The Shield of Time (31 page)

Clouds loomed whiter than the snowbanks that lingered here and there upon moss and shrub. The sun, striding higher every lengthening day, dazzled eyes. Its light flared off pools and meres, above which winged the earliest migratory birds. Flowers were in bud over all. Trodden on, they sent a breath of green into the air.

Just once did Little Willow look back, past the straggling lines of the tribe to the homes they were leaving, the work of their hands. Red Wolf sensed what she felt. He laid an arm about her. “We shall find new and better lands, and those we shall keep, and our children and children’s children after us,” he said.

So had Sun Hair promised them before she and Tall Man vanished with their tents, as mysteriously as they had come. “A new world.” He did not understand, but he believed, and made his people believe.

Little Willow’s gaze sought her man again. “No, we could not stay.” Her voice wavered. “Those moons of fear, when any night the ghost might return—But today I remember what we had and hoped for.”

“It lies ahead of us,” he answered.

A child caught her heed, darting recklessly aside. She went after the brat. Red Wolf smiled.

Then he too was grave, he too remembered—a woman whose hair and eyes were summer. He would always remember. Would she?

The timecycle appeared in the secret place underground. Everard dismounted, gave Tamberly his hand, helped her off the rear saddle. They went upstairs to a closet-small room. Its door was locked, but the lock knew him and let them into a corridor lined with packing cases which served as overloaded bookshelves. At the front of the store Everard told the proprietor, “Nick, we need your office for a while.”

The little man nodded. “Sure. I’ve been expecting you. Laid in what you hinted you’d want.” “Thanks. You’re a good joe. This way, Wanda.” Everard and Tamberly entered the cluttered room. He shut the door. She sank into the chair behind the desk and stared out at a backyard garden. Bees hummed about marigolds and petunias. Nothing except the wall beyond and an undercurrent of traffic bespoke San Francisco in the late twentieth century. The contents of a coffeepot were hot and reasonably fresh. Neither of them cared for milk or sugar. Instead, they found two snifters and a bottle of Calvados. He poured.

“How’re you doing by now?” he asked.

“Exhausted,” she muttered, still looking through the window.

“Yeah, it was rough. Had to be.”

“I know.” She took her coffee and drank. Her voice regained some life. “I deserved worse, much worse.”

He put bounce into his own words. “Well, it’s over with. You go enjoy your furlough, get a good rest, put the nightmare behind you. That’s an order.” He offered her a brandy glass. “Cheers.”

She turned around and touched rims with him.
“Salud.”
He sat down across from her. They tasted. The aroma swirled darkly sweet.

Presently she looked straight at him and said low, “It was you who got me off the hook, wasn’t it? I don’t mean just your arguing for me at the hearing—though Lordy, if ever a person needed a friend—That was mostly pro forma, wasn’t it?”

“Smart girl.” He sipped afresh, put the goblet aside, reached for pipe and tobacco pouch. “Yes, of course. I’d done my politicking behind the scenes. There were those who wanted to throw the book at you, but they got, uh, persuaded that a reprimand would suffice.”

“No. It didn’t.” She shuddered. “What they showed me, though, the records—”

He nodded. “Consequences of time gone awry. Bad.” He made a production of stuffing the pipe, keeping his glance on it. “Well, frankly, you did need that lesson.”

She drew an uneven breath. “Manse, the trouble I’ve caused you—”

“No, don’t feel obligated. Please. I had a duty, after I’d heard what the situation was.” He looked up. “You see, in a way this was the Patrol’s fault. You’d been meant for a naturalist. Your indoctrination was minimal. Then the outfit allowed you to get involved in something for which you weren’t prepared, trained, anything. It’s human. It makes its share of mistakes. But it can damn well admit to them afterward.”

“I don’t want excuses for myself. I knew I was violat
ing the rules.” Tamberly squared her shoulders. “And I’m not—not repentant, even now.” She drank again.

“Which you had the guts to tell the board.” Everard made fire and brought it to the tobacco. He nursed it along till the blue cloud was going well. “That worked in your favor. We need courage, initiative, acceptance of responsibility, more than we need nice, safe routineers. Besides, you didn’t actually try to change history. That would have been unforgivable. All you did was take a hand in it. Which, maybe, was in the pattern of events from the first. Or maybe not. Only the Danellians know.”

Awed, she wondered, “Do they care, so far in the future?”

He nodded. “I think they must. I suspect this matter got bucked clear up to them.”

“Because of you, Manse, you, an Unattached agent.”

He shrugged. “Could be. Or maybe they … watched. Anyway, I’ve a hunch that the decision to pardon you came down from them. In which case you’re more important, somewhere up the line, than either of us today knows.”

Amazement shrilled: “Me?”

“Potentially, anyhow.” He wagged the pipestem at her. “Listen, Wanda. I broke the law myself once, early in my service, because it seemed like the single decent thing to do. I was ready for punishment. The Patrol can
not
accommodate self-righteousness. But the upshot was, I got tapped for special training and eventual Unattached status.”

She shook her head. “You were you. I’m not that good.”

“You mean you’re not that kind of good. I do still doubt you have the makings of a cop. Something else, however—For sure, you’ve got the right stuff.” He lifted his glass. “Here’s to!”

She drank with him, but silently.

After a while she said, tears on her lashes, “I can never truly thank you, Manse.”

“Hm-m.” He grinned. “You can try. For openers, how about dinner this evening?”

She drew back. “Oh—” The sound trailed off.

He regarded her. “You don’t feel up to it, huh?”

“Manse, you’ve done so much for me. But—”

He nodded. “Plumb wore out. Absolutely understandable.”

She hugged herself, as if a wind off a glacier had touched her. “And, and haunted.”

“I can understand that too,” he said.

“If I can just be alone for a while, somewhere peaceful.”

“And come to terms with what happened.” He blew smoke at the ceiling. “Of course. I’m sorry. I should have realized.”

“Later—”

He smiled, gently this time. “Later you’ll be yourself again. That is certain. You’re too healthy not to.”

“And then—” She couldn’t finish.

“We’ll discuss it when the time is right.” Evérard laid his pipe aside. “Wanda, you’re about ready to keel over. Relax. Enjoy your applejack. Doze off if you want. I’ll call for a taxi and take you home.”

Lightning flickered in darkness, bright enough to pierce through the lamps of New York. Thunder was still too distant to overcome traffic rush; wind and rain would follow.

Everard made himself look squarely at the enigma who sat opposite him in his apartment. “I thought the matter was settled,” he declared.

“Considerable dissatisfaction remained,” said Guion in his deceptively pedantic English.

“Yeah. I pulled rank and wires, threw my weight around, cashed in favors owing to me. But I
am
an Unattached and it was, it is my judgment that punishing Tamberly for doing what was morally right would accomplish nothing except lose us a good operative.”

Guion’s tone stayed level. “The morality of taking sides in foreign conflicts is debatable. And you, of all people, should know that we do not amend reality, we defend it.”

Everard knotted a fist. “You, of all people, should know that that isn’t always exactly true,” he snapped.

Deciding that he likewise had better keep this peaceable: “I told her I didn’t think I could’ve pulled it off if some kind of word hadn’t come down from on high. Was I right?”

Guion evaded that, smiling slightly and saying, “What I came here for is to give you personal reassurance that the case is indeed closed. You will find no more lingering resentments among your colleagues, no unspoken accusations of favoritism. They now agree that you acted properly.”

Everard stared. “Huh?” Several heartbeats passed. “How the devil was that done? As independent a bunch as ever bearded any king—”

“Suffice that it was done, and without compromising their independence. Stop fretting. Give that Middle Western conscience of yours a rest.”

“Well, uh, well, this is awfully kind of you—Hey, I’ve been mighty inhospitable, haven’t I? Care for a drink?”

“I would not say no to a light Scotch and soda.”

Everard scrambled from his chair and sought the bar. “I am grateful, believe me.”

“You needn’t be. This is more a business trip than an errand of mercy. You see, you have earned a certain amount of special consideration. You have proved too valuable an agent for the Patrol to want you unnecessarily hampered by unwilling and incomplete cooperation.”

Everard busied his hands. “Me? No false modesty, but in a million years of recruitment the outfit has got to have found a lot of guys a lot more able than me.”

“Or me. Sometimes, however, individuals have a significance far beyond their ostensible worth. Not that you or I count for nothing in ourselves. But as an illustration of the general principle, take, oh, Alfred Dreyfus. He was a competent and conscientious officer, an asset to France. But it was because of what happened to him that great events came about.”

Everard scowled. “Do you mean he was … an instrument of destiny?”

“You know very well there is no such thing as destiny. There is the structure of the plenum, which we strive to preserve.”

I s’pose,
Everard thought.
Though that structure isn’t just changeable in time as well as space. It seems to be subtler and trickier than they see fit to teach us about at the Academy. Coincidences can be more than accidents. Maybe Jung glimpsed a little of the truth, in his notions about synchrony
—
I
dunno. The universe isn’t for the likes of me to understand. I only work here.
He drew himself a Heineken’s, added a shot of akvavit on the side, and brought the refreshments back on a tray.

As he settled down, he murmured, “I suspect the way has also been smoothed for Specialist Tamberly.”

“What makes you think that?” replied Guion noncommittally.

“On your last visit you were inquiring about her, and she’s mentioned an evening with you while she was a cadet. I doubt that … whoever sent you … would be so interested in the average recruit.”

Guion nodded. “Her world line, like yours, appears to impinge on many others.” He paused. “Appears, I say.”

Unease stirred afresh. Everard reached for pipe and tobacco pouch. “What the hell is going on, anyway?” he demanded. “What’s this all about?”

“We hope it is nothing extraordinary.”

“What are you hoping against?”

Guion met Everard’s gaze. “I cannot say precisely. It may well be unknowable.”

“Tell me
something,
for Christ’s sake!”

Guion sighed. “Monitors have observed anomalous variations in reality.”

“Aren’t they all?” Everard asked.
And few of them matter much. You might say the course of the world has enormous inertia. The effects of most changes made by time travelers soon damp out. Other things happen that compensate. Negative feedback. How many little fluctuations go on, to and fro, hither and yon? How constant,
really, is reality? That’s a question without any fixed answer and maybe without any meaning.

But once in a while you do get a nexus, where some key incident decides the whole large-scale future, for better or worse.

The calm voice chilled him. “These have no known cause. That is, we have failed to identify any chronokinetic sources. For example, the
Asinaria
of Plautus is first performed in 213 B.C., and in 1196 A.D. Stefan Nemanya, Grand Zhupan of Serbia, abdicates in favor of his son and retires to a monastery. I could list several other instances in either of those approximate times, some as far away from Europe as China.”

Everard tossed off his shot and chased it with a long draught. “Don’t bother,” he said harshly. “I can’t place those two you did. What’s strange about them and the rest?”

“The precise dates of their occurrences do not agree with what scholars from their future have recorded. Nor do various other minor details, such as the exact text of that play or the exact objects depicted on a certain scroll by Ma Yuan.” Guion sipped. “Minor, mind you. Nothing that changes the general pattern of later events, or even anyone’s daily life to a noticeable degree. Nevertheless they indicate instability in those sections of history.”

Everard fought down a shudder. “Two-thirteen B.C., did you say?”
My God. The Second Punic War.
He stuffed his pipe with needless force.

Guion nodded again. “You were largely responsible for aborting that catastrophe.”

“How many others have there been?” Everard rasped.

The query was absurd, put in English. Before he could go to Temporal, Guion said, “That is a problem inherently insolvable. Think about it.”

Everard did.

“The Patrol, existent humankind, the Danellians themselves owe you much because of the Carthaginian episode,” Guion continued after a silent while. “If you
wish, regard the steps lately taken on your behalf as a small recompense.”

“Thanks.” Everard struck fire and puffed hard. “Although I wasn’t being entirely unselfish, you realize. I wanted my home world back.” He tautened. “What have these anomalies you speak of got to do with me?”

“Quite possibly nothing.”

“Or with Wanda—Specialist Tamberly? What’re you getting at with the pair of us?”

Guion lifted a hand. “Please don’t develop resentments of your own. I know of your desire for emotional privacy, your feeling that it is somehow your right.”