Mind Out of Time

by Christopher Stasheff

  Angus was suddenly wary. "So name him."

  Yorick closed his eyes, shaking his head. "No, Ang. That's not the way it happened. The naming or him was yours."

  "Damn it, it doesn't have to be that way!" Angus shouted. "That small a change won't make any difference!"

  "It will to me!" Yorick snapped.

  "Why can't you name him?"

  Yorick felt Aacthuu cringing against his chest, remembered how terrified the boy had been when he heard the gods fighting, and lowered his voice. "Because if I had to name him, I'd call him 'Oedipus.'"

  Angus's face froze, the muscles of his neck strained into whipcords. He knew the name meant "twisted foot."

  The two men stood glaring at each other.

  Huddled against the broad chest of the Man, Aacthuu saw the two gods glaring at one another and trembled, for he knew who was hurt when gods fought—so he nearly fainted with relief when the Gnarled One turned on his heel and stalked away with a snarl that turned into words.

  The Man stood in silence, watching him go, but Aacthuu could feel his satisfaction. When he looked down at the boy with a half-smile, Aacthuu plucked up his courage and asked, "What has he said?"

  "The Gnarled One has welcomed you," the Man explained. "Your name is Aacthuu no longer. You shall be called 'Yorick' now, and shall be till you die."

  "Eeoreeech," the boy repeated, wondering, for he knew what it meant to be given a new name. He was of the gods' tribe now! He was sure he would be only a servant, but he would be a servant in the household of the gods! "Eeyoreek?"

  Yorick nodded, smiling. "You are Yorick now, and you will come with us to our homeland—and you will find that we are not gods, but only men, such as you yourself shall be one day." For a moment, he felt the full eeriness of the situation. "We have great knowledge, and you shall find that the Gnarled One is exceedingly wise, and we have things called 'machines,' such as the Gnarled One makes—machines that do marvelous things, such as taking us back to our dwelling."

  The boy glanced at the Gnarled One, saw the gleaming square stone in his hand.

  "That is the machine that brought us here, and which will take us back to our homeland," the Man said, his voice low. "It is a thing of magic... for we may not be gods, but we are magicians—magicians, even though we are only men."

  Aacthuu shook his head, his gaze never leaving the Man's eyes. "You are gods," he said with absolute conviction.

  Yorick sighed, reflecting that when Aacthuu had learned otherwise, he would remember that Yorick had told him the truth. His shoulders shook with a rueful inner laugh; then he said, "Believe it while you may."

  He turned, carrying Aacthuu toward the Gnarled One, who was making strange motions at the machine. "How can we be gods," Yorick asked Aacthuu, "when we come from a machine?"

  The Gnarled One pressed at the 'machine,' and the world went away—the old world, the world Aacthuu knew, but a strange, bright new world opened around him.

  THE END

  TIME AND TIDE

  The following is an excerpt from the upcoming GRIPE novel, Stealing Time.

  "A disconnection notice." Angus held up the red-lined bill as though it were Yorick's fault.

  "We're not gonna manage to send time travelers very far without electricity," Yorick said. "But you can't blame the electric power company—we use a lot of watts just sending ourselves out of this cave."

  They sat at a table in the time lab; its improvised walls hid the vast unlit cavern in which it sat. Some day, that huge bubble in the basalt of the Rockies would be filled with ten floors of bedrooms, offices, shops, a gymnasium, and a swimming pool—but so far, it only held a time machine, a table with refrigerator and hotplate, and white-painted plywood walls and ceiling to give the illusion that they weren't stranded in a huge space.

  It was very secure, though. The only way in or out was by the matter transmitter built into the time machine.

  "Safety costs," Yorick said. "Nobody can get at us here—but the power bill is incredible."

  So was Yorick. He was a Neanderthal, adopted into GRIPE, Dr. Angus McAran's time-travel organization—then assigned to keep rival time agents from killing Angus before he invented the time machine.

  Angus frowned. "The electricity will be a minor expense compared to buying this mountain and setting up our front organization—McAran Research, Inc." He couldn't help a glow of pride as he said it.

  "Yeah, it is going to cost a lot, isn't it?" It was hard to argue with a genius, especially when he wasn't trying to win, just to make good sense. "Okay, so we have to start making a lot of money very quickly. How're we going to use this gadget to make a fortune or two?"

  "Research," Angus explained. "There must be a hundred historians who'd love to have us find incontrovertible evidence of what really happened in their favorite historical eras."

  "Don't tell me you're thinking of taking a film camera back to shoot the signing of the Magna Carta!"

  "Nothing so crass," Angus said, "though it has occurred to me to sneak a very small audio recorder into the grove of Academe and find out what Socrates really told his students."

  "Philosophers don't pay much," Yorick told him. "I was thinking of something more immediate—say, digging up buried treasure as soon as the pirate ship's out of sight."

  "We'd foul up history, set up a time paradox." Angus frowned. "Unless it was a treasure that's never been found."

  "There're plenty of 'em," Yorick said—then stopped, because Angus's eyes had gone glassy. "What're you thinking of now?"

  "King John's treasure," Angus said. "I heard about it in 'Intro to European History'. Those last years, after Runnymede, he turned really paranoid, insisted on traveling all around the country to make sure his nobles stayed in line—but just to play it safe, he took the treasury with him."

  Yorick stared. "The whole treasury?"

  Angus nodded. "In a bunch of wagons. Of course, there wasn't all that much left, after he had to bail out Richard the Lion-Hearted and pay his ransom once or twice. At any rate, they were crossing a very shallow beach called the Wash—but nobody told him what happened to that beach when the tide came in."

  Yorick grinned. "Let's go see, shall we?"

  Fortunately, if they needed more agents, they could borrow them from the GRIPE of the future—and Angus made a brief mental-time trip to ask their twelfth-century Northern English agent to watch the approach of the royal train and tell Angus if King John changed his mind about trying to cross the Wash. He had to make the request ahead of time, of course, since the man had to hike a hundred miles to watch. Yorick had to make a trip out of the cavern to buy supplies, but it only took them a day to get ready. Then Angus waved good-bye, pushed the button, and watched the half-dozen wet-suited agents disappear. He took a coffee break, sat down to meditate, and waited for the twelfth-century agent to get in touch.

  There was a commotion at the end of the street, and the travelers in the common room of the Golden Eagle looked up. One went to the door, then came back wide-eyed. "The king! 'Tis King John himself, surely!"

  Most of the patrons leaped up and ran to the door, exclaiming.

  Hugo stayed in his chair. "See the nasty little man who has drained England and made his reeves turn hundreds out into the snow? Why would I want to hustle to watch him?"

  "Good or bad, he's a king!" the landlord took his apron off. "I've never see one, and I'm not about to let the chance slip by! Bestir yourself, lad."

  Hugo grumbled, but he rose and went out with the others. He was a man on the young side of middle age, a yeoman on holiday, wearing a belted smock over cross-gartered leggings; there were a few white hairs in the mahogany of his beard, but not a one on his head. He had come to Thorp to buy sheep, for everyone knew their wool was the best in the North Country. No one knew he had really come because Angus McAran had asked him to.

  There they came, a score of spears preceding the knights on their high horses, chain mail jingling, the sun gleaming off their helms, the gau
dy paint on the shields slung at their saddle-bows making the king's progress festive. Behind them, in a litter slung between two more horses, came the king himself, waving with lackluster weariness at the people lining the streets. Hugo was shocked at how unimpressive he was—small, pudgy, ugly, with stringy hair and a sullen, glowering look of defeat. There was in him no trace of the golden Plantagenet handsomeness, nor of their delight in life.

  Then the litter was past, King John was gone from sight, and one of the men-at-arms had dropped out of the procession to chat with a village lad who stood near the innkeeper as Hugo watched the wagons pass, drawn by oxen, moving slowly and deepening the ruts as they rolled. Their weight was clear, and the fact that each was covered with thick, strong cloth tied down along the sides should have made people wonder what was in them, if the rumor hadn't already run through the countryside that the king traveled with the royal treasury behind him. Hugo glanced at the villagers to either side and saw looks of greed and anger—greed for the gold, anger for the men-at-arms who marched beside each wagon and the knight who followed it with drawn sword.

  The local youth finished telling the sergeant what he'd wanted to know; the man nodded in thanks, then pulled the lad in to walk with them. The youth looked surprised, but the sergeant's hand went into his belt-pouch and came out with a silver penny, which he pressed into the lad's hand. The youth grinned and marched happily in the train, proudly, even strutting a bit.

  Out of the town they went, and the patrons of the inn turned to go back in. Hugo managed to catch the innkeeper and ask, "What did they want yon lad for?"

  "To show them the way to the beach," the innkeeper told him. "They do mean to cross the Wash this day."

  "I'll have a watch." Hugo turned back to the door. "'Tis not every day ye have a look at royalty, and they do be going so slow I can catch them up easy."

  "You'll have company enough," the innkeeper said with regret. "I'd come myself if I had not guests to feed."

  "I'll tell ye if they do aught but walk." Hugo went back out.

  Since the train could go no faster than the marching footmen who led it, Hugo had no difficulty catching up with the dozen locals who were following. After all, the train was the most exciting thing to happen in the village in the last decade, so they were determined to gain every ounce of entertainment they could.

  As they went, Hugo listened to the villagers discuss King John's perfidies—high taxes and an overbearing manner, trying to tell his dukes and earls how they should manage their lands and treat their serfs. Not a one of them doubted for an instant that the severe hard times that gripped the country were the fault of King John, who had taxed every spare groat he could.

  All well and true, Hugo thought; he'd had to start the high taxes to pay for Richard's ransoms, his Crusade, and his wars in France—but John had kept the taxes high even after Richard lay dead.

  "Belike he paid the bowman who did shoot the Lionheart," one peasant said darkly.

  "Aye," said his mate, "and be there any doubt he did have Prince Arthur slain?"

  No, Hugo thought, but there didn't seem to be much evidence either.

  "This country'd been far better off if good King Richard were here, it would," the first peasant said darkly.

  True, Hugo noted, but the point was that King Richard was definitely not here, not in England, nor had he been for more than a few months of his reign. He'd been forever off to the next war or tournament. He was the very model of a knight errant, but he had never been much of a king.

  A knight was riding beside the litter now, leaning down to talk to the king. Hugo wondered who he was and what they were talking about. Whatever it was, the king didn't want to hear it; he scowled, shaking his head, and swung his arm overhead and down, finger pointing ahead.

  The stranger knight had been trying to keep him from crossing the Wash, Hugo realized, and frowned; this wasn't in the history Angus had told him. On the other hand, he had also said the historians never bothered with every last detail, only the important ones.

  In the time lab of the 1960s, Yorick held up the top layer of a huge folded pile. "Okay, this is a seine."

  "Looks like a net to me," Ella said.

  There were four of them, all wearing wet suits, air tanks, masks, and fins.

  "That's right, a net." Yorick nodded. "Only it's weighted along the bottom with floats on the top to hold it straight up,—so they call it a seine. It's also very big—and in our case, very, very long. This one has a finer mesh than most, to keep the tide from sweeping gold coins right through."

  "So we're going to rig this thing from one side of the beach to the other?" Jobe asked.

  "That's right." Yorick held up a mallet and a huge staple. "Drive these into the lower edge to hold it, then weight down the bottom even more with rocks, the biggest you can find. It'll catch the treasure. All we have to do is make sure that the net stays in place."

  "And empty it after we've caught all the loot," Jobe said.

  "Right." Yorick patted the circular bin that held the seine. "One load at a time. We fill this barrel and Doc will bring it back here. The headquarters crew will hoist it out and put in an empty, and we'll just keep the relays going until it's all back here. Any questions?"

  One by one they shook their heads.

  "Okay, turn on your air and let's go." Yorick put in his mouthpiece and turned his back. Ella started his air flowing, checked the meter. Yorick gave her the thumb's up sign as he pivoted back. The others turned on their air; each held up a thumb. Yorick turned to Angus with another raised thumb, and Angus hit the button.

  In the thirteenth century, the surface of the Wash pushed up four huge domes of water that collapsed into waves, bubbles, and foam. The tide boiled briefly, then rolled on as it always had.

  Below the surface, Yorick and his crew were busy, stringing the seine from one side of the beach to the other.

  Peasants came from their hoeing to watch, lining the road to see their king pass by. No matter how they despised him, he was still entertainment. Following the royal train, Hugo heard one of the locals ask another, "Hadn't we ought ter tell 'un, though?"

  "Nay," the other answered. "Let 'un find out for 'unself."

  If it had been Richard, of course, they would have come forth in an instant—but then, with Richard, they would never have thought for a minute that they might have been punished for their impudence.

  So King John's treasure train rolled ahead to its appointment with destiny.

  Beneath the water, Ella finished hammering the last peg into the bottom of the Wash and swam over to Yorick, making the swab-O sign. Yorick nodded and handed her a bucket.

  Hugo had gained on the royal train—in fact, he was close enough to hear the knight with the strange device on his shield say to John, "It is late, Majesty. Mayhap we should bide the night and cross at first light."

  Hugo looked up in alarm. If they waited even fifteen minutes, they would see the tidal bore come rushing in like an express train.

  "Rise at sunrise?" John shuddered. "And stay the night without an inn? Let my treasure stay out in the cold with only sentries to protect it? Are you out of your mind, Gorier?"

  "Only concerned for your welfare, Your Majesty."

  "But not for my gold's." John settled back against the cushions. "We must ford this beach this day."

  "But the hour..."

  "What do you mean, prattling on about the lateness of the hour?" John demanded. "The sun is still high in the sky! We march!"

  "As Your Majesty will have it," Sir Gorier sighed.

  Hugo relaxed. Perhaps this was the way events had originally happened, after all. Who would have written down a detail such as advice from an unknown knight?

  Still, the knight was indeed unknown—and John was right, it wasn't even mid-afternoon. The treasure would certainly be safer for the night in an inn yard. Why would Sir Gorier be counseling him to wait?

  "They have come to the ford, Majesty."

  "Good." John
nodded. "Proceed."

  Of course, Hugo couldn't accompany them into the water—that would have been far too obvious; one of the knights might have cut him down where he stood. Worse, the sergeant might have pressed him into service, and Hugo had no desire to become a soldier.

  The spearmen strode into the water without wincing, though their boots and leggings must have been soaked through in an instant—the water was knee-high. The knights rode after them, high and try astride their tall destriers. Then John's horses stepped in. The water churned a foot below the bottom of his palanquin, but the king was dry.

  The first treasure wagon rolled into the water, then the second and third. John's horses were climbing out as the last wagon trundled into the ford. Across the Wash they went, the water lapping up to the hubs of their wheels. Hugo stared, seeing all twelve wagons in mid-stream, feeling the first touch of excitement as a distant rumble swelled into a roar.

  There it came, a wall of water eight feet high, rushing toward the beach like an express train.

  John turned to look, saw the tidal bore, and clutched his head, screaming—but the bellowing of the waves drowned him out as the water-wall slammed into the wagons. It bowled them over, surging onward, hiding the wagons from sight. Then it was gone, rushing away upstream and diminishing as it went. The water lowered and the wheel-rims were dimly visible above the angry waves. The tidal bore had overturned every single wagon.

  Below the surface, Yorick and his crew were swimming about frantically. The seine was nylon; it held the weight as gold cups and plates filled it along with an avalanche of gold and silver coins—but some of the coins fell through and sailed on downstream, and as the net bulged, its lower edge pulled away from the bottom here and there, letting occasional cups and bowls squeeze through as the mounting weight behind them pressed harder and harder. Yorick swam here, swam there, snatching coins out of the stream. Then he saw a golden urn rolling along the bottom and kicked his fins to drive him over. He snatched up the urn, tucked it under an arm, and pushed coin after coin into it. Rings and necklaces sailed along on the current; he stuffed them into the urn along with the silver pennies.