“Then where would I have come from?” Impishness flickered: “Hardly from under a cabbage leaf!” and died away.
“From nowhere. From nothing. Cause-and-effect doesn’t apply. It’s sort of like quantum mechanics, scaled up from the subatomic to the human level.”
Almost audibly, tension crackled. Everard sought to bleed it off. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Things aren’t that delicately balanced in practice. The continuum is seldom easy to distort. For instance, in the case of you and your parents, your common sense would be a protective factor. Prospective time travelers are pretty carefully screened before they’re allowed to take off unsupervised. And most of what they do makes no long-range difference. Does it matter whether you or I did or did not attend a play at the Globe Theater one of the times when Shakespeare was on stage? Even if, oh, if you did cancel your parents’ marriage and your sister’s life—with all due respect, I don’t think world history would notice. Her husband-who-would-have-been would marry somebody else, and the somebody else would … happen … to be such a person that after a few generations the gene pool would be the same as it would have been anyway. The same famous descendant would be born, several hundred years from now. And so on. Do you follow?”
“You’re throwing me curve balls till it’s my head that’s spinning. But, oh, I did learn a little about relativity. World lines, our tracks through space-time. They’re like a mesh of tough rubber bands, right? Pull on them, and they’ll try to spring back to their proper, uh, configuration.”
He whistled softly. “You do catch on fast.”
She wasn’t relieved in the least. “However, there are events, people, situations where the balance is … unstable. Aren’t there? Like if some well-meaning idiot kept Booth from shooting Lincoln, maybe that’d change everything afterward?”
He nodded.
She sat straight, shivering, and gripped her knees. “Don Luis wanted—he wants to get hold of modern weapons—go back to Perú in the sixteenth century and … take charge of the Conquest, then stamp out the Protestants in Europe and drive the Muslims out of Palestine—”
“You’ve got the idea.”
Everard leaned farther forward and caught her hands in his. She clung. Hers were cold. “Don’t be afraid, Wanda,” he urged. “Yes, it is terrifying. It could turn out that you and I never had this talk today, that we and our whole world never were, not even a dream in somebody’s sleep. It’s harder to imagine and harder to take than the idea of personal annihilation when we die. How well I know. But it isn’t going to be, Wanda. Castelar is a fluke. By a freak of chance, he got hold of a timecycle and learned how to operate it. Well, he’s one man alone, otherwise ignorant; he barely escaped from here last night; the Patrol is on his trail. We’ll nail him, Wanda, and repair any damage he may have done. That’s what we’re for. Our record is pretty damn good, if I do say so myself. And I do.”
She gulped. “Okay, I believe you, Manse.” He felt warmth begin returning to the fingers between his.
“Good girl. You’re helping us a lot, you know. Your account of your experience was excellent, full of clues to what he’ll try next. I expect to gather more hints as new questions occur to me. Quite likely you’ll have suggestions of your own.”
Further reassurance: “That’s why I’m being this open with you. As I told you earlier, ordinarily it’s forbidden to reveal to outsiders that time travel goes on. More than forbidden; we’re conditioned against it, we’re unable to. But these are rather special circumstances, and I’m what they call an Unattached agent, with authority to waive the rules.”
She withdrew her hands, gently but firmly. Cool customer, he thought. I don’t mean frigid. Independent. Guts, backbone, brains. At twenty-one years of age. Her look upon him cleared, and the slightly husky voice was again steady, unstrained. “Thanks. Thanks more than I can say. You’re rather special yourself, you know?”
“Naw. I simply happen to be the operative working on this case.” He smiled. “Too bad you didn’t draw a hotshot glamour boy, like maybe from the Planetary Engineers milieu.”
“The what?” She didn’t wait for a reply. “I gather the Patrol recruits in all periods.”
“Well, not exactly. Prior to the scientific revolution around 1600 A.D., persons capable of imagining the idea are few and far between. Castelar’s an extraordinary guy.”
“How did they find you?”
“I answered an ad and took some tests, back in—well, it was a while ago.” Not to say “1957” flat out. Why not? Because she doesn’t have the whole background. She’d think of me as ancient…. And why should that matter, Everard, you old goat? “Recruits are found in many different ways.” He stirred. “Look, I realize you have ten million questions, and I’d like to answer them for you, and maybe later I can. But right now, could we get on with business? I want more details of what happened. Time is short.”
“Really?” she murmured. “I thought you could double back to a split second before or after any moment.”
Shrewd, shrewd, “Sure we can. But—well, we in the corps have only so much lifespan to give. Sooner or later the Old Man is bound to catch up with each of us. And the Patrol has too much history to guard; we’re badly understaffed. And, okay, I personally have trouble sitting still like this when action is pending. I want to … to work my way to that point on my personal world line where the case is closed and I know we’re safe.”
“I see,” she said quickly. Then: “It doesn’t begin or end with Don Luis, does it?”
“No,” Everard admitted. “He acquired a timecycle because some bandits out of the distant future tried to hijack Atahuallpa’s ransom on a night when he was there. Those bandits are the really dangerous characters. For the present, though, let’s track down our Conquistador.”
209 B.C.
Like most well-to-do Hellenistic houses this far east, that of Hipponicus mingled Classical simplicity with Oriental lavishness. In the dining room, gilt molding framed walls on which frescoes depicted fanciful birds, beasts, and plants, gaudily hued. The same flowing lines graced the bronze candelabra whose tapers took over as daylight faded. Incense sweetened the air. Now in summer, a door stood open on the roses and fishpond of the inner court. However, the company reclined in Attic fashion, two on a couch, at a pair of small tables, wearing white tunics with little ornament. They watered their wine and ate food that was good but not elaborate, soup and soft bread followed by a dish of lamb, barley, and vegetables, lightly seasoned. The presence of any meat was somewhat special. Dessert was fresh fruit.
Normally the merchant would have made his first supper at home a family occasion, the only guest his friend Meander. The next evening would have seen a stag party complete with girls engaged to play music, dance, and otherwise entertain. This time circumstances were different. He needed an early and accurate briefing on them. The message he sent ahead bade his wife invite certain men at once. Male slaves waited on them.
He counted for enough in city affairs that the two who were able to come on such short notice did. Besides, what he had to tell from the northern frontier might be useful. They lay opposite him and Everard and, after the amenities, got directly to the way things were. It was not pleasant.
“—the latest courier,” growled Creon. “The army should get here day after tomorrow.” He was a burly, scar-faced man, second in command of the garrison left behind when King Euthydemus departed.
Hipponicus blinked. “The whole expeditionary force?”
“Minus the dead,” said Creon grimly.
“But what about the rest of the country?” asked Hipponicus, Shalten. He had hinterland properties. “If most of our men are bottled in this one city, Antiochus’ troops can plunder and burn everywhere else, unhindered.”