No wonder X left a warning. Maybe heesh was telling every Patrolman, “Sheer off. Forget me. Save yourself.”
Tamberly pressed her lips together. I repeat, we’ll see about that.
As if the sun had suddenly risen: Yes! We’ll see.
The sun did rise, standing at noon one year earlier. Gardeners were at work around the message, raking, pruning, sweeping.
Ten years earlier, brightly clad men and darkly clad women promenaded among beds in a simple geometrical array.
Tamberly flung a laugh at the wind. “Okay, we’ve got you bracketed.”
The skipping, blink-blink-blink, sun and rain, actions and configurations of people, dizzied her. She ought to go slower. No, she was too wired. Of course, she needn’t check every month of every year. The emblem. The not-emblem. The emblem again. Okay, they tore out the old stuff in March 1984 and the new was doing well in June—
Toward the end, she proceeded day by day, and knew it would have to become hour by hour, at last minute by minute. Fatigue weighted bones and made eyeballs smolder. She withdrew, found a meadow on a forested Dordogne hillside where nobody else was near, ate and drank of her supplies, soaked up sunshine, finally slept.
Return to the job. She had grown quite steady, coolly watchful.
25 March 1984, 1337 hours. Gray weather, low clouds, wind noisy across fields and in trees not yet leafed, slight spatters of rain. (Had the weather been the same this day in the destroyed world? Probably not. There, humans had cut down the vast American forests, plowed the plains, filled skies and rivers with chemicals. They also invented liberty, eradicated smallpox, sent spacecraft aloft.) Two men paced over the stripped and trenched garden. One was in a gold-and-scarlet robe, with something halfway between a crown and a miter on his head. The other, at his side, wore the coat and baggy pants Tamberly had seen elsewhere. He was the taller, lean and gray-haired. Behind them stepped six of the liveried soldiers, rifles at port.
For minutes Tamberly watched, till the knowledge crystallized in her: Yes, they’re discussing the exact plan of the new arrangement.
Here goes. For broke.
She’d met danger before, sometimes purposely. Now was the same. Everything slowed down, the world became a dancing mosaic of details but she plucked forth those she needed, fear scuttled out of her way, she aimed herself and shot.
Cycle and rider appeared six feet before the pair. “Time Patrol!” Tamberly yelled, perhaps needlessly. “To me, quick!” She worked the stun pistol. The robed man crumpled. That gave her a clear field for the soldiers.
The lean man Stood stupefied. “Hurry!” she cried. He lurched forward. A guard brought rifle down, aimed, fired. The crack went flat through the wind. The lean man staggered.
Tamberly left her vehicle. He fell into her arms. She dragged him back. A buzz passed her head. She lowered him across the front saddle, vaulted into the buddy seat, leaned over his body to the controls. Now we skite after help. A third bullet spanged and whined off the metal.
18,244 B. C.
Everard left his hopper in the garage and started for his room. Some who had been at Rignano were appearing too. Most had gone elsewhere, housing being limited at any single post. All would stand by till success had been confirmed. Those who were staying at the Pleistocene lodge made for the common room, exuberant and loud, to celebrate. Everard wasn’t in that mood. He wanted merely a long hot shower, a long stiff drink, and sleep. A night’s forgetfulness. Tomorrow and its memories would arrive bloody soon enough.
Shouts and laughter pursued him down the hall. He turned a corner, and there she was.
They both jarred to a halt. “I thought I heard—” she began. She sped toward him. “Manse, oh, Manse!”
The collision nearly bowled him over, in his condition. They caught hold of each other. Mouth sought mouth. It was a while before they came up for air.
“I thought you were gone,” he groaned against her cheek. Her hair smelled like sunshine. “I thought you must have been trapped in the false world and you’d … go out … the light turned off … when it did.”
“I’m sorry,” she said as unevenly. “I didn’t stop to think you’d worry. Figured, instead, you w-would need time to find out things, get organized, without us underfoot. So I jumped to a m-month after I’d left here. Been waiting two days, so scared about you.”
“Like me about you.” Understanding broke upon him. Still holding her by the waist, he stepped back a pace and looked into the blue eyes. Slowly, he asked, “What do you mean, ‘us’?”
“Why, Keith Denison and me. He’s told me you’re friends. I hauled him clear and brought him—Manse, what’s wrong?”
His hands fell to his sides. “Are you telling me you found yourself in an obviously altered future and stayed?”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“What they taught you at the Academy.” His voice rose. “Couldn’t you be bothered to remember? What every other agent and civilian traveler who arrived in the changed world had the elementary common sense to do, if conditions didn’t prevent. Hop straight back to the departure point, keep your mouth shut till you could report it to the nearest Patrol brass, and follow whatever orders you were given. You fluffhead,” he raged, “if you’d gotten stuck there, nobody would ever have come after you. That world doesn’t exist any more. You wouldn’t have! I assumed you’d had bad luck, not that you were an idiot.”
Whitening, she clenched her fists. “I m-m-meant to bring you a report. Information. It might have helped you, mightn’t it? And I, I did save Keith. Now you can go to hell.”
The defiance collapsed. She shivered, struggled against tears, and stammered, “No, I’m sorry, I guess it was a, a breach of discipline, but my training and experience didn’t cover anything like this—” Stiffening: “No. No excuses. Sir, I did wrong.”
His own wrath vanished. “Oh, God, Wanda. You’re in the right. I shouldn’t have barked at you. It’s just I’d taken you for lost and—” He managed a smile. “No officer worth his salt farts around about regs when breaking them’s led to success. You did save my old pal from becoming nothing? I’m going to put a commendation in your file, Specialist Tamberly, and suggest a raise in rank for you.”
“I—I—Let’s do something, Manse, before I bawl. Want to see Keith? He’s in bed. Took a wound, but it’s mending.”
“Suppose I get cleaned up first,” he said, as anxious as she to find firmer ground. “After that, you tell me what happened.”
“And you tell me, okay?” She cocked her head. “You know, we needn’t wait. We can talk while you—Manse, I believe you’re blushing.”
Exhaustion had steamed out of him. Temptation whistled. No, he decided. Better not push my luck. And Keith’d be hurt if I didn’t visit him right away. “If you want, sure.”