Time's Chariot (19 page)

So who had gone over the side of the mountain
instead? Rico shook his head to clear it and said,
'Go on.'

'And then, just this morning, Mr Asaldra arrived,
and an hour later, all those thugs came pounding
in and rounded us up, sir,' said Jontan. 'They
knocked Mr Asaldra out and took him off in one of
those flying things.'

'Any idea where to?'

'Um, no, sir.'

'Oh, great.' Rico leaned against the wall and shut
his eyes. An unauthorized Home Timer on the
loose somewhere in the twenty-first century,
probably not even equipped with a fieldsuit. He'd
worry about that later; maybe even head back to the
Home Time and hand over the job to the Specifics.

Half his mind was working on the problem, the
other taking in Jontan's story. 'Holmberg-Chabani-Scott
. . .' he said. 'Could they whip up a
force-grown clone, if the need arose?'

'Why, yes, sir. Dead easy.'

'Light dawns . . .' Rico murmured and retreated
into his thoughts again. He felt a sudden shock as
he remembered the autopsy report back in Daiho's
apartment. 'Oh my God. They picked up brain
patterns, which means Daiho gave it intelligence,
which means it was fully alive and he committed
murder. The bastard.'

'Sir?'

'Yes?' Rico registered he was about to be asked
something, not told it, and switched more of his
attention to his fellow Home Timer.

'It's illegal, what they did, isn't it? I mean, they
broke your rules, and when they brought us here
they didn't say anything about sacrifices, but now
Mr Asaldra says – said – we'd have to make them,
and . . . I mean, it's not right, is it, sir?'

'Yeah, you noticed that too.'

'So I . . .' Jontan swallowed. 'I just want you to
know that . . . that Sarai had nothing to do with it,
she was just doing what she was told by Mr Scott . . .'

'And you weren't?'

Jontan blinked. 'Well, yes, sir, I mean, I didn't
have a choice either, but if you're going to arrest
anyone . . .'

Rico grinned. This boy was defending his girl,
ready to take the flak for her. He was a better man
than either of the Home Timers incarcerated a
floor below.

'There'll be arrests,' he said, 'but first there'll be
a hearing to decide exactly who should be arrested.
And for that, I have to get back to the Home Time.'

'Sir?'

Rico sighed. 'I was only expecting Asaldra to be
here, Jon-boy. The recall zone is a long way out
from the cliffs and a long way up. My agrav could
take me and one other, but it couldn't take all four
of you.'

He saw the sudden gleam in Jontan's eyes.

'Or just you and your girlfriend,' he said. 'No. I'll
report back to the Home Time and we'll send a
general recall field to these co-ordinates. That'll get
you all back, and I'll testify for you when you're
there.'

Jontan almost glowed and a huge grin split his
face.

'Thank you, sir!' And then he subsided as he
realized the implication: just a little longer here in
the Dark Ages. 'When will that be, sir?'

'They can't send the recall while I'm still here –
that would be a paradox . . .'

'Sir?'

'They would be recalling me before I get back to
request a recall,' Rico translated. 'But I expect
they'll time the recall to a second after I go back
myself. So, five, ten minutes. Can you wait that
long?'

Jontan was aglow again. 'You bet, sir!'

Rico smiled and patted the journeyman's
shoulder for a moment. 'I'll see you, then,' he said,
and slipped out past the still frozen sentry.

And then, the biggest surprise yet.

'
Rico? Come in please
.'

The words pulsed into his mind via symb and he
paused at the top of the stairs down to the landing.

'
Su?
' he symbed back in disbelief. '
What are you
doing here?
'

'
Change of orders. Abandon mission
.'

'
WHAT?
'

'
Marje has called you off, Rico. I'm sorry
.'

'
No. No way
.' Rico started moving again.

'
Rico
. . .' Su's familiar exasperation was warming
up in her tone.

'
Su, it's suddenly got a whole lot bigger. There's five
Home Timers in this century, four of them here and
Asaldra vanished into the great blue yonder. And two of
the ones here are kids who've been virtually kidnapped,
plus the bygoners want to milk them for their distinctly
non-bygoner biotech skills. Does Marje know that?
'

'
Um
. . .'

'
Su, where are you?
'

'
At the recall point
.'

So, Rico thought, she had the fieldsuit, the agrav
. . . But it still wasn't enough to take the entire load
of Home Timers back with them. The original plan
would have to stand: get back to the Home Time,
send a general recall field.

'
Wait there for me
,' he symbed. '
We'll go back together
and raise hell
.'

'
Rico, some of us don't like dangling about in mid-air
for open-ended periods
.'

Rico grinned. Personally, he found flying in an
agrav exhilarating. '
Get to the foot of the cliffs and wait
for orders
,' he said.

'
ORDERS?
'

'
Instructions
,' Rico amended hastily. '
I mean,
suggestions. Requests! Polite, if-you-please requests from a
junior to a Senior Field Op
.'

'
Just get here, Garron
.'

Rico grinned again as Su broke contact. He took
the first flight of stairs at a quite un-stewardlike trot,
and then adjusted pace and expression before he
came out onto the landing and into the view of the
sentries guarding the other three Home Timers.

When he got to the top of the stairs down to the
hall, Rico saw that the scene below was suddenly
less peaceful. It was like a disturbed ant's nest.
People hurried about and a small, slim man standing
at the door into the lounge was talking urgently
into his phone.

'Mr Carradine says yes,' the man said. 'You three,
come with me.'

He headed for the stairs and began to bound up
them two at a time. Still in steward role, Rico stood
aside to let them pass. He risked a quick glance at
the leading man but it was no one famous, no one
who had made it into the history books. The man
met his eyes briefly and looked away.

The crowd passed and Rico started down the
stairs.

'Wait!'

Rico half paused; no, they couldn't mean
him . . .

'You on the stairs!'

That narrowed it down too much for Rico's
liking. He stopped, turned, looked up. The slim
man was at the top of the stairs, hands on his hips,
arms askance. He had a 'haven't-we-met'
expression similar to Asaldra's on his face.

'You work here?' he said.

'Yes, sir,' said Rico.

'Your name?'

Rico gave the name he had found on his
borrowed ID.

The man nodded slowly, not taking his eyes off
Rico's face. Then suddenly he snapped his fingers
at the sentries down in the hall.

'You two! Stun this man. Stun him now.' The
guards brought their guns up before Rico could
react.

His last thought, as the stun charges lanced
through his body and he felt his body arch and
then start its slow, dreamlike tumble down the
stairs, was: 'what did I do wrong?'

Berlin, 1700

You look very sprightly today, Herr
Wittgenstein.' Frau Hug noticed the spring in
her lodger's step the moment he came into the
room. 'Is it a special day?'

'Today is a perfectly normal day, Frau Hug,' the
man said with a broad smile. 'As normal as any
other day in the considerable history of our planet.
Please, carve me a slice of that delicious bread of
yours for breakfast.'

Frau Hug, with only a very slight frown, turned
back to the sideboard and started preparing her
lodger's morning meal. Herr Ludwig Wittgenstein
had been in Berlin for a week and so far had
resisted all attempts to be lured into conversation.
Quiet, kept himself to himself, almost non-descript.
But now . . .

She set the plate before him and sat down in her
chair at the head of the table – the place that had
been hers for most of her adult life, ever since the
smallpox took Herr Hug away and left her with four
small children – to watch Herr Wittgenstein eat.
None of the other lodgers had come down yet; he
was up bright and early. And he was still smiling,
even as he ate and . . . she strained her ears to hear
. . . was that
humming
? Why, she hadn't seen or
heard anything like this since her oldest boy, Elmar,
had . . .

She gasped and her hands flew to her mouth.
'Herr Wittgenstein,' she said with a jocular
scold, 'you're going to meet someone today, aren't
you?'

The bread stopped halfway to Herr
Wittgenstein's mouth and he looked at her over it
with wide eyes.

'I beg your pardon?'

'A young lady! Don't deny it, Herr Wittgenstein,
a woman can see the signs.' Delighted, she rose and
carved him another slice. 'Here, take some more.
You'll need all your strength, believe me. Women
like a man with a bit of meat on his bones.'

'I really . . .'

But there was no stopping Frau Hug now. One
by one the other guests came down for their own
breakfast; one by one they were greeted with the
good news. Even when Herr Wittgenstein made his
escape half an hour later, his attire had to pass
his landlady's scrutiny and she tutted in despair; hat
crumpled, boots not polished, cloak downright
dowdy. Well, it would have to do, she said with a
sigh. Finally she watched her lodger leave for the
day, half her mind already taken up with passing
the good news about that nice Herr Wittgenstein
around her friends.

Having made his escape from the valkyrie Cupid of
the Grunewald, the Correspondent made his way
into town. It was summer in the Berlin of 1700,
early in the morning. The day was already comfortably
warm and dry and the light had a clean, liquid
quality. Not many of the future Prussian capital's
thirty thousand-odd people were around yet, just
those with whom the Correspondent had instinctively
identified himself ever since arriving in
Isfahan. Butchers. Milk sellers. Servants on their
way to work. The tradesmen, the people who did
the work that ran the electorate of Brandenburg.

Going to meet someone
. . . For the first time in seven
centuries, he had almost believed in telepathy. But
Frau Hug was a kindly soul under the general
bossiness and desire to run the lives of everyone she
met, so he had gone along with the charade.

He wondered how disappointed she would be
when he didn't come back. Well, the month's extra
rent he had left on his bed would help ease her hurt.

His first destination of the day was the shambles
behind a butcher's shop in Schmargendorf. He
paused in the dim alley and glanced about him.
The sounds of a small town coming to life were all
around him, but the people themselves were well
out of the way. It should be safe. He sat down on a
box and ate an apple.

Two minutes later, Herbert appeared.

'Oh,
my God
.' The Home Timer screwed his face
up in disgust and put his hand to his nose. 'What is
this place?'

'We're behind a butchers,' the Correspondent
said. 'Good morning, Herr Herbert.'

'Good morning, Herr . . . ?'

'Wittgenstein. Ludwig Wittgenstein.'

'Your loyal servant.' Herbert gazed around him
and it looked as if he were going to be sick. 'You've
always been good at locating dirt and grime but this
time you've excelled yourself.'

'How kind.' The Correspondent stood abruptly
and chucked the apple to one side. 'First, show me
you brought it.'

'Of course.' Herbert reached into an inside
pocket and produced a thin, hexagonal wafer of
dark green crystal that filled his palm. The
Correspondent took it reverently between thumb
and forefinger, looked at it from both sides, held it
up to the sky so that the light shone through it like
a lantern at the bottom of a murky pond.

'More crystals,' he said. 'Is everything in the
Home Time crystal-based?'

'Most of the technology is. It's an organic, solid state
world.'

'How do I make it work?'

'You don't. Just keep it on you, and when the
recall field comes on, it'll pick you up as well.'

The Correspondent pocketed the tag. 'I can't
believe I'm going home. I've been looking forward
to this for a long time.'

Herbert gestured towards the alleyway entrance.
'Shall we go?'

Berlin had well and truly come to life as the two
men entered the city proper, walking up through
Schöneberg and into town. Herbert was breathing
heavily.

'You're not getting any fitter, are you?' the
Correspondent said.

Herbert glared at him. 'It's been fifty years for
you,' he said. 'I've been making these trips in quick
succession. I haven't had time to get fit. It wasn't
meant to be like this.'

'Oh, I was forgetting,' said the Correspondent.

'Of course. I was meant to be an innocent dupe,
lied to and used by you so that you can do whatever
you do to the people I interview. You should never
have had to walk more than ten feet in any given
direction. If this weren't the last one, I'd be more
considerate in future.'

They walked in silence for a couple more
minutes.

'So, where are we going?' said Herbert. They
both spoke fluent eighteenth-century German,
though it occurred to the Correspondent that while
he could easily pass for a native Prussian, Herbert
sounded like what he was – a foreigner who had
learned the language but not the accent.

'To see Leibnitz, of course.'
The last one!
the
Correspondent thought with silent exultation.
Seven centuries, seventeen seminal scientific thinkers, and
Baron Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibnitz is the last one!

'I meant, where are we going to see Leibnitz? At
his home?'

The Correspondent stopped in his tracks.
'You're joking!'

Herbert rolled his eyes. 'About what?'

'It's July the seventeenth, 1700,' the
Correspondent said slowly. 'We are going to see
Leibnitz. Can't you put the two facts together?'

'His birthday?' Herbert said with elaborate
sarcasm.

The Correspondent started walking again,
taking long strides that meant Herbert had to hurry
to catch up.

'Leibnitz founded the Academy of Science, and
today is the day he's sworn in as life president.
There's going to be a ceremony, and that is where
we'll meet him.'

'Oh,' said Herbert. The Correspondent looked
at him askance and shook his head.

'You didn't know? You really didn't know?'

'I just follow orders,' Herbert said. 'I know the
name of the person I've come to see and a few
general details. Someone else decides on the
itinerary.'

'It doesn't interest you that he worked out the
principles of differential calculus at the same time
as Isaac Newton?'

'Since I've no idea what differential calculus is,
no. But it sounds like something my associate would
think is useful. What else did he do?'

The Correspondent shook his head. He was so
primed with every useful detail there was to know
about his interviewees that it had never occurred to
him Herbert might be ignorant of it all. Didn't the
man even read his reports? Do some research?
Apparently not: Herbert was just doing a job. So the
Correspondent simply answered:

'This and that.'

Herbert wasn't even interested in the answer: he
was looking curiously at the Correspondent, his
expression thoughtful.

'Besides,' he said, 'when did you start caring?'

They arrived at the ceremony just as it was starting.
It was a grand but crowded room full of men
standing and jostling as people did on these
occasions, chatting idly, catching up with each
other, making new acquaintances. It was an era of
grand clothes and wigs but the finery was only a
visible distraction from the fact that the bygoners
still hadn't entirely got the hang of hygiene.
Herbert was obviously trying not to pull a face.

Now the men were drifting to their seats and
Leibnitz was taking the stage. The philosopher had
a long, dark, curly wig, arched eyebrows and a face
that was usually calm and placid but, on this
occasion, could be excused for more than a hint of
smugness.

The Correspondent had timed their arrival so
that Herbert would not have to make casual conversation
with bygoner German scientists and be
revealed as the fraud he was. As they took their seats
he mused that it had been a wise precaution;
bearing in mind what he had just learned, Herbert
wouldn't have been able to bluff his way for a
second. What kind of idiot, the Correspondent
wondered, would come back however many
centuries, knowing he would have to blend into the
population, and not even try to learn something
about the time?

But that question was only incidental to the main
one bothering him as everyone applauded the man
at the front. The main one was:
when did you start
caring?

When indeed? He thought back to his arrival at
Isfahan. He hadn't cared then. He had had a desire
to get to the city and to meet Avicenna, and lurking
at the back of his mind had been enough information
about the man's career to be able to make
conversation and conduct an interview.

But now?

Now, it
mattered
to him that Leibnitz – mathematician,
statesman and above all philosopher –
had founded and presided over the Akademie der
Wissenschaft. It was important that Leibnitz saw the
universe as composed of what he called monads,
centres of spiritual energy that together formed the
harmonious and perfect conclusion of a divine
plan. And above all – as the Correspondent could
see, even if Herbert could not – both men owed
everything to people like Leibnitz and all the other
interviewees, because they were both the products
of a highly advanced technological society, far
removed from the on-going Iron Age that was
currently all around them in eighteenth-century
Berlin. The world would move from this bygoner
age to the Home Time through scientific advance,
and that scientific advance was made possible
because of the theoretical groundwork laid by the
men the Correspondent had interviewed.

So, yes, it mattered to the Correspondent. It
mattered a great deal.

Leibnitz ended his speech with the hope that
great things would come out of the new Academy of
Science. The Correspondent applauded quite
genuinely while Herbert's applause seemed more
out of relief that the speeches were over.

'And now, let's go and meet the man,' the
Correspondent said as the assembly rose from their
seats.

'I need to be alone with him,' Herbert muttered.
'How am I going to manage that here?' They began
to sidle along their row of chairs towards the aisle.

'That thing of yours only works on contact,
doesn't it?' The Correspondent had seen it work
enough times. Herbert invariably touched a crystal
sphere to the subject's temple.

'That's right.'

'Give it to me.'

'What?' Herbert exclaimed.

'Give it to me, and watch.'

Herbert fumed but could see he had no choice,
and a moment later the Correspondent felt the
sphere press into his hand. It was the size, shape
and feel of a golf ball (
A golf ball? How long had he
known what one of those was?
) and a deep, translucent
blue.

'Herr Leibnitz!' the Correspondent called. They
had reached the aisle and Leibnitz was coming
towards them. He was talking learnedly with the
crowd of men around him but he looked up in
polite expectation.

'My master Sir Isaac Newton sent me,' the
Correspondent said, pushing his way forward and
holding out his hand. 'It's a pleasure.'

'Isaac Newton?' Leibnitz said with polite interest.
'I've heard of him.'

And will continue to hear more
, the Correspondent
thought, since neither man yet knew that the other
had worked out the principles of calculus on his
own, and a bitter dispute and accusations of
plagiarism were looming in the years to come.

'My master is very interested in your thoughts on
monads,' the Correspondent said, 'and he has sent
me with a request that might seem odd.' He held
up the sphere, and heard Herbert behind him draw
in a breath.

'Indeed?' As was obviously expected, Leibnitz
took the sphere and rotated it in his fingers. 'It's an
interesting ornament.'

'Would you mind, sir, touching it to your
temple?'

Leibnitz's eyebrows rose, but he obligingly
pushed back the fringe of his wig. 'Like this?' he
said, suiting action to words. 'Good lord,' he added,
as the sphere abruptly changed colour.

'It's a substance my master has devised in his
alchemical studies,' the Correspondent said. 'He
believes the human brain is full of currents of
energy, similar to the monads you have written
about, and that this material reacts to them.
Ultimately he hopes to be able to record human
thoughts in devices just like this. He wonders if you
would be interested in sharing in his researches?'