One of the things that moved into the transposition chamber under cover of darkness was an armored car. A couple of squads of Spanish soldiers boarded the chamber, too. So did a man who looked like a lawyer. "You say they're loaded for bear," he told Annette. "Are they loaded for dinosaur?"
"I hope not," was all Annette said, because she wasn't sure. Her helmet and body armor were made to fit women in the Spanish Army. The releases she'd signed were made to fit the toughest court of law. Without signing them, she wouldn't have been able to get into the chamber.
Her parents had made it very plain they wished she were staying home. If it were up to them, they never would have signed the releases. But she was over eighteen, so they couldn't stop her. Her father's comment was, "Yes, you're of legal age. You know what that means? It means you're old enough to be stupid all by yourself."
"Instead of someone else being stupid for me?" Annette had thought that was the perfect comeback. Her father just rolled his eyes, so he must have been less impressed than she was.
"Are you ready, Miss Klein?" asked the man who looked like a lawyer. He was a lawyer, and worked for Crosstime Traffic. Even if she'd signed his releases, he didn't look happy to have her along. He went on, "Remember, you've agreed to follow the military commander's orders. If you become a casualty"—a nice, polite way to say get killed or maimed—"the publicity would be very bad." That mattered to him. Her health? She wouldn't have bet a dollar on it. But he was coming along, too. Whatever risks she took, he took them with her.
That made her answer him politely: "I remember, Mr. Guerrero. I'll play by the rules." Unless things go really wrong. But if they do, nobody else will be playing by the rules, either.
Somebody closed the door, sealing the transposition chamber off from the outside world. Like most chambers, it had a human along to back up the computer. Most of the time, the human couldn't do much if the electronics went haywire. From what Annette had heard, it wasn't like that here. They were feeling for the alternate that held the manor. They had a good notion of where it lay among so many others. Its world sprang from one where Rome lost the Samnite Wars in the fourth century BCE. No one dominated the Mediterranean in that sheaf of alternates. Spain was split between people like Basques and the descendants of colonists from Carthage. Just where in the sheaf the right alternate lay ... the human operator would, with luck, be able to tell.
The operator looked up from the monitor she'd plugged into the chamber's electronics. "We're on the way," she said in English, after what was probably the same thing in Spanish.
If she hadn't said so, Annette wouldn't have known. The transposition chamber didn't feel as if it was going anywhere. It was, but you couldn't tell till you got there.
The Spanish lieutenant colonel in charge of things military came over to remind Annette of what she'd promised. She promised all over again. Why not? It took up some duration—time didn't really exist while the chamber was traveling, but it felt as if it did.
As they got close, the operator used the manual controls. Except in training videos, Annette had never seen anybody do that. She wondered if anybody else had who'd lived through it. Not many people had—she was sure of that.
Frowning, the operator twisted a knob ever so slightly. "We're just about there," she said. "I'm going to drop us into reality. If it's the wrong alternate, we'll try again."
"If it's the right one, they're liable to start shooting at us," the Spanish officer said. On that cheerful note, the chamber returned to the timelines.
One of the soldiers wore headphones along with the rest of his gear. He said something excited in Spanish. I should have got a course through the implant, Annette thought. Then I'd know what was going on. But she hadn't had time. Since escaping, she'd barely had time to breathe. The lieutenant colonel translated for her: "He says he is picking up wireless phone signals."
'This is the right alternate, then." Excitement of her own tingled through Annette. "In this sheaf, they wouldn't have invented them on their own."
"Si, " the Spanish officer said. He called orders in his own language. The transposition chamber's door slid open. Soldiers scrambled out and . . . what was the military word? They deployed, that was what they did. The armored car rolled out. The lieutenant colonel gave Annette what was almost a bow. "If you will be so kind as to come with me, Miss Klein . . ."
Stay with me. I'll make sure you don't get into mischief. That was what he meant. Annette didn't know what she could do about it, though. She nodded to him. "Let's go."
Her body armor made her top-heavy. She almost fell when she went down the ramp. The officer steadied her. He had to be used to wearing the stuff. The soldiers and the armored car were already heading toward where the manor would be. The distant skyline looked the same as it did when she set out from the home timeline. Someone had taken Madrid away, though.
Someone took away my freedom, she thought angrily. Now she had the chance to help make sure that wouldn't happen to anybody else. She hurried along with the lieutenant colonel.
Jacques was digging out the roadbed when one of the men who spoke Dumnorix's language screamed. He hadn't hurt himself—it wasn't that kind of scream. He stared off to the east, his blue eyes open wider than any eyes Jacques had ever seen. "A monster!" he shrieked, and ran back towards the manor.
He wasn't the only one who ran. Jacques felt like running himself. The monster looked something like what he imagined an elephant would look like. At least, that long snout reminded him of an elephant's trunk, even if it was at the top middle of the thing and not at the front. But shouldn't a trunk be wiggly? This was stiff and still, almost like . . . the barrel of a cannon?
When that thought occurred to him, he also noticed the thing had wheels, not legs. But it moved by itself, without horses or mules or oxen to pull it. And it moved faster than animals could have hauled it. How was that possible?
He glanced over to the guards. They could do all kinds of things he hadn't thought possible. What did they make of this— mechanical?—monster? It wasn't strange to them. He saw that right away. He also saw all of them looking as if they'd just been kicked in the belly. They didn't think the monster was good news, not even a little bit.
Their horrified expressions made hope blossom inside Jacques. Khadija had said her own people would think the guards and the masters were criminals. She'd said her own people could take care of them, too. She'd sounded as if she knew what she was talking about. And maybe she did. Maybe she did!
Men came forward along with the monster. For a bad moment, Jacques feared they were more guards, for they wore mottled clothing, too. Did the elephant with wheels belong to the people who ran the manor, then? The guards didn't think so. That was plain. And then he saw that the newcomers didn't use quite the same kind of mottling. Theirs was a little browner than the guards', with smaller, more jagged splotches. Did that mean they served a different lord?
It evidently did. One of the guards raised his musket to his shoulder and fired several shots in the direction of the wheeled elephant. The soldiers coming up with it all threw themselves to the ground. When they lay flat, they almost disappeared against the dirt and bushes.
A couple of those bullets made sparks clang off the horseless cart. So it's armored in iron, is it? Jacques thought. That was clever. And it spat fire at the guards—not from the cannon, but from a smaller gun next to it that Jacques hadn't even noticed.
He ducked down when bullets started cracking past. At least he'd been under gunfire before. A lot of the slaves hadn't, and had no idea what to do. When the shooting stopped, Jacques cautiously looked up. Sure as the devil, one of the slaves was hurt. He lay on the ground clutching his leg and howling. The wound didn't look too bad. Jacques was glad to see that, anyhow.