The North American Outpost was actually situated in the sixteenth century, deep inside what would later be known as Georgia’s Blue Ridge Mountains. It was a good site, being situated on a central node in space-time that made it easier to generate temporal warps. As a result, Jumps required less energy, which made temporal warps cheaper to create. That was particularly crucial for large tour groups; a Jump was enormously expensive. First there was the energy cost in generating warps there and back, then the price of buying the group food and clothing appropriate to the period. And finally, you had to hire enough experienced personnel to make sure none of the tourists did anything fatally stupid.
There were a great many ways to get dead in centuries not your own.
If it was hard to finance a trip back in time, living there was a real pain in the ass. Luckily for the Enforcers, all the activity around the Outpost helped convince the area’s native population that the mountains were haunted. They avoided the area, making life much easier for the agents who would otherwise have had to deal with them.
Which meant the Enforcers could do as they damned well pleased.
The one drawback to the location was that any communication with Temporal Enforcement’s twenty-fourth-century headquarters had to be sent by courier bot. Com messages couldn’t travel through temporal warps. Not that it mattered. You couldn’t change history. As much as Alerio would have liked to travel back to the moment the Xerans attacked and stop them, it just wasn’t possible. His team would have ended up dead, or they’d have jumped to the wrong location, or all their suits would have failed at the same time. Something would have stopped them, just as something had stopped all the other teams who’d tried to prevent crimes before they happened.
Every one of those attempts had failed.
Every single time.
Eventually, temporal physicists had finally worked out the equations that explained why history could not be changed. Alerio even understood the math. He didn’t like it, but he understood it.
So when he’d received the bot with Lolai’s hysterical plea for help that morning, he’d summoned his team and Jumped to the moment after the courier had left. Not before. Never before.
“Ready to record,” the bot said in a smooth, androgynous voice.
Jolted back to the moment, Alerio told his neurocomp to send the report to the courier. The implant obediently transmitted both the report and its assorted attachments: trid recordings of the crime scenes, a few gigs’ worth of data on the blood, sperm, and fiber evidence, his comp’s recording of Ivar making his threats.
“Message received and logged,” the bot said. “Recipient?”
“Colonel Elana Ceres.”
The bot acknowledged his command and vanished with a deafening crack and retina-searing flash. Alerio grunted and sat back to await the colonel’s response. It wouldn’t be long. Ceres could take her sweet time considering all the angles and still program the courier to arrive within five minutes of the time it left. Time travel could be either damned convenient or a huge aching pain in the ass.
While Alerio waited, he started wrestling with the problem of how to protect the scheduled temporal tours with the personnel he had available. Ivar is damned well not going to claim any more victims on my watch.
He’d barely settled down for some serious plotting when the courier made its thunderous reappearance. “I have the colonel’s response,” it announced in its prissy Galactic Capital accent.
“Proceed.” Alerio braced one elbow on his desk and waited to see what beefershit his superior would bury him in. He’d commanded the Outpost for five years now under the direction of three different TE colonels. They’d all been career politicians who viewed Alerio and his agents as stepping-stones to some more significant post.
Elana Ceres was the worst of the lot.
What’s more, she’d just decided to run for the Terran Regional Governor’s office. A victory would make her the leader of five planets, fifteen moons, and a couple of asteroid belts, besides giving her a seat on the Galactic Union Council of Governors.
All of which was a long step up from Temporal Enforcement. Luckily for Ceres, she was a member of a politically well-connected family, backed by all the money that came with that kind of power. She was generally considered the odds-on favorite in the governor’s race.
Unfortunately, the mess Alerio had just dumped in her lap could complicate that easy jog to victory. She won’t like that one bit. He braced himself for an icy chewing-out delivered in Ceres’s silken drawl.
The courier beeped, and projected the colonel’s trid just above his desk surface. As always, there was no expression on the woman’s beautiful face, as if she feared creating creases in her flawless skin. Hair the color of champagne tumbled in shimmering curls around the dark blue shoulders of her Temporal Enforcement dress uniform. Huge eyes stared from a screen of thick, dark lashes, their irises a brilliant shimmering green streaked with amber. Every bone of her delicate face looked as if it had been mathematically plotted for perfection.
Alerio had known combat droids with more personality.
Fortunately for Ceres, she could fake character well enough if a trid camera was aimed her way. But today there was no larger audience than Alerio, so she didn’t bother to fake humanity, much less civility. Not for a mere Vardonese Warlord.
“I have discussed your report with my fellow Temporal Enforcement regional commanders,” Ceres announced. “We’re all of the opinion that informing the public of this . . . terrorist’s threats would do more harm than good.”
Alerio snorted. “Especially when it comes to your gubernatorial campaign.” He wasn’t recording a response—she’d be shocked to receive one—so he could say whatever the hell he wanted. Not that he’d ever hesitated to tell Ceres what he thought, though he usually tried to do it with some pretense of diplomacy.
“Making the public aware of Terje’s attempted blackmail could have a negative impact on temporal tourism,” she continued with the cold objectivity of a combat droid. “Considering the licensing fees involved and current Galactic Union budgeting constraints, we simply can’t afford to start a panic. However, if the situation becomes more fluid . . .”
“In other words, if more people end up dead,” he muttered, grinding his teeth so hard they creaked as if on the verge of cracking.
“We will certainly reevaluate our decision. In the meantime, you’re ordered to do everything possible to apprehend these killers while preventing further collateral damage.”
“‘So don’t let anyone else get dead.’” He clenched his jaw again. It was starting to ache from the pressure. “Believe it or not, I didn’t need that last bit spelled out.”
“Please know we take this situation very seriously, Chief Dyami. However, I have faith in your ability to prevent further losses and apprehend those involved.”
Ceres paused. The corners of her lips lifted slightly. By her standards, it was the equivalent of a sadistic grin. “However, you should be aware that a number of my fellow commanders have raised concerns. Some still think you should be reassigned, especially in light of Terje’s treason.”
Yeah, he’d figured the bastards would want to strip him of his command. He supposed he was lucky they hadn’t fired him already. Fortunately—or not, depending on your point of view—he’d make a highly convenient scapegoat if the public should somehow learn of the scandal.
“I, however, argued that given the . . . volatility on the Xeran home world, it was best to leave you in place.”
So you can toss my bleeding corpse to the media wolves and run like hell if anything goes wrong.