‘And?’ Carradine said. All eyes turned back to Gerard.
‘There’s something in there,’ she said. ‘There’s a cloudiness in all of their brains that isn’t natural. I showed it to a neurosurgeon and he immediately diagnosed widely distributed brain cancer, which is incorrect. As it is, I think it’s something implanted, which has since grown inside them. I’d…’ She coughed. ‘I’d need to do a post mortem on one of them to know more.’
‘I see.’ The silence around the table was absolute. Then Carradine pushed back his chair and stood. ‘Thank you, everyone. Alan, that was truly fascinating, and if the opportunity for a post mortem turns up, we can discuss things further. You’ll let me have a copy of your report, of course?’
FIFTEEN
Rico Garron arrived in seventeenth-century France ten minutes before the list said Daiho was scheduled to appear in exactly the same place. The site was a back alley in Port-Royal-des-Champs near Paris in 1657, and the ambience of unwashed humans and plentiful livestock hit him like a slap in the face.
All around him the town was buzzing and — in more ways than one — humming, but here in the alley he was alone. ‘Good choice,’ he said to himself, looking approvingly around. Yes, it stank and it was gloomy and an open sewer ran down the middle, but it was secluded and it was an excellent transference point. Home Time smart drugs in his system would deal with any diseases. All he had to do was put up with the smell.
The one disadvantage was that when Daiho appeared there was no way Rico could hide somewhere nearby, so he would have to lurk at a discreet distance. He squared his shoulders and walked down the alley and out into the France of 1657. His fieldsuit had tailored itself to make him look as close as the France of the day could come to the middle classes: a bygoner would think he was maybe a factotum for some rich household, maybe slightly seedy. Not rich and dressed out in glowing finery, but not struck down with poverty either. He nodded to a black-robed clergyman who turned into the alley as he turned out of it: the priest bowed slightly back.
Rico cast a glance back at the priest. If Daiho appeared in front of him…
Well, one of the advantages of transference was that it cut both ways. Tampering with probability so as to insert the travellers into the timestream disoriented the transferee but it also confused any observer. Still, he steeled himself for any surprised yells and cries of witchcraft. He might have to help out a fellow Home Time citizen, albeit one engaged in dodgy activity.
He leaned against a wall and watched seventeenth-century France go by. Smelly, crawling with germs — he loved it. Yes, the rich were very rich and the poor were very poor; yes, people were starving; yes, children were dying of disease and malnutrition; and if he were somehow to get into the French court then, yes, he knew he would find a level of pomp and formality that made the Home Time’s patricians look like children in a nursery. But out here, out on the street, it was all so refreshingly
Ten minutes later he was back at the entrance to the alley, just as his field computer told him that the transference he was awaiting was taking place. Daiho was now in there and Rico lurked as only a Specific or a correspondent can lurk, in plain view and completely anonymous.
‘How far to the convent?’
‘A mile or so.’ The voices came out of the alleyway and made Rico frown. He hadn’t been expecting two of them. Daiho must have brought a friend. Rico poised himself casually to follow them when they came out.
‘Why are we so far from it?’
‘So that you need me to guide you there and back, of course. You don’t think I trust you, do you?’
‘It stinks here.’
‘I thought you might like to savour the atmosphere. I have to live in it, remember. And now,
And two people appeared at the end of the alley, talking together in seventeenth-century French like old friends. They looked casually around, then set off down the road away from Rico. One was the priest and the other was Hossein Asaldra.
‘You?’ Rico muttered, eyes wide. He and Marje had assumed that because Daiho authorized the transferences, therefore it was Daiho doing the transferring. But no.
And who was the priest? ‘He met up with a bygoner?’ Rico murmured. No, the other man was speaking the same language as Rico and Asaldra always spoke. Therefore, the clergyman must be another Home Timer. So why hadn’t they transferred together? Why had they met up here?
Radiating indifference, Rico followed the couple.
Following in a straight line would be too obvious: it only worked in the adventure zines. Rico set off on a zig- zag route whose average course took him after the two Home Timers. He would wander across the road; study some livestock; engage total strangers in conversation, actually asking for directions but making it look from a distance like they were old friends.
The disadvantage was that he was seldom near enough to Asaldra and his companion to hear what they were saying, and he really did need to know. They seemed engrossed in one another: maybe they wouldn’t notice if he drew nearer. He began to catch up, slowly and without fuss, and came within earshot as they were passing a church. The tower was covered with wooden scaffolding and a gang of workmen swarmed over it.
‘The Jansenists are very similar to Calvinists,’ the priest was saying, ‘but they say they’re strictly Catholic —’
A shout of alarm and a snapping
Rico’s training took over.
‘Look out!’ he shouted, already halfway to the two others before the words were out of his mouth, arms outstretched to push the two away from the danger. All his senses slowed down, taking in every datum, every aspect of what was happening.
The bricks were halfway to the ground, and suddenly the priest and Asaldra weren’t there any more. The priest had grabbed the frozen Asaldra round the waist and spun them both out of the way. Rico couldn’t check his momentum and now he was the only one in any danger. The bricks were directly above him.
The priest, who had already moved impossibly fast, moved faster. He let go of Asaldra, turned and leaped back, catching Rico in a flying tackle around the waist that knocked him backwards and jarred the breath out of his body.
And the world returned to its normal speed as the bricks crashed loudly onto the spot where the men had been standing. Rico and the priest lay in the dirt and looked thoughtfully at the heap for a moment.
The priest climbed to his feet, brushing down his gown with one hand and holding the other out to Rico.
‘You move quickly, my son,’ he said.
‘You move quicker, Father,’ said Rico. He took the hand and let the priest help him to his feet.
‘Yes,’ the priest said simply.
‘Is your friend hurt?’ Rico said. The priest looked calmly at Asaldra, who leaned against the wall, staring at the bricks. His eyes were wild, his hair dishevelled and he was breathing fast.
‘No,’ the priest said. He walked over to Asaldra and patted him on the back. ‘Just a little shaken,’ the priest added.
‘Father!’ It had all happened so quickly that the workmen in the scaffolding had only just got to the ground. The foreman ran up to the priest, twisting his cap between his hands. ‘Father, are you hurt? I must apologize for the neglect of my men…’
‘No harm done,’ the priest said mildly.
‘But to have interrupted your journey with this…’
‘You didn’t interrupt; we’re where we want to be.’ The priest put his hands on Asaldra’s shoulders and guided him towards a door in the wall. Then he looked back at the foreman and at Rico. ‘Thank you for your assistance, my son. Good day.’
