Stepsons of Terra

12.

Ewing woke.

He felt groggy, stiff and sore in a hundred places, his forehead throbbing. He rolled over in the bed, clamped a hand to his forehead, and hung on.

What happened to me?

Memories drifted back to him a thread at a time. He remembered discovering Byra in his room, drinking the drugged liquor she gave him, being hustled away to the Sirian Consulate. Blurred days of endless torment, interrogation, a mind-pick machine lowered over his unresisting head—

Sudden rescue from an unknown source. Sleep. His memories ended there.

Achingly he crawled from the bed and stared at himself in the mirror. He looked frighteningly haggard. Dark circles ringed his eyes like crayon marks, and the skin of his face hung loose under his chin, stretched tight elsewhere. He looked worse than he had at the moment of awakening, some days before, aboard the ship.

An envelope lay on a chair by the side of the bed. He frowned, picked it up, fingered it. It was sealed and addressed to him. He opened it. Five two-credit notes came fluttering out, and along with them a note. He stacked the banknotes neatly on the bed, unfolded the note, and sat down to read.

Twoday afternoon. To my self of an earlier time—to the man I call Ewing-sub-two, From Ewing-sub-one…

Bleary-eyed as he was, he came awake while reading the note. His first reaction was one of anger and incredulity; then he rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he considered certain turns of phrase, certain mannerisms of punctuation. He had a fairly distinctive style of voicewrite dictation. And this was a pretty good copy, or else the real thing.

In which case…

He switched on the house phone and said, “What’s today’s date, please?” There was no fear of ridicule from a robot operator.

“Fourday, the thirteenth of Fifthmonth,” came the calm answer.

“Thanks. How can I get access to the telestat reports for Twoday the eleventh?”

“We could connect you with Records,” the robot suggested.

“Do that,” Ewing said, thinking to himself, This is foolishness. The note’s a hoax.

He heard the click-click-click of shifting relays, and then a new robotic voice said, “Records. How may we serve you?”

“I’m interested in the text of a news item that covers an event which took place Twoday afternoon. The short-circuiting of an energitron machine in the lobby of the Grand Valloin Hotel.”

Almost instantly the robot said, “We have your item for you. Shall we read it?”

“Go ahead,” Ewing said in a rasping voice. “Read it.”

“Twoday, 11th Fifthmonth, 3806. Explosion of an energitron booth in the lobby of the Grand Valloin Hotel this afternoon took one life, caused an estimated two hundred thousand credits’ worth of damage, injured three, and disrupted normal hotel service for nearly two hours. The cause of the explosion is believed to have been a successful suicide attempt.

“No body was recovered from the demolished booth, but witnesses recalled having seen a tall man in street clothes entering the booth moments before the explosion. A check of the hotel registry revealed that no residents were missing. Valloin police indicate they will investigate.”

The robot paused and said, “That’s all there is. Do you wish a permanent copy? Should we search the files for subsequent information pertinent to the matter?”

“No,” Ewing said. “No, no thanks.” He severed the contact and sat down heavily on the edge of the bed.

It could still be a prank, of course. He had been asleep several days, long enough for the prankster to hear about the explosion and incorporate the incident retroactively in the note. But Occam’s Razor made hash of the hoax theory; there were too many inexplicable circumstances and unmotivated actions involved. Assuming that a prior Ewing had doubled in time to carry out the rescue and leave the note was a vastly simpler hypothesis, granting the one major improbability of time-travel.

There would be one fairly definite proof, though. Ewing found a small blue stun-gun lying on his dresser, and studied it thoughtfully.

According to the note, Scholar Myreck would call him soon after he had awakened.

Very well, Ewing thought. I’ll wait for Myreck to call.

An hour later he was sitting in a relaxing lounger in a salon in the College of Abstract Science, feeling the pain of Firnik’s torture leaving him under the ministrations of Myreck’s expert fingers. Music welled around him, fascinating ancient music—Beethoven, Myreck had said. He sipped at his drink.

It was all quite incredible to him: the call from Myreck, the trip across Valloin in the domed car, the miraculous building three microseconds out of phase with the rest of the city, and above all the fact that the note in his room was indubitably true. These Earthers had the secret of time travel, and, though none of them were aware of the fact, they had already sent Baird Ewing back through time at least once from a point along the time-stream that still lay ahead, this afternoon of Fourday.

He realized his responsibility, tremendous already, was even greater now. A man had given up his life for him, and though no actual life had ended, it seemed to Ewing that a part of him he had never known had died. Once again he was sole master of his fate.

The conversation moved smoothly along. The Earthers, alert, curious little men, wanted to know about the Klodni menace, and whether the people of Corwin would be able to defeat them when the attack came. Ewing told them the truth: that they would try, but there was not much hope of success.

And then Myreck introduced a new theme: the possibility of arranging transportation for the members of the College to Corwin, where at least they would be safer than on an Earth dominated by Sirius IV.

It seemed a doubtful proposition to Ewing. He explained to the visibly disappointed Earthers what a vast enterprise it would be to transport them, and how few ships Corwin had available for the purpose. He touched on the necessary delays the negotions would involve.

He saw the hurt looks on their faces; there was no help for it, he thought. Corwin faced destruction; Earth, mere occupation. Corwin needed help more urgently. From which direction, he wondered? From whom?

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I just don’t see how we can offer you asylum. But it seems to me that you would be in an even worse position on Corwin than you will be here under Sirian rule. The Klodni onslaught will be fierce and destructive; the Sirians will probably keep things much as they are, except you’ll pay your taxes to them instead of to Mellis’ government.”

He felt a depressing cloud of futility settle around him. He had accomplished nothing on Earth, found no possible solution for Corwin’s problem, not even succeeded in helping these Earthers. They were caught under the heel of Sirius IV, while Corwin now would have to wait for the coming of the Klodni and the inevitable accompanying murderous conquest.

He had failed. Whatever bold plan had been in the mind of the dead Ewing who had left him the note did not hold a corresponding position in his own mind. Clearly, that Ewing had seen some solution for Corwin, some way in which the planet could be defended against the Klodni. But he had said nothing about it in his note.

Perhaps he had had some experience while traveling back in time, something that might have given him a clue to the resolution of the dilemma…

Ewing felt a tempting thought: Perhaps I should make the trip back in time once again, rescue the Ewing I find there, dictate the note to him once again, and add to it whatever information was missing—

No. He squelched the idea firmly and totally. Another trip through time was out of the question. He had a chance to end the cycle now, and cut himself loose from Earth. It was the sensible thing to do. Return to Corwin, prepare for the attack, defend his home and country when the time came to do so—that was the only intelligent course of action now. It was futile to continue to search Earth for a nonexistent super-weapon.

Best leave Earth to her sad fate, he thought, and go back to Corwin.

The conversation straggled to a dull stop. He and the Earthers had little left to say to each other. Each had appealed to the other for help, and neither was in a position to offer aid.

Myreck said, “Let us change the subject, shall we? This talk of fleeing and destruction depresses me.”

“I agree,” Ewing said.

The music disk ended. Myreck rose, removed it from the player, and popped it back into the file. He said, “We have a fine collection of other Earth ancients. Mozart, Bach, Vurris—”

“I’m afraid I’ve never heard of any of them,” Ewing said. “We only have a few surviving disks of the early Terrestrial composers on Corwin. I’ve heard them in the museum.” He frowned, trying to remember their names. “Schoenberg… and Stravinsky, I think. And Bartok. They belonged to one of the original colonists.”

Myreck played Bach—a piece called the Goldberg Variations, for a twangy, not unpleasant-sounding instrument called the harpsichord. As he explained it, it operated as a sort of primitive sonomar, the tones being produced by the mechanical plucking of strings.

Several of the Scholars were particularly interested in music old and new, and insisted on expounding their special theories. Ewing, at another time, might have been an eager participant in the discussion; now, he listened out of politeness only, paying little attention to what was said. He was trying to recall the text of the note he had read and destroyed earlier in the day. They would show him their time machine. He was to refuse the demonstration. That would cause the necessary alterations in time past, to fit the design intended by Ewing-sub-one.

Whatever that had been, Ewing thought.

The afternoon slipped by. At length Myreck said, “We also have done much work in temporal theory, you know. Our machines are in the lower levels of the building. If you are interested—”

“Nol” Ewing said, so suddenly and so harshly it was almost a shout. In a more modulated tone he went on, “I mean—no, thanks. I’ll have to beg off on that. It’s getting quite late, and I’m sure I’d find the time machines so fascinating I’d overstay my visit.”

“But we are anxious to have you spend as much time with us as you can,” Myreck protested. “If you want to see the machines—”

“No,” Ewing repeated forcefully. “I’m afraid I must leave.”

“In that case, we will drive you to your hotel.”

This must be the point of divergence, Ewing thought, as the Earthers showed him to the door and performed the operations that made it possible to pass back into phase with the world of Foumight the Thirteenth outside. My predecessor never got back out of this building. He doubled into Twonight instead. The cycle is broken.

He entered the car, and it pulled away from the street. He looked back, at the empty lot that was not empty.

“Some day you must examine our machines,” Myreck said.

“Yes… yes, of course,” Ewing replied vaguely. “As soon as I’ve taken care of a few pressing matters.”

But tomorrow I’ll be on my way back to Corwin, he thought. I guess I never will see your machines.

He realized that by his actions this afternoon he had brought a new chain of events into existence; he had reached back into Twoday and, by not rescuing Firnik’s prisoner, had created a Ewing-sub-three who had been mind-picked by the Sirian and who presumably had died two days before. Thus Firnik believed Ewing was dead, no doubt. He would be surprised tomorrow when a ghost requisitioned the ship in storage at Valloin Spaceport and blasted off for Corwin.

Ewing frowned, trying to work out the intricacies of the problem. Well, it didn’t matter, he thought. The step had been taken.

For better or for worse, the time-track had been altered.