“Luna Shuttle now boarding.”
Drat! Just when it was getting interesting. Father Al scrambled up, folding the copy again, and hurried to tail onto a very long line. The shuttle left once every hour, but everyone who was leaving Europe for any of Sol’s planets or for any other star system had to go through Luna. Only half a percent of Terra’s population ever left the mother planet—but half a percent of ten billion makes for very long lines.
Finally, they were all crowded onto the boarding ramp, and the door slid shut. There was no feeling of movement, and any sound from the motors was drowned out by the quiet hum of conversation; but Father Al knew the ramp was rolling across a mile of plasticrete to the shuttle.
Finally, the forward door opened, and the passengers began to file aboard the shuttle. Father Al plopped down into his seat, stretched the webbing across his ample middle, and settled down to read his hard copy with a blissful sigh.
Apparently having tired of inventing revolutionary devices, McAran had turned his hand to treasure-hunting, finding fabled hoards that had been lost for centuries; the most spectacular was King John’s treasury, but there had also been major finds all the way back to the city of Ur, circa 2000 BC. This pursuit had naturally led him into archaeology, on the one hand, and finance, on the other. Apparently the combination had worked well for him; he had died a very wealthy man.
All very impressive, Father Al admitted, but not when it came to magic. How would the man have been able to identify a wizard, even during his own time? Father Al had searched history assiduously, but had never come up with anyone who could have been a real magic-worker—they were either tricksters, espers, or poor deluded souls, almost certainly. Of course, in the very early days, there were a few who might have been sorcerers, tools of the devil. Opposing them, there were definitely saints. And, though the saints were certain, Father Al doubted there had ever really been any “Black Magic” witches; it made very poor business sense for the Devil. But magic without a source in either God or the Devil? Impossible. It would require someone who was an esper, a medium, and had some unnamed power to break the “Laws of Nature” by, essentially, merely wishing for things to happen. That was the stuff of fairy tales; neither science nor religion even admitted its possibility, had even a chink in its wall of reason through which such powers might seep.
Which, of course, was what made it so delightful a fantasy. If any such individual ever did actually come to light, those walls of reason would come tumbling down—and who could tell what new and shining palaces might emerge as they were rebuilt?
“Gentlefolk,” said a canned voice, “the ship is lifting.”
Father Al bundled up his paper, thrust it in his breast pocket, and pressed his nose against the port. No matter how many times he flew, it still seemed new to him—that wonderful, faerie sight of the spaceport growing smaller, falling away, of the whole city, then the countryside, being dwarfed, then spread out below him like a map, one that dropped away further and further beneath him, till he could see Europe enameled on the bottom of a giant bowl, its rim the curve of the Earth… and that was just on the ballistic rocket flights from one hemisphere to another. The few times he had been in space, it had been even better—the vast bowl dropping further away, till it seemed to turn inside out and become a dome, then a vast hemisphere filling the sky, somehow no longer below him, but beside him, continents mottling its surface through a swirl of clouds…
He knew that seasoned passengers eyed him with amusement, or contempt; how naïve he must seem to them, like a gawking yokel. But Father Al thought such delights were rare, and not to be missed; to him, it was wrong to ever cease to glory in the wonder of God’s handiwork. And, at the moment when he sat most enthralled with the majestic vista on the other side of the port, a question sometimes tickled the back of his mind: Who was the true sophisticate, they or he?
This time, the overcast quickly cut off sight of the faerie landscape below, but turned into a dazzling sea of cotton beneath him, sinking away till it seemed a vast snowfield. Then, just barely, he felt the ship quiver, then begin a low, threshold hum of muted power. The antigravity units had been shut off, and the powerful planetary drive now propelled the shuttle.
Father Al sighed, and sat back, loosening his webbing, gazing out the port as his current problem floated to the surface of his mind again. There was one big question that the PBB bio hadn’t answered: How could McAran have known about this man Gallowglass, about something that would happen more than a thousand years after his own death? And that question, of course, raised another: How had McAran known just when to have the letter opened, or who would be Pope at the time?
The boarding ramp shivered to a stop, and Father Al filed out into Luna Central with a hundred other passengers. Gradually, he worked his way through the flow to a data wall, and gazed up at the list of departing ships. Finally, he found it—Proxima Centauri, Gate 13, lifting off at 15:21. He glanced up at the digital clock above—15:22! He looked back at the Proxima line in horror, just as the time winked out, to be replaced by the glowing word, “Departed.” Then the gate number blanked, too.
Father Al just stared at it, numbed, waiting for the departure time of the next ship to light up.
Presently, it did—3:35 Greenwich Standard Time. Father Al spun away, fueled by a hot surge of emotion. He identified it as anger and stilled, standing quiet, letting his whole body go loose, letting the outrage fill him, tasting it, almost relishing it, then letting it ebb away till it was gone. Finagle had struck again—or his disciple Gundersun, in this case: “The least desirable possibility will always exert itself when the results will be most frustrating.” If Father Al arrived at Luna to catch the Centauri liner at 15:20, of course the liner would liftoff at 15:21!
He sighed, and went looking for a seat. There was no fighting Finagle, nor any of his minions—especially since they were all just personifications of one of humankind’s most universal traits, perversity, and had never really existed. You couldn’t fight them, any more than you could fight perversity itself—you could only identify it, and avoid it.
Accordingly, Father Al found a vacant seat, sat down, pulled out his breviary, and composed himself to begin reading his Office.
“Gentleman, I was sitting there!”
Father Al looked up to see a round head, with a shock of thick, disorderly hair, atop a very stocky body in an immaculately-tailored business coverall. The face was beetle-browed and almost chinless, and, at the moment, rather angry.
“I beg your pardon,” Father Al answered. “The seat was empty.”
“Yes, because I got up long enough to go get a cup of coffee! And it was the only one left, as you no doubt saw. Do I have to lose it just because there was a long line at the dispense-wall?”
“Ordinarily, yes.” Father Al stood up slowly, tucking his breviary away. “That’s usually understood, in a traveller’s waiting room. It’s not worth an argument, though. Good day, gentleman.” He picked up his suitcase and turned to go.
“No, wait!” The stranger caught Father Al’s arm. “My apologies, clergyman—you’re right, of course. It’s just that it’s been a bad day, with the frustrations of travel. Please, take the seat.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it.” Father Al turned back with a smile. “No hard feelings, certainly—but if you’ve had as rough a time as that, you need it far more than I do. Please, sit down.”
“No, no! I mean, I do still have some respect for the clergy. Sit down, sit down!”
“No, I really couldn’t. It’s very good of you, but I’d feel guilty for the rest of the day, and…”
“Clergyman, I told you, sit down!” the man grated, his hand tightening on Father Al’s arm. Then he caught himself and let go, smiling sheepishly. “Will you look at that? There I go again! Come on, clergyman, what do you say we junk this place and go find a cup of coffee with a table under it, and two seats? I’m buying.”
“Certainly.” Father Al smiled, warming to t
he man. “I do have a little time…”
The coffee was genuine this time, not synthesized. Father Al wondered why the man had been waiting in the public lounge, if he had this kind of expense account.
“Yorick Thai,” the stranger said, holding out a hand.
“Aloysius Uwell.” Father Al gave the hand a shake. “You’re a commercial traveller?”
“No, a time traveller. I do troubleshooting for Doc Angus McAran.”
Father Al sat very still. Then he said, “You must be mistaken. Dr. McAran died more than a thousand years ago.”
Yorick nodded. “In objective time, yes. But in my subjective time, he just sent me out in the time machine an hour ago. And I’ll have to report back to him when I get done talking to you, to tell him how it went.”
Father Al sat still, trying to absorb it.
“Doc Angus invented time travel back in 1952,” Yorick explained. “Right off, he realized he had something that everyone would try to steal, especially governments, and he didn’t want to see what that would do to war. So he didn’t file for a patent. He made himself a very secret hideout for his time travel lab, and set up a research company to front the financing.”
“There’s not a word about this in the history books,” Father Al protested.
“Shows how well he keeps a secret, doesn’t it? Not quite well enough, though—pretty soon, he found out there were some other people bopping around from advanced technological societies, cropping up in ancient Assyria, prehistoric Germany—all sorts of places. After a while, he found out that they came mostly from two organizations—the Society for the Prevention of Integration of Telepathic Entities, and the Vigilant Extenders of Totalitarian Organizations. He also found out that they were both using time machines that were basically copies of his—without his permission. And they weren’t even paying him royalties.”
“But you said he didn’t file for a patent.”
Yorick waved the objection away. “Morally, he figured he still had patent rights—and they could at least have asked. So he formed his own organization to safeguard the rights of individuals, all up and down the time line.”
“Including patentholders?”
“Oh, yes. In fact, he calls the organization ‘The Guardians of the Rights of Individuals, Patentholders Especially.’ Pretty soon, he had a network of agents running all the way from about 40,000 BC on up, fighting SPITE and its anarchists, and VETO and its totalitarians.”
Father Al pursed his lips. “I take it that means he supports democracy?”
“What other system really tries to guarantee an inventor’s patent rights? Of course, supporting an organization that size requires a lot of money, so he went into the treasure-hunting business. He’d have an agent in, say, ancient Greece bury some art objects; then he’d send a team to dig ‘em up in 1960, when even a child’s clay doll would fetch a thousand dollars from a museum. With coins, he’d have ‘em dug up in the Renaissance, and deposit them with one of the early banks. It’s really amazing what can happen to a few denarii, with five hundred years of compound interest.”
“Speaking of interest,” Father Al said, “it’s rather obvious that our meeting was no accident. Why are you interested in me?”
Yorick grinned. “Because you’re going to Gramarye.”
Father Al frowned. “I take it you have an agent in the Vatican, today.”
“No fair telling—but we do have our own chaplains.”
Father Al sighed. “And what is your interest in Gramarye?”
“Mostly that SPITE and VETO are interested in it. In fact, they’re doing all they can to make sure it doesn’t develop a democratic government.”
“Why?”
Yorick leaned forward. “Because your current interstellar government, Father, is the Decentralized Democratic Tribunal, and it’s very successful. It comprises sixty-seven planets already, and it’s growing fast. SPITE and VETO want to stop it, any way they can—and the easiest way is to let it grow until its own size destroys it.”
Father Al gave his head a quick shake. “I don’t understand. How can size destroy a democracy?”
“Because it’s not the most efficient form of government. Major decisions require a lot of debating and, if the diameter of the Terran Sphere gets too long, the Tribunes won’t be able to learn what the folks at home think about an issue until after it’s decided and done with. That means that unpopular decisions get rammed down the throats of the voters, until they start rebelling. The rebellions’re put down, but that turns into repression, which breeds even more rebellion. So eventually, the democracy either falls apart, or turns into a dictatorship.”
“You’re saying, then, that the size of a democracy is limited by its communications.” Father Al gazed off into space, nodding slowly. “It sounds logical. But how does this affect Gramarye?”
“Because most of the people there are latent telepaths—and about 10 percent are active, accomplished, and powerful.”
Father Al stared, feeling excitement thrum through his blood. Then he nodded. “I see. As far as we know, telepathy is instantaneous, no matter how much distance separates the sender and the receiver.”
Yorick nodded. “With them in the DDT, democracy could expand indefinitely. But they’d have to be willing volunteers, Father. You can’t expect much accuracy in your communications if you’re using slaves who hate you.”
“Quite apart from the fact that the requirement for membership in the DDT is a viable planetary democracy. So the DDT has to see to it that the planet develops a democratic government.”
Yorick nodded again. “That’s why the DDT has SCENT—to sniff out the Lost Colonies, and see to it that they develop democratic governments. And SPITE and VETO have to see to it that SCENT fails.”
Father Al’s mouth tightened in disgust. “Is there no place free of political meddling any more? How many agents does SCENT have on Gramarye?”
“One.” Yorick sat back, grinning.
“One? For so important a planet?”
Yorick shrugged. “So far, they haven’t needed any more—and too many cooks might spoil the brew.”
Father Al laid his hand flat on the table. “The agent wouldn’t be the Rodney d’Armand who discovered the planet, would it?”
Yorick nodded.
“And Rod Gallowglass? Where does he fit into this?”
“He’s Rodney d’Armand. The man always feels more comfortable using an alias.”
“Insecure, eh?” Father Al gazed off into space, drumming his fingers on the table. “But effective?”
“Sure is. So far, he’s thwarted two major attempts by SPITE and VETO together. What’s more, he’s used those victories to put the current monarchy on the road to developing a democratic constitution.”
Father Al’s eyebrows shot up. “Extremely able. And he’s about to discover some psionic talent of his own?”
“He’s about to disappear,” Yorick corrected, “and when he reappears in a few weeks, he’s going to be a genuine, full-fledged, twenty-four-carat wizard, able to conjure up armies out of thin air. And that’s just the beginning of his powers.”
Father Al frowned. “And he won’t do it by psi talents?”
Yorick shook his head.
“Then what is the source of his power?”
“That’s your field, Father.” Yorick jabbed a finger at the priest. “You tell us—if you can catch up with him before he disappears, and go with him.”
“You may be sure that I’ll try. But why isn’t he a psi? Because he comes from off-planet?”
“Only the genuine, Gramarye-born article occasionally turns out to be a telepath—and usually a telekinetic or teleport, too, depending on sex. The women are telekinetic; that means they can make broomsticks fly, and ride on them, among other things.”
“The witches of legend,” Father Al mused.
“That’s what they call ‘em. They call the esper men ‘warlocks.’ They can levitate, and make things, including themselves,
appear and disappear, sometimes moving ‘em miles between.”
“But Rod Gallowglass can do none of these things?”
“No, but he wound up marrying the most powerful witch in Gramarye—and they’ve got four kids who’re showing a very interesting assortment of talents. In fact, they’re all more powerful than their mother. When they start realizing that, she’ll really have trouble.”
“Not necessarily, if they’ve raised them properly,” Father Al said automatically (he’d been assigned to a parish for several years). “Odd that they should be more powerful than their mother, when they don’t have psionic genes from both parents.”
“Yeah, isn’t it?” Yorick grinned. “I just love these little puzzles—especially when someone else gets to solve ‘em. But it might not be all that strange—there’re still new talents that keep cropping up on that planet. I mean, they’ve only been inbreeding for a few hundred years; they’ve got a lot of untapped potential.”
“Inbreeding… yes…” Father Al had a faraway look. “The answers would lie with their ancestors, wouldn’t they?”
“Buncha crackpots.” Yorick waved them away. “Ever hear of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Father?”
“No. Who were they?”
“A hodgepodge collection of escapists, who tried to forget they were living because of an advanced technology, by holding gatherings where everybody dressed up in medieval outfits and performing mock battles with fake swords.”
“Ah, I see.” Father Al smiled fondly. “They tried to restore some beauty to life.”
“Yeah, that was their problem. That kind of beauty requires individuality, and reinforces it—so they weren’t too popular with the totalitarian government of the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra. When PEST came in, it broke up the SCA and executed the leaders. They all requested beheading, by the way… Well. The rest of the organization went underground; they turned into the backbone of the DDT revolution on Terra. Most of ‘em, anyway; there’s a rumor that about a quarter of ‘em spent the next few centuries playing a game called ‘Dungeons and Dragons.’ They were used to being underground.”
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