Лео Франковски - Lord Conrad's Lady

The treasure taken didn't cover the costs of the war, so we didn't have to worry about dividing it up. We so outnumbered the enemy that you had to be a knight or better to rate a Crossman sword to take home, and many of the men got nothing but a surcoat or a bit of chain mail. But I got the Grand Master's sword and armor to set up in my living room, and his battle flag for my wall.

The delegates monopolized the riverboats for a few days, going home, and again the army had to wait. Before the boats were free, the construction people got the railroad built down to where Turon had been, and I told the troops to march home. Single file, because there was other traffic on the road.

One battalion of regulars under Baron Josep was left to take command of the former Crossman territories, and they were soon complaining about the lack of adequate housing. That summer they actually had to rebuild Turon out of used brick.

Dammit, I can't be expected to think of everything.

As things were closing down, Francine came to me. She wasn't as icy as she'd been before.

"Conrad, this is a wondrous thing that you have done here, to kill off a great power so casually. All of these great men from so many places, they all respect you and love you and fear you all at the same time! Even Henryk feels that same confused way. They have the honors and the titles, but it is you that truly have the power!"

"I'm still only a man trying to do my job, Francine."

"You are far more. than that. You are the master builder! You are the great mover and shaker of all of Christendom! It is you that really control and command all things! "

"If you say so. I take it that you are ready to come home now?"

"Of course, my love!"

Within six months Duke Henryk had treaties with Pomerania, Kujawy, nine separate pagan Pruthenian tribes, the kingdom of Hungary, and the Bulgarian Empire, the terms of which were essentially identical to those in our treaty with Prince Daniel of the Ruthenians. Even the pagans said they were willing to become Christians just so long as I didn't get mad at them.

And three months after that, since the Church still didn't have a Pope, King Bela of Hungary, Tsar Ivan Asen of Bulgaria, and I got together and crowned Henryk King of Central Christendom.

And after that I had an awful lot of steamboats and railroad tracks to build.

The tape wound to a stop. I looked at the wench at my side and wondered just what I had been doing. Enjoying myself with a woman? Making love with an alien? Petting a dog? Whatever it was, I felt uneasy about it. I peeled myself away from her.

"Picking up another bad habit, son?" I looked up, and Tom was there.

"Why didn't you tell me about these servants, Tom?"

"Why didn't you ask me? There are all sorts of things going on around here. For your future reference, all entertainers are human, all servants are constructs, and when in doubt, ask them. If you're worried about offending her, don't. Wenches don't get offended. If you really want to, you can use her sexually. She's physically capable of it, and she'll enjoy it as much as she can enjoy anything, They're not very emotional, you know. "

"So she's more of a machine than an animal or a person?"

"If you want her to be. She doesn't really fit into any of the usual categories. She's a chemical construct, self-replicating, servant, household. I suppose she's an animal, but a conventional biochemist wouldn't recognize any of the things she's made of. She's simply a perfect personal servant, to be used and ignored. That's not why I'm here."

"So why are you here, and where have you been?" I said.

"Actually, I've been gone for over a hundred years, subjective, getting a handle on what Cousin Conrad has done. I gave him the garden-variety explanation, and I let you get it off the tape to save time. At nine hundred, I might not have all that much time to waste."

"You're as healthy as one of your biocritters, and I have a better academic background than Conrad," I said.

"You'll still have to go back to school to pick up on it. For starters, we used to think that the universe had eleven dimensions. Lately, they've proved the existence of four more. "

"Damn. And here I thought I was ready for management."

"Don't worry about it. In another ten or twenty years you will be, son. "

"Wonderful. Anyway, I'm glad that Conrad worked out so well. It was quite a story."

"True. But stories never really end, you know. Not when you have a time machine."

On top of a windy cliff in Africa, at about two and a half million B.C., two long-lost members of the Anthropological Corps were sitting and chewing on dried meat as well as their few remaining teeth would allow.

"My eyesight is getting a lot worse," he said.

"Yeah, but my periods have finally stopped," she answered, turning her back to him.

"Then it's finally too late to do the sensible thing."

"The cowardly thing," she said.

"Stuff it," he said, turning his back to her.

"Yeah, stuff it."

There was a shimmer in the air in front of him, high above the valley floor, but his eyesight was so bad that he hardly noticed it. Only when the shimmer resolved itself into a tall, athletic young man and that man started to walk toward him on the clear air did he finally take notice.

"Look," he said.

"Look yourself," she said, unmoving.

"No. I really mean turn around and look."

"What?"

"Turn around, dammit! I think they've finally found us! Can you see him, too?"

She turned and stared at the blond young man who was smiling as he walked through the clean air without visible means of support. There was a lot of gold trim on his well-fitted red and white dress uniform, an outfit that would have looked more at home at a fancy costume ball than high above the ancient African plain.

"He's there," she said, "but he's not one of ours."

"Who cares, just so long as you see him, too, and I'm not crazy! I mean, who cares who saves us or how he does it, just so long as we're saved!"

"Sorry we took so long," the smiling young apparition said, his polished black boots resting on nothing, a few feet from the edge of the cliff.

"You're not one of us," the woman said.

"No, I'm from one of the alternate branches. I'm here on loan, lending a hand. Shall we go? I can have you home in a few moments." He reached out to them.

Fearfully, hesitantly, they reached out and took his hands.