Poul Anderson: The Year of the Ransom

Not before, because that did not happen. We dare not undermine even this forbidden pattern of events. The enemy dares do anything. That is why we must destroy him.

Umfanduma frowned. “Tricky,” she said. “They always keep a machine aloft, well equipped with detectors. I’m sure they’re prepared to flee at an instant’s notice.”

“Uh-huh. However, their scooters are too few to carry them all at once. They’d have to ferry. Or else, likelier, abandon those who aren’t so lucky as to be right by the transportation. We won’t need many of our own. Let’s get organized.”

In the span that followed, the ships filled with armed vehicles and their riders. Tight-beamed communications flickered back and forth. Everard developed his plan, gave out his assignments.

Thereafter he must stand by, try to keep his nerves quiet, abide the word. He found it helpful to think about Wanda Tamberly.

“Now!”

He leaped to the saddle. Gunner Tetsuo Motonobu was already in place. Everard’s fingers flew over the console.

They hung aloft in enormous azure. A condor wheeled afar. The mountainscape spread beneath, a majestic labyrinth, intensely green save where snow flashed on peaks or gorges plunged shadowful. Machu Picchu was mightiness in stone. What would the civilization that created it have done, had fate allowed it to live?

Again Everard could not pause to wonder. The Exaltationist sentry hovered yards off. He saw the man clearly in thin air and candent sunlight, astounded but fierce, snatching for a sidearm. Motonobu fired his energy gun. Lightning flared, thunder crashed. The man dropped charred from his mount and fell as Lucifer fell. Smoke trailed him. The vehicle wavered out of control.

We’ll take care of it later. Down!

Everard didn’t overjump the space between. He wanted an overview. As he power-dived, wind roared around an invisible force screen. The buildings swelled in his vision.

His fellow Patrolmen were raking them with fire. Bolts flew hell-colored. When Everard got there, the battle was over.

—Evening yellowed the western sky. Night rose from the valleys to lap ever higher around the walls of Machu Picchu. It had grown chilly and hushed.

Everard left the house he had used for interrogation. Two agents stood outside. “Round up the rest of the squad, bring out the prisoners, prepare to return to base,” he said wearily.

“Have you learned something, sir?” asked Motonobu.

Everard shrugged. “Something. The intelligence staff will get more out of them, of course, though I doubt it’ll prove of much use. I did find one who’s willing to cooperate in return for a promise of comfortable surroundings on the exile planet. Trouble is, he doesn’t know what I wish he did.”

“Where—when those that got away have gone?”

Everard nodded. “The ringleader, name of Merau Varagan, took a bad sword wound when Castelar fought free. A couple of his men were about to whisk him off to a destination he alone knew to tell them, for medical care. So they were in a position to scram with him when we showed up. Three more managed it too.”

He straightened. “Ah,” he said, “we succeeded as well as could be looked for. The bulk of the gang are dead or under arrest. The few who escaped must have scattered randomly. They may never find each other. The conspiracy’s broken.”

Motonobu’s tone was wistful. “If only we could have come earlier, arranged a proper trap. We’d have bagged the lot.”

“We couldn’t because we didn’t,” said Everard sharply. “We are the law, remember?”

“Yes, sir. What I also remember is that crazy Spaniard and the havoc he may yet make. How’re we going to track him down . . . before—it’s too late?”

Everard made no reply, but turned toward the esplanade where the vehicles were parked. To the east he saw the Gate of the Sun on its ridge, etched black against heaven.

Wanda let him in when he knocked on her door. “Hi!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “How are you? How’d things go?”

“They went,” he said.

She took both his hands. Her voice softened. “I’ve been so worried about you, Manse.”

That felt almighty good to hear. “Oh, I take care of my hide. The operation, well, we nabbed most of the bandits without loss to ourselves. Machu Picchu is clean once more.” Was clean. Was left in its loneliness for another three centuries. Now tourists halloo everywhere. But a Patrolman shouldn’t pass judgments. He needs to be case-hardened, if he’s to work in the history of humankind.

“Marvelous!” Impulsively, she hugged him. He hugged back. They retreated in a slight, shared confusion.

“If you’d come ten minutes ago, you wouldn’t’ve found me,” she said. “I couldn’t sit and do nothing. Went for a long, long walk.”

Dismayed, he snapped, “I told you not to leave this place! You aren’t safe. We’ve planted an instrument here that’ll warn of any intruder, but we can’t trail around after you. Damnation, girl, Castelar’s still at large.”

She wrinkled her nose at him. “Better I should climb these walls? Why would he chase after me again?”

“You were his single twentieth-century contact. You could possibly give us a lead to him. Or so he may fear.”

She grew serious. “As a matter of fact, I can.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

She tugged his hand. How warm hers was. “C’mon, relax, let me fetch us a beer, and we’ll talk. That hike I took cleared my head. I started thinking back, reliving the whole business, except free of terror and, and unfamiliarity. And, yes, I believe I can tell you what point Luis is bound to make for.”

He stood where he was. His pulse slugged. “How?”

The blue eyes searched him. “I did get to know the man,” she said low. “Not what you’d call intimately, but the relationship sure was intense while it lasted. He isn’t a monster. By our standards he’s cruel, but he’s a son of his era. Ambitious and greedy—and in his heart a knight errant. I searched my memory, minute by minute. Kind of stood outside and watched the two of us. And I saw how he reacted when he learned the Indians would rebel and besiege Francisco Pizarro’s brothers in Cuzco, and the troubles that would follow. If he appears as if by miracle and raises the siege, that’ll put him straightaway in command of the whole shebang. But over and above any such calculations, Manse, he has got to be there. His honor calls him.”

In the upland dawn, the imperial city burned. Fire arrows and rocks wrapped in blazing oil-soaked cotton flew like meteors. Thatch and wood kindled. Stone walls enclosed furnaces. Flames howled high, sparks showered, smoke roiled thick on the wind. Soot dulled the rivers where they met. Through the noise, conchs lowed, throats shrieked. In their tens of thousands, the Indios seethed around Cuzco. They were a brown tide, out of which tossed chieftainly banners, feather crests, copper-edged axes and spears. They surged against the thin Spanish lines, smote, struggled, recoiled in blood and turmoil, billowed again forward.

Castelar arrived above a citadel that brooded north of the combat. He glimpsed its massiveness filled with natives. For an instant he wanted to swoop down, kill and kill and kill. But no, yonder was where his comrades fought. Sword in right hand, left on the helm board, he rushed through the air to their deliverance.

What matter if he had failed to bring guns from the future? His blade was sharp, his arm strong, and the archangel of war winged over his bare head. Nonetheless he kept wholly alert. Foes might lurk in this sky or snap forth out of nowhere. Let him be ready to jump through time, evade pursuit, return to strike swiftly again and again, as a wolf slashes at an elk.