The Overlords of War

Chapter 8

“I’d never have thought you could be so gentle, George,” she said in a faint voice.

“Is this the way you always welcome strangers to your world?” His tone reflected dull annoyance.

“No,” she said. He saw tears gathering in her eyes. “No. I suppose our customs must be a lot freer than yours, but…

“The lightning struck, is that it?”

“You’ve got to understand, George. Got to! I couldn’t stop myself. It’s been such a long time!”

He started to laugh. “Since our last meeting, you mean?”

With an effort she composed her face into something more like its former calm expression.

“In a way, yes, Corson,” she said. “You’ll understand by and by.”

“When I’m a big boy?”

He rose and held out his hand to her. “Now I have an extra reason for getting off Uria,” he added.

She shook her head. “You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“At any transmat terminal, on any world, they’ll arrest you and make you undergo treatment. Oh, they won’t kill you, but you’ll never be the same man again. You won’t have any memories left, and precious few desires. It would be like dying.”

“Worse,” he said slowly. “And is that what they do to all interstellar travelers?”

“Only to war criminals!”

He was aghast. The universe about him seemed full of baffling mist. To a certain extent he could understand the behavior of this girl, no matter how obscure were her motives. After all, it was no more extraordinary than these airborne cities balanced on vertical rivers and populated by madmen flitting about in flying yachts. But what Antonella had just said was at the same time incomprehensible and pregnant with menace.

War criminal? Because I took part in a war that’s been over for more than a thousand years?

“I don’t get it,” he said at last.

“Try, try! Anyway it’s plain enough. The Security Office has no jurisdiction on a planetary surface. They only step in when a criminal goes from one world to another. If you take a transmatter, even to one of the local moons, they’ll grab you. You won’t have one chance in a million of escaping.”

“But why should they want my hide?”

Antonella’s face grew hard.

“I’ve told you once, and I’d rather not say it again. Do you think I enjoy calling the man I love a war criminal?”

He caught her wrists and pressed them as hard as he could. “Antonella, I beg you! Tell me what war—what war?”

She struggled to break loose.

“Beast! Let me go! How do you expect me to tell you that? You must know better than I do! Thousands of wars happened in the past—it doesn’t matter which one you came from!”

He released her. A bright fog danced before his eyes. He rubbed his forehead.

“Antonella, you’ve got to help me. Did you ever hear about the war between the Solar Powers and the Princes of Uria?”

She frowned. “It must have been a very long time ago. The last war which involved Uria happened more than a millennium ago.”

“Between the humans and the natives?”

She shook her head. “Certainly not. Humans and Urians have shared this planet for over six thousand years.”

“Then,” he said with relief, “I’m the last survivor of a war which took place more than six thousand years ago. I suppose there’s an amnesty.”

She raised her head and stared at him, her big brown eyes full of astonishment.

“No amnesty is possible,” she said in a level tone. “It would be too easy to abuse it. All you’d have to do, at the end of a war you’d lost, would be to jump far enough into the future to escape retribution. Maybe to start fighting all over again. I’m afraid you underestimate the Office.”

The truth was being borne in on him now. For centuries, perhaps millennia, men had been able to travel in time. And defeated generals, dethroned tyrants, had systematically sought refuge in the past or future rather than endure their enemies’ revenge. So peaceful epochs were compelled to protect themselves against these invaders. Otherwise wars might last for all eternity, interlocking in a cosmic network of alliances slashed across here and there by the indeterminate outcome of battles which were ceaselessly being fought over and over again. This Office Antonella had spoken of supervised the stability of time. It ignored conflicts that broke out on the surface of a single planet, but by its control of communications it prevented any war from spreading to a galactic or historic scale. It was a dizzying task. One had to picture the inexhaustible resources of an endless future before it was even conceivable.

And George Corson, emerging suddenly from the past, a warrior lost among the centuries, had been automatically labeled a war criminal. Images of the fight between the Solar Powers and the Princes of Uria passed fleetingly before his eyes. On both sides the war had been conducted without mercy and without quarter. Back then he would not have wasted a moment on the ridiculous idea that a human might feel sympathy for a Urian. But six millennia or more had passed away. He was ashamed for himself, for his old comrades, for both species, at the kind of evil joy he had experienced when he realized the Monster had been delivered safely.

“But I’m not a war criminal,” he said eventually. “Not exactly. I did take part in a long-ago war, but nobody asked my opinion about it. I was born on a world at war and when I came of age I was put through training and I was told to go into combat. I didn’t try and dodge my responsibilities by jumping through time. I was flung into the future by—well, by an accident, by an experiment that went wrong. I’ll cheerfully undergo any kind of interrogation provided it doesn’t harm my personality. I think I could convince any impartial judge.”

Twin tears shone in Antonella’s eyes.

“I so much want to believe you! You can’t imagine how I suffered when they told me what you were! I’ve loved you since the first time we met. And I thought I’d never have the guts to carry out this assignment.”

He took her by the shoulders and kissed her.

So now he was certain of one thing. He would see her again in the future. He would find her at a time when she had not yet met him. In some fashion he could not fully understand, their destinies were intertwined. Today was the first time he had seen her, yet she had known him already. And the exact opposite was going to happen one day. It was a trifle complicated, but it did make a crazy kind of sense.

“Is there such a thing as a government on this planet?” he asked. “I have some news to pass on.”