by Pam Uphoff
There was another bag, also full of books. M'kabon's vanished future? She took it as well.
Scouting carefully, she left the room. The stairs ran both up and down, fortunately with a large arrow that directed her up to the emergency exit. She scanned the lobby, then sauntered casually across the room and out the front doors.
All right. Escape was dead easy, but where and when am I?
The cavern got larger to the right so she headed that way. She got a few odd looks and inventoried her appearance. Suit, shoes, jewelry. She eyed the other fems on the street. Great, one of the coverup decades. She stepped down into a monorail station, and sought out the public lav. A larger scarf over the frills, one around the waist over the bottom of the short vest in a wide band that covered most of her midriff, pin them in place, and she was instantly stylish. She dug through her pockets and purse for coins and checked the dates. Seventy years, M'kabon said. She tucked four twenties into the most accessible pocket, and headed further into the monorail station. She recognized the route names as Imperial City, and an abandoned news sheet gave her the date. Mars Victory Day, 3859E. The day of an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate the Emperor. She fed a twenty into a ticket machine and headed for Central Park.
Trev might think M'kabon could change the present with a phone call, but Xaero had no faith in that benign scheme. There was only one person in this past world she could approach. If she guessed wrong . . .
It was early, but the police were setting up barriers and starting to sort people by security clearance. She hadn't thought about that. She hesitantly approached one partly assembled checkpoint. "Excuse me? I was wondering, umm, I'd heard General Xavarti Ile Leia would be here early, and I might be able to speak to him before I had to leave?"
The Lizard setting up the stand eyed her and nodded. "Just up the hill. They keep him there until the ceremony, so you've got a couple of splits to see him, before we start shifting people out of here. But he won't talk to you, he never talks."
"Thanks!" she beamed at him and headed in the direction he'd pointed. Grandfather had always said waiting around and getting insulted by the crowd was the most pleasant part of the Mars Victory Day ceremony.
She had to stop and blink away sudden moisture in her eyes at the sight of him. Forty-five years younger than most of her memories of him, he stood tall and expressionless, ignoring the two trumales that were showing off to their fems, demonstrating their bravery by poking the Dry Scale. The Imperial Guards were all watching from a distance, disdainful of their stoic charge, and apparently indifferent to the insults aimed at him. As Xaero approached, the males drifted off laughing, saving her the trouble of kicking their tails.
He ignored her, gazing over her head.
"Grandfather." She said softly, in the dialect, subtly different from standard Martian.
He dropped his eyes to hers. "I have neither children nor grandchildren, Cave Slug."
"I walk the Sands of Time. My mother is not yet born," she told him. "I remember you telling me of the rockhoppers, hibernating beneath dead gardens, dreaming of the return of the ice while they slowly die. The herfits move to another garden and live you said. You told me to always be a herfit." He was staring back over her head again. "Are you curled and dreaming of a dead world, Grandfather?"
No reply.
"The Cave Dwellers are infuriatingly stupid, safe enough to be as silly as they wish. But their world is the only garden a herfit can find to live in, now."
He sighed and dropped his eyes to hers again. "I am tired of dreaming myself to death, but I see no other road."
"Tell the Emperor you will abide in peace, obeying the laws of his people, becoming one of them." She hesitated, she loved him, but could she trust him? "There will be an attempt on the life of the Emperor and his daughter this day. Watch for it and prevent it if you can."
"How?" He asked bitterly. "I have no weapons, not that weapons would be needed for most of these slugs."
"You told me a Dry Scale always has a knife." She told him. She palmed the knives in her hands and reached out to him. He clasped her hands, as if in parting, taking the knives. She stepped back. "Be careful. I fear that I make you more vulnerable to accusations of planning violence." Indeed the Imperial Guards were frowning a bit, paying attention. Apparently only rudeness and insult to their prisoner was to be tolerated.
"Fear not." He said. "They have already done the worst to me that they can."
The police were starting to sweep through the area, rousting everyone without a security badge.
"I have to go," she said, turning away.
"What is your grandmother's name?" he called after her.
"Tersella." She called back, and smiled at his startled look. Grandmother had been both a high society beauty and a university historian, hiding her admiration of the captive General behind a wall of professional pseudofeminism.
Xaero joined the outgoing crowd, and kept going, beyond the ring of spectators. She had done all she could here. Now the problem would be to find M'kabon and the way home.
A comm directory gave her the phone numbers of three "Hell's Surfaces". She broke another twenty and used most of it calling the three establishments and asking if their signs were screaming red neon script. Two said yes, so she hit the monorail and checked the nearest. Nope. Not even a stunner trip could make the sign into the one from, from, whenever it had been. She agonized all the way across town to the second, certain she'd see M'kabon disappearing into thin air, stranding her here.
It didn't do her nerves a bit of good to see the ordinary street scene, traffic flowing past the well remembered sign. It belonged to a tavern of dubious aspect, but it had windows, so she entered, intent on securing a lookout point. The trio arguing with the proprietor was enough to bring tears to her eyes again.
"Trev!"
He pounced, hugging her. "Will you stop attracting Mad Scientists?" he growled.
"More to the point," W'ufda said. "Has she got any money?"
She handed him two twenties without taking her eyes off Trev. Apparently it was enough to satisfy the barkeeper, and they were left alone. "How long have you been here?" she asked.
"Most of the morning." Trev said. "Change machines took our, umm, oddly dated, coins without a problem, but now we're down to bills, and those won't fly either mechanically or in person."
"We three were just a few steps behind you." W'ufda said. "The rest of the team a few d-splits behind us. Even so, they didn't show up here." Trev and Vee nodded grimly.
"We saw M'kabon throw you into a cab, and we couldn't find another to follow. So we've staked out his entry point, in the hope that it will also be his exit.
W'ufda sighed as the proprietor started glaring at them again. She brought out her coins and sorted them by age. W'ufda scooped up the first good ones she found. "Want something to drink?"
She shoved some more at him. "And eat if they have anything."
The proprietor, happy again, turned on the huge vid that covered the wall over the bar.
They were showing the ceremony in the park. Someone was giving a speech, with an announcer talking over it about the Imperial Family arriving, which could be seen in the background, behind the speaker. Most of the stools on the stage were already filled with various dignitaries. Seats for the Emperor, the Consort, their oldest son Ferisate, their sole fertile child the Crown Princess Faltela and her husband of less than a year, Councilor Rasti L'taffas. All their children, or the ones that were born in Xaero's time, closely resembled the darkly handsome future Consort Rasti. The Prince Fatrevi sitting beside her was about the same age as his father, sitting up on the stage. The resemblance was striking. She wondered if Trev would cease to exist if they returned to their own time.
"They're all so young." Trev muttered.
Her Grandfather was on stage as well. Standing stoically, listening to what had probably been hours rehashing the slaughter of his tribe, his family. The four Imperial Guards who'd allowed him to be ins
ulted and abused in the park stood stiffly behind him.
The speaker wound up in perfect time, smoothly introducing and welcoming the Emperor, the Consort, the . . .
The audience was on their feet, cheering and whistling. The mass, slight forward movement of the entire crowd hid, for a critical d-split, the fast moving assassins. Xaero had seen this before in old vids, the two lizards suddenly coming out of the crowd—but this time there were three of them, one very big, ugly and old. M'kabon had added his pet to the lineup, and he was aiming straight for the young Princess.
The Big Lizard jerked suddenly, blood spraying around the knife embedded in his throat. A laser flashed high through the air, as his finger closed on the trigger as he died. General Xavarti stepped forward, threw the other knife into the ribs of the lizard closing in on the Consort then stepped forward again to physically block the last assassin. The laser in the assassin's claws twitched to the side, trying to get an open shot at the Emperor. The four Imperial Guards behind her grandfather sprang forward, apparently mistaking his actions as attacking the Emperor. They hit him nearly as a group, their momentum taking down the assassin with them in a chaos of flashing lasers and screams. The Emperor and the entire family were suddenly swept from the stage by more Imperial Guards, unharmed as far as she could see.
What she also couldn't see was her Grandfather, somewhere in that pile of heaving bodies.
The vid coverage splintered, with split screens and interfering voices, as various reporters tried to follow the Imperial armored cars as they sped away, others trying to get to the stage but unable to make progress against the crowds milling about. The very speed of the attack and response muted the panicky tendency to run away, and curiosity was taking over fast.
The proprietor searched the stations for better coverage, and found one with a camera placed high and a directional mike kept steady on the stage.
Two Imperial Guards were getting off the top of the pile. The other two were badly injured, they were removed carefully from the crowd of late arriving guards that still had the assassin and the General pinned down and immobile. They retreated from the assassin suddenly, as the guards attempting to roll him over exposed a great deal of charred flesh on the half that rolled . . .
Then her grandfather stood up. She sagged in relief, looking away, blinking. "There he is!" she yelped, jerking the others back to reality. They swarmed through the door, and charged M'kabon, as the old lizard blocked traffic and stood in the middle of the road, waiting.
Not for us, she realized. The gate must be set for a certain time.
One cart driver, blocked, got out and yelled at M'kabon, who calmly raised his stunner and shot him. He turned it toward them, but a fuzzy glow surrounded him and he vanished.
Chapter Seven
They all leaped at the glowing spot. Trev grabbed her hand and jumped through with her. They all staggered into a group of Lizards who grabbed them and pinned them to the floor yelling somewhat pointlessly "Department of Martian Security, Freeze!"
Xaero's muzzle was turned enough to count pinned bodies. They were all back. Everyone but Big Ugly.
"We're all back, turn that thing off!" W'ufda's voice was a bit muffled. "If you can."
"Sorry, sir." The anonymous Dim sounded embarrassed, but Xaero was relieved. W'ufda is known and recognized.
"W'ufda! What the hell are you doing here?" a trumale in a conservative dark blue suit stomped over and glared down at him.
"Chasing a madman with a time machine, Major. I trust you have M'kabon as well weighted down as I am? And his time machine turned off?"
"Is everyone back?"
"All the live ones."
A snap, and the faint white glow reflecting from various surfaces disappeared.
"Let him up. How the hell did you get involved with this?"
"You ignored my suggestions about Sun Town—or at any rate acted like you were not going to have anyone here, so I decided I'd better take a look." W'ufda stood up and stretched, looking around at them. "The . . . possible consequences of time travel are a bit disturbing. I only recognize about half of you. Major S'trooth, do you recognize Trev and Gergi?"
He's not using 'Prince Fatrevi' until he knows the ground. Impersonating an Imperial Prince . . .
Major S'trooth looked past the two men holding Trev down, and suddenly winced. "Prince Fatreve, I apologize . . . Let him up."
A large male in the ridiculously ornate Imperial Guards uniform leaped to help him up, glaring at the men who'd dared knock an Imperial Prince down and jump on him. The regular Dims were clumping up toward W'ufda and Trev as the Specials drew back. W'ufda threw a surprised look at one of them, and Xaero wondered what, or who the male had been in their time.
Trev waved S'trooth's continuing apologies down. "I'm so glad to know I exist you can flatten me again if you wish. I think we need to compare some history." He looked around. "We lost all the books, didn't we?"
"They went through with me," Xaero told him. "Last I saw they were . . . Oh. We left them in that tavern, didn't we?"
"We have them, Sir." S'trooth said. "We've had them for seventy years, and still didn't manage to stop M'kabon." He eyed the scientist wearily. "I can't believe there's not a kill order out on this . . . thing." he pulled out a stunner and leaning over, shot M'kabon at point blank range. "Wrap him up very securely and take him away."
"Umm, it's not that I'm not having fun lying here with three handsome men all over me, but it makes conversation a bit awkward." Xaero pointed out.
Trev snickered. "Please let her up and Sergeant H'nkel as well."
S'trooth nodded, looked them over and then turned back to Trev. "We've got all the historical records he took back with him as well, you see, sir. Apparently this was the seventh time he's gone back in time, and every single time he attempted to assassinate some member of the Royal family. Four times he succeeded."
Everyone gawped at him. "So to speak," he added. "This last trip changed everything after it, so we really can't say he succeeded in killing someone who was never born or is still alive."
"What do you remember?" Trev asked, fascinated. "What has changed?"
S'trooth spread his hands. "Sir, to me it is seamless and straightforward. That madman traveled back in time and attempted an assassination that was thwarted by General Xavarti Ile Leia, aided by some Imperial Guards. And left behind these incredible books."
"How," Xaero asked. "Two or three assassins? Knives or bare handed? The General, I mean."
"Was my Grandmother killed?" Trev added.
"No, sir, none of the Imperial family was touched. Three assassins, with lasers, the General with two knives." He looked around at what was apparently an outlying greenhouse. "We've all read the multiple histories. Perhaps, now that it is over, we could relax and compare notes?"
"Yes." Trev looked around at the group. "All of us who went back in time need to check our personal histories."
"Oh, yes, Sir. We have orders about that." He eyed Xaero uncertainly. "May I ask who you are?"
"I am Ms. Xaera Rafia L'svages." Ugg. Never lie to the police—if they are at a high enough level.
Trev's head jerked around at her use of the Trufem version of her name.
All the Specials were staring at her. "Rafia?" someone muttered.
"What?" she asked.
S'trooth answered. "M'kabon's second time trip was to assassinate Emperor Fatrevi, m'lord. He was successful and also killed the Royal Consort Rafia. All we have from that time is a single history book. M'kabon's next trip was to a time preceding the birth of the future Emperor. He succeeded, that time, in killing the Crown Princess. Apparently Fatreve didn't exist again until after the sixth time M'kabon tried to change something and security managed to stop him." He looked sideways at Xaero. "We had no idea who this Consort Rafia was."
"But, but, Fenni and Feritu?" Trev said. "What about them? When was this?"
"That's the way it started, sir. Emperor Fatrevi and Consort Rafia, appar
ently reigned over a long prosperous period following the Great Quake. Then this elderly scientist went crazy." S'trooth said, nodding at the door as the old lizard was carried out.
"This guy really came from forty some years in the future, sir. His younger self actually works in the Imperial Research labs, legitimately, at this time. So, something set him off, and he traveled back twenty some years and assassinated, well, you, sir. He hoped for the Regency to fall to the Consort, who was a scientist and had pushed a lot of basic research, but he used a bit too much powder and killed you both.
"And then he went, well, forward to his original time, we think, but still didn't like something. So he made a fourth trip, to 3834, five years from now, and assassinated Empress Faltelu. But that didn't improve anything. So then he decided to go back even further, and, well, it gets complicated. Sir," he added, with a sudden return to formality.
"Then it gets complicated? All right." Trev closed his eyes briefly. "Let's do the easy part first. In better surroundings."
Vee and the uniformed Imperial nearly collided and stopped to glare at each other. Trev turned on the uniformed male. "Sorry, I don't know you. This is Sergeant Gergi H'nkle, he's my primary guard and you will respect that."
The guard looked shocked. "I'm Sergeant Leri K'derat. I've been guarding you since you left University."
Vee studied him thoughtfully. "K'derat. There was a K'derat in the Guards class ahead of me. Fell off the Wall and broke his neck. Another cadet got canned for goofing off and contributing."
"Arm," K'derat said, rubbing his left arm. "B'tern got reamed for his part in the stunt. But I don't remember you at all."
