Under the Eye of God (31 page)

The tall man opened his hands in the universal gesture of peace. “I wear the name of William Three-Dollar.” He unwrapped the red cloth from his head to reveal a shimmering band of blue-white light. It sat like a halo on the crown of his skull; it gleamed across his forehead and around his temples, disappearing finally under his long jet-black hair. The brightness of the band made a stark contrast with his dark red skin. His piercing eyes shone almost as bright. Sawyer had the eeriest feeling as he looked into the man's face—as if somehow he stared directly into one of the many faces of God.

William Three-Dollar spoke in a voice like the wind. “I serve as the TimeBinder of Thoska-Roole,” he said.

Sawyer and Finn exchanged a glance. For a moment, they neither of them knew how to react. Finally, Finn—holding on to his brother for support—inclined went down on one knee in a bow. “Father, I beg your forgiveness, for all of our crimes—those in our past as well as in our future.”

The TimeBinder blinked in surprise. He stretched out one long arm and laid a huge hand on Finn's head. As he did so, a grave look of concern came over his face. “Unease rides within you, my son. And something else—” His eyes narrowed. “I cannot cure what troubles you. But the medicine does exist.”

“I have searched for years, Father—I have never found it.”

“You have to look in the right place, my son. Keep looking.”

“I beg your forgiveness, Father.”

“If you can forgive yourself, Finn, you won't need mine.”

Finn nodded his acceptance. “I have heard it said that a TimeBinder never gives you anything, except what you haven't asked for.”

William Three-Dollar laughed. “I've heard that one myself.” He gestured. “Please, sit down, Finn Markham. Rest. Save your energy. I want to hear about your escape from the labor camp. All kinds of rumors have swept through the city for two days, but we've heard nothing from the Phaestor. And now, they have all gone into hiding—panicked at the news of the death of Lord Drydel. Apparently, they believe a terrible insurrection has begun.”

“If only we had the men and materiel to make that so—” Lee said.

“You would not accept the Phaestor in your Alliance of Life?” the TimeBinder asked speculatively.

“I cannot imagine a Vampire accepting the Alliance. Would a Vampire forsake its family, its honor, its greed, its
hunger
, for the privilege of associating with prey? I doubt it very much.”

“And suppose such a one did exist? Could you accept him?”

“When I meet such a one,” Lee-1169 said bitterly, “then I will consider that question. But not until then.”

Three-Dollar nodded his acceptance, knowing that even this little bit represented a major concession for Lee. “Tell me about your escape,” he said to them.

Quickly, Lee, Sawyer, and Finn recited the details of their escape from the labor camp, their trek south through the dry canal, and the surprise attack on the Vampire villa. The TimeBinder expressed little surprise at Kask's acceptance of a new brotherhood. “Dragons have simple and direct souls,” he said. “That remains their strength as well as their weakness.”

The men concluded their narrative with an explanation of the trick they had played on the Dragon Guard. “—so we took Murdock's transport. The Vampires had given Murdock a safe passage transponder, so it wouldn't even show up on the Dragons' screens. And even if they did spot the transport, they still wouldn't imagine that anyone could have overpowered Murdock. Kask did most of the work. That creature abandoned all pretense of humanity a long time ago; even Kask found her repugnant.”

“We destroyed the transport,” Lee said. “It has joined the rubble at the bottom of Death Canyon. If and when the Dragons ever find it, we will have long escaped from this place.”

William Three-Dollar sat silent for a long moment, considering the import of their words. His long fingers drummed silently on his bony knee. His expression faded away, as if he focused on something a million light years distant. “No TimeBinder has ever left Thoska-Roole,” he said finally. “Not since the first Gathering.”

“This Gathering cannot happen without you,” Lee argued.

“I know that, son.” He fingered the rod that lay across his lap and an uncomfortable expression came across his features. “I have no experience with star travel,” he admitted. “The thought disturbs me. Does that startle you? That a TimeBinder can experience fear? It shouldn't. The TimeBinder must remain open to all experience. Here, I remain safe. The Regency can't find me in the warrens of MesaPort. Out there—we all become vulnerable. I wonder if this Gathering might not represent a much greater threat to us than to the Regency.”

“We have to take the risk.”

“Not you—I. And I do not share your enthusiasm for this task. First, I must believe that no better alternative exists.” He held up a hand to forestall Lee's next words. “I know what you want to say—and what your respect stops you from saying. No, my son. Trust me, when I say that you do not fully understand. I would make the journey if I could see the absolute necessity of it. At this moment, I have doubts that I must resolve. I cannot decide immediately. I must
transcend
this moment to a larger perspective. I will need dreamtime.”

“We don't have time,” Lee said impatiently. “Captain Campbell won't wait.”

“She will have to, or I won't go. I will not embark on a voyage of this importance without certainty.”

Those who convened the first Gathering made two important decisions.

In the first of those decisions, they assigned the protection of the Regency to the fast-thinking Phaestor and the undefeatable Dragon Guards. In the second decision, they created a means by which the Regency could reinvent itself should such a need ever arise.

In the history of sentient affairs, one fact remains apparent—that those who do not learn from their history will attempt to rewrite it.

So, the TimeBinders created themselves as a direct connection with their own heritage. Each of the thirteen TimeBinders wore a crown of wisdom. The identities, knowledge, experiences, and intelligence of every previous wearer rested in the band. When a TimeBinder died, he passed the band to a chosen heir; as each new ‘Binder put on the band, the wisdom of the past would begin to infuse his soul, and likewise, his spirit would begin a lifelong migration into the substance of the crown, so that every TimeBinder who wore the crown after him would have the same access to his knowledge.

The contribution of any individual remained insignificant. Across the centuries, criminals and saints alike wore the bands. The crowns had little tangible value in the immediate world, and those who sought the crowns for personal gain first discovered disappointment, and later enlightenment.

The wisdom of the band lay in the cumulative experience of all the wearers, and no TimeBinder ever escaped the heavy weight of the centuries. Whatever he or she or it brought to the process, the headband brought even more. As the generations of wearers passed steadily into history, the quality of the individual who accepted the band became much less significant to the process. Even the experiences he carried had little importance when measured against the great mass of personal history the headband carried. Ultimately, the headband transformed the wearer into a true TimeBinder, whether he desired it or not.

Although the TimeBinders had little real authority in the day to day operations of the Regency, as the generations passed and the wisdom of the headbands began to accrue, the observations of the TimeBinders began to gain wider and wider respect. The TimeBinders became the living voices of each world's heritage. Ultimately, those who ignored the combined wisdom of the generations often lived long enough to regret their errors. The TimeBinders came to represent an extraordinary moral and ethical force across the Regency.

While much of the raw information of the band remained always accessible to the wearer, the real wisdom lay in the dreamtime experience. In the dream state, the TimeBinder's present identity merged with the stored identities of all of his/her/its predecessors. The perceptions, decisions, observations, realizations, words, and actions that resulted came not from a single soul, but from the merged souls of all who had ever worn the headband. In the dreamtime, the TimeBinder became immortal, living simultaneously in both his past and his future. He could embark on no path without this centering of self.
⁴¹

When he returned to that state that others called consciousness, William Three-Dollar rested for a long moment before arising from the mat.

The ancestors of this body had come from the legendary Earth. They had lived high in a mountain range called the Andes, the backbone of a continent called South America. Here, Thoska-Roole had neither oceans nor continents, but she had broken deserts and towering mountains and vast gloomy caverns.

He sat up slowly. He wore his ancestors' features; he had high wide cheekbones and narrow black eyes. The crown of his head bulged slightly wider than his distant progenitors' had; the effect conferred wisdom, not grotesquerie.

He rubbed his eyes as he brought himself back to the immediate moment. He realized much now that he had always known, but had never consciously experienced. The dreamtime gave him access to the insight of history. Sometimes it troubled him; mostly it didn't. It never got any easier, if anything each subsequent submergence into the dream state felt more difficult than the last—but each time, he always emerged stronger.

He stood up in an uncomfortable crouch and returned to the main room of Lee-1169's apartment. He settled himself again on the stone bench and waited until the others had gathered around him again.

He began to speak quietly and patiently of the situation in the Cluster Worlds. He looked to Lee. “You believe that the authority of the Regency will soon collapse.”

Lee nodded.

“In that belief, my son, you have projected the hopes and wishes and fears of yourself and those who follow you.”

“So you say the collapse will not occur?”

“On the contrary, Lee. The collapse has already occurred.”

For a moment, Lee and the others struggled with their confusion. Everybody spoke at once, questioning, demanding, interrupting each other with their hurried words. “How do you know this? Where did you get this information? Why didn't you tell us?”

William Three-Dollar held up his hand and waited patiently. The room fell instantly silent.

“I have swum in the oceans of time. All knowledge dwells in that sea, if you have the strength to dive for it. What I have seen—in this life and all the others—tells me the truth about the Regency Marauders that have taken over this world. Why
this
world? Have you ever considered what strategic value this broken rock possesses? It has none. It lies away from the center of the Cluster. It has little industry and only enough agriculture to feed the barest of populations. We have no wealth here, no strength, nothing but our inaccessibility.”

“Tell us something we don't know, old man,” Lee grumbled.

Three-Dollar laughed at the child's disrespect. “You know it, Lee—and yet, you still don't know it. Think—why would the Regency send so
many
Marauders here? Do we need such protection—from whom? Or do we represent such a threat
to
the Regency that we require so many restrictive patrols? What kind of a threat could we mount? We don't even have the power among ourselves to demand the enforcement of the Regency Charter. So, the question remains:
Why
have the Marauders come here?”

Lee and the others frowned as they thought about the TimeBinder's questions. Clearly, he had seen something in the situation that they still missed.

Sawyer looked to Finn. Finn shrugged. “How should I know?”

“All right,” conceded Lee. “Tell us.”

“Most people don't know it yet. Kernel d'Vashti doesn't dare let the information out. But the Regency Marauders that have taken over Thoska-Roole represent all that remains of a much greater fleet. Think about it.”

The TimeBinder explained, “The Vampire families have argued among themselves. The fleet has disintegrated and each Vampire has supposedly taken his squadrons home. But think about Vampire males—they kill each other almost as fast as they kill the rest of us. Knowing that your potential enemy has turned his back to you, could you resist the temptation to sneak up on him in the darkness and thrust a knife into his back? Neither could d'Vashti. The Marauders here bear scars of battle. The Vampire commanders have squabbled among themselves. We'll never know how many ships died—but d'Vashti's presence here, proves that no one won a decisive victory. And pay attention now—I feel certain that no single voice remains in authority. No one commands. We wait in silence while the Regency lies stunned, naked, and uncontrolled. A single strong hand can either seize its reins or rend it asunder.”

“You saw this in your dreams?” asked Sawyer, skeptically. “What distinguishes this—this theory from the wishes of children or the hopeful speculation of old men?”

“You have little experience with TimeBinders,” said William Three-Dollar. “I report what I see. Whether you accept my vision or not, remains your choice.”

“We have to take your word on faith then?”

“You may use whatever you wish,” the TimeBinder chided him gently.

Exasperated, Sawyer threw himself back in his seat. Finn shrugged helplessly at his brother, but the two turned their attention back to the tall Indian TimeBinder.

William Three-Dollar continued his careful discourse. “Kernel d'Vashti wants to wear the crown of Emperor. He wants to rule the Cluster. He has brought his squadrons to this world because our people lack the capability of mounting any serious resistance. Here he can replenish and rebuild the strength of his fleet without fearing a sudden assault from space. He did this under the protection and authority of the Prefect—until Lady Zillabar arrived and demoted him and killed the Prefect.