Farnham's Freehold (37 page)

“You had her killed.” Hugh felt a surge of disgust and said it, knowing that nothing he said could matter now.

“What’s it to you? Its life was forfeit, treason to its master. However, I’m not a spiteful man, the little critter has no moral sense and didn’t know what it was doing—you must have hypnotized it, Hugh—and I am a frugal man; I don’t waste property. It’s adopted so far away that it’ll have trouble understanding the accent much less have it’s stories believed.”

Hugh sighed. “I’m relieved.”

“Choice about the slut, eh? Was it that good?”

“She was innocent. I didn’t want her hurt.”

“As may be. Now, Hugh, you can repair all this costly mess. Pay me back the damage and do yourself a good turn at the same time.”

“How?”

“Quite simple. You’ve cost me my key executive servant, I’ve no one of his caliber to replace him. So you take his place. No scandal, no fuss, no upset belowstairs—every servant who saw any piece of it is already adopted away. And you can tell any story you like about what happened to Memtok. Or even claim you don’t know. Barba, can you refrain from gossip?”

“I certainly can where Hugh’s welfare is concerned!”

“That’s a good child. I would hate to have you muted, it would hamper our bridge game. Although Hugh will be rather busy for bridge. Hugh, here’s the honey that trapped the bear. You take over as Chief Domestic, do the kind of a job I know you can do once you learn the details—and Barba and the twins live with you. What you always wanted. Well, that’s the choice. Be my boss servant and have them with you. Or your lives are forfeit. What do you say?”

Hugh Farnham was so dazed that he was gulping trying to accept, when Their Charity added, “Just one thing. I won’t be able to let you have them with you right away.”

“No?”

“No. I still want to breed a few from you, before you are tempered. Needn’t be long, if you are as spry as you look.”

Barbara said, “No!”

But Hugh Farnham was making a terrible decision. “Wait, Barbara. Ponse. What about the boys? Will they be tempered, too?”

“Oh.” Ponse thought about it. “You drive a hard bargain, Hugh. Suppose we say that they will not be. Let’s say that I might use them at stud a bit—but not take their thumbs; it would be a dead giveaway for so private a purpose with studs as tall as they are going to be. Then at fourteen or fifteen I let them escape. Does that suit you?” The old man stopped to cough; a spasm racked him. “Damn it, you’re tiring me.”

Hugh pondered it. “Ponse, you may not be alive fourteen or fifteen years from now.”

“True. But it is very impolite for you to say so.”

“Can you bind this bargain for your heir? Mrika?”

Ponse rubbed his hair and grinned. “You’re a sharp one, Hugh. What a Chief Domestic you will make! Of course I can’t—which is why I want some get from you, without waiting for the boys to mature. But there is always a choice, just as you have a choice now. I can see to it that you are in my heavenly escort. All of you, the boys, too. Or I can have you all kept alive and you can work out a new bargain, if any.
‘Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi?’
—which was the ancients’ way of saying that when the protector leaves there is always a new protector. Just tell me, I’ll do it either way.”

Hugh was thinking over the grim choices when Barbara again spoke up. “Their Charity—”

“Yes, child?”

“You had better have my tongue cut out. Right now, before you let me leave this room. Because I will have nothing to do with this wicked scheme. And I will not keep quiet.
No!
”

“Barba, Barba, that’s not being a good girl.”

“I am not a girl. I am a woman and a wife and a mother! I will never call you ‘uncle’ again—you are vile! I will not play bridge with you ever again, with or without my tongue. We are helpless…but I will give you
nothing
. What is this you offer? You want my husband to agree to this evil thing in exchange for a few scant years of life for me and for our sons—for as long as God lets that evilness you call your body continue to breathe. Then what? You cheat him even then. We die. Or we are left to the mercy of your nephew who is even worse than you are. Oh, I know! The bedwarmers all hate him, they weep when they are called to serve him—and weep even harder when they come back. But I would not let Hugh make this choice, even if you could promise us all a lifetime of luxury.
No!
I won’t. I won’t! You try to do it, I’ll kill my babies! Then myself. Then Hugh will kill himself I know! No matter what you have done to him!” She stopped, spat as far as she could in the old man’s direction, then burst into tears.

Their Charity said, “Hughie, I told you to stop teasing that cat. It will scratch you.” Slowly he stood up, said, “Reason with them, Joe,” and left the room.

Joe sighed and came over close to them. “Barbara,” he said gently, “take hold of yourself. You aren’t acting in Hugh’s interests even if you think you are. You should advise him to take it. After all, a man Hugh’s age doesn’t have much to lose by it.”

Barbara looked at him as if she had never seen him before in her life. Then she spat again. Joe was close, she got him in the face.

He jumped and raised his hand. Hugh said sharply, “Joe, if you hit her and I ever get loose, I’ll break your arm!”

“I wasn’t going to hit her,” Joe said slowly. “I was just going to wipe my face. I wouldn’t hit Barbara, Hugh; I admire her. I just don’t think she has good sense.” He took a kerchief to the smear of saliva. “I guess there is no use arguing.”

“None, Joe. I’m sorry I spit on you.”

“That’s all right, Barbara. You’re upset…and you never treated me as a nigger, ever. Well, Hugh?”

“Barbara has decided it. And she always means what she says. I can’t say that I’m sorry. Staying alive here just isn’t worth it, for any of us. Even if I was not to be tempered.”

“I hate to hear you say that, Hugh. All in all, you and I always got along pretty well. Well, if that’s your last word, I might as well go tell Their Charity. Is it?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, Joe.”

“Well—Good-bye, Barbara. Good-bye, Hugh.” He left.

The Lord Protector came back in alone, moving with the slow caution of a man old and sick. “So that’s what you’ve decided,” he said, sitting down and gathering the shawl around him. He reached out for the mouse, still crouching on the table top; servants came in and cleared off the table. He went on, “Can’t say that I’m surprised—I’ve played bridge with both of you. Well, now we take up the other choice. Your lives are forfeit and I can’t let you stay here, other than on those terms. So now we send you back.”

“Back where, Ponse?”

“Why, back to your own time, of course. If you make it. Perhaps you will.” He stroked the mouse. “This little fellow made it. Two weeks at least. And it didn’t hurt him. Though one can only guess what two thousand years would do.”

The servants were back and were piling on the table a man’s watch, a Canadian dime, a pair of much worn mountain boots, a hunting knife, some badly made moccasins, a pair of Levis, some ragged denim shorts with a very large waistline, a .45 automatic pistol with belt, two ragged and faded shirts, one somewhat altered, a part of a paper of matches, and a small notebook and pencil.

Ponse looked at the collection. “Was there anything else?” He slid the loaded clip from the pistol, held it in his hand. “If not, get dressed.”

The invisible field let them loose.

“I don’t see what there is to be surprised about,” Ponse told them. “Hugh, you will remember that I told my scientists that I wanted to know how you got here. No miracles. I told them rather firmly. They understood that I would be most unhappy—and vexed—if the Protectorate’s scientists could not solve it when they had so many hints, so much data. So they did. Probably. At least they were able to move this little fellow. He arrived today, which is why I sent for you. Now we will find out if it works backwards in time as well as forwards—and if the big apparatus works as well as the bench model. I understand it is not so much the amount of power—no atom-kernel bombs necessary—as the precise application of power. But we’ll soon know.”

Hugh asked, “How will you know?
We
will know—if it works. But how will
you
know?”

“Oh, that. My scientists are clever, when they have incentive. One of them will explain it.”

The scientists were called in, two Chosen and five servants. There was no introduction; Hugh found himself treated as impersonally as the little white mouse who still tried to meet his death on the floor. Hugh was required to take off his shirt and two servant-scientists taped a small package to Hugh’s right shoulder. “What’s that?” It seemed surprisingly heavy for its size.

The servants did not answer; the leading Chosen said, “You will be told. Come here. See this.”

“This” turned out to be Hugh’s former property, a U. S. Geodetic Survey map of James County. “Do you understand this? Or must we explain it?”

“I understand it.” Hugh used the equals mode, the Chosen ignored it while continuing to speak in protocol mode, falling.

“Then you know that here is where you arrived.”

Hugh agreed, as the man’s finger covered the spot where Hugh’s home had once stood. The Chosen nodded thoughtfully and added, “Do you understand the meaning of these marks?” He pointed to a tiny x-mark and very small figures beside it.

“Certainly. We call that a ‘bench mark.’ Exact location and altitude. It’s a reference point for all the rest of the map.”

“Excellent.” The Chosen pointed to a similar mark at the summit of Mount James as shown by the map. “Now, tell us, if you know—but don’t lie about it; it will not advantage you—how much error there would be, horizontally and vertically, between these two reference points.”

Hugh thought about it, held up his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart. The Chosen blinked. “It would not have been that accurate in those primitive times. We assume that you are lying. Try again. Or admit that you don’t know.”

“And I suggest that you don’t know what you are talking about. It would be at least that accurate.” Hugh thought of telling him that he had bossed surveying parties in the Seabees and had done his own surveying when he was getting started as a contractor—and that while he did not know how accurate a geodetic survey was, he did know that enormously more accurate methods had been used in setting those bench marks than were ever used in the ordinary survey.

He decided that explanation would be wasted.

The Chosen looked at him, then glanced at Their Charity. The old man had been listening but his face showed nothing. “Very well. We will assume that the marks are accurate, each to the other. Which is fortunate, as this one is missing”—he pointed to the first one, near where Hugh’s home had been—“whereas this one”—he indicated the summit of Mount James—“is still in place, in solid rock. Now search your memory and do not lie again, as it will matter to
you
…and it will matter to Their Charity, as a silly lie on your part could waste much effort and Their Charity would be much displeased, we are certain. Where, quite near this reference mark and the same height—certainly no higher!—is—was, I mean, in those primitive times—a flat, level place?”

Hugh thought about it. He knew exactly where that bench mark had been: in the cornerstone of the Southport Savings Bank. It was, or had been, a small brass plate let into the stone beside the larger dedication plate, about eighteen inches above the sidewalk at the northeast corner of the building. It had been placed there shortly after the Southport shopping center had been built. Hugh had often glanced at it in passing; it had always given him a warm feeling of stability to note a bench mark.

The bank had sided on a parking lot shared by the bank, a Safeway Supermarket, and a couple of other shops. “It is level and flat off this way for a distance of—” (Hugh estimated the width of that ancient parking lot in feet, placed the figure in modern units.) “Or a little farther. That’s just an estimate, not wholly accurate.”

“But it is flat and level? And no higher than this point?”

“A little lower and sloping away. For drainage.”

“Very well. Now place your attention on this configuration.” Again it was Hugh’s property, a Conoco map of the state. “That object fastened to your back you may think of as a clock. We will not explain it, you could not understand. Suffice to say that radiation decay of a metal inside it measures time. That is why it is heavy; it is cased in lead to protect it. You will take it to
here.
” The Chosen pointed to a town on the map; Hugh noted that it was the home of the state university.

At a gesture the Chosen was handed a slip of paper. To Hugh he said, “Can you read this? Or must it be explained?”

“It says ‘University State Bank,’” Hugh told him. “I seem to recall that there was an institution of that name in that town. I’m not sure, I don’t recall doing business with it.”

“There was,” the Chosen assured him, “and its ruins were recently uncovered. You will go to it. There was, and still is, a strong room, a vault, in its lowest part. You will place this clock in that vault. Do you understand?”

“I understand.”

“By Their Charity’s wish, that vault has not yet been opened. After you have gone, it will be opened. The clock will be found and we will read it. Do you understand why this is crucial to the experiment? It will not only tell us that you made the time jump safely but also exactly how long the span was—and from this our instruments will be calibrated.” The Chosen looked very fierce. “Do this exactly. Or you will be severely punished.”

Ponse caught Hugh’s eye at this point. The old man was not laughing but his eyes twinkled. “Do it, Hugh,” he said quietly. “That’s a good fellow.”

Hugh said to the Chosen scientist. “I will do it. I understand.”

The Chosen said, “May it please Their Charity, this one is ready to weigh them now, and then leave for the site.”

“We’ve changed our mind,” Ponse announced. “We will see this.” He added, “Nerve in good shape, Hugh?”

“Quite.”

“All of you who made the first jump were given this opportunity, did I tell you? Joe turned it down flatly.” The old man glanced over his shoulder. “Grace! Changed your mind, little one?”