Time Patrol (77 page)

He inclines his head, takes off his helmet, and sets it on the counter. "My lady is most gracious."

A snack will do me a lot of good. And maybe disarm him. I am an attractive wench when I choose to be. Learn as much as possible. Keep alert. And beneath the tension—damn it, this is flat-out fascinating.

He watches me start the coffee maker. He's interested when I open the fridge, startled when I pop the tops on a couple of brews. I take a sip from the first and hand it to him. "Not poisoned, you see. Take a chair." He settles himself at the table. I get busy with bread and cheese and stuff.

"A curious drink," he says. Surely they had beer in his time, but doubtless it was quite different from ours.

"I have wine, if you'd rather."

"No, I must not dull my senses."

Beer in California wouldn't get a cat tiddly. Too bad.

"Tell me more about yourself, Lady Wanda."

"If you'll do likewise for me, Don Luis."

I serve us. We talk. What a life he's led! He finds mine just as remarkable. Well, I am a woman. By his lights, I should have devoted my efforts to breeding, housekeeping, and prayers. Unless I was Queen Isabella—Rein it in. Make him underestimate you.

That requires technique. I'm not used to flapping my lashes and cheering a man on to describe how wonderful he is. Can do it when called for, though. One way to keep a date from deteriorating into a wrestling match. Never date that kind twice. Give me a guy who considers himself my equal.

Luis isn't the swinish sort either. He's keeping his promise, absolutely polite. Unyielding, but polite. A killer, a racist, a fanatic; a man of his word, fearless, ready to die for king or comrade; Charlemagne dreams, tender little memories of his mother, poor and proud in Spain. Kind of humorless, but a flaming romantic.

Glance at my watch. Close to midnight. Good Lord, have we sat here that long?

"What do you mean to do, Don Luis?"

"Obtain weapons of your country."

Level voice. Smile on lips. Sees my shock. "Are you surprised, my lady? What else could I seek? I would not abide in this place. From above, it may resemble the gates of Heaven, but I think down on earth, those engines rushing and roaring demonic in their thousands must make it more akin to Hell. Foreign folk, foreign language, foreign ways. Heresy and shamelessness rampant, no? Forgive me. I believe you are chaste, in spite of those garments. But are you not an infidel? Clearly, you defy God's law concerning the proper status of women." He shakes his head. "No, I will return to that age which is mine and my country's. Return well armed."

Appalled: "How?"

He tugs his beard. "I have given thought to this. A wagon of your kind would be of small use or none where there are neither roads nor fuel for it. Moreover, it would at best be a clumsy steed, set beside my gallant Florio—or the chariot I have captured. However, you must have firearms as far beyond our muskets and cannon as those are beyond the spears and bows of the Indies. Hand-held, yes, that would be best."

"But, but I haven't any weapons. I can't get any."

"You know what they are like and where they are kept. In military arsenals, for example. I will have much to ask you in the days to come. Thereafter, why, I have the means to pass unseen by bolts and bars, and carry off what I wish."

True. Chances are he'll succeed. He'll have me, first for briefing, later for guide. No way do I get out of that, unless I'm heroic and make him kill me. Which would leave him free to try elsewhere, and Uncle Steve forsaken wherever-whenever it is.

"How—how will you—use those guns?"

Solemn: "In the end, marshal the armies of the Emperor and lead them to victory. Hurl back the Turks. Uproot the Lutheran sedition in the North that I've heard of. Humble the French and English. The final Crusade." Draws breath. "First, I should assure the conquest of the New World and my own power within it. Not that I am more greedy for fame than others. But God has appointed me to this."

My mind spins through an insanity of what would follow from the least of his projects. "But everything around us now, it'll never have been! I'll never have been born!"

He crosses himself. "That is as God wills. However, if you give faithful service, I can take you back with me and see to your well-being."

Yeah. Well-being à la sixteenth-century Spanish female. If I exist. My parents wouldn't have, would they? I've no idea. I'm simply convinced Luis is juggling forces beyond his imagining, or mine, or anybody's except maybe that Time Guard—like a child playing on a snowfield ripe for an avalanche—

The Time Guard! That Everard man last year. Asking about Uncle Steve, why? Because Stephen Tamberly didn't really work for a scientific foundation. He worked for the Time Guard.

Their job has got to include heading off disasters. Everard gave me his card. Phone number on it. Where'd I put that bit of cardboard? Tonight the universe is balanced on it.

"I should begin by learning what did happen in Peru after I . . . left it," Luis is saying. "Then I can plan how to amend the tale. Tell me."

Shudder. Shake off the sense of nightmare. Think what to
do.
"I can't. How should I know? It was more than four hundred years ago." Solid, sinewy, sweaty, a ghost from that vanished past sits across from me, behind soiled plates, coffee cups, and beer cans.

Eruption in my head.

Hold voice low. Look downward. Demure. "We have history books, of course. And libraries that everyone may enter. I'll go find out."

He chuckles. "You are bold, my lady. However, you shall not leave these rooms, nor be out of my sight, until I am certain of my mastery of things. When I venture forth—to look about, or sleep, or for whatever reason—I will return to the same minute as I departed. Avoid the middle of the floor."

Time machine appears in the same space as me. Boom! No, likelier it'd be jarred aside a few inches. I'd be thrown against the wall. Could break bones, uselessly.

"Well, I c-can talk to somebody who knows the history. We have . . . devices . . . for sending speech through wires, across miles. There's one in the main room."

"And how shall I tell whom you speak with or what you say in your English tongue? Most assuredly, you shall lay no hand on that engine." He doesn't know what a phone looks like, but I couldn't begin to use mine before he realized.

The hostility drops. Earnest: "My lady, I pray you, understand that I bear no ill will. I do what I must. Those are my friends yonder, my country, my Church. Have you the wisdom—the compassion—to accept that? I know you are learned. Do you have any book of your own that may help? Remember, whatever happens, I am going ahead with my sacred mission. You can make the course of it less terrible for those whom you love."

Excitement ebbs away with hope. I feel how tired I am. An ache in every cell of me. Cooperate in this. Maybe afterward he'll let me sleep. What dreams may come couldn't possibly be as bad as my wakefulness.

The encyclopedia. Birthday present from Suzy a couple of years ago, my sister, who's doomed if Spain will have conquered Europe, the Near East, and both the Americas.

Ice-thrill. I remember! I dropped Everard's card in a desk drawer, upper left where I keep miscellany. Phone right above, beside the typewriter.

"Señorita, you tremble."

"Haven't I reason to?" Rise. "Come." The cold wind through me whistles the exhaustion out. "I do have a book or two that have information."

He follows directly behind. His presence is a shadow over me, a shadow with weight.

At the desk, "Hold! What do you want from that drawer!"

I never was a good liar. Can keep my face turned away, and a wobble in my voice is to be expected. "You see how many the volumes are. I must consult my record of them, to locate the chronicle. Watch. No hidden arquebus." Whip it open before he grabs my wrist. Stand passive, let him paw through, satisfy himself. The card skips amongst the clutter. Like my pulse.

"I beg your pardon, my lady. Give me no occasion to suspect you, and I will give you no roughness."

Flip the card right side up. Make that look accidental. Read again: Manson Everard, midtown Manhattan address, the phone number, the phone number. Cram that into my mind. Scratch about. What can I palm off as a sort of library catalogue? Ah, my auto insurance policy. Had it out for a look after that fender-bender months ago—no, last month, April—and haven't—hadn't—gotten around to putting it back in the safe deposit. Make a show of studying it. "Ah, here we are."

Okay, now I know how to call for help. Opportunity to do it is lacking. Stay watchful.

Sidle past the time bike to the bookshelf. Luis treads close against me.
Payn to Polka.
Take it out, page through. He looks across my shoulder. Exclaims when he recognizes
Peru.
He's literate. Not in English, though.

Translate. Early history. Pizarro's journey to Túmbez, the awful hardships, his eventual return to Spain in search of backing, "Yes, yes, I have heard, how often I have heard." To Panama in 1530, Túmbez in 1531, "I was with him." Fighting. A small detachment makes an epic trek over the mountains. Entry into Cajamarca, capture of the Inca, his ransom. "And then, and then?" Judicial murder of Atahualpa. "Oh, bad. Well, no doubt my captain decided it was necessary." March to Cuzco. Almagro's expedition to Chile. Pizarro founds Lima. Manco, his puppet Inca, escapes, raises the people against the invaders. Cuzco besieged from early February 1536 till Almagro comes back and relieves it in April 1537; meanwhile, desperate valor on both sides, throughout the country. Right after the hard-won Spanish victory, Indians still waging guerrilla warfare, the Pizarro brothers and Almagro fall out with each other. Pitched battle in 1538, Almagro defeated and executed. His half-caste son and friends embittered; conspire; assassinate Francisco Pizarro in Lima, 26 June 1541. "No! Body of Christ, this shall not happen!" Charles V has sent a new governor, who now takes over, beats the Almagro faction, and beheads the young man. "Horrible, horrible. Christian against Christian. No, it is clear, we require a strong man to take leadership at the earliest moment of misfortune."

Luis draws his sword. What the hell? Alarmed, I drop the volume, back off past the machine toward my desk. He falls on his knees. Lifts the sword by the blade, makes it a cross. Tears run down the leather cheeks, into the midnight beard. "Almighty God, holy Mother of God," sob, "be with your servant."

A chance? No time to think.

Grab the upright vacuum cleaner. Swing it on high. He hears, turns on his knees, crouches to bound up. A heavy, awkward club. Give it everything my arms and shoulders have got. Across the bike, crash the motor end onto his bare head.

He sags. Blood flows like crazy, neon-light red. Lacerated scalp. Have I knocked him out? Don't stop to check. Let the vac clatter down on top of him. Leap to the phone.

Buzz-zz. The number? I'd better have it right. Punch-punch-punch—Luis groans. He hauls himself to all fours. Punch-punch.

Ring.

Ring. Ring. Luis takes hold of a shelf, clambers his way to a stance.

The remembered voice. "Hello. This is Manse Everard's answering machine."

Oh, God, no!

Luis shakes his head, wipes the blood from his eyes. It's smeared, it drips, impossibly much, impossibly brilliant.

"I'm sorry I can't come to the phone. If you wish to leave a message, I'll get back to you soon's may be."

Luis stands slumped, his arms dangle, but he glares at me. "So," he mumbles. "Treachery."

"You may begin talking when you hear the beep. Thank you."

He stoops, takes up his sword, advances. Unevenly, inexorably.

Scream, "Wanda Tamberly. Palo Alto. Time traveler." What's the date, what the hell's the date? "Friday night before Memorial Day. Help!"

The sword point is at my throat. "Drop that thing," he snarls. I do. He's got me backed against the desk. "I should kill you for this. Perhaps I will."

Or forget his scruples about my virtue and—

And at least I left a clue for Everard. Didn't I?

Whoosh. The second machine above the first, its riders flattening themselves below the ceiling.

Luis yells. Scuttles backward, onto the driver's saddle of his. Sword in hand. Other hand dances on the controls. Everard's hampered. I see a gun in his fist. But whoosh. Luis is gone.

Everard sets down.

Whirling, keening, darkening. I never passed out before. If I can just sit for a minute.

23 May 1987

She came in from the hallway wearing a bathrobe over her pajamas. Its snugness brought forth a lithe figure, its blueness the hue of her eyes. Sunlight through the west window made gold of her hair.

She blinked. "Oh, my. Afternoon," she murmured. "How long have I slept?"

Everard had risen from the sofa where he'd sat with one of her books. "About fourteen hours, I guess," he said. "You needed it. Welcome back."

She stared around. There was no timecycle, nor any bloodstains. "After my partner tucked you in bed, she and I fetched supplies and cleaned up the mess as best we could," Everard explained. "She took off. No point in cluttering your place. A guard was necessary, of course, as a precaution. Better check around at your convenience and make sure everything is in order. Wouldn't do for your earlier self to return and find traces of the ruckus. You didn't, after all."

Wanda sighed. "No, never a hint."

"We've got to prevent paradoxes like that. The situation is tangled enough as is."
And dangerous,
Everard thought.
More than deadly dangerous. I should hearten her.
"Hey, I'll bet you're starved."

He liked the way she laughed. "Could eat the proverbial horse with a side of French fries, and apple pie for dessert."

"Well, I took the liberty of laying in some groceries, and could use lunch myself, if you don't mind my joining you."

"Mind? Try not to!"

In the kitchen he urged that she be seated while he put the meal together. "I'm a pretty competent man with a steak and a salad. You've been through the meat grinder. Most people would be in a daze."