The Fires of Paratime

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Ferrin didn't even flinch. "What does that have to do with Personnel?"

  "The only diversion I ever got was occasionally rescuing someone. Now I can't do that."

  "Loki, with your responsibilities—"

  "Ferrin, my responsibilities are nil. You and everyone else know it. At least let me be listed as an occasional fill-in."

  "I don't know."

  "Then ask Kranos, or Freyda, or Eranas. Ask someone."

  Ferrin said he'd see what he could do, and I went back to Maintenance and started producing more black boxes. By the end of the ten-day I had over a thousand stashed behind a time-protected wall in the Aerie and had disas­sembled the equipment.

  Days passed, and I was about ready to take another whack at Ferrin when another trainee showed up late one afternoon with a polite request from Ferrin, asking if I would stand in for Sammis that evening in Locator.

  That bothered me, but I couldn't say why. Sammis rarely if ever missed a duty, even after Wryan's death at the hands of the sharks. The stand-by diver, unfortunately, doesn't have a console, and I couldn't get near one.

  Duty was uneventful, as it usually was, and by the time I left, I was tied in knots. A run across the training fields before I slid back to the Aerie helped calm me down.

  The false locator tags were still stacked up behind the phony wall, waiting until I could verify if they worked.

  As the time dragged out, what Verdis would do was another question I didn't really want to think about. So I didn't.

  I didn't escape that easily.

  Several days after my stand-by in Locator/Domestic Affairs, she showed up in Maintenance after Brendan, Narcissus, and Elene had left. I was closing up.

  "You've been thanking and thinking, and avoiding me. Why?"

  "I've been trying to make up for all the thinking I missed growing up."

  "So it's a laughing matter now?"

  "No, but I'm not one for snap decisions that might overturn two million years of traditions. Besides, you haven't exactly let me know what you have in mind."

  And she, or they, hadn't—nothing more than asking me to stay out of the way. I didn't believe it for a moment. There was more involved, much more, but I was a lousy snoop. Not one sign of what was going on had surfaced anywhere.

  "Loki, caution doesn't fit your image," Verdis suggested gently.

  That was another way of saying that my courage had deserted me.

  "Have I ever shown I was a coward? Where was your courageous group when I was shark-hunting at the end of time?"

  She didn't bother with an answer, turned away, and left.

  One of the things that nagged at me was that lack of certainty. I had flash-slid through most of the Tower, avoiding the Tribunes' spaces, time and time again, some­times late at night, and had never found a trace of any­thing. Neither had the microsnoops I had redeployed around the Tower.

  I couldn't say I was surprised. Verdis and her group, if there was a group, could meet anywhere on Query and be only a slide away from the Tower.

  Days passed, but Verdis didn't come back, didn't press me, and that bothered me as much as being pressed. I waited for another stand-by duty in Locator, and finally got it-again, because Sammis had requested time off.

  The night was an uneventful one, starting out just like the first duty I'd taken from Sammis, until close to mid­night.

  A figure suddenly appeared on the public slide stage, a woman who started screaming.

  Helton, one of the two console operators, got up and headed across the stage toward her. I slipped into his seat and accessed my own locator code. The console began scripting all the past locales. I wasn't interested in verify­ing the whole mess, but looked to see if my present loca­tion on Query and the phony tag I'd dropped on Abelard both registered. They both did. I blanked the console and hurried over to Helton and the distressed woman.

  She was pouring out her tale of woe—one of those screwy, and very rare cases. The woman's first contract-mate, and father of her ten-year-old daughter, had slid into her quarters, grabbed the daughter and threatened to kill himself and the child unless she renewed the lapsed con­tract. She refused, and the father disappeared with the daughter.

  "He's crazy. I couldn't ever renew—not with him. He'll kill her—I know he will—he's not all there," she gasped out between sobs.

  "What's her name, your daughter's name? Her personal code?" Helton pursued.

  I stood there looking sympathetic and helpful. Wasn't much I could do until they'd come up with some sort of location.

  "Regine," the mother stammered. "RGE-66-MC." The MC was standard meaning Minor Child and would be replaced with a color code once she matured.

  Giron was on the other console and plugged the codes into the Locator system. "Undertime, Lestral, near the top of Sequin Falls!" he announced.

  "Looks like he means it," commented Helton sotto voce.

  I leaned over Giron's shoulder to scan the coordinates and dived right from the spot I knew where I was headed. I'd been there before. Most Queryans have been. The Falls are quite a scenic attraction; they drop straight down for kilos into the Lestral Trench.

  The water of the Sequin Falls is black, coal black and cold, if not freezing. The chunks of ice that dot the waters bob like stars on that black expanse and fall like meteors to the Trench below. They glow with a light of their own because of the ice worms and glittering microorganisms that are so common on Lestral.

  Any delay on my part was out of the question, regard­less of whether I needed a warm-suit or not. The father wasn't a diver and had gone for real-time Lestral, and he was ready to break-out at any instant.

  With the coordinates in mind, I was undertime, and in­stead of following the time-lines, I was crossing, vaulting, trying to minimize even the minute crossover delay from the undertime to the "now."

  For all that, lucky was the word. The father had thrown Regine into the water near the brink, and the conditions helped me locate her even from the undertime, because bodies glow like the ice against the black water.

  She was heading over the edge by the time I located her, but from there it was straightforward. Sounded matter-of-fact, but to break-out in water cascading vertically, thrashing me around, while trying to grasp a small child in the space of less than a unit and dive safely undertime as we both dropped toward the biggest pile of sharp rocks on the planet was not an average dive, or a typical rescue.

  I lost Regine in the cold water, and it took three quick undertime slides before I got a grip on her, and just as I touched her arm, a chunk of something stabbed me in the shoulder. I kept hold of her nightrobe, but I had to have a firm grip on flesh to carry her undertime.

  I grabbed with my other hand. My feet somersaulted over my head, but my left hand closed over her wrist, and I dived, wrenching her out of time.

  We got back to the Tower Infirmary before Helton or the mother had left the Domestic Affairs section, I figured.

  Regine was bright blue, but breathing. The medical tech stripped her out of the nightrobe and wrapped her into a thermal quilt. She had a small gash above one eye, and a line of blood was dribbling down her cheek. Her damp hair was plastered back above her ears in a blond wave. She might have come to my waist if she stretched.

  The tech turned on me, insisting on a quick check. "Hell of a bruise across your shoulders."

  "Ice, I think."

  "Let's take a better look."

  She pushed me into the nearest diagnostic booth. Noth­ing showed but the bruise, and the tech left me to my own devices.

  I wrapped myself in a quilt. I was still a light blue shade from the chill, but I wanted to see Regine. She had seemed so somber.

  As I caught sight of her from the archway, I decided against joking. She was sitting on the edge of a bed, her color close to normal. The Guard tech was wheeling away the diagnostic equipment.

  My entry rated a glare from the tech, but she didn't try to throw me out.

  "I'm Loki. How
do you feel?"

  "Wet. Where's my mother?"

  "She'll be here in a moment."

  Regine's lips had a faint bluish tinge, but the thermal quilt had restored most of her body heat.

  Standing there made me feel awkward, but I shifted from foot to foot for several units—waiting. Regine ignored me.

  Finally, I drew up the quilt around me and went back through the archway to recover my jumpsuit. I finished wringing it out and slipped it on. The fabric dried quickly; so it was only damp.

  I was leaving the Infirmary to check back, La with Locator when the mother arrived with Freyda and Helton.

  "Loki?" asked Freyda, the Tribune.

  "None other," I said with a forced smile. "Now if you will excuse me, I need to report back to Locator."

  She nodded. The mother said nothing.

  As I walked toward the exit portal to cross the Square, I could hear Freyda's voice.

  " ... the only one on Quest who could have saved your daughter ... "

  Probably I didn't have to, but I finished the remaining few units of the stand-by duty before sliding back to the Aerie for a solid night's sleep.

  Sleep didn't come immediately, because I'd had one of those after-the-fact realizations, something I should have thought about earlier. I had gone to elaborate lengths to manufacture over a thousand phony locator tags, to get legitimate access to a locator console, gone over Sequin Falls to save a child who wouldn't talk to me. And I'd approached the whole question backwards, as usual.

  Why not get rid of the tag?

  How was I going to remove a tag embedded in my shoulder blade? Have a surgeon cut it out, of course.

  With that thought, I fell asleep, sound enough not to be troubled with dreams or fears.

  Once I got into Maintenance the next morning, I turned my concentration to finding a surgeon who could do the job under a local anaesthetic. I wanted to be able to watch.

  Archives had some data along those lines, but I did want to show some care. I traipsed up to the study cubes and used Giron's code to ask about medical progress levels.

  In the meantime, Terra, late early atomic, at the fringe of my fore-time range, seemed the best place.

  Before I dived fore-time to Terra, I absconded with some medical equipment from the back rooms of the In­firmary. I also rigged a miniature laser which would cut the tiny chunk of metal clear of my shoulder. Rather in­volved technically, but as foolproof as I could make it. I added to that a simple locator which would point directly to the tag. Redundant, but I wanted to avoid any possible mistakes.

  With the gadgets in hand, and after wheedling a language refresher out of the duty trainee late in the afternoon, when Loragerd and the regular Linguistics Staff had left, I de­parted for Terra.

  I could feel the moan of the change-winds around me, not the violent shudders and twists that ripped through the undertime when the Guard meddled, but the little tugs, the fleeting flashes that weren't quite there—except they were.

  Terra equaled change. I wondered about the source of that flowing change, and while I couldn't have said I knew the reason, I would have bet that some of the "missing" Guards could have been found scattered around Terra, stirring up the gentler time changes by their very presence.

  Most Guards wouldn't have picked up the little indica­tors, the blurring around the edges of each entry or exit from undertime, but the signs were there.

  I knew what I wanted, preferably a small health-care facility isolated from any other with no one else around.

  Despite the penchant of the Terrans to label every build­ing and structure, and to number those they didn't label, I had difficulty locating a medical facility, taking roughly a hundred slides before I found what seemed to fit the bill.

  The sign read, roughly translated, "Dr. Odd-Affection, clan (family?) practice."

  The front room of the structure was filled with hydro­carbon replicas of plants, and empty. I had hoped so, be­cause I had chosen the late time of local day for that reason.

  Dr. Odd-Affection looked older than I was and was sur­prised to see me in his office. That may have been because the front door was locked. "Did you have an appointment, Mr ... ?"

  "Loki," I supplied, before answering his question. "You will not have any patients for the next few units, and I need your skill. I am willing to pay handsomely for it. No, there is nothing illegal about it, and I would do it myself, but the location involved means that I cannot."

  The good doctor looked more puzzled than intrigued.

  "I can pay you with any of these." I flashed a diamond, a flat gold bar, and a small eternasteel scalpel.

  His eyes widened most at the scalpel, perhaps because of the glow, and he struggled with his tongue. "What ... how?"

  "Simple. There is a small metal plate on the flat of my shoulder blade. I need it removed. This device would re­move it virtually painlessly, but I cannot expose the bone."

  "In my office? It's not sterile enough."

  I handed him the spray container and the scalpel-laser. "That will sterilize and numb the area instantly." I thrust the miniature locator at him. "This will point directly to the metal square."

  The doctor seemed a bit glassy-eyed as I tapped the end of the surgical laser.

  "That will cut the plate clear. Then sew me up and bandage it loosely. You will never see me again."

  I put two of the diamonds on his desk, plus the gold bar.

  "You can also have the scalpel and the local anaes­thesia."

  I could see the conflict by the workings of his face, but I guessed that he finally decided that anyone who appeared out of thin air and wanted to be cut open was crazy enough to listen to.

  "Why?" he demanded.

  "Because I was tagged with this tracer plate while I was unable to resist, and I'd like a bit of privacy."

  "But I can't do it here," he protested.

  "Where?"

  He told me, and it didn't make much sense. Something about a hospital and his license and the government. I supposed I could have gone elsewhere, but he seemed so conscientious that I decided to solve the problem for him.

  A squarish machine with a keyboard rested on a table next to the wall. I gestured at it and fused it into junk.

  "But you want me to cut you open while you're awake." He paused. "And I'm not sure you're not some sort of criminal."

  Took me a while, but in the end, the combination of rhetoric and thunderbolts convinced him.

  He was a bit unnerved when I insisted on an arrange­ment of mirrors to watch him, but I figured he couldn't be too bad because he didn't seem to be motivated primarily by greed.

  Even with the anaesthesia, it hurt. Dr. Odd-Affection wanted to immobilize it, but I requested stitches and a temporary sling. I was diving straight back to the Aerie and the tissue regenerator, locator tag in my pocket.

  I placed all the diamonds, gold, and medical equipment on his surgical table, hoping the good doctor could put it to use.

  I staggered along the time-paths and broke-out in the Aerie. My legs were shaking, and recovery was top priority.

  There wasn't much I could do for the next few days except recover. Recover and think. I was not about to put my nose back in the Tower until I was totally well. Who knew what was brewing?

  I feel asleep.

  The next day, as I lay there on my stomach under the regenerator, staring at the clouds that obscured the can­yons below, I tried to take stock.

  Item: I had 1,000 plus phony locator tags stored behind the wall not two body lengths away.

  Item: I wasn't going to need them.

  Item: Verdis and company were unhappy with the present Guard structure.

  Item: Contrary to what I had thought, the num­bers of Guards were increasing, and so was the amount of high-tech destruction.

  Item: Eranas was the last of the old Tribunes and was talking about stepping down.

  Item: One "group" was trying to keep me in the dark and hiding facts from me.


  Item: Another was maneuvering me enough to expose me to those same facts.

  Item: Sammis had told me to wait.

  Item: Verdis wasn't going to.

  Item: Heimdall would be the next Tribune.

  Conclusion: I was going to have to do something.

  I wasn't sure what, but Sammis to the contrary, the present state of Guard stability seemed to be coming to an end.

  The questions were more numerous than the possible answers.

  Verdis and her allies were pressing. Heimdall was build­ing a private army, and Freyda had some plan of her own.

  One conclusion was simple. If the Guard survived in its present form, Heimdall would be calling the shots.

  I didn't want that, whatever else happened, but back-time tampering with Query itself wasn't possible. At the same time, tampering with other cultures to create rival high-tech cultures wouldn't work if I tried it on a piecemeal basis. All Heimdall and Freyda had to do was send back unquestioning young divers or their disciples to undo what I had done and we'd end up with a time war that would make the Frost Giant/Twilight War seem insignificant by comparison.

  On the other hand, if I grabbed the rocksucker by the tentacles and eliminated Heimdall, the structure would sooner or later create another, or Freyda might follow through—not with the same intentions, but to make the Galaxy safe for Query.

  Plus, I didn't have the resources for an extended war. Hell, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do, or if I wanted to do it. So far, all I had managed was to set it up to be able to disappear without a trace, like Baldur, if he had, and I had doubts about that.

  Even with the tissue regenerator, two days passed before I was totally healed. I wasn't setting foot in the Tower until I was ready for anything.

  Three mornings after the ministrations of Dr. Odd-Affection, I planet-slid to the Tower and popped out of the undertime right in front of the South Portal.

  I walked into the Tower wearing the mesh armor I'd gotten so long before from Sinopol under my jumpsuit, gauntlets, and a stunner strapped under my forearm, ready to drop undertime at the slightest provocation.