Time's Chariot (8 page)

'So what's the big deal about it, anyway?' Su said.

Before he could answer she added: 'I think we've
taken long enough.'

'No, wouldn't want the Supervisor to complain
about us wasting College time.' Rico grinned at the
thought of Supervisor Marlici's plump, pompous
visage quivering yet again with indignation. All
that quivering and the man still couldn't lose
weight.

Su groaned suddenly. 'I can't believe we're so
stupid.' She shut her eyes.

'What are you doing?' Rico said.

'Symbing . . . got it. Have a look.'

Puzzled, Rico symbed in to see what she had
found. 'You can't look at his personal records!' he
exclaimed.

'Why not? They count as his property and we've
got Marje's permission to go through his property.
Let's see . . .' Another pause. 'None of them
mention it,' she said.

'They wouldn't, would they?' Rico said.

'I suppose not.' The whole point of a field
computer was that it worked in isolation from the
networks of the present; it had to work upstream as
well as in the Home Time. 'None of them were prepared
on it, either.'

'Still,' Rico said with a grin, 'it's compulsive reading.'
He set up a symb search of his own.

'What are you doing?' Now it was Su's turn to be
shocked.

'Reading them anyway. Seeing what they do
mention.'

'Now, that is going too far . . .'

'One's dated after he died.'

'Junk mail . . .' Su was plucking at his sleeve to
pull him away.

'No.' Rico could see the official seal on it.

Naturally it resisted his attempts to read it and for
the sheer thrill he flung Orendal's authorization at
it. It opened. 'It's . . . a statement of account. He'd
made a number of personal transferences . . .
and payment has been debited from his account
in accordance with instructions previously set
up.'

'Fascinating.' Su grabbed his arm and led him to
the door. 'The computer's not here, let's just accept
you're not going to get it, and stop poking through
private correspondence.'

'You started it.' Rico couldn't help making the
point with a broad smile. 'But you're right. We've
both got to get ready for the ball.'

Su groaned. 'Oh, no! I hate balls. And so do
you.'

'I go to observe.' They were at the door, stepping
out of the storeroom. 'Anyway, you want me to
keep out of trouble, and what can go wrong at a
ball?'

The door shut behind them.

Union Day! The day the world finally became as
one under the World Executive, a composite
consensus mind drawn from the governing minds
of the ecopoloi. Thousands of years of disunity, war,
nationalism, religious differences, all officially done
away with, and even if there were still people who
would as soon kill each other as look at each other,
they could be kept safely apart. So in that regard,
planet Earth was united, and it was an achievement
worth celebrating.

The College always excelled itself in its choice of
venue and this year's was no different: a plateau on
what would one day be the Costa del Sol with a stunning
view of the Gibraltar waterfall. Another twenty
years and the place would be submerged forever by
the rising Mediterranean, but for the time being it
was the perfect place for a party. The air was soft
and warm and delicately laced with spicy scents
drifting in from the Spanish mainland. Soft grass
underfoot; carefully planned clusters of trees and
bushes around which groups of guests could congregate;
a stream, fed by sparkling clear water
straight from the Sierra Morena and warmed by the
College, in which the more adventurous party-goers
could take a dip.

Marje Orendal had chosen a period costume at
random from the catalogue. Apparently she was a
1920s New York flapper, though what she was
meant to flap she wasn't sure and the catalogue
hadn't said. As she stepped out of the transference
area, she was just glad the venue was warm.

Guests arrived and departed from a terrace that
overlooked the proceedings. A page – dressed in
powdered white wig, heavy jacket and tight
breeches; surely one of history's less comfortable
fashions – took her name at the top of the wide
marble steps that led down to the party ground.
'Acting Commissioner Marje Orendal,' he
declared, and Marje descended into the crowd and
headed for the nearest bar.

'Marje! Good to see you!' Commissioner
Thomas Enrepil, the chubby head of Social Studies,
was beaming at her over a glass of something.
He was surrounded by a small circle of people who
Marje didn't know. 'Marje, have you met . . .'

No, she hadn't, and she forgot their names with
immediate ease, but still she nodded and said
'hello' as each one was introduced to her.

'I was just telling them . . .' said Enrepil, and
carried on with his anecdote. The words blurred
into the background noise and Marje remained
with a half smile on her face, which she extended to
full strength whenever the others laughed.

'Commissioner?'

Glad of the excuse to look away, Marje turned.
Hossein Asaldra, apparently dressed as a penguin,
was standing behind her. She blinked: no, not a
penguin, it was . . . what was the expression . . . a
morning suit, nineteenth or twentieth century. His
arm was crooked through the arm of a smiling
woman dressed as an armoured trooper, Five Bomb
War era. The helmet and the armour made actually
seeing what she looked like difficult, but strands of
red hair crept from under the rim.

'Commissioner,' Asaldra said, 'this is my wife . . .'

'Ekat Hoon,' the woman said, holding out a
hand. 'How very pleasant to meet you at last,
Commissioner. Oh, of course, my condolences on
the loss of Commissioner Daiho.'

'Why, thank you. Did you know him well?'
Hoon's condolences had sounded more routine
than heartfelt, so Marje put the question casually.

'I knew him, of course. Did Hossein mention I'm
on the Oversight Committee? I often met him
through work, just as I'm sure we two will from now
on. I thought we should meet socially.'

Hoon gestured at someone behind Marje.
'Drink, Commissioner?'

Marje looked round and was taken aback to see
a Neanderthal standing there. The shape and form
were unmistakable. The stocky body radiated a
strength that could have snapped Marje in half.
The face was strong and stern, framed by ridges of
solid bone under the dark tan skin. Incongruously,
he wore a one-piece suit tailored to his powerful
form and was carrying a silver tray and a range of
full glasses.

'Drink, madam?' he said politely.

Marje absently took one of the smaller, more
innocuous glasses, and Hoon and Asaldra served
themselves. The 'tal wandered off into the crowd.

'Francis is on his toes, I see,' Hoon said. She took
a sip and pulled a face. 'Unlike whoever poured the
drinks in the first place.'

'Francis?' Marje said. Hoon nodded in the
direction taken by the 'tal.

'We loaned him out,' she said. 'There's a lot of
them around tonight.'

Ekat Hoon was patrician: Marje suddenly
remembered Asaldra telling her so. He had also
said something about getting his own rewards.

'One of my first jobs in the College,' she said
casually, 'was working on the 'tal psyche. Fieldwork
had just brought back the first tribe. I found them
a fascinating challenge.'

'Yes, I remember the reports,' Hoon said with a
smile. 'Their languages, their religions, their
cultures – just as diverse as we are. They could be
just like us.'

'They are just like us,' Marje said. Another 'tal
moved close, saw that they already had glasses, and
moved off again. Marje took a closer look at the
clothes he was wearing and tried to believe she was
only imagining their resemblance to a kind of
household livery. 'With all the rights that we have,'
she couldn't resist adding. 'I think that was when I
realized just how much bygoners need protecting.
We have far too much power for our own good.'
She wasn't being particularly civil, but she knew full
well that 'tals were barred from paid labour in the
ecopoloi, and she needed to know if Francis and
the others were being used essentially as slaves.
Bygoners were bygoners, whether they were human
or Neanderthal, and they had rights.

'They also serve, who only stand and wait,' Hoon
said. 'A pun,' she added, seeing Marje's questioning
look. 'Wait, stand around, wait, serve drinks . . .
we fully believe in making recompense for labour,
Commissioner. Of course Francis isn't able to have
a bank account but we pay him in kind.'

Marje realized how tense she had become and
made herself relax. Perhaps she was too used to
standing on formality, obeying Morbern's Code and
all that. If you weren't careful you could get to the
point where everything was ideologically suspect.

'What do you look like?'

At last!
Rico Garron thought. He had been
craning his neck, studying the crowd for ten
minutes now. He deliberately put on an air of
innocent enquiry and turned round, eyebrows
raised. Su was coming towards him on the arm of
her husband, Tong. Rico recognized Louis XVI and
Marie Antoinette.

'Cinderella and Buttons, how nice,' he said.
'Hello, Tong.'

'Hi, Rico,' Tong said cheerfully.

Rico looked back at Su. 'I don't know,' he said.
'What do I look like?'

'Like . . .' Su looked closely at the thick jacket
and baggy trousers. 'Like . . .'

'A man sculpted out of hairy orange peel?' Tong
said. Su burst out laughing and Rico gave a polite
'a-ha-ha'.

'English shooting party, 1910,' he said. 'The
material's called tweed.'

'Interesting.' Tong looked more closely at the
alternating diagonal stripes of the weave. 'Is it
modelled on fish skeletons deliberately?'

'Oh yes, they were heavily into that sort of thing
in the twentieth century,' said Rico. 'Fish-bone
suits, kipper ties, they just couldn't get enough sea
life.'

'Drinks first, talk later,' Su said, with a glance at
Tong.

'Bar's that way, but let me,' Rico said. He hogged
Su during working hours: it was only right to let the
two of them have some time together. He took their
orders and pushed off into the crowd.

'
Garron!
'

He paused as he was shouldering his way
between a gorilla and a Roman centurion. Had
someone . . .

'
Still interested in that computer?
' The words were
symbed into his mind: anonymous, impersonal,
impossible to say who was speaking.

Rico's eyebrows shot up. Of course there was a
symb node here, purely for emergencies, but using
it for covert activities was another matter.

'
Yes
. . .?' he symbed. Nothing had been further
from his mind at the party, but if he was going to be
approached in this highly intriguing manner . . .

Directions appeared in his mind. '
This way
.'

Acutely conscious that nothing looks more
suspicious in a crowd than someone sidling
cautiously, Rico stepped out boldly. The symbed
directions led him away from the crowd, and the
music dwindled to a gentle background melody.
Out of the circle of lights, the plateau suddenly
became very dark.

Through some bushes, then onto the edge of a
small ravine. A stream ran through it, gurgling over
boulders with its rippled waters reflecting silver in
the moonlight. Idyllic, Rico mused: better watch
out for snogging couples.

A bush rustled behind him and Rico turned.

A powerful fist smashed into his stomach, and he
whooped and doubled over. Patterns of light
flashed in his eyes as a pair of strong hands picked
him up and set him on his feet, pinning him
upright in a powerful grasp.

The sturdy form of his attacker stood before
him, wrist pulled back for another blow, and Rico
lashed out with his feet, catching the man on his
jaw. Rico yelped as shock ran up his leg – it had
been like kicking a wall and the man barely
flinched. Someone standing in Rico's peripheral
vision stepped forward and caught hold of Rico's
leg at the knee. Another equally powerful hand
seized his upper leg. Still dazed, Rico vaguely
recognized what was about to happen, and rather
than struggle he went limp. The hands twisted and
Rico bellowed as agony exploded in his thigh. If he
had tried to resist it might have snapped. As it was,
he felt the wrench in his socket and knew he
wouldn't be able to walk on it without attention.

But he had other worries right now. The hands
still held him, his chief aggressor still stood in front
of him. Rico braced his muscles, clenched his teeth
and tried to put his mind into neutral for what was
about to come.

Blow after blow sank into Rico's solar plexus. First
they knocked the breath back out of him all over
again, then even the pain seemed to recede into the
darkness and it was just shock, shock, shock.

'Look up,' said a harsh voice. Rico tried, but
couldn't. Strong fingers twined in his hair and
pulled his head up to look at the beater, and his
eyes widened as he got his first clear look at the
man's face in a sudden burst of moonlight.
The man carefully put his hands together as if
praying, then folded the fingers together, and Rico
just had time to think,
But it does make sense
, before
the man swatted the side of Rico's head with his
bunched hands as if with a club.

The supporting hands let go and Rico collapsed
in a heap, a man-shaped mass of bruises and pain.
His breath sobbed as he drew in vast gulps of air
and fireworks exploded in his head.

Someone grabbed his hair again and yanked his
head up. He looked into the large, dark eyes of the
'tal who had led the attackers.

'Forget 'ompu'er,' it said. 'Forget.'

It let go and Rico let his head drop back to the
ground. He watched as the 'tal walked over to a
tree, reached up, snapped off a branch and walked
purposefully back to Rico.

Oh, great
, Rico thought. But the 'tal just dropped
it on him.

''Ou need it,' he said. He turned round and
walked away without any further comment,
followed by his two companions. Rico watched
them go, then with the last of his strength tried to
push himself up.

He couldn't do it. He fell back, buried his face in
the grass and the smells of the earth and let himself
succumb to the roaring dark inside his head.

'Of course, Hossein was in Fieldwork but it wasn't
really for him,' Ekat Hoon said. They had wandered
to the edge of the plateau, where the gentle
shimmer of a forcefield kept them from plunging
down to what would be the floor of the
Mediterranean, and the waterfall's roar was oddly
muted into a pleasant background thunder. The
drinks served by Francis had been judged unpalatable
and Hossein Asaldra had been dispatched
to find replacements. Marje was amused at the
fairly apparent overtones in their relationship: as
far as she could see, formal, stand-offish Hossein
Asaldra was – what was the Fossil Age term she had
heard once? – chicken-bitten, or something like
that. Hoon was happy to do the talking for both of
them. 'So, have you ever been upstream,
Commissioner?' Hoon said. 'Apart from occasions
like this?'

'Not me,' said Marje. 'And do call me Marje,
Ekat.'

Hoon acknowledged the permission with a
gracious nod. 'I'd be there like a shot, given the
chance,' she said. 'There's so much I'd like to see.'

'Whatever you want to see, there's probably a
correspondent's report listed for it,' Marje said.

'Not the same as first-hand experience, though,
is it?'

'Not in the least,' Marje agreed. From the slight
nod of Hoon's head she wondered if she had just
passed some kind of test in the woman's mind. 'But
perhaps I'm just boring and have no spirit of
adventure. My field is psychology and we have all
the information we're likely to need on that here
in the present.'

'That's not just your preparation talking, then,'
Hoon said. Part of the social preparation that every
child had was to make people comfortable with
living in the modern world, and that meant disinclining
them to live anywhere else. The higher up
the ladder one rose, the less preparation was
required and the more one's thoughts could roam.