The other man rose in a future-military fashion and snapped a salute. “An honor, sir,” he said. Nonetheless, his rank was not much below Everard’s. He was responsible for temporal activities throughout the Hebrew lands, between the birth of David and the fall of Judah. Tyre might be more important in secular history, but it would never draw a tenth of the visitors from uptime that Jerusalem and its environs did. The position he held told Everard immediately that he was both a man of action and a scholar of profundity.
“I’ll have Hanai bring in refreshments, and then tell the household to stay out of here and not let anybody in,” Yael proposed.
Everard and Korten spent those minutes getting an acquaintance started. The latter was born in twenty-ninth century New Edom on Mars. While he didn’t brag, Everard gathered that his computer analyses of early Semitic texts had joined his exploits as a spaceman in the Second Asteroid War to attract Patrol recruiters. They sounded him out, got him to take tests which proved him trustworthy, revealed the existence of the organization, accepted his enlistment, trained him—the usual procedure. What was less usual was his level of competence. In many ways, his job was more demanding than Everard’s.
“You’ll understand that this situation is especially alarming to my office,” he said when the foursome had settled down by themselves. “If Tyre is destroyed, Europe may take decades to show any major effects, the rest of the world centuries—millennia, in the Americas or Australasia. But it will be an immediate catastrophe for Solomon’s kingdom. Lacking Hiram’s support and the prestige it confers, he probably can’t hold his tribes together long; and without Tyre at their backs, the Philistines won’t be slow to seek revenge. Judaism, Yahwistic monotheism, is new and frail, still half pagan. My extrapolation is that it won’t survive either. Yahweh will sink to being one more character in a crude and mutable pantheon.”
“And there goes a good deal of Classical civilization,” Everard added. “Judaism influenced philosophy as well as events among both the Alexandrine Greeks and the Romans. Obviously, no Christianity, therefore no Western civilization, or Byzantine, or any of their successors. No telling what will arise instead.” He thought of another altered world, which he had helped abort, and a wound twinged that he would bear throughout his life.
“Yes, of course,” said Korten impatiently. “The point is, granted that the resources of the Patrol are finite—and, yes, spread terribly thin over a continuum that has many nexuses as critical as this one—I don’t believe it should concentrate all available effort on rescuing Tyre. If that happens, and we fail, everything is lost; the chances of our being able to restore the original world become vanishingly small. No, let us establish a strong standby—personnel, organization, plans—in Jerusalem, ready to minimize the effects there. The less that Solomon’s kingdom suffers, the less powerful the change vortex will be. That should give us more likelihood of damping it out altogether.”
“Do you mean to, to write Tyre off?” Yael asked, dismayed.
“No, certainly not. But I do want us to have some insurance against its loss.”
“That in itself is playing fast and loose with history.” Chaim’s tone trembled.
“I know. But extreme situations call for extreme measures. I came here first to discuss it with you, but please be advised that I intend to press for this policy in the highest echelons.” Korten turned to Everard. “Sir, I regret the need to reduce further the slender resources you have at your command, but my judgment is that we must.”
“They aren’t slender,” the American grumbled, “they’re downright emaciated.” Following the preliminary legwork, what has the Patrol got here other than me?
Does that mean the Danellians know I’ll succeed? Or does it mean they’ll agree with Korten —even, that Tyre is “already” doomed? If 1 fail—if I die—
He straightened, reached into his pouch for pipe and tobacco, and said: “My lady and gentlemen, this could too easily turn into a shouting match. Let’s talk it over like reasonable people. The beginning of that is to assemble what hard facts we have, and look at them. Not that I’ve collected many so far.”
The debate went on for hours. It was afternoon before Yael suggested they break for food. “Thanks,” Everard said, “but I think I’d better get back to the palace. Otherwise Hiram might suspect I’m loafing, at his expense. I’ll check in again tomorrow, okay?”
The truth was that he had no appetite for the usual heavy meal of the day, roast lamb or whatever else it would be. He’d rather get a slab of bread and a hunk of goat cheese at some foodstall, while he tried to sort out this new problem. (Thank technology again. Without the gene-tailored protective microbes the Patrol medics had implanted in him, he’d never have dared touch local stuff that wasn’t cooked dead. And vaccinations against every sort of disease that came and went through the ages would long since have overloaded his immune system.)
Twentieth-century style, he shook hands all around. Korten might be wrong, or he might not be, but he was pleasant, able, and well-intentioned. Everard went forth into a street that brooded and simmered beneath the sun.
Pum waited. He rose less exuberantly than before. An odd gravity was on the thin young face. “Master,” he breathed, “can we talk unheard?”
They found themselves a tavern where they were the only customers. In actuality, it was a lean-to roof shading a small area on which cushions lay; you sat cross-legged, and the landlord fetched clay goblets of wine from inside his home. Everard paid him in beads, after desultory haggling. Foot traffic swarmed and babbled up and down the street on which the shop intruded, but at this hour men were generally busied. They’d relax here, those who could afford to, when cooling shadows had fallen between the walls.
Everard sipped the thin, sour drink and grimaced. In his opinion, nobody understood wine before about the seventeenth century A.D. Beer was worse. No matter. “Speak, son,” he said. “And you needn’t waste breath or time calling me the radiance of the universe and offering to lie down for me to wipe my feet on. What have you been doing?”
Pum gulped, shivered, leaned forward. “O lord of mine,” he began, and his voice broke in an adolescent squeak, “your underling has dared take much upon his head. Upbraid me, beat me, have me whipped, whatever your will may be, if I have transgressed. But never, I beg, never think I have sought anything but your welfare. My sole wish is to serve you as far as my poor abilities allow.”
A brief grin flashed. “You see, you pay so well!”
Soberness returned: “You are a strong man, a man of great powers, in whose service I may hope to flourish. Now for that, I must prove myself worthy. Any lout can carry your baggage or lead you to a pleasure house. What can Pum-mairam do, over and above this, that my lord will wish to keep him as a retainer? Well, what does my lord require? What does he need?
“Master, it pleases you to pose as a rude tribesman, but from the very first I had a feeling there was far more to you. Of course you would not confide in a chance-met guttersnipe. So, without knowledge of you, how could I tell what use I might be?”
Yeah, Everard thought, in his kind of hand-to-mouth existence, he had to develop a pretty keen intuition, or else go under. He kept his tone mild: “I am not angry. But tell me what you did.”