“You say that soon none will.”
“Not from the future, most likely. A few may have reason to jump here from somewhere else in the present or the past.”
“But you tell me visits will dwindle till we have none. My people are bound to notice and wonder.”
“Stall them. Listen, if we resolve this and restore the proper course of history, the hiatus will never have happened. As far as Patrollers stationed here are concerned, everything will always have been normal.” Or what passes for normal along the twisting time lanes.
“But I will have had quite a different experience.”
“Up until the turning-point moment, sometime later this year. Then, if we’re lucky, an agent will come and tell you it’s all okay. You won’t remember anything you did thenceforth, because ‘now’ you won’t do those things. Instead, you’ll simply proceed with your life and work as you did before today.”
“You mean that while I am in the wrong world, I must know that everything I do and see and think will become nothing?”
“If we succeed. I know, the prospect for you isn’t quite pleasant, but it’s not really like death. We count on your sense of duty.”
“Oh, I will carry on as best I can, but—Brr!”
“We may fail,” Everard warned. “In that case, you’ll join the other survivors of the Patrol when they meet to decide what to do.” Will I be there myself? Very possibly not. Killed in action. I almost hope so. It’ll be a nightmare world for our sort.
He thrust away memories of his own that no longer referred to anything real. He mustn’t think about Wanda, either. “I’m on my way,” he said. “Good luck to us both.”
“God be with us,” Koch replied low. They shook hands.
I’ll skip any prayers. I’m too bewildered already.
Everard met Novak in the garage and took the rear saddle of a hopper. The Czech had been studying a geographical display on the control board. He set destination coordinates and activated.
1137 α A. D.
Immediately the vehicle poised on antigravity, high aloft. Stars gleamed, a brilliant horde such as you rarely saw in the late twentieth century. The circle of the world below was divided between sheening water and a rugged land mass full of darknesses. The air lay cold and quiet, not a motor anywhere on Earth.
Novak set his optical for light amplification and magnification and peered downward. “Quite deserted, sir,” he deemed. He had already scouted ahead and found this site.
Everard studied it likewise. It was a ravine in one of the mountains that formed a semicircle behind the narrow plain around the bay on which Palermo stood. Terrain in the vicinity was steep, rocky, nurturing only scrub growth, therefore doubtless left alone by shepherds and hunters. “You’ll wait here?” he inquired needlessly.
“Yes, sir, until I get further orders.” It was equally needless to say that Novak would duck elsewhere to eat and sleep, returning within minutes, and would disappear should he notice anybody headed his way in spite of the uninviting surroundings. He’d be back as soon as possible.
“Good soldier.” Who does what he’s told and keeps any inconvenient questions behind his teeth. “First bring me to the highway. Fly low. I want to know how to find you in case I have to.”
That would be if, for some reason, he couldn’t use his communicator. It was housed in what looked like a religious medallion hung around his neck under his clothes. The range ought to be adequate, but you never knew. (You dared not foreknow.) Novak was well-armed, in addition to the stun pistol that every cycle had in its luggage box. Everard, though, couldn’t be, without risking trouble with the local authorities. At least, he couldn’t overtly be. He did carry a knife like most men, a utensil for eating and odd jobs; a staff; and a variety of martial skills. Anything more might make somebody too curious.
The cycle flitted a couple of yards above the mountainside, presently above goat trails and footpaths, till it reached the flatlands and rose to avoid a peasant village. Dogs might take alarm and wake sleepers. Without artificial light to choke off night vision, people saw astonishingly well after dark. Everard fixed landmarks firmly in his mind. Novak glided back down to hover above the coast road. “Let me advance you to dawn, sir,” he suggested. “There is an inn, the Cock and Bull, two kilometers west. Whoever spies you ought to suppose you spent the night there and set off early.”
Everard whistled. “That name’s too eerily appropriate.”
“Sir?”
“Never mind.”
Novak touched his controls. The east went pale. Everard sprang to the ground. “Good hunting, sir,” Novak bade.
“Thanks. Auf Wiedersehen.” Machine and rider vanished. Everard set off in the direction of sunrise.
The road was dirt, rough with ruts and holes, but winter rains had not yet: turned it into a mire. When day broke, he saw that a hint of green had begun to relieve the dustiness of plowlands, the tawniness of mountains. At a distance, to his left and ahead, shimmered the sea. After a while he made out a few sails, tiny upon it. Mariners generally fared by day, hugging coasts, and eschewed voyages of any length this late in the year. However, along Sicily you were never far from a safe harbor, and the Normans had cleared these waters of pirates.
The countryside appeared prosperous, too. Houses and sheds clustered in the middle of fields cultivated by their tenants, cottages mostly of rammed earth below thatch roofs but well made, gaily decorated upon their whitewash. Orchards were everywhere, olive, fig, citrus, chestnut, apple, even date palms planted by the Saracens when they held this island. He passed a couple of parish churches and glimpsed, afar, massive buildings that must be a monastery, perhaps an abbey.
As time and miles fell behind him, more and more traffic came onto the road. Mainly the people were peasants, men in smock coats and narrow trousers, women in coarse gowns hemmed well above their footgear, children in whatever, burdens on heads or shoulders or diminutive donkeys. They were mostly short, dark, vivacious, descended from aboriginal tribes, Phoenician and Greek colonists, Roman and Moorish conquerors, more recently and casually traders or warriors out of mainland Italy, Normandy, the south of France, Iberia. Doubtless many, perhaps the majority, were serfs, but nobody acted abused. They chattered, gesticulated, laughed, exploded into indignation and profanity, grew as quickly cheerful again. Others mingled, peddlers making their rounds, the occasional priest or monk telling his beads, individuals less identifiable.
News of the king’s death had not dampened spirits. Possibly most hadn’t yet heard. In any case, such personages and such events were as a rule remote, nearly unreal, to folk who seldom went more than a day’s walk from wherever they were born. History was something to be endured, war, piracy, plague, taxes, tribute, forced labor, lives shattered without warning or meaning.
The common man in the twentieth century was more widely, if more shallowly, aware of his world; but did he have any more say in his fate?
Everard strode amidst a bow wave and wake of attention. At home he stood big; here he loomed, and wholly foreign. His garments were of ordinary cut and material for a wayfarer or townsman, tunic falling halfway to the knees above hose, cap trailing a long tail down his back, knife and purse at the belt, stout shoes, colors fairly subdued; but they were not quite of any regional style. In his right hand swung a staff; on his left shoulder hung a bundle of small possessions. He’d skipped shaving, beards being usual, and sported a respectable growth; but his stiff brown hair wouldn’t soon reach below his ears.
People stared and commented. Some hailed him. He replied affably, in a thick accent, without slackening his pace. Nobody tried to detain him. That might not be safe. Besides, he seemed legitimate, a stranger who’d landed at Marsala or Trapani and was bound east on some errand, very likely a pilgrimage. One saw quite a few such.