Time's Chariot Page 8

  The bulk of the cathedral loomed over them. The Bishop there no doubt thought he was master of all he surveyed, second only to the Khan: he had no idea that one of his junior priests was the Home Time superintendent for the area.

  Superintendent Adigun exuded his usual bonhomie to such an extent that his moustache quivered when they entered his front room in one of the small cottages in the cathedral's shadow. 'How are you? How are you?' he said, as if he hadn't seen them two hours ago. 'Did you enjoy your inspection?'

  'Everything is satisfactory,' Su said formally, though the inspection hadn't taken long. Her powers only extended to checking that none of the bygoners were being abused in any way and that basic health and safety regulations (very basic, in this period) were being observed. After that, it was just a case of carrying the latest set of figures back to the Home Time for the Social Studies department to fuss over. Less formally, she added, 'You run a good establishment, Superintendent.'

  Adigun beamed. 'I'm glad to hear you say that, I really am. Are you sure I can't offer you something?'

  'The recall field comes on in fifteen minutes, Superintendent.'

  'Of course, of course. I suppose you'll both be at the Union Day ball? Lucky things, can't have one here, of course, the bygoners will notice . . . let me get you those figures. Must observe the protocols, eh?' He peered into the next room. 'Sanja? That little gem I showed you, could you bring it . . . ?'

  Sanja was a bygoner and she glided into the room under Adigun's approving gaze. Her hand brushed the Superintendent's when she handed the crystal with the figures over; Adigun's slightly glazed look followed her out of the room and it seemed to Rico that no, the Bishop would not approve.

  He raised an eyebrow at Su; she pursed her lips but shook her head slightly. Disapproved of, but not illegal, and not something she as Senior Field Op could rightly include in her report. But she could make it known that Adigun let his bygoner woman play with data crystals and make out that they were jewellery. Social Studies could perhaps draw their own conclusions.

  Superintendent Adigun, Rico decided, was an out and out bastard, however pleasant and affable he might appear. He would only be a few years in this job before moving on to something else, probably nice and cushy and secure back in the Home Time. And was there any question of Sanja coming to the Home Time? Nor did Adigun look the type to volunteer for mind-blanking and resettlement in the gamma stream. He was playing with the woman.

  'Enact symb,' said Adigun, tuning his mind into the local symb junction that would be hidden somewhere in his house – isolated from the Home Time symb network, barely more than a poor, crippled relative, useful only for managing such data as was available to it. After a couple of seconds he handed the crystal to Su.

  'All updated with my latest reports. Social Studies will find it interesting,' he said, and proceeded to hurl fact after statistic at them. Rico tried to look interested and Su held up a hand.

  'We're just couriers, Superintendent. We'll pass this on, don't worry. Good day, it's been interesting.'

  Rico could contain it no longer. 'You're sitting pretty,' he said, just as Su turned to go.

  'I beg your pardon?' said Adigun.

  'Lord of all you survey.' Rico tilted his head in the direction Sanja had gone. 'Droit de seigneur, I think it was called back home. Maybe there's a word for it in Mongol-German.'

  'Rico . . .' That tone was back in Su's voice but he ignored it. He took a step forward.

  'We're here to observe, Superintendent Adigun,' he said. 'Observe, not break hearts. Does Miss Bygoner know you plan to vanish from her life in a couple of years?'

  'I really think you're out of order.' All good humour had vanished from Adigun's expression. 'You have about ten minutes until the recall field comes on. Use it, Op . . . ?'

  'Garron. Rico Garron.'

  'Rico Garron.' Adigun's eyes widened. 'Weren't you—' He chuckled. 'I don't think you can afford to get into trouble, Op Garron. Why don't you leave now?'

  'Rico, what am I going to do with you?' Su said quietly as they headed back to the recall point, a patch of clear ground outside the city walls, hidden by trees.

  'It just happens,' Rico muttered.

  'The supervisor in beta-Rome . . . and now this.'

  'What else was I suppose to do? Su, we're meant to protect bygoners, we're meant to uphold the Code . . .'

  'You leave well alone, Rico, and let me pass on any complaint through official channels.'

  'Would you?'

  Su was quiet for a moment. 'Probably not,' she said.

  'See? See?'

  'Rico, he's a superintendent, which means he's senior to us and he's probably got better sponsorship. Anyway, I've never understood women who can't see through creatures like him. They deserve everything they get. If Tong tried to use me, I'd know in about a nanosecond. Two, if he was clever and got up early enough.' She symbed into her field computer to access the crystal's data. 'Still and all, Rico, he's a good administrator. Output's up, I can tell that. And lots of gobbledegook which will only mean something to Social Studies, but it looks good.'

  'I hope someone appreciates it.'

  Su glanced thoughtfully back at the city. 'You know, I wouldn't mind a job like his.'

  'Lord and master and petty tyrant of a smelly bygoner town back up the gamma stream?' Rico said with disbelief.

  'Not specifically, but with that level of skill and challenge. Tong and I have been talking about this a lot, Rico.'

  'Talking about what?'

  'Well, has it occurred to you that our generation's unique?'

  'How so?'

  'There's a gap looming in the future and we've no idea how it's going to be filled. How old will you be in twenty-seven years, Rico?'

  Twenty-seven years. The magic figure. The time when the singularity that created the Home Time was due to collapse and suddenly transference wouldn't be possible any more.

  He pulled a face. 'Old enough.'

  'But not old enough for retirement. And what job will you be doing in twenty-seven years and one month, Rico?'

  Rico trudged on in silence. 'I'll think of something. It's quite a while,' he said.

  'It pays to think ahead. That's all.'

  'Whatever happens, I don't think it'll be a case of life continuing as normal, minus the College. A lot'll change, Su. You can't plan for that.'

  'No harm in thinking about it,' she said. 'I just want a job I want, rather than one that's allocated to me. I'm thinking of applying for retraining.'

  'Su!' Rico stopped in his tracks in genuine dismay. Su laughed even more at the look on his face.

  'It'll be in my time off, Rico. But I don't want to be a Senior Field Op until I drop, and sooner or later I'm going to have to change jobs. And so are you.'

  'I like this one,' he muttered, but started walking again.

  The recall point was in a small glade in the woods, quiet and unobserved. They stood there in silence, waiting for the field to come on, and Rico looked idly down at his shoes. There was mud on them. The mechanics of transference had been explained to him and he had sat through the required courses on theory, but he had never claimed to understand. He knew in principle that the mud on his shoes would be transferred with him but the ground he stood on would not be. Somehow the universe knew that the mud, and the food he had eaten in this time, and the air in his lungs, and all that was closely associated with him should be transferred with him. Everything else should stay.

  Somehow it happened. It worked – that was good enough for him.

  But a future without transference? Of course he knew it was coming – who didn't? – but it was a bit like death. It would happen, one day, but polite people didn't talk about it.

  He was still thoughtful back in the Home Time. Su, as usual in her capacity as Senior Field Op, declared the excursion over and they walked out of the transference chamber, where they were greeted with a recorded notification that Acting Commissioner Orendal had logged a 'request and req
uire' order instructing any and all College personnel to assist Field Op Garron in his search for the computer. Attached to it was a symbed note that it might be worth starting in the storeroom where the effects of the late Commissioner Daiho were kept.

  Su told Rico to include a sincere-sounding 'thank you' with his apology.

  'Guess what?' said Rico, straightening up from his last pile and wincing as something clicked in his back.

  'What?' said Su, still going through a pile of her own.

  'It's not here.'

  'You're right.' Su straightened up with him. 'That item really is not located in the Home Time.' They stood side by side and gazed at the junk.

  'This computer's more trouble than it's worth,' said Rico. The storeroom was full of the remaining unclaimed worldly goods of the late Commissioner Li Daiho. There wasn't much, he thought without enthusiasm, and he had better things to do than rummage through the remains of a man's life. Daiho had been in his seventies and a patrician: he had lived long and well, and this was all that was left. Bits and pieces, odds and ends. But Marje Orendal had been right – if the field computer, College property, was still in Daiho's possession at the time of death, this was where it would be.

  'So what's the big deal about it, anyway?' Su said.

  Before he could answer she added: 'I think we've taken long enough.'

  'No, wouldn't want the Supervisor to complain about us wasting College time.' Rico grinned at the thought of Supervisor Marlici's plump, pompous visage quivering yet again with indignation. All that quivering and the man still couldn't lose weight.

  Su groaned suddenly. 'I can't believe we're so stupid.' She shut her eyes.

  'What are you doing?' Rico said.

  'Symbing . . . got it. Have a look.'

  Puzzled, Rico symbed in to see what she had found. 'You can't look at his personal records!' he exclaimed.

  'Why not? They count as his property and we've got Marje's permission to go through his property. Let's see . . .' Another pause. 'None of them mention it,' she said.

  'They wouldn't, would they?' Rico said.

  'I suppose not.' The whole point of a field computer was that it worked in isolation from the networks of the present; it had to work upstream as well as in the Home Time. 'None of them were prepared on it, either.'

  'Still,' Rico said with a grin, 'it's compulsive reading.' He set up a symb search of his own.

  'What are you doing?' Now it was Su's turn to be shocked.

  'Reading them anyway. Seeing what they do mention.'

  'Now, that is going too far . . .'

  'One's dated after he died.'

  'Junk mail . . .' Su was plucking at his sleeve to pull him away.

  'No.' Rico could see the official seal on it.

  Naturally it resisted his attempts to read it and for the sheer thrill he flung Orendal's authorization at it. It opened. 'It's . . . a statement of account. He'd made a number of personal transferences . . . and payment has been debited from his account in accordance with instructions previously set up.'

  'Fascinating.' Su grabbed his arm and led him to the door. 'The computer's not here, let's just accept you're not going to get it, and stop poking through private correspondence.'

  'You started it.' Rico couldn't help making the point with a broad smile. 'But you're right. We've both got to get ready for the ball.'

  Su groaned. 'Oh, no! I hate balls. And so do you.'

  'I go to observe.' They were at the door, stepping out of the storeroom. 'Anyway, you want me to keep out of trouble, and what can go wrong at a ball?'

  The door shut behind them.

  Eight

  Union Day! The day the world finally became as one under the World Executive, a composite consensus mind drawn from the governing minds of the ecopoloi. Thousands of years of disunity, war, nationalism, religious differences, all officially done away with, and even if there were still people who would as soon kill each other as look at each other, they could be kept safely apart. So in that regard, planet Earth was united, and it was an achievement worth celebrating.

  The College always excelled itself in its choice of venue and this year's was no different: a plateau on what would one day be the Costa del Sol with a stunning view of the Gibraltar waterfall. Another twenty years and the place would be submerged forever by the rising Mediterranean, but for the time being it was the perfect place for a party. The air was soft and warm and delicately laced with spicy scents drifting in from the Spanish mainland. Soft grass underfoot; carefully planned clusters of trees and bushes around which groups of guests could congregate; a stream, fed by sparkling clear water straight from the Sierra Morena and warmed by the College, in which the more adventurous party-goers could take a dip.

  Marje Orendal had chosen a period costume at random from the catalogue. Apparently she was a 1920s New York flapper, though what she was meant to flap she wasn't sure and the catalogue hadn't said. As she stepped out of the transference area, she was just glad the venue was warm.

  Guests arrived and departed from a terrace that overlooked the proceedings. A page – dressed in powdered white wig, heavy jacket and tight breeches; surely one of history's less comfortable fashions – took her name at the top of the wide marble steps that led down to the party ground. 'Acting Commissioner Marje Orendal,' he declared, and Marje descended into the crowd and headed for the nearest bar.

  'Marje! Good to see you!' Commissioner Thomas Enrepil, the chubby head of Social Studies, was beaming at her over a glass of something. He was surrounded by a small circle of people who Marje didn't know. 'Marje, have you met . . .'

  No, she hadn't, and she forgot their names with immediate ease, but still she nodded and said 'hello' as each one was introduced to her.

  'I was just telling them . . .' said Enrepil, and carried on with his anecdote. The words blurred into the background noise and Marje remained with a half smile on her face, which she extended to full strength whenever the others laughed.

  'Commissioner?'

  Glad of the excuse to look away, Marje turned. Hossein Asaldra, apparently dressed as a penguin, was standing behind her. She blinked: no, not a penguin, it was . . . what was the expression . . . a morning suit, nineteenth or twentieth century. His arm was crooked through the arm of a smiling woman dressed as an armoured trooper, Five Bomb War era. The helmet and the armour made actually seeing what she looked like difficult, but strands of red hair crept from under the rim.

  'Commissioner,' Asaldra said, 'this is my wife . . .'

  'Ekat Hoon,' the woman said, holding out a hand. 'How very pleasant to meet you at last, Commissioner. Oh, of course, my condolences on the loss of Commissioner Daiho.'

  'Why, thank you. Did you know him well?' Hoon's condolences had sounded more routine than heartfelt, so Marje put the question casually.

  'I knew him, of course. Did Hossein mention I'm on the Oversight Committee? I often met him through work, just as I'm sure we two will from now on. I thought we should meet socially.'

  Hoon gestured at someone behind Marje. 'Drink, Commissioner?'

  Marje looked round and was taken aback to see a Neanderthal standing there. The shape and form were unmistakable. The stocky body radiated a strength that could have snapped Marje in half. The face was strong and stern, framed by ridges of solid bone under the dark tan skin. Incongruously, he wore a one-piece suit tailored to his powerful form and was carrying a silver tray and a range of full glasses.

  'Drink, madam?' he said politely.

  Marje absently took one of the smaller, more innocuous glasses, and Hoon and Asaldra served themselves. The 'tal wandered off into the crowd.

  'Francis is on his toes, I see,' Hoon said. She took a sip and pulled a face. 'Unlike whoever poured the drinks in the first place.'

  'Francis?' Marje said. Hoon nodded in the direction taken by the 'tal.

  'We loaned him out,' she said. 'There's a lot of them around tonight.'

  Ekat Hoon was patrician: Marje suddenly remembered
Asaldra telling her so. He had also said something about getting his own rewards.

  'One of my first jobs in the College,' she said casually, 'was working on the 'tal psyche. Fieldwork had just brought back the first tribe. I found them a fascinating challenge.'

  'Yes, I remember the reports,' Hoon said with a smile. 'Their languages, their religions, their cultures – just as diverse as we are. They could be just like us.'

  'They are just like us,' Marje said. Another 'tal moved close, saw that they already had glasses, and moved off again. Marje took a closer look at the clothes he was wearing and tried to believe she was only imagining their resemblance to a kind of household livery. 'With all the rights that we have,' she couldn't resist adding. 'I think that was when I realized just how much bygoners need protecting. We have far too much power for our own good.' She wasn't being particularly civil, but she knew full well that 'tals were barred from paid labour in the ecopoloi, and she needed to know if Francis and the others were being used essentially as slaves. Bygoners were bygoners, whether they were human or Neanderthal, and they had rights.

  'They also serve, who only stand and wait,' Hoon said. 'A pun,' she added, seeing Marje's questioning look. 'Wait, stand around, wait, serve drinks . . . we fully believe in making recompense for labour, Commissioner. Of course Francis isn't able to have a bank account but we pay him in kind.'

  Marje realized how tense she had become and made herself relax. Perhaps she was too used to standing on formality, obeying Morbern's Code and all that. If you weren't careful you could get to the point where everything was ideologically suspect.

  'What do you look like?'

  At last! Rico Garron thought. He had been craning his neck, studying the crowd for ten minutes now. He deliberately put on an air of innocent enquiry and turned round, eyebrows raised. Su was coming towards him on the arm of her husband, Tong. Rico recognized Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

  'Cinderella and Buttons, how nice,' he said. 'Hello, Tong.'

  'Hi, Rico,' Tong said cheerfully.

  Rico looked back at Su. 'I don't know,' he said. 'What do I look like?'

  'Like . . .' Su looked closely at the thick jacket and baggy trousers. 'Like . . .'