"Perhaps," Delaney said. "It's possible that it would only have a minimal effect, not significant enough to disrupt temporal continuity."
"How do you figure that?" asked Steiger.
"When I was studying zen physics in RCS, we worked with some hypothetical problem modules designed to break down our notions of common sense," Delaney said. "One problem module postulated an imaginary court case involving a murder. The defendant was innocent, but was mistakenly convicted on circumstantial evidence and executed. Now suppose you clocked back and restaged the temporal scenario so that the defendant was actually guilty and the evidence was incontrovertible. You've changed the facts, but you haven't changed the outcome. History remains unchanged."
"That's hardly the same situation we have here," said Steiger. "People have died on this voyage, people who wouldn't have died if the restaging elements hadn't been present. That amounts to temporal interference."
"We don't know that for a fact," said Delaney. "It's possible they might have died in some other manner during the course of this voyage. What we're part of is no longer the original scenario. It's also possible that their deaths weren't significant enough to affect temporal continuity. It wouldn't have been difficult to assess the historical impact of the Argonauts. In some cases, it would have been fairly simple. Take Mopsus. He was getting on in years and had no children. All they'd have to do is evaluate his individual actions in terms of temporal significance. And don't forget that these men are all warriors. Some of them might have died in battle not long after this voyage took place. There are any number of variables that could result in a break of ancestral continuity. It's even possible the scenario was designed to control which people died. You can program robots and androids to recognize certain individuals and differentiate between them."
"So you still think they're conducting some sort of war game in preparation for an invasion of our timeline?" Steiger asked.
"I think it's a possibility," Delaney said. "It's the best explanation I've been able to come up with."
"There's only one thing wrong with it," said Steiger. "Us. If they've gone to all that trouble to verify the original scenario and conduct a controlled disruption, then they must have known from the beginning that we were never part of it."
"What if they didn't?" said Andre. "We've become one of the variable elements in this scenario. If we hadn't met Jason at the Anaurus River, he would have arrived in Iolchos alone. We don't have a record of the entire crew for this voyage. Even in the myth, not all of the Argonauts were named."
"That's right!" Delaney said. "We've been so concerned with the anomalous elements of this mission, we overlooked one of the most obvious ones. We must have displaced three of the original crew members! The hooded man might be among the Argonauts, but if he isn't, then he must be clocking ahead to all the significant points along their route. If that's the case, then they may not have realized that there were three people on the crew who weren't supposed to be there."
"At least not at the beginning of the voyage,'' Andre said.
Delaney glanced at Steiger. "I think we're onto something. It was the middle of the night when you were knocked out at Iolchos. In the dark, you might have been taken for Jason or one of the original crew members we displaced. During their secret meeting on Mount Pelion, the hooded man asked Chiron about the Argonauts who weren't among his pupils, the ones the centaur didn't know before. He asked Chiron to name and describe them all. That must have been when they first suspected something was out of sync with the original scenario. It was confirmed for them at Lemnos, but they had to check it out. We would have done the same. If we introduced variables into a temporal scenario and something popped up that didn't seem to fit the historical events, we'd try to make sure we knew exactly what the variable was and how it might affect the outcome."
Steiger nodded. "It makes sense. They must have scrambled to check us out against any possible historical variables. Were there any people like us around originally who might have been part of the crew? When they didn't turn up anything, they had to look for another explanation. They must have been as baffled as we've been. They couldn't learn anything from the centaur, because the centaur was one of their variables that they inserted into the scenario; and when the hooded man saw me at Lemnos, it must have tipped him off that I was from the future."
"Only which future?" Andre said. "There wasn't supposed to be anyone from their future on the scene they didn't know about."
"They had to check it out," said Steiger, nodding. "And they would have wanted another, closer look."
"The old blind king," Delaney said.
"Our hooded friend?" said Steiger. "Or someone else on their mission team," Delaney said. "It had to be."
"I'm keeping my eye on Idmon," Steiger said. "I don't know about these 'visions' and 'intuitions' of his."
"There is a chance they're genuine," Delaney said. "He could be a sensitive."
"And he could be planted," said Steiger. "I have a 'strong intuition' myself that the opposition is up to something tricky."
"If they guessed we were from another timeline," Andre said, "they must have started searching for the confluence, but if our original theory was correct that the centaur came through by accident, they wouldn't know exactly where and when to look for it."
"And if they haven't found it by now, it explains why we're still alive," Delaney said. "They need us to tell them where it is."
"It fits," said Steiger, nodding. "It finally fits together."
"That's right," Delaney said, wryly. "We've got them right where they want us."
"Perhaps not," said Andre. "One of us can clock back to the confluence point and warn Curtis to summon the Counter-Insurgency Strike Force. Then all we have to do is give them what they want. Lead them directly to the confluence. It'll be just like the Khyber Pass. The minute they come through, they'll be hit with everything we've got."
"And what about us?" said Steiger. "You figure once we tell them where the confluence point is, they'll be nice enough to let us go?"
"I didn't say there'd be no risk," said Andre.
"No, there'd be risk all right and not only to us," said Steiger. "We were damned lucky in Afghanistan. The confluence point shifted just in time or the battle would have lasted longer. It might have interfered with the action between the British and the Pathans, to say nothing of the casualties our people would have sustained. We've got a similar situation here. Hannibal and his Carthaginians on one side, Scipio and his Roman legion on the other. Fighting a temporal battle smack dab in between would be dangerous as hell. The object of this mission was to disrupt their timeline, not invite a situation that could disrupt our own."
"Do you have an alternative?" said Andre.
"I say we carry on with our original plan," said Steiger. "Let's take our best shot. If we blow it, there's still a good chance at least one of us can get back and warn the Rangers."
"What if they take their best shot before we take ours?" asked Andre.
Steiger smiled. "I didn't say there'd be no risk."
"Touche," said Andre, wryly.
"I'm in favor of it," said Delaney. "Now that we've reached Colchis, we're in a good position to cut and run. If we stick close to the principals in this scenario, it could make it difficult for the opposition to move against us. The minute we get a reading on the situation, we interfere, create the disruption and clock out fast. They'll be watching us every minute, but we might have a chance to pull it off."