Time's Chariot

you need…’ She stopped and glanced behind him. ‘Yes, Hossein?’

Rico turned round. He hadn’t heard anyone else come in — the thick carpet had hidden the footsteps.

The newcomer had the slightest hint of a sneer and large, cool eyes which now widened in surprise.

‘I, um, I’m sorry, Commissioner, I didn’t know you were busy,’ he said. He looked curiously at Rico, as if trying to place him.

‘We’ve met before,’ Rico said.

‘Of course you have. At Li’s place. This is Op Garron,’ Orendal said. ‘You might remember him. He’s going to do some field work for me. Op Garron, Hossein Asaldra. Can I help you, Hossein?’

‘It was nothing, Commissioner. I’ll come back.’ Asaldra nodded to them both and backed out.

‘Mr Asaldra,’ said Orendal, one corner of her mouth turned up, ‘will be speaking at your tribunal.’

‘I’ll look forward to it,’ Rico said. He almost returned her almost-smile, before he remembered who she was. Not just the one in charge of the correspondents but the one who sent them out. ‘Show me these co-ordinates of yours.’

Orendal symbed the list at him. ‘Would you be able to start at the beginning?’

‘Um…’ Rico studied the list, then shook his head. ‘No. Nothing like it. They’re all enclosed spaces. Rooms in houses. There might be other people about and I won’t be able to hide anywhere.’ He frowned at her. ‘Presumably he knew that?’

‘Presumably,’ Orendal said neutrally. Rico shook his head and turned his attention back to the list.

‘Look. From number thirteen onwards, it gets better. He started transferring to outside coordinates, and that means I’ll be able to turn up early and hide somewhere.’

‘So you’ll start at number thirteen?’ she said eagerly.

‘It looks like it,’ Rico agreed. ‘France, 1657. I’ll go and get ready.’

FOURTEEN

‘I have never known anything like it!’ Scott raged. ‘What were you thinking? How dare you? You’re meant to be journeymen! You were brought here to do a job, not go wandering off on moonlit walks…’

‘They were off duty,’ Daiho murmured, just loud enough for Scott to hear.

‘That’s not important!’ Scott glared at the two recalcitrants, pictures of misery. Some bygoner guards still milled about in the background, making no effort to conceal their smirks. This, this was what he had been brought back from Paris for. Two of his idiot employees showing him up, neglecting their duties and…

His imagination filled in some extra details. No, probably not. The guards seemed to have found them fully dressed.

‘Do you know,’ he said, ‘do you have any idea how badly you endangered this project? Supposing one of the guards had shot you, eh?’

‘They’ve only got stunners,’ Daiho murmured again. ‘Nothing lethal.’

Scott swung round. ‘That is completely missing the point,’ he snapped. He turned back to the other two. ‘You’re confined indoors for the duration of our stay,’ he said, ‘and when we get back to the Home Time you will each be fined a week’s pay. That’s all. Now get to your rooms.’

They shuffled out and Scott turned to Daiho. ‘What were you doing, letting them go off like that?’

‘They’re not my staff,’ Daiho said mildly. ‘Perhaps they just need proper leadership.’

‘Is that supposed to mean something?’

‘I think the mating season’s begun all round,’ Daiho said with a sweet smile, his eyes on someone behind Scott. He walked off and Scott turned round with a sinking feeling to face Ms Holliss, the manager of the hotel.

‘Good evening, Ms Holliss,’ he said, switching to twenty-first century English. ‘I apologize for this upset…’

‘Please call me Edith, Mr Scott. And I should apologize.’ Ms Holliss was standing far too close to him, as she usually did, her head tilted right back to look at him. Her eyes looked deformed behind her anachronistic glasses, but from the way she batted her eyelashes that was probably not the idea. ‘I had no idea Internal Security had wired this place quite so closely. It was a breakdown in communication, you see.’

‘Was it.’

‘Of course, I’ve had to discipline staff too, sometimes…’

‘How interesting,’ Scott said. ‘Excuse me, it is late and I need my sleep. Good night.’

The gentle sound of the waves was like a lullaby. On previous nights Jontan Baiget had fallen asleep listening to them. They reminded him of the pump mechanism in a hydroponics plant, and with every surge it was like another wave of lassitude sweeping over him until eventually sleep took him completely.

But not tonight. He had rather been hoping not to be alone, but apparently it wasn’t to be.

Their rooms were on the very top floor of the hotel and they had walked up the stairs to Sarai’s door. And she had flung herself into his arms.

‘I’ve never been so afraid.’ Her voice was a desperate whisper. ‘They’d have killed us. They would!’

‘Um…’ he had said.

‘Jon, they’ve never had social preparation. They would have! Think of Lano Chon. They’re all Lano Chon, only he had preparation like us when he grew up, and they never did, no one in this world has, they could all kill us…’

‘And they don’t have basic hygiene…’ he agreed.

‘Guns and those flying things…’

‘No symbing…’

‘We could be killed tomorrow…’

And they had looked at each other, and Jontan had felt his heart pounding, this is it, this is surely it, but then she had given him one last kiss — a very pleasant, lingering one, he had to admit — and gone into her room. And, just as he was plucking up his courage to follow her, shut the door firmly.

He had banged his head deliberately against the doorpost — which hurt — and gone into his own adjoining room. Where, now, slumber seemed as far away as ever.

Then, to his surprise, drowsiness came quite suddenly, and he was actually aware of it. His thoughts began to disassociate and his eyes grew heavy, even while a small and rational part of his mind thought how unusual this was. There was a faint smell in the air, a sweet and rosy smell getting stronger, and his last waking thought was that maybe Sarai had changed her mind…

Matthew Carradine took his place at the end of the table and the members of the investigative team sat down when he nodded. Alan sat at the other end of the table, chairing the meeting of the team he had headed.

A display on the wall showed the four Home Timers, each snapped by a spy camera and blown up, enhanced by computer to remove fuzziness. The same four who had been knocked out by gas in the early hours, letting Alan’s investigators pounce. The investigators hadn’t even taken them out of their beds, instead performing all their tests on the spot with mobile equipment. The Home Timers had woken up at the normal time and suspected nothing. A beautifully timed and executed operation.

‘Hit me with it, Alan,’ Carradine said. ‘Are they human?’

His assistant nodded. ‘They’re Homo sapiens, yes. Their DNA holds no surprises at all. We can’t tell how far in the future they’re from, but it’s not long enough for our species to have undergone any major changes.’

‘So they’re just the same as us?’

‘I didn’t say that, Matthew. Dr Gerard?’ Alan nodded at Madeleine Gerard, who was normally Carradine’s personal physician, and she consulted her notes.

‘All four have perfect teeth — no crowns, fillings, bridge work, whatever,’ she said. ‘None of them have wisdom teeth but there’s no sign of their having been removed. All four have perfect, twenty-twenty vision. Not short-sighted, not long-sighted. All four have the optimum body weight for their metabolism. There isn’t a single scar on any of them. If they’ve ever had broken bones then they’ve healed perfectly. Scott has a beard but neither of the other two males even produces facial hair, though they have the follicles for it. All four are fertile — they