Time's Chariot

think,’ said the Correspondent, ‘until you tell me otherwise. Herbert the time traveller.’

‘H–how did you remember?’ the visitor asked. They sat facing each other in comfortable chairs. The Correspondent had thought it only hospitable to set some wine aside in readiness, and Herbert’s teeth clattered against his cup. The Correspondent held his own cup in one hand and the second match-lock in the other, and the barrel pointed without wavering at Herbert’s heart.

‘Not important,’ said the Correspondent. With the Bacon incident in mind, he had taken the precaution of giving the servants the day off. ‘Incidentally, I’ve stored a written account of everything I remember in several locations around town and elsewhere. Even if you somehow make me forget everything again, I’ll remember again. And again, and again, and again.’

Herbert grimaced. ‘I was careless.’

‘Yes,’ the Correspondent agreed. ‘And now you can make up for it by taking me back to the Home Time.’ Herbert looked at him with blank surprise. ‘Back to the Home Time,’ the Correspondent repeated, with more emphasis. ‘When I first arrived I was keen, fired with enthusiasm to report, a loyal servant of my masters in the glorious, glowing future. I knew I had a purpose, a valuable function, and I was eager to serve. The Home Time was waiting for my reports. They needed them. The twenty-first century seemed a long time to wait, but I could handle it, and of course there was no way home, was there? You couldn’t send anyone back to get me because the equipment to do so wouldn’t exist before the twenty-first century. I had to wait, I had no choice.

‘And then, then, I learned the Home Time were a bunch of lying bastards and they could come and go as they pleased. Somehow, my motivation just evaporated. And now, you can take me back.’

Herbert slowly put down his cup and sat back in his chair, cold amusement doing battle on his face with natural caution deriving from the fact that the Correspondent still held a gun pointing at him. ‘Supposing I said it was impossible?’ he said.

‘I wouldn’t believe you. Everything else has been a lie, hasn’t it?’

‘Transference doesn’t need—’

‘Transference?’

‘Travel through time,’ Herbert snapped. ‘Transference doesn’t need equipment for the return journey. The Home Time sends a recall field. But it wouldn’t work on you. It’s a matter of probability frequency, which changes every time a transference is made. The recall has to be the same frequency as the send. We don’t want to pick up any Ops—’

‘Any what?’

‘Time travellers from another point in the Home Time, you see. Now, the probability resonance of objects can be changed, that’s how we bring back samples from other times, but that needs special tagging equipment which I don’t have on me.’ He looked the Correspondent in the eyes. ‘That’s why I can’t take you back. Not won’t, can’t.’

The Correspondent said nothing for a moment. Then: ‘You have one of these recall fields planned, then?’

‘I set it to cover the immediate area around the original co-ordinates,’ Herbert said, after a pause during which he was plainly wondering how much to reveal. ‘If I’d had the foresight to set it to cover a wider area, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now. I’d have just vanished.’

‘It’s already come on?’

‘Been and gone by now. It came on two minutes after arrival. But if I miss it it’s set to come on every hour at the same point until I do make it.’ He scowled. ‘I’ve never missed it before.’

‘Supposing I grab hold of you and hold you tight when the field does come on?’

Herbert shook his head. ‘Probability masking. You’d get two conflicting probability resonances in the same area, the field would be confused and neither of us would be recalled at all.’

Another pause. ‘You’ve lied to me about the one main tenet of being a correspondent,’ said the Correspondent. ‘No home journey until the twenty-first century. So why should I believe you now?’

‘That bit is true,’ said Herbert. ‘Recall Day will be the last thing the Home Time does while transference is still possible, and the whole world will be bathed in every transference frequency ever used. You’ll be recalled if you live that long.’

‘Why that day? And what’s this about the last thing the Home Time does?’

The visitor ticked the points off on his fingers. ‘That day, because that’s when a bygoner scientist will invent equipment that could detect transference. And soon after that, the bygoners will get back to the moon, maybe find the lunar station. The past becomes untenable for us after that date. We call it the Fallow Age.’

‘And the Home Time?’ the Correspondent prompted.

‘The Home Time is a period of set probability flux. There’s a singularity beneath the College — our, um, centre of operations — that makes transference possible because it vibrates at a fixed, unchanging probability frequency. It’s a permanent referent. An, ah, anchor that will always drag us back home again. But it won’t last forever, it’s decaying, and the day will come when it ends and transference won’t be possible any more. But we keep our word, and you will be recalled before then.’

‘How long does it have to run? From your point of view?’

‘Is that relevant? Let’s just say, not long enough.’

‘You’ve been very forthcoming,’ the Correspondent said. ‘I could still just kill you now.’

‘You could,’ said Herbert. ‘But this is an imperfect situation, so let’s make the best of it.’ His earlier shock was all gone now and he sounded almost in charge. ‘I can’t take you back with me, just now. You’ve remembered me. Inconvenient, but it’s happened. Now—’

‘I’m not going to carry on as a Correspondent,’ said the Correspondent. ‘I might have to stay here but I’m damned if I’m going to lift a finger for you again.’

Herbert shrugged. ‘It’s not unusual for Correspondents to take a break, go off-line for a century or two, maybe forever. It’s your decision.’ He smiled a cold, lop-sided smile. ‘Maybe we can discuss things?’

THIRTEEN

Marje?’ Marje jumped: Su Zo must have been waiting for her just outside the canteen. ‘You did say you’d see me around,’ Su said with an embarrassed smile.

‘Su! Um, I, ah, yes, yes, I did,’ Marje agreed.

‘Good to see you. How’s things?’

‘Um… can we walk?’ Su said.

‘Why not? I’ve got to get back to the office. This way.’ They started walking towards the nearest carryfield, side by side.

‘Thanks for letting us look through the Commissioner’s things,’ Su said.

‘It was my pleasure.’ Su was plainly ill at ease so Marje cast around in her mind for a way to continue the conversation. ‘Did Op Garron find his computer?’

Su shook her head. ‘No. We found all kinds of interesting things, I mean, he did a lot more transferring than we ever thought he would have, but not that. Marje…’ Suddenly it all came out in a rush. ‘Rico’s been suspended and there’s to be an enquiry into his conduct.’

‘Oh,’ said Marje, nonplussed. ‘I’m, ah, sorry.’

‘Supervisor Marlici cornered us at the party last night and delivered a reprimand. Rico’s third. And suspension is automatic for an Op with three reprimands.’

Marje shrugged. There were only so many times she could say she was sorry, and she wasn’t sure she was. Su carried on talking.

‘One of those reprimands was yours, Marje, and I know for a fact it was, um…’

‘Unjustified,’ said Marje. ‘I know, and I apologized for it.’ Now she did feel something, and it was anger. It was just what she had been afraid of at the time — that ass Asaldra getting Garron into trouble. She had let it pass because surely one reprimand wasn’t career-threatening. It hadn’t occurred to her that Garron might already have had some on his record. But if he was the kind of man who attracted reprimands, perhaps he deserved suspension.