"One," I said. "Some of them must have gotten away in it."
"It would appear so," Kar-hinter said.
"Were there any captives?" I asked.
"A few," Kar-hinter answered. "But they were only locals and most of them knew less than the countess. By the time we were able to get another force in there, most of the survivors had fled and gotten into hiding."
"Well, what about the Imperial Baltic plant?" I asked. "We didn't get the count for you."
"An alternate plan was used," Kar-hinter said, though he did not tell me what the plan was. "When we raided the plant, we discovered evidence of Outtime activities."
"But you've shut down the plant?" I asked.
"Quite completely," Kar-hinter said. "One of their experimental weapons went off 'accidentally' and totally destroyed the installation."
Before I could ask anything more, Dr. Conners stuck his head in the door. "Gentlemen, Kar-hinter, I suggest that you let Captain Mathers sleep now. He needs the rest."
"Of course," Kar-hinter said, rising. "I will be seeing you again tomorrow, Eric."
And in a moment they were gone, and I drifted off into a long drugged sleep punctuated with hellish dreams of monster Kriths and equally monstrous Micas and Scotis, and I wondered if those two had escaped the destruction of Staunton.
When Kar-hinter came back the next day, accompanied by the tall, swarthy, black-uniformed Pall, his bodyguard, I was more nearly able to carry on a decent conversation, though now it was his turn to do most of the talking. Pall, as was his custom, said nothing at all.
Mind probes had been used on Sally, Kar-hinter told me, and her every memory was now recorded in tiny molly cubes that were being scanned by computer, extracting important data about the Paratimers and their operations. Already Kar-hinter knew more about them than I did, though he did ask me a few questions to confirm certain things that Sally had believed to be true.
"You have done us a great service, Eric," Kar-hinter said at length, "a truly great service to both mankind and Krith. We now know who our true enemies in this Timeline are."
I just nodded.
"Tell me, Eric," Kar-hinter said slowly, peering into my eyes, you were there six weeks, under their eyes, constantly bombarded with their propaganda. What has that done to you?"
I had the sudden feeling of fear, as if Kar-hinter were about to uncover some deep, hidden guilt.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"Sally von Heinen deeply believes that we Kriths are monsters involved in some great, elaborate plot to conquer and enslave mankind on all the Timelines. Has any of that belief rubbed off onto you, Eric? What has the experience done to you? Do you doubt us?"
"For God's sake, Kar-hinter," I said, trying to convince myself as much as him, "I sent those messages, didn't I? I called you there."
"I know that," Kar-hinter said, "but that is not the answer I want. Are there any doubts about us in your mind?"
"Run a mind probe on me," I said defensively. "Then you can tell if I'm lying."
"Eric," Kar-hinter said slowly, "you know that we cannot run a mind probe on you. You are a Timeliner. You are conditioned. A mind probe would kill you."
"Oh," I said weakly, foolishly. "That's right, isn't it?'
"It is, Eric. I will have to trust you. I will have to believe what you tell me."
Pall's dark eyes gazed at me with a cold look that seemed to cut through my skin. I didn't feel that he would trust me no matter what I said or did.
I looked back at Kar-hinter. "Then it's this," I said slowly and knew that I was lying even as I said it, but there wasn't anything else I could say, "I'm the same man I was six weeks ago. Nothing has changed. I still believe in what we're doing, we, all of us, Kriths and Timeliners. Those people -- the Paratimers -- have made some kind of terrible mistake. They're the ones who are wrong."
"I believe you, Eric, and I am glad of it. You are too valuable a man to lose." He paused. "Now tell me, what is this von Heinen woman to you? We must assume that she is a widow now, if that helps you any."
"I don't know what she is to me, Kar-hinter," I said, and this time I was speaking the truth. "I really don't know. Maybe she just reminds me too much of someone I knew a long time ago." I shook my head. "But I can assume that she hates my guts now."
"For betraying Staunton?"
I nodded. "She trusted me. She thought I had been converted to their side."
Kar-hinter was silent for a few moments. "We are finished with her," he said. "We have gained all the knowledge we can from her. You may have her if you wish. I am sure that our technicians could see to it that she, ah, felt differently about you."
"No!" I said vehemently. "Don't tamper with her mind."
"As you wish," Kar-hinter said, rising, his short tail lashing the air behind him. Pall rose with him. "You may decide whether you want her and, ah, as she is. Tomorrow or the next day you will be debriefed at length concerning your stay in Staunton. Routine formality, you understand. But when that is over and Dr. Conners releases you from the hospital, you may take a rest. I am sure that you have earned it."
"Thanks," I said.
"I thought that you might like a cabin in one of the Eden Lines," Kar-hinter said. "You and Sally."
"I'll think about it."
"Please do, Eric. A long rest is prescribed for you."
And I did think about it for the next few days.
20
With Sally in Eden
I didn't really know exactly where the Eden Lines were located. Somewhere to the far T-West of RTGB-307, beyond the Carolingian Lines. Why the worlds there were uninhabited I'm not sure either. Chemical warfare seems to be the most likely thing since the Earth there shows no signs of thermonuclear craters, nor does its air carry any deadly bacteria. So, I guess, on those worlds men had developed deadly gases which they had used to destroy themselves. In a way I was glad of that since that left maybe half a dozen Lines that the Kriths had taken over and cleaned up, using automated equipment to transform them into virtual earthly paradises. They were rest and recuperation stations for weary human Timeliners of rather high status. I was honored in being offered a cabin in one of them.
Sally didn't feel quite so honored, though she accepted her fate with stoic calm. She hardly spoke to me from the time we boarded the airship in Bakersville, South Africa, to when we stepped out of the skudder somewhere in North America in one of the Eden Lines.
"Here you are, Captain Mathers," said the tall, dark-skinned skudder pilot who reminded me a little of Pall. "Eden. You know the rules. You're not allowed to bring in any Outtime artifacts. Everything you will need is provided by the cabin."
"I know," I said.
"Then, ah, would you both please undress and give me your clothing." He smiled awkwardly. "This is Eden, you know."
I remembered the Judeo-Christian myth that had given the Eden Lines their name.
"Yeah," I answered and began stripping.
Sally stood silently staring at us both, hate and defiance in her eyes. So must Kristin have stood when the governor's men approached her.
When I had removed my clothing and handed it to the pilot, I turned to her.
"Come on, Sally," I said. "You've got to play it by the rules."
"I'm your prisoner," she said. "I'll do as you say. I have no choice."
"I wish you wouldn't take that attitude," I said, trying not to look at the skudder pilot.
"Well, it's the truth, isn't it?"
"Only partly. Oh, damn it, get undressed."
Sally did, without expression, quickly and efficiently. In a moment her blouse and shorts and panties were a bundle wrapped around her shoes, and she handed the bundle to the skudder pilot.
It's funny. I don't think I've ever really described Sally to you. I suppose it's about time.
I had really only seen her naked once before, back when I was trying to get to the radio transceiver in the sautierboat in Staunton and then I didn't have time to appreciat
e the view. Now I did -- not that I hadn't appreciated how she looked from the moment I saw her. But that's all beside the point, isn't it? I was going to tell you how she looked.
Sally appeared younger than her twenty-six years, fresh and almost innocent. She had blond hair and a funny color of green to her eyes; she was five feet five inches tall, and her measurements were something like 37-22-36. So much for statistics. What can they really tell you?
Maybe she didn't have the tremendous proportions of G'lendal, but what she did have was perfect. Like her breasts, for example: high, round, firm, tipped with small, round nipples, and if she had ever worn a bra in her life I couldn't imagine why. Her waist was slender, flaring out to perfectly rounded hips and the neatest set of buttocks I've ever seen. The clump of hair between her thighs was so pale and blond as to be almost invisible.
Her face was midway between being oval and triangular, and her eyes seemed almost too large for her face, but that wasn't bad at all. Her lips, even when she was angry, seemed to have a tendency to want to smile, and when she really did smile, she showed teeth that could hardly have been better formed. Her face was surrounded by the blond hair that was very long, though she usually kept it piled high atop her head, with bangs curling down across her forehead almost to her eyebrows, while another bunch of hair cascaded down her back to her shoulder blades.
If there were anything wrong with the appearance of Sally Beau von Heinen, I don't know what it was, unless you'd be foolish enough to say that she wasn't quite as beautiful as G'lendal. But then maybe G'lendal was a little bit too perfect.
And, as I said before, I thought there was more to my feeling for Sally than just the hot urges I felt below my waist.
"Thanks," the skudder pilot was saying as she handed him the bundle of clothing, and he looked at her with something in his eyes that wasn't hard to read. He'd like to have been in my place.
"I'll be back for you in a month," he went on. "You two have a nice time." He paused, then said, "Oh, by the way, Kar-hinter said to tell you that he'd probably drop in on you in the next few days, if that's okay with you."
"Yes, I suppose. Thanks," I said.
Moments later the pilot closed the skudder's hatch, waved to us through the bubble. Then a time-wrenching buzz filled the air. The skudder vanished.
"Let's go take a look at the cabin," I said to Sally.
"Let's get something straight right now," she said, holding still. "I know exactly what my status is here. I'm your prisoner, and you can make me do whatever you want. Because I know that, I'm not going to put up a fight every time you tell me to do something. I don't have that kind of fatal pride. I'll do what you say." She paused for breath. "But get this straight, Eric Mathers or whatever your name is, and get it straight right now. I'll only be doing what I do because I have no choice, because you and your goddamned Kriths can make me do it -- and not because I want to. Do you understand me?"
There was no point in arguing at this stage of the game, so I simply said, "Yes, I understand. Now let's go look at that cabin."
I took her by the hand and led her.
The field in which the cabin sat consisted of perhaps half a dozen acres of cleared land, green and gently rolling, each rise topped with fruit trees of different kinds, apples, cherries, peaches, oranges. you name it. Bushes grew in profusion, many of them flowering and all of them carefully trimmed. Paths ran between the trees and bushes, rock-bordered and lined with other types of flowering plants. The grass was a bright, rich green, closely cropped and soft as an expensive carpet under our naked feet.
The cabin itself sat just to the left of the center of the carefully tended clearing and reminded me of a brick and glass model of the planet Saturn, cut in half, or maybe half-buried in the earth. The ring was a low wall that circled the house and the planet was the brick and glass dome of the structure, a hemisphere sheltered by the wall that circled it and the trees that rose above it, shadowing the cabin under their leaves.
Inside was a single room, divided by low partitions into four roughly equal sections. One was the sleeping area, containing two big double beds, the second the autokitchen and indoor dining area, the third was a living area with library access console, video tape player, multi-channel music gear and miscellaneous games and things. The final section of the house was a huge sunken bathtub and a toilet cubicle. It was done in soft pleasant earth colors, and sometimes it was hard to tell where the walls ended and the broad expanse of windows looking out into the gardens began. It was a nice place to be marooned with a beautiful woman, even one who wanted to see me dead.
"Sit down," I told Sally, gesturing toward the comfortable-looking furniture in the living area. "I'll see if I can get us something to eat."
"I'm not hungry," Sally replied, sitting, but refusing to look at me.
"Okay, then, I'm ordering you to eat."
She didn't protest, at least not out loud, so I went into the kitchen and studied the menu. The autokitchen had been programmed to suit the culinary tastes of men from hundreds of different cultures, everything from the obscure and involved vegetarianism of some of the Indus Lines to the cannibalism of the Dramalians, though in this case the "long pig" was synthesized. The Aegean squid appealed to me since it was one of my favorites and a delicacy I hadn't tasted in years, but I gave way to my concern for Sally and punched out something that her Anglo-Saxon upbringing would have found more tasteful: roast beef, baked potatoes, etc.
A few minutes later the plates popped out of the oven, and I wheeled the trays into the living room, where Sally sat in the same position, apparently having moved nothing but her eyes during my absence.
"Now here it is," I said. "I won't try to force you to eat, but you won't be hurting anyone but yourself if you don't."
I sat down across from her and began devouring my meal. After a while Sally began to eat as well, but without any great gusto.
"Pretty good, isn't it?" I asked between mouthfuls.
Sally nodded morosely.
After a while, having eaten perhaps half of her serving, Sally put down her fork, looked up at me, and said slowly, "Why did you bring me here?"
I looked back at her for a long while before I answered. "You know, I'm not really sure. Kar-hinter suggested it, more or less, and it seemed like a good idea."
"Kar-hinter?" she asked. "The Krith?" The way she said it made it sound like a dirty word.
"Yes."
"Hasn't he done enough to me?"
"Did he harm you?"
"You wouldn't understand," she snapped.
"Maybe I would. Try me."
"What does a man like you know about honor?"
"More than you might think," I said. When she didn't speak again, I went on. "I suppose you're referring to the mind probe he had used on you?"
"Of course."
"Okay, so he forced your mind to divulge everything you know about the Paratimers. You had nothing to do with it really. I mean, it's not as if you betrayed them voluntarily. Kar-hinter just . . ."
"He invaded my soul!" Sally said angrily. "He raped my mind!"
"Now wait a minute. All he did was . . ."
"I know what he did and you can't explain it away. He made me betray everyone and everything I love." She paused for a moment, fought with her emotions. "Why did you let him do it, Eric? I . . . I thought we could trust you. Mica did too. We all did. We . . ."
"I'm sorry about that, Sally, but I did what I had to do."
"What you had to do! Why? I can understand your working for them before, when you didn't know any better. But . . . but how could you after you knew, after we told you what they are?"
"Just calm down for a minute and listen to me."
Sally crossed her arms below her naked breasts, her fingernails digging into her upper arms, her face a complex of unreadable expressions.
"All I had was the word of the Paratimers as opposed to the word of the Kriths. Mica was never able to offer me any real proof of his claims. I know that
you believe what he told you, and I think he believed it too. But belief isn't proof, no matter how strongly the belief is held and no matter by how many people. It's just a belief unless there's objective proof -- and I never saw any really objective proof that couldn't have been faked."
"Are you saying that Staunton and Mica and Scoti and all the others and the books and tapes and all that are, well, built on lies? Can you believe that's true?"
"Aren't you and Mica trying to tell me that everything I've seen in my own Lines is based on a Lie?"
"Yes, of course. . . . Oh."
"You see? It was easier for me to accept Mica and his world as a lie than it was for me to accept the experiences of my whole life as a lie."
At the Narrow Passage Page 20
