
The door opened and a group of very strong, very burly men in white coats came in.
'Oh, you're kidding!' Rico said.
'Take him,' Alan said, and they pounced.
Rico aimed low, diving between their legs in one smooth motion. He had the move neatly planned in his mind's eye: dart between the two men nearest, come out of the dive into a somersault and leap for the door. Worry about navigating the hall, its grounds and its private army in nothing but a pair of shorts later.
But his weak, drugged, zapped body betrayed him, and he ploughed into the marble tiles and stayed there. Then they were on him. He managed to get a foot into one man's solar plexus and used the half second's respite to get to his knees, and as another man laid hands on him he sent his assailant flying over his shoulder. But then a sheer weight of bodies fell on top of him and pinned him down, and he was lifted up and carried to the bed, fighting and struggling but with each limb held off the ground by a different man so that not even his training could help.
'It's true!' he shouted. 'Recall Day is true!'
Alan was deliberately not looking at him as he walked out of the door.
'It was Daiho's fall-back plan!' Rico yelled, just as the door closed. 'It was how he was going to get back if all else failed! Do you think he'd have relied on a lie to get back home . . .'
Something cold and metal touched his arm, and there was a hiss, and darkness.
Rico Garron floated in a haze. Lights flashed in his eyes, high and low frequencies vibrated in his ears and from time to time the feeling of cold metal against his skin announced the influx of another rush of fact-finding chemicals into his bloodstream. And without his fieldsuit and Home Time equipment, he could do nothing about it. He only had willpower and training to fight the constant stream of questions that dragged up information from the furthest recesses of his memory, and it was a lost battle.
– What is a correspondent?
Even in his haze, the question caught him by surprise. He had told them everything he knew of the history of the next five hundred years, up to 2593 when the Home Time was created. He had regurgitated everything he had ever heard in his training about the theory of transference. But this was a sudden non sequitur.
'A reporter.' Part of Rico's mind felt smug that, though he couldn't help answering questions, he was able to give literal answers that weren't very helpful.
– What is a correspondent in the context of the Home Time?
'An individual who is sent back in time to report on history.'
– How many are there?
'Hundreds. Thousands. Don't know.'
– How are correspondents selected?
'They're citizens who fail to make the grade.'
– In what way?
'First they were the incurable psychopaths, the people who in your century would be executed or lobotomized.'
– First? What changed?
'They caused too many problems. Their conditioning broke down and they took it out on the bygoners. Termination squads had to be sent back after them.'
– So what are they now?
'The malcontents, or people who still find themselves unable to fit into the Home Time. People whose social preparation fails. Some volunteer . . .'
It seemed there wasn't one secret of the Home Time that they didn't already know about, Rico thought, as details of the correspondents programme came pouring out of him. Their practical immortality, their enhanced physical skills, the reporting station on the moon – everything.
– Tell us about symbing . . .
An amazed Matthew Carradine stood with his arms folded, head shaking slowly in wonder, and watched the scene playing out on the display in his office. The captive's slow slur was annoying – it could take him a minute to come out with a whole sentence – but the recording had been spliced to weed out the junk and the content more than made up for any inconvenience.
'My God,' he said. 'So where are they now?'
'Back in their rooms,' Alan replied.
'Uh-huh.' Carradine turned back to the display. 'These correspondents. It's incredible! Hundreds, thousands of incognito time travellers?'
'Quite a clever way of getting rid of your society's rejects,' Alan said thoughtfully.
'Not if you're sending the psychos back.'
'He said they changed that,' Alan said, still more thoughtfully.
'Immortals,' Carradine marvelled. He turned to the drinks cabinet. 'There've always been legends about people who never died. They probably started them.'
'Probably. Here, let me get that, Matthew.'
'Who told them to ask about these correspondents?' Carradine said, stepping aside as Alan moved in to fix the drinks.
'I did.'
'Oh?'
'Something the others in the hotel said. I wanted to know more.' Alan handed Carradine a drink and raised his own. 'To the future.'
'The future,' Carradine agreed, and drank. 'I wonder if anyone we know of was really a correspondent? You know, anyone famous.'
'I got the impression their conditioning forbade that. They would always be quiet, unobtrusive. Behind-the-scenes workers.'
'They'd be good to have on your staff,' Carradine said, laughing. 'They'd know the market, they'd know how things were going to turn out – just the fact that they chose to work for you at all would be a testament that you were going to succeed.'
'Exactly,' said Alan, and stepped quickly forward. With one hand he took Carradine's glass away; with the other, he caught his suddenly crumpling employer and lowered him gently to the ground.
He put the glass with its drugged contents down and lifted Carradine up onto the black leather sofa. Then he pressed the intercom on Carradine's desk. 'We're taking the private way out. No calls or visitors.'
He went into the en suite bathroom and poured the drink he had fixed, in more ways than one, into the basin. Lastly he crossed to the bookcase and pressed the spine of one of the titles: the case moved aside to reveal Carradine's private exit.
Alan took one last look around. He had said goodbye to a lot of places over the last thousand years; some with a sense of regret, others with decided relief. This place . . .
'Goodbye, Matthew,' he said quietly to the still form on the couch, and set off on his rescue mission.
Twenty-three
They solidified into the transference chamber, standing on the carryfield that provided a transparent floor within the steel sphere.
They looked at each other: Daiho bowed slightly to Su.
'Thank you for the lift, Op Zo,' he said. 'Before long, you'll realize that you've been of great help to the Home Time.' He lo
oked around. 'Now, if you'll just open the doors . . .'
'Decon,' said Su.
'Of course.' He shut his eyes.
'That won't be necessary,' Su said. She touched a panel on the gleaming, curved wall and it dilated to show a small med scanner in the recess.
'This is ridiculous!' Daiho said. 'Just call up the decon field.'
'You were in an unauthorized area, unaccompanied by a Field Op. The standard decon field might not be enough,' Su said. She turned him and scrutinized him with the scanner. 'Hold still.'
'Listen, I insist—'
'Mr Daiho, you're legally dead and you're in a transference chamber, and in that place you are indisputably under my authority. I can keep you here as long as I like.'
Daiho sighed. 'Have your little revenge. It won't matter in the long run.'
Right, just for that . . . Su thought, but ten minutes later even she had to admit she had run out of excuses. She didn't trust herself to speak; she just signalled for the clam doors of the chamber to open and the two of them filed out, with her bringing up the rear.
And they were back in the transference hall; one small, unremarkable couple, insignificant among all the transferees coming and going through the many, many chambers arranged in tiers all around them.
'Almost an anticlimax,' Daiho said, looking around him and dusting his hands together. He turned to Su again. 'And now, I'm at your mercy. What do you intend to do with me? I can understand you might want to place me under formal arrest and turn me in, and I couldn't stop you, but I have to warn you, the matter wouldn't get much further than that.'
Su boiled within. She could grasp the obvious and she didn't need things pointed out to her.
'I'll submit my report,' she said, 'and we'll see what happens.'
Daiho nodded. 'If you don't mind,' he said, 'I'd like to hang around while you recall the others. That equipment is valuable.'
Su glared at him with pure loathing, but there would be time enough for hate later.
'Register,' she said, 'I request a recall field from this chamber . . .'
She symbed the co-ordinates of the lounge that she had acquired from Rico. A minute later the doors of the transference chamber swung open and Su dodged inside.
'Well, Rico—'
She blinked. A boy and a girl, looking as if they were ready to fall on their knees and kiss the carryfield, and a pile of equipment. No Rico.
'Where did he go?' she demanded.
Their grins vanished. 'H-he was here, miss,' the boy stammered. 'He was lying right where you're standing when the recall came on, and—'
'—here we are,' the girl said.
Su fought down the urge to look for Rico behind the equipment.
'Right,' she said. 'Wait there.' She put them through the same decon scan she had given Daiho, but this time hurrying. 'Now, help me get that stuff out of here.'
There was no need to hurry, of course; she could have waited a year and still sent a recall field back to that precise time and place again. But she was acquainted with Rico's ability to find trouble in small spaces of time and it was psychologically impossible to go slow.
With half her attention, Su uploaded her report to the Register, and then she turned her full attention to helping the kids. Jontan filled her in on his perception of what had happened just before the recall, one eye always on Daiho who was hovering in the background.
'He made his suit shine and he blinded the guards, but then he was fighting with the correspondent . . .'
'What correspondent?' Daiho said blankly.
Jontan flushed. 'Um, the one who spoke our language, sir . . .'
'Give me a hand,' said Su, 'and keep talking.'
Even Daiho helped moved the gear out of the chamber. Five minutes later it was empty and generating a second recall field, timed for thirty seconds after the last and expanding the range by a mile in all directions.
The doors opened and Su ran in. The sodden body of Phenuel Scott lay on the floor: otherwise it was empty. Jontan and Sarai stared at the corpse with horrified fascination.
'Well, we should be getting back . . .' Daiho said.
'You stay there!' Su snapped, earning the undying respect of Sarai and Jontan. She symbed a notification that there was a corpse in the chamber that needed clearing up, then propped herself against the chamber wall with one hand. She took a couple of breaths to clear her mind, then looked up.
'Exactly where was Rico?' she said. 'What was he doing? And I mean exactly.'
Jontan and Sarai glanced at each other.
'He was, um—' Sarai said.
'—sitting on top of the correspondent,' Jontan said.
'No,' said Sarai, 'remember? He got shot by one of the guards.'
'Shot?' Su exclaimed.
'It would have been another stun shot.' The comment came from Daiho, who was leaning against the barrier at the edge of the tier of chambers and looking bored. 'None of them had lethal weapons.'
'And then?' Su said, looking back at the youngsters.
'He, um, fell,' said Jontan.
'On top of the correspondent,' Sarai added. Su began to suspect.
'Right on top? I mean, body to body, feet to feet, head to head?' she said.
'Um, yes, something like that, I mean, just about . . .'
'Oh, crap,' Su muttered to herself. Then: 'OK,' she said quietly. 'You can go.'
'The equipment . . .' Daiho said.
'No one's going to steal it.'
'You're quite right,' Daiho said. 'That is very valuable property of the Holmberg-Chabani-Scott combine and absolutely no one is going to wander off with it.'
'And I'm impounding it pending investigation into this entire affair,' Su said.
To her surprise, Daiho shrugged. 'It can wait a little longer, I suppose. It'll be just as safe in your hands.'
'Just get out of my sight,' Su said.
Probability masking – it had to be. Of course, Rico and the correspondent wouldn't have stayed that close forever, but the bygoners would have learned their lesson from the last time they had Rico in their power: get him into a helicopter and just fly, fly anywhere away from the hotel at max.
Wearily, she uploaded an addendum to her report to say there was a Field Op lost upstream. So now it would be a job for the Specifics, Rico's old comrades.
'You've done it this time, Garron,' she muttered.
So, where to now?
Facing Marje Orendal was something she had no particular desire to do, but it was something that had to be done. Toning up with a shower and massage would give her the energy, she reasoned, so she headed for the Rec room.
She had taken three steps away from the chamber when a confinement field came down around her, seizing her and forcing her to stand still. She tried to move but it was like being cased in soft concrete.
'Do not resist,' said a voice in her head, and her eyes widened with horror as she felt something worming into her mind through the symb; a cloud that blotted out her vision and left her suspended in a dark limbo.
Jontan and Sarai walked behind Daiho, hand in hand. Jontan peeked over at her and got a radiant smile in return.
'We're back,' she whispered. 'We're safe.'
'I never want to leave the Home Time again,' Jontan agreed.
'No reason why you should, Mr Baiget,' said Daiho, and they dropped each other's hands quickly as he turned to face them. But he, too, seemed in a pretty good mood. He almost smiled at them. 'I've got catching up to do here,' he said. 'I'm sorry about your employer. I suggest you get back to the consulate, have something to eat and wait for further instructions.'
'Mr Scott was going to fine us when we got back,' Jontan murmured when they were a safe distance away.
'Sssh!'
But before they could reach the consulate, a soft wall seemed to close around them and they couldn't walk any further.
'I can't move!' Sarai said, her voice rising in panic.
'Nor can I . . .' Jontan said, and the darkness came.<
br />
Li Daiho stood in what had been his office, facing the eidolon of Ekat Hoon.
'A Field Op named Garron?' Hoon said.
'That's right. But, Ekat, he did everything he could . . .'
Hoon shrugged. 'I doubt the combine will see it that way,' she said. 'They won't be happy to lose a family member.
'I understand he's lost upstream as well as Hossein,' Daiho said.
'So the Specifics can get them out,' Hoon said casually. 'But if I were this Garron, I'd stay there. He's made powerful enemies. So, Li, how did the mission go?'
Daiho blinked. The woman had lost a friend, and her husband was lost upstream, and she could have been talking about the weather. 'We accomplished what was planned,' he said.
'Apart from losing Phenuel.'
'History will call him a martyr,' Daiho said, pulling an ironic face, 'which just goes to show that being a martyr isn't necessarily a big deal.'
'Can you keep the Ops quiet?' Hoon said.
'No, of course I can't keep them quiet. Garron didn't strike me as the kind of man to do as he's told. But even if he gets back, he'll find it's no good. It'll be like shouting into a space so wide open you don't even get an echo. Nothing will come of it.' He dismissed the matter with a gesture. 'And now, I really should let the others know I'm back.' He tapped his head. 'Got some goods to deliver.'
'It's all there?'
'It's all been there for a couple of days now. I was doing some final test runs when everything went pear-shaped, but I've got enough.'
'Li!'
Marje Orendal stood in the doorway, and looked as if she had seen a ghost.
'Ah, Marje. Hello.' Daiho looked embarrassed. 'Our reunion, um, wasn't meant to be like this, but now it is . . . well, hello.'
Marje took one step towards him, wonderment on her face, and suddenly froze . . .
After a period of she didn't know how long, Marje made out spots of light in the darkness. It was as if she stood in a darkened room with a handful of other people, each illuminated by a dim spotlight that showed their bodies and nothing more – a fully lit upper half, a lower half fading away into the surrounding darkness.