Time's Chariot

by Ben Jeapes

  'That thing of yours only works on contact, doesn't it?' The Correspondent had seen it work enough times. Herbert invariably touched a crystal sphere to the subject's temple.

  'That's right.'

  'Give it to me.'

  'What?' Herbert exclaimed.

  'Give it to me, and watch.'

  Herbert fumed but could see he had no choice, and a moment later the Correspondent felt the sphere press into his hand. It was the size, shape and feel of a golf ball (A golf ball? How long had he known what one of those was?) and a deep, translucent blue.

  'Herr Leibnitz!' the Correspondent called. They had reached the aisle and Leibnitz was coming towards them. He was talking learnedly with the crowd of men around him but he looked up in polite expectation.

  'My master Sir Isaac Newton sent me,' the Correspondent said, pushing his way forward and holding out his hand. 'It's a pleasure.'

  'Isaac Newton?' Leibnitz said with polite interest. 'I've heard of him.'

  And will continue to hear more, the Correspondent thought, since neither man yet knew that the other had worked out the principles of calculus on his own, and a bitter dispute and accusations of plagiarism were looming in the years to come.

  'My master is very interested in your thoughts on monads,' the Correspondent said, 'and he has sent me with a request that might seem odd.' He held up the sphere, and heard Herbert behind him draw in a breath.

  'Indeed?' As was obviously expected, Leibnitz took the sphere and rotated it in his fingers. 'It's an interesting ornament.'

  'Would you mind, sir, touching it to your temple?'

  Leibnitz's eyebrows rose, but he obligingly pushed back the fringe of his wig. 'Like this?' he said, suiting action to words. 'Good lord,' he added, as the sphere abruptly changed colour.

  'It's a substance my master has devised in his alchemical studies,' the Correspondent said. 'He believes the human brain is full of currents of energy, similar to the monads you have written about, and that this material reacts to them. Ultimately he hopes to be able to record human thoughts in devices just like this. He wonders if you would be interested in sharing in his researches?'

  Leibnitz burst out laughing, followed a moment later by his friends, taking their cue from his reaction.

  'Tell your master that I'm flattered by the invitation.' He studied the sphere a moment longer, then passed it back. 'It's a pretty toy, but given that two or three of these could fit inside the human head, it hardly seems likely that the contents of a human head could fit into one of these. Good day, sir.'

  He bowed slightly and the Correspondent returned the gesture, letting a look of polite regret flit over his face. Then the Correspondent turned back to Herbert, proud smile on his face.

  'Yours, I think,' he said, passing the now red sphere back to its owner.

  'Let's get out of here,' Herbert muttered.

  And all that was left was the walk back to Schmargendorf. The Correspondent was aware of a feeling he rarely had and he spent some time analyzing it. Yes, he was in a supremely good mood. Supremely good, yet tinged with regret.

  A shrieking, laughing crowd of children burst out of a gate as they walked along the dusty track, squabbling or playing or both but generally making a loud noise and having a good time. He gazed benevolently at them. Children, the future of the human race; long dead by whatever age Herbert came from, but here so full of potential, life, future. He cared about them. He wanted them to have only the best.

  All these people. He looked around him. Passers by. Men and women; on foot, in carts, on horseback. He cared for them all, bygoners though they might be. Each one unique, each one with their own story to tell; historically of no consequence but each one of infinite value.

  He would miss them.

  There was that question again: when did you start caring? The first thing he had done when he arrived at Isfahan was save the life of his then young, now also long-dead friend Ali, but even that hadn't been motivated by care. He had only got involved because Ali's attackers had turned their attention on him, and after that he had kept Ali's friendship for exactly as long as was needed.

  If he assumed that his condition upon arriving in Isfahan, prior to any contact with Herbert and subsequent reordering of his mind, was the Home Time's intended factory setting, then he had changed a great deal. All for the better.

  'How will they react when I come back from my mission three hundred years too soon?' he said. Recall Day wasn't officially for another three centuries.

  'It won't be three hundred years, just twenty-seven.' Herbert really was worn out and was getting more and more irritable with every step.

  'Even so,' the Correspondent said. He had meant it as a joke.

  'They'll get used to it.'

  'How will you explain it?'

  Herbert sighed. 'I'll smuggle you in, somehow. Your details will be on file; it shouldn't be hard to reintegrate you.'

  'This way,' the Correspondent said, gesturing towards a familiar alleyway.

  'Thank God.'

  Perhaps Herbert was getting used to this time; he didn't make any expressions of disgust as they picked their way back to the shambles at the end of the passage.

  'Good timing,' Herbert said. 'A couple more minutes.'

  The Correspondent studied him. 'You always know these things, but I don't see you carrying any kind of watch.'

  Herbert plucked at his coat. 'You're not the only one with hidden technology on you. Believe me, this isn't wool. One minute.'

  They stood and waited. The Correspondent's heart pounded and his mouth was dry. Almost there . . . He picked the tag out of his pocket and held it up. 'You're sure I don't have to do anything?'

  'Of course not. Thirty seconds.'

  A pause.

  'Sure?'

  'Sure.'

  The Correspondent grasped the tag tightly, like a believer with a crucifix.

  'Ten seconds,' Herbert said. 'There's something you should know.'

  'What?'

  'You didn't volunteer as a correspondent.' Herbert looked him in the eyes and smiled that mirthless smile. 'No one does. You're a criminal, a reject, a psychotic failure, and there's no way you'd be welcome back.' And he vanished.

  The Correspondent stared at the spot where he had been. He took slow, shuffling steps forward so that he stood in Herbert's footprints. He stared at the ground beneath him.

  'No,' he breathed. He stared at the tag in his hand, willing it to carry him back to the Home Time. Its glow faded before his eyes and it crumbled into dust.

  He drew in a breath.

  'No!' He hurled the handful of grit at the wall and swung a kick at a nearby crate, shattering it. 'No!' He seized a length of wood from the fragments and swung it at the other nearby boxes. Smash! 'You bastard!' he howled. Smash! 'I'll . . . I'll . . .'

  Herbert's face seemed to swim in the scraps of wood and he brought his makeshift club down on them again and again. 'I'll . . . I'll . . .' he sobbed.

  He didn't know what he would do, and he had never cried in seven centuries, but his breath heaved and adrenaline poured through his body. Laying waste to the alleyway was the only safe way he could disperse that strength, that emotion.

  'Oi!' The shout brought him round. The butcher who owned the place had come out of his shop's back door. His apron was bloodstained and he held a large cleaver in his hand. Nervous customers peered over his shoulder. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' The man took a step forward, cleaver raised. 'Get out of here!'

  The Correspondent glared at him, picturing and in his mind enacting a good twenty ways to get past that cleaver, with the butcher never knowing what had hit him.

  But no. Self control. Discipline. Something correspondents had in abundance. With a deliberate effort the Correspondent willed his boiling, seething rage away and it was as if ice, hard and cold as iron, flowed into his veins to replace it.

  'I'm sorry, sir,' he said calmly. 'I'll pay for the damage.' He took a bag of coins from his pock
et and tossed it over. 'Will that cover it?'

  It certainly should have; the coins were gold, saved up and amassed for centuries. The butcher's eyes widened when he opened the bag and saw them.

  'Why, yes,' he said.

  'Then that will be all,' the Correspondent said, and set off on the walk back to the Grunewald.

  'Herr Wittgenstein?' Frau Hug heard her lodger's footsteps as the front door opened and closed, and she bustled out of the front room to greet him. Hope bubbled in her heart. Had he popped the question? Had the young lady said yes? She would be so happy for them, and she had a lovely double room, south-facing, that was perfect for a new young couple.

  But Herr Wittgenstein was alone, his shoulders sagged, and he just looked at her silently out of deep, dark, hollow eyes with such an intensity that it was like running into a solid wall. Frau Hug saw the story immediately.

  'Oh, Herr Wittgenstein, I am sorry . . .'

  But he was already walking up the stairs. She watched his receding back, saw him take the corner, listened to the remaining steps and finally heard his door shut behind him.

  She walked back to the front room where her best friend was waiting with the tea, poised expectantly.

  Frau Hug shook her head. 'She must have said no, poor thing,' she said. 'Silly little girl. Herr Wittgenstein was so in love with her, you should have seen his face. And now the poor man doesn't know what to do.'

  She sank into a chair and took a bite of her cake.

  'Still,' she said brightly, 'he'll get over it.'

  Twenty

  The whine of powerful turbines starting up. A vibration that ran through him and stabbed into his brain. An unbelievable thirst.

  And a whining human voice.

  'This wasn't in the agreement. This wasn't how it should have been. This wasn't—'

  'Please be quiet, Phenuel,' said another voice wearily. Rico forced his eyes open.

  The first speaker was a bearded man whom Rico assumed was the Phenuel Scott that the biotech boy had told him about. The two were sitting opposite each other in a metal cabin of some kind, and next to Scott sat the very well and un-late looking Commissioner Daiho. Rico was feeling better and stronger by the second as his fieldsuit pumped medication into his system to clear his mind and soothe his jangled nervous system.

  Scott was the first to notice Rico's wakefulness. 'You did this!' he said. 'You're a Field Op, aren't you? And obviously not a particularly good one. What did you do to upset the bygoners, hey? And now we're all suffering—'

  'Your . . . your friend told you to shut up,' Rico gasped. Something was nagging at the back of his mind, something forgotten, but for now he swallowed and worked his mouth to get a bit more saliva flowing. The next words came more easily. 'I wouldn't be here at all if your pal Asaldra hadn't left a trail a mile wide behind him.'

  'And you are?' Daiho said. The man sounded amused and not at all upset.

  'Field Op Rico Garron.'

  'I suppose you've come to arrest us?'

  'Just Asaldra, originally,' Rico said. Now he felt as if he could move his head without it falling off and he looked cautiously round. It was the passenger cabin of a flying machine, probably a helicopter. Though it was dark outside he could see it was still on the ground, but the noise of the engines was getting louder and louder and the cabin was vibrating. There were two rows of three seats, facing each other. He and Scott were at the end of their rows, facing each other. At the other end of each, next to the door, was a bygoner guard. There was an empty seat between Rico and the guard on his side. Daiho sat opposite it next to Scott. The kid he had met earlier – what was his name, Jonjo, something like that, it wouldn't quite come through the mists at the back of his brain – and his girlfriend were nowhere to be seen. Behind Daiho and Scott, Rico could see the backs of the helicopter pilots.

  Rico realized two more things. His Field Op's equipment had passed the camo test – he was still in the fieldsuit and he still had his agrav – and his hands and feet were cuffed.

  He jerked at the links experimentally. 'Can you get me out of these?' he symbed at the suit.

  'Negative. The locks are non-magnetic and mechanical in operation.'

  'Can you just break them for me?' Rico symbed impatiently.

  'Affirmative . . .'

  Excellent!

  '. . . with an 87.6% probability of operative sustaining fractures to the carpal bones.'

  Less excellent. And he was still sure he had forgotten something: the stun charges had pummelled it out of his brain. It would come to him.

  'We were doing fine until you came along, Garron,' Scott said, warming to his theme, 'and you—'

  'Of course, it could just be that the stupid, primitive bygoners outsmarted you,' Rico said.

  'And all your fancy equip—' Scott said.

  Rico jack-knifed his body and lashed out with his feet. The cuffs helped keep his heels together as they pounded into Scott's jaw. This ass, this idiot had been about to mention out loud the fact that Rico had special equipment. Rico didn't know if the helicopter was bugged, or if the guards had been briefed on the Home Time language – the boy had told him some of the bygoners could speak it – but he intended to take no risks.

  Scott's head thumped back and blood poured from a split lip.

  'Stop that!' the guard next to Daiho shouted, bringing his stunner up. Rico flashed his brightest smile.

  'He was annoying me,' he said in English. Scott looked at him through slitted eyes with pure hatred, but kept quiet.

  'You know,' Daiho said, 'my colleague did have a point in that we aren't the ones who let themselves be detected by a bygoner.'

  I'm working on that, Rico thought: how had that man on the stairs known who or what he was? But out loud he said: 'And I had a point that I wouldn't be here if you'd done it properly. You people are amazing. You have such power, such privilege, and what happens? You –' he nodded at Daiho – 'had the authority to bend the rules, to send your assistant on field trips in complete contravention of every rule the College has. And, I suspect, grew and murdered a sentient clone just to cover your tracks. You –' he nodded at Scott – 'lured those two kids back into the past and broke even more rules. But the one thing none of you can be bothered with is being good at what you do.'

  Scott was almost purple. 'How dare you speak to us like that—'

  'Mr Scott,' Rico said mildly, 'I know ten ways of killing you, many more of disabling you and causing you a lot of pain, and I'm a long way away from the Home Time and social preparation and I don't like you very much. Why not join the dots and shut up?'

  He turned to Daiho. 'You seem to speak the most sense. How long was I unconscious?'

  'You were laid out in the hall when they got us from our rooms,' Daiho said. 'They bundled us out here, strapped us in, then brought you along. You woke up about a minute later. So, not long.' He paused. 'Rico Garron. Is that Ricardo Garron?'

  'Why?' Rico said, suddenly cautious.

  'Author of George Washington and the Crusades?'

  'Of what?' Scott exclaimed, and Rico felt his toes curling. No one was meant to have read that!

  'It was, um, a private project, just a hobby . . .' he said.

  'I take it it's meant to be satirical?'

  'What are you talking about?' Scott demanded to know.

  'Op Garron is an aspiring novelist and he left an extract from his latest opus on the computer I appropriated,' Daiho said. 'I imagine you wrote that passage while you were on assignment somewhere? Yes, a rather naïve voice, I felt. Quite a pleasant if undemanding read but rather an overstated use of imagery . . .'

  'You do remember I wanted that computer back,' Rico muttered.

  'You mean,' Scott said, incredulous, 'this man became involved in this whole business because he wanted his novel back?'

  But Rico wasn't listening. With a flood of relief, he remembered what had been bothering him.

  Orders! Wait for orders!

  Su Zo sat on her rock and wr
apped her arms round herself. The fieldsuit was keeping her perfectly warm but she felt cold. The rocks were jagged and sharp around her. The solid bulk of the cliff rose straight up behind her into the night and freezing cold waves were breaking just below her – solid masses of water breaking down into seething foam that sucked and gurgled as it ran in fractal shapes back into the sea.

  Why does everything involving Garron have to be complicated? she thought. A simple investigation turns into a major crime that needs uncovering. A simple withdrawal turns into sitting at the foot of a cliff and feeling bored. And Rico wasn't talking to her: she had sent several symbs over the last couple of minutes and got nothing but silence. She could take the hint.

  With her suit's night vision she looked sardonically at a seagull perched a safe distance away from her.

  'What are you looking at?' she said.

  'Su! Get up here now!' The symb was such a relief she wasn't even bothered by the lack of a 'please'.

  'At last!' she symbed back. 'I'm on my way.'

  The agrav carried her straight up, the rock of the cliff-face blurring as it scrolled rapidly before her eyes. She came to the top of the rock wall, and a black mass of machinery and howling turbines and lethal whirling blades came straight at her out of the night.

  Su cut the climb just in time and yelled as she thumped painfully into the ground.

  'Garron!' she symbed furiously. 'I just almost got cut in half by a helicopter . . .'

  'And I'm on it! Follow it before it gets up to full speed.'

  'Do what?' But she had already pushed off the cliff top after the flying machine. Rico's point was valid: the agrav's full speed could never match a helicopter going at much more than a crawl. The two were designed for different things.

  'And when you get here, hang on,' Rico added.

  'I would be so lost without you to explain things,' Su symbed back, but she was already reaching out for one of the helicopter's struts, a few feet away. The agrav harness around her was growing warm as it fought to keep up and match the buffeting of the helicopter's rotor, and the noise was deafening. Her fingers brushed the metal just as the helicopter tilted slightly further forward and increased speed. Su lurched forward with the last reserves of her agrav's power and her outstretched hand caught hold of the strut. She grabbed it with her other hand and ordered the fieldsuit to lock both gloves, and there she was, being towed by a helicopter at five hundred feet over the open sea.