The Loved and the Lost (30 page)

“You mean a Council from Elder Arimus's time?”

Even his present predicament couldn't cause Parmatheon to hide his disdain for Arimus.

“That troublemaker? No. Not from his time. Our time. Yours and mine.”

‘Oh no,' the older Hansum thought. ‘If I find out about all this earlier, who knows how it can screw things up more.'

The younger Hansum looked to Lincoln, to see if this was making any sense to him. Lincoln shrugged.

“You better make something up for the Podesta, though,” Lincoln said.

“Excellency,” Hansum said. “Apparently this fellow was just coincidentally walking through the woods when he ran into some, I guess, real spies. He says he was an indentured servant in Mantua, sold by some slavers from around . . . Greece. This fellow escaped and was trying to make his way back to Venice, to hopefully find a ship to get home on.”

“He's not speaking Greek,” Mastino della Cappa said. “And how the devil would he get from Greece to here?”

The Hansum in the brown hat looked worried. He turned to Parmatheon.

“Just say something. Babble for a minute, like you're telling me something,” he said.

“I'm the head of the Time Travel Council,” Parmatheon said. “I come from about a year after you came back. Your other, older self is trying to get back and save your wife.” The younger Hansum and Lincoln looked at each other, shocked.

“Save Guilietta? Why? What's wrong?” the younger Hansum asked.

The older, out-of-phase Hansum was shaking his head in despair. Mentioning Guilietta was probably the worst thing to do. That could really spook the younger Hansum. He looked intently at his younger self, who was staring at Parmatheon, obviously trying to weigh what he should say and how he should act.

“Well? Tell me what's going on!” the Podesta demanded.

The younger Hansum looked purposefully at the Podesta. “I believe him,” he said with resolve. “He says he doesn't speak Greek. He speaks . . . Atlantean.” Hopefully Mastino didn't know his Greek myths that well. “It's an island in the Aegean Sea. We only saw this fellow because, as he was trying to stay unseen walking through the forest, he ran into whoever was really spying on us. They made chase after him and that's when we saw him.” He pressed his node again and asked Parmatheon, “Who was up there with you?”

“You were,” Parmatheon answered, which caused young Hansum to startle. “And apparently somebody named Feltrino was about to attack you.” Hansum really looked shocked now, but didn't have time to react because the door to the room pounded open and Lieutenant Raguso came in.

“We've found many tracks, Excellency. Many horses and men, but they are gone. We didn't pursue because I was following with far fewer men. I thought it best to return and post patrols around the property instead.”

“You didn't pursue?”

“Whoever they were, they had heavy horses and many men. Perhaps three times as many as I had in my unit. They must be far away by now.”

“Well, they left one,” the captain said, obviously not convinced by Hansum's story.

“Look, look at his hands, Excellency,” Hansum said to Mastino. “They are soft. Uncalloused. He can't be a soldier. And his footware.” Although Parmatheon's ordeal had left him with only one shoe, it was made of woven hemp, the sole, the upper and the laces. It was a fashion back home.

“Why would an indentured servant have smooth hands?” Mastino asked. “What did he do for the Gonzaga?”

Hansum looked back to Parmatheon, touching his node. “What can I say you did?”

“I . . . don't even know . . . what you're talking about.”

“He's, he's a mathematician, Excellency. Educated by the Saracens, so quite sought after. He was helping the Gonzagas design their buildings. That's why they bought him.”

“A mathematician for buildings?”

“Excellency, this story is
merda
,” the General argued. “Let's just cut this one's throat and get all our men stationed around the property.”

“I could use a good mathematician,” Hansum interjected. “Let me talk to him further.” Mastino hesitated. “I have larger cannon planned,” Hansum added, “but can't do it without someone to help me calculate greater stress loads and longer trajectories.” The older Hansum was impressed by his younger self. He always could cook up convincing lies quickly.

“Very well,” Mastino conceded. “Talk to him. But leave him tied. Captain, let's get outside and reorganize the men. And General, you order more.” And with that he turned and left, followed by the soldiers.

Lincoln closed the door. The older Hansum watched his younger self staring at Parmatheon.

“Untie my hands,” the older man begged, “so I can touch my emergency escape sub-dermal.”

“In a minute,” Hansum said. “First, tell me what's going on.”

“I . . . I'm not supposed to tell,” Parmatheon said, wide-eyed.

“Well, okay then,” Hansum said, motioning for Lincoln to go to the door. As Lincoln turned, Parmatheon recanted.

“Wait. I'm really not supposed to tell, but . . .”

“Go on,” the younger Hansum urged.

“We are trying to . . . well, at least some people, including both of you, are trying to . . .”

The older Hansum couldn't risk letting his younger counterparts know more than they already did. He quickly tapped on one of his emergency nodes and a small circle of blue static appeared in the air. It was about the size of a fist, and he thrust an arm through. He held his hand right in front of Parmatheon's face in the universal sign for
“Stop!”

“What the . . .” Lincoln said.

Hansum knew that, to his counterparts, his arm seemed to be floating in the air.

“You see, I'm not supposed to say anything,” Parmatheon said excitedly.

“So, we're being watched,” the younger Hansum said. “Why aren't we being rescued? Why are they leaving us . . .” The older Hansum quickly rotated his hand and held it in the same position in front of his younger self, silencing him. Then he pointed to Parmatheon's hands, as if to say to untie them. “Not until someone tells me what's going on,” the younger Hansum insisted. The hand began to move towards Parmatheon's neck.

“Wait a minute,” Lincoln said, grabbing it. The hand grabbed him back. “I recognize this hand. Hansum, hold yours up.” The younger Hansum did. “It's you, man, but with a honking big scar.”

“Tell me what's going on!” Hansum shouted.

The hand pulled away from Lincoln's grasp and disappeared back into the hole.

“Come back here, whoever you are,” Lincoln shouted into the opening, which immediately shrunk to the size of a peephole. He put his eye to it and looked around. “I think he's still in there. I think it really is you.”

“But the scar on the hand . . .” Hansum looked at Parmatheon. “If you want my help, tell me what's going on,” he ordered. “Now, before the others come back. They won't be as nice as me.”

“Hey!” a voice from the air said. The boys looked around. There was a familiar hazel eye looking at them from the small hole in the air.

“Hansum, it
is
you!” Lincoln said definitively.

“Let him go,” the voice from the hole said. “I'm trying to help, but things are going to get too complicated if that idiot stays here.”

“Tell me what's happening first,” the younger Hansum demanded.

“I can't,” the older one insisted.

“This is ridiculous. Make this opening bigger!” and young Hansum poked his finger into the orifice. Static sparked brightly on the younger Hansum's flesh and he pulled it back as if he were burned. “Ouch!” Then, with another pop, the blue ring of static shrank to nothing and was gone. Shaking his finger with pain, the young Hansum turned an angry gaze to the still-bound Parmatheon. “Where is he, me? Back in the future?”

“I told you, I'm not supposed to say,” Elder Parmatheon Olama replied fearfully. “It's against . . .”

“Call the others back in,” Hansum ordered Lincoln.

“He's not in the future,” Parmatheon said quickly. “He's hiding out of phase. Please don't call in those murderers. I beg you.”

“What do you mean out of phase?” the young Hansum asked, not familiar with the term yet.

“He's here, watching us,” Parmatheon admitted, looking around fearfully. “In this room, but invisible. He's trying to save you, but there are technical problems. I can get back though. I'm here by mistake. Let me go. Please. And he's right. I am an idiot. I messed everything up.”

“What do you mean, technical problems?”

“Something's screwed up with time. And they're trying to avoid other disasters.”

“What disaster?”

“Disasters,” Parmatheon corrected. “Believe me, so much has gone wrong for you already and he's really here to help.”

“How can you get back?” Lincoln asked.

“There's a sub-dermal on my neck. It's an emergency return node. Please, untie me so I can press it.” Hansum and Lincoln looked at each other cautiously. “Or one of you press it. Here, right at the base,” Parmatheon said, stretching his neck and twisting it, to make the faint outline of the sub-dermal visible. Lincoln leaned forward and checked it out.

“Sure looks like one,” Lincoln said.

“And if you help me, I promise I'll do my best to help you when I get back.” And then he said more loudly, looking around like he was talking to someone hiding in the room. “Journeyman Hansum. See, I haven't told them anything really important. And if I get out of here, I won't stand in your way anymore. I'll . . . I'll be good. I'll help with the Council.”

The younger Hansum looked like he was thinking. He turned to Lincoln.

“If I'm really here watching,” he asked thoughtfully, “how did I get back originally and how can I be stuck here now?”

“It's time travel,” Parmatheon said pathetically. “It doesn't make any sense . . . at least to me.”

“And whoever this other me is, he really is trying to save us?”

“Yes, yes, he is. And I was wrong to block him. I see that now. I'll be good, I'll be good,” he pleaded.

“How can we explain his disappearance?” Lincoln asked.

“We'll say he got loose and escaped. We'll break a window.”

“They won't believe he got away without a fight.”

The two boys, having worked together as a team, looked like they were reading each other's minds, even without communications implants. Hansum blew out a breath. “I guess I'll do you and you do me.”

“You better come through for us, pally,” Lincoln said, pointing a finger in Parmatheon's face. Then the two boys looked at each other.

“This is going to hurt . . .” Hansum said, pulling back his arm and making a fist. “Make it show, but not the nose.”

“Same here,” Lincoln agreed.

They pulled back and swung. “THWACK!” They hit each her so hard, both fell to the ground.

“You two have gone native!” Parmatheon gasped, his face going whiter than it already was. Lincoln got up, rubbing a big welt under his eye. He stared menacingly at the bureaucrat, who quivered as Lincoln's hand came toward him. “Are you going to untie me?” Parmatheon asked. “Can I clean myself up first?” and, without another word, the younger Lincoln pressed the emergency nodule. “I hope I land softly this time. Oh dear, oh . . .” and the less-developed technology caused his image to disintegrate into wavy bits before it faded out of the 14th-century.

Hansum, still on the floor, ordered, “Throw that chair through the window.”

Lincoln picked up a heavy chair, took a few steps back and ran at the lead and glass frame. It took three tries before he broke open a hole large enough for a man to get through. The noise caused the general and three of his officers to burst through the door just as the chair fell out. Lincoln was leaning on the remaining broken glass in the window and Hansum was still on the ground, a hand to his new black eye.

“He got loose and escaped,” Hansum said from the ground.

“That pants-pissing craven?” the captain challenged.

“You were right, sir. He was faking,” Lincoln said, blood dripping from his hand as he took it away from the glass. “But he fought like a demon. I think he was . . . a wizard.” Then he looked out the window and cried. “Yikers, he made it to the woods!”

“After him,” the general shouted, and all the men took off.

“We better go too,” the younger Hansum said getting up. As he and Lincoln started for the door, they turned. “You better get us out of here,” Hansum said to the air, and they left the room.

The older Hansum thought what he had just witnessed could be funny, except events were getting more out of hand every minute. But, until Sideways returned, Hansum could do nothing.

He walked over to the table and looked at his old plans on the desk, suddenly feeling a nostalgic urge to see them. However, they had been turned face down for secrecy. Hansum reached out, his hand going right through the plans and desk. Looking out the window, he saw all the soldiers running into the woods, followed by his younger self and Lincoln. He went to the door and looked up and down the hall, seeing nobody. Then he came back to the table and put his hand to one of his sub-dermals. He pushed it hard. A blue flash filled his vision and he was back fully in the 14th-century. The familiar moldy smell of an older building filled his nostrils. Then, he reached down and turned over the plans, spreading the large parchments in front of him.