"Their house was struck, and they said they had only left it because—"
"Ah, but the point is they did leave it. That's written. Now it's you who wants to change the past."
"But this woman here—"
"Are you sure there wasn't a Mary Nelson who, let us say, settled in London in 1850 and died of old age about 1900?"
The lean face grinned. "You're trying hard, aren't you? It won't work. You can't fight the entire Patrol."
"Can't I, though? I can leave you here to be found by the Enderbys. I've set my hopper to emerge in public at an instant known only to myself. What's that going to do to history?"
"The Patrol will take corrective measures . . . as you did back in the fifth century."
"Perhaps! I can make it a lot easier for them, though, if they'll hear my appeal. I want a Danellian."
"What?"
"You heard me," said Everard. "If necessary, I'll mount that hopper of yours and ride a million years up. I'll point out to them personally how much simpler it'll be if they give us a break."
That will not be necessary.
Everard spun around with a gasp. The stunner fell from his hand.
He could not look at the shape which blazed before his eyes. There was a dry sobbing in his throat as he backed away.
Your appeal has been considered, said the soundless voice. It was known and weighed ages before you were born. But you were still a necessary link in the chain of time. If you had failed tonight, there would not be mercy.
To us, it was a matter of record that one Charles and Mary Whitcomb lived in Victoria's England. It was also a matter of record that Mary Nelson died with the family she was visiting in 1944, and that Charles Whitcomb had lived a bachelor and finally been killed on active duty with the Patrol. The discrepancy was noted, and as even the smallest paradox is a dangerous weakness in the space-time fabric, it had to be rectified by eliminating one or the other fact from ever having existed. You have decided which it will be.
Everard knew, somewhere in his shaking brain, that the Patrolmen were suddenly free. He knew that his hopper had been . . . was being . . . would be snatched invisibly away the instant it materialized. He knew that history now read: W.A.A.F. Mary Nelson missing, presumed killed by bomb near the home of the Enderby family, who had all been at her house when their own was destroyed; Charles Whitcomb disappearing in 1947, presumed accidentally drowned. He knew that Mary was given the truth, conditioned against ever revealing it, and sent back with Charlie to 1850. He knew they would make their middle-class way through life, never feeling quite at home in Victoria's reign, that Charlie would often have wistful thoughts of what he had been in the Patrol . . . and then turn to his wife and children and decide it had not been such a great sacrifice after all.
That much he knew, and then the Danellian was gone. As the whirling darkness in his head subsided and he looked with clearing eyes at the two Patrolmen, he did not know what his own destiny was.
"Come on," said the first man. "Let's get out of here before somebody wakes up. We'll give you a lift back to your year. 1954, isn't it?"
"And then what?" asked Everard.
The Patrolman shrugged. Under his casual manner lay the shock which had seized him in the Danellian's presence. "Report to your sector chief. You've shown yourself obviously unfit for steady work."
"So . . . just cashiered, huh?"
"You needn't be so dramatic. Did you think this case was the only one of its kind in a million years of Patrol work? There's a regular procedure for it.
"You'll want more training, of course. Your type of personality goes best with Unattached status—any age, any place, wherever and whenever you may be needed. I think you'll like it."
Everard climbed weakly aboard the hopper. And when he got off again, a decade had passed.
Brave to Be a King
1
On an evening in mid-twentieth-century New York, Manse Everard had changed into a threadbare lounging outfit and was mixing himself a drink. The doorbell interrupted. He swore at it. A tiring several days lay behind him and he wanted no other company than the lost narratives of Dr. Watson.
Well, maybe this character could be gotten rid of. He slippered across his apartment and opened the door, his expression mutinous. "Hello," he said coldly.
And then, all at once, it was as if he were aboard some early spaceship which had just entered free fall; he stood weightless and helpless in a blaze of stars.
"Oh," he said. "I didn't know. . . . Come in."
Cynthia Denison paused a moment, looking past him to the bar. He had hung two crossed spears and a horse-plumed helmet from the Achaean Bronze Age over it. They were dark and shining and incredibly beautiful. She tried to speak with steadiness, but failed. "Could I have a drink, Manse? Right away?"
"Of course." He clamped his mouth shut and helped her off with her coat. She closed the door and sat down on a Swedish modern couch as clean and functional as the Homeric weapons. Her hands fumbled with her purse, getting out cigarettes. For a time she did not look at him, nor he at her.
"Do you still drink Irish on the rocks?" he asked. His words seemed to come from far away, and his body was awkward among bottles and glasses, forgetting how the Time Patrol had trained it.
"Yes," she said. "So you do remember." Her lighter snapped, unexpectedly loud in the room.
"It's been just a few months," he said, for lack of other phrases.
"Entropic time. Regular, untampered-with, twenty-four-hours-to-the-day time." She blew a cloud of smoke and stared at it. "Not much more than that for me. I've been in now almost continuously since my, my wedding. Just eight and a half months of my personal, biological, lifeline time since Keith and I. . . . But how long has it been for you, Manse? How many years have you rung up, in how many different epochs, since you were Keith's best man?"
She had always had a rather high and thin voice. It was the only flaw he had ever found in her, unless you counted her being so small—barely five feet. So she could never put much expression into her tones. But he could hear that she was staving off a scream.
He gave her a drink. "Down the hatch," he said. "All of it." She obeyed, strangling a little. He got her a refill and completed his own Scotch and soda. Then he drew up a chair and took pipe and tobacco from the depths of his moth-eaten smoking jacket. His hands still shook, but so faintly he didn't think she would notice. It had been wise of her not to blurt whatever news she carried; they both needed a chance to get back their control.
Now he even dared to look straight at her. She hadn't changed. Her figure was almost perfect in a delicate way, as the black dress emphasized. Sunlight-colored hair fell to her shoulders; the eyes were blue and enormous, under arched brows, in a tip-tilted face with the lips always just a little parted. She hadn't enough makeup for him to tell for sure if she had cried lately. But she looked very near to it.
Everard became busy filling his pipe. "Okay, Cyn," he said. "Want to tell me?"
She shivered. Finally she got out: "Keith. He's disappeared."
"Huh?" Everard sat up straight. "On a mission?"
"Yes. Where else? Ancient Iran. He went back there and never returned. That was a week ago." She set her glass down on the couch arm and twisted her fingers together. "The Patrol searched, of course. I just heard the results today. They can't find him. They can't even find out what happened to him."
"Judas," whispered Everard.
"Keith always . . . always thought of you as his best friend," she said frantically. "You wouldn't believe how often he spoke of you. Honestly, Manse, I know we've neglected you, but you never seemed to be in any. . . ."