Poul Anderson: The Year of the Ransom

“I can’t tell you more than you’ve deduced,” he protested. “If you torture me to death, I can’t.”

“When a man plays a dangerous game,” replied Merau Varagan, “he should prepare for contingencies. I admit we failed to anticipate your presence. We thought the treasure vault would be deserted at night, except for sentries outside. However, the possibility of an encounter with the Patrol has been very much on our minds. Raor, the kyradex.”

Before Tamberly could wonder what that word meant, the woman was at his side. Horror surged through him as he divined her purpose. He started to rise, scramble free, get himself killed, anything.

Her pistol blinked. It was set to less than knockout force. His sinews gave way, he flopped back onto his chair. Only its embrace kept him from sliding to the carpet.

She sought the cabinet, returned with an object. It was a box and a sort of luminous helmet, joined by a cable. The hemisphere went over his head. Raor’s fingers danced across glow-spots that must be controls. Symbols appeared in the air. Meter readings? A humming took hold of Tamberly. It grew and grew until it was all there was, he was lost in it, he spun down into the darkness at its heart.

Slowly he ascended. He regained use of his muscles and straightened in the seat. Relaxation pervaded him, though, like that which follows long sleep. He seemed detached from himself, an observer outside, emotionless. Yet he was totally awake. Every sensory detail stood forth, smells of his unwashed robe and body, mountain air coming sharp through the doorway, Varagan’s sardonic Caesar visage, Raor with the box in her hand, the weight of the helmet, a fly that sat on the wall as if to remind him he was as mortal as it.

Varagan leaned back, crossed his legs, bridged his fingers, and said with weird courtesy, “Your name and origin, please.”

“Stephen John Tamberly. Born in San Francisco, California, United States of America, June the twenty-third, 1937.”

He answered fully and truthfully. He must. Or, rather, his memory, nerves, mouth must. The kyradex was the ultimate interrogator. He could not even feel the ghastliness of his condition. Deep underneath, something screamed, but his conscious mind had become a machine.

“And when were you recruited into the Patrol?”

“In 1968.” It had happened too gradually for him to give an exact date. A colleague introduced him to some friends, interesting sorts who, he understood afterward, sounded him out; eventually he agreed to take certain tests, allegedly as part of a psychological research project; afterward the situation was revealed to him; he was invited to enlist, and accepted with infinite eagerness, as they had known he would. Well, he was on the rebound from divorce. The decision would have been more difficult if he’d had to lead a double life constantly. Regardless, he knew he would have, for it gave him worlds to explore that until then had been only writings, ruins, shards, and dead bones.

“What is your standing in the organization?”

“I’m not in enforcement or rescue or anything of that sort. I’m a field historian. At home I was an anthropologist, had done work among the modern Quechua, then went into the archaeology of the region. That made me a natural choice for the Conquest period. I would have liked better to study the pre-Columbian societies, but of course that was impossible; I’d have been too conspicuous.”

“I see. How long is your Patrol career thus far?”

“About sixty years of lifespan.” You could run up centuries, doubling around in time. A tremendous perquisite of membership was the longevity process of an era futureward of his own. To be sure, that brought the pain of watching people you loved grow old and die, never knowing what you knew. To escape that, as a general thing you phased out of their lives, let them believe you’d moved away, made contact with them dwindle gradually to nothing. For they must not notice how the years did not gnaw you down like them.

“Where and when did you depart on this latest mission of yours?”

“From California in 1968.” He had maintained his old relationships longer than most agents did. His lifespan age might be ninety, his biological age thirty, but stress and sorrow told on a man, and in 1986 he could claim his calendrical age of fifty, though kinfolk often remarked how youthful he still looked. God knew there was grief aplenty in a Patrolman’s days, along with the adventure. You witnessed too much.

“Hm,” said Varagan. “We’ll go into that in more detail. First describe your assignment. Just what were you doing last century in Cajamarca?”

The later name of the town, observed a distant part of Tamberly, while his automaton consciousness replied: “I told you, I’m a field historian, gathering data on the period of the Conquest.” It was for more than the sake of science. How could the Patrol police the time lanes and maintain the reality of events unless it knew what those events were? Books were often misleading, and many a key happening was never chronicled. “The corps got me accredited—as Estebán Tanaquil, a Franciscan friar—accredited to Pizarro’s expedition when he returned in 1530 from Spain to America.” Before Waldseemüller bestowed that name. “I was simply to observe, recording as much as I was able unbeknownst.” And do what heartbreakingly slight things he could to lighten, the tiniest bit, the brutality. “You must know, too, those years will loom large in history—futureward of my home century, pastward of yours—when the Resurgents call on their Andean heritage.”

Varagan nodded. “Indeed,” he said conversationally. “If matters had gone otherwise, why, already the twentieth century might be very different.” He grinned. “Suppose, for example, the succession after Inca Huayna Capac had not been in dispute, Atahualpa in a state of civil war with his rivals, when Pizarro arrived. That minuscule gang of Spanish adventurers could not possibly have overthrown the empire by themselves. The Conquest would have required more time, more resources. This would have affected the balance of power in Europe, where the Turks were pressing inward while the Reformation broke what scant unity Christendom had possessed.”

“Is that your aim?” In a vague way Tamberly knew he should be furious, aghast, anything but apathetic. He barely had the curiosity to ask the question.

“Perhaps,” Varagan taunted. “However, the men who found you were only scouts in advance of a much more modest enterprise, bringing Atahualpa’s ransom here. That would be quite upsetting in itself, of course.” He laughed. “But it might preserve those priceless works of art. You were content to make holograms of them for people uptime.”

“For all humankind,” said Tamberly automatically.

“Well, for such of it as can be allowed to enjoy the fruits of time travel, under the watchful eye of the Patrol.”

“Bring the treasure . . . here?” fumbled Tamberly. “Now?”

“Temporarily. We’ve camped where we are because it’s a convenient base.” Varagan scowled. “The Patrol is too vigilant in our original milieu. Arrogant swine!” Calm again: “As isolated as Machu Picchu is at present, it will not be noticeably affected by changes in the near past—for instance, by such a detail as Atahualpa’s ransom unaccountably disappearing one night. But your associates will be in full quest of you, Tamberly. They’ll follow up every last clue they can find. Best we have that information at once, to forestall any moves of theirs.”

I should be shaken to the roots of my soul. This utter, absolute recklessness—risking loops in the world lines, temporal vortices, destruction of the whole future—No, not risking. Deliberately bringing it about. But I cannot feel the horror. The thing that squats on my skull holds down my humanity.