Poul Anderson - Star of the Sea

Floris whipped her cycle about. A man’s height above ground, she fired at the next nearest. Gut-shot, he yammered and threshed on the grass, to Everard like an overturned beetle. Floris chased a third and dropped him cleanly. She ceased then, motionless in the saddle for a minute. Sweat mingled with tears on her face, as cold as her hands.

Breath shuddered into her. She holstered her pistol and leaf-gentle descended by Edh.

Done is done, tolled through Everard. Swiftly he considered his options. In blind panic, surviving sailors spurted along the shore or toward the woods. Two had kept some wits, had waded out and were swimming for the ship, where horror boiled. The Patrolman bit his lip till blood ran. “Okay,” he said aloud, tonelessly. With jumps around space and precise aim, he killed each of those who had landed. Finally he put the wounded man out of his misery. I don’t suppose Janne left him on purpose. She just forgot. Everard rode back to a fifty-foot altitude and poised. By scanner and amplifier he observed what went on below him.

Edh sat up. Her stare was blank, but she plucked at her skirt and got it down over the red-streaked thighs. Hog-tied, Heidhin writhed toward her. “Edh, Edh,” he groaned. He stopped when the timecycle settled between. “Oh, goddess, avenger—”

Floris dismounted and knelt beside Edh. She laid her arms about the girl. “It is over, dear,” she sobbed. “It will be well with you. Nothing like this, ever again. You are free now.”

“Niaerdh,” she heard. “All-Mother, you came.”

“No use denying your divinity,” Everard snarled in Floris’s receiver. “Get the hell out before you make matters worse.”

“No,” the woman answered. “You don’t understand. I have to give her what little comfort I am able.”

Everard sat mute. The crewmen in the channel heaved frantic on halyard and anchor rode. “Loose me,” Heidhin pleaded. “Let me to her.”

“Maybe I do understand,” Everard said. “Be as quick as possible, can you?”

The daze was lifting from Edh, but unearthliness brimmed the hazel eyes. “What do you want of me, Niaerdh?” she whispered. “I am yours. As I always was?”

“Slay the Romans, all the Romans!” Heidhin bawled. “I’ll pay you for it with my life if you will.”

Poor muchacho, Everard thought, your life is already ours to take, anytime we might choose. But I could hardly expect you to act sensible right off the bat, could I?

Or ever, by my lights. You are not a scientifically educated post-Christian Western European. To you, the gods are real and your highest duty is avenging a wrong.

Floris stroked the matted hair. Her free arm drew the reeking, shivering, slight body close. “I want only your well-being, only your gladness,” she said. “I love you.”

“You saved me,” Edh stammered, “because . . . because I must—what?”

“Listen to me, Floris, for everything’s sake,” Everard called between his teeth. “The time is out of joint and you can’t set it right today. You can’t. Meddle any more, and I swear there’ll never be a Tacitus One book, maybe never a Tacitus Two. We don’t belong in these events, and that’s why the future is in danger. Leave them be!”

His partner fell altogether still.

“Are you troubled, Niaerdh?” Edh asked as a child might. “What can trouble you, the goddess? That the Romans befoul your world?”

Floris closed her eyes, opened them, and let go of the girl. “It . . . is . . . your woe, my dear,” she said. Rising: “Fare you well. Fare you bravely, free from fear and sorrow. We shall meet again.” To Everard: “Shall I release Heidhin?”

“No, Edh can take a knife and cut the rope. He can help her back to the village.”

“True. And that should do both of them good, shouldn’t it? A pitiful tiny bit of good.”

Floris mounted her timecycle. “I suppose we’d best ascend, instead of winking out of sight,” Everard said. “Come on.”

He threw a last glance down. It was as if he felt the two there looking and looking. Out on the water, sail filled, the ship bore west. Lacking several hands and, no doubt, at least a couple of officers, she might or might not make it home. If she did, the crew might or might not relate what they had seen. It would scarcely win credence. They’d be smarter to invent something more plausible. Of course, any tale could well be taken for a fabrication, an attempt to cover up a mutiny. In that case, they had an unpleasant death in store. Maybe they’d try their luck among the Germans instead, slim though the prospects be. Knowing their fate would not affect history, Everard didn’t give a damn what it was.

The sun was newly down, clouds lay red and gold in the west, eastward the sky deepened while night rose in a tide over the wilderness. Light lingered on a treeless hilltop in central Germany, but already the grass there was full of shadows and warmth draining from the quiet air.

Having seen to the horses, Janne Floris squatted at the blackened spot in front of the twin shelters and began assembling wood for a fire. Some remained, split and stacked, from the last time the Patrol agents had used the site, a few days ago if you counted by the turning of the planet. A gust and thump brought her to her feet. Everard swung off his vehicle.

“Why are you—I expected you back sooner,” she said half timidly.

He shrugged his heavy shoulders. “I figured you might as well do the camp chores while I did mine,” he replied. “And nightfall is a logical return point. I don’t want more than a bite to eat, but then a clock dial’s worth of sleep. I’m wrung out. Aren’t you?”

She looked away. “Not yet. Too tense.” With a gulp, she made herself confront him. “Where did you go? You just told me to wait, immediately after we got here, and left.”

“I guess I did. Sorry. Wasn’t thinking. It seemed obvious.”

“I thought I was being punished.”

He shook his head more vigorously than his words would have suggested. “Good Lord, no. In fact, I’d a vague notion of sparing you a discussion. What I did was skip back to Öland, after dark on . . . that day. The kids were gone and nobody else was around, as I’d hoped. I lifted the corpses one after another, took them well out to sea, and dumped them. Not a fun job. No reason for you to be in on it.”

She stared. “Why?”

“Isn’t that obvious either?” he snapped. “Think. Same reason I shot the swine that you didn’t get around to. Minimize impact on local people, because we’ve got too flinking many variables as is. I daresay they’ll believe Edh and Heidhin, more or less, but they live in a world of gods and trolls and magic anyway. Material evidence or independent witnesses would hit them a lot harder than a doubtless incoherent story.”

“I see.” She twisted her hands together. “I am being quite stupid and unprofessional, am I not? I wasn’t trained for this kind of mission, but that is no excuse. I am very sorry.”

“Well, you caught me by surprise,” he growled. “When you skited off into action, I was dumbfounded for a second. And then what could I do? Not mess around with causality anymore, for certain, nor risk Heidhin seeing my face, to recognize it in Colonia this year. Duck back uptime, get a different disguise from the one I used on the beach, and return to the same minute? No, it wouldn’t do for mortals to see the gods quarreling; that’d confuse things worse yet. I could only play along with you.”

“I am sorry,” she said desperately. “I couldn’t help myself. There was Edh, Veleda whom I saw among the Langobardi—no woman ever impressed me more—I knew her—but this was a young girl, and those animals—”