Lloyd Biggle Jr. - The Chronocide Mission

Inskel swore an involved chain of oaths. “He knows, curse his foul soul. He knows how to operate all of them. I taught him myself.”

“His knowledge won’t be of much use to him,” Egarn said. “He can’t interfere with Roszt and Kaynor—he doesn’t know how to look for them any more than we do. Anyone he sent into the past would be helpless—he wouldn’t have the language, and he would be snapped up at once as an alien or a mental case. Has the escape tunnel from this place been inspected lately?”

“I will do that now,” Inskel said.

“Please do. All of you—forget Gevis. We must get back to work.”

He was trying to sound cheerful, but the exhausting escape and the loss of those who had looked after him for so long had broken him. Arne persuaded him to lie down and sleep. Even when he finally dozed off, he tossed fitfully. Grief about his friends, combined with the sudden appearance of a nemesis from his past, gave him nightmares.

Garzot focused the large len on the DuRosche mansion. Arne continued to watch the small len. The peer and prince were questioning Gevis. When they didn’t care for his answer, one of the Lantiff stepped forward, shook him, and slapped his face. No one loved a traitor.

Inskel finally returned to report the escape tunnel clear except for the exit. Fornzt had ended it a few feet from the surface; he didn’t intend for it to be completed unless it was needed.

“You didn’t have one of these in the other workroom,” Arne observed, indicating the small box and len.

“I made it to use while I was building these machines,” Inskel said. “Only Fornzt, Egarn, and I knew about this room, which meant there was no way Egarn could send for me if he needed me. I used this len to watch the other workroom while I worked. Then Egarn could signal if I was wanted.”

“Will it show the present anywhere else?”

“I suppose. All I was interested in was the other workroom.”

“You could have followed the war from here—watched every battle.”

Inskel shrugged. “We couldn’t have done anything to help, and it would have interfered with our work.”

Garzot continued to watch DuRosche Court on the large len. Every few minutes he surveyed the nearby streets; then he searched the mansion’s grounds and briefly focused the len on its front door. It was high noon in Rochester, and very little seemed to be happening. Very little ever happened at DuRosche Court. Early each afternoon, Calvin DuRosche was taken down the invalid ramp for a brief airing. Mrs. Halmer pushed his wheelchair the length of the drive and back. Then either Mr. Kernley or the decrepit-looking handyman, Hy, helped her push it up the ramp again. Otherwise, Hy, and occasionally Mr. Kernley, did a little yard work. They were the only ones seen outside until the woman employees left for the day. Hy dug in the garden; he trimmed bushes; he raked some of the previous year’s leaves from places that were heavily overgrown. Whatever he did, he seemed to tire or loose patience quickly and move on to something else.

The task of watching nothing happen quickly bored Arne, and he returned his attention to the scene in the old workroom. The drama being enacted there reached some kind of conclusion. Chairs were brought in. The peer, her advisors, and the prince seated themselves, and Gevis resumed his demonstration of the large len.

“Deline may have noticed something suspicious about the ruins,” Arne said thoughtfully. “The Peer of Lant told her about Egarn, and since we have the weapon, they suspected Egarn was at work here and posted a watch—which caught Gevis on his way to the herders’ huts. Then the new Prince of Lant persuaded him to change sides.”

Egarn was awake again. “Corrupted him into changing sides!” he snorted.

“Well—” Arne smiled sadly. “She can handle her wiles compellingly, and Gevis was already in love with her. All the young men in Midd Village fell in love with her when she was my assistant.”

Egarn turned curiously. “How do you know that? Did the first server also hear confessions?”

“He heard a great many complaints,” Arne said. “All of the young women complained about her influence on the young men. Gevis was in love with her, she left, his world was shattered by the Lantiff invasion, and he had nothing at all to look forward to except the end of everything when Roszt and Kaynor succeeded. Suddenly the Lantiff seized him, and he found he could choose between rewards and punishment. Not only were the rewards alluring, but he discovered he might have a future after all. What I don’t understand is why the Lantiff were slapping him. He gave them exactly what they wanted.”

“That is the Peer of Lant’s way,” Egarn said sourly. “Her word is good—if she promised him rewards, he will get rewards. But she will also have him punished severely for not coming to her voluntarily.”

They watched the dae pass in Rochester, and then another. On the morning of the girl’s funeral, a black limousine called at the mansion for those attending. After the funeral, it returned with them. Later, a young couple arrived. There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary about them, but when the fat caretaker handed them something in a cloth, Egarn leaped up with a shout of dismay. A continuous flicker of light showed in it.

“It is a len!” he exclaimed. “They have a Honsun Len!”

Inskel focused on it as closely as he could, and they made out the fragment of black tube with a len in the end of it. “Part of Kaynor’s weapon,” Egarn breathed. “It broke off in the struggle.”

They forgot their search for Roszt and Kaynor. Inskel kept the len focused on the weapon fragment all the way to police headquarters, where it was fingerprinted and photographed, and then to a suburb where an elderly, bearded man took charge of it. In a building behind his dwelling, he began to perform what Egarn recognized as scientific tests.

“A scientist!” Egarn exclaimed. “It is the worst thing that could have happened! I wonder who he is.”

Inskel managed to focus on the dwelling’s mail box. The scientist’s name, Marcus Brock, and his street number, were displayed in luminous letters that were dazzlingly clear on the len. Of course the name of the street wasn’t given.

“This is terrible,” Egarn wailed. “Even if Roszt and Kaynor kill the inventor, there will still be an expert there who knows all about the len.”

“Then they will have to kill him, too,” Inskel said indifferently. “But maybe it won’t be necessary. If we were to snatch it back—”

“Do it! Now!”

But the instrument had to be adjusted to the new location. Then the first attempts failed—perhaps one of the scientist’s instruments produced a temporal distortion. They were still trying when the young man they had seen at DuRosche Court called on the scientist. The left off their efforts and waited for him to leave—Egarn was reluctant to snatch things while people were watching.

Their opportunity came when the older man turned off his instruments and escorted the young man back to his car. Inskel, with several quick passes, snatched the len, the clamp that was holding it, the piece of the weapon’s tube, and several of the scientist’s smaller tools.

“That settles that,” Egarn said with satisfaction. “Not only do we have the len back, but the police have lost important evidence. If I had thought of this sikes ago, I could have equipped an entire laboratory with tools and equipment and saved myself a lot of trouble. Now—back to DuRosche Court!”

It was late afternoon when Inskel managed to focus on a passing car with Roszt at the steering wheel and Kaynor seated beside him. The two men had taken the precaution of changing cars—this one was a more recent model than any they had owned previously. It even had an opening in the roof. Egarn thought it much too conspicuous.