The Fires of Paratime

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Five people ran Personnel. Gilmesh, Verdis, Lorren, and two trainees. The previous day's diving read-outs were dictated into the computers by one of the trainees, with the other trainee recording any changes in permanent as­signments.

  All in all, about four hundred time-divers were out on continued assignment at any one time. Another two hun­dred were involved in short or routine dives. Why so many extended dives? The law of real elapsed time comes into play. If I dived to Atlantea for ten units of holo-taking, I could not return to Query and break-out at any time except ten units after my departure. I couldn't gain time by back-timing or fore-timing and then returning to my point of departure.

  Like a lot of time laws, no one knew why it worked that way. It just did. My own theory was that because the Laws of Time require a biological synchronization between objective time on Query and objective time experienced by the body, the law of elapsed time follows.

  Because deep time-diving is exhausting and because of the operation of the law of elapsed time, Guards on remote assignments or extended ones are better off staying on location.

  Time flows differently in various parts of the universe. Our body clocks are set by where we are born and run in tune with our home system, by and large, give or take a few time rushes.

  Personally, I thought that a few divers never made it back to Query because their biological clocks got de-synched and they couldn't break-out. Once or twice I'd noticed that a break-out on return seemed more difficult than usual. I attributed that difficulty to getting out of phase with the in-system time flows.

  I hadn't realized how small Personnel was—even smaller than Maintenance in practical terms. While I had Narcissus, Brendan, and Elene working full time, a lot of the simple dings and dents were fixed by second- and third-year trainees. Heimdall's assistants in Assignments, handled the console maintenance. Medical, Linguistics, and Archives did the repairs on their own specialized gear. Maintenance concentrated on non-specific high tech sup­port machinery and diving related equipment, including weapons.

  Maintenance had four full time personnel, Personnel had five, Assignments twenty, Medical close to two hun­dred. Where were all the people? The Guard headquarters staff only totaled perhaps four hundred support types, and many, like 'me, were really divers.

  Where were the other twenty-six hundred Guards?

  I asked. Verdis gave me an exasperated look. "What does that have to do with personnel tracer forms? Hon­estly, Loki, you can be so scatterbrained."

  "Sorry, but the question just popped into my head."

  "It should have popped into your head a few years ago in training. Look ... "

  As she talked, Gilmesh's old trainee sermons began to come back, and the picture made more sense. Made so much more sense I thought Verdis should be the one giving the trainee lectures.

  What it boiled down to was the support functions of the Guard far outweighed the "police" functions. Query had about ten million people, roughly two thousand towns, five thousand villages, and one city. All told, Quest wasn't really a city, not with a scattered population of twenty-five thousand. The largest of the towns, Elysia, contained eighty-five hundred; the average village perhaps five hun­dred. So Quest had to be called a city, but only relatively.

  That was part of the point. Queryans enjoyed the fruits of stolen technology. Even stolen technology has to be distributed, and roughly two thousand Guards were as­signed to one-person local Guard offices to provide duplica­tion services.

  Each office had a duplicator and an independent power source. Local citizens could come in at any time and pick up a standard household item. Sounded like a big job, but explaining it was more complicated than the practice. A man might need a cooker, for example, or a synthesizer, once every five or ten years, if that. So he went to his local Guard representative, who had in his or her office mint copies of standard household equipment, plus a duplicator. Some of the bigger offices had several dupli­cators.

  The range of such appliances was narrow. Large and small cookers and synthesizers, washers, driers, hygiene appliances; a variety of hand tools, saws, hammers, wrenches; communits; wordwriters; small handtractors; hunting weapons. There were a few other items, and that was about it.

  The catch was—it was free. Any adult Queryan could request those items as needed. If someone wanted a bunch of items all the time, of course, the Domestic Affairs Force was likely to investigate, but that was another question.

  Guards also often dived into cultures in search of their own personal luxury items or tools. Officially, it was frowned upon, but the hierarchy didn't seem to mind if a Guard was fully briefed and could get what he or she wanted without notice or creating cultural change.

  A few hundred other divers maintained some of the remaining functions such as the weather satellites and the ecological monitoring service. "You can see that leaves the Guard spread thin," Verdis was saying.

  Thin wasn't the word for it. Roughly three thousand Guards supporting the technology and culture of ten mil­lion. Didn't seem possible, and I said so.

  "Maybe it's not," retorted Verdis, "but the Guard does it. Sometimes I wonder whether the Tribunes and the power-grubbers and the egotists around understand it."

  Was that a dig at me?

  She was flushed. I'd touched a sore spot.

  "You don't think Personnel is given enough credit for managing the situation, then?" I asked, knowing full well that was what she thought.

  "Loki, don't patronize me. I'll never be the hotshot diver you are, and I'll never understand why a gauntlet works. But I have to ask if you understand at all how fragile the system really is, how much depends on the Guard?"

  "You're right. I don't understand." And I was mad, mad for some reason I couldn't explain, as I attacked back. "All I see is a stream of broken equipment that none of the divers, hotshot or average, understands, that none of them pays any attention to, and it all gets dumped on me to be replaced or repaired. When I get a free moment, Heimdall or Freyda or Kranos invents a mission that is designed to fry or freeze someone and assigns it to me.

  "And by the time I get done with that, all the busted equipment is stacked up to the top of my bin, all waiting to be repaired for a group of would-be heroes who don't understand the difference between a screw and a bolt." I paused to catch my breath, but went on before she could interrupt.

  "Now maybe I don't remember how important the Guard is. The whole planet amounts to a bunch of para­sites supported by a group of glorified thieves, and that's all we are, and to puff up our jumpsuits at our own im­portance seems sort of funny."

  Lorren was peering around the archway, mouth open as if he couldn't believe what he was hearing.

  Verdis was ready to explode, mouthing strange noises, and her color had changed from what I'd call flushed to cold livid. She jumped off the stool. "You—you—"

  "Hold on a unit. I didn't say the Guard wasn't vital to Query. Sitting here and seeing how it all is held together brings it all home. To call ourselves heroes is another question. We're scavengers and worse. We pull down or change whole planetary systems and destroy peoples who might threaten our monopoly of time. We pride ourselves on slaving to pamper ten million Queryans who are handed the necessities of life on a silver platter."

  Verdis had the oddest look on her face, both hands resting on the back of the stool. "How can you wear the Black? You don't even believe in the Guard. I think all you believe in is Loki, first, last, and always."

  "I wish I did, Verdis. I wish I did. I don't have the an­swers, but neither do the Tribunes." I managed a smile. "The present structure isn't going to last forever. Have you ever noticed how we rattle around in this Tower? Either the early Guards believed in huge structures and no people or there are fewer and fewer of us every century. I'm guessing, but I'll bet it's the latter." I shrugged. Let her carry the discussion, I decided.

  Verdis shook her head slightly, and her mahogany hair slipped forward over her left shoulder. She was half-
lean­ing on the stool again. I didn't think she was quite as angry as she'd been.

  "What comes next?"

  "I don't know. Assignments to fewer planets, more off-planet assignments per Guard, abandoning regular surveil­lance in out-space or out-time sectors. Maybe changes wouldn't show in the records. Have we systematically reduced the number of high-tech cultures within our ranges in order to keep control? I don't know, but I'd like to."

  "You're paranoid, Loki. You suspect everyone of the worst."

  I smiled, hard as it was. "Probably, but it doesn't have much to do with Personnel. So let's skip it for now."

  Verdis nodded slowly.

  "Now. Have you considered a direct link of the Per­sonnel computer to the Archives Data Banks?"

  They hadn't. It wasn't surprising. I'd already gathered that little new programming had been done. I guessed that the designers, whoever they had been, had kept the sys­tem simple to ensure its continuity. I mentioned that to Verdis.

  "But why?" was her reaction.

  "Because simple organizations and structures last longer. A complicated computerized system with all Guard func­tions embodied could be handled with a fraction of the present administrative personnel."

  I wouldn't have been even moderately amazed if the Tribunes had been quietly blocking too much mechaniza­tion of the Headquarters' functions, but with the records of the Tribunes' deliberations routinely sealed, who would ever know? No one, but no one, ever entered their private offices and chambers, only the public Tribunes' Halls.

  If that were the case, why was Kranos asking me to look for improvements in Personnel? Did he mean simpli­fications? In close to two million years hadn't the simplest possible procedures already been worked out? I tried a different tack. "What's the purpose of Personnel, Verdis?"

  I'd caught her off guard. "What do you mean?" She paused for a moment, licked her lips. The tip of her tongue, so pale against her tanned face and dark lips, made her seem a bit more vulnerable, but the moment passed before she was even aware it had existed. "To keep track of the Guard. To provide the information to Assignments so Heimdall can pick the best divers for the tasks at hand ... " She stopped.

  "That's all, isn't it? Just to keep tabs on who's doing what, and to provide information to the Tribunes for promotions and discipline and to Heimdall for Assign­ments."

  Looked at critically, Personnel had two functions—to keep track of Assignment time/locales in order to allow Guards to be tracked for rescue or follow-up Assignments, and to provide the information necessary for personnel choices made by the Counselors and Tribunes. I dismissed the importance of the locator input immediately. I couldn't remember the last time cross-indexing had been necessary to rescue a diver. That meant the only necessary function was to provide information about Guards and their experiences. "Verdis, who makes the assignment re­ports and evaluations?"

  "Heimdall," she replied with a questioning note. "He's always assigned the missions."

  "No, that's not exactly what I meant. You said Per­sonnel has records of the duties and performance of each Guard. Is that right?"

  "Yes."

  "All right. Who rates each Guard's performance?"

  "His supervisor."

  That brought up another unpleasant question. "I've been supervisor, at least in name, of Maintenance for some years, and I've never filed a report on anyone, nor have I been asked to do so. Would you find out if any informa­tion or performance ratings have been entered on Brendan or Narcissus?"

  She frowned, but got off the stool and went over to the corner console. She could have used the one in front of me, but she didn't. After a unit she turned back toward me.

  "There are ratings in the system. They're made in your name. Are you sure you didn't do them?"

  I walked over to the console and looked at the screen display.

  "Narcissus ... assignment ... Maintenance, supervisor (provisional), Loki ... shows some basic mech aptitude, good working habits overshadowed by preoccupation with own reflection in polished metal ... "

  "Brendan ... Maintenance ... displays basic mech understanding ... good on repairs, but overawed by apparent complexities ... "

  "Elene ... trainee ... Maintenance ... moderate mech ability ... hides it well ... "

  Damn! The evaluations sounded like something I would have scripted.

  Verdis stood there with a smirk on her face. "Only you would phrase them like that."

  She was right. Only problem was that I hadn't. I hadn't known that evaluations were required.

  I left the black-topped screen with its evaluations dis­played in the flowing silver script.

  "Well?" asked Verdis. Her tone was demanding.

  "Maybe I did," I muttered.

  Verdis didn't seem convinced of my sincerity.

  "Verdis," I asked, "if I had made a report, how would I have done it?"

  "Oh, that's simple enough. You'd just come down here and key it into one of the consoles. Some of the bigger departments send us a data-bloc."

  "Would I need an access code or anything?"

  "No. Just your own personal code. The system won't accept more than what your position allows."

  That brought a number of questions to mind, some of which I didn't want to ask. I told Verdis to clear the screen and wiped my suddenly damp forehead when she turned back to the console.

  Was I losing my mind, forgetting what I was doing?

  Verdis came back over to the worktable.

  "I suppose the Tribunes have a separate input?"

  "There's one terminal in their official spaces, I've been told."

  "Do they have special codes as Tribunes? Or just their own personal codes?"

  "I really don't know."

  Or wouldn't say, I thought. The deeper I got into Per­sonnel, the more confusing it got.

  Heimdall or someone else had made my reports. Some­one who had teen careful enough not to even let me know about this aspect of the Personnel system. Someone who knew me well enough to use my own words and personal code. Someone who kept in close enough touch to make those evaluations current. But who? Why?

  The alternative was to admit I was crazy. If I wasn't crazy, then why had I been exposed to Personnel where I would surely find out what was being hidden from me? Gilmesh might have kept me in the dark, but what reason would he have? Kranos pushed me into Personnel, but it wasn't his idea, and was the idea to get me into Personnel or to get Gilmesh into Domestic Affairs to find out what Frey was up to? Wheels were turning. Wheels within wheels, and my formerly clear picture of Guard opera­tions was definitely being muddied.

  I got an idea. "Verdis, I need to take a walk. Be back in a while."

  I was halfway out the office before she answered. "All right, hotshot."

  I was ready to incinerate her on the spot. She realized it before I turned back.

  "I'm sorry, Loki."

  She'd even ducked.

  "No, you're not sorry. You're scared, scared that in my wild and uncontrolled anger I might turn you into a heap of black ashes on the spot." I tried to keep the tone light, but couldn't.

  "Could you? You're not wearing gauntlets, you know."

  That made me even angrier, somehow. "I'm not, am I? You'll have to keep guessing, keeping in mind that a wrong guess could prove rather warm." I funneled a light touch of static electricity out through my fingertips and let it crackle there.

  I'd been working on electrodirection without gauntlets, and it worked. How, I didn't know. That was why I trusted the microcircuitry more than my own apparent talent.

  I didn't feel like arguing about what I could and couldn't do, so I tossed the miniature lightning at the far wall and let it splatter.

  As I left Verdis reconsidering her words, I wondered which part of the puzzle she belonged to. With her reac­tions, the pursed lips, the sarcasm, she didn't seem to be part of the Assignments crew controlled by Heimdall.

  None of the divers with primarily administrative duties had too much
respect for the pure divers—like Frey, for example, who did little or no work in Locator despite the fact he was the supervisor. I supposed the fact I was listed as a provisional supervisor left Verdis with the impression I was so bad on administrative or maintenance details that I couldn't be trusted with a complete title. The fact that I knew nothing about evaluations didn't help much.

  When I peeked into Locator, Gilmesh was standing up, listening to Ferrin explain some facet of a Locator trace. They both broke off and looked at me politely as I plodded through the archway.

  "Mastered Personnel already?" flicked out Gilmesh. I could have sworn there was an undercurrent to his voice.

  "No. Had a question Verdis didn't seem to know the answer to and my brain was wearing out under the over­load of administrative details. I see why you keep up a full diving schedule.".

  "What was the question?"

  "A technical detail really. No big thing. Just needed an excuse to walk around long enough to let my brain clear."

  I was sounding dumber by the instant, and I could tell that both Ferrin and Gilmesh were having trouble not shaking their heads.

  Poor Loki, they were thinking, another super-diver who has difficulty thinking and walking at the same time.

  "You sure?" asked Gilmesh.

  I nodded.

  Once again, I'd opened my mouth without thinking. The last thing I wanted to do was ask about access codes in front of either Ferrin or Gilmesh. If Gilmesh was making other people's reports, I didn't want to let him know I knew, and if he weren't, I didn't want Ferrin to know—if he didn't already.

  So I turned around and left. Let them think what they would. Better I got zapped for incoherence and stupidity than for inspiring or uncovering treason.

  Verdis was staring at the wall when I returned, but broke off her stare and scurried to meet me.

  "Loki ... I'm sorry." She seemed genuinely concerned.

  I'd have given a good original hand-cooked meal then and there to have learned if she'd accessed or otherwise checked my work as a functioning Maintenance super­visor. But there was no way to do that.

  I smiled.

  "It's just that there are a lot of things I'd never thought about, not in the way they all come together." Which was certainly true enough.