Poul Anderson - The Shield of Time

Home to war, Everard knew.

They entered by the Scythian Gate. It stood open, but a squad of soldiers kept watch, helmets, shields, cuirasses, greaves, pikeheads ablaze in the sunlight. They turned a wary eye on everybody who passed. The bustle also seemed rather subdued, folk speaking less loudly and more curtly than was usual in the East. Pulled by oxen or donkeys, quite a few wooden carts were laden with family goods, the peasants who drove them accompanied by wives and children—seeking refuge behind the walls, if they could afford it.

Hipponicus noticed. His mouth tightened. “Bad news has come,” he opined to Everard. “Only rumors, I’m sure, but truth hard on their heels. Hermes rates a sacrifice from me, that we arrived no later than now.”

Yet everyday life went on. It always does, somehow, till the jaws close shut upon it. Between buildings generally blank-fronted but often vividly painted, people thronged the streets. Wagons, beasts of burden, porters, women balancing water jugs or market baskets on their heads, maneuvered among artisans, laborers, household slaves. A wealthy man in a litter, an officer on horseback, once a war elephant and its mahout, thrust straight through, leaving bow waves and wakes of human turbulence. Wheels groaned, hoofs clopped, sandals slapped cobblestones. Gabbling, laughter, anger, a snatch of song, a flute-lilt or drum-thump, roiled odors of sweat, dung, smoke, cookery, incense. In the shade of foodstalls, men sat cross-legged, sipping wine, playing board games, watching the world brawl past.

Along the Sacred Way were a library, an odeon, a gymnasium, marble-faced, stately with pillars and friezes. At intervals rose those ithyphallic stone posts, topped by bearded heads, known as herms. Elsewhere, Everard knew, were schools, public baths, a stadium, a hippodrome, and a royal palace modeled on the one in Seleucid Antioch. This main thoroughfare boasted side-walks, elevated above manure and garbage, with stepping stones at the crossings. Thus far had the seeds of Greek civilization spread.

Yet it mattered not that the Greeks identified Anaitis with Aphrodite Ourania and built her a fane in their own style. She remained an Asian goddess, her cult the largest; and west of Bactria the upstart kingdom of Parthia would presently create a new Persian Empire.

The temple of Anaitis loomed beside the Stoa of Nicanor, principal marketplace in town. Booths crowded the square: silk, linens, woolens, wine, spices, sweetmeats, drugs, gems, brasswork, silverwork, goldwork, ironwork, talismans—With the sellers crying their wares and the shoppers haggling over prices mingled vendors, dancers, musicians, soothsayers, wizards, prostitutes, beggars, idlers—The faces, the many-hued and many-formed garments had come from China, India, Persia, Arabia, Syria, Anatolia, Europe, the wild highlands and the savage northern plains—

To Everard the scene was eerily half-familiar. He had witnessed its like in a score of different lands, in as many different centuries. Each was unique, but a prehistorically ancient kinship vibrated in them all. He had never been here before. The Balkh of his own birthtime held scarcely a ghost of Hellenic Bactra. But he knew his way around. A subtle electronics had printed into his brain the map, the history, the chief languages, and information that was never chronicled but that Chandrakumar’s patience had gleaned.

So much preparation, so long and risky an effort, to clap hands on four fugitives.

They threatened his world’s existence.

“This way!” yelled Hipponicus, gesturing from the saddle. His caravan struggled on, into a less crowded district, to stop at a warehouse. There a couple of hours went by while the goods were unloaded, inventoried, and stored. Hipponicus gave his men five drachmas apiece on account and instructions about the stabling and care of the animals. He would meet them tomorrow at the bank where he kept most of his money and pay them off. Right now, everybody wanted to go home, hear what had been happening, celebrate as merrily as that news would allow.

Everard waited. He missed his pipe, and a cold beer would have been overwhelmingly welcome. But a Time Patrolman learned how to outlast tedium. He half observed what went on, half daydreamed. After a while, he noticed he was remembering an afternoon two thousand years and more beyond this moment.

Sunshine, soft air, and city murmur passed through an open window. Beyond it, Everard saw Palo Alto going about a holiday weekend. The apartment he sat in was a Stanford student’s, comfortably shabby furniture, cluttered desk, bookcase crowded with miscellany, a National Wildlife Federation poster thumbtacked to the opposite wall. No trace remained of last night’s violence. Wanda Tamberly had seen to the fine details of cleanup. She must not suspect anything amiss when she returned from her family outing—she, four months younger in lifespan than Wanda who sat here now, a space-time universe younger in knowledge.

Everard looked out no oftener than habitual alertness compelled. He much preferred to keep his attention on the comely California blonde. Light glowed in her hair and on the blue bathrobe that matched her eyes. Even granted that she’d slept the clock around, she’d bounced back from her experience astoundingly fast. A girl, or a boy for that matter, who’d been kidnapped by one of Pizarro’s Conquistadores and rescued in a teeth-skinning maneuver would have had every excuse for spending the next few days stupefied. Wanda had shared a large steak in her kitchen while asking intelligent questions. Here in the living room, she was still at it.

“How does time travel work, anyway? Impossible and absurd, I’ve read.”

He nodded. “According to today’s physics and logic, that’s true. They’ll learn better in the future.”

“All the same—Okay, I’m into biology, but I’ve had some physics courses and I try to keep up, sort of. Science News, Analog —” She smiled. “I’m being honest, you see. Scientific American, when the style doesn’t make me doze off. Real honest!” Her humor faded. It had been defensive, he guessed. The situation remained critical, perhaps desperate. “You jump onto something sort of like a Buck Rogers motorcycle without wheels, work the controls, rise in the air, hover, fly, then push another control and you’re instantly someplace else, anywhere, anywhen. Regardless of altitude differences or—Where does the energy come from? And the earth spins, it goes around the sun, the sun orbits through the galaxy. How about that?”

He shrugged, with a smile of his own. “E pur si muove.”

“Huh? Oh. Oh, yeah. What Galileo muttered, after they made him agree the earth sits still. ‘Nevertheless, it moves.’ Right?”

“Right. I’m surprised a, uh, a person of your generation knows the story.”

“I don’t only skindive and backpack for recreation, Mr. Everard.” He heard a tinge of resentment. “I take a book along.”

“Sure. Sorry. Uh—”

“Frankly, I’m a little surprised you’d know.”

Sure, he thought, no matter how wild the circumstances, you couldn’t mistake what I am, a plain Mid-westerner who’s never quite gotten the mud off his boots.

Her voice softened. “But of course you live history.” The honey-colored head shook. “I can’t yet get a handle on it. Time travel. It won’t come real for me, in spite of everything that’s happened. Too fabulous. Am I being slow on the uptake, Mr. Everard?”

“I thought we were using first names.” The norm of this period in America. Which, damn it, is not so alien to me. I base myself in it. I belong here too. I’m not really old. Born sixty-three years ago. Run up a lot more lifespan than that, traipsing around through time. But biologically I’m in my thirties, he wanted to tell her and mustn’t. Antisenescence treatment, preventive medicine future to this century. We Patrol agents have our perks. We need them, to carry us through some of the things we see. He wrenched his mind into an attempt at lightness. “Actually, Galileo never said what I quoted, under his breath or aloud. It’s a myth.” The kind of myth humans live by, more than they do by facts.