Delenda Est tp-5

by Poul Anderson

  “We’ve been captured, Manslach. Their spies found out where you were kept. Another group is supposed to steal your traveling machine. They know where that is, too.”

  “So I imagined,” replied Everard. “But who in Baal’s name are they?”

  Boierik guffawed at the question and expounded lengthily his own cleverness. The idea was to make the Suffetes of Afallon think Hinduraj was responsible. Actually, the secret alliance of Littorn and Cimberland had built up quite an effective spy service. They were now bound for the Littornian embassy’s summer retreat on Ynys Llangollen (Nantucket), where the wizards would be induced to explain their spells and a surprise prepared for the great powers.

  “And if we don’t do this?”

  Deirdre translated Arkonsky’s answer word for word: “I regret the consequences to you. We are civilized men, and will pay well in gold and honor for your free cooperation. If that is withheld, we will get your forced cooperation. The existence of our countries is at stake.”

  Everard looked closely at them. Boierik seemed embarrassed and unhappy, the boastful glee evaporated from him. Boleslav Arkonsky drummed on the tabletop, his lips compressed but a certain appeal in his eyes. Don’t make us do this. We have to live with ourselves.

  They were probably husbands and fathers, they must enjoy a mug of beer and a friendly game of dice as well as the next man, maybe Boierik bred horses in Italy and Arkonsky was a rose fancier on the Baltic shores. But none of this would do their captives a bit of good, when the almighty Nation locked horns with its kin.

  Everard paused to admire the sheer artistry of this operation, and then began wondering what to do. The launch was fast, but would need something like twenty hours to reach Nantucket, as he remembered the trip. There was that much time, at least.

  “We are weary,” he said in English. “May we not. rest awhile?”

  “Ja deedly,” said Boierik with a clumsy graciousness. “Ok wir skallen gode gefreonds bin, ni?”

  Sunset smoldered in the west. Deirdre and Van Sarawak stood at the rail, looking across a gray waste of waters. Three crewmen, their makeup and costumes removed, poised alert and weaponed on the poop; a man steered by compass; Boierik and Everard paced the quarterdeck. All wore heavy clothes against the wind.

  Everard was getting some proficiency in the Cimbrian language; his tongue still limped, but he could make himself understood. Mostly, though, he let Boierik do the talking.

  “So you are from the stars? These matters I do not understand. I am a simple man. Had I my way, I would manage my Tuscan estate in peace and let the world rave as it will. But we of the Folk have our obligations.” The Teutonics seemed to have replaced the Latins altogether in Italy, as the English had done the Britons in Everard’s world.

  “I know how you feel,” said the Patrolman. “Strange that so many should fight when so few want to.”

  “Oh, but this is necessary.” A near whine. “Carthagalann stole Egypt, our rightful possession.”

  “Italia irredenta,” murmured Everard.

  “Hunh?”

  “Never mind. So you Cimbri are allied with Littorn, and hope to grab off Europe and Africa while the big powers are fighting in the East.”

  “Not at all!” said Boierik indignantly. “We are merely asserting our rightful and historic territorial claims. Why, the king himself said,…” And so on and so on.

  Everard braced himself against the roll of the deck. “Seems to me you treat us wizards rather hard,” he remarked. “Beware lest we get really angered at you.”

  “All of us are protected against curses and shapings.”

  “Well—”

  “I wish you would help us freely. I will be happy to demonstrate to you the justice of our cause, if you have a few hours to spare.”

  Everard shook his head, walked off and stopped by Deirdre. Her face was a blur in the thickening dusk, but he caught a forlorn fury in her voice: “I hope you told him what to do with his plans, Manslach.”

  “No,” said Everard heavily. “We are going to help them.”

  She stood as if struck.

  “What are you saying, Manse?” asked Van Sarawak. Everard told him.

  “No!” said the Venusian.

  “Yes,” said Everard.

  “By God, no! I’ll—”

  Everard grabbed his arm and said coldly: “Be quiet. I know what I’m doing. We can’t take sides in this world; we’re against everybody, and you’d better realize it. The only thing to do is play along with these fellows for a while. And don’t tell that to Deirdre.”

  Van Sarawak bent his head and stood for a moment, thinking. “All right,” he said dully.

  7

  The Littornian resort was on the southern shore of Nantucket, near a fishing village but walled off from it. The embassy had built in the style of its homeland: long, timber houses with roofs arched like a cat’s back, a main hall and its outbuildings enclosing a flagged courtyard. Everard finished a night’s sleep and a breakfast which Deirdre’s eyes had made miserable by standing on deck as they came in to the private pier. Another, bigger launch was already there, and the grounds swarmed with hard-looking men. Arkonsky’s excitement flared up as he said in Afallonian: “I see the magic engine has been brought. We can go right to work.”

  When Boierik interpreted, Everard felt his heart slam.

  The guests, as the Cimbrian insisted on calling them, were led into an outsize room where Arkonsky bowed the knee to an idol with four faces, that Svantevit which the Danes had chopped up for firewood in the other history. A fire burned on the hearth against the autumn chill, and guards were posted around the walls. Everard had eyes only for the scooter, where it stood gleaming on the door.

  “I hear the fight was hard in Catuvellaunan to gain this thing,” remarked Boierik. “Many were killed; but our gang got away without being followed.” He touched a handlebar gingerly. “And this wain can truly appear anywhere its rider wishes, out of thin air?”

  “Yes,” said Everard.

  Deirdre gave him a look of scorn such as he had rarely known. She stood haughtily away from him and Van Sarawak.

  Arkonsky spoke to her; something he wanted translated. She spat at his feet. Boierik sighed and gave the word to Everard:

  “We wish the engine demonstrated. You and I will go for a ride on it. I warn you, I will have a revolver at your back. You will tell me in advance everything you mean to do, and if aught untoward happens, I will shoot. Your friends will remain here as hostages, also to be shot on the first suspicion. But I’m sure,” he added, “that we will all be good friends.”

  Everard nodded. Tautness thrummed in him; his palms felt cold and wet. “First I must say a spell,” he answered.

  His eyes flickered. One glance memorized the spatial reading of the position meters and the time reading of the clock on the scooter. Another look showed Van Sarawak seated on a bench, under Arkonsky’s drawn pistol and the rifles of the guards. Deirdre sat down too, stiffly, as far from him as she could get. Everard made a close estimate of the bench’s position relative to the scooter’s, lifted his arms, and chanted in Temporal:

  “Van, I’m going to try to pull you out of here. Stay exactly where you are now, repeat, exactly. I’ll pick you up on the fly. If all goes well, that’ll happen about one minute after I blink off with our hairy comrade.”

  The Venusian sat wooden-faced, but a thin beading of sweat sprang out on his forehead.

  “Very good,” said Everard in his pidgin Cimbric. “Mount on the rear saddle, Boierik, and we’ll put this magic horse through her paces.”

  The blond man nodded and obeyed. As Everard took the front seat, he felt a gun muzzle held shakily against his back. “Tell Arkonsky we’ll be back in half an hour,” he instructed. They had approximately the same time units here as in his world, both descended from the Babylonian. When that had been taken care of, Everard said. “The. first thing we will do is appear in midair over the ocean and hover.”

  “F-f-fi
ne,” said Boierik. He didn’t sound very convinced.

  Everard set the space controls for ten miles east and a thousand feet up, and threw the main switch.

  They sat like witches astride a broom, looking down on greenish-gray immensity and the distant blur which was land. The wind was high, it caught at them and Everard gripped tight with his knees. He heard Boierik’s oath and smiled stiffly.

  “Well,” he asked, “how do you like this?”

  “Why… it’s wonderful.” As he grew accustomed to the idea, the Cimbrian gathered enthusiasm. “Balloons are as nothing beside it. With machines like this, we can soar above enemy cities and rain fire down on them.”

  Somehow, that made Everard feel better about what he was going to do.

  “Now we will fly ahead,” he announced, and sent the scooter gliding through the air. Boierik whooped exultantly. “And now we will make the instantaneous jump to your homeland.”

  Everard threw the maneuver switch. The scooter looped the loop and dropped at a three-gee acceleration.

  Forewarned, the Patrolman could still barely hang on. He never knew whether the curve or the dive had thrown Boierik. He only got a moment’s glimpse of the man, plunging down through windy spaces to the sea, and wished he hadn’t.

  For a little while, then, Everard hung above the waves. His first reaction was a shudder. Suppose Boierik had had time to shoot? His second was a thick guilt. Both he dismissed, and concentrated on the problem of rescuing Van Sarawak.

  He set the space verniers for one foot in front of the prisoners’ bench, the time unit for one minute after he had departed. His right hand he kept by the controls—he’d have to work fast—and his left free.

  Hang on to your hats, fellahs. Here we go again.

  The machine flashed into existence almost in front of Van Sarawak. Everard clutched the Venusian’s tunic and hauled him close, inside the spatiotemporal drive field, even as his right hand spun the time dial back and snapped down the main switch.

  A bullet caromed off metal. Everard had a moment’s glimpse of Arkonsky shouting. And then it was all gone and they were on a grassy hill sloping down to the beach. It was two thousand years ago.

  He collapsed shivering over the handlebars.

  A cry brought him back to awareness. He twisted around to look at Van Sarawak where the Venusian sprawled on the hillside. One arm was still around Deirdre’s waist.

  The wind lulled, and the sea rolled in to a broad white strand, and clouds walked high in heaven.

  “Can’t say I blame you, Van.” Everard paced before the scooter and looked at the ground. “But it does complicate matters.”

  “What was I supposed to do?” the other man asked on a raw note. “Leave her there for those bastards to kill—or to be snuffed out with her entire universe?”

  “Remember, we’re conditioned. Without authorization, we couldn’t tell her the truth even if we wanted to. And I, for one, don’t want to.”

  Everard glanced at the girl. She stood breathing heavily, but with a dawn in her eyes. The wind ruffled her hair and the long thin dress.

  She shook her head, as if to clear it of nightmare, ran over and clasped their hands. “Forgive me, Manslach,” she breathed. “I should have known you’d not betray us.”

  She kissed them both. Van Sarawak responded as eagerly as expected, but Everard couldn’t bring himself to. He would have remembered Judas.

  “Where are we?” she continued. “It looks almost like Llangollen, but no dwellers. Have you taken us to the Happy Isles?” She spun on one foot and danced among summer flowers. “Can we rest here a while before returning home?”

  Everard drew a long breath. “I’ve bad news for you, Deirdre,” he said.

  She grew silent. He saw her gather herself.

  “We can’t go back.”

  She waited mutely.

  “The… the spells I had to use, to save our lives—I had no choice. But those spells debar us from returning home.”

  “There is no hope?” He could barely hear her.

  His eyes stung. “No,” he said.

  She turned and walked away. Van Sarawak moved to follow her, but thought better of it and sat down beside Everard. “What’d you tell her?” he asked.

  Everard repeated his words. “It seems the best compromise,” he finished. “I can’t send her back to what’s waiting for this world.”

  “No.” Van Sarawak sat quiet for a while, staring across the sea. Then: “What year is this? About the time of Christ? Then we’re still upstairs of the turning point.”

  “Yeh. And we still have to find out what it was.” “Let’s go back to some Patrol office in the farther past. We can recruit help there.”

  “Maybe.” Everard lay down in the grass and regarded the sky. Reaction overwhelmed him. “I think I can locate the key event right here, though, with Deirdre’s help. Wake me when she comes back.”

  She returned dry-eyed, though one could see she had wept. When Everard asked if she would assist in his own mission, she nodded, “Of course. My life is yours who saved it.”

  After getting you into the mess in the first place. Everard said carefully: “All I want from you is some information. Do you know about… about putting people to sleep, a sleep in which they may believe anything they’re told?”

  She nodded doubtfully. “I’ve seen medical Druids do that.”

  “It won’t harm you. I only wish to make you sleep so you can remember everything you know, things you believe forgotten. It won’t take long.”

  Her trustfulness was hard for him to endure. Using Patrol techniques, he put her in a hypnotic state of total recall and dredged out all she had ever heard or read about the Second Punic War. That added up to enough for his purposes.

  Roman interference with Carthaginian enterprise south of the Ebro, in direct violation of treaty, had been the final roweling. In 219 B.C. Hannibal Barca, governor of Carthaginian Spain, laid siege to Saguntum. After eight months he took it, and thus provoked his long-planned war with Rome. At the beginning of May, 218, he crossed the Pyrenees with 90,000 infantry, 12,000 cavalry, and 37 elephants, marched through Gaul, and went over the Alps. His losses en route were gruesome: only 20,000 foot and 6,000 horse reached Italy late in the year. Nevertheless, near the Ticinus River he met and broke a superior Roman force. In the course of the following year, he fought several bloodily victorious battles and advanced into Apulia and Campania.

  The Apulians, Lucanians, Bruttians, and Samnites went over to his side. Quintus Fabius Maximus fought a grim guerrilla war, which laid Italy waste and decided nothing. But meanwhile Hasdrubal Barca was organizing Spain, and in 211 he arrived with reinforcements. In 210 Hannibal took and burned Rome, and by 207 the last cities of the confederacy had surrendered to him.

  “That’s it,” said Everard. He stroked the coppery mane of the girl lying beside him. “Go to sleep now. Sleep well and wake up glad of heart.”

  “What’d she tell you?” asked Van Sarawak.

  “A lot of detail,” said Everard. The whole story had required more than an hour. “The important thing is this: her knowledge of those times is good, but she never mentioned the Scipios.”

  “The who’s?”

  “Publius Cornelius Scipio commanded the Roman army at Ticinus. He was beaten there all right, in our world. But later he had the intelligence to turn westward and gnaw away the Carthaginian base in Spain. It ended with Hannibal being effectively cut off in Italy, and what little Iberian help could be sent him was annihilated. Scipio’s son of the same name also held a high command, and was the man who finally whipped Hannibal at Zama; that’s Scipio Africanus the Elder.

  “Father and son were by far the best leaders Rome had. But Deirdre never heard of them.”

  “So…” Van Sarawak stared eastward across the sea, where Gauls and Cimbri and Parthians were ramping through the shattered Classical world. “What happened to them in this time line?”

  “My own total recall tells me that bo
th the Scipios were at Ticinus, and very nearly killed. The son saved his father’s life during the retreat, which I imagine was more like a stampede. One gets you ten that in this history the Scipios died there.”

  “Somebody must have knocked them off,” said Van Sarawak. His voice tightened. “Some time traveler. It could only have been that.”

  “Well, it seems probable, anyhow. We’ll see.” Everard looked away from Deirdre’s slumbrous face. “We’ll see.”

  8

  At the Pleistocene resort—half an hour after having left it for New York—the Patrolmen put the girl in charge of a sympathetic Greek-speaking matron and summoned their colleagues. Then the message capsules began jumping through space-time.

  All offices prior to 218 B.C.—the closest was Alexandria, 250–230—were “still” there, with 200 or so agents altogether. Written contact with the future was confirmed to be impossible, and a few short jaunts upstairs clinched the proof. A worried conference met at the Academy, back in the Oligocene Period. Unattached agents ranked those with steady assignments, but not each other; on the basis of his own experience, Everard found himself the chairman of a committee of top-bracket officers.

  That was a frustrating job. These men and women had leaped centuries and wielded the weapons of gods. But they were still human, with all the ingrained orneriness of their race.

  Everyone agreed that the damage would have to be repaired. But there was fear for those agents who had gone ahead into time before being warned, as Everard himself had done. If they weren’t back when history was re-altered, they would never be seen again. Everard deputized parties to attempt rescue, but doubted there’d be much success. He warned them sternly to return within a day, local time, or face the consequences.

  A man from the Scientific Renaissance had another point to make. Granted, the survivors’ plain duty was to restore the “original” time track. But they had a duty to knowledge as well. Here was a unique chance to study a whole new phase of humankind. Several years’ anthropological work should be done before—Everard slapped him down with difficulty. There weren’t so many Patrolmen left that they could take the risk.