Poul Anderson - The Shield of Time

Hipponicus grew earnest. “I don’t want you for a performing bear, Meander. Please don’t believe that. We’re friends. Aren’t we? After what we’ve been through together? A man gives hospitality to his friends.”

Slowly, Everard nodded. “All right. Thanks.”

I’ve gotten fond of you in my turn, he thought. Not that we’ve shared many desperate adventures. One set-to, and then the flooding ford where we barely saved three mules, and … a few similar incidents. But it was the kind of trip that shows what your travel mates are made of —

—from Alexandria Eschates on the River Jaxartes, last and loneliest of those cities the Conqueror founded and named for himself, where Everard signed on. It lay in the realm of the Bactrian king, but on its very edge, and the nomads beyond the stream had taken to raiding across it this year, when garrisons were depleted to reinforce a threatened southwestern frontier. Hipponicus had been glad to acquire an extra guard, footloose free-lance though the newcomer be. And indeed there had been a bandit attack to beat off. Afterward the way south through Sogdiana threaded regions rugged, desolate, wild, as well as land irrigated and cultivated. Now they had crossed the Oxus and were in Bactria proper, arriving home—

—as the survey ascertained we would be. For a minute this morning, opticals aboard an unmanned spacecraft tracked us, before its orbit swung it out to a far rendezvous. That’s why I was on hand to meet you in Alexandria, Hipponicus. I’d been informed that your caravan would reach Bactra on a day that seemed right for my purposes. But, yes, I like you, you rascal, and hope to God you survive what’s ahead for your nation.

“Excellent,” the merchant said. “You weren’t anxious to spend your pay at some fleabag of an inn, were you? Take your time, look around, enjoy yourself. Quite likely you’ll find a better new job that way than through an agent.” He sighed. “I wish I could offer you a permanent billet, but Hermes knows when I’ll travel again, what with this war situation.”

Such news as they had gathered in the last few days was confused but ugly. Antiochus, king of Seleucid Syria, was invading. Euthydemus of Bactria had taken the army to meet him. Rumor said Euthydemus was now in retreat.

Hipponicus regained cheerfulness. “Ha, I know why you hung back!” he exclaimed. “Afraid you wouldn’t get a chance at our Bactran fleshpots, staying with a respectable family, weren’t you? Didn’t that little flute girl two nights ago satisfy you for a while?” He reached out to dig a thumb into Everard’s ribs. “You had her walking bowlegged next morning, you did.”

Everard stiffened. “Why are you so interested?” he snapped. “Wasn’t yours any good?”

“Ai, don’t get mad.” Hipponicus squinted at him. “You almost seem regretful. Did you wish for a boy instead? I didn’t think that was your style.”

“It isn’t.”—which was true, but also fitted Everard’s persona of a semi-barbarian adventurer, half Hellenized, from the Balkans north of Macedonia. “I just don’t care to talk about my private life.”

“No, you don’t, do you?” Hipponicus murmured. Abundance of colorful anecdotes; nothing personal.

Actually, Everard admitted, it doesn’t make sense for me to bristle at his wisecrack. Why did I? It didn’t mean a thing. After long abstinence, we were in civilized parts again, and stopped at a caravanserai where girls were available. I had a hell of a fine time with Atossa That’s all.

Maybe that’s what’s wrong, he reflected, that that was all. She’s a sweet lass. She deserves better than the life she’s got. Big eyes, small breasts, slim hips, knowing hands, yet toward dawn the wistfulness in her voice when she asked if he’d ever be back. And what he’d given her, apart from a modest fee and afterward a tip, was merely the consideration that most twentieth-century American men ordinarily tried to show a woman. Of course, hereabouts that was not ordinary.

I keep wondering what’ll become of her. She could well be gang-raped, maybe killed, maybe hauled off to slavery abroad, when Antiochus’ troops overrun the area. At best, she’ll be faded by the time she’s thirty, doing whatever drudge work she can find; worn out and toothless by forty; dead before fifty. I’ll never know.

Everard shook himself. Stop that gush! He was no fresh recruit, tenderhearted and appalled. He was a veteran, an Unattached operative of the Time Patrol, who understood full well that history is what humans endure.

Or maybe I feel the least bit guilty. Why? That makes still less sense. Who’s been hurt? Certainly not he, even potentially. The artificial viruses implanted in him destroyed any and every germ that sickened people anytime throughout the ages. So he couldn’t have passed anything on to Atossa either, besides memories. And it would not have been natural for Meander the Illyrian to forgo such an opportunity. I’ve taken more of them along my lifeline than I remember, and not always because I needed to stay in character on a mission.

Okay, okay, shortly before starting out on this one I had a date with Wanda Tamberly. So what? None of her business either, was it?

He grew aware that Hipponicus was talking: “Very well. No offense. Don’t worry, you’ll be quite free to wander around most of the time. I’ll be busy. I’ll tell you the best places to go, and maybe once in a while I can join you, but mostly you’ll be on your own. And at my house, no questions.”

“Thanks,” Everard replied. “Sorry if I was gruff. Tired, hot, thirsty.”

Good, he thought. It turns out I’m in luck. I can look up Chandrakumar without any problems, and in addition, I may well learn something useful from Hipponicus’ acquaintances. Admittedly, he’d be a trifle more conspicuous than he had planned on. However, in cosmopolitan Bactra he’d cause no sensation. He needn’t seriously fear alerting his quarry.

“We’ll soon take care of that,” the merchant promised.

As if to bear him out, the road swung sharply around a stand of chedar trees and the city which they had been glimpsing sprang into full view. Massive, turreted, tawny, its walls reared above riverside docks. From within their seven-mile perimeter lifted the smoke of hearths and workshops, drifted the noise of wheels and hoofs, while traffic flowed in and out the great gates, walking, riding, driving. Settlements clustered close around a strip kept clear for defense: houses, inns, industries, gardens.

Like the caravaneers, the dwellers were predominantly Iranian. Their ancestors founded the town, naming it Zariaspa, the City of the Horse. To the Greeks it was Bactra, and the nearer to it you came, the more Greeks you saw. Some of their kind had entered this country when the Persian Empire held it. Often that movement was involuntary, the Achaemenid shahs deporting troublesome Ionians. After Alexander took it, immigration increased, for Bactria had turned into a land of opportunity, which finally made itself an independent kingdom ruled by Hellenes. The large majority of them were in the cities, or in the military, or plying trade routes that reached west to the Mediterranean, south to India, east to China.

Everard recalled hovels, medieval ruins, impoverished farmers and herders, mostly Turkic-Mongolian Uzbegs. But that was in Afghanistan, 1970, not far below the Soviet border. A lot of change and chance would blow from the steppes in the millennia to come. Too damn much.

He clucked at his mount. Hipponicus’ had broken into a trot. The camel drivers made their own beasts shamble faster, and the men afoot happily kept pace. They were almost home.