Poul Anderson - The Shield of Time

Nevertheless he lowered the rope, and at last himself, inch by inch.

Jasmine kissed his face, night-fragrant. He used the hedge for cover while he wormed his way around. It was forever and it was an eyeblink before he hunched in a position to watch and listen.

The heat of the day must still be oppressive inside, for a window stood open, uncurtained. From his blind of leaves, he saw straight into the room beyond, and voices floated clear. Luck, luck, luck! Ungratefully: About time I had some. His efforts had left him sweaty, dry-mouthed, skinned on an ankle, and itching in a dozen places he dared not scratch.

He forgot that, observing.

Raor alone could make a man forget everything else.

The chamber was small, for intimate meetings. Wax tapers in gilt papyrus-shape candlesticks, extravagantly many, cast glow across a Persian rug; furnishings of ebony and rosewood inlaid with nacre; subtly erotic murals that would have done Alicia Austin proud. A man occupied a stool, the woman a couch. A girl was setting a tray of fruits and wine down on a table between them.

Everard barely noticed her. Theonis lounged before him. She wore little jewelry; perhaps what gleamed on fingers, wrist, and bosom held electronics. The gown that fitted the curves and litheness of her was simply cut, thinly woven. She herself was the female of Merau Varagan, his clone mate, his anima. Enough.

“You may go, Cassa,” her low voice sang more than said. “You and the other slaves are not to leave your quarters before dawn tonight, unless I call.” The eyes narrowed very slightly. It was as if their green shifted for a moment from the hue of malachite to that of seas breaking over a reef. “This is a strict command. Tell them.”

Everard thought, though he wasn’t sure, that the girl shuddered. “Very good, my lady.” She backed out. He supposed the household staff lived dormitory style upstairs.

Raor took a goblet and sipped. The man stirred on his seat. Clad in a blue-bordered white robe, he resembled her sufficiently to identify his race. The gray in his hair was probably artificial. The personality that spoke was forceful, though without the Varagan vividness. “Isn’t Sauvo back yet?”

He used his birthtime language, which Everard had long since gotten imprinted. When this hunt ended, if it ever did, the Patrolman would be almost sorry to have those trills and purrs scrubbed from his brain. Not only was the tongue euphonious, it was precise and concise, so much so that a sentence might require an English paragraph to translate it, as if the speakers actually were telling each other what they both knew quite well.

However, he couldn’t retain everything he learned in the course of his job. Memory capacity is finite, and there would be other hunts to come. There always were.

“At any moment,” Raor said easily. “You are too impatient, Draganizu.”

“We have spent years of lifespan already—”

“Not much more than one.”

“For you and Sauvo. For me, five, establishing this identity.”

“Spend a few more days to protect the investment.” Raor smiled, and Everard’s heart missed a beat. “Fuming ill becomes a priest of Poseidon.”

Oh-ho! Then that’s his alias. Theonis’ “kinsman.” Everard laid hold on the fact, gripped hard, stopped his slide down into infatuation.

“And Buleni even longer, often in hardship and danger,” Draganizu continued.

“The merrier for him,” Raor jested.

“If Sauvo, then, can’t be troubled to time his arrivals—”

Raor lifted a hand that Botticelli could have painted. Her dark-tressed head cocked. “Ah, I think that is he.”

Another male Exaltationist entered. His beauty was harsher than Draganizu’s. He wore an ordinary tunic and sandals. Raor leaned a little forward, mercurially intent. “Did you lock the door behind you?” she demanded. “I didn’t hear.”

“Of course,” Sauvo answered. “I’ve never forgotten, have I?” Discomfort crossed Draganizu’s visage. Maybe he had been absentminded in that respect. Once. Raor would have seen to it that he never was afterward. “Especially when the Patrol is on the prowl,” Sauvo added.

So, Everard thought, their garage for timecycles is in a Bluebeard room on this floor … toward the rear, since that’s where Sauvo came from. …

Draganizu half rose, sat back down, and asked anxiously, “It is, then? You have established it is active here-now?”

Sauvo took another stool; in the ancient world, chairs with backs were rare, mostly for royalty. He helped himself to wine and a fig. “Not to fear, camarado. Whatever clues they came upon, they’ve misread. They think the trouble spot is elsewhere, years uptime. They sent a man to inquire here-now merely in the interests of thoroughness.”

He related the story that Everard had told in the vihara. He got to Chandrakumar in prison and used a kyradex on him, the Patrolman realized. No secrets any more. But most of what Sauvo learned ain’t so. Thanks, Shalten.

“Another change-scheme!” Draganizu exclaimed.

“Ours will nullify it and its operators,” Raor murmured. “But first, yes, it would be interesting to learn more about them. Perhaps even to contact them—” Her words stole off into silence, like a snake after prey.

“First,” Draganizu said sharply, “we have the fact that this … Holbrook … broke free and is running loose.”

Raor recalled herself to immediacy. “At ease, at ease. We have his weapons and communication equipment.”

“When he doesn’t report in—”

“I doubt the Patrol expects to hear from him at once. Set him aside for the present, together with those conspirators. We have more urgent matters at hand.”

Draganizu turned to Sauvo and asked, “How did you obtain privacy for interrogation?”

“You haven’t heard?” His fellow was faintly surprised.

“I only got here a few minutes ago. I have been busy with affairs of my Nicomachus persona. Raor’s note said nothing but ‘Come.’”

Hand-delivered by a slave, Everard deduced. No radio. Maybe she feels confident still, but the “Holbrook” business has made her ultra-cautious.

Silken shoulders rose and fell. “I had persuaded Zoilus to arrange solitary detention for any prisoners taken in this matter,” Raor said. “I told him that my connections led me to believe they are dangerous spies.”

And when guards and prisoners at the hoosegow were mostly asleep, Sauvo used a timecycle to pop into the cell. Raor was willing to allow that much risk; she didn’t figure it was likely the Patrol had anyone in Bactra besides Chandrakumar and Holbrook, one now locked away, the other deprived of his gear and on the lam. Sauvo gave Chandrakumar a stun beam, clapped the kyradex on his head, and when he came to, interviewed him. Thoroughly.

I hope he left the little guy alive. Yes, he doubtless did. Why make the jailers wonder? What could Chandrakumar tell them tomorrow that’d show them he was anything but a lunatic?

Draganizu stared at Raor. “You do have him besotted, do you not?” he said.

“Him and several more,” Sauvo responded, while Raor demurely sipped her wine. He laughed. “The seething, jealous looks that Majordomo Xeniades gets! And I’m only supposed to be her employee, not her pimp.”

Ah. Sauvo is Xeniades, chief of the household staff. Worth remembering…. I sympathize with Zoilus and company. Wouldn’t I love to get milady in the sack myself? Everard’s grin twisted. Though I wouldn’t dare fall asleep in her arms. She might have a hypo of cyanide tucked away in those raven locks.

“The Greeks are holding Chandrakumar for us, then,” Draganizu said. “But what of the equipment that Holbrook had?”