“And Buleni even longer, often in hardship and danger,” Draganizu continued.
“The merrier for him,” Raor jested.
“If Sauvo, then, can’t be troubled to time his arrivals—”
Raor lifted a hand that Botticelli could have painted. Her dark-tressed head cocked. “Ah, I think that is he.”
Another male Exaltationist entered. His beauty was harsher than Draganizu’s. He wore an ordinary tunic and sandals. Raor leaned a little forward, mercurially intent. “Did you lock the door behind you?” she demanded. “I didn’t hear.”
“Of course,” Sauvo answered. “I’ve never forgotten, have I?” Discomfort crossed Draganizu’s visage. Maybe he had been absentminded in that respect. Once. Raor would have seen to it that he never was afterward. “Especially when the Patrol is on the prowl,” Sauvo added.
So, Everard thought, their garage for timecycles is in a Bluebeard room on this floor … toward the rear, since that’s where Sauvo came from. …
Draganizu half rose, sat back down, and asked anxiously, “It is, then? You have established it is active here-now?”
Sauvo took another stool; in the ancient world, chairs with backs were rare, mostly for royalty. He helped himself to wine and a fig. “Not to fear, camarado. Whatever clues they came upon, they’ve misread. They think the trouble spot is elsewhere, years uptime. They sent a man to inquire here-now merely in the interests of thoroughness.”
He related the story that Everard had told in the vihara. He got to Chandrakumar in prison and used a kyradex on him, the Patrolman realized. No secrets any more. But most of what Sauvo learned ain’t so. Thanks, Shalten.
“Another change-scheme!” Draganizu exclaimed.
“Ours will nullify it and its operators,” Raor murmured. “But first, yes, it would be interesting to learn more about them. Perhaps even to contact them—” Her words stole off into silence, like a snake after prey.
“First,” Draganizu said sharply, “we have the fact that this … Holbrook … broke free and is running loose.”
Raor recalled herself to immediacy. “At ease, at ease. We have his weapons and communication equipment.”
“When he doesn’t report in—”
“I doubt the Patrol expects to hear from him at once. Set him aside for the present, together with those conspirators. We have more urgent matters at hand.”
Draganizu turned to Sauvo and asked, “How did you obtain privacy for interrogation?”
“You haven’t heard?” His fellow was faintly surprised.
“I only got here a few minutes ago. I have been busy with affairs of my Nicomachus persona. Raor’s note said nothing but ‘Come.’”
Hand-delivered by a slave, Everard deduced. No radio. Maybe she feels confident still, but the “Holbrook” business has made her ultra-cautious.
Silken shoulders rose and fell. “I had persuaded Zoilus to arrange solitary detention for any prisoners taken in this matter,” Raor said. “I told him that my connections led me to believe they are dangerous spies.”
And when guards and prisoners at the hoosegow were mostly asleep, Sauvo used a timecycle to pop into the cell. Raor was willing to allow that much risk; she didn’t figure it was likely the Patrol had anyone in Bactra besides Chandrakumar and Holbrook, one now locked away, the other deprived of his gear and on the lam. Sauvo gave Chandrakumar a stun beam, clapped the kyradex on his head, and when he came to, interviewed him. Thoroughly.
I hope he left the little guy alive. Yes, he doubtless did. Why make the jailers wonder? What could Chandrakumar tell them tomorrow that’d show them he was anything but a lunatic?
Draganizu stared at Raor. “You do have him besotted, do you not?” he said.
“Him and several more,” Sauvo responded, while Raor demurely sipped her wine. He laughed. “The seething, jealous looks that Majordomo Xeniades gets! And I’m only supposed to be her employee, not her pimp.”
Ah. Sauvo is Xeniades, chief of the household staff. Worth remembering…. I sympathize with Zoilus and company. Wouldn’t I love to get milady in the sack myself? Everard’s grin twisted. Though I wouldn’t dare fall asleep in her arms. She might have a hypo of cyanide tucked away in those raven locks.
“The Greeks are holding Chandrakumar for us, then,” Draganizu said. “But what of the equipment that Holbrook had?”
“He left it behind when he went out, at the house of the man in whose company he arrived,” Raor explained. “That person is simply a local merchant. He was dismayed when the squad came to say his guest is a spy and confiscate the guest’s baggage. We have no reason to make further trouble for this Hipponicus, and in fact, obviously, it would be unwise.” That’s a relief! “As for the baggage, it is here.” Her smile curved feline. “That took a little persuasion too, but Zoilus obliged. He has his ways. I have passed instruments over the property. Most is of this era. Some contains Patrol apparatus.”
I guess she stowed it with the timecycles.
Raor set her goblet down and sat straight. Metal rang in the liquid tones. “It shows we must be warier than ever. Overleaping space-time to get access to the prisoner was taking a necessary chance.”
“Not a substantial one.” Sauvo presumably wanted to remind her, and perhaps inform Draganizu, that he had maintained this beforehand and that events had justified him. “Holbrook was no more than a courier, and of low grade. Physically formidable, but now his teeth are drawn, and it is clear that his intellect is limited.”
Thanks, buddy.
“Still,” Raor said, “we must track him down and dispose of him before he somehow gets in touch with others, or before the Patrol takes alarm and comes looking for him.”
“They won’t know where to look. They will need days merely to gather the first clues.”
“We need not help them,” Raor clipped. “If we can detect electronics, nucleonics, gravitronics, chronokinesis in action, so can they, and at much greater range. We must not give them any hint that any time travelers other than themselves are present. Between tonight and the climax, we use no more high technology. Is that understood?”
“Unless in emergency,” Sauvo persisted. Yeah, he’s trying to assert himself, trying not to be overwhelmed by the Varagan.
“That emergency would likely be so extreme that our only course is to abandon this whole effort and scuttle off.” Raor’s scorn softened. “Which would be a pity. It’s gone gloriously thus far.”
Draganizu had his own self-assertion to make, in his own more querulous style. “Glorious, pleasurable, for you.”
He got a look that could have frozen helium. “If you think I enjoy the attentions of Zoilus and his kind, you are welcome to them.”
Their nerves are wearing thin, after all the long underground toil. They’re mortal too. It encouraged.
Raor relaxed again, took up her wine, crooned, “I admit the puppeting of them has its interest.”
Evidently Draganizu reckoned it prudent to return to practicalities. “Do you even forbid radio? If we cannot call Buleni, how shall we coordinate action?”
Raor arched her brows. “Why, you shall carry our messages. Did we not make the arrangement precisely in order to have a communication line in reserve? Siege or no, the Bactrians will let the priest of Poseidon go out on business of his temple, and the Syrians will let him fare in peace. Buleni will see to it that they respect the temenos, whatever they do elsewhere.”
Sauvo stroked his chin. “Ye-es,” he mused aloud. The three must have been over this same ground and over it during the past year; but they weren’t so inhuman that they didn’t find comfort in repeating things to each other, and in their language it was quickly done. “An aide to King Antiochus can exert that sort of authority.”