but there was a lot of wisdom in his words.”
“Whatever happened to that oracle?” asked Lucas. “What washis name, Lucan?”
“Interesting that you should ask,” said Forester. “We foundhim.”
“You found him’?” said Delaney with surprise. “You nevermentioned that!”
“Because I’m still not certain what to make of it,” said Forester.he turned to Travers. “You remember how you said he seemed to simply disappearas soon as you passed him through the gate of Caesars camp?”
“Yes,” said Travers. “There was no sign of him. I figured heclocked out.”
“He did,” said Forester. “Or, more accurately, he wasclocked out. After we received your report, we went back a Search and Retrieveteam to apprehend him. They got him just as he was coming through the gates.”
“Then he disappeared because you clocked him out?” saidTravers with astonishment.
“That’s right.” said Forrester. “The temporal anomaly had alreadyoccurred with the prophecy itself. But for all we know, perhaps it wasn’t ananomaly. Because we interrogated all the prisoners extensively and none of themknew anything about the oracle. We also interrogated Lucan himself. As far as we’vebeen able to determine, he was absolutely genuine. He grew up in a village notfar from where Caesar made his camp that night.”
But … how is that possible?” asked Travers. “If he wasn’tfrom the Special Operations Group, how could he have known about Caesar’sassassination? He even knew the exact date, and the names of the assassins!”
“Apparently, he had precognitive powers since early childhood,”said Forrester.
“You mean he could
“It would appear so.” said Forrester. “It seems he reallyhad the gift of ‘second sight.’ if you can call it a gift. He seemed to thinkof it more as a curse.” He paused. “I suppose it must have been. I assigned anagent to keep him under surveillance after we clocked him hack to his own time.It was a very short-term mission.”
“Why?” asked Lucas. “What happened?”
“I suppose Lucan must have seen something again,” saidForrester gravely. “The morning after we clocked him hack to his own village.he committed suicide.”
“My God,” said Travers in a low voice. “He knew!”
“He knew what?” asked Forester, puzzled.
“Just before we passed him through the gates that night. Iasked him if he could look into my future,” Travers said. “He told me that hecouldn’t, because he needed time to recover …. And he was leaving on a longjourney in the morning.”
