From people on hand, she had gotten an idea of the situation. Reveling under the water, he shouted through its rush and the open bathroom door that Operation Rignano had apparently gone well. “Details later.”
“I’ll hold you to that,” she called back. “Boy, have we got gossip to swap.”
“Starting with your escapades, young lady.” While he toweled himself, he listened to her account. His skin prickled at the knowledge of what might easily have resulted.
“Keith was shot before I could snap us out of there,” Tamberly finished. “I went randomly, then set for here and now—two days ago, that is—and jumped again. The medic took charge of him immediately. Slug through the left lung. Patrol surgery and healing techniques are quite something, aren’t they? He’s supposed to stay mostly in bed for another week, but right away he got ornery. Maybe you’ll calm him down.”
“I’d certainly like to compare notes. You said he was four years in that world?”
“More like nine, originally. He emerged in 1980, I in ‘89. But I pulled him out in ‘84, so the rest of those years never happened to him and he has no recollection of them or anything.”
He donned the fresh clothes he’d taken into the bathroom. “Tsk-tsk. A time alteration. Violating the Prime Directive.”
“Foof! In that universe, who cares?”
“Good question. To be frank, and don’t spread this around, the Patrol does occasionally make, uh, adjustments. Keith and I were involved in one such case. Someday I’ll be free to give you the story.” The pain in it has left me. She doesn’t leave room for that kind of regret,
Everard emerged to find Tamberly cross-legged in his armchair, a small neat Scotch from his bottle for company. “You didn’t have to spare my modesty,” she remarked.
He grinned. “Impudent wench. Give me a shot of the same, and let’s go say hello to Keith.”
The man lay in his room, propped against the headboard, plucking at the pages of a book. His visage was pale and drawn. It kindled when the pair entered. “Manse!” he exclaimed huskily. “My God, it’s great to see you. I’ve been worried sick.”
“About Cynthia, sure,” Everard said.
“Of course, but also—”
“I know. Felt the same way. Well, we can turn our fears out to pasture. The mission went like a hush puppy down a hound dog.” Not really. It was misery, danger, the death and maiming of brave men. But in this glow of mine, everything is wonderful.
“I heard a racket, and wondered—Thanks, Manse, thanks.”
Everard and Tamberly took chairs on opposite sides of the bed. “Thank Wanda,” Everard said.
Denison nodded. “Who more? She even lopped five years off my sentence, d’you know? Five years I can very well do without. The four were bad enough.”
“Were you mistreated?”
“Well, not exactly.” Denison described his capture.
“You have a knack for getting caught, don’t you?” Everard teased.
He wished he hadn’t when Denison’s face went bleak and the man whispered, “Yes. Has it been entirely coincidence? I’m no physicist, but I have read and heard something about quantum probability fields, temporal nexuses.”
“Don’t fret over it,” Everard said hastily. Don’t worry whether chance has made you a gun loaded with trouble, always cocked on a hair trigger. I’m not well up on the theory of that myself. “You came through both affairs smelling like a rose, which is more than I did. Ask Wanda; she met me before I’d showered. Go on.”
Encouraged, Denison smiled and obeyed. “The arch-cardinal was decent in his fashion, though his position didn’t give him a lot of scope in that regard. Besides being a prince of the Church, he was a top-drawer nobleman of France, which included the British Isles. He had to order both the burning of heretics and the massacre of peasants who got above themselves. Not that he minded, he considered it his duty, but he didn’t enjoy it either, like some characters I met. Anyway. The clerical title was more important than the secular one. Kings were—are—puppets in that Europe, or junior partners at best.
“Albin, the archcardinial, was an intelligent and educated chap. It took me a long while and a lot of sweat to convince him my visitor-from-Mars story might be true. He’d ask me the damnedest sharp questions. But, well, I had appeared from nowhere. I told him my chariot flew too fast to see, like a bullet. That was all right, because they didn’t know about sonic booms and stuff. They had telescopes and understood the planets are separate globes. Geocentric astronomy was still doctrine, though it was permissible to assume a heliocentric universe as a mathematical fiction, to help calculations…. Never mind. Later. There’s so much, so many strangenesses I met, even sequestered as I was.
“You see, not only didn’t Albin trust me, he wanted to squirrel me away from the zealous Inquisition types, who’d have interrogated me till any more torture would be fatal and then burned alive what was left. Albin realized that with patience he could learn a great deal more, and he didn’t share the common terror about sorcery. Yes, he accepted that magic worked, but looked on it as essentially another set of technologies, with its own limitations. So he put me on an estate of his outside Paris. It wasn’t too bad, except for—well, you can guess. I had comfortable quarters, good food, leave to walk around the palace and grounds though always under guard. Yes, and access to his library. He owned a lot of books. Printing had been invented. A monopoly of Church and state, death penalty for unlicensed possession of a press, but books were available to the upper classes. They saved my sanity.
“The archcardinal visited whenever he got a chance. We’d talk the sun down and back up again. He was a fascinating conversationalist. I did my best to keep him interested. Gradually I persuaded him to put a sign outside, in the form of a garden plot. I said an ethereal wind had crashed my chariot and swept it away. However, my friends on Mars would search for me. If one of them happened by, he’d see the symbol and land. Albin meant to bag that fellow and his vehicle. I can’t really blame him. He didn’t intend any harm, if the prisoner cooperated. Martian knowledge or maybe a Martian alliance would mean plenty. Western Europe was in a bad way.”
Denison stopped. His voice had gone raspy. “Don’t overdo,” Everard said. “We can finish tomorrow.”
Denison’s lips bent upward. “Now that’d be cruelty to dumb animals. You’re more curious than the Elephant’s Child. Wanda too. I wasn’t up to saying much till today. Your news is a tonic, man. If I could just have a glass of water?”
Tamberly went to fetch it. “I gather she read your intention correctly,” Everard said. “Your idea was to declare that a Patrolman was present, but whoever came along should be ultra-cautious, and not take risks on your account.” Denison nodded. “Well, we can both be glad she did, and not only sprang you free, but canceled those extra five years. I daresay they ground you pretty far down, or would have.”
Tamberly brought the water. Denison took it, his hands lingering noticeably over hers. “You’re recovering fast,” she laughed. He chuckled and drank.
“Wanda remarked you told her you studied a lot of history,” Everard said. “Anybody would, I suppose. Especially in hopes of finding where and when it went wrong. Did you?”
Denison shook his head on the pillows. “Not really. The medieval era isn’t my field. I know it as well as an average educated person should, but no better. The most I could deduce was that sometime during the later Middle Ages, the Catholic Church came decisively out on top in its rivalry with the kings, the state. Yesterday I did get some explanation about Roger of Sicily, and remembered that a couple of books mentioned him as a particular villain. Maybe you can fill me in on the initial course of might-have-been.”