Time Tunnel (18 page)

There were no men in uniform among the refugees. Women, yes. Children, in multitudes. Ships of the sea and air swarmed to carry away as many of its helpless population as could be removed. But among the men left behind there was no resignation. There was no despair. There was fury and resolve, instead. When a flying transport landed and brought a ground-to-air missile and a crew to launch it, there was grim rejoicing. Formosa was going to attempt a defense against atomic attack. The military of a hundred nations wanted passionately to know whether defense was possible. All the world had defenses of which much was hoped, but too little known, just as all the world had bombs for attack. If Formosa could be defended, then war need not mean despair. But if Formosa could be bombed against all-out defense, then there was not much point to anything. Already it was understood that if war came all the West would act as one. It was more than suspected, though, that some nations had made private bargains to send their rockets at Chinese-chosen targets, in return for a promise of more-than-slave-status when the Chinese ruled the earth. But Formosa would be defended. If there was no longer any real hope of avoiding nuclear war, there was at least some sort of hope for humanity’s survival.

This was the situation nine thousand miles, a hundred-odd years, some weeks and days and a few hours from the inn courtyard where Harrison assured himself that Valerie was comfortable. There was another coach in the yard. Pepe was inside the inn, asking questions. It seemed that nothing could conceivably be more unconnected than the situation in this inn yard in Napoleon’s time and the situation on Formosa nearly two hundred years later.

In the later time and far-away place, a broadcast was received. It was from the mainland government, and it was bland and confident. It announced that planes carrying atomic bombs would shortly appear over Formosa. If they were fired on, they would drop their bombs and a full-scale bombardment by all the mainland air force would follow. If they were not fired on, the granted time for revolt and surrender would still be allowed. The broadcast seemed incredible, but the local military rejoiced by anticipation. No planes would ever reach Formosa to drop bombs! An air umbrella already existed above the island. Ground-to-air missile crews were already on twenty-four-hour alert. When and as the radar screen notified approaching planes, they would be blasted to atoms!

Then the Chinese bombers came. The radars detected them at once. But they could not locate them. The Chinese had a radar jamming device, as effective as the radio jamming device used within the iron curtain. The radar showed something in the sky. But they said it existed at all altitudes up to eighty thousand feet, and at every spot along an eighty-mile front. It was a target worse than useless to shoot at.

Presently the clumsy Chinese bombers circled placidly over Formosa. They stayed an infuriating six thousand feet up. They were vulnerable to anti-aircraft fire. To anti-missile missiles. They were sitting ducks! But they couldn’t be detected on the way to Formosa, and when they arrived defense was useless.

They were not fired on, and they circled placidly until night fell. Then they climbed up and up and up until they couldn’t be spotted by telescopes, and then they went away. It was not possible to trail them. The radar jamming radiation dimmed and dimmed. Presently it stopped. It had been demonstrated that Formosa could be bombed whenever the mainland Chinese felt like bombing it.

So could any other city in the world.

In the inn yard in France, somebody in the other, waiting coach summoned a servant to the coach window. That servant turned to look at the coach with Harrison close by it and Carroll and Valerie still within.

Pepe came out of the inn; hastily, almost running. It was dusk, now, though the sky was still a lucent blue overhead. Pepe came hastily across the mud and straw. He reached the coach-side.

“He’s in there,” panted Pepe. “I saw him! De Bassompierre! To make sure, I asked the innkeeper! He’s sitting there with food and wine before him! The man whose coach Albert robbed!”

Carroll was instantly outside the coach.

“Ah! And this is a good place to talk to him!”

“But Valerie—”

“Stay with her,” commanded Carroll. “This is going to take time, anyhow. There’ll be argument. You can bring her in later.”

He went swiftly after Pepe. Harrison looked irresolutely after them. But, servants or no servants, he wasn’t going to leave Valerie alone in the coach in an inn yard of this period!

“This is bad!” he said restlessly. “We’ve got to talk to him, but—”

A voice said obsequiously:

“Your Excellency’s pardon! Madame de Cespedes begs that she may speak to you!”

Harrison swung about. A liveried servant from the other coach stood hat in hand beside him. He bowed.

“Madame de Cespedes, Excellency, begs your Excellency’s aid in a matter of life and death! She is in the coach yonder.”

The lackey’s French was thick with a Spanish accent. Harrison recognized his livery. He’d seen it outside the door of a perfumer’s shop in Paris. Ybarra.

He gestured to his own lackey to bring the coach after him. He rode to the other coach. He started. Peering appealingly at him from the coach window, he saw the woman who with a dark-haired girl had been in the travelling coach six days previously, when Albert abstracted a travelling case from the coach’s trunk. She had looked plump and good-natured then. Now, as then, she wore the headdress of a Spanish widow. Then, but not now, she looked amiable and contented. Now she was composed but fiercely in earnest.

“
M’sieur
,” she said desperately, “I am in most great need of the aid of a gentleman. I am the
Comtesse
de Cespedes. I am the sister-in-law of
Don
Ignacio Ybarra. His wife and I we have been robbed of our jewels by
M’sieur
de Bassompierre, who is in the inn yonder. My servants do not dare lay hands upon a gentleman. I beg your aid!”

Valerie in the coach had followed closely enough to hear every word. Now she said warmly:

“But of course, Madame!
M’sieur
Harrison and his friends will be happy to serve you!”

Harrison closed his mouth; opened it, and suddenly saw the possibilities. De Bassompierre had the very worst of all possible reputations. They had need to stop him from changing the past to bring about who-knew-what—but certainly atomic war—to the time they’d come from. If they could prove him a common thief, he must meet any terms they chose to set, including the revelation of the other time-tunnel Carroll at once could not believe in and could not fully deny. In short, Madame Cespedes’ predicament might be the solution to their problem.

He gave crisp orders to the lackeys, who led the two coaches to where it was possible for a woman to alight without spoiling her foot-gear. He helped Valerie to the ground, and then the slightly chubby occupant of the other coach. Grandly, he escorted them into the inn.

They entered a large, smoke-stained, odorous room in which a huge fire burned. There were some rough tables. Some travelers, by their attire merchants or the like, ate rather noisily by one wall. At the choicest table, because nearest the fire, sat the scowling, becapped individual Albert and this innkeeper had identified as M. de Bassompierre. Carroll loomed over him, stiffly polite but not to be put off. Pepe stood nearby, in a state of inexplicable agitation. The scowling man waved Carroll aside, as one too insignificant to be listened to.

Then Madame de Cespedes said in a clear, indignant voice:

“That is he!
Messieurs
, I ask you to request him to return my and my sister-in-law’s jewels!”

De Bassompierre jerked his head around. His face went blank. Then he ground his teeth. Madame de Cespedes, despite her plumpness, was a perfect picture of dignity and contempt.

“
M’sieur
de Bassompierre,” she said icily, “you greeted me in my brother-in-law’s coach on the Avenue des Italiens today, as I waited for my sister-in-law. You dismounted and spoke to me at the coach door. And m’sieur, I smelled perfume upon you. And it was a very special perfume, possessed only by my sister-in-law and Her Majesty the Empress herself! You went on. I sent a servant to call my sister-in-law. I told her of the event. We went immediately and my sister-in-law found her perfume disturbed and her jewels gone. Mine were gone, also. My sister-in-law instantly sent servants in search of her husband,
Don
Ignacio Ybarra. I ordered the coachman to drive me in the direction you had taken, to keep watch for you. I have overtaken you. Now, in the presence of these gentlemen I request that you return my jewels and those of my sister-in-law!”

Madame de Cespedes was a small woman, but her manner was dignity itself. She held her head high.

De Bassompierre said roughly:

“I have never seen this woman before. I know nothing of her jewels!”

He stood up, arrogantly.

“I do not care to know you or her!”

He flung his cloak about himself. His hidden hand took an odd position, if as threatening the use of a weapon. Carroll made an exactly similar gesture. The innkeeper came waddling anxiously:

“
Messieurs! Messieurs!
I beg you—”

Pepe said imploringly, and Harrison wondered even then why be was so disturbed, “Let’s talk this over! M. de Bassompierre, we mean no harm! To the contrary, we’ve been looking for you very urgently—”

He stammered suddenly. To recite, in public, the facts of time-travel to a man just accused of robbery is not the most convincing way to argue with him. Pepe realized the fact.

“
Messieurs!
” protested the innkeeper “I beg you not to quarrel in my inn! There is all outdoors to quarrel in! I beg—”

“Give us a room where we can be alone,” snapped Carroll, not taking his eyes from the arrogant dark man. “I agree that there is no need to quarrel! I prove it!
M’sieur
—” Then he said, very distinctly: “United Nations! Communist Russia! Electronics! Railroads! Airplanes! Those words will tell you where we come from!”

The dark man sneered. Pepe was trembling, deathly white. Harrison found that he bitterly regretted that he had left his pistols in their saddle holsters. Then the dark man said, again arrogantly:

“If they are code words for recognition, I do not know them. But I take it you think you have business with me?”

“Very much so,” said Carroll coldly. Over his shoulder he said, in English: “Harrison, what the devil’s this robbery business?”

“It seems the truth,” said Harrison. “And if he’s de Bassompierre we’ve got him where we want him.”

“Then we negotiate,” said Carroll, again in English, “for the use of his time-tunnel and other assurances.” He switched back to French to command the landlord to show them to a private room. “There is no need for violence.”

“
Mais non!
” chattered the landlord. “This way,
messieurs!
this way!”

He backed before them. He came to a door. He opened it.

He bowed them through it, babbling. A candle burned on a table. The dark man noted the position of the windows.

“You may speak,” he said harshly. “Of what?”

Pepe edged close to Harrison. He whispered in English:

“Harrison, what’s this? Who’s the woman? What’s she got to do with our affairs?”

“She’s Madame de Cespedes,” said Harrison in the same language. “She says he robbed her and Ybarra’s wife. Your great-great-grandmother. She’s Ybarra’s sister-in-law.”

“
Dios mio!
” panted Pepe. “
Dios mio!
”

The dark man said scornfully:

“I hear words which may be
l’Anglais
. Are you English spies who hope to bribe me to aid you?”

Pepe chattered hoarsely in Harrison’s ear:

“This is awful! I told you I had a great-great-grandfather in Paris! You met him! But I’ve got two! M-madame de Cespedes is going to marry de Bassompierre! They’ll have a daughter who’ll marry Ignacio Ybarra’s son, who’ll be born next year or the year after! So she’s to be my great-great-grandmother tool And—and de-de Bassompierre’s another great-great-grandfather of mine! So if anything happens… I won’t be born!”

Harrison blinked. There was the sound of another arrival in the inn yard. There were the creakings of a heavy coach, and very, very many horses made hoof sounds on the ground. Then Carroll said suavely:

“
M’sieur
, I believe we share a secret with you, but you cannot believe we share it! I mention more words. Metro! Underground! Eiffel Tower! World War Two! Those names have meanings to us. Will you deny that they have meanings to you?”

The dark man stared.

“I’ll give you proof you can’t deny!” said Carroll coldly. “I’ll—”

Harrison said:

“Look! What we want is important, but Madame de Cespedes has been robbed. If he’ll give back her jewels we’ll get along better.”

“No!” snapped Carroll. “We’ll take up the jewels later. First, hold this!”

He thrust a small and very elegant flint-lock pistol into Harrison’s hand. It was probably from the stock of the shop. It was grotesque to be holding it, and embarrassing to wonder what exactly he should do with it. There was no present excuse to hold it aimed at de Bassompierre. It was an awkward situation to be in. Carroll went out. Long seconds passed.

Then a voice outside the building boomed:

“
De Bassompierre! De Bassompierre! Holà!
”

The face of the dark man filled with astonishment. The voice that called “De Bassompierre” was not an authoritative voice. It was a friendly one, calling recognition in a tone of pleased surprise. But the greeting was for someone outside the inn, not inside. The same voice boomed on in a lower, confidential tone. Harrison’s scalp crawled. He knew what was going on in the other man’s mind. Somebody else had been called by his name. That somebody else was now in conversation with the person who’d called him. It would be a nightmarish sensation to anybody. But—

The door opened. A short, stout, beaming man marched in, saying over his shoulder:

“Nonsense, de Bassompierre! It was the most pleasant of surprises to see you, but an even greater pleasure—”