"Is that your aim?" In a vague way Tamberly knew he should be furious, aghast, anything but apathetic. He barely had the curiosity to ask the question.
"Perhaps," Varagan taunted. "However, the men who found you were only scouts in advance of a much more modest enterprise, bringing Atahualpa's ransom here. That would be quite upsetting in itself, of course." He laughed. "But it might preserve those priceless works of art. You were content to make holograms of them for people uptime."
"For all humankind," said Tamberly automatically.
"Well, for such of it as can be allowed to enjoy the fruits of time travel, under the watchful eye of the Patrol."
"Bring the treasure . . . here?" fumbled Tamberly. "Now?"
"Temporarily. We've camped where we are because it's a convenient base." Varagan scowled. "The Patrol is too vigilant in our original milieu. Arrogant swine!" Calm again: "As isolated as Machu Picchu is at present, it will not be noticeably affected by changes in the near past—for instance, by such a detail as Atahualpa's ransom unaccountably disappearing one night. But your associates will be in full quest of you, Tamberly. They'll follow up every last clue they can find. Best we have that information at once, to forestall any moves of theirs."
I should be shaken to the roots of my soul. This utter, absolute recklessness—risking loops in the world lines, temporal vortices, destruction of the whole future—No, not risking. Deliberately bringing it about. But I cannot feel the horror. The thing that squats on my skull holds down my humanity.
Varagan leaned forward. "Therefore let us discuss your personal history," he said. "What do you consider your home? What family have you, friends, ties of any kind?"
The questions quickly became knife-sharp. Tamberly watched and listened while their skilled wielder cut from him detail after detail. When something especially interested Varagan, he pursued it to the end. Tamberly's second wife ought to be safe; she was also in the Patrol. His first wife was remarried, out of his life. But oh, God, his brother, and Bill's own wife, and he heard himself confess that his niece was like a daughter to him—The doorway darkened. Luis Castelar bounded through.
His sword slashed. The guard there buckled, crumpled, fell and lay squirming. Blood spouted from his throat, its red like the shriek he could no longer sound forth.
Raor dropped the control box and snatched for her sidearm. Castelar reached her. His left fist smashed at her jaw. She staggered back, sagged, went to the floor and gaped up at him, stunned. His blade sang even as she dropped. Varagan was on his feet. Incredibly quick, he dodged a cut that would have laid him open. The room was too cramped for him to get past. Castelar stabbed. Varagan clutched his belly. Blood squirted between his fingers. He leaned against the wall and shouted.
Castelar wasted no time finishing him. The Spaniard ripped the helmet off Tamberly. It thudded to the floor. Wholeness of spirit broke like a sunbeam into the American.
"Get us away!" Castelar rasped. "The witch-horse outside—"
Tamberly reeled from his chair. His knees would barely hold him. Castelar's free arm gave support. They stumbled into the open. The timecycle waited. Tamberly crawled onto the front saddle, Castelar leaped to the rear. A man in black appeared in the courtyard gateway. He yelled and reached for his weapon.
Tamberly slapped the console.
11 May 2937 B.C.
Machu Picchu was gone. Wind surrounded him. Hundreds of feet below lay a river valley, lush with grass and groves. Ocean gleamed in the distance.
The cycle dropped. Air brawled. Tamberly's hands sought the gravity drive. The engine awoke. The fall stopped. He brought the vehicle to a smooth and silent landing.
He began to shake. Darkness went in rags before his eyes.
The reaction passed. He grew aware of Castelar standing on the ground beside him, and the Spaniard's sword point an inch from his throat.
"Get off that thing," Castelar said. "Move carefully, your arms up. You are no holy man. I think you may be a magician who should burn at the stake. We will find out."
3 November 1885
A hansom cab brought Manse Everard from Dalhousie & Roberts, Importers—which was also the Time Patrol's London base in this milieu—to the house on York Place. He mounted the stairs through a dense yellowish fog and turned the handle on a doorbell. A maidservant let him into a wainscoted anteroom. He gave her a card. She was back in a minute to say that Mrs. Tamberly would be pleased to receive him. He left his hat and overcoat on a rack and followed her. Interior heating failed to keep out all the dank chill, which made him for once glad to be dressed like a Victorian gentleman. Usually he found such clothes abominably uncomfortable. Otherwise this was, on the whole, a marvelous era to live in, if you had money, enjoyed robust health, and could pass for an Anglo-Saxon Protestant.
The parlor was a pleasant, gaslit room, lined with books and not overly cluttered with bric-a-brac. A coal fire burned low. Helen Tamberly stood close, as if in need of what cheer it offered. She was a small reddish-blond woman; the full dress subtly emphasized a figure that many doubtless envied. Her voice made the Queen's English musical. It wavered a little, though. "How do you do, Mr. Everard. Please be seated. Would you care for tea?"
"No, thanks, ma'm, unless you want some." He made no effort to dissemble his American accent. "Another man is due here shortly. Maybe after we've talked with him?"
"Certainly." She nodded dismissal to the maid, who left the door open behind her. Helen Tamberly went to close it. "I hope this doesn't shock Jenkins too badly," she said with a wan smile.
"I daresay she's grown used to somewhat unconventional ways around here," Everard responded in an effort to match her self-possession.
"Well, we try not to be too outré. People tolerate a certain amount of eccentricity. If our front were upper class, rather than well-to-do bourgeois, we could get away with anything; but then we'd be too much in the public eye." She stepped across the carpet to stand before him, fists clenched at her sides. "Enough of that," she said desperately. "You're from the Patrol. An Unattached agent, am I right? It's about Stephen. Must be. Tell me."
Without fear of eavesdroppers, he continued in the English language, which might sound gentler in her ears than Temporal. "Yes. Now we don't yet know anything for sure. He's—missing. Failed to report in. I suppose you remember that was to have been in Lima late in 1535, several months after Pizarro founded it. We have an outpost there. Discreet inquiries turned up the fact that the friar Estebán Tanaquil vanished mysteriously two years before, in Cajamarca. Vanished, mind you, not died in some accident or affray or whatever." Bleakly: "Nothing as simple as that."
"But he could be alive?" she cried.
"We may hope. I can't promise more than that the Patrol will try its damnedest—uh, pardon me."
She gave a broken laugh. "That's all right. If you're from Stephen's milieu, everybody's careless with speech, true?"
"Well, he and I were both born and raised in the USA, middle twentieth century. That's why I've been asked to lead this investigation. A background shared with your husband just might give me some useful insight."
"You were asked," she murmured. "Nobody gives orders to an Unattached agent, nobody less than a Danellian."