Выбрать главу

Nonetheless, the technical accomplishments of the Phoenicians deserved admiration. Over breakfast, which was also a sparse meal, lentils cooked with leeks and accompanied by hardtack, Chaim mentioned the waterworks. Rain-catching cisterns were helpful but insufficient. Hiram didn’t want Tyre dependent on boats from Usu, nor linked to the mainland by an extended aqueduct that could serve an enemy as a bridge. Like the Sidonians before him, he had a project in train that would draw fresh water from springs beneath the sea.

And then, of course, there was the skill, the accumulated knowledge and ingenuity, behind dyeworks and glassworks, not to mention ships less frail than they looked, since in the future they would ply as far as Britain…

“The Purple Empire, somebody in our century called Phoenicia,” Everard mused. “Almost makes me wonder if Merau Varagan has a thing for that color. Didn’t W. H. Hudson call Uruguay the Purple Land?” His laugh clanked. “No, I’m being foolish. The murex dyes generally have more red than blue in them. Besides, Varagan was doing his dirty work a lot farther north than Uruguay when we collided ‘earlier.’ And so far I’ve no proof he’s involved in this case; only a hunch.”

“What happened?” asked Yael. Her glance sought him across the table, through sunlight that slanted in a doorway open to the garden court.

“No matter now.”

“Are you certain?” Chaim persisted. “Conceivably your experience will call something to our minds that will be a clue. Anyhow, we do get starved for outside news in a post like this.”

“Especially adventures as wonderful as yours,” Yael added.

Everard smiled wryly. “To quote still another writer, adventure is somebody else having a hell of a tough time a thousand miles away,” he said. “And when the stakes are high, like here, that really makes a situation feel bad.” He paused. “Well, no reason not to spin you the yarn, though in very sketchy form, because the background’s complicated. Uh, if a servant isn’t going to come in soon, I’d like to light my pipe. And is any of that lovely clandestine coffee left in the pot?”

—He settled himself, rolled smoke across his tongue, let the rising warmth of the day bake his bones after the night’s nippiness. “My mission was to South America, the Colombia region, late in the year 1826. Under Simon Bolivar’s leadership, the patriots had cast off Spanish rule, but they still had plenty troubles of their own. That included worries about the Liberator himself. He’d put through a constitution for Bolivia that gave him extraordinary powers as lifetime president; was he going to turn into a Napoleon and bring all the new republics under his heel? The military commander in Venezuela, which was then a part of Colombia, or New Granada as it called itself—he revolted. Not that this Jose Paez was such an altruist; a harsh bastard, in fact.

“Oh, never mind details. I don’t remember them well myself any more. Essentially, Bolivar, who was a Venezuelan by birth, made a march from Lima to Bogota. Only took him a couple of months, which was fast in those days over that terrain. Arriving, he assumed martial-law presidential powers, and moved on into Venezuela against Paez. Bloodshed was becoming heavy there.

“Meanwhile Patrol agents, monitoring the history, turned up indications that all was not kosher. (Um-m, pardon me.) Bolivar wasn’t behaving quite like the selfless humanitarian that his biographers, by and large, described. He’d acquired a friend from… somewhere… whom he trusted. This man’s advice had, on occasion, been brilliant. Yet it seemed as if he might be turning into Bolivar’s evil genius. And the biographies never mentioned him…

“I was among the Unattached operatives dispatched to investigate. This was because I, before ever hearing of the Patrol, had kicked around some in those boonies. That gave me a slight special sense for what to do. I could never pass myself off as a Latin American, but I could be a Yankee soldier of fortune, in part starry-eyed over the liberation, in part hoping somehow to cash in on it—and, mainly, though macho enough, free of the kind of arrogance that would have put those proud people off.

“It’s a long and generally tedious story. Believe me, my friends, 99 percent of an operation in the field amounts to patient collection of dull and usually irrelevant facts, in between interminable periods of hurry-up-and-wait. Let’s say that, aided by a good deal of luck, I managed to infiltrate, make my connections, pass out my bribes, gather my informers and my evidence. At last there was no reasonable doubt. This obscurely originating Blasco Lopez had to be from the future.

“I called in our troops and we raided the house where he was staying in Bogota. Most of those we collared were harmless local people, hired as servants, though what they had to tell proved useful. Lopez’s mistress, accompanying him, turned out to be his associate. She told us a lot more, in exchange for comfortable accommodations when she’d go to the exile planet. But the ringleader himself had broken free and escaped.

“One man on horseback, headed for the Cordillera Oriental that rises beyond the town—one man like ten thousand genuine Creoles—we couldn’t go after him on time hoppers. The search could too damn easily get too damn noticeable. Who knew what effect that might have? The conspirators had already made the timestream unstable…

“I grabbed a horse, a couple of remounts, some jerky and vitamin pills for myself, and set off in pursuit.”

Wind boomed hollowly down the mountainside. Grass and low, scattered shrubs trembled beneath its chill. Up ahead, they gave way to naked rock. Right, left, behind, peaks reared into a blue bleakness. A condor wheeled huge, on watch for any death. Snowfields on the heights above glowed beneath a declining sun.

A musket cracked. At its distance, the noise it made was tiny, though echoes flew. Everard heard the bullet buzz. Close! He hunched down in the saddle and spurred his steed onward.

Varagan can’t really expect to drop me at this range, passed through him. What, then? Does he hope I’ll slow down? If so, if he gains a little on me, what use is that to him? What goal has he got?

His enemy still led him by half a mile, but Everard could see how yonder animal lurched along, exhausted. To get on Varagan’s trail had taken some while, going from this peon to that sheepherder and asking if a man of the given description had ridden by. However, Varagan had only the single horse, which he must spare if it was not to collapse under him. After Everard found the traces, a wilderness-trained eye had readily been able to follow them, and the pace of the hunt picked up.

It was also known that Varagan had fled bearing no more than a muzzle-loader. He’d been spending powder and balls pretty freely ever since the Patrolman hove in view. Since he was a fast recharger and an excellent shot, it did have its delaying effect. But what refuge was in these wastes? Varagan appeared to be making for a particular crag. It was conspicuous, not only high but its shape suggestive of a castle tower. It was no fortress, though. If Varagan took shelter behind it, Everard could use the blaster he carried to bring the rock molten down upon his head.

Maybe Varagan wasn’t aware the agent had such a weapon. Impossible. Varagan was a monster, yes, but not a fool.

Everard pulled down his hatbrim and drew his poncho tight against the wind. He didn’t reach for the blaster, no point in that yet, but as if by instinct, his left hand dropped to the flintlock pistol and saber at his hip. They were mainly part of his costume, intended to make him an authority figure to the inhabitants, but there was an odd comfort in their massiveness.

Having reined in to shoot, Varagan continued straight on uphill, this time without lingering to reload. Everard brought his own horse from trot to canter and closed the gap further. He kept alert—not tensed, but alert against contingencies, ready to swing aside or even jump down behind the beast. Nothing happened, just that lonesome trek on through the cold. Could Varagan have fired his last ammunition? Have a care, Manse, old son. The sparse alpine grass ended, save for tufts between boulders, and rock rang beneath hoofs.