Poul Anderson - The Shield of Time

“Every agent of the Time Patrol is,” he answered.

“Well, uh, but me—I’m just going to be a field scientist. In the prehistoric, and not even anthropology. About as far from any causal nexus as you can get, I should think. What have I got that, uh, that interests you?”

“The circumstances that brought you to us are unusual.”

“Isn’t everything unusual?” she exclaimed. “How likely was it ever that I, this exact I with this exact combination of genes, would get born? My sister isn’t a lot like me.”

“Sensibly put.” Guion leaned back and partook of his own drink. “Probability is relative. Granted, the events that caught you up were melodramatic; but in a way melodrama is the norm of reality. What could be more sensational than the fiery creation of the universe, of the galaxies and stars? What could have appeared amidst them more strange than life? Dire need, mortal conflict, desperation made it evolve. We survive by waging incessant warfare against invading microscopic hosts and betrayals within. Set beside this, clashes between humans seem ridiculously incidental. Yet they determine our fate.”

His quiet tone and donnish diction calmed her more than did a little alcohol or relaxation technique. “Well, sir, what can I tell you?” she asked. “I’ll do my best.”

He sighed. “If I had definite questions, this session would doubtless not be necessary.” Another smile. “Which would be my loss, true. I am not so alien to you that I don’t expect to find pleasure in your company during these next few hours.” On a level below words, she understood that his courtliness had no ulterior motive—except to soothe her till she could reveal the nuances he desired—and might be sincere.

“I search for clues to a certain matter,” he went on. “You are analogous to a witness, an innocent bystander, who may or may not have noticed something at an accident or a crime, something helpful to the officer investigating the case. That is why I use your mother tongue. In any other, including Temporal, your expressiveness would be too limited. Your very body language would be poorly coordinated with what you are saying.”

A crime? She shivered a bit. “Whatever I can do, sir.”

“That will mainly be to talk freely, for the most part about yourself. People seldom object to doing that, eh?” He turned grave. “I repeat, you have done nothing wrong, and quite possibly have nothing to do with the business. But you understand I must find out.”

“How?” she breathed. “What is this … business?”

“I cannot say.” She wondered if that meant he was forbidden to. “But think of the countless world lines intermeshed throughout the continuum as a spiderweb. A touch on one strand trembles through many. A disruption somewhere changes the configuration of the whole. You have learned that causality does not work exclusively from past to future; it can double back on itself, can even annul itself. There are occasions when we know only that the web is troubled, not where or when the source of the disturbance lies; for that source perhaps does not exist in our yet, our reality. We can only try to trace it back up the threads—” He broke off. “Enough. I do not mean to frighten you.”

“I don’t scare easy, sir.” This could do it, though.

“Consider my mission precautionary,” he urged. “You, like Agent Everard, have been intimately”—sketched a grin—“if unwillingly associated with the Exaltationists, a major disruptive force.”

“But they’ve all been, will be caught or killed,” she protested. “Won’t they?”

“Yes. However, they could be related to something larger.” He raised a palm. “Not a larger organization or conspiracy, no. We have no reason to suspect that. Butchaos itself has a certain basic coherence. Things have a way of recurring. People do.

“Therefore it is wise to study those who have been part of great events. They may again, whether or not our extant records know anything of it.”

“But I was just, just borne along,” she stammered. “Manse—Agent Everard, he was the one who counted.”

“I want to make sure of that,” Guion said.

He let her sit a span in silence, while the stars strengthened overhead and shaped constellations unknown to Galileo. When he spoke anew, she had come to terms with the situation.

She wasn’t important, she decided. Impossible. This wasn’t humility—she expected to do a topflight job in her coming line of work—but common sense. Enigmatic though he might be, this man was simply behaving like any conscientious detective, checking out every conceivable lead, aware that most led nowhere.

And, yes, he might well enjoy a meal and conversation with a young woman who wasn’t bad-looking. Then why shouldn’t she enjoy too? What might she learn about him and the world from which he hailed?

As it turned out, nothing.

Guion was affable. She could almost call him charming, in his detached scholastic fashion. He made no display of his authority, but left her in no doubt of it, much like her father during her childhood. (Oh, Dad, who’ll never know!) Instead, he drew her out about herself, her life, Everard, asking for no confidences but nonetheless so deftly that only later did she realize she had told him more than she meant to. At first, after bidding him adieu, she knew simply that she had had an interesting dinner date. He didn’t imply they would meet anymore.

Walking back to her room on paths now deserted, among the night scents of ancient Earth, she found herself, oddly, thinking less about him, not to mention Sequeira, than about big, soft-spoken, and—she believed—rather lonely Manse Everard.

She stopped when she reached her shelter and stood a moment, looking around her and back the way she had come. Why? she wondered. As though this is the last time ever. With an unawaited pang: Well, maybe it is, almost Southwesterly the sun hung low above the sea, but would not sink for hours yet, and then only briefly. Its rays washed chill gold over cumulus clouds towering in the east and set the waters agleam, half a mile away. Thence land rose steeply toward northern ridges. It was wan with summer’s short grass, broken here and there by intense greens and browns of peat moss. Leaves shivered pale on stands of stunted aspen. Elsewhere grew thick patches of scrub willow, seldom more than ankle-high. Sedges rippled and rustled along a nearby brook. It tinkled down to a river not very wide either, sunken from her sight in a ravine. She could see the tops of dwarf alder clustered on the sides. Smoke tatters blew from the dens of Aryuk and his family.

A wind had risen off the sea. It made her face tingle. The boisterous damp quenched some of the weariness in her but roused hunger; she had tramped quite a ways today. Cries cut through, from birds aloft in their hundreds, gulls, ducks, geese, cranes, swans, plover, snipe, curlews, an eagle high at hover. After two years she still found marvel in the lavishness of life, at the very gates of the Ice. Not before leaving her home world had she really known how impoverished it was.

“Sorry, friends,” she murmured. “My teapot and crackerbox are calling me.” After which I’d better do up my report. Dinner can wait. She grimaced. Reporting won’t be the kind of fun it used to be.

She stiffened. Naw, why’re you so spooky about what’s happened? she demanded. A big event, sure, but not necessarily a big bad one. Premonitions? Scat! Listen, gal, it’s natural to talk to yourself now and then, and okay to talk to the fauna just a bit, but when your bugaboos start talking to you, quite likely you have been in the field long enough.