Time's Chariot

‘All right, all right,’ Rico said, still in his best hurt hotel staff tone of voice, and backed out.

‘Identify,’ he symbed.

‘One symb junction. One field generator. Four fluid regulators. Seven—’

‘What was the overall purpose of that equipment?’ Rico symbed impatiently. He was back in the main hallway and he couldn’t afford to linger under the gaze of the guards there, so as if it was the most natural thing in the world he headed for the stairs. ‘This unit conjectures that the equipment had a biotechnological function.’

‘Can’t you be more specific?’ Rico asked as he took the stairs slowly, one at a time: a humble servant, all too aware that those guards were still down there.

‘Not with this level of data.’

He was halfway up. ‘Scan the floors above. Give me layout and personnel deployment.’ The computer analysed what lay ahead. Most interesting were the four bedrooms, each with an armed guard outside it. Surely, Rico conjectured, if you wanted to guard important people at a hotel then, OK, you would seal off the area, mount patrols, station sentries, throw up a security blanket… everything the bygoners had done. But individual guards on individual rooms? That didn’t connect. You only did that if you wanted to keep certain parties apart…

Rico began to suspect he knew where the Home Timers were.

Two of the rooms were next door neighbours on the landing, with their sentries in plain view of each other. Rico walked past them without a glance. Beyond them lay a small staircase, up to what had once been the servants’ quarters in the hotel’s prehistory.

At the top was a narrow and conveniently dog-legged corridor, giving access to the other two guarded rooms.

The inhabitant of one of the top rooms was asleep, or at least in bed; the other was still awake, sitting on his or her bed, head in hands. Rico chose that room. At the top of the stairs he turned left and walked quickly round the bend in the passage, synjammer already up and discharging before the sentry could say a word.

The computer told him of three listening devices and two hidden cameras in the room the other side of the door, and added that it was able to feed them false data. Rico raised the synjammer again and slid past the frozen sentry. He threw the door open and a terrified face looked up at him.

‘This one?’ said Alan, looking thoughtfully at one of the Home Time modules.

‘That’s it, sir,’ said the scientist who had reported the event. He had been put out to find that an incident he had tried to report to Matthew Carradine had only garnered a visit from Matthew Carradine’s assistant, but he was getting over it. ‘It suddenly started flashing. Well, lights running over it. Then it went dead again.’

‘Did it, now.’ Alan looked down at the module, rubbing his chin. ‘Right.’ He moved suddenly into action, turning quickly to the nearest guard and suddenly sounding far more like someone in authority. ‘You. Fetch the two youngsters down, get them to dismantle the equipment and stow it for transport. Give them all the assistance they need and do whatever they say. Don’t worry, you’ll get Mr Carradine’s authority.’ He already had his phone out and was jabbing at the buttons.

‘Daiho?’ Rico exclaimed. ‘And when was this?’

‘U-Union Day.’ The still-shaken biotech journeyman whom Rico had found in the bedroom was obviously convinced he had just compounded his crimes. Union Day, Rico thought — two days after Daiho was meant to have taken the final plunge from his apartment.

So who had gone over the side of the mountain instead? Rico shook his head to clear it and said, ‘Go on.’

‘And then, just this morning, Mr Asaldra arrived, and an hour later, all those thugs came pounding in and rounded us up, sir,’ said Jontan. ‘They knocked Mr Asaldra out and took him off in one of those flying things.’

‘Any idea where to?’

‘Um, no, sir.’

‘Oh, great.’ Rico leaned against the wall and shut his eyes. An unauthorized Home Timer on the loose somewhere in the twenty-first century, probably not even equipped with a fieldsuit. He’d worry about that later; maybe even head back to the Home Time and hand over the job to the Specifics.

Half his mind was working on the problem, the other taking in Jontan’s story. ‘Holmberg-Chabani-Scott…’ he said. ‘Could they whip up a force-grown clone, if the need arose?’

‘Why, yes, sir. Dead easy.’

‘Light dawns…’ Rico murmured and retreated into his thoughts again. He felt a sudden shock as he remembered the autopsy report back in Daiho’s apartment. ‘Oh my God. They picked up brain patterns, which means Daiho gave it intelligence, which means it was fully alive and he committed murder. The bastard.’

‘Sir?’

‘Yes?’ Rico registered he was about to be asked something, not told it, and switched more of his attention to his fellow Home Timer.

‘It’s illegal, what they did, isn’t it? I mean, they broke your rules, and when they brought us here they didn’t say anything about sacrifices, but now Mr Asaldra says — said — we’d have to make them, and… I mean, it’s not right, is it, sir?’

‘Yeah, you noticed that too.’

‘So I…’ Jontan swallowed. ‘I just want you to know that… that Sarai had nothing to do with it, she was just doing what she was told by Mr Scott…’

‘And you weren’t?’

Jontan blinked. ‘Well, yes, sir, I mean, I didn’t have a choice either, but if you’re going to arrest anyone…’

Rico grinned. This boy was defending his girl, ready to take the flak for her. He was a better man than either of the Home Timers incarcerated a floor below.

‘There’ll be arrests,’ he said, ‘but first there’ll be a hearing to decide exactly who should be arrested. And for that, I have to get back to the Home Time.’

‘Sir?’

Rico sighed. ‘I was only expecting Asaldra to be here, Jon-boy. The recall zone is a long way out from the cliffs and a long way up. My agrav could take me and one other, but it couldn’t take all four of you.’

He saw the sudden gleam in Jontan’s eyes.

‘Or just you and your girlfriend,’ he said. ‘No. I’ll report back to the Home Time and we’ll send a general recall field to these co-ordinates. That’ll get you all back, and I’ll testify for you when you’re there.’

Jontan almost glowed and a huge grin split his face.

‘Thank you, sir!’ And then he subsided as he realized the implication: just a little longer here in the Dark Ages. ‘When will that be, sir?’

‘They can’t send the recall while I’m still here — that would be a paradox…’

‘Sir?’

‘They would be recalling me before I get back to request a recall,’ Rico translated. ‘But I expect they’ll time the recall to a second after I go back myself. So, five, ten minutes. Can you wait that long?’

Jontan was aglow again. ‘You bet, sir!’

Rico smiled and patted the journeyman’s shoulder for a moment. ‘I’ll see you, then,’ he said, and slipped out past the still frozen sentry.

And then, the biggest surprise yet.

‘Rico? Come in please.’

The words pulsed into his mind via symb and he paused at the top of the stairs down to the landing.

‘Su?’ he symbed back in disbelief. ‘What are you doing here? ’

‘Change of orders. Abandon mission.’

‘WHAT?’

‘Marje has called you off, Rico. I’m sorry.’

‘No. No way.’ Rico started moving again.

‘Rico…’ Su’s familiar exasperation was warming up in her tone.

‘Su, it’s suddenly got a whole lot bigger. There’s five Home Timers in this century, four of them