by Chad Oliver
Very well. Reduce it to essentials. Their loyalties, their conceptions of honor, were different. Wade’s life was in 2080. If he could not stop Hughes, he would be killed. He had no desire to be sacrificed to anything.
It was that simple.
He had to act. How?
Already, dawn was streaking the eastern sky, and the hut was cold with the chilled gray light of early morning.
Wade launched his attack.
He let fly at the other man’s vanity, and he hoped his aim was accurate.
“I saw Dr. Clements before I left,” he said. “Your boss told me your last paper—the one on urbanism—was so grossly wild he was going to have your degree revoked.”
Hughes was visibly startled. “What? That’s impossible. You can’t revoke a degree. Clements is an ass. My paper was a damned good one, and he knows it. What the devil do you mean—”
“Your wife has killed herself,” Wade said flatly, cutting him off.
“I don’t believe you—”
“I saw Karpenter. Did you know that he kept a copy of your novel? I read A Window on the Stars. It was a failure, but you showed some promise in one section.”
“Kept a copy? What section?”
Wade wasn’t proud of what he was doing, but he hammered it home. “You’re not in love, Dan. You’ve failed in your life and you’re running away. You can’t run away from yourself. You’ll fail here. You’ll always fail—”
Hughes leaped to his feet, his face white beneath its dye. He was breathing fast.
“You’re a liar! A liar! I’ll show you, all of you—”
Now.
Wade threw himself sideways on the mat, rolled, and hurled himself through the blanket that masked the door. Instantly, he cut to the side.
The rifle cracked and a slug thunked through the blanket.
He grabbed the rope from the peg by the door and sprinted for the corral. The horses snorted and neighed as he tore down the gate rails. He didn’t hear the second shot, but he felt its wind on his cheek.
He yelled, climbed up on the top rail, threw his loop, and dived. He slipped completely over the stallion he had roped, but he scrambled up on its bare back again and held on for all he was worth.
He yelled again, and whipped the horses around him with the free end of his rope. They began to run.
The stallion under him quivered, but did not buck. He was a saddle horse; the marks were still on him. The bedlam in the corral swelled to a nightmare of plunging, rearing horses. He caught the thin crack of the rifle and a mare gave an oddly human whinny of pain as a slug slammed into the wrong target.
Wade dug his knees into the stallion’s ribs and clutched the mane with his free hand. He gave some quite creditable cowboy yells and burst through the open gate at a full gallop. Almost all of the other horses followed the stallion, eyes rolling, breath coming in great snorts as they ran into the thin morning air.
Wade let the stallion have his head for a full ten minutes; it was almost impossible to guide him with the rope. He concentrated on staying aboard, cursing his flapping robe heartily as he jounced on the sweaty back.
He finally managed to slow him to a walk, and then to bring him to a nervous halt. The other horses milled uncertainly. Wade slid off, keeping the rope in his hand, and fashioned a fairly decent halter with the loop as a base. Then he scrambled back on the horse, giving thanks that the stallion seemed good and tame. The irritants he had put into the water hadn’t had time to work, but the exercise might speed it up some,
He was exhausted, but the crisp air had revived him a little. He knew he was not out of the woods yet, and in fact his own plan had backfired against him.
Those irritants in the water meant trouble.
The Jump Box could only return to its original landing place near Coyoacan when he summoned it—and Coyoacan was a full fifteen miles away as the crow flew, and he was no crow. He couldn’t swim the horse all the way across Lake Texcoco, and all the causeways were on the other side of the lake.
Therefore, he had to go around.
That meant he would have to circle to the north, where there was less population, and that meant a distance of perhaps fifty miles. There were some paths, but they were none too good.
There were two factors in his favor: if pursuit came, it would have to be on foot, unless Hughes himself got one of the horses, and communications were poor enough so that no one would be sure just where he was.
And Hughes didn’t know about the irritants.
He headed north, holding the mustang to a steady running walk. Most of the other horses tagged along, following the stallion. The halter—it was a hackamore—worked pretty well, and Wade relaxed a little in the warming sun.
He passed a fair number of Indians, who either ran in terror into their huts or tried to keep up with him by running. His priest’s robes prevented any overt hostility.
It was curious indeed, he thought, that this smooth running walk was faster than anything else in Central America. As long as he kept moving, he couldn’t be caught.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t keep moving,
By high noon the mustang was getting nervous, tossing his head and snorting. The irritants were taking effect.
Wade found a clump of trees, halted, and dismounted. He let the stallion get some water, and then tied him firmly to a tree.
After that, there was nothing to do but wait.
Wade climbed a tree, to be on the safe side, and made himself as comfortable as he could. The horses probably wouldn’t stampede with the irritants if they weren’t ridden, but Wade wasn’t taking any chances.
He settled down for a miserable afternoon. The night was worse.
By morning, the irritants had worn off, and Wade mounted the mustang and set off once more in his great northward circle around the blue waters of Lake Texcoco.
It took him three days to come within sight of the causeway at Ticoman, north of Tenochtitlan.
He had managed to snag four fish in the lake, and had appropriated some tortillas at an unguarded farmhouse, but he was tired, hungry, and thoroughly disenchanted with the beauties of outdoor living.
The tiny transmitter that would summon the Jump Box was buried in his right femur, just above the knee. That transmitter was one thing that no time traveler could take a chance on losing, so it was surgically planted for keeps. Wade pressed the combination, and hoped that he would still be alive when he got to Coyoacan—if he got that far.
He took a deep breath and rode into the open. There were six other horses still with him.
He rode at a steady walk onto the causeway.
Indians ahead of him gave him one startled glance and began to run to keep out of his way. It wasn’t any lack of courage on their part; they saw what they thought was one of their own priests riding an animal that must surely be supernatural, and their reaction was about what might have been expected in the Middle Ages if a priest flew into the church in a helicopter.
Wade kept going. The other six horses followed nervously behind him.
He waited as long as he could. They knew where he was now, and Hughes surely would have them stirred up if he was in Tenochtitlan. If he wasn’t, the priests would mean trouble anyway—they were inclined to be skeptical about the supernatural.
He was right.
It was late afternoon before the lake narrowed to twin canals and the city rose out of the green floating gardens ahead of him. A squad of soldiers blocked the causeway, bows at the ready.
Wade maneuvered his stallion to one side, and whistled the other horses around him. He patted his mustang on the neck.
Then he yelled like a banshee, whipped the other horses with his rope, and slammed his heels into his stallion’s ribs.
They hit the soldiers at full gallop.
A cavalry charge, even if you have been trained to combat it, isn’t a pleasant thing to be in front of. If you’ve never seen a horse before—
The soldiers dived off the causeway into th
e canal. Their initial shower of arrows wounded one horse, but that was all.
It was now or never.
Wade hit the market at Tlaltelolco full tilt, screaming at the top of his lungs. He narrowed his eyes against the wind and scattered citizens right and left. He deliberately rode people down, and he galloped yelling through a temple, doing as much damage as he could.
He lost the other horses, but they kicked up a fuss on their own, since no one knew how to handle them.
He bent low over the mustang’s neck, whispering in his ear, and charged into the plaza at Tenochtitlan, where he repeated his performance. He moved too fast for any defense to be organized against him, and he almost got away with it unscathed.
Almost.
Just as he hit the causeway to Coyoacan, a spear thrown from an atlatl caught him in the left shoulder, almost knocking him from his mount. It pulled loose and clattered on the causeway, but he could feel the blood trickling warmly down his back.
He slowed the mustang a little, saving him, and thudded toward Coyoacan as fast as he dared.
The sun sank behind the mountains beyond the lake and a cold mist drifted up from the water.
He rode on, half out of his head, muttering feverishly to his horse.
He was saved once again by poor communications. No one at Coyoacan knew he was coming, and he pounded through the dark village without incident.
At the clump of trees, he threw himself stiffly from the horse. The mustang stallion was foaming and covered with sweat, his flanks bloody from arrow creases. He sank to the ground, done for. Wade knelt beside him, too exhausted to cry.
He stroked the mustang’s wet neck.
“Good-by, boy, good-by,” he mumbled, his tongue thick, wanting desperately to say something that could not be said.
He dragged himself into the trees, stumbled into the Jump Box, and looked the door seal.
He collapsed on the floor, unable to make it to the armchair, and watched the cheerful room around him spin itself into blackness.
He felt a stickiness under him and thought vaguely that he was bleeding to death.
But it was all far away, and then it was nothing….
VI
Wade was in the hospital for a long time, staring at the ceiling
One day, after May had already flowed into a warm, green June, Chamisso came to see him.
Wade tried to be interested in what Chamisso had to say.
“He got those horses back during the American Civil War.” The words seemed to come from a great distance. “Bribed a Security man, of course. He must have saved up the money all his life.”
All his life. All his life.
“You did a magnificent job, Wade. You can lie around in the sun and take it easy as long as you want to. Almost all the horses have been killed, you know, and the ones that are loose won’t ever be used for anything. They think the horses were devils—that’s what they thought when they saw the horses Cortes had in 1519, too. Time travel is a funny business, isn’t it? I wonder …”
I wonder, wonder …
“And Dan?” Wade asked slowly.
A pause. “You know about Dan, don’t you?”
He knew. He knew what happened to criminals in Aztec society. He saw it more clearly than the room around him….
The dark block high atop the shadowed pyramid.
The priest in black.
A knife of razor-sharp obsidian.
A heart, held dripping toward the sun …
“It was necessary, Wade,” Chamisso said. “Try not to think about it.”
“Yeah. I’ll try, Hank.”
The days were long, long days.
It was August before Wade got out of the hospital.
He flew the same day to Canada, where the tall pines were still green against the soft pastels of autumn. He landed on the emerald lake this time and coasted to the plank dock. He went up to the log house and knocked on the door.
Herb Karpenter opened it, smiling a greeting.
“Dan’s dead, Herb. Am I still welcome here?”
Karpenter didn’t hesitate. “Of course. Come on in. We had a letter from Chamisso—Faye’s got some coffee on, unless you’d like something stronger.”
“Coffee’s fine.”
Wade felt the house as a living presence. Logs burned cheerily in the stone fireplace, and the neat, book-stuffed living room was sleepy with warmth.
Warmth.
They were warm people, Herb and Faye—warm because they had found a quiet life that still knew how to sing.
Wade reached out for it, grateful that they were willing to share with him. He had never known a happiness like this; most people never did.
Dan Hughes had known it—for a little while.
That night, he walked out of the house alone and went down to a rocky point under the stars. The waves slapped gently at the shore and his breath froze in the frosted starshine. He looked into the night, and the night seemed choked with phantom shapes.
Shadows.
Shadows of a million ways of life, a million cultures. Aztecs, Bantus, Polynesians, Australians, Apaches, Tasmanians. All trampled, crushed into the dust of centuries, so that this civilization might live …
Shadows. Only shadows.
Hs people had reached out for the worlds of the solar system and now those bleak planets belonged to man. And now, he knew, the starships were dreams on drawing boards, as all great adventures had once been dreams.
How far, how far must we go, to answer for where we’ve been?
A loon laughed eerily across the stillness of the lake.
Herb came out of the house and sat down next to him.
“Funny,” he said, puffing on his pipe. “Funny to think that all this might have died because of one man—just one guy looking for something he never had when he lived in our world.”
Wade skipped a flat pebble across the dark water.
“Old Dan liked it here, too,” Herb said.
Wade nodded.
They were quiet then, lost in themselves.
Remembering, wondering—
And daring to hope—
Two men, sitting on the rocks beneath the blazing stars.
THE MOTHER OF NECESSITY
It isn’t the easiest stunt in the world (the fairly young man said to the historian over a glass of beer) to be the son of a really famous man.
Now, Dad and I always got along okay; he was good to me and I like the old boy fine. But you can maybe imagine how it was after they kicked George Washington upstairs to Grandfather, and stuck my dad in his exalted shoes.
George Sage, Father of His Country!
People are always tracking me down and asking about George. You’d think he was some kind of a saint or something. Don’t get me wrong—I think Dad is swell. But what can I say to all these weirdies who want to know about their hero? If I give them the real scoop, they think I’m insulting my own father just because I make him human, like you or me.
I’ve pretty well given up trying to tell the truth; nowadays I usually just mumble something about a dedicated life and let it go at that.
But you’re interested in history. You want the facts.
Okay. I’m with you.
But remember: my dad was just a guy like a lot of other guys. He didn’t go for all this saint stuff, and neither do I. I’ll give him to you just the way he was; take him or leave him.
They call it Peace Monday now, that day when it all started. I was just a kid, but I remember like it was yesterday. It was a wet year, 2056 was, and that Monday was typical. It was gray and rainy outside, and you could hear the wind blowing, and you were glad you were in the apartment, where it was warm….
George Sage was stumped.
His ample body—not fat, but with a detectable paunch—was absolutely motionless in the hammock. His graying hair hadn’t been combed all day. Distantly, he listened to the wind. His slightly glazed eyes examined nothing.
A slogan on the wall read: IT’
S ALWAYS TIME FOR A CHANGE.
Lois, his wife, knew the signs. She was his only wife; she had to be sensitive to nuances. She tiptoed around the apartment as if the floor were liberally sprinkled with eggshells. She was glad that Bobby was staying in his room.
The silence thickened.
“Zero,” George muttered cryptically, shifting in the hammock. “What, dear?”
“There’s nothing new under the sun,” George amplified.
“Now, George,” Lois said, trying to make a neutral noise. “Don’t nag, dammit! I’m plotting.”
“I know you are, George.”
“Sure,” George said.
The silence flowed in again and congealed.
George breathed irritably.
Lois worked on her nails.
“Do you have to do that?” George asked finally.
Lois looked up innocently.
“Your nails,” George explained. “You’re scraping them.”
“Oh.” She put her equipment down, and tried to sit very still. Outside, the rain was getting heavier; she hoped that it would let up soon so Bobby could go out and play. She was a little worried about George; he wasn’t a young man any more, and he hadn’t been as successful as Lloyd or Brigham. He was losing his confidence in himself, and of course that made it hard for him to come up with anything really sharp.
They had always hoped that Bobby might grow up and live in one of George’s systems; that would have been nice. But there was only Westville left now, and even George found Westville a bit on the stale side.
She crossed over to his hammock and gently ruffled his uncombed hair. It was curious, she thought, how his hair had turned; about one strand in three was white as snow, and all the rest as brown as it had been twenty years before when they had met in college.
“Troubles?” she asked gently.
“You might put it that way, as the man said when he walked the plank.”
“Try not to worry about it, dear.”
George muttered something impolite, and then looked at her frankly. “We’ve tried everything, Lo,” he said, his eyes very tired. “You know that. The people out there have seen it all now, and you can’t impress them these days just by tossing in a clan instead of a bilateral descent system. It all seemed kind of new and exciting once, but now—hell, I sometimes think there’s nothing as dull as constant, everlasting change.”