But man was man, in any history. This culture might not have the ruthless will and sophisticated cruelty of Western civilization; in fact, in some ways it looked strangely innocent. Still, that wasn’t for lack of trying. And in this world, a genuine science might never emerge, man might endlessly repeat the cycle of war, empire, collapse, and war. In Everard’s future, the race had finally broken out of it.
For what? He could not honestly say that this continuum was worse or better than his own. It was different, that was all. And didn’t these people have as much right to their existence as—as his own, who were damned to nullity if he failed?
He knotted his fists. The issue was too big. No man should have to decide something like this.
At the showdown, he knew, no abstract sense of duty would compel him, but the little things and the little folk he remembered.
They rounded the house and Deirdre pointed to the sea. “Awarlann,” she said. Her loose hair burned in the wind.
“Now does that mean ‘ocean’ or ‘Atlantic’ or ‘water’?” laughed Van Sarawak. “Let’s go see.” He led her toward the beach.
Everard trailed. A kind of steam launch, long and fast, was skipping over the waves, a mile or two offshore. Gulls trailed it in a snowstorm of wings. He thought that if he’d been in charge, a Navy ship would have been on picket out there.
Did he even have to decide anything? There were other Patrolmen in the pre-Roman past. They’d return to their respective eras and…
Everard stiffened. A chill ran down his back and congealed in his belly.
They’d return, and see what had happened, and try to correct the trouble. If any of them succeeded, this world would blink out of space-time, and he would go with it.
Deirdre paused. Everard, standing in a sweat, hardly noticed what she was staring at, till she cried out and pointed. Then he joined her and squinted across the sea.
The launch was standing in close, its high stack fuming smoke and sparks, the gilt snake figure-head agleam. He could see the forms of men aboard, and something white, with wings.… It rose from the poopdeck and trailed at the end of a rope, mounting. A glider! Celtic aeronautics had gotten that far, at least.
“Pretty,” said Van Sarawak. “I suppose they have balloons too.”
The glider cast its tow and swooped inward. One of the guards on the beach shouted. The rest pelted from behind the house. Sunlight flashed off their guns. The launch headed straight for the shore. The glider landed, plowing a furrow in the beach.
An officer yelled and waved the Patrolmen back. Everard had a glimpse of Deirdre’s face, white and uncomprehending. Then a turret on the glider swiveled—a detached part of his mind guessed it was manually operated—and a light cannon spoke.
Everard hit the dirt. Van Sarawak followed, dragging the girl with him. Grapeshot plowed hideously through the Afallonian soldiers.
There followed a spiteful crack of guns. Men sprang from the aircraft, dark-faced men in turbans and sarongs. Hinduraj! thought Everard. They traded shots with the surviving guards, who rallied about their captain.
The officer roared and led a charge. Everard looked up from the sand to see him almost upon the glider’s crew. Van Sarawak leaped to his feet. Everard rolled over, caught him by the ankle, and pulled him down before he could join the fight.
“Let me go!” The Venusian writhed, sobbing. The dead and wounded left by the cannon sprawled nightmare red. The racket of battle seemed to fill the sky.
“No, you bloody fool! It’s us they’re after, and that wild Irishman’s done the worst thing he could have—” A fresh outburst yanked Everard’s attention elsewhere.
The launch, shallow-draft and screw-propelled, had run up into the shallows and was retching armed men. Too late the Afallonians realized that they had discharged their weapons and were now being attacked from the rear.
“Come on!” Everard hauled Deirdre and Van Sarawak to their feet. “We’ve got to get out of here—get to the neighbors…”
A detachment from the boat saw him and veered. He felt rather than heard the flat smack of a bullet into soil, as he reached the lawn. Slaves screamed hysterically inside the house. The two wolfhounds attacked the invaders and were gunned down.
Crouched, zigzag, that was the way: over the wall and out onto the road! Everard might have made it, but Deirdre stumbled and fell. Van Sarawak halted to guard her. Everard stopped also, and then it was too late. They were covered.
The leader of the dark men snapped something at the girl. She sat up, giving him a defiant answer. He laughed shortly and jerked his thumb at the launch.
“What do they want?” asked Everard in Greek.
“You.” She looked at him with horror. “You two—” The officer spoke again. “And me to translate…No!”
She twisted in the hands that had closed on her arms, got partly free and clawed at a face. Everard’s fist traveled in a short arc that ended in a squashing of nose. It was too good to last. A clubbed rifle descended on his head, and he was only dimly aware of being frogmarched off to the launch.
6
The crew left the glider behind, shoved their boat into deeper water, and revved it up. They left all the guardsmen slain or disabled, but took their own casualties along.
Everard sat on a bench on the plunging deck and stared with slowly clearing eyes as the shoreline dwindled. Deirdre wept on Van Sarawak’s shoulder, and the Venusian tried to console her. A chill noisy wind flung spindrift in their faces.
When two white men emerged from the deck-house, Everard’s mind was jarred back into motion. Not Asians after all. Europeans! And now when he looked closely, he saw the rest of the crew also had Caucasian features. The brown complexions were merely grease paint.
He stood up and regarded his new owners warily. One was a portly, middle-aged man of average height, in a red silk blouse and baggy white trousers and a sort of astrakhan hat; he was clean-shaven and his dark hair was twisted into a queue. The other was somewhat younger, a shaggy blond giant in a tunic sewn with copper links, legginged breeches, a leather cloak, and a purely ornamental horned helmet. Both wore revolvers at their belts and were treated deferentially by the sailors.
“What the devil?” Everard looked around once more. They were already out of sight of land, and bending north. The hull quivered with the haste of the engine, spray sheeted when the bows bit a wave.
The older man spoke first in Afallonian. Everard shrugged. Then the bearded Nordic tried, first in a completely unrecognizable dialect but afterward: “Taelan thu Cimbric?”
Everard, who knew several Germanic languages, took a chance, while Van Sarawak pricked up his Dutch ears. Deirdre huddled back, wide-eyed, too bewildered to move.
“Ja,” said Everard, “ein wenig.” When Goldi-locks looked uncertain, he amended it: “A little.”
“Ah, aen litt. Gode!” The big man rubbed his hands. “Ik halt Boierik Wulfilasson ok main gefreond heer erran Boleslav Arkonsky.”
It was no language Everard had ever heard of—couldn’t even be the original Cimbric, after all these centuries—but the Patrolman could follow it reasonably well. The trouble came in speaking; he couldn’t predict how it had evolved.
“What the hell erran thu maching, anyway?” he blustered. “Ik bin aen man auf Sirius—the stern Sirius, mit planeten ok all. Set uns gebach or willen be der Teufel to pay!”