“Yes. That’s why she basically favored Wallis, in spite of her occasional naughtinesses. She told me about a world where progress had been made, more and more peaceful-looking for a long span of history. Except she could not agree this was necessarily progress. Granted, that world did have fleets of efficient sailing ships and electric-powered dirigibles, ocean ranches, solar energy screens charging accumulators, widescale use of bacterial fuel cells which ran off the wastes of living organisms, new developments in both theoretical and applied science, especially biology--”
He stopped for breath and I tried to inject a light note:
“Don’t tell me your pet Valkyrie used such terms!”
“No, no.” He continued earnest. “I’m anticipating what I saw or had explained to me. Her impressions were more general. But she had that huntress and sorceress knack of close observation. She was quite able to trace the basic course of events.”
“Which was?”
“Men did not go on to any fresh peak. Instead, what they reached was a plateau, where they stayed. The bio-technological culture didn’t improve further, it merely spread further. ”
“That was scarcely her ideal of the High Years restored, or Wallis’s of unlimited growth and accomplishment.”
“The tour skimmed fast through a later phase of what appeared to be retrogression and general violence. Eyrie agents don’t dare explore it in detail till they have a larger and stronger organization. Nor can they understand what lies beyond. It seems peaceful once more, but it’s not comprehensible. From the glimpse I had, I’m prepared to believe that.”
“What was it like?” I asked. “Can you tell me?”
“Very little.” His tone fell rough. “I haven’t time. Sound strange, coming from me? Well, it’s true. I’m a fugitive, remember.”
“I gather your trip uptime did not remove your skepticism about Wallis’s intentions,” I said, more calmly than I felt. “Why?”
He ran fingers through his blond, sweat-dankened hair. “I’m a child of this century,” he replied. “Think, Doc. Recall how intelligent men like, well, Bertrand Russell or Henry Wallace took extensive tours of Stalin’s Russia, and came home to report that it did have its problems but those had been exaggerated and were entirely due to extraneous factors and a benevolent government was coping with everything. Don’t forget, either, the chances are that most of their guides did think this, and were in full sincerity obeying instructions to shield a foreign visitor from what he might misinterpret.” His grin was unpleasant. “Maybe the curse of my life is that I’ve lost the will to believe.”
“You mean,” I said, “you wondered if the world really would benefit from the rule of the Eyrie? And if maybe the Maurai were being slandered, you being shown nothing except untypical badness?”
“No, not exactly that, either. Depends on interpretation and--oh, here’s a prime example.”
Not every recruit was given as thorough a tour as Havig. Plainly Wallis deemed him to be both of particular potential value and in particular need of convincing.
By doubling back and forth through chronology, he got a look at documents in ultra-secret files. (He could puzzle them out, since Ingliss was an official second language of the Federation and spelling had changed less than pronunciation.) One told how scientists in Hinduraj had clandestinely developed a hydrogen-fusion generator which would end Earth’s fuel shortage, and the Maurai had as clandestinely learned of it, sabotaged it, and applied such politico-economic pressures that the truth never became public.
The motive given was that this revolutionary innovation would have upset the Pax. Worse, it would have made possible a rebirth of the ancient rapacious machine culture, which the planet could not endure.
And yet ... uptime of the Maurai dominion, Havig saw huge silent devices and energies ... and men, beasts, grass, trees, stars bright through crystalline air ...
“Were the Pacific sociologists and admirals sincere in their belief?” he said in a harsh whisper. “Or were they only preserving their top-dog status? Or both, or neither, or what?
“And is that farther future good? It could be a smooth-running monstrosity, you know, or it could be undermining the basis of all life’s existence, or--How could I tell?”
“What did you ask your guides?” I responded.
“Those same questions. The leader was Austin Caldwell, by the way, an honest man, hard as the Indians who once hunted his scalp but nevertheless honest.”
“What did he tell you?”
“To stop my goddam quibbling and trust the Sachem. The Sachem had done grand thus far, hadn’t he? The Sachem had studied and thought about these matters; he didn’t pretend to know everything himself, but we’d share the wisdom he was gathering as it became ready, and he would lead us onto the right paths.”
“As for me, Austin said, I’d better remember how slow and awkward it was, getting around like this, having to return across centuries whenever we needed transportation to a new area. I’d already had as much lifespan and trouble spent on me as I was worth, anyhow at my present stage of development. If I couldn’t accept the discipline that an outfit must have which is embarked on dangerous endeavors-well, I was free to resign, but I’d better never show my hide near the Eyrie again.”
“What could I do? I apologized and came back with them.”
9
HE WAS GWEN a couple of days off, which he spent regaining his spirits in Leonce’s company. The period of his training and indoctrination had brought winter’s chances for old-fashioned sports outdoors and indoors. Thereafter he was assigned to reread Wallis’s history of the future, ponder it in the light of what he had witnessed, and discuss any questions with Waclaw Krasicki, who was the most scholarly of the garrison’s current directorate.
The Sachem admitted he was far from omniscient. But he had seen more than anyone else, on repeated expeditions with differing escorts. He had ranged more widely across Earth’s surface as well as through Earth’s duration than was feasible for subordinates, transport being as limited as it was. He had conducted interviews and interrogations, which others must not lest too many events of that sort arouse somebody’s suspicions.
He knew the Eyrie would be here, under his control, for the next two centuries. He had met himself then, who told him how satisfactorily Phase One of the plan had been carried out. At that date, the vastly augmented force he was shown must evacuate this stronghold. Nuclei of renascent civilization were spreading across all America, the Maurai were everywhere, a realm like his could no longer stay isolated nor maintain the pretense its leaders were nothing extraordinary.
A new base had been (would be) constructed uptime. He visited it, and found it totally unlike the old. Here were modern materials, sleek construction--mostly underground--housing advanced machinery, automation, a thermonuclear powerplant.
This was in the era of revolt against the Maurai. They had in the end failed to convert to their philosophy the gigantically various whole of mankind. Doubts, discontents, rebelliousness among their own people led to vacillation in foreign policy. One defiant nation redeveloped the fusion energy generator; and it made no attempt at secrecy. Old countries and alliances were disintegrating, new being born in turmoil.
“Always we need patience as well as boldness and briskness,” Wallis wrote. “We will have far more resources than we do in Phase One, and far more skill in employing them. That includes the use of time travel to multiply the size of a military force, each man doubling back again and again till the opposition is overwhelmed. But I am well aware this sort of thing has its limits and hazards. In no case can we hope to take over the whole world quickly. An empire which is to last thousands of years is bound to be slow in the building.”
Was that how Phase Two would end: with a planet once more pastoralized, in order that the overlordship of the Eyrie men, in the fabulous engines they would have developed, be unchallengeable? Wallis believed it. He believed Phase Three would cons
ist of the benign remolding of that society by its new masters, the creation of a wholly new kind of man. Ranging very far uptime, he had glimpsed marvels he could not begin to describe.
But he seemed vague in this part of his book. Exact information was maddeningly hard to gather. He meant to continue doing so, though more and more by proxy. In general, he recognized, his lifespan would be spent on Phase One. The self he met at its end was an aged man.
“Let us be satisfied to be God’s agents of redemption,” he wrote. “However, those who wish may cherish a private hope. Is it not possible that at last science will find a way to make the old young again, to make the body immortal? And by then, I have no doubt, time travel will be understood, may even be commonplace. Will not that wonderful future return and seek us out, who brought it into being, and give us our reward?”
Havig’s mouth tightened. He thought: I’ve seen what happens when you try to straitjacket man into an ideology.
But later he thought: There is a lot of flexibility here. We could conceivably end more as teachers than masters.
And finally: I’ll stick around awhile, at least. The alternative to serving him seems to be to let my gift go for nothing, my life go down in futility.
Krasicki summoned him. It was a steely-cold day. Sunlight shattered into brilliance on icicles hanging from turrets. Havig shivered as he crossed the courtyard to the office.
Uniformed, Krasicki sat in a room as neat and functional as a cell. “Be seated,” he ordered. The chair was hard, and squeaked.
“Do you judge yourself ready for your work?” he asked.
A thrill went through Havig. His pulses hammered. “Y-yes. Anxious to start. I--” He straightened. “Yes.”
Krasicki shuffled some papers on his desk. “I have been watching your progress,” he said, “and considering how we might best employ you. That includes minimum risk to yourself. You have had a good deal of extratemporal experience on your own, I know, which makes you already valuable. But you’ve not hitherto been on a mission for us.” He offered a stiff little smile. “The idea which came to me springs from your special background.”
Havig somehow maintained a cool exterior.
“We must expand our capabilities, particularly recruiting,” Krasicki said. “Well, you’ve declared yourself reasonably fluent in the Greek koine. You’ve described a visit you made to Byzantine Constantinople. That seems like a strategic place from which to begin a systematic search through the medieval period.”
“Brilliant!” Havig cried, suddenly happy and excited. It rushed from him: “Center of civilization, everything flowed through the Golden Horn, and, and what we could do as traders--”
Krasicki lifted a palm. “Hold. Perhaps later, when we have more manpower, a wider network, perhaps then that will be worthwhile. But at present we’re too sharply limited in the man-years available to us. We cannot squander them. Never forget, we must complete Phase One by a definite date. No, Havig, what is necessary is a quicker and more direct approach.”
“What--?”
“Given a large hoard of coin and treasure, we can finance ourselves in an era when this is currency. But you know yourself how cumbersome is the transportation of goods through time. Therefore we must acquire our capital on the ... on the spot? ... yes, on the spot. And, as I said, quickly.”
Havig’s suspicions exploded in dismay. “You can’t mean by robbery!”
“No, no, no.” Krasicki shook his head. “Think. Listen. A raid on a peaceful city, massive enough to reap a useful harvest, that would be dangerously conspicuous. Could get into the history books, and that could wreck our cover. Besides, it would be dangerous in itself, too. Our men would have small numbers, not overly well supplied with firearms. They would not have powered vehicles. The Byzantine army and police were usually large and well-disciplined. No, I don’t propose madness.”
“What, then?”
“Taking advantage of chaos, in order to remove what would otherwise be stolen by merciless invaders for no good purpose.”
Havig stared.
“In 1204,” his superior went on, “Constantinople was captured by the armies of the Fourth Crusade. They plundered it from end to end; what remained was a broken shell.” He waved an arm. “Why should we not take a share? It’s lost to the owners anyway.” He peered at the other’s face before adding:
“And, to be sure, we arrange compensation, give them protection from slaughter and rapine, help them rebuild their lives.”
“Judas priest!” Havig choked. “A hijacking!”
Having briefed himself in the Eyrie’s large microtape library, having had a costume made and similar details taken care of, he embarked.
An aircraft deposited him near the twenty-first-century ruins of Istanbul and took off again into the air as quickly as he into the past. A lot of radioactivity lingered in these ashes. He hadn’t yet revealed the fact of his chronolog and must find his target by the tedious process of counting sun-traverses, adding an estimate of days missed, making an initial emergence, and zeroing in by trial and error.
Leonce had been furious at being left behind. But she lacked the knowledge to be useful here, except as companion and consoler. Indeed, she would have been a liability, her extreme foreignness drawing stares. Havig meant to pass for a Scandinavian on pilgrimage--Catholic, true, but less to be detested than a Frenchman, Venetian, Aragonese, anyone from those western Mediterranean nations which pressed wolfishly in on the dying Empire. As a Russian he would have been more welcome. But Russians were common thereabouts, and their Orthodox faith made them well understood. He dared not risk a slip.
He didn’t start in the year of the conquest. That would be too turbulent, and every outsider too suspect, for the detailed study he must make. The Crusaders actually entered Constantinople in 1203, after a naval siege, to install a puppet on its throne. They hung around to collect their pay before proceeding to the Holy Land. The puppet found his coffers empty, and temporized. Friction between East Romans and “Franks” swelled to terrifying proportions. In January 1204, Alexius, son-in-law of the deposed Emperor, got together sufficient force to seize palace and crown. For three months he and his people strove to drive the Crusaders off. Their hope that God would somehow come to their aid collapsed when Alexius, less gallant than they, despaired and fled. The Crusaders marched back through opened portals. They had worked themselves into homicidal self-righteousness about “Greek perfidy,” and the horror began almost at once.
Havig chose spring, because it was a beautiful season, in 1195, because that was amply far downtime, for his basic job of survey. He carried well-forged documents which got him past the city guards, and gold pieces to exchange for nomismae. Alter finding a room in a good inn-nothing like the pigsty he’d have had to endure in the West-he started exploring.
His prior visit had been to halcyon 1050. The magnificence he now encountered, the liveliness and cosmopolitan colorfulness, were no less. However raddled her dominion, New Rome remained the queen of Europe.
Havig saw her under the shadow.
The house and shop of Doukas Manasses, goldsmith, stood on a hill near the middle of the city. Square-built neighbors elbowed it, all turning blind faces onto the steep, wide, well-paved and well-swept street. But from its flat roof you had a superb view, from end to end of the vast, towered walls which enclosed the city, and further: across a maze of thoroughfares, a countlessness of dweffings and soaring church domes; along the grand avenue called the Mesé to flowering countryside past the Gate of Charisius, on inward by columns which upbore statuary from the noblest days of Hellas, monasteries and museums and libraries which preserved works by men like Aeschylus and women like Sappho that later centuries would never read, through broad forums pulsing with life, to the Hippodrome and that sprawling splendid complex which was the Imperial Palace. On a transverse axis, vision reached from glittering blue across the Sea of Marmora to a mast-crowded Golden Horn and th
e rich suburbs and smaragdine heights beyond.
Traffic rivered. The noise of wheels, hoofs, feet, talk, song, laughter, sobbing, cursing, praying blended together into one ceaseless heartbeat. A breeze carried a richness of odors, sea, woodsmoke, food, animals, humanity. Havig breathed deep.
“Thank you, Kyrios Hauk,” Doukas Manasses said. “You are most courteous to praise this sight.” His manner implied mild surprise that a Frank would not sneer at everything Greek. To be sure, Hauk Thomasson was not really a Frank or one of the allied English, he was from a boreal kingdom.
“Less courteous than you, Kyrios Manasses, to show me it,” Havig replied.
They exchanged bows. The Byzantines were not basically a strict folk-besides their passionate religion and passionate sense for beauty, they had as much bustling get-up-and-go, as much inborn gusto, as Levantines in any era-but their upper classes set store by ceremonious politeness.
“You expressed interest,” Doukas said. He was a gray-bearded man with handsome features and nearsighted eyes. His slight frame seemed lost in the usual dalmatic robe.
“I merely remarked, Kyrios, that a shop which produced such elegance as does yours must be surrounded by inspiration.” You could case public buildings easily enough; but your way to learn what private hands held what wealth was to go in, say you were looking for a gift to take home, and inspect a variety of samples.
Well, dammit, Doukas and his apprentices did do exquisite work.
“You are too kind,” the goldsmith murmured. “Although I do feel--since all good stems from God--that we Romans should look more to His creation, less to conventionality, than we have done.”
“Like this?” Havig pointed at a blossoming crabapple tree in a large planter.
Doukas smiled. “That’s for my daughter. She loves flowers, and we cannot take her daily on an outing in the country.”
Women enjoyed an honorable status, with many legal rights and protections. But perhaps Doukas felt his visitor needed further explanation: “We may indulge her too much, my Anna and I. However, she’s our only. That is, I was wedded before, but the sons of sainted Eudoxia are grown. Xenia is Anna’s first, and my first daughter.”
There Will Be Time Page 10
