Time's Chariot (17 page)

'Come in, come in.' The barbarian who spoke their
language smiled with an almost convincing display
of friendliness as Sarai and Jontan were nudged at
gunpoint back into the lounge. The chief barbarian
was there: he snapped at someone behind them
and Jontan felt the nozzle of the gun – they
said
they were just stunners – removed from the small of
his back. 'Let's have some introductions,' said the
interpreter. 'This is Mr Carradine, we all work for
him. You can call me Alan. I already know that you
are Sarai and Jontan.'

They just looked back at him. He shrugged and
turned to the Carradine man. More gabbling. The
worst of it was, so much of what these savages said
to each other sounded almost familiar. The words
bounced and skimmed off the top of Jontan's
understanding.

One of the guards came forward and
approached the kit, which still sat in one corner of
the room, completely untouched. Jontan bit back a
smile. He knew what was coming and it would be
fun to watch.

Sarai was smiling too. She reached out and took
his hand.

A zap and a bang, and the guard was thrown
back across the room. Carradine was grinning too,
and several of the guards were unnaturally pokerfaced
as their colleague picked himself up off the
floor. Watching and enjoying someone else's misfortune
was a brief moment of shared humanity
between civilized Home Timers and bygoner
primitives.

'I want you to turn off the forcefield,' Alan said.

'We can't,' Sarai said. A brief exchange between
the two bygoners.

'Can't or won't?' said Alan.

'We're not allowed to,' Jontan said. 'Mr Scott—'

'You don't work for Mr Scott any more,' Alan
said patiently. He gestured at the man standing
next to him. 'You work for Mr Carradine.'

Jontan and Sarai were shocked. 'Mr Scott is from
the Holmberg-Chabani-Scott combine,' Jontan
said.

'I doubt that will mean anything to him, Jon,'
Sarai said with forced patience. The point had
occurred to Jontan as the words left his mouth, but
it seemed so
right
. If only this Carradine person
knew what it meant, there would be no more of this
'you work for me' nonsense.

'Does he?' Alan pursed his lips and nodded.
'Well, well. The Holmberg-Chabani-Scott combine.
We'll all certainly have to tread carefully with them,
if we live long enough for them to be around,
which I doubt.' He nodded at one of the guards
behind them.

Jontan yelled as a strong hand grabbed his wrist,
and the yell turned to a howl as his arm was pulled
behind his back to make his wrist touch his
shoulder. And then a powerful shove sent him
flying forward towards the kit, and he just had time
to symb a turn-off command at the forcefield
before he thumped into the culture tank. He lay
across it for a moment and drew a couple of deep
breaths, before he slowly stood up, rubbing his arm.

Carradine was chuckling and even Sarai, he was
mortified to see, looked as if she might have been
amused.

'You see? You can,' said Alan. 'And if that
forcefield goes up again, we'll simply repeat the
process.'

Carradine strolled over to stand next to Jontan,
hands in his pockets, surveying the kit. He said
something that was obviously a question.

'Matthew, that is, Mr Carradine wonders which
of these bits and bobs controls it, anyway?'

Carradine was standing right next to the control
module but Jontan had no intention of telling him
that.

'Well, never mind,' Alan said. 'Our people will
do a preliminary examination of this lot and in the
meantime I want you two to relax a bit, spend some
time together, think things over. You see, your
Home Time doesn't know you're here. This is Mr
Carradine's offer. We want to learn from you. You
won't be journeymen any longer, you'll be world
experts and we'll hang onto your every word. In
return, you'll have every want supplied and you can
be as close together as you want. Do what we ask
and you'll be free. Do think about it.'

He paused for a moment.

'Well,' he said, 'free-
ish
.'

Night fell. The engineering team still pored over
the equipment from the Home Time. Some of
Carradine's team wanted to drag the journeymen
out and interrogate them on the spot. Carradine
reasoned that two relaxed, well-fed journeymen
with a good night's sleep behind them would be
more useful than two physical and mental wrecks,
and he vetoed the idea.

Despite his promises of their being free together,
he kept the two apart for the time being, each with
a guard on their door. Promises could always be
kept later. Neither slept much anyway.

The entire end of the room where Asaldra had
appeared – and the others, three weeks beforehand
– was cordoned off. Motion detectors were set up,
cued to powerful stunners. If any other Home
Timers appeared there, they would be detected and
shot down in a moment.

Guards patrolled. Motion sensors cast their
electronic net over the entire area. Helicopters with
infra-red cameras patrolled the skies. The detectors
and stunners set up around the arrival point in the
lounge were checked and double checked, and an
armed guard was stationed there too.

Rico Garron arrived in the twenty-first century.

'Marje? Do you have a moment?'

Marje looked up in surprise to see Yul Ario,
Commissioner for Fieldwork, standing in the
entrance to her office with a friendly smile on his
face. Not a projected eidolon but the real thing.

'Yul? What can I do for you?'

'If you'd like to come with me, I'll show you.' His
smile turned into a grin, and there was something
infectious about it. Whatever it was, it seemed it
could only be good. 'It's a surprise.'

'I'm a bit old and a bit busy for surprises, Yul.'

'You're never too old and you'll love this one.'

And so she went with him.

The carryfield whisked them away to the transference
hall. A minute later they stepped out into
what had been Daiho's Himalayan apartment.
Without Security Ops crawling all over it and the
knowledge of its occupant's recent death, Marje at
last began to savour it for what it should have been.
Tranquil, quiet, isolated: somewhere Daiho could
come to get away from it all, to immerse himself in
ancient philosophies and meditation.

They stepped out into the courtyard. The
fountain still chuckled, the sun still shone, the
mountains still ringed the view with immense
grandeur. Ario filled his lungs with the crisp, clean
air, then turned to face her. For some reason, the
smile was less intense, as if to emphasize an underlying
solemnity.

'Marje Orendal,' he said, 'it is my pleasant duty
to inform you that your appointment as
Commissioner is confirmed, and the Patrician's
Guild has accepted you as a member. You're one of
us in every way, Marje. Congratulations.'

'I . . . ?' said Marje.

'And that means, this place is yours,' Ario went
on. He handed her a crystal. 'Your credentials.
We're all entitled to an upstream residence, if we
want one, and do forgive the morbidity but this is
the only one available at the moment. If prehistoric
Himalayas aren't your thing then of course you can
apply for a residence to be constructed somewhere
else, but in the meantime, you are mistress of all
you see.'

'I . . .' Marje said again. She was finally able to
frame the only words that could actually describe
what she was feeling. 'I'm overwhelmed.'

Ario nodded, his mouth quirked on one side in
an ironic half smile. 'I know.' He led her to the
patio edge. One part of her mind protested at
the thought of celebrating at the point where her
predecessor had fallen, but otherwise she was still
too a-whirl with the news. 'Take a seat. I know
where Li kept his drinks: I'll be back in a moment.'

Patrician!
Marje lounged back in a recliner and
looked at the great skyscraping peaks the other side
of the balustrade. She had made it. She was, as Ario
had said, one of
them
.

Everything she could want was hers. Oh, there
were responsibilities, yes. She could expect to be
worked into the ground. No more of this tentative
offering of provisional sponsorship to errant Field
Ops. She would have to cultivate a whole new crop
of sponsorees, use her power and privilege to their
advantage . . .

It was what she had always wanted. To do good,
to help others and at the same time – she glanced
around appreciatively – reap the rewards. A private,
secluded lodge far away from the hustle and bustle
of the Home Time was only the beginning. It was
only scratching the surface of what was now
available.

Ario was back with the drinks. He handed her
one and settled back into a recliner facing her. He
held up his glass.

'To you,' he said, and they drank.

'It's sudden,' Marje said.

Ario cocked an eyebrow. 'Is it?'

'The patrician thing, anyway. I mean . . .' She
remembered how she had abruptly put off the
interview with the Patrician's Guild the first day on
the job. 'I wasn't aware my name was in the system
anyway.'

'Of course it was,' Ario said. 'You can't do a
patrician's job and not be a patrician, Marje. And
the full works – you know, interview, assessment,
probation period – we only give that to people we
don't really like anyway.' He paused a beat. 'Well,
maybe we have to keep the probation period, that's
the law, but everything else in an application we can
push through on the nod. You have powerful
friends, Marje. You were one of Li's sponsorees. We
knew we wanted you.'

'So I'm on probation?' Marje said. Ario's face
clouded.

'Hmm. Yes,' he said, and he stood up to lean
against the waist-high balustrade, palms flat against
the smooth stone as he gazed out into the abyss.
'The people don't understand us, Marje. To them,
things appear so black and white, so right or wrong.
They can't see the pressures we're under. They
can't see that sometimes we have to delve into the
realms of moral ambiguity for the greater good. Do
you know the Christian scriptures? "It is better for
one man to die for the sake of the nation." The
people can't understand that. We can.'

Marje looked up at him, baffled. He continued
to look straight ahead.

'What I'm getting at, Marje, is that many new
patricians find that they have some on-going
project, some work in progress left over from their
previous life that they started for all the right
motives . . . but then they find that their motives
were based on a distorted perspective. It turns out
things weren't all they seemed. And why should
they be? How can children understand the world of
adults? And it turns out that their grand scheme is
not only embarrassing and annoying for the rest of
us but it's actively counter-productive, because
they've inadvertently stuck their nose into something
of great benefit to everyone, patrician and
non-patrician alike. Marje, I won't go into specifics,
but I will say that if there's anything in your life or
your work that could conceivably rock the boat,
show the patricians up in some way . . . I'd drop it.
Quietly, without fuss, without fanfare.'

Now he did look at her, and the friendly smile was
back. 'And the best thing is, you don't have to explain
or apologize to anyone! Look, Marje, I've got to get
back to the College. I'll leave you here to look around
your new home, take things in, all that.'

Marje stayed in her seat as he left. If she had got
up, she might not have trusted herself to speak.

What Ario had just said sounded badly like a very
heavy hint. And there was only one on-going
project she could think of that came remotely near
the kind of thing he had described.

But it involved breaking Morbern's Code and
every tenet of College life! Or did it . . .
How can
children understand the world of adults?
If she had
really believed the worst straight away then surely
she would have reported it straight away, rather
than hire a Field Op to find out.

That was it. She was still
finding out
. She had just
wanted the facts. Ario was a Commissioner too – he
wouldn't connive at something that struck at the
heart of the College. Would he? She felt cautiously
relieved . . .

Marje realized she could argue this in circles for
hours, and she had work to do. She would look
round the house later. For the time being, she was
needed back at the College. Without an assistant,
work was piling up.

She stood to go and the blue-outlined eidolon of
the house's intelligence appeared in front of her. It
was an old man with a white beard and robe: Plato
or Aristotle or Socrates, one of that lot, anyway. She
smiled – what else would Daiho have used?

'Yes?' she said.

'A message for you, Commissioner Orendal. The
sender was anonymous.'

'Show me.'

The image was replaced by a simple field of text
hovering in front of her. Whichever line Marje
looked at, the field scrolled so that the text stayed
in front of her. She started at the top.

A few lines down, she frowned.

A bit further and she gasped.

'No!' she said when she was halfway down. She
took a step back and the text vanished. Socrates was
standing there again.

'Have you finished, Commissioner?' he said.

'Bring it back!' Marje snapped, and the text
reappeared. Marje steeled herself and finished
reading.

She looked at it for a long time, then re-read it.
Slowly.

'Did Commissioner Ario leave this?' she said.

'I have no record of who sent it,' said the
eidolon. This time it was taking no chances and left
the text showing.

Marje glanced quickly through the message a
third time, but she knew what it was. The first line
said it all:

'What follows shows how you could conceivably be
implicated in the murder of Commissioner Daiho, were
such to have taken place.'

And from then on, the message showed precisely
that. It used assorted facts and circumstantial
evidence to weave together a case for the
prosecution – any prosecution that wanted to show
how she connived in Daiho's alleged murder so as
to reach her new exalted position. The logic was
inescapable, just the facts were wrong.

But it could wound her. It might not get her sent
to Reconditioning or the correspondent's programme,
but it would be the end to her career.

And then there was the last line:

'This need not happen.'

Murder?
Marje had forgotten Rico Garron's
strange theories. She had certainly never believed
them. But was Li Daiho's death connected with
whatever Hossein Asaldra was mixed up in? Surely
not!

And again, surely Ario wouldn't be party to any
murder . . .

But if something was going on that could conceivably
make it look like murder, however
circumstantially . . .

Not only embarrassing and annoying for the rest of us
but actively counter-productive
, he had said. Marje
didn't need it spelled out. Ario had presented the
carrot, this was the stick, and the end of both was
the same: drop the investigation.

'Erase it,' she said, and slowly made her way to
the recall area.

She thought hard as she waited for the next
scheduled recall field, and then as she took the
carryfield back to her office. She wanted to get this
exactly right. She wanted to reassure Ario (
that
smug bastard with his smooth talk
. . .), let him know
everything was OK . . . and at the same time, make
it clear there were some things she just would not
tolerate.

She symbed Ario back in her office and he
appeared before her in full image. He was affable as
ever, as if he hadn't just dropped a hint that could
ruin her life if she didn't take it.

'How can I help you, Marje?'

'I've been thinking over our conversation,' she
said slowly. 'I just want to let you know that I'm
examining all my projects, as you suggested, and if
I find anything that matches your description, I'll
certainly cancel it at once.'

See? I can talk patrician just like you.

'Wonderful!' Ario beamed. 'That's a good idea,
Marje. Welcome on board.'

'But there is something that might upset you,
personally, and I have to say it.'

Ario's smile suddenly turned into a good humoured
mask over a very wary face.

'Yes?'

'It's my assistant, Hossein Asaldra. I know you're
his sponsor and all that . . .'

'Yes?' Now Ario sounded both wary and
dangerous.

'I'm sorry to say his performance has been far
from satisfactory. I have reason to believe he has
kept things from me, deceived me, misled me. I
can't have him working for me any longer and
I can't endorse his record for further promotion.'

'He might,' Ario said very mildly, 'have been
following orders.'

'As my assistant, his first duty was to me,' Marje
said. 'And this only reinforces my point. Perhaps he
was working for some greater good. Perhaps it was
one of those things you told me about that nonpatricians
simply can't understand, in which case,
he should have done it a lot better. He acted in
such an unbelievably sloppy manner that I actually
suspected, for a while, that he might be involved in
something illegal. If he's that sloppy working for
others, I don't want him for myself.'

Ario's eyes were cold. 'I can see your point. And
meanwhile . . .'

'Meanwhile,' Marje said, 'I will continue to act
in the best possible interest of the Patrician's
Guild.'

'Thank you for that assurance, Marje. Goodbye.'

One small victory
, Marje thought.
One very small
victory
. Not in the least looking forward to it, Marje
symbed Field Op Rico Garron.

'
Op Garron is not in the Home Time
,' was the automatic
response.

'What?' Marje actually spoke out loud. Garron
had gone already? She propped her elbows on her
desk and massaged the bridge of her nose with
her index fingers. Damn, damn,
damn
. When you
had just mustered all your courage to sell out, it was
extremely annoying to be thwarted.

She symbed Op Zo.

'Su, I gather your partner left sooner than I
expected.'

'Yes, a vacant slot came up in the transference
schedules. I've just seen him off.' Su sounded
pleased with herself. 'Is there a problem?'

'There—' Marje stopped. If this was as sensitive
as she suspected, it probably shouldn't be talked
about on the networks. 'Can you come to my office,
please?'

Besides, she owed it to Su not to shelter behind
a symb but to deliver this face to face.

Su's face when she heard what Marje wanted was
expressionless.

'This comes as a surprise,' she said.

'I have my reasons,' said Marje, hating herself
but finding patrician confidentiality a surprisingly
easy thing to slip into.

'Can I ask why?'

Marje ignored the question. 'I know you're not
trained for Specific Operations,' she said. 'All you
need to do is go to the arrival point, stay there and
symb Op Garron to return for recall immediately.'