Time's Chariot

‘Pick me up with the general recall,’ Rico said.

‘Do what? Where are you going?’

‘Mr Scott was exactly right,’ Rico said, and told his agrav to fly back to the cliffs.

TWENTY-ONE

Alan was propped against the lounge window sill with his arms crossed, idly supervising the two Home Time youngsters dismantling their equipment, when he realized he had been hearing a helicopter hovering nearby for a quite unreasonable time now. He pulled back a curtain and glanced out of the lounge window. The lights of the machine hovered over the sea a quarter, perhaps half a mile away. He frowned, but let the curtain drop back down again. Internal Security were a law unto themselves and what they did with their helicopters was up to them. The helicopter that counted, the one with the prisoners on it, should be miles away by now.

He turned back to his main task and his hungry gaze feasted on the prize from the future. This could be used. There was real potential for…

Then he stood up straight and anyone looking in his direction would have seen the first look of surprise to cross his face for a very long time.

He recovered quickly.

‘Get out,’ he said to the BioCarr guards. None of them budged. Alan walked up to the nearest one — a hulking, large man who dwarfed him — and looked up into his face from a distance of a few inches.

‘I said, get out, if you want a job to come back to tomorrow morning,’ Alan said. The guard looked stonily at him, then glanced up at his fellows and shrugged. They filed out, leaving Alan alone with the two kids. They hadn’t understood the words but they had picked up the tone and were looking at him nervously.

Alan shut the door and turned to face the French windows.

‘They’re gone,’ he said.

The French windows opened and a ghost walked in — a shimmering, rippling outline of a human being. Then abruptly the distortion vanished and a man was standing there in a dark grey, one-piece suit that covered him from his feet to the top of his head. Even the face was covered with a kind of mask.

The hood and mask pulled back of their own volition, vanishing into the suit’s collar, letting Alan see the newcomer’s face.

‘I was right,’ he said. ‘You’re not a hotel steward.’

‘No,’ Rico said. ‘Thank you for saving my life, by the way.’

‘And you are?’

‘Field Operative Ricardo Garron. You?’

‘Call me Alan.’

The two looked at each other for a moment longer.

‘How did you know?’ Alan said.

‘I’m good, I’m damn good, but you still spotted me,’ Rico said. ‘I know I didn’t do a thing you could have picked up on. So, you must have recognized me. But even then, Paris was a long time ago for you — something must have tipped you off in the first place.’ He indicated the equipment with a nod of his head. ‘And, of course, that gear over there broadcasts on the correspondents’ frequency. QED.’

‘I turned my back on the Home Time a long time ago,’ Alan said.

‘I don’t blame you. Some of us don’t have that luxury. Any particular reason?’

‘That man Asaldra,’ Alan said. ‘He used me, he lied to me… and I decided I would do everything in my power to frustrate his little plans. I don’t know what they are—’

‘You and me both.’

‘—but I’m going to make sure they don’t work.’

‘And where is Asaldra now?’

‘Somewhere safe, where he’s telling us all about everything. The right drugs and it all comes pouring out.’

One more job for the Specifics, Rico thought. ‘It won’t do you any good,’ he said. ‘My friend has taken over that machine out there. Another five minutes and everyone in it goes back home. And then my colleagues come in, extract Asaldra and make sure none of this ever happened. But you can still help foil Asaldra’s little plans.’

Alan didn’t look disappointed — he had learned that lesson way back — but by now every ounce of humanity, of emotion, had vanished from his face. ‘How?’ he said.

‘Testify. Tell me everything Asaldra did. I’ll broadcast it to my friend and the testimony will go back to the Home Time. They can’t cover that up.’

‘You’re some kind of policeman?’

‘Under the circumstances, yes.’

Alan held Rico’s gaze for a moment longer. ‘You’re from the Home Time too. Why should I trust you?’

‘Count the options.’

Another pause…

‘My designation,’ Alan said, ‘is RC/1029. My mission began on the thirteenth of May, 1029 AD, in the Persian desert ten miles from Isfahan. I was first contacted by the man I now know as Hossein Asaldra that evening…’

‘You get all that, Su?’

‘I got it. Beautiful job.’ Su glanced at her fellow passengers, keeping her expression calm and cool. The two guards had woken up and were still dazed. Daiho was gazing into space.

‘How much longer?’ he asked without looking at her.

‘Any moment now,’ Su said as the countdown from her fieldsuit entered single figures.

‘Your friend had better get back if he’s going to make it.’

Su felt the field take hold of them, felt the disorientation at the fringes of her consciousness.

‘This is it, Rico. See you soon.’

‘See you, Su.’

And the transference chamber materialized around them.

‘Zero,’ said the voice in Rico’s head. He turned to look outside. The helicopter, which had all the while been hovering, speared by searchlights — someone on the ground had finally had their curiosity piqued by the machine hovering beyond the cliffs — suddenly lurched to one side and banked down towards the hotel.

He turned back to his new friend.

‘They’ve gone,’ he said.

Alan was gazing around him in confusion. ‘Why are you still here, then?’

And Rico suddenly realized the former correspondent hadn’t quite understood after all.

‘I’m sorry. The helicopter was at the recall point,’ he said. ‘Now they’re back, they’ll send a field to these co-ordinates to pick the rest of us up.’

‘How long?’

‘Could be thirty seconds, could be five minutes…’

Alan filled his lungs. ‘Guards!’ he bellowed.

Rico looked at him in shocked dismay. ‘But…’

‘You and the youngsters can go,’ Alan said quietly as the doors burst open. ‘But the equipment stays.’ Then: ‘You!’ to the cohort of guards that had just come in. ‘Get that gear out of here, now. Get it as far away from here as you can. Now! Move!’

Rico leaped to stand between the advancing guards and the cowering Jontan and Sarai.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I can’t possibly let you do that.’

‘Stun that idiot,’ Alan said.

‘Shut your eyes!’ Rico shouted in the Home Time tongue, for the benefit of the kids, and squeezed his own tightly closed as he did. Full radiance, he symbed at his fieldsuit, and at once he was