Time's Chariot Read online

  'I see.' Nice touch, he thought. 'May I ask what this proposition is, Commissioner?'

  'You may, but first I'd like to know about the other reprimands.'

  'They're on my record, which I expect you've read by now,' he said.

  'I just finished, yes, but I'd still like to hear about them. The most recent one – I gather you gave a supervisor some lip, or something like that?'

  'Something like that,' Rico said, thinking, what the hell. He still had no idea what she wanted with him and his reprimands were none of her business, but . . . 'He was a superintendent, who . . . aw, let's name names. Superintendent Adigun is in charge of sixteenth-century gamma-Vienna and he's shacked up with one of the bygoner women. I . . . well, I took exception to his using his position to that purpose.'

  Any remaining hint of humour or goodwill in Orendal's expression had vanished. 'Go on,' she said.

  'I drew attention to the matter and he construed my words as insulting. He made a complaint.'

  'Was his conduct mentioned in your report?'

  'I'm not the senior partner so it wasn't my report. But no, it wasn't. There are firmly defined areas, Commissioner. If he had been beating her, we could have reported him. If he had told her anything about the Home Time, we could have reported him. But as it was, he wasn't doing anything illegal.'

  'Morbern's Code—'

  'Isn't law,' Rico said. 'Not all of it. Physical abuse, yes. Emotional, no.'

  Orendal still held his gaze, but her eyes were blank and he guessed she was symbing. 'Edigun?' she said.

  'Adigun.'

  'Superintendent Adigun, Vienna, sixteenth century, gamma stream. Thank you.' She seemed to collect herself and put the matter to one side. 'The second reprimand I know about. What about the first?'

  The first was the one Rico was both least and most proud of. 'That one was a supervisor, also in the field,' he said. 'Beta-Rome, C minus three. He was cheating on two women – he had a wife here in the Home Time and at the field site. The bygoner already had a child. Both women suspected another woman, the pressure was on him and he took it out on his bygoner wife's little girl.'

  'A child beater?' Rico hadn't thought Orendal's expression could get colder, but it did.

  'A child beater. I confronted him and . . . well, I lost control. As I recall, I told him that for every bruise I found on her, he'd get five. And I demonstrated how. Field Ops are taught to fight unarmed, to kill if necessary, so I was able to rough him up quite a bit.'

  'You should have reported him. They'd have busted him.'

  'I did and they did. They also kicked me out of Specific Operations, knocked me down from Senior Field Op and partnered me with Op Zo to keep an eye on me.'

  'Yes, I heard you were in Specific Operations,' Orendal said. Rico could tell she was impressed.

  'I certainly was,' he said. 'I didn't always have a career escorting snotty students and collecting reports, Commissioner. It used to be a bit more exciting than that.'

  'You were lucky not to be sacked,' Orendal said bluntly, and while he could tell she was angry he couldn't tell if it was at what he had done, or what his victim had done, or both. Field Ops necessarily spent time out of the Home Time's symb network and hence social preparation had no way of enforcing itself on them. A very great trust was placed on them not to use their skills to abuse that privilege, and while Rico's victim had betrayed that trust, so had Rico. 'You should have gone straight to his superiors, not taken the law into your own hands. They'd have moved in at once, replaced him, given him therapy . . .'

  'With respect,' Rico said shortly, 'you're not telling me anything I don't already know, and you don't need therapy not to beat children.'

  'No?'

  'No. You just don't do it, it's very easy. I'm not doing it now and I'm not even trying.'

  Orendal glared at him for a few seconds in silence, and he thought, I've blown it. Then, obviously with an effort, she said, 'I suppose you've got good reason to care about bygoner children?'

  Was she trying to wind him up? 'Being one myself, you mean?' Rico said, as mildly as he could. But it showed she had done her homework and gone through his records. 'No, not really. Children are children and you don't abuse them. End of.'

  To his surprise, Orendal was flushing. 'I'm sorry,' she said. 'I said a very stupid thing. You're quite right.'

  'Why, thank you, Commissioner.'

  'Purely out of interest, do you think of yourself as a bygoner? That's a personal question which you don't have to answer.'

  'Oh, I'll answer,' Rico said. He shook his head. 'No, I don't think of myself as a bygoner. I just happen to have been born in an accidental timestream that the Specifics were forced to close down. In the main stream I hadn't been born, so they had to take my parents' memory of me from their minds. But they couldn't just rub me out, so they brought me here at the age of two months. No, I belong to the Home Time.'

  'Do you think that's why you wanted to work for the College? I notice you started training at sixteen. That's quite young.'

  'You mean, I owe my whole existence to the College – and believe it or not, I am grateful – so naturally I want to give something back to them?' Rico shrugged. 'Maybe. Or maybe I just like the adventure and the challenge.'

  'But you don't like everything the College does. Your file mentions a certain antipathy towards correspondents.' Orendal sat back and studied him with one eyebrow raised.

  Rico paused a moment to gauge the level of frankness he should use in his reply. What the heck, he thought, set it all to max. 'I loathe the whole correspondents programme,' he said bluntly. 'I think it's a big stain on what otherwise could be a quite fair and just society.'

  'They're contributing to that society,' Orendal pointed out.

  'And how many volunteers do you get?' Rico demanded. He didn't give her the opportunity to answer. 'The correspondents are our way of sweeping our failures under the carpet. Heaven forbid we should try and do anything as useful as help them.'

  'The percentage of correspondents . . .' Orendal said.

  'Oh, of course, percentages.' Rico sat back and flung his hands in the air. 'That makes it OK.

  There's, what, twenty billion here on Earth? Say a quarter of one per cent of them go wrong each year, and conveniently none of them has friends or families who'll miss them. So, that's a mere fifty million people whose lives are torn apart. A pinprick.'

  'It's considerably less than that,' Orendal said quietly. 'Mistakes were made in the past, yes. Psychopathic failures were sent through on the nod. Nowadays, everyone gets at least one try at help and rehabilitation. They enter the programme if all other means have failed. Making them correspondents actually increases their chances of survival.'

  'Maybe you should try harder,' Rico said. 'Out of interest, what are the figures? Do as many patricians enter the programme as, say, level fives?'

  A hit, he thought with satisfaction, because he could see Orendal control her expression and change the subject.

  'Op Garron, you lost control once in the field,' she said. 'Can you be trusted not to do it again, without the restraining influence of Op Zo?'

  Rico was taken aback. 'I hope so. Yes. It depends on the circumstances. Why?'

  'Because you're on suspension and off the active list, but that doesn't preclude you doing private work for a sponsor. Now –' she held up a hand to ward off any comments he might have been about to make, but truth to tell, he was too surprised to make any – 'I offered to sponsor you once and you turned it down. This needn't be a permanent arrangement, just while you're suspended. You'll still be putting in your hours pending the tribunal, and at the tribunal, it won't do you any harm to say you've been contracted by one of the Commissioners. Are you interested?'

  'Can I ask what work you have in mind?' he said, if only to play for time while he tried to work out her game.

  'Looking at you, I imagine you're rated for Europe, tenth to twentieth century?'

  'Sure.' There were combinations of
geographical area and time period that certain Ops couldn't work in because their ethnic background would make them stand out, but Rico was essentially Caucasian and good for Europe in any period.

  'Commissioner Daiho,' Orendal said. 'I want to find out about him.'

  'Find out what?'

  'You know that he made some transferences quite recently – you learned that when you and your partner were going through his things. Op Zo made a report to me.'

  'I remember.'

  'We have co-ordinates for those transferences. I want you to be there too, to observe. Not to interact, you understand.'

  'Of course,' Rico said. Interacting would mean bringing Home Timers from two different periods together, and Morbern's Code had definite views on that. But incognito observing was quite in order.

  Orendal kept talking. 'For reasons of my own, I want to find out more about him, and I want reasons for any and all unusual behaviour. Can you manage that?'

  This was a lifeline! The same woman who had inadvertently contributed to his suspension was giving him a chance to make good. She had pitched it just right: it would keep him active, it would keep up his hours, it would impress the tribunal – and there was just the slightest hint of mystery, though no doubt Daiho had had perfectly good reasons for his transferences which were frankly neither his business nor hers.

  'I can manage that,' he said.

  Now there was no mistaking her smile, or its warmth. 'I'm glad,' she said. She stood up and held out a hand. 'I'd like you to get started as soon as you can. You'll need to prepare so I'll give you authorization for all the records you need . . .' She stopped and glanced behind him. 'Yes, Hossein?'

  Rico turned round. He hadn't heard anyone else come in – the thick carpet had hidden the footsteps.

  The newcomer had the slightest hint of a sneer and large, cool eyes which now widened in surprise.

  'I, um, I'm sorry, Commissioner, I didn't know you were busy,' he said. He looked curiously at Rico, as if trying to place him.

  'We've met before,' Rico said.

  'Of course you have. At Li's place. This is Op Garron,' Orendal said. 'You might remember him. He's going to do some field work for me. Op Garron, Hossein Asaldra. Can I help you, Hossein?'

  'It was nothing, Commissioner. I'll come back.' Asaldra nodded to them both and backed out.

  'Mr Asaldra,' said Orendal, one corner of her mouth turned up, 'will be speaking at your tribunal.'

  'I'll look forward to it,' Rico said. He almost returned her almost-smile, before he remembered who she was. Not just the one in charge of the correspondents but the one who sent them out. 'Show me these co-ordinates of yours.'

  Orendal symbed the list at him. 'Would you be able to start at the beginning?'

  'Um . . .' Rico studied the list, then shook his head. 'No. Nothing like it. They're all enclosed spaces. Rooms in houses. There might be other people about and I won't be able to hide anywhere.' He frowned at her. 'Presumably he knew that?'

  'Presumably,' Orendal said neutrally. Rico shook his head and turned his attention back to the list.

  'Look. From number thirteen onwards, it gets better. He started transferring to outside coordinates, and that means I'll be able to turn up early and hide somewhere.'

  'So you'll start at number thirteen?' she said eagerly.

  'It looks like it,' Rico agreed. 'France, 1657. I'll go and get ready.'

  Fourteen

  'I have never known anything like it!' Scott raged. 'What were you thinking? How dare you? You're meant to be journeymen! You were brought here to do a job, not go wandering off on moonlit walks . . .'

  'They were off duty,' Daiho murmured, just loud enough for Scott to hear.

  'That's not important!' Scott glared at the two recalcitrants, pictures of misery. Some bygoner guards still milled about in the background, making no effort to conceal their smirks. This, this was what he had been brought back from Paris for. Two of his idiot employees showing him up, neglecting their duties and . . .

  His imagination filled in some extra details. No, probably not. The guards seemed to have found them fully dressed.

  'Do you know,' he said, 'do you have any idea how badly you endangered this project? Supposing one of the guards had shot you, eh?'

  'They've only got stunners,' Daiho murmured again. 'Nothing lethal.'

  Scott swung round. 'That is completely missing the point,' he snapped. He turned back to the other two. 'You're confined indoors for the duration of our stay,' he said, 'and when we get back to the Home Time you will each be fined a week's pay. That's all. Now get to your rooms.'

  They shuffled out and Scott turned to Daiho. 'What were you doing, letting them go off like that?'

  'They're not my staff,' Daiho said mildly. 'Perhaps they just need proper leadership.'

  'Is that supposed to mean something?'

  'I think the mating season's begun all round,' Daiho said with a sweet smile, his eyes on someone behind Scott. He walked off and Scott turned round with a sinking feeling to face Ms Holliss, the manager of the hotel.

  'Good evening, Ms Holliss,' he said, switching to twenty-first century English. 'I apologize for this upset . . .'

  'Please call me Edith, Mr Scott. And I should apologize.' Ms Holliss was standing far too close to him, as she usually did, her head tilted right back to look at him. Her eyes looked deformed behind her anachronistic glasses, but from the way she batted her eyelashes that was probably not the idea. 'I had no idea Internal Security had wired this place quite so closely. It was a breakdown in communication, you see.'

  'Was it.'

  'Of course, I've had to discipline staff too, sometimes . . .'

  'How interesting,' Scott said. 'Excuse me, it is late and I need my sleep. Good night.'

  The gentle sound of the waves was like a lullaby. On previous nights Jontan Baiget had fallen asleep listening to them. They reminded him of the pump mechanism in a hydroponics plant, and with every surge it was like another wave of lassitude sweeping over him until eventually sleep took him completely.

  But not tonight. He had rather been hoping not to be alone, but apparently it wasn't to be.

  Their rooms were on the very top floor of the hotel and they had walked up the stairs to Sarai's door. And she had flung herself into his arms.

  'I've never been so afraid.' Her voice was a desperate whisper. 'They'd have killed us. They would!'

  'Um . . .' he had said.

  'Jon, they've never had social preparation. They would have! Think of Lano Chon. They're all Lano Chon, only he had preparation like us when he grew up, and they never did, no one in this world has, they could all kill us . . .'

  'And they don't have basic hygiene . . .' he agreed.

  'Guns and those flying things . . .'

  'No symbing . . .'

  'We could be killed tomorrow . . .'

  And they had looked at each other, and Jontan had felt his heart pounding, this is it, this is surely it, but then she had given him one last kiss – a very pleasant, lingering one, he had to admit – and gone into her room. And, just as he was plucking up his courage to follow her, shut the door firmly.

  He had banged his head deliberately against the doorpost – which hurt – and gone into his own adjoining room. Where, now, slumber seemed as far away as ever.

  Then, to his surprise, drowsiness came quite suddenly, and he was actually aware of it. His thoughts began to disassociate and his eyes grew heavy, even while a small and rational part of his mind thought how unusual this was. There was a faint smell in the air, a sweet and rosy smell getting stronger, and his last waking thought was that maybe Sarai had changed her mind . . .

  Matthew Carradine took his place at the end of the table and the members of the investigative team sat down when he nodded. Alan sat at the other end of the table, chairing the meeting of the team he had headed.

  A display on the wall showed the four Home Timers, each snapped by a spy camera and blown up, enhanced by computer to remo
ve fuzziness. The same four who had been knocked out by gas in the early hours, letting Alan's investigators pounce. The investigators hadn't even taken them out of their beds, instead performing all their tests on the spot with mobile equipment. The Home Timers had woken up at the normal time and suspected nothing. A beautifully timed and executed operation.

  'Hit me with it, Alan,' Carradine said. 'Are they human?'

  His assistant nodded. 'They're Homo sapiens, yes. Their DNA holds no surprises at all. We can't tell how far in the future they're from, but it's not long enough for our species to have undergone any major changes.'

  'So they're just the same as us?'

  'I didn't say that, Matthew. Dr Gerard?' Alan nodded at Madeleine Gerard, who was normally Carradine's personal physician, and she consulted her notes.

  'All four have perfect teeth – no crowns, fillings, bridge work, whatever,' she said. 'None of them have wisdom teeth but there's no sign of their having been removed. All four have perfect, twenty-twenty vision. Not short-sighted, not long-sighted. All four have the optimum body weight for their metabolism. There isn't a single scar on any of them. If they've ever had broken bones then they've healed perfectly. Scott has a beard but neither of the other two males even produces facial hair, though they have the follicles for it. All four are fertile – they could make babies any time they chose, including the oldest one, this Daiho. He's even more interesting. He shows no real signs of age, yet I gather from overheard conversation that he must be at least in his seventies. No physical or mental deterioration, no wrinkling, no wear and tear on the joints.

  'Now, in any one individual, all this would be odd but not unknown. In a group of four, it's statistically very unusual. So, to answer your original question, sir, they're as human as we are but they're not necessarily just the same as us. They've all been well looked after. Their technology can do wonderful things.'

  'I think I'd deduced that from the fact that they can time travel,' Carradine said. He looked back at the pictures. 'And there's no way of telling how far in the future they're from?'