Ben Jeapes - Time's Chariot

‘He killed Veci! He could have killed us!’ Back in the Home Time, her social preparation would have taken over. Her symb would have transmitted her mental condition to the central systems and positive images of peace and calm would be pumping into her brain right now. But here, her fear and anger could go unchecked.

Rico glanced down at Su, still kneeling beside the boy. She shook her head. ‘They used a curare dart on him, but he’ll live,’ she said.

She rose to stand next to Rico and glared at the other two students, waving the dart she had pulled from the boy under their noses. ‘Not that he deserves to: his suit’s neutralizer and defences were switched off. The poison would have killed him in another minute if we hadn’t got here. Weren’t you listening?’

Su and Rico had carefully briefed the students on fieldsuit protocol and a host of other issues before the transference. Properly managed, the suit would have detected the incoming arrow and switched on its repulsion field. And if any dangerous toxins had made it into the bloodstream, the neutralizer would have taken care of it.

‘They attacked us!’ the girl repeated, ignoring her.

‘I’m not surprised.’ Rico had just noticed what was hanging in the bushes behind them. He didn’t know exactly what the carved bits of wood were meant to be but he recognized a shrine when he saw it. ‘You’re probably blaspheming against their gods, or something, just by being here. We should move.’

The girl turned to follow his line of sight. ‘Oh, that,’ she said with a complete lack of interest.

‘You don’t think much of it?’ Rico said.

The other student, a young man, spoke for the first time.

‘We have the greatest respect for their religious practices,’ he said: smooth, calm, patronizing in a way that made Rico grit his teeth.

‘But… but we know they’re a load of superstitious bygoner nonsense,’ Rico said with a friendly, baffled smile. The student chuckled, a bit strained after his shock but trying at sophistication.

‘Well, of course, we know that…’

‘Don’t have a lot of respect for them, then, do you?’ said Rico, leaving the student stranded by the abrupt turn.

‘Where were you, anyway?’ the girl demanded. ‘You’re meant to be protecting us.’

‘Are you dead?’ said Rico.

‘No, but…’

‘Then what’s the problem?’

‘Our sensors misinterpreted the threat,’ Su said quietly. ‘With all this biomass around us they can get confused.’

‘I’m suing the College when we get back!’

‘Fine.’ Su finally lost patience. ‘We’ll leave you here. As for the moment, your friend’s laziness nearly cost him his life, and you three’s disregard for bygoner sensitivities probably provoked the attack in the first place. As Senior Field Op, I’m abandoning this mission. When your friend can walk, the three of you are coming with me. Rico, round up Onskiro and the rest and rendezvous at the recall point.’

‘I love you when you’re angry.’ He quickly touched a knuckle to his forehead when Su glared at him. ‘Right away, ma’am.’

There was the usual disorientation as the shadows of the fourteenth-century Brazilian rainforest faded out and the lightly glowing walls of the transference chamber appeared around them. It was a hollow sphere with a floor provided by a carryfield that sliced it in half. The top hemisphere in which they stood could have held fifty adults. Even experienced transferees like Rico and Su always needed a moment to collect themselves, remember where they were and what they were doing.

Rico was amused to see looks of relief on the faces of some of the students, which they tried to hide, when it finally dawned on them that they were back home. He knew they were slaves of their conditioning. The past was officially a nasty, dirty place where people had no social preparation and were cruel and mean to each other, as recent events had shown. For these poor sods, Rico thought, when the past was compared and contrasted with the controlled environment of an ecopolis, coming back to the Home Time was like returning to the womb.

And that was why the authorities were happy to let the impression abide. For Rico, on the other hand, returning to the Home Time was more and more depressing every time he did it.

Su was discharging the last of her duties. ‘All of you, shut your eyes until I tell you to open them.’ They all did so, and felt the warmth of the decon field flow around them, making them safe for reentry into the Home Time. ‘You can open them now. Place your specimens in those containers there, please, for scanning… Thank you. I now declare this excursion to be over. Walk slowly through the exit…’

They were the last two to leave. Like Su, Rico held up his arm and touched the ‘release’ icon that appeared there. By his elbow a small flap of skin appeared, which he took between thumb and forefinger and pulled. There was a tingling as the computer disengaged from his nervous system and what looked like the skin of his forearm peeled away, leaving the real skin reddened but healthy beneath it. His arm was shaved but still he winced as it snagged on a couple of budding hairs.

‘Thank you for the trip, Register,’ Su said as they walked out of the chamber and into the huge, multi-tiered vault of the transference hall.

‘My pleasure, Op Zo,’ said a friendly voice out of the air.

‘But before you go…’ said another voice behind them. Rico groaned beneath his breath, and they turned to face the red-outlined symb projection that had appeared in the middle of the room. The eidolon showed a short, squat man: Rico had heard him called ‘Toad Face’ and had never understood the epithet, until he had actually seen a toad on a field trip. Then he had understood perfectly.

‘Supervisor Marlici,’ said Su, taking the initiative as senior partner. ‘What can we do for you?’

‘I’ll come straight to the point,’ Marlici said. He had full, wet lips which, Rico reflected, seemed made to quiver with indignation. It was the state in which he usually saw them. ‘No beating about the bush, no prevarication. I’ve received a formal complaint from the office of the Commissioner of Correspondents about you, Op Garron, and by extension, you, Op Zo. Well?’

The vindictive bitch! Rico opened his mouth—

‘May we know the substance of this complaint?’ Su asked.

‘The complaint,’ Marlici said, ‘is that Op Garron bothered the Acting Commissioner in the late Commissioner Daiho’s apartment this morning. I won’t go into details –’ he smiled thinly — ‘but the words "absurd speculation" and "grotesque fantasies" were heard to be uttered.’ Rico’s cheeks began to burn. ‘None of this would be my concern, of course, if you were off duty, but at the time you were on duty. I’m consumed with curiosity as to what you were doing in the Commissioner’s suite, and why Op Garron impersonated a Security Op, and why you, Op Zo, let him. Well?’

Something inside Rico snapped and he took a step forward. ‘This is—’

Su put a hand on his arm. ‘We were there on official business, sir,’ she said.

‘Re-ally?’ Marlici seemed to enjoy drawing out the word. ‘Do tell me how, when I knew nothing of it.’

‘Rico?’ Su said. Rico breathed deeply, twice, before answering.

‘On my last but one field trip,’ he said, ‘I failed to download all the information I had stored in my field computer. I needed to get the computer back. When I asked for it, I learned it had been signed out again.’

‘You think you have a special right to equipment?’ said Marlici. Rico suspected that his explanation was sounding far too reasonable and Marlici was determined to find fault somehow.