Poul Anderson - The Shield of Time

Maybe returning to New York on the day after he left it had been a mistake. Even here, just now, the springtime was too beautiful. A dusk like this was not one in which to sit alone, remembering. Rain had cleared the air for a while, so that through open windows drifted a ghost of blossoms and green. Lights and noises from the streets below were somehow softened, turned riverlike. Manse Everard wanted out.

He might have gone for a walk in Central Park, pocketing a stun gun in case of trouble. No policeman of this century would know it for a weapon. Better, when he had lately seen too much violence—any amount was too much—he could have strolled downtown along a safe route till he ended in one or another of the little taverns he knew, for beer and homely companionship. If he chose to get away altogether, he could requisition a time-cycle at Patrol headquarters and seek whatever era he chose, anyplace on Earth. An Unattached agent needn’t give reasons.

A phone call had trapped him. He prowled the darkening apartment, pipe a-fume between teeth, and occasionally swore at himself. Ridiculous, this mood. Sure, a letdown after action was natural; but he’d already enjoyed two easy weeks back in Hiram’s Tyre, taking care of leftover details after his mission was done. As for Bronwen, he’d provided for her, rejoining her could only destroy the measure of contentment she’d found, the calendar said that tonight she lay twenty-nine hundred years dust, and there should be an end of the matter.

The doorbell relieved him. He snapped on the lights, blinked in the sudden harshness, and admitted his visitor. “Good evening, Agent Everard,” greeted the man in subtly accented English. “I am Guion. I hope this is in fact not an inconvenient hour for you.”

“No, no. I agreed to it when you rang, didn’t I?” They shook hands. Everard doubted that the gesture occurred in Guion’s native milieu, whenever and wherever that was. “Come in.”

“You see, I thought you would wish to dispose of mundane business today, and then perhaps depart tomorrow for a holiday—ah, vacation, you Americans say, don’t you?—at some restful spot. I could have interviewed you when you got back, of course, but your memories would be less fresh. Also, frankly, I would like to get acquainted. May I invite you to dinner at a restaurant of your choice?”

While speaking, Guion had entered and taken an armchair. He was of undistinguished appearance, on the short and slender side, dressed in a plain gray suit. His head was big, though, and when you looked closely you saw that the thinly carved face wasn’t really a dark white man’s—didn’t quite belong to any race presently living on the planet. Everard wondered what powers lay behind its smile.

“Thanks,” he replied. Superficially the offer meant little. An Unattached agent of the Time Patrol drew on unlimited funds. Actually it meant a great deal. Guion wanted to spend lifespan on him. “Suppose we get the basic talking out of the way first. Care for a drink?”

The request given, he went to the bar and mixed Scotch and soda for both. Guion didn’t object to his pipe. He settled down.

“Let me repeat my congratulations on your accomplishments in Phoenicia,” his caller said. “Extraordinary.”

“I had a good team.”

“True. But it had first-class leadership. And you did the preliminary work solo, at considerable risk.”

“Is that what you’re here about?” Everard demanded. “My debriefing was pretty damn thorough. You must have seen the records. I don’t know what further I can tell.”

Guion stared into his lifted glass, as if the ice cubes were Delphic dice. “Possibly you omitted a few details you assumed are irrelevant,” he murmured. The scowl opposite him was fleeting but did not escape notice. He raised his free hand. “Don’t worry. I’ve no intention of intruding on your privacy. An operative who had no emotions about the human beings encountered on a mission would be … defective. Worthless, or downright dangerous. As long as we don’t let our feelings compromise our duties, they are, ah, nobody else’s affair.”

How much does he know, or suspect? wondered Everard. A sad little romance with a Celtic slave girl, foredoomed by the abyss between their birthtimes if by nothing else; his arranging at last for her manumission and marriage; farewell— I’m not about to inquire. I might learn more than I want to.

He hadn’t been informed what Guion was after, or why, or anything except that this person was at least of his own rank. Probably higher. Above its lowest echelons, the Patrol didn’t go in for organizational charts and formal hierarchies of command. By its nature, it couldn’t. The structure was much subtler and stronger than that. Quite likely none but the Danellians fully understood it.

Nevertheless Everard’s tone harshened. When he said, “We Unattached have broad discretion,” he was not merely rehashing the obvious.

“Of course, of course,” Guion responded with feline mildness. “I only hope to squeeze a few more drops of information out of what you experienced and observed. Then by all means enjoy your well-earned leisure.” Softer yet: “May I ask if your plans include Miss Wanda Tamberly?”

Everard started. He nearly slopped his drink. “Huh?” Recovery. Grab the initiative. “Is that what you’re here for, to talk about her?”

“Well, you recommended her recruitment.”

“And she’s passed the preliminary tests, hasn’t she?”

“Certainly. But you met her when she was caught up in that Peruvian episode. A brief but strenuous and revealing acquaintance.” Guion chuckled. “Since then, you have cultivated the relationship. That is no secret.”

“Not heavily,” Everard snapped. “She’s very young. But, yeah, I consider her a friend.” He paused. “A protégée of sorts, if you like.”

We’ve had a couple of dates. Then I went off to Phoenicia, and on my time line it’s been weeks … and I’ve returned to the same spring when the two of us were first together in San Francisco.

“Yes, I’ll doubtless be seeing her again,” he added. “But she has plenty else to keep her busy. Doubling back up to September in the Galapagos Islands, that she was snatched out of, and home in the usual fashion, and several months to arrange twentieth-century appearances so she can leave without raising questions in people’s minds—Arh! Why the devil am I repeating what you perfectly well know?”

Thinking aloud, I suppose. Wanda’s no Bronwen, but she may well, all unawares, help me put Bronwen behind me, as I’ve got to do. As I’ve had to do now and then before…. Everard wasn’t given to self-analysis. The realization jolted him that what he needed to regain inner peace was not another love affair but a few more times in the presence of innocence. Like a thirsty man finding a spring to drink from, high on a mountainside—Afterward, let him get on with his life, and she with her new one in the Patrol.

Chill: Unless they don’t accept her, in spite of everything. “And why are you interested, anyway? Are you concerned with personnel? Has anybody expressed doubts about her?”

Guion shook his head. “On the contrary. The psycho-probe gave her an excellent profile. Later examinations will be mainly for the usual purposes, to help guide her training and her earlier field assignments.”

“Good.” A glow kindled in Everard and eased him. He’d been smoking too hard. The tart coolness of a draught eased his tongue.

“I mentioned her simply because the events that caused your world line to intersect hers involved Exaltationists,” Guion said. The voice was most quiet, considering what it bore. “Earlier along yours, you had thwarted their effort to subvert Simόn Bolívar’s career. In the course of aiding Miss Tamberly—who defended herself so ably—you kept them from hijacking Atahuallpa’s ransom and changing the history of the Spanish Conquest. Now you have rescued ancient Tyre from them, and captured most of those who remained at large, including Merau Varagan. Wonderfully done. However, the task is not finished.”