"That is not necessarily true. I am only a branch librarian, but the main library in Hebrone might have more information on time travel. It is even possible that a time machine still exists."
"Are you sure? Where?"
"I don't know. The only information on time travel in my database is very old: The last known incidence of a time traveler arriving from the past occurred approximately 100,000 years ago. And I cannot access Hebrone mainframe on a classified subject through the datasphere. It could be picked up by the Nuum, and traced to you."
The datasphere was a world-wide information network telepathically accessible only by the Nuum—and by the Library. That information came automatically; I had not known it before, but I did now. Its existence contributed to the fact that the Library was empty, since most of the data useful on a day-to-day basis was directly available to any individual authorized to have such information. Thorans, naturally, did not, which explained why it had never come up in my conversations with Bantos Han and his family.
"What if I went to Hebrone? Could I download the information from the library there?" I didn't even notice when I started using new words; they were simply there for me.
"Yes, but Hebrone is a very long way from here." He handed me a book, whose title I could now read: World Geography. I opened it at random and saw a map of the Northern Hemisphere with my location and that of Hebrone clearly marked. I noted in passing that time had changed the face of the earth, but I saw much more clearly than that how far I had to go. If I were still in what was once France, Hebrone was what in my time had been called California. "I must also warn you that, if the Nuum were to conduct an audit of the library records, they would discover your search."
That slowed me. "And that could lead them to me."
"Researchers' identities are private," he assured me. "But the results of your research are not."
I considered this for a moment. Even were I to find a way back, it might take time to use it. I might even have to build a machine from scratch—assuming I found the plans for one. And I would be leaving behind a road map for an alien race to conquer not only this planet, but all of Time, as well…
He who hesitates is lost.
"Can you give me a copy of this map?"
"I can do better than that," he replied. He held in his hand a metal sphere about the size of a large marble. "This is a mini-branch library. It contains information that your brain couldn't hold. I have programmed it with geographic, political, and other data that will aid you on your journey. You can access it by voice command."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet," he warned, shaking his head. "This machine is forbidden by the Nuum. If they catch you with it, it is a capital crime."
I thought of my pistol, hidden in Bantos Han's house. That, too, was a capital offense. Suddenly I thought of Hori Han, and I asked the librarian how long I had been there. It was far less than it seemed, but there was still much to learn, so little time! The irony had never been more poignant. Just a few hours ago I had witnessed the aftermath of an incredible bestial atrocity, and now I as I looked around I saw myself surrounded by the summit of knowledge of almost a million years of mankind.
Surely in this library were the answers to more than my simple problems.
"Librarian, given your grasp of history, can you estimate the how long it will be before the Nuum empire falls?"
"Given the current trends and allowing for no significant outside forces, the Nuum will be absorbed into the Thoran population in approximately 253 years."
I squinted at him suspiciously. "That didn't take you long."
"You were not the first person to ask that question."
I attempted to learn the identity of the other researcher, as much to test his resolve as to discover an answer, but try as I might, he refused to divulge the name, and I eventually gave up. Time was fleeting and there was much else to learn.
Following the Librarian's advice, I finally satisfied myself with picking random volumes and skimming them for what I could understand: Tantalizing glimpses of scientific discoveries, bizarre cultures, pioneering space colonies, unimaginable human atrocities. I learned in one night about the rise and fall of human civilizations in eerily consistent cycles of one hundred thousand years; of the constancy of man's devotion to love and hate; of the similarities of alien races spawned on opposite sides of the galaxy. When Hori Han opened the door in the morning, I walked out of the library with my head in the clouds.
When we arrived back at their home, Bantos Han and Hana were awaiting us. When they had heard how I had survived the rioting and how Hori had found me in the Nuum's own headquarters, they had both notified their employers that they would not be in that day. Following the disturbances, many businesses had closed, so there was no problem with their decision to stay home. Hori had gone in as usual, solely to retrieve me, then made her excuses and left early.
They greeted me with hugs such as I would have expected from my own family upon my return from France. Hana threw her arms around my neck in a fashion I found especially enjoyable. When she pulled back to look at my face, tears streaming down her cheeks, she kissed me right there before her siblings, God, and everyone.
"You've found something! I can tell," she said breathlessly.
"Perhaps," I replied. "Perhaps not. Let's go into the living room so I can tell you about it."
As we sat down, I used the time to consider my words. The Hans, especially my Hana, had earned the right to the truth, but now that so much more than my own life hung in the balance, in, could I trust that this mind-reading, tyrannical society would allow them to keep it to themselves?
As usual, my hosts were far ahead of me.
"If you did find something, maybe you should keep the details to yourself," Bantos Han suggested. His caution surprised me, until I recalled our conversation in the garden, his hatred of the Nuum and his covetous looks at my Webley. Perhaps Bantos Han had secrets of his own that the Nuum would pay to discover…
In general terms, then, I outlined my visit to the Library, my assumption of so much useful contemporary knowledge. I told them that a way to return to my own time might exist, although uncovering it would engender its own dangers. The existence of my branch library remained a secret. I also described for them the advent of the riots, but for Hana and Hori's sake I stuck to an outline of that subject as well. I could give the details to Bantos Han later; from his look I believed that, given a chance, he would soon press me for that information regardless.
"So what will you do?" asked Hori. "If you find your information, it could place a terrible technology in reach of the Nuum, and if you don't, you're stuck here forever."
"Unless the Silver Men find me and kill me," I said. "Or the Nuum find out who I am and kill me. If it exists at all, the time travel technology has been locked away for ages. No one has stumbled across it until now, and there's no reason to suppose anyone will find it because of me, if I don't attract any attention to myself. Maybe I can even destroy it before I go." And if not, I reminded myself, the Nuum will be gone soon. That knowledge had been lost for 100,000 years. It would stay hidden another two hundred. "All I have to do is keep a low profile."
We were interrupted by the buzzing of the door. As I was the nearest, I passed my hand over the light which activated the visitor screen. When I spoke of what I saw, it was as though my voice were coming from far away.
"It's the Nuum," I said. "They've found me."
12. Kidnapped!
Farren strolled into the house as though he owned it—which in a sense he did. During the period in I had been learning how to carry myself as though I belonged in this place and time, Farren had been a frequent, if unwelcome, visitor. His attentions upon Hana had never varied: insistent, boorish, and in vain.
Had I not witnessed his visit that first night, I might have taken Hana’s present reaction to him as reassurance that her heart leaned toward me, but having seen them together before I made my appearanc
e, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that in this, at least, my presence was immaterial. She despised him, man or Nuum, and he just wouldn't take the hint.
It seemed that now, however, he had comprehended his problem and was prepared to use the force typical of his race to remedy his other shortcomings.
On his prior visits, moreover, he had aroused in me only the relatively impersonal outrage that came from seeing a woman subjected to unwanted attentions, the kind of seething anger any gentleman would experience when he was helpless to step in and halt the injustice. Now, however, my rage was infinitely more personal—this time he was threatening the person I held most dear in this utterly alien world. If he were to lay a hand on Hana in my presence now, one of us would soon lie dead on the floor.
Yet this visit was different in another sense. Always before, Farren had arrived alone to pursue his vain ambition; this time he brought another. The second Nuum stood back from the proceedings at all times, his eyes flickering ceaselessly between the family members, and me. Me most often of all. Speculation as to why Farren suddenly foresaw the need for a bodyguard gnawed anxiously.
Now he strode brusquely straight to Hana as though the rest of us did not exist. She grasped her sister’s arm as he spoke.
“Hana Wen, gather your things. You are coming with me.”
For a moment, the world stood still, then Bantos Han stepped forward—to protest, to strike, I did not know, but Farren’s bodyguard did not wait to learn. He flashed before his employer and struck at my friend’s head with a short club he had carried at his waist. It was a wicked, swift blow designed to incapacitate or worse, and likely would have split Bantos Han’s skull.
I got there first.
Farren gaped and the bodyguard frowned when I grabbed the club in mid-swing, holding it fast. The effort nearly broke my hand, but I kept the pain of my face by concentrating on my overwhelming anger. I easily twisted the club out of the other man’s hand and flung it aside.
“What is the meaning of this?” I demanded before Farren could open his mouth to do the same.
It doesn’t matter whether you are right or wrong as long as you take the initiative. His self-control faltered in the slightest degree. He had not expected to find another lion guarding the sheep-pen, nor did he find looking up at me a pleasant experience. Men like Farren are used to looking down their noses at others, regardless of height. I refused to let him.
“I am Farren ten Paset,” he announced, not without a heavy touch. “Ten” indicated a Nuum of high noble state. If he expected me to retire from the field at the sound of his name, however, he must have been quite surprised when I did not move or speak. “I’m here to speak to Hana Wen. Alone.”
I laughed softly, glancing from his retainer back to him. My continued silence goaded him into impatience.
“Whatever your business here, it is done. Move aside. Better yet, go. The woman is mine, now.”
Oh, that was his game! He thought I was another of Hana Wen’s suitors, a powerful man in the eyes of the rabble, but sure to step aside when a true lord of lords such as he entered the picture. It did seem a convenient way of explaining my presence.
“I believe my claim takes precedence over yours, my lord. The lady prefers me.”
Anger, defiance, and disbelief battled across his weak features.
“The lady—?” he sputtered. “This is no lady, this is a common Thoran! Who are you to speak that way?” Then he actually turned to his bodyguard, and asked, “Who is this man?”
The bodyguard closed his eyes for a half-second. Bantos Han grabbed my arm, but I didn’t need him to tell me what must be happening. The Nuum was accessing the datasphere, apparently because Farren could not be bothered with such a menial task himself. But the Hans and I knew what he would find…
His eyes opened and focused on me and he leaped forward, all in an instant.
The impact of his face into my clenched fist made a satisfying sound, but it nearly broke my hand. I had the advantage of knowing what he was going to do before he did it, by virtue of knowing what he would find when he researched me in the datasphere, which was to say, nothing—but it must have looked to Farren as though I had the reflexes of a cobra, so quickly did I counter his bodyguard’s attack.
I hid my pain as I turned on Farren, reaching with my left hand to grasp for his throat. But I had underestimated him; he blocked me, and my hand went numb. I jumped back in surprise, and he opened his hand to reveal a small black tube that seemed to crackle with unseen energies. Behind me, Bantos Han hissed in horror. Now it was I who acted as though he had seen a poisonous snake, and Farren smiled cruelly as he advanced, confident in his superiority once more.
“My lord,” gasped out the bodyguard, his voice rough from his smashed nose. “My lord, be careful! He’s a ghost!”
Farren flinched and hesitated, and I seized the moment, charging him with my aching right hand, the left still useless. I knocked the tube out of his grip—he was nowhere near as strong as I—and moved in. I had no idea what I planned to do to him, but that it would be violent he could read in my eyes and he retreated until he backed into the door, his face white with fear.
“Keryl—look out!” There was a scuffle behind me, but as I turned all I could see was the bodyguard, blood streaming from his nose, cuff Bantos Han aside and sweep the black tube from the floor. He pointed it toward me, my limbs went numb, and I knew nothing more.
I awoke slowly and painfully, to find Hori Han crouched over her husband. She moved to see to me when she heard me, but I could see that her concern, rightfully, was with him and I waved her away.
Bantos Han recovered soon after I did, to my relief as well as Hori’s. For a moment, we all sat there, sprawled on their floor, none wishing to be the first to admit what had happened. Although Bantos Han and I had been unconscious when he left, we knew Lord Farren was gone, and that Hana Wen had gone with him.
“Where will he take her?” I asked gently. A plan was already forming in my mind, vague as yet, but focused in its purpose.
“We knew this was coming; it was only a matter of time,” Hana assured me hurriedly, as though explanation could wipe away the feeling of loss.
“Where will he take her?”
“To his palace,” Bantos Han replied with resignation. “The same as the others.”
“Once he gets tired of her, he’ll send her back.” We both looked at Hori with surprise. “She and I talked about this, Bantos. I told her not to resist, but not to cooperate, either. She knows what to do. He’ll soon tire of her.”
Try as she might, she could not hide the desperate note in her voice that told me she was trying to keep her husband or me from doing something that she feared would only make matters worse. She had lost her sister, her protestations to the contrary, and she wanted badly to hang onto what was left her. I felt more than a touch of gratitude that I was included in that category.
But gratitude faded to insignificance in light of the more volatile emotions that played within my heart.
I heaved myself to my feet, noting with satisfaction that my dizziness passed quickly. Bantos Han stood as well, though he required his wife’s aid. I saw now that she had applied a compress of some type to the side of his head.
“Where is my weapon?” I asked him. He indicated where he had hurriedly hidden it at Farren’s arrival, and I retrieved it, checking the action.
Hori started to protest anew, but Bantos Han stopped her with a gentle but firm gaze.
“You’re right, dear, she’s gone. But she doesn’t have to spend her life as Farren’s play-doll. If anyone can get her out of there, it’s Keryl.”
“What about the server scans?”
“What are server scans?” I asked. The words were familiar, but their meaning eluded me. Bantos Han hastened to explain. His words were rushed, and I wondered why.
“The palace is protected by mental scanners. But I don’t think they can detect you. None of us can hear you unless you’re speaking
to us.”
I nodded. “It’s a chance I’ll have to take.”
But Hana Han was not finished. “And where will they go?” she demanded. “They can’t come back here.”
I had to admit that my plan had not progressed so far.
“You couldn’t stay here, regardless,” Bantos Han explained. “Farren has seen you; he thinks you’re a ghost. A ‘ghost’ is someone who doesn’t appear in the planetary datasphere; he has no official existence, because there are no records of him. Keryl, ghosts are almost always assassins. Farren thinks you’re here to kill him. The only reason he didn’t kill you is because he fears retaliation.”
I tucked my revolver into my tunic. “Farren didn’t kill me because he’s a coward. And as much as I would like to validate his theory, I won’t unless I have to.”
“It would be best if you didn’t; the city is going to be in a panic as it is. Lord Farren probably has men on their way here now, but we can tell them you threatened us and used Hana for bait. I just don’t know how you’re going to get in touch with us later. You don’t know your way around, and Hana has never been out of the city.”
Now I understood why he had hurried his explanations: time was short. “Don’t worry about that.” I thought of the branch library safely and secretly tucked into one of my pockets. The less Bantos and Hori Han knew, the safer we all were. “Just tell me how to get to Farren’s palace.”
“You can summon a vehicle from here,” Hori told me, her surrender evident. “You can charge it to our account. It’s what the Nuum do.”
“That’s right,” Bantos said. “And remember, you’re one of them now, not one of us. Act like you own everything. And one more thing, don’t let anyone see your pistol. Remember, we’re not allowed to carry mechanical devices of any kind.”
“Don’t worry about that, either. I’m not one of you.”
The cab Bantos Han had summoned arrived quickly, and on impulse I instructed its driver to take me away from the center of town. He obeyed without comment, nor did he so much as express curiosity in the small crowd of vehicles that swept to a halt outside of the Hans’ residence just as we were turning a corner two blocks away, other than a flicker of his eyes in the mirror that I all but missed. We took a leisurely drive through the outlying homes of the district, I actually enjoying the comfortable view of the hills that had briefly been my home. I wondered if the men in silver hunted for me there still, and the notion made me sit back in my seat to escape any chance notice. I soon directed the driver to return to the city and take me to the palace.
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