Time's Chariot Read online

  'In 1657 he was living in a Jansenist community in a convent in Port-Royal-des-Champs, France,' Rico said. 'I looked it up. And a convent in Port- Royal-des-Champs was what Mr Asaldra and the correspondent were visiting.'

  'And he was some kind of philosopher?'

  'He was all sorts of things, according to the records. A mathematician, a physicist . . . He invented the first mechanical adding machine, he showed how a barometer worked, and starting at the age of sixteen he formulated mathematical theories – including a theory of probability – that we still use today. Some of his work even shows up in Morbern's mathematics. Not bad for a preindustrial bygoner, eh?'

  Marje was pinching the bridge of her nose again. 'And Hossein went to see him. Why? I could understand Li using his privileges to go and visit all his heroes. It's illegal, but I can understand it. But Hossein?' Marje took a breath. 'We're going to go to the source.'

  Rico looked alarmed. 'Um, is that wise?'

  'Hossein Asaldra, please report to me at once,' Marje said, glaring him into silence. A pause, and then she frowned.

  'Symb says he's not available,' she said.

  Rico tried the same request and sure enough, his own symb told him: 'Hossein Asaldra is not in the Home Time.' Which meant Hossein Asaldra was either off Earth or dead.

  'He remembered me,' Rico said suddenly. 'Remember when I was in the Commissioner's apartment? He asked me if we'd met before. And, for him, we had. He'd just escaped having a load of bricks fall on him, so I probably wasn't the first thing on his mind, but he remembered me . . .'

  'And I told him you were going to do some work for me,' Marje said.

  Rico felt the thrill of the chase run through him. 'He must have remembered properly,' he said.

  'He last saw you three hours ago, before you transferred . . . three hours! He could be anywhere.'

  'But that's not long enough to get off-planet.'

  'He's transferred somewhere,' Marje said. 'It's the only answer.'

  Another symb query: 'He isn't on the transference log,' said Rico. 'So, unless you know of any unofficial transference chambers . . .'

  'It was meant to be a joke,' Rico muttered. Smoke filled the cavern and wrapped itself around the single transference chamber, this time from another freshly slagged bank of equipment. He looked around him with appreciation. 'Quite a find,' he added.

  'Hossein showed it to me,' said Marje. 'He said a power surge was detected, they followed it and found this.' She pointed out at the original fused, blackened console. 'That was the one that melted down that time.'

  Again, they were projecting; again, Security Ops and technicians were there in the flesh, inspecting the scene.

  'When was this?'

  'Two days ago.'

  'So this stuff has been ticking over for centuries, then we suddenly get two meltdowns in two days?' Rico moved his projection over to the remains of the consoles; first one, then the other. 'You know, it wouldn't be difficult to make this happen. Charges could be set that would be undetectable, but enough to make this unusable.'

  'For what reason?'

  'So no one could tell where you'd been. Look, Commissioner. The consoles are almost identical. Mr Asaldra knew the transference would be detected, so he set charges to make sure no one could know where he was going and he transferred out of the Home Time. He has a seriously guilty conscience.'

  'But . . . but the first one? Why did that catch fire?'

  Rico pursed his lips thoughtfully. 'I imagine,' he said quietly, 'because someone else transferred out through this chamber a couple of days ago.'

  'He told me he didn't think anyone had transferred.

  He said setting co-ordinates without the Register was too complicated.'

  Rico blew a raspberry. 'He had field training? He knew how to do it. We all do.'

  'This is getting ridiculous,' Marje said. 'Cease projection.' Rico blinked as suddenly they were back in her office. Marje dropped down into a chair. 'We have personal contact with a correspondent.

  We have unauthorized transferences. I want this answered and I want it answered now. Is there any way, any way at all, of establishing exactly where he went?'

  'Let's see those transferences again,' Rico said, and the list symbed into their minds. The transferences they had thought were made by Daiho had all been through a regular transference chamber. 'Mr Asaldra,' Rico said. 'Fond of home comforts, is he?'

  'Why do you ask?'

  'Transferences from the eleventh to the seventeenth centuries,' Rico said, 'and then this'. He jabbed at the last item on the list. 'Twenty-first century. Almost the start of the Fallow Age. I'd guess that's where he went, but it's pure guesswork.'

  'So what is—' Marje said.

  'I'm already there,' Rico said, symbing into the database. 'It's . . .' His jaw dropped. 'Oh my god, it's Matthew Carradine's headquarters!'

  'Who?' Marje said.

  'Matt Carradine.' Rico stood up and paced the office. 'The first great biotech giant. He's on the Specifics' list of secondaries – one of us drops in on him, incognito, every couple of years to see how he's doing. Not a primary like Einstein, under constant surveillance, but—'

  'Getting back to the point?' Marje said, breaking Rico's flow.

  'Ah. Getting back to the point, in the twentieth century they discovered penicillin and other powerful antibiotics. And they overdosed on them so badly that by our boy's time, most of the lethal bugs were immune to them. Tuberculosis, smallpox, measles and all sorts of things with strange Latin names . . .'

  'The plague years,' Marje said.

  'Exactly. Carradine's company, BioCarr, developed the next generation of antibiotics that attacked the bugs at the genetic level. He was already rich and powerful through BioCarr at the time – he fed the world and he helped cure SuperAIDS – but after that he was one of the most powerful men in the world. That's all in the Fallow Age, of course. Mr Asaldra went to see him when he was just starting to flex his muscles.'

  'Perhaps he went to observe?' Marje said.

  'Hardly. The database says these are the co-ordinates for his actual office. Unless he was out taking a whiz, your friend must have appeared right in front of him.'

  'You're being frivolous.'

  'I am not.' Rico's face was cold and thoughtful. This, Marje thought suddenly, was the other Garron. Not the boy in a man's body that she had been becoming used to. Give him something worth taking seriously and this was what happened.

  'So what is it?' she said, almost afraid of the answer.

  'The main BioCarr site was excavated a few years ago. They found . . . well, things. By the end of his career, Carradine wasn't bothering with smart viruses and super crops. His clients wanted people who can breathe underwater, or live in a vacuum. He never provided successful models but it didn't stop him trying. I can't help wondering where he got his technology from . . .'

  'Oh God,' Marje said. She saw from his face that there was more. 'And?'

  'Just a feeling,' Rico said, 'but remember, I was a Specific. I'm trained to be suspicious.'

  'Suspicious about . . . ?'

  'Commissioner Daiho.'

  'Oh, for goodness sake!' Marje exclaimed. She threw up her hands. 'You're going too far. The Commissioner died of an aneurysm, that's been established.'

  'They can be induced, and there wasn't much of him left to conduct an autopsy on.' Marje opened her mouth to object: Rico interrupted. 'No! Listen!' More quietly: 'I'm dealing with facts, that's all. An aneurysm can kill you on the spot. What it can't do is lift you up and chuck you twenty feet through the air, because that's what must have happened for the agravs not to catch the body.'

  Marje opened her mouth again. Her mind had simply been cruising on the assumption that Daiho's death had been an accident and anything that said otherwise was nonsense. But she knew conviction when she saw it, and that was what was on Rico's face.

  'Social preparation would prevent anyone from doing that,' she said, 'assuming they were strong enough
in the first place.'

  ' 'Tals could do it, and they don't have social preparation.'

  ' 'Tals need to be told what to do, by one of us. Social preparation would prevent that from happening.'

  'Not if the person telling them what to do was a former Field Op,' Rico said quietly. 'Especially not one who still works for the College and therefore has access to the 'tals in the first place.'

  Marje had gone pale. 'Hossein has a tame 'tal as a servant . . .'

  'There you are,' Rico said, as if that solved everything.

  'Perhaps Commissioner Daiho learned your friend was using his name in vain, or—'

  'That's enough!' Marje said. 'I'm sorry, this is suspicion and circumstantial evidence. I'm not going to convict Hossein Asaldra on a charge of murder in his absence. We stick with what we know, and that's already got him into enough trouble.'

  'There's an easy way to find out,' Rico said.

  'Damn straight.' Marje Orendal was a woman whose world had collapsed around her. She had taken a new job upon the death of a friend and had thought herself surrounded by like-minded professionals, serving the College and the Home Time. And now she discovered that at least one of those like-minded professionals was casually engaged in activities that blew the code by which she ran her life to pieces. She had reached her decision: no more meekly sitting back and letting the others run her life for her. 'I'm hiring you full-time,' she said. 'I want you to locate Hossein Asaldra, bring him back here and find out just what the hell is happening.'

  Sixteen

  Jontan, grinning, crept up behind Sarai who was crouched next to one of the culture regulators, peering into its innards. He pounced forwards and covered her eyes.

  'Guess who?'

  She shrugged him off. 'Leave it, Jon.' She didn't even look round.

  He retreated, wounded. 'I thought . . .'

  'Jon, I know. I just . . . I just need time to think, OK?' She snapped her fingers at the toolkit. 'Pass me a joiner.'

  He mutely obeyed and crouched down a few feet away; close enough to enjoy her presence and make himself useful when required, far enough to be only on the fringes of the zone of hostility. And he could think happy thoughts of when they had been closer. Still not as close as he might have liked, but closer than ever before. Just a few hours ago.

  But not today. It had started with the silence at breakfast, which he had put down to the continuing frostiness from Mr Scott, but even during the day when Mr Scott wasn't present there had been a growing chill between them.

  He had just been happy that they seemed to be getting it right at last. It was all so straightforward for him – why couldn't it be for her? Why did she need this 'time to think'? He shook his head. He would never understand.

  Waking up with limbs like lead and a clogged head hadn't helped. At breakfast, to his surprise, Mr Scott and Mr Daiho had looked fairly hung over too. Maybe some antediluvian germ had got into the food, but he had had the strange sense that the night had been full of activity which he just couldn't remember.

  Something shimmered in the corner of his eye and he blinked as something seemed to cloud his concentration for a moment. What was . . . where was . . .

  He shook his head to clear it, glanced up, then quickly jumped to his feet.

  'Sa . . .'

  Sarai looked up over the top of the regulator, then shot to her feet herself. The man standing in the middle of the lounge was in College dress, and the College was the last place they had seen him; or rather, deep beneath the College, as the doors of the transference chamber closed. He looked at them.

  'Get me Mr Scott or Mr Daiho, now,' he said.

  'What the hell are you doing here?' Mr Scott shouted.

  'I couldn't help it.' The newcomer, Mr Asaldra, was flushed and ran a finger round his collar as he spoke. 'Marje Orendal was on the point of finding out about us.'

  'Who's she, and how?'

  'She was my designated successor,' Mr Daiho said calmly. 'But the how, Hossein?'

  'I don't know what alerted her but she's got a Field Op working for her. I saw him on one of my trips but I didn't recognize him until now.'

  (Their personal differences forgotten, Sarai and Jontan were working side by side on the regulator with only half their minds on the task. Listening to their betters falling out was much more interesting. Jontan tightened the last valve, and they glanced at each other. Then he untightened it again, and they began methodically to undo all the work they had been putting in.)

  'Yul Ario was meant to be keeping an eye on that sort of thing,' said Daiho.

  'This is a private arrangement.'

  'Oh, great!' Scott exploded. 'And by running, you've proved her suspicions!'

  'If they'd taken me in,' Asaldra said, 'they'd have got the plans out of my mind and this place would be swarming with Specifics come to take us home. Ario couldn't sit on that. As it is – yes, they know something's going on but, no, they don't know where I am or what it is.'

  'I suppose you used the duplicate controls to come here?' Daiho said.

  'And destroyed them. That's right. We can't go back that way, but then, they can't come for us either.'

  'You said Ario knew,' Scott said. 'They could get it from him.'

  'He knows the gist of it. Not the details. Not where we are.'

  Scott was beginning to sound desperate. 'So when it comes to getting back to the Home Time . . .'

  'We use the fallback plan,' said Asaldra. 'Inconvenient, but that's life. Why do you think I came here now, not when you first arrived?'

  'You're joking!' Scott sounded aghast. 'That's—'

  'We all knew there might be costs.' For the first time, Asaldra looked as if he were standing up to Scott. 'This is one of them.'

  'That's easy for you to say, when all you have to go back to is that woman . . .' Scott began.

  Asaldra bridled. 'Don't speak about my wife that way, Scott.'

  'That will do, Phenuel,' Daiho said. 'Hossein is right. Sacrifices were to be expected.'

  And Jontan and Sarai glanced at each other. Sacrifices?

  Matthew Carradine nodded his head slowly as he studied the picture.

  'Well, well, well,' he murmured. 'My old friend.'

  'He's the one you made the arrangements with?' said Alan.

  'He's the one. When did he turn up?'

  'Oh-nine thirty-three.' Alan handed him a dataslate. 'And we have a transcript of their conversation.'

  'You've broken through the bug jammers?' Carradine said hopefully.

  'Still using the lip readers with binos.'

  'Oh well.' Carradine read the slate and his eyebrows rose higher. 'We have dissent in the ranks,' he said. He read further . . .

  'Yes!' He slammed the slate down on his desk and jumped to his feet. He paced about the room in his excitement. 'I knew it! I knew it!'

  'Matthew?'

  'They are doing something illegal! I got the vibes, I had my suspicions, but I couldn't prove anything and they weren't saying. But now! Look! This man, Asaldra, he was responsible for bringing them back but now something's gone wrong at his end and the Home Time don't know where he is, Alan. They don't know where he is.'

  'There's this fallback plan of theirs,' Alan said quietly.

  'That's how they plan to return. But look at this! This line here!' He picked the slate up again and jabbed a finger at a line of text. 'Oh-nine thirty-seven, fifty-two seconds. Asaldra, quote, we can't go back that way but then they can't come for us either, unquote.'

  'That is interesting,' Alan said, even more quietly but now with a very faint smile.

  'And if we keep a suitably close eye on them then they won't be able to implement this fallback plan,' said Carradine. 'I take it you have something set up for this contingency?'

  'It just needs your say-so, Matthew.'

  'You have it.' Carradine thumped a control pad on his desk. 'Get me the security chief and Holliss from the hotel. Priority one.'

  Jontan was leaning over the mixtur
e regulators when the doors flew open and armed men poured into the lounge.

  'Move away from the equipment!' Jontan was too surprised to notice that the man was shouting in badly-accented Home Time. 'Stand up! Move away from the equipment!'

  They shoved him against a wall and held him there at gunpoint. Two of the others grabbed hold of Mr Daiho and lifted him off his couch. He shouted angrily but a second later he too was pinned against a wall.

  Another thug thrust Sarai into the room. Jontan took a step forward and a gun barrel jabbed into him just below the ribs. Mr Scott and Mr Asaldra were herded in after her. The five Home Timers were spaced around the room, each with their own personal bygoner thug pointing a gun at them.

  The kit chose that moment to symb an alarm signal at Jontan. A valve needed closing or the whole mixture would be rendered non-viable. Sarai heard it too and they both instinctively took a step towards the regulator. They collapsed, wheezing, as two fists caught them hard in the stomachs.

  'Move away from the equipment!'

  'Please,' Jontan gasped, 'the mixture's going critical.'

  'Move away from the equipment!'

  'I think you've exhausted their grasp of our language,' said Mr Daiho from across the room. The man guarding him raised his gun. Mr Daiho looked calmly back at him.

  'Sir,' Jontan pleaded, 'you can talk like them, tell them I've got to adjust the mixture . . .'

  'I don't think they care.'

  'We care.' Two more bygoners had come into the room. The speaker was small and slight; his accent was imperfect and he spoke slowly, but he could be understood. 'What is the problem?'

  'I have to adjust a valve,' Jontan said. The small man spoke to his companion, a broader man with confident, appraising eyes. This other man nodded and said something; Jontan's guard stepped back.

  'Mr Carradine says you can do what you have to do,' said the small man. Jontan gratefully hurried over to the regulator, picked up a phase adjuster and switched the flow over to a backup valve.

  'Can you shut all this down?' the small man asked.

  'Not without ruining the mixtures and killing the cultures,' said Jontan.

  'What do you do at night? When you go to bed?'