by Steve White
“Is that the Nagommo cache, Oannes?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Oannes without taking his eyes off the control board. “My thought is that we should take the portal device there, where it will be well concealed. The Teloi currently operating in the normal universe cannot detect it with instruments unless the portal is activated.”
“Seems sensible,” Jason agreed absently. Most of his mind was elsewhere, worrying, for the Nagom had inadvertently reminded him of a fundamental flaw in the entire plan—one he hadn’t mentioned to anyone, least of all Deirdre, and in fact had done his best to conceal from himself. If the Teloi came upon them and opened the portal, the basic idea was scotched. But if the portal remained closed, how were they to even attempt recovering Deirdre’s TRD?
“By the way, there is one other thing,” said Oannes. His eyes were still fixed on his readouts and therefore not meeting Jason’s. And his voice held a kind of controlled tension which brought Jason out of his dismal reflections and into full alert status. “Just before the fight on the beach, while I was maneuvering this vessel, I could not help overhearing your … discussion with Deirdre. Most of it was fairly meaningless to one of my race, for obvious reasons. But one turn of phrase struck me.” The Nagom was now speaking like an automaton, and staring fixedly ahead. “You intimated that her attitudes were rooted in the peculiarities of her native planet. “
Silence fell in layers.
“Uh, I think you may be reading too much into a, uh, figure of speech,” Jason floundered.
Oannes finally turned to face him. “You led me to believe that your society did not have the secret of interstellar travel, Jason.” His tone wasn’t even particularly reproachful or accusatory. That might have been easier to take.
“I never actually told you that we didn’t,” Jason began … but his attempt at pettifoggery died under the gaze of those huge, unblinking eyes, and his own eyes fell. “All right. I haven’t been entirely honest with you. But you must believe this: I was telling you the truth when I said the Teloi are forgotten in our era. And we’ve found no trace of them anywhere we’ve wandered among the stars.”
Oannes’ grave serenity wavered. “Yes, yes, I believe you. But … you must know of my race!”
And so the moment Jason had dreaded arrived. What do I tell him? He’s earned our honesty as well as our gratitude. I will not lie to him. I cannot.
But to tell him the whole truth—the hell his planet has become, peopled by obscene travesties of the Nagommo of old, the legacy of what the Nagommo did to themselves… .
“No,” was all he said.
Oannes took it better than a human would have. A human would have demanded more. Oannes merely met Jason’s eyes, and knew that Jason’s reticence was founded in kindness. And he received that kindness with a bleak calm that held no room for angry denial.
“Well,” the Nagom finally said … and could not continue. Another long moment’s silence passed before he resumed. “Well, I myself still live. And I have one thing left that I can do.” He turned back to the controls, businesslike. “Let us proceed to the cache.”
“Yes, let’s,” Jason echoed.
*
They didn’t enter the lagoon. The Nagommo had avoided those densely populated inner shores when they had established their cache. Oannes, taking over from the computer, steered them into a tunnel beneath the low cliffs that fronted Kalliste’s southwestward coast.
“This isn’t altogether artificial,” the Nagom explained as their craft glided slowly through a passage that accommodated it with suspicious exactness. “We widened it a bit. But it always led to … this,” he finished, as they emerged into a subterranean pool. They surfaced under a rocky dome whose extent did not become apparent until Oannes touched his controls and light flooded it.
Oannes brought the submersible around and backed it into a kind of cradle that was the only work of obvious artificiality under the dome. He gestured at a cave mouth off to the side. “I suggest that we take the device into the inner cavern, for maximum security.”
It was easier said than done, even after they maneuvered the faux idol into the carrying sling. Jason took the front ends of both poles, one in each hand, while Nagel and Oannes, with his injured arm, each took one of the rear ends. Carefully, to avoid stumbling, they carried it through the opening and along a short passageway. It didn’t help that the ground occasionally shivered, and a rumbling could be felt as much as heard. But soon the passageway opened into another large, illuminated cavern, whose floor lay below a ridge.
Here, in the glow of the lights, Jason saw spread out before him the wonders the Nagommo had stored here against their hour of need. He couldn’t take it all in. He could only wonder how much of the technology was duplicated by what his own culture could produce. Most of it, probably; little of what he had seen Oannes use was beyond the twenty-fourth century’s horizons. But surely some of it … he couldn’t let himself dwell on that as they maneuvered their burden over the ridge and across a floor that had clearly been leveled but was still unfinished enough to require care in where they stepped. Finally, they set the idol down against the far rock wall.
Oannes walked to a nearby control console. “I must activate certain special security measures that are currently dormant. The two of you may as well start back to the submersible.”
“Right,” Jason nodded. “Come on, Sidney.”
They had topped the ridge and were about to enter the tunnel when Jason suddenly knew that something was not right. Or, rather he felt it with his entire being, on a level deeper than that of conscious intellect. Something profoundly unnatural was happening behind him.
“Fall down!” he snapped at Nagel, without pausing for anything, including thought.
The historian stood frozen in shock. Jason grabbed his arm and pulled him down. Only after they were both flat on their stomachs did he crawl to the ridge and peer over it.
Beside the idol, the portal was forming.
Zeus assured us that he didn’t think it was scheduled for one of its periodic openings, thought Jason, oddly calm. Some god!
And here he lay, unarmed even with what passed for weapons in this era, too far away to do anything except watch as Oannes, who had also become aware of what was happening behind him, whirled around just as the dimensional opening stabilized, and faced a Teloi.
The Teloi looked startled—as well he might, having expected to find himself in the Sanctuary Hall at Knossos—but he already had a weapon in his hand, doubtless as a routine precaution. This was no “head of the Hydra.” It was smaller and somehow uglier … and before Oannes could draw his own weapon from his utility harness it speared the Nagom with a dazzling line of ionization. A fraction of a second later, Jason heard the unmistakable crack of air snapping back into the tunnel of vacuum drilled through it by a weapon-grade laser.
A puff of pink steam exploded from Oannes’ body where the beam touched it, and the knockback effect of energy transfer sent him staggering back before he fell and lay still.
The Teloi stepped forward, emerging from the portal, and stared down at the alien corpse. Then he stared around him, while Jason looked on, suspended in horror. Not a damned thing I can do , he thought over and over.
The Teloi finally pulled himself together and spoke into a wrist communicator. The acoustics of the cavern were such that Jason could hear his voice across the distance. But the rapid-fire Teloi, mumbled into the communicator, was unintelligible. Almost immediately, more Teloi emerged, to stand gawking. Then they came to positions of respectful attention when a new group arrived. Jason recognized Hyperion and Rhea. But the chief focus of deference was a male Jason hadn’t seen before, and who for some indefinable reason seemed older than the others, even though he bore the usual indicia of agelessness. He walked over to that which had been Oannes. He looked down on it with eyes empty of pity or any other emotion save satisfaction.
“So,” he said after a moment. ” This one. We’ve wanted it for a ver
y long time.” Jason took a second to realize that the neuter pronoun referred to Oannes. The Teloi turned to Rhea. “Have you ascertained just where we are?”
“Yes, Cronus,” Rhea replied, following a custom Jason had noted before among the Teloi, of using the names by which they were known locally. He wondered what she would have called the leader if they had been in Ireland, or northern India. Did they even remember the names they’d been born with? “Our positioning system has had time to orient itself. We are on the southwest coast of Kalliste.”
“Kalliste! So the Nagom stole the portal device from Knossos only to bring it to the very center of our worship in this region—specifically, of your worship. For what conceivable reason would it do that?”
“I have no idea.” Rhea shot a venomous glance at the Teloi who had killed Oannes. “And we will never find out, will we? We have no prisoner to interrogate, thanks to Tethys. What game is he playing, I wonder?”
“What was I supposed to do?” Tethys demanded indignantly. “Let it shoot me, as it was about to do?”
“Small loss,” Rhea sneered.
Even across the distance, Jason could see Tethys stiffen with controlled rage. “I find myself wondering why are you so concerned over the death of a Nagom!”
“Enough of your bickering!” roared Cronus with a hundred thousand years’ worth of exasperation.
“I quite agree,” Hyperion put in smoothly. In any other circumstances, Jason would have found something amusing about the imperious Teloi in the role of sycophantic flunky. “Instead of exchanging recriminations, we should be congratulating ourselves on our good fortune. We have been presented with one of the equipment caches of the Nagommo vermin.” There was a general noise of agreement, and everyone’s wounded feelings seemed to subside.
“Furthermore,” Hyperion continued, “there is something else we need to consider.” He indicated the carrying sling, lying where it had been dropped behind the idol. “The Nagom could hardly have used this alone. It must have had help.”
“Yes!” exclaimed Rhea. “And that help could not have come from the few remaining members of its odious race; we know in general where they are. The human time travelers must be involved.”
“Ah, yes,” Cronus nodded. “The ones you told me about. They must be recaptured; the possibilities they open up are fascinating. And,” he added with a glare at Hyperion, “your attempts to investigate the workings of the device that was removed from the female have been unavailing, as has your study of the biological samples removed from her.”
“A temporary setback only, Cronus. And,” Hyperion continued, in what Jason recognized as the tone of an underling coming as close as he dared to criticism of policy directives from above, “we have been hampered by the requirement that the implant be undamaged.”
Jason’s heart lifted. He had almost forgotten the sensation.
“No doubt,” said Cronus absently. “But in the meantime, there is work to be done! Alert those who are now airborne; their detection of the portal opening may have been delayed by surprise at its location, as they were expecting it to take place at Knossos. And determine the precise whereabouts of Zeus and the rest of his faction of malcontents. Eurymedon, I leave this matter in your hands—and I expect a prompt report.”
“Yes, Cronus,” cringed a Teloi Jason recognized as the first one he had ever seen, the one who had appeared above the road to Lerna.
“In the meantime,” Cronus resumed, “we must search this Nagommo cache. It is the logical starting place for locating the time-traveling feral humans.”
With a rumble of acknowledgment, the Teloi dispersed. Some of them reentered the portal. Others, including Cronus and Hyperion, remained in the cavern, examining the Nagommo artifacts curiously.
“That tears it, Sidney,” Jason whispered to Nagel. “As soon as they get themselves organized, they’re going to explore through this passageway. Very carefully, let’s get back to the sub and … Sidney? Sidney ? “
The historian wasn’t listening. He was staring at the scene below, with an expression Jason could not interpret. “Yes,” he whispered to himself, “they must return through the portal, and close it.” Then, all at once, he seemed to come into focus. “Listen, Jason, this is important. We have the key to most of the riddles now. The idea of a Greek conquest of Crete in the seventeenth century B.C. was always a minority view. But now we know that it’s going to happen; Perseus will lead it. And given that, everything else falls into place—”
“Sidney!” Jason rasped, holding his voice down. “This is not the time for—”
“Listen to me! This is important! ” Nagel’s whisper held an urgency, and his eyes a fiery intensity, that stopped Jason in mid-sentence. “You must get back with this data! And … you must get back to Crete. Deirdre is in danger there. She needs you.”
“Why … of course, Sidney. That’s what I’m saying. We need to hurry and get back to the sub. Let’s go, and—”
Before Jason realized what was happening, Nagel scrambled over the ridge and was stumbling down the slope toward the Teloi.
Sheer, stunned surprise held Jason immobilized. That, and his realization that there was absolutely nothing he could do except be captured or killed himself, held him flat against the rock floor, peering over the ridgetop as the Teloi saw the historian and raised their weapons.
“No! Don’t shoot!” cried Nagel in their own language. “I’m unarmed. I wish to surrender.”
Two of the more junior Teloi converged on Nagel, seized him by the arms, and shoved him in front of Cronus and Hyperion. The latter gazed down at him. “One of the time travelers,” he informed Cronus.
“Yes!” Nagel nodded frantically. “Our leader ran off and left me when your portal opened. He’s always hated me. He’s consumed with envy of my academic eminence. You remember the time he attacked me, don’t you?” he asked Hyperion eagerly. “Tell him!”
“I do recall such an incident from their earlier captivity,” Hyperion admitted.
Cronus was clearly uninterested. He looked down at Nagel with contemptuous distaste, then turned to Hyperion. “Kill him.”
“No! Please, lord! I can help you! I overheard you to say you hadn’t made any headway in puzzling out a device you had removed from the woman in our party. Well, I am a specialist in the field of time travel.”
Cronus had started to turn away, the feral human already forgotten. Now he paused and turned back, looking thoughtful.
“Perhaps …” Hyperion began.
“Yes!” said Nagel avidly. “I can be useful! You’ll see. But first I need to examine that implant you spoke of. I’m somewhat puzzled about that.”
Cronus considered for a moment. Then he gestured to an underling, who spoke into one of the wrist communicators. For a minute or so, they all stood, waiting, while Jason watched and struggled to understand.
Presently a Teloi appeared in the portal. He bore the small plastic case Jason had first seen in Proetus’ courtyard. Cronus took it, opened it, and handed it to Nagel.
“Well?” he demanded.
Nagel took the TRD between thumb and forefinger and made a great show of studying it. Then he looked up, and his face wore the supercilious look that came naturally to it.
“Oh, this! ” He put the tiny object back in the case and closed it with a snap. “I remember now: you chopped it out of her at Tiryns. It is merely a homing device used by our leader to monitor our movements. It has nothing to do with time travel.”
“But the woman told us—” Hyperion began.
“Of course she did,” sneered the historian. “Don’t you see? She was trying to put you on a false scent—not without success, it would seem. And she had an additional motivation: avoiding any further removal of samples from her body. Because that is where the true secret lies.”
He now had his listeners’ rapt attention, as he launched into the condescending lecture style that was pure Nagel, but with an inventiveness Jason had never dreamed he possessed.
“We time travelers,” he began, “are a special class—a subspecies, actually. The capability of temporal displacement is a psionic talent that has been engineered into us, using artificially created genetic material—the trait does not occur in the natural human genotype. We activate it by direct neural induction, with the help of an implant in the brain. I thought that was what you were referring to.” A sardonic chuckle. “I was wondering how you’d gotten it out of the woman without killing her.”
“Do you mean to say,” Hyperion demanded, “that you can travel in time simply by willing it?”
“Only under certain highly restricted circumstances,” Nagel cautioned. “It requires a great deal of training. And only at certain times is the temporal ‘fabric’ weak enough to permit it. The physics is rather too complex to go into just now. This is why we’ve been unable to return to our own era.”
Looking at the Teloi’s faces, Jason could tell they had accepted Nagel’s fantasy. And he understood why. Fitting in so well with their own background, it was more believable than the truth would have been.
“Fortunately,” Nagel continued, “you have biological samples from the woman. Those are what you need to study, on the genetic level. Using samples from ordinary humans as a ‘control,’ you should have no difficulty isolating the trait. But this— ” he held up the little plastic case “—is valueless.” With an offhand flick of his wrist, he tossed it over his shoulder, in Jason’s direction, to land with a clatter on the cavern floor.
All at once, Jason understood. And he tried to comprehend the magnitude of the courage he was witnessing.
“So,” Cronus said after a moment. “When you say that we ‘should have no difficulty,’ do I take it to mean that you yourself are not qualified to assist in the genetic testing?”
“That is correct. I am no geneticist.”
“I thought not. And I find your attitude insufficiently respectful—quite objectionable, in fact.” Cronus nodded to Hyperion, who raised one of the small laser weapons.
