The Warlock Wandering

PART III TERRA

If any detectors noticed their takeoff, there was no sign of it. Still, Rod didn't relax until the ship had isomorphed with H-space. Then he sighed and hobbled back to the wardroom, weak-kneed.

As he came in, Gwen was shaking her head in dismay. "I do not understand. How can people become naught but numbers?"

"Not become," Brother Joey corrected, "just described as. I can describe you with words, can't I? Then believe me, I can describe you even more faithfully with numbers."

Gwen sighed and shook her head. "I must needs accept the truth of what thou dost say, since I've not the knowledge to judge it for myself."

"I know." Brother Joey had a smug smile. "That's the secret of the clergy's success."

"But if this 'isomorpher' of which thou dost speak, doth make note of me as a mile-long string of numbers which it doth paint on the wall of eternity, which thou dost term 'H-space,' and then doth take those numbers off that wall to build them once again into myself—have I not died, and been reborn?"

Rod noted that she wasn't at all discomfitted by not having felt anything major as they isomorphed into H-space.

But Brother Joey was shaking his head. "No. You've simply changed form, nothing more."

Gwen threw up her hands in despair.

"Let's try something a little more relaxing." Rod held up a hand to forestall Brother Joey. "I know, I know—to you, this is relaxing. But the rest of us like a little help." He touched the base of an air filter, and its telltale glowed to life. "The smoking lamp is lit. Anyone who wants to pollute, come sit next to it, Whitey."

The poet grinned and slouched into the chair right under the filter. He pulled out a long, sinister-looking brown cigarette, then his lighter. "Just wine, if you don't mind."

Rod peered at the synthesizer's list. "Chablis, Liebfraumilch, or Reisling?"

"Reisling, if you please."

"It's all one set of buttons to me." Rod said, as he punched. "What'll it be, Chornoi?"

"Bourbon. Who made you bartender?"

"I watched Cholly. Yorick?"

A few minutes later, with spirits for everyone and Manischevitz for Brother Joey, Rod propped his feet up on the table with a sigh. "Safe at last—for the moment."

Chornoi shrugged. "We were safe enough, in the dream."

"Yeah, except that a bunch of thugs was getting ready to package and ship us."

"As long as we were dreaming, who cared?"

"All dreams must end." Yorick frowned. "I wonder how that one would have come out?"

"Oh, I think it was pretty well wound down." Whitey held his glass up to the light. "After all, boy had gotten girl."

Gwen was gazing at Mirane, but her eyes weren't quite focused.

"Would have been interesting to see what happened to the rest of them," Yorick sighed. "But how did Mirane's computer-pad get pulled into the story?"

"Oh, it was the dog, Deviz."

"I know that, of course." Yorick glared at Chornoi. "I meant, how did it get tied into the dream-computer?"

"Through Mirane." Gwen kept her gaze on the young woman. "I think thou mayest have some trace of Power about thee, my dear."

"She's talking about psi power," Rod explained. "Oh, don't look so horrified! A lot of people have a touch of one power or another. You just happen to have enough to be useful, that's all."

Mirane shook her head. "How can you mind-read a computer?"

"Thine did say that it hath capacity for joining to thy mind," Gwen explained. "Is that not what 'interface' doth mean?"

"Well, yes, but I'd have to wear a transmitter-helmet."

Yorick shook his head. "Apparently you're capable of sending your thoughts without one. Projective telepathy— right, Major?"

Rod nodded. "A little bit of telepathy, period; the computer-pad said it was wireless, so it must be geared to transmit."

"The operative point," Brother Joey explained, "is that the pad has a built-in converter to transform its operating frequencies to human thought-frequencies. But don't take our word for it—ask it." He raised his voice. "How about it, Notem-Modem 409? Did we guess correctly?"

"Preliminary analysis of available data indicates 88 percent probability of validity," the computer-pad confirmed.

Mirane was pale, but she clutched the notepad to her.

"So." Yorick sat back, studying his glass as he spun the stem between finger and thumb."Mirane was Petty Pure, huh? I mean, she was the one who was closest to Deviz."

Mirane blushed, but she nodded.

"Thought so. I was Frank, of course."

Gwen frowned. "Why dost thou say, 'of course'?"

"Monster to monster, Lady Gallowglass. I was the easiest conversion."

Rod nodded. "The dream-computer did seem to match us up by personalities. But you're no monster."

"Tell it to your folklore, Major."

Gwen was frowning again. "Yet wherefore would it match myself with an old hag?"

"She was a witch," Rod explained, "or thought she was. But don't worry, dear, I didn't exactly find it flattering to be depicted as a klutz of a handyman, either."

"Nor I as a devil." Brother Joey was magenta.

Rod shrugged. "At least it had something to do with religion."

"More importantly," the friar said in a very low tone, "I was the voice of Authority."

Whitey snorted. "Well, if you don't like the idea of orthodoxy, Brother, you blasted well better decide that before you take your final vows. Me, I didn't exactly find it complementary to be depicted as an incompetent vampire."

"But you had a heart of gold," Rod pointed out. "Sweets to the sweet, poet."

"Fangs for nothing," Whitey snorted. He turned to Chornoi. "But you didn't really enjoy being a meanie, did you?"

"Oh, but I did." Chornoi nodded sadly. "And I wish I really was. Callous people seem to do so much better in this world."

"You've been hanging around a tyranny too long." Rod frowned. "Besides, I thought you'd already tried that way of life."

Chornoi looked down at her hands, lips tight. "And I couldn't take it. Right."

"Well," Rod sighed, "I guess you'll have to settle for being a good person, underneath it all."

"And that," Whitey said, "leaves only one role uncast." He directed a stare toward Stroganoff.

The producer shifted uncomfortably. "All right, so I was McChurch. So way down deep, all I want to do is lie around. Is that any crime?"

"Only when you really want to bleed for other people," Whitey said softly.

Mirane stiffened, glaring. "That's a wonderful quality!"

"It is, until he bleeds himself dry," Whitey reminded her. "But I think you two are avoiding a point."

Mirane and Stroganoff glanced at each other, then quickly glanced away."None of your business, Whitey," Stroganoff growled.

"Of course not. That's why I enjoy it so much." Whitey leaned back in his chair. "But the rest of us have bared our souls a bit, so it's your turn. Why was McChurch so totally hooked on Petty at first glance, Dave?"

"We were being controlled by a script," Stroganoff muttered.

"So were we all." Chornoi gave him a look of scorn. "Everybody else turned out to be quite capable of resisting it—except me; I liked it. And you two. You couldn't have cared less."

"How could I care, when I was in a coma? And besides…"

"Strog, cut it off and talk straight!" Whitey demanded. "Are you in love with the lady, or not?"

Mirane paled still further. So did Stroganoff, but he blustered, "That's none of your damn business, Whitey! And besides, I'm a fat ugly fool, and she's way too young."

"Why, thank you." Mirane looked up, some of her color coming back. "Especially because I'm not really all that young—I'm thirty-five. You would have noticed, if you'd ever bothered to look behind the lenses and kerchief. And I think you're handsome!"

Stroganoff stared at her, totally taken aback. Then he glanced about him quickly, and stood up, sliding her chair back a little. "Uh, would you step into my office over here, for a quick conference?"

Mirane stared at him, surprised. Then her chin lifted, and she stood up and walked in front of him, shoulders back, over to the far end of the wardroom. Stroganoff followed her, pantomimed closing a door, and leaned against the bulkhead, hands in his pockets, chatting. Mirane watched him closely.

Gwen's lips curved a smile that was both fond and amused.

Quit eavesdropping, Rod scolded silently. He turned to Yorick. "Well. We seem to be in moderately good shape at the moment."

Yorick grinned, but he swung with the change of topic. "Yeah. We're bound for Terra, and we didn't have to pay a dime."

"I like that last part," Whitey agreed.

"Unfortunately, word is probably traveling ahead of us," Rod sighed. "I expect PEST will be ready and waiting for us by the time we get there."

"How?" Brother Joey frowned. "Nothing can travel faster than an FTL ship."

"Nothing except a faster ship," Rod reminded him.

Brother Joey shook his head. "The time we spend in H-space isn't really transit time, Mr. Gallowglass…"

"Rod," Rod prompted.

"Rod. Thank you." Brother Joey nodded. "As I was saying, it isn't really transit time, it's more a matter of seeking and translating."

"Well, then, bigger ships search faster than small ones."

Brother Joey frowned. "I have to admit that the power input does have an effect…"

"And bigger ships go faster from breakout point to destination," Rod added. "Eaves is sure to have a courier after us as soon as he comes out of the coma."

Brother Joey relaxed. "We have lead enough."

"Yes, if some other agent wasn't shadowing us, and sending off a report of his own. Ah, for the dear old days of Morse code!" Rod sighed. "The days of yore, when people communicated from ship to shore by radio, which could be jammed."

"Yeah, I remember Morse code." Yorick grinned. "Would you believe I actually learned it once?"

Chornoi nodded. "So did I. Not that we ever used it, but it was part of basic training, anyway."

Rod slouched down in his chair, and started drumming his fingers.

"Courage, people," Whitey reassured them. "I know some people who're working on trying to invent FTL radio."

Brother Joey stared. "How do they think they can do that?"

Rod started tapping his toe against Yorick's. The caveman showed every sign of paying close attention to Brother Joey and Whitey.

Whitey shook his head. "Search me. But there's my granddaughter—she's a computer expert—and the kid she married; we traveled together for a while."

Think PEST might really know we're coming? Rod tapped out against Yorick's foot.

"They settled down on a big asteroid called 'Maxima,' where they found a lot of kindred souls who liked tinkering with computers and ignoring PEST."

Rod went rigid. Maxima was his family home.

Not a chance, Yorick tapped back. If there were another agent, he would've tried to kill us.

"So your granddaughter and her husband are trying to put the two together, by inventing FTL radio to use against PEST?" Brother Joey asked.

Whitey nodded. "They figure that's got to be the logical consequence. See, they figure that the main reason the Terran Sphere lapsed into dictatorship is because its territory grew so big that the governing representatives on Terra couldn't keep track of what was going on at home."

Then we shouldn't have any trouble getting through their security, should we? Rod tapped. I mean, we are in one of their own ships.

Good point…

"And not knowing about home, meant that they passed laws their constituents didn't like?"

Whitey nodded again. "So their constituents wanted to kick them out of office."

"Naturally," Brother Joey murmured.

Is there a time machine on Terra? Rod tapped.

"So the only way to keep power was to take it," Whitey said.

Brother Joey nodded. "Be done with all this nonsense about elections, eh?"

How many times do I have to tell you? Yorick tapped back. If VETO didn't have a time machine in PEST headquarters, they couldn't be giving aid!

"Ah, you know the symptoms. And, of course, they couldn't make the outer planets obey therr^ if they couldn't get their orders to them in time—so the sensible thing to do was to cut off the frontier."

"Keep only the planets they can rule," Brother Joey sighed. "Well, I'm afraid that does make some sense."

Whitey smiled. "So the whole problem boils down to the territory having grown too big for the speed of the communications."

And if VETO hasn't been helping PEST, Yorick tapped, I'm a monkey's uncle!

Thought it was the other way around, Rod tapped back.

Awright, Darwin. Just wait, and let's see what you evolve into.

"Wait a minute." Chornoi sat forward."You mean your granddaughter figures that if she can develop faster-than-light radio, PEST will automatically collapse?"

"Well, not right away, and not all that easily, but that's the gist of it, yes," Whitey confirmed.

Brother Joey sat back, dazzled. "My heavens! What an audacious scheme!"

Whitey cocked his head to the side, watching him. "Kinda makes you want to join them, doesn't it?"

"It does, yes!"

Rod looked up, having caught the last bit of the conversation. "I expect we could drop you off there, on our way."

Brother Joey gazed off into space. "I do seem to be a better engineer than a missionary…"

"We're going to try to gate-crash Terra," Rod explained. "We ought to have a fairly good chance, in one of their own scoutships."

Chornoi frowned. "If PEST hasn't been told who's in this ship."

Rod shrugged. "Life is filled with these little uncertainties."

Whitey shook his head sadly. "'Fraid I can't come along, folks. On Terra, I'm a very wanted person."

"So are we," Rod agreed, "but we don't have much choice in the matter."

"But I do, and this time I'm going to play smart and use it," Whitey sighed. "Just let me off at Maxima, will you?" He looked up as Stroganoff and Mirane came up, holding hands and beaming. "How about you two? Want to get off at Maxima?"

Mirane paused halfway down to her seat. "That's where that cadre of engineers and physicists are building robots, isn't it?"

"The very place."

Mirane finished sitting. "I'd like to visit there, yes. I'm going to need to know everything I can about computers."

"Oh?" Whitey perked up. "Just what are you two planning to do?"

"Get married, first," Stroganoff said, with a smile at Mirane that could have seared paint. "Then we're going to make the Grand Tour from pleasure-planet to pleasure-planet."

"Oh?" Whitey lifted an eyebrow. "And what're you planning to use for money?"

"Oh, we're not going to pay for it," Mirane cried, scandalized. "The company will."

"Company? What company?"

"The epic company," Stroganoff explained. "I've banked enough to start my own corporation, Whitey. We'll make three or four epics on each resort, then move on to the next one. Care to write us some scripts?"

"I just might, depending on what you're planning to do on each planet, besides making epics."

Mirane gazed at Stroganoff. "Well, we thought we'd try every dreamhouse, and have duo-dreams together."

"Just the three of you?"

Stroganoff nodded. "Me, Mirane, and Notem-Modem 409."

"So." Whitey leaned back, grinning. "You figured it out, too, huh?"

Mirane nodded. "PEST has every dreamhouse computer rigged to condition its users to obey authority, which means that, eventually, PEST will be able to rule the outer planets without having to worry about a navy."

"But we only experienced one dream in one computer," Brother Joey objected.

"True, Brother, but if they could do it to one, they've probably done it to all."

"Sure can't hurt to check," Stroganoff explained, "and if we find out PEST has, Mirane and Notem-Modem will reprogram that computer."

"I do wonder what Master Eaves' thoughts will be, when he doth waken," Gwen mused.

"Probably the same," Rod grunted. "I have a notion he linked up with PEST out of pure self-interest." He turned to Chornoi. "How about you? Want to get off at Maxima?"

Chornoi was pale as ivory, but she shook her head. "I'd be no safer there than anywhere else, which is to say that I won't be safe anywhere." She shrugged. "Why not try Terra? It's the last place PEST would think to look for me."

Rod shook his head. "Sorry I got you into this, folks."

"We're not." Stroganoff smiled as he gazed into Mirane's eyes.

Whitey grinned. "And I'm suddenly looking forward to seeing Lona and Dar again. Might not have managed it ever, if it hadn't been for you. Talk about a surprise visit!"

"I've had a bit of a surprise, too." Brother Joey was gazing off into space. "I might have muddled along, wasting years without discovering my true vocation, but for this."

"Not cut out to make converts?" Rod sympathized.

"Oh, yes, but of a different sort. And on a much larger scale…"

"All that?"

Chornoi nodded. "A hundred security satellites, Major, in a hundred^lifferent orbits. They're really there—and each one's aimed with everything from lasers on up to a small tactical nuke."

"Well, our detectors say so, all right. But why? What're they afraid of?"

"Whatever shows up."

"From outside, or inside? Are those satellites supposed to keep invaders out, or the population in?"

"Yes."

Rod rolled his eyes up in exasperation.

"Wouldn't matter if we could get through the security net," Yorick pointed out. "Where could we land?"

Rod frowned at the blue-and-white globe floating in front of him on the viewscreen. "There must be some farmland, here and there—maybe even some parks!"

"The farms are run by robots," Chornoi said,"and every square foot of the parks is covered by a surveillance camera or two."

"Well, back to the original idea," Rod sighed. "Looks like we'll have to bluff it out."

That wasn't too hard, up till the actual landing. Whenever one of the satellites challenged the scoutship, it honestly and truthfully identified itself as an official government craft. It even handled spaceport clearance—being a spy ship, it could bypass Luna, where all commercial ships had to dock; shuttles took cargo and passengers down to Terra. It was a cumbersome system, but it did give PEST total control over who came to Terra, and who left.

Well, almost total. They really hadn't counted on enemies coming in on one of their own ships, and a spy ship at that. So the satellite net bucked the landing request to an actual human, a division head, and he gave the scoutship clearance to go directly to the spaceport PEST maintained on Terra for official use. It all went perfectly smoothly, even the landing—until they stepped out of the ship.

The little man in the gray tunic with the tan tabard stepped forward with a smile pasted on, holding out a hand—obviously a bureaucrat. "Welcome back, Agent Ea…" He stopped short, staring at the quartet stepping out of the scoutship.

Rod managed a sickly grin. "Uh, hi there."

The bureaucrat turned and snapped his fingers at a large man behind him. There were a half-dozen of them, all bulky, all with surly frowns on their faces, all in uniform. The one he'd indicated slipped a small, flat square out of a pocket and pointed it at the Gallowglasses.

The bureaucrat turned back to them, his face totally without expression."Where is the agent Wirlin Eaves?"

"Uh, afraid he couldn't make it." Rod swallowed. "Bit of a rough trip and all, you know. Vicious criminals on that planet Otranto, not to mention a couple of vampires and a wolfman, and a rampant dreamhouse computer…"

The bureaucrat turned to his henchman. "Do you have them? Good. Send for identification." He turned to the rest of the thugs and nodded at Rod. "Arrest them."

"Now, wait a minute!" Rod held up a hand. "You don't know anything about us! We're legitimate agents, all of us—except for my wife, maybe, and I didn't see any problem in bringing her along on a business trip. We just stumbled across this scoutship, and we needed a way to get home, and nobody else was using it, so…"

He swallowed, "...home."

"Uh, it was really too bad about Eaves, but he just couldn't make it."

The man with the flat square pressed a button into his ear and gazed off into space for a moment, then nodded. "Confirmed. The crop-haired woman is a renegade agent marked for execution."

"Crop-haired!" Chornoi squalled. "I'll crop your head, you foul-mouthed chauvinist!"

The man ignored her. "The other woman and the talkative man are tied for first place as Public Enemies—and the burly man is a major foe."

Yorick stared. "Why me?"

"I do not know," the bureaucrat snapped, "but my superiors must have had excellent reasons for so designating you."

"Don't worry about it," Rod assured Yorick, "the excellent reasons just haven't happened yet."

The bureaucrat stared at him, at a loss for a moment. But only a moment, then his mouth tightened in contempt, and he snapped his fingers at another flunky, one wearing a portable control console strapped to his waist and shoulders. The man threw a key and thumbed a toggle, and the air around the quartet seemed to thicken. A faint moire of colors, like the refractions on a soap bubble, swam about them in a sphere.

"A force field now surrounds you," the bureaucrat said. "My superiors have informed me that the four of you are very skilled at evading capture, but there is no method of escaping this globe of force."

Yorick took an experimental kick at the force field. His foot slowed and stopped, all within the space of an inch or three. Chornoi stared, then slammed a chop at the moire, but her hand bounced right back, clipping her in the nose. She howled in anger.

"I gotta see this to believe it!" Rod aimed a jab at the moire, straight from the shoulder. It felt as though his hand hit a mattress. The moire roiled on, unperturbed.

The bureaucrat actually smiled. It was a bare twitch of the lips, but it was a smile.

Gwen tested the field with her fingers, feeling it with a thoughtful frown.

The bureaucrat turned away, beckoning to the man with the console. "Come."

The operator followed him.

The force field scooped the company off their feet as though it were a snow shovel and rolled them down the hall, shouting and squalling.

The bureaucrat smiled again.

Gwen scrambled to her feet, flushed with anger, and scurried to keep up with the force field, one hand touching the unseen wall, scowling in concentration.

Rod saw, and shuddered.

Gwen reached out and hauled Chornoi to her feet with deceptive ease. "How can that gleaming slab make an invisible wall like to this?"

"Well, I don't know the details," Chornoi panted, "but roughly, it's a sort of transmitter. It projects a small magnetic field that triggers a localized warping of the gravitational field. It wraps itself around the tiny globe of electromagnetic force, then expands according to how much power the operator feeds into the trigger field."

Gwen nodded, then glared at the back of the operator's head for a few minutes. Finally, she closed her eyes—and the moire disappeared.

The operator jarred to a halt, fiddling frantically with sliders and pressure-pads. "My board died!"

The bureaucrat whirled about, staring, appalled. So did all his henchmen.

So did Rod. He knew he couldn't even dream of understanding that console—and here his wife, who hadn't even heard of an electron till a few weeks ago, had figured out a gadget that was so complicated, it was almost abstract.

At least, she'd figured it out well enough to turn it off from twenty feet away.

Gwen smiled gaily, snapped her fingers—and the moire swirled about them again. Rod stared at it in disbelief, then reached out to probe. Yes, the wall of force was there again.

"Do not fash thyself," Gwen said to the bureaucrat, "we are once more enveloped."

The bureaucrat darted a glance at his operator, who was still stabbing at pressure-pads and jamming toggles. Sweat rolled down his brow; he shook his head.

The bureaucrat turned back to Gwen, staring in horror.

Gwen nodded. "This time, 'tis of my doing—and 'tis I who have the managing of it." She smiled brightly at Rod. "Come, husband, let us go." And she strode straight toward the bureaucrat.

Chornoi and Yorick yelped as the field scooped them off their feet again. They rebounded and scrambled back up, and joined Rod in a quick scurry to keep up with Gwen.

The bureaucrat jumped aside, shouting, "Stop them!"

His thugs instantly formed a line.

Gwen sailed into them.

They flew like tenpins and bounced off the walls. A couple of them rolled to the ground, unconscious, but the rest whipped out blasters and started firing.

Yorick frowned, feeling the unseen wall. "It's growing harder."

Gwen nodded, tight-lipped. "My field doth drink the flame of their weapons. I do feel it."

Rod's head whipped around, staring at her. "Be careful!"

In spite of the strain, she smiled and reached out for his arm. "Fear not, my lord. I can contain it."

The "my lord" helped. "Mind telling me how you did this little trick?"

Gwen beamed up at him. "I felt within that 'console,' as thou dost term it, with my mind. Thou hadst taught me long ago, husband, how to make the tiniest bits of matter speed their movement, or slow; so 'twas not totally strange to me, to sense the flow of bits so much tinier. I let my mind flow with their movement, and did discover how they streamed in patterns that did set up a small ball of force, which did summon up and mold a force much greater, from the earth itself."

Rod's mind reeled, also his ego. Just by feel, with only a little knowledge to guide her, she had figured out how to shape an electromagnetic field and use it to make a gravity wave extrude a bubble of force around them. He patted her hand and said, "I'm just glad you're on my side."

She smiled sweetly at him. "I, too."

"Just a little warm." Chornoi was feeling the force field with her fingers. "All that wild, pure energy going into it, and it's just a little bit warm."

'"T will grow hot soon enow, an we cannot find sanctuary." Gwen's brow was moist." Tis thou must now direct me."

"Sanctuary?" For a moment, Chornoi just stared, totally at a loss. Then inspiration struck, and she grinned. "Turn left at the end of this hallway!"

Yorick waved a hand to fan himself. "Give her every shortcut you know. It's getting hot in here!"

"The charges in those blasters just have to run down soon," Rod grumbled.

They turned a corner, and the hallway opened out into a broad concourse. People in drab coveralls were hurrying here and there all about, most of them carrying satchels.

Another half-dozen uniformed men came running, blasters waving, shouting.

"So much for the chance of their charges running down," Rod growled. "But they won't shoot when there're so many taxpayers around!"

"All personnel and passengers seek cover," an amplified voice boomed around them. "Dangerous criminals are at large within the concourse. Security agents must fire to kill. All personnel and passengers seek cover!"

"So much for the taxpayers," Rod grunted.

Heads jerked up all along the concourse. Then people dived for doorways or fled around corners, screaming.

"Down here! Quickly!" Chornoi pointed at a broad staircase.

Gwen swerved and stepped onto the escalator. Everyone managed to stay with her except Yorick, but he was back on his feet in a second.

Behind them, the uniformed men started yelling in panic.

"Oh! Steps that move!" Gwen cried in glee. "Then 'twas not a mere dream!"

"What?… Oh! The dreamhouse!" Chornoi wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, I hated that stairway. But keep walking, please, Miz Gallowglass. They'll try to head us off."

"Certes, an thou dost wish it!" Gwen tripped gleefully down the staircase. Rod tripped, period, but the field gave him a soft landing, and he caught Gwen's hand to steady himself as he came back onto his feet.

"Why do they shout so?" Gwen frowned back up at the security guards, who were just appearing at the head of the stairs.

"Because what we're doing is dangerous," Chornoi explained. "Here,we're at the bottom! See that clear wall, Miz Gallowglass? Just stroll over there, would you?"

Rod suddenly realized what they were doing. He paled.

"All the way," Chornoi directed. "Up against the doorway—that's right. Now, we wait."

Gwen turned to face the stairway. "Wherefore do we no longer flee?"

The armsmen thundered down the escalator, saw the company against the doorway in the clear plasticrete wall, and skidded to a halt, frozen in horror.

"This tunnel is a linear accelerator," Chornoi explained. "It's lined with ring-shaped electromagnets, and they turn on and off in sequence, so it's almost as though a magnetic field were moving down this tunnel."

Gwen's eyes had lost focus as she absorbed the concept.

She nodded. "Ingenious. Yet what purpose doth it serve?"

"They put, uh, 'carriages' inside the tunnel, Miz Gallowglass—tubular carriages, without wheels; they call them 'capsules.' They're fitted out with seats and carpets, and each one holds a hundred people."

Gwen frowned. "'Tis an odd mode of travel."

"Not really. You see, these capsules can shoot through these tubes at hundreds of miles per hour, and there's a huge network of tubes, so you can get to almost anyplace in the world through them. If we climbed into a capsule now, here underneath the island of Medeira, we could be in Puerto Rico, the nexus for the Americas, in four hours. That's thousands of miles away."

"'Tis incredible," Gwen breathed. Then her eyes focused, and she frowned. "How many folk are in such carriages at this moment?"

"Probably a million or so."

"And," Gwen said slowly, "What would happen if these men-at-arms so filled my field with flame, that I could no longer hold it in its form?"

"All that energy would be released in a single instant," Chornoi said softly. "It'd all cut loose in one huge explosion. It'd kill the four of us, of course, but it'd also wreck this station, and this section of tube."

Gwen nodded slowly. "Then the force would no longer flow."

"That's right," Chornoi said.

"And all the carriages with all those folk would come to a halt?"

"Yes. Slowly—but they would stop. And their lights would go out. Also the fans that blow cool air to them. The farther down you go, Miz Gallowglass, the hotter it gets."

"Would they all die, then?" Gwen said faintly.

"Not most of them—at least, not right away. But some of them would be hundreds of miles from the nearest station—even thousands, for the ones under the sea floor. So it'd take so long to get them out, that some of them might actually starve. More likely, they'd panic and trample each other. Or suffocate."

Gwen was trembling. "Whate'er the cost, I will not slay so many."

"You won't—they will. Only they won't take a chance on it, because they know what their bosses would do to them. They don't dare risk it, especially since some of the people in those tubes right now might be PEST officials. Or their wives and families."

Sure enough, the armsmen were holding a quick conference, darting glances at one another while they kept their blasters trained on the company.

"Shake 'em up a little," Chornoi advised. "Expand the field."

Gwen frowned, but the moire moved away from them on all sides. It touched the clear wall, then went through it.

The armsmen went rigid, staring. Then one of them barked an order, and they began to retreat to the "up" escalator. Slowly, they disappeared from sight, one by one, backwards.

When the last was gone, Gwen released her breath in a huge sigh. "Tell me, sin that thou dost seem to know— how can I dissipate this bubble of force, without the explosion thou didst speak of?"

Chornoi frowned. "Think you can let all that energy go, slowly?"

"Aye, that I can. Yet where shall it go when I do release it?"

Chornoi expelled a sigh of relief. "Into the wall, Miz Gallowglass. That's no problem, thank Heaven. Just take us over next to one of the rock walls, and let the power discharge."

Gwen looked puzzled, but she moved slowly over to the nearest solid wall.

"That's it, so the bubble's just touching it," Chornoi prompted. "Now, as it gets smaller, move closer to the wall, so the bubble stays in contact. Okay, try letting go."

Gwen scowled in concentration, and sparks cracked like pistol shots, wherever the skin of the bubble touched the wall.

Rod watched in awe as the power grounded itself out, wondering how he'd ever be able to embrace Gwen again.

"It's bedrock," Chornoi explained as the bubble shrank. "The energy goes through the wall, on down into the bones of the very earth itself. It's big, Miz Gallowglass, very big. There's a lot of rock there to soak up power."

"Mayhap it soaks not swiftly enow," Gwen said, frowning. "The stone doth glow."

They looked and, sure enough, the rock wall had turned cherry red.

"I think the bedrock can take it." Chornoi frowned. "After all, the bubble's almost gone, and the stone's not softened yet."

Rod nodded. "As long as it's only red, we're probably okay."

"Tis gone," Gwen sighed, as the last of the power jumped into the wall in one final pistol-shot spark. "Now whither do we go?"

"Why, into a tube-car, of course." Chornoi grinned. "Shall we?"

They waited by the door in the clear wall for five minutes or so. It was five minutes too long for Rod; he kept glancing back at the escalators with apprehension. But finally, a tube-car swooshed up to the door and hissed to a stop. The door rolled back, and a stream of people filed out.

"Let 'em go, let 'em go," Chornoi murmured. "The more of them who get off, the more room there is for us."

Finally, they could step aboard. There were only about twenty people in the car, so they were able to take four seats that faced each other, but were well away from anyone else.

Gwen glanced nervously at the door. "When will it start?"

"It already did." Chornoi smiled, amused. "Smooth ride, isn't it?"

"It is, indeed." Gwen's eyes were wide with astonishment. "Yet tell me—how is't we ride? Wherefore hath that little man's 'superiors' not halted all carriages near to us?"

"They can't," Chornoi explained. "They'd have to shut off power to this whole sector, and that would leave thousands of people trapped until they could find us. And I think they realize that if they leave us alone in the dark in a tunnel-complex like this, they might never find us."

Rod's face was wooden; he was filled with sullen resentment, hearing Chornoi explain the facts of the situation to Gwen. He glared around him, looking for an outlet for the emotion—surely it couldn't be jealousy?

There! That gleaming, modest, inch-wide circlet on the front wall. "Smile," he advised, "we're on somebody's screen."

The other three turned around, staring at the front of the car. But Rod's eyes narrowed as he glared at it, and the faintest whiff of smoke coiled out of the vent nearest it. Passengers in the front of the car began to sniff, frowning.

"Neatly done." Gwen sounded surprised. "Yet wherefore, husband? What harm was there in it?"

"It was an electronic eye," Rod explained, "and when we decide to get off this high-speed sausage, I'd rather the security people didn't know exactly where we did it."

"Ah! Well thought!" Gwen swept the rest of the car with a thoughtful gaze. "Nay—I sense no more of them…"

Rod stared. She could sense electromagnetic fields now, too?

Gwen shook her head with decision. "Nay, only the one."

"Makes sense," Chornoi snorted. "No doubt the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra was too cheap to put more than one audio and one video pickup on each car."

Rod's mouth tightened, though he had a fleeting thought that Chornoi might have been trying to be tactful. Irritated, he directed a glare at the small grille in the ceiling in the center of the car, thinking searing thoughts. When smoke curled out of it, he relaxed. "Okay. Audio's out now, too."

Yorick nodded, satisfied. "No way they can tell where we get out now."

Rod frowned at a sudden thought. "But they don't have to, do they? They just have to detail a bunch of guards at every station." He turned to Chornoi. "How many do we have coming up?"

She had paled. "Only one—the Canary Islands. After that, the next stop is Puerto Rico."

"So." Rod leaned back, pursing his lips. "We've got one chance."

"Why bother?" Yorick settled back, grinning. "I always liked the Western Hemisphere."

Rod suffered a shy grin. "Well, actually, any place will do fine." The realization suddenly hit him like a bottleful of champagne. "Hey! We're home! This is Terra—the real, bona fide ancestral home of humanity! The planet where we evolved!"

Yorick cocked an eyebrow. "Never been here before?"

Rod shook his head. "Heard about it, though. Lots."

Gwen was looking from one to the other, totally lost.

"This is the planet people started out from, Miz Gallowglass," Chornoi explained. "Your ancestors spread out from here in starships, in all directions. They colonized the planets you live on now."

Awe filled Gwen's face.

"There's still the problem of getting off," Yorick reminded, "without getting arrested."

Chornoi's gaze roamed the car. "Most of these people have luggage, don't they?"

"They do?" Yorick sat up, looking here and there all about the car. "Son of a gun! I suppose those shoulder bags could be suitcases."

"Sure. You don't need much room to pack a weekend's clothes."

"I'll never get used to this compact clothing you folks use," Yorick sighed. "Personally, I always thought we should leave spider silk to the arachnids."

Chornoi smiled. "Okay, primitive. What backward planet did you come from?"

"You'd be surprised." The caveman looked wary. "But I gotta admit, it is handy having a suit that can fold as flat as a board."

Chornoi frowned. "What's a 'board'?"

Rod said quickly, "So they've all got luggage. You're not thinking what I think you're thinking, are you?"

"I think so." Chornoi nodded at a nearby passenger. "He's about your size, and he's got some clothes to spare."

"Of course, we would have to knock him out," Rod reminded her.

Chornoi nodded, scowling. "That's the part I don't like. But it won't do him any permanent damage—and when he wakes up, he'll never know it was you who robbed him."

"We'll leave cash." Yorick eased a flat wallet out of his pocket.

Rod stared. "You've got PEST credits?"

"Sure." Yorick shrugged. "What kind of a traveler would I be, if I left home without some of the cash of the country I was going to?"

A time-traveler, Rod thought, but he had to admit the sense of what Yorick said. A person who was going to travel chronologically, should naturally take the same precautions as a person who was going to travel geographically. It was just that he couldn't count on being able to exchange currency once he got to his destination…"

"So why were we going through that whole elaborate routine at the casino?" Chornoi demanded. Then she frowned. "Oh, yeah, I forgot. Nobody on any of the frontier planets will accept PEST credits for anything anymore."

"Why—because they're free of PEST's tyranny?"

"No—because the PEST BTU isn't worth very much.

Legislation never was a very sound basis for a currency, Major."

"The price of thrift," Rod sighed. "I hate to point this out, but while we're stealing that guy's pajamas, won't the other passengers notice?"

Gwen sat very straight for a moment, gazing off into space. One by one, the other passengers began to snore. Finally, she relaxed with a bright smile and said, "Nay."

Chornoi stared about her, closed her eyes, shook her head, and looked again.

Yorick expelled a hissing breath and said, "Yes." Then he said, "Well." and, "Someday maybe I'll get used to what you can do, Lady Gallowglass."

Privately, Rod hoped he would, too.

Yorick pushed himself out of his seat. "Let's get on with it, shall we?"

A few minutes and quick trips to the powder room later, the four of them sat down again, leaving four suitcases a little lighter and a lot richer.

Gwen plucked at the flimsy gray fabric. "Tis so light that I feel quite unclothed."

"I know what you mean," Chornoi agreed. "After my tights and jerkin, it feels really odd."

"You weren't kidding with that crack about pajamas, were you?" Rod asked.

"Not a bit," Yorick said sadly. "But on Terra, going outdoors is a job for specialists now, so why should anyone else bother wearing all that heavy, uncomfortable wool and buckram?"

"I'm just not used to common sense, I suppose." Rod looked down at his bland, gray pajamas. "How come they all wear the same thing?"

Yorick shrugged. "Standard government issue. This is the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra, Major… Hey! Don't take it so hard, Chornoi! How could you know what they were going to do?" were gi

"By really thinking about what they were saying," she whispered, "instead of just latching onto the parts I liked."

They filed off the car with the other passengers, just four more gray-clad bodies. Rod was glad the pajamas had come with hoods; it gave them a fighting chance that no one would recognize their faces. They filed onto the escalator and glided up. Rod stared at the blank tan plasticrete wall, letting his thoughts go numb. Then he frowned. "This isn't plasticrete anymore."

"Right." Chornoi looked at him strangely. "Plasticrete is tan. This is red."

"It's stone!" Rod wanted to reach out and touch it, but the wall was four feet away from the escalator. "It's real, bona fide rock! But why so far away?" He looked down at the shallow stairs cut into the slope beside the escalator. "And why are there steps there?"

"Because that's the way the Spanish built them," Yorick answered.

"The Spanish?" Rod looked up, frowning. "I thought PEST was an international government."

"Yeah, but they're thrifty, remember? Why pay good money to build a new station, when you can just adapt an old one?"

Rod stared around him. "You mean…"

"Right." Chornoi nodded. "You're in Puerto Rico, Major, where the Spanish once had a colony. They fortified the island heavily. We're inside the castle El Morro, built in the seventeenth century."

"Fourteen hundred years ago!!?!"

Chornoi nodded. "And it's still standing. They built well, back then."

Daylight struck them like a spray of needles, and the moving stairs delivered them gently onto a moving belt. Gwen breathed deeply of the warm, fragrant air. "Why, 'tis Paradise!" Then she frowned out toward a low rock wall

Rod looked, then stared. "That, dear, is an ocean. Water. All of it."

Gwen gazed for a while, then said, "Rarely have I seen waters so blue. What sayest thou, husband?"

Rod was staring up at the other side.

"What seest thou?" Gwen turned to look, and gasped.

The red wall towered up, blotched here and there, but stern and sheer, tilting back away from them, curving away around the headland, and up, up, up.

'"Tis the abode of giants," Gwen whispered.

Rod glanced nervously around the terrace. It somehow seemed very narrow now. The wall was so huge that it made him feel like a fly clinging by his toes.

"Men built this?" Chornoi said softly.

Yorick nodded. "Lots of them. And they didn't have much choice about it."

The slidewalk delivered them to the base of another escalator. It carried them into a tunnel, rising up along a rampway. Rod stared around at the size of it. "Seventeenth century, you say?"

Chornoi nodded.

"What was this tunnel for? I mean, they didn't have escalators then."

"For cannon, Major. Huge cannon, ten feet long, made out of cast iron. They threw iron balls as big as your head, and they weighed like sin. Tons. You saw those six-foot notches in the seaward wall, down there on the battlements?"

Rod nodded.

"Well, that's what they were for—cannon. Only to get them there, they had to lower them down this ramp. And to get them back up, they had to use horses." Chornoi gazed around her, looking grim. As they neared the top of the rampway, she nodded toward a niche in the wall with a grille of iron bars covering it. "Torture dungeon. When some poor bastard of a soldier broke the rules, they locked him up there for a while. Not enough room to stand up straight, and not much in the way of sanitary facilities, either."

"Plus knowing all his mates were watching him suffer every time they came down here." Rod nodded. "Nice guys."

"Yeah." Chornoi looked at the red stone around her, and shuddered. "A soldier must have thought he was in Hell here, back then. This piece of rock was all there was for him—and the officers were his masters."

"Legalized slavery," Yorick said with a scowl.

They came out into the sun again, and found themselves in a wide courtyard, with a score of rooms cut into its walls. Two huge cylinders stood in its center.

Chornoi nodded toward them. "Cisterns. They were ready for a siege here."

"Siege, cannon…" Gwen frowned. "Why so much might?"

"Because Puerto Rico was the gate to the Caribbean, Miz Gallowglass, and to all the wealth of the countries that lie along its shores. That's the Atlantic Ocean over there, with Europe on its far side—but just around the curve of this shoreline, is the Caribbean. Other countries tried to take this island from the Spanish, and that wealth with it. The Dutch tried it first, then the English, so they built this castle to guard against those enemies."

Gwen gave a somber nod. "It must have guarded well."

"It did," Chornoi agreed. "It was built to ward off seventeenth-century caravels, but it'd be very effective against any rebel group that tried to take over the transatlantic tube, today."

Rod lifted his head slowly. "So that's why the trip ends here!"

Chornoi nodded. "It'd also be easy to lock out anybody trying to invade through the tube from Europe. All you'd have to do would be to lock those big gates over there, and shoot down from the battlements up there." She pointed up at the rooftops. They could just make out the shape of the gun-slits against the sky. It wasn't hard to see the uniformed armsmen walking their beats, though.

Rod shuddered and looked away. "Not an entirely happy with a slice of blue between it and the sky. "What is that azure field?" thought, under our circumstances."

"Don't worry about it." Elaborately casual, Chornoi strolled out the main gate. The others followed her, with sighs of relief. "Where're we going?" Rod asked.

"Over there." Chornoi pointed at the skyline.

Another fortress topped a rise before them.

Gwen shivered, then squared her shoulders. "We do what we must." She stepped onto the slidewalk.

"That was the only tube from Europe?" Rod asked.

They were coming in through another gate in a reddish stone wall, and they found themselves in another courtyard. Gwen gazed about her. "Why, 'tis like to the other, only far smaller."

Chornoi nodded. "Good way to put it. I mean, it makes sense, doesn't it? If it worked with El Morro, why not do it again? This is the fortress San Cristobal, Miz Gallowglass—and yes, Major, that El Morro tube is the only one from Europe."

"For the whole Western Hemisphere?"

Chornoi nodded. "Oh, it makes for traffic jams, right enough, but it sure lets PEST control who moves where."

"So why aren't they stopping us?" Yorick muttered.

Chornoi frowned. "I was wondering that, myself. They must have figured out that we're not in the Canaries."

"But they don't know we're wearing gray," Rod reminded her.

Chornoi shook her head. "They've got to have guardsmen out with our pictures by now. All we had was a change of clothes, not plastic surgery."

They rode the slidewalk through the courtyard of San Cristobal slowly, each mulling at the thought. Finally, Yorick said, "You don't suppose the local guardsmen might not be too happy about PEST telling them what to do, do you?"

The slidewalk shot them into another dark tunnel.

This one was low, and not very wide. Discreet, indirect lighting showed them when the slidewalk turned into an escalator.

"They didn't used to have lights in here," Yorick muttered.

Chornoi's gaze snapped to him, eyes narrowed.

"They had charges of gunpowder set at regular intervals. That's what the lines there are for." Yorick pointed at straight cracks, an inch wide, that ran up the walls and across the ceiling. "If they blew up the far end of the tunnel, the near end would still stand. So if any poor bastard of a soldier had to come down here at night, he wasn't allowed to carry a torch."

Rod looked around at the dark close walls, glanced forward and backward, and saw that all the daylight had been blocked off by the curve of the tunnel. He shuddered.

The slidewalk stopped, and they stepped through a low doorway into a small tunnel at right angles to the main one. Rod noticed that they passed another grille of iron bars, blocked open.

He found himself in a very long room, like a section of tunnel that had been closed off. Far away at the end, daylight glared through a small rectangle.

"We wait here," Chornoi explained. "When the next car comes, we'll go down that escalator to board it." She pointed at a plasticrete portal that obtruded in the side of the tunnel, hideous in its smooth blandness.

Rod was looking about him. He noticed a clear panel and stepped over to it. Behind it was a section of tunnel wall with five crudely-drawn ships colored in earth tones, and a scrawled word above them.

Yorick noticed his gaze. "A young officer did that. He led a mutiny, and they locked him in here for sixty days before they took him out to kill him."

Rod darted a quick glance around the chamber. For a moment, he could imagine what it must have been like to be locked up in this small space for so long a time—day after day, never knowing when he'd be taken out to be slain, with nothing to do except rant at his fate and curse himself for a fool. He shook his head, turning away from the thought. "What does the word say?"

"What would you say, if you were locked up in here for sixty days?"

Chornoi frowned up at Yorick. "How come you know so much about this place?"

But Yorick only shook his head, brows drawn so low they hid his eyes, and muttered something under his breath.

A green panel glowed to life by the stairway.

"Loading time," Chornoi said softly.

As they came into the Atlanta interchange, a 3DT tank burst into color with a picture of a group. "These persons are criminals," a resonant voice informed them. "They endanger the state and, therefore, every citizen."

Rod stared, appalled. "Wow! I never looked worse!"

"It's the harried, hunted look," Chomoi assured him, "and they would catch me without makeup."

Yorick nodded. "I look like a thug."

Gwen didn't say anything, but the expression on her face spoke volumes.

"If you see any or all of them," the voice went on, "report them immediately to the nearest Security Service officer."

"See the scoutship in the background?" Yorick pointed. "This must be the picture that the little viper with the loud mouth had his flunky take."

Rod nodded. "Wonder what took 'em so long to get it on the network?"

"Who says it did?" Yorick countered. "We could be looking at the hundredth replay."

"Yeah, we could." Rod frowned. "Either way, we'd better get gone. Gwen, let's go. Chomoi… Chornoi?"

But Chornoi was over against the wall, talking at a blank viewscreen. "Yeah, I just saw them!" She was speaking in a higher, more nasal voice than usual, and fairly danced with excitement. "I mean, I'm right here in Atlanta, human, and I… huh?… No, I don't know why you're not getting any picture. I don't have one of you either, y' know? Hey, what can I tell you? The way you guys keep up these public call booths… Oh, them? Yeah! I just got in on the tube from Florida! And back in Jacksonville, when I was getting on, they were getting off!… No, of course not! How could I call you any sooner? There weren't any call booths on that capsule! Besides, I didn't see your blurb about them until I got off here in Atlanta… What?… Oh, sure, sure! Glad to help! I always wanted to be a good citizen… Yeah, 'bye, now."

"That," Yorick said, leveling a forefinger, "is a damn good idea." He jumped for another call booth, put his palm over the vision pickup, and said, "Security Service. Reporting."

But Rod was already at a booth of his own. "Huh?… Well, yeah, I'm in Atlanta now—but, I mean, I didn't see your blurb about 'em until I was waiting for my tube in Puerto Rico, and my capsule came right after that, and well, hell, you couldn't expect me to… Well, yeah! I saw them, yeah! Sicily, just before I got on the capsule there!… No, now, look, I know that was eight hours ago, but, yeah, I'm sure!… Yeah, I mean, you couldn't miss those clothes anywhere! What happened to that guy's jacket—did he get scrambled eggs on it?"

Gwen had her hand over another vision pickup, and was staring at the microphone inlay. Suddenly she smiled, and said, "Emergency," and began talking in a fast, nasal voice. "Hello?… Yeah, them!… No, no, the four in the tank! The ones with the weird… Yeah, sure I'm sure… Oh! Yeah, right here where I'm talking from… Where? Oh, I don't know. Someplace in Mexico… Whup! There comes my capsule!"

She disconnected and turned, to find Rod standing over her. "What did you do?"

She beamed up at him. "I traced the paths of the 'electrons' with my thoughts, and made each wait one second in an instrument a thousand miles away, then begin its course anew."

Rod stared. "You mean you figured out how to route that call through a terminal that far away in just a few seconds?"

"Nay—I've been learning of these things thou dost term 'electrons' sin that we were kidnapped."

"I noticed." Rod swallowed through a suddenly dry throat. "Uh… where does Security think that call came from?"

"I believe 'tis called 'Acapulco.'"

Rod turned away, just barely managing to restrain a gibber. "You, uh, seem to have developed a feel for the local dialect."

Gwen shrugged impatiently. "Tis naught, for one who reads minds."

Fortunately, right then, Rod bumped into Yorick, who was trying to shoo them all into a tightly-knit group again. "All right, all right! That's enough with the phone calls, already! Let's get under cover, before somebody tracks the origins of these little bulletins of ours, and adds two and two together, and comes up with three! We need a hiding-place, don't we?"

"Right!" Rod looked about him, thinking fast. He pointed a finger. "There!"

Yorick turned, looked, and grinned. "The very place. Come on, folks, let's go." And he shooed them all toward a shop front replete with flashing letters, garish holos, and animated enticers. They sauntered into a huge mouth with incarnadined lips below a mustache that read, "GAMES ARCADE."

Where the upper teeth should have been was a sign that read,

"NO CALCULATORS OR PERSONAL COMPUTERS ALLOWED! They louse up our games."

As they stepped in, they were assaulted with a primal cacophony of whistles, squeaks, booms, shrieks, screeches, chimes, explosions, cackles, zooms, and rings. Gwen pressed her hands over her ears. "Aiee! Wherefore must they needs have such a deal of noise? And wherefore is there so much haze?"

The hall was filled with smoke, and dimly-lit by spotlights focused on each separate gaming machine.

"It's supposed to help their concentration," Rod called into her ear. "They won't be distracted by the other machines around them, because they can't see them clearly."

Gwen only shook her head, exasperated.

As they plowed on through the arcade, they were assailed by gunfire from a variety of periods: the booming of muskets, the sharp cracks of squirrel rifles, the continuous racket of repeating rifles, the rattle of machine guns, the sizzle of blasters. Names of famous battles flashed past them as they slogged doggedly ahead. Finally, gasping and panting, they reached an island of comparative quiet, where there were only a few rings of people sitting on the floor, chatting and laughing, and a man talking to a machine.

"Praise Heaven," Gwen gasped. "I feel as though I have just run the gaunt of the worst of Man's history."

Beside them, a calm voice asked, "What is the acceleration of a falling body on the planet Terra?"

"Thirty-two feet per second!" the player cried, and the machine chimed agreeably. A counter on its panel registered the number "20."

"Excellent," the machine murmured. "What was the first English novel?"

"Richardson's Pamela!"

The machine chimed again. "Excellent. Why did Alexander's empire fail?"

Rod looked up at the name of the game. It read, "Universe-Class Trivia." joy

"Invalid." One of the people in the nearest ring held up a hand. "He can't be using a two-handed sword in pre-Roman Britain."

One of the other people frowned. "Why not?"

"Because it wasn't invented until the 1200s."

"So what did the British use?"

"Axes."

The young man shook his head with deliberation. "He's my character, and he's using a broadsword."

"No way-o, Wolfbay-o. This game sticks to historical accuracy. That's Rule Three."

"Says who?"

"I do—and you know Rule One."

The young man sighed and said, "Okay. 'Wolfbay unlimbered his twenty-pound war-ax

"Hold it." The first man held up a hand again.

"Okay, O-kay! A two-pound ax!"

Gwen bent down and murmured something to one of the other players. The player answered her, and Gwen straightened, nodding, but still mystified.

"What was that all about?" Rod asked.

"I wished to know the source of the smaller man's authority." Gwen shrugged. "She told me 'tis because he is the… my lord, what is a 'diem'?"

"'Diem'?" Rod frowned. "I think it was a Latin word that meant 'day,' dear."

"Lost!" Beside them, Yorick gave a machine a slap. "Doggone it, this is too much! Three straight losses—in three moves each!"

A neatly-dressed man was at his elbow in a second. "I'm Alkin Larn, the manager. Do you have a problem with our games, citizen?"

"I sure do." Yorick nodded toward the machine. "You know how this thing gives you three tries on each game? Well, I never got past the first hurdle once! I think the joystick's broken!"

The manager stepped in front of the machine and slipped a credit card into the slot. "Let me see…" He began to play.

"This is one hell of a welcome to Terra," Yorick snorted. "Here I am, just in from the outlying planets—you know, Wolmar, Otranto—and I met a guy in a bar who recommended this particular arcade, so I came in here to get a taste of Terran high life, and what happens? The machine beats me out!"

Rod was frantically making shushing motions.

The manager stilled, gazing at the screen. Then he looked up at Yorick with a polite smile. "You may have a point about this machine, sir. I'll certainly arrange a refund; your acquaintance's recommendation is exactly what I'm always hoping to hear. Would you like to step into the back room to try the really advanced games?"

"Fine." Yorick grinned. "Just take me to them."

Personally, Rod hadn't thought Yorick had exactly been piling up a sky-high score, even on the kiddie level.

But the manager slipped a "MALFUNCTIONING" sign out of his coverall, hung it on the machine, and turned away. Yorick turned with him.

Chornoi and Rod looked at each other in mingled panic and disbelief.

"We have trusted him thus far," Gwen reminded them. "Wherefore should we think him mistaken now?"

"A point," Rod sighed, "and I must admit we don't see any squadron of armsmen charging down on us. Come on."

They turned and followed Yorick and Larn.

"With the advanced games, I really must warn you," Larn was saying, "that the stakes are advanced, too."

"Oh, sure, I know these machines are really just low-level gambling." Yorick shrugged. "After all, the government has to have an income, doesn't it?"

"It certainly does," Larn said grimly, "sixty percent of all gambling profits."

Yorick nodded. "But you can make a living off the forty percent that's left over?"

"A good living." Larn opened the door to the back room. "But I don't have any assistants—only two night managers. You're just in from Otranto, and you stepped into a games arcade?"

"What can I tell you?" Yorick shrugged as he stepped through the door. "We got tired of the Gothic motif."

Rod stepped aside for the ladies, then followed them in, feeling as though he were walking into a trap. Larn closed the door behind him.

Gwen was staring around at the walls. "So many books!"

Chornoi gawked. "Why? Why not just keep them on cube?"

"Books are more convenient in a great number of ways." Larn walked around in front of them, gesturing to an easy chair and a table with a lamp. "But the main reason is atmosphere. You can hide away from the world in here— and about twenty percent of our customers do."

Rod was still looking around. "I don't see anything but books. Where's the gambling?"

"The gamble is whether or not we get caught," the manager answered. He moved past them, beckoning.

They followed, past six people sitting around a circular table. The oldest was saying, "All right, Gerry, but you're assuming that nice, fair political system Plato's proposing, is representing the whole population."

Gerry frowned. "But that's what he said, isn't it?"

"Yeah," another student answered, "but that's not what the real city was like, the one he was modeling this 'Republic' of his after."

Gerry frowned. "How?"

"There were a lot of slaves in the population," answered a third student, "and they weren't represented."

Larn escorted them into a six-by-six cubicle with transparent walls, a small table, and a single chair. He closed the door behind them and explained, "This is a study carrel—soundproof, so the student won't be distracted by the discussion groups."

"Those are volunteers out there?" Rod asked.

Larn nodded. "They got bored with the games. Sorry to have to put you through this." He pulled a small rectangle out of his pocket and passed it over Rod's body, head to toe, about six inches in front of him. "Turn around, please."

Resentment smoldered, but Rod complied. After all, he was the one asking for help.

"Okay. Thanks." Larn turned to Gwen. "If you don't mind, Miz?"

An angry refusal leaped to Rod's lips, but Gwen threw him a quick, imploring, determined glance, and he swallowed the words.

Larn scanned Gwen front and back, then Chornoi and Yorick. Finally, he nodded and slipped the rectangle back in his pocket. "All right, no bugs."

Gwen frowned.

"Listening devices," Chornoi explained. "Surveillance."

Gwen's lips formed an O.

"You ought to recognize the setup by now, Major," Yorick said, with a steady gaze.

Rod met that gaze, frowning. Then his eyes widened, and he spun to the manager. "Good grief! You're a Cholly Barman graduate!"

The manager nodded. "And our great and glorious masters of the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra have decreed that no one is to learn more than basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. Oh, a very small number of very talented students will be allowed to go on through high school, and maybe even college—any society has to have at least a few people to keep the machinery running, and collect the taxes— but the vast majority will never be taught to read anything more than the directions on a food packet."

Yorick nodded. "And, strangely, the children of PEST officials are already almost all included in that small number of 'very talented' chosen to go on in school."

"Despite the fact that some of their parents are total idiots," Chornoi said through clenched teeth.

Rod gazed at the manager. "You're taking quite a risk."

Larn smiled. "I suppose a good lawyer could get me off. All those games out there are just machines. The customers may be learning, but nobody's teaching, right? And they don't learn very much, by the hour."

"Sure, but they spend so many hours at it, that they do learn!"

Lam nodded. "And will keep on learning, for the rest of their lives, I hope. Which is better than spending all their days without anything more than the primary education the law allows."

Rod frowned. "How many of them graduate from the games to the back room?"

"Only about twenty percent. Most of them are very satisfied with the games, which is why we have to keep thinking up more and more challenging ones. But between games, 3DT epics, and song cubes, I think we're getting a good, solid elementary education across to about a third of the population."

" Tis remarkable, surely," Gwen said, "yet can you teach them no more than that?"

Lam shook his head. "Not with the techniques we've worked out so far, though I understand some drunken poet Cholly knows, has come up with some new approaches to epics that're conveying abstract concepts. But the real limitation is learning how to reason—and that takes a live teacher to guide you."

"Yet ere thou canst so guide them, thou must needs bring them to this place of study."

Lam nodded. "The few who do develop real intellectual curiosity are quietly ushered back here to the books, where tutors can guide their reading and develop their thinking abilities through discussions. Education always comes down to the live teacher, right there with the student. Nothing can really replace the human mind."

"And once they have started learning to think," Rod inferred, "they're not too apt to turn you in?"

"No, not terribly." Larn smiled. "But if they do, there's always that lawyer."

"The lawyer can't get you off if the case never goes to court though," Chornoi said softly.

Larn nodded again. "There is that little problem. PEST intends to enforce the laws, even if they're not sure the person's guilty. And if they lock up one innocent man for every three guilty ones, who cares?"

"No one who counts," Rod growled.

"Which means no PEST officials," Chornoi added.

"Except. "^Yorick held up a forefinger. "Except that they're not going to lock 'em up—prisons cost too much. It's a lot cheaper to terminate them."

"Lends a wealth of new meaning to the term 'executive,' doesn't it?" Larn gave him a bleak smile. "However, there is hope, if you can call it that. There're still a lot of jobs that're cheaper to do by hand than by machine—as long as the worker doesn't have to be paid."

"Convict labor." Yorick nodded, lips thin. "Well, it beats execution, I suppose."

"Don't be too sure. For myself, I'd rather not find out the hard way. So let's get you folks helped and moved on, shall we? From the 3DT bulletins, I gather the armsmen are after you, and I don't relish having them as patrons."

"They are," Yorick confirmed. "But behind them are the PEST spies. They're trying to eliminate us."

"Join the club," Larn snorted.

"I did." Chornoi's face was frozen. "But I began to realize that their 'more efficient government' was going to end up being total oppression, so I quit."

Larn shook his head. "Only one way out of the Security Service."

Chornoi nodded. "That's what they're trying for."

Larn gazed at her. Then he gave a bleak smile. "Well, that explains it all nicely. Can't think what I can do to help, though; we can't hide you for more than a few hours—too risky. How about a quick makeup job?"

"That would help." Yorick nodded. "But what we really need, see, is to get into PEST's central headquarters."

"What!!?!"

"I know, I know." Yorick held up a hand. "But we're stranded time-travelers, see, and we think PEST might have a time machine hidden away somewhere in the bowels of its labyrinth."

Larn just stared at him for a minute, then shrugged his shoulders. "Why not? I believe the masses can be educated, don't I? But they've got an outer wall and an inner wall, folks, and all the gates are guarded by lasers that fire if you don't push the right button. The landing pad on top of the building has blasters all around it, and a dozen live guards day and night. I could go on, but I think you get the point; the only way into PEST HQ is to be carried in… as a prisoner."

Yorick looked at Rod. Rod looked at Gwen. They both looked at Chornoi. All four swallowed heavily, and nodded. "Okay," Yorick said. "How do we commit a crime?"

"We could have thought of this ourselves, you know," Chornoi growled as they walked down the concourse.

"But we didn't," Rod reminded her. "That shows we needed help."

Chornoi shook her head. "I still don't like it. Letting myself get caught goes against all my training."

"Yes, but this is a bright new innovation," Yorick pointed out. "This way, getting caught lets you keep control of the situation."

"Keep talking," Chornoi growled, "you may convince me."

Yorick shook his head. "No time. If we're gonna do it, we gotta do it now." He dropped back and, before the other three could quite realize what he was doing, he was pointing at them and shouting, "There they go!"

Everyone walking on the concourse, in both directions, stopped and stared.

Rod felt the old sick sinking feeling in his stomach and the itch between his shoulder blades, where he just knew somebody was aiming a blaser. "Too late now," he growled. "Gotta go through with it! Run!"

They broke into a sprint.

Behind them, Yorick was shouting, "Get them! That's Public Enemy Number One—both of them! And Public Enemy Number Two! Haven't you seen them on 3DT?"

But the passersby only stared at him, then at the fleeing trio. Fear haunted their eyes.

"Oh, f crying out softly!" Yorick growled. "If you want something done right…" And he ran after Rod and the ladies, howling, "Stop them! Stop!"

He'd managed to catch up to them before the Security Service finally showed up. Even then, not a bystander was doing anything but standing by—and most of them had just speeded up their walk a little, heads down, shoulders hunched.

But the Security Service finally did come swerving around a corner, and the ones in front dropped to one knee, aiming blasters.

"That's no good!" Rod yelped, and Gwen glared at the blasters long enough for her companions to charge.

The armsmen almost started to retreat, taken by surprise—but then reflex took over as Yorick slammed a fist into an armsman's belly, and Chornoi aimed a chop at another's collarbone. They blocked out of sheer reflex, and their mates joined in.

Gwen caught up and spun, back-to-back with Rod, as he furiously blocked and punched. She managed to stop every blow aimed at his back, and if a slender lady's forearm shouldn't have been able to stop a blaster swung by the barrel, who noticed?

Chomoi was chopping and kicking for all she was worth, and three guardsmen surrounded her at a respectful distance; but they were watching for an opening, and kept leaping in for a quick jab. Sometimes she caught them, but they were professionals, too.

Yorick grabbed an arm and a strap and threw an armsmen into one of his mates, but a third caught him with a forearm around the throat and yanked back. Yorick dropped to one knee and lurched back up, bowing, too fast for the armsman to counter. He sailed over Yorick's head, but another armsman slammed a haymaker into Yorick's face as he stood up.

Out of the corner of his eye, Rod saw Chornoi crumple. Apprehension gripped his belly as he thought, This is it, dear. Remember, knock 'em out if they try to kill us—or if they even get fresh!

Aye, my lord, her thought answered. She dropped her guard, closing her eyes, and started to fall just before the blow caught her. Then a sap cracked into Rod's skull, and searing pain heralded darkness.

He came to with a raging headache and a dry-sand thirst. He cracked his eyelids open in a squint, and looked around. All he saw was white tile, and the surface under him was cold, very cold. He rolled his head to the side, and saw Yorick and Chornoi strapped to steel slabs, wrists manacled up next to their heads. As he did, Chornoi blinked, squeezed her eyes shut, then strained them open. Beyond her, Yorick was watching him, looking surly.

Rod took a second while a huge burst of relief washed through him. Then he stared at Chornoi and raised one eyebrow in question. She squinted against pain, but she nodded. Beyond her, Yorick shrugged.

So. They were okay. Now the apprehension could claw loose. Where was Gwen? She was supposed to have stayed awake the whole time, faking unconsciousness.

He heard a soft moan behind him.

Rod turned his head quickly and winced at the pain, but opened his eyes wider.

He saw Gwen with her eyes closed. Frantically, he felt for her mind, and found it lulled, buffered, adrift on a sea of drugs.

Rage erupted in him, but he fought to hold it in. Not yet. Soon—but not yet. Not quite.

The anger abated a little, enough for him to notice a nearby voice saying, "But why didn't any of them use any of those tricks we've been hearing about?"

"They did," another voice snapped. "They froze the blasters."

"All right, so they did pull one. But just one! From what I've been hearing about this gang, they had a hundred gimmicks like that in their arsenal!"

"So they panicked," the second voice snarled. "Or maybe their tricks really were just a bunch of gadgets, no matter what superstitious claptrap you've been hearing!"

"Then where are they?"

"In a trash cycler, dodo! They ran out of power, and these yahoos threw them away! Now will you shut up and get busy finding out what they know about those gadgets?"

The other man grumbled and turned. He saw three out of four looking at him, and stopped short. "Bruno!"

Bruno turned. "What? Oh, they've come around! Well, isn't that cozy? Okay, folks, let me explain—you're going to tell us everything you know about those gadgets you used, especially that force-field generator and the invisibility field. And, of course, everything about this revolutionary underground you're working for. If you don't want to, you're going to go through an awful lot of pain, but you'll wind up telling us, don't doubt it."

"Wwwhy… why not use drugs?" Chornoi still squinted against a headache.

"Because it isn't as much fun." Bruno grinned. He looked up, and saw the direction of Rod's gaze. "No, don't go looking for any help from her! We got our doubts about her, so we did use drugs to knock her out. She won't wake up for another dozen hours." He fell silent, eyes narrowing as he stared at Rod. Then he nodded and moved forward. "We'll start with you—and the old-fashioned methods."

Rod felt hands undoing his manacles. Frantically, he retreated inside his own mind, remembering the analog-appearance his mind had given him for the inter-universal realm they'd traveled from Tir Chlis. He knew he only had a few seconds before the beating started, and with that kind of sensory stimulation, he'd never achieve a trance.

But he made it—awareness of his body faded out as it was being lifted upright. Through the limbo about him, he reached out for the feel of Gwen's mind. There it was, a fragile hull on waters of Nepenthe, slumbering, removed. Gently, he moved closer, merged, melded, and moved inside. Waken, he thought. We're all done for if you don't. I might be able to handle them alone—but I might not. It hurt him to say it, but he had to.

Dimly, he felt a stirring; but she lapsed.

They could kill us, he thought. We might never waken.

This time, there was response—the single thought, Together.

Rod hauled back on the reins of exasperation, reminding himself that women's romanticism wasn't completely incurable. If that basic drive could be met in oblivion, there was one that couldn't. Grimly, he conjured up a vision of Magnus hugging a weeping Cordelia to him, while a glum-looking Geoffrey sat by, holding a dry-eyed but fearful Gregory. Alone, without us, he thought. Can you bear to leave them to strangers?

He had the impression of a titan, roaring up from the waters to look around. Then it clambered up, rage building into an avalanche.

Rod got out, and got out fast. Limbo seemed very safe suddenly.

But Gwen would awaken, and fight those sadists alone.

He pulled himself back down, forced himself to become aware of his body…

And it hit. Pain. Every square inch of his body ached, and some of it seemed to burn. Instantly he was aware, seeing, as Bruno threw him back against the steel slab in disgust. "This is getting us nowhere! You'd swear the guy doesn't even have a mind! Go get the probes, Harry!"

Rage built, at two brutes who would so maltreat a helpless body—Rod's helpless body! And they meant to do it to his friends, too—and his wife! The rage rose, and Rod welcomed it, reaching down into it for the power he needed…

But beside him, manacles burst like grenades, and Gwen stepped away from her slab, fury fairly flaming from her.

Bruno and Harry slammed into the wall, their bodies actually seeming to grow thinner for a moment before they slid to the ground.

Gwen turned, glaring in wrath. "They have hurt thee!" she cried, and began to touch and probe Rod's body. Wherever she laid her hand, the pain abated as the neurons stopped firing. But even as she did it, howls of agony filled the air, then were still.

Chornoi stared in horror. "What the hell was that?"

"Folk who watched us, unseen," Gwen answered. "What thou dost hear came through a device they had, should they need to speak to those within this chamber. They sleep now, of course."

"Of course," Chornoi repeated, numbed.

"I would nurse thee a week, an I could," Gwen said gently, "yet I cannot, and thou must needs arise and aid me."

"Oh, no—Ow!—problem. No, now, I can stand." Rod removed her hand gently as he hefted himself up onto his feet, aching in every joint—but functional. He kept hold of her hand, though.

Gwen gazed at Chornoi's wrists, and her manacles exploded. She stared, then rubbed her joints to make sure they were untouched by all that force. As she did, two more explosions burst the cuffs at her ankles.

"Watch out for shrapnel," Yorick said softly.

"I did." Gwen looked up at him. "None struck thee, did it?"

"Not a bit," Yorick assured her.

Gwen nodded and glared at his handcuffs. They burst, then his ankle-cuffs, too.

He stood up, flexing his fists. "Shall we go?"

Gwen nodded and turned toward the chamber door. "What bearing, husband?"

Rod frowned, gazing off into space as he opened his mind to the myriad of thoughts that spun and twisted through the great complex around them. Down—it would be down low, for protection… There! He caught the thoughts of someone thinking about sending something ahead. He focused on the thoughts… yes, "ahead" meant "future"— 3511, after Rod's own lifetime. He nodded, satisfied, and reached out to touch and meld with Gwen's mind, leading, showing her.

She nodded. "Aye, I see. Then let us go, husband."

The door blew out and away from them, its hinges and bolts shredded like raveled rope. Yorick and Chornoi stared, appalled.

"She's angry," Rod explained. "Catch up, folks."

They leaped to keep up with Gwen, and the familiar moire sprang up around them. Just in time—four guards stationed outside looked up in alarm, then yelled as they leaped back, whipping out their blasters.

The blasters burst into flames in their hands.

They howled, throwing the torches from them, nursing their burns. Gwen ignored them and moved on. The other three had to hurry to keep up.

Chornoi was still staring back at the guards, then turned her head around to look up at Rod. "But she's the gentlest soul I've ever met!"

"I told you," Rod said impatiently, "she's angry."

An iron grille blocked their path. Gwen glared at it, and it burst into smithereens. She marched through the steel rain of its pieces, into an intersection. Blaster fire erupted from both sides. The bubble around them glowed briefly before the blasters exploded in the armsmen's hands. They screamed and whirled away. Gwen marched on.

"Uh, I hate to be indelicate," Yorick said, "but…"

"Because she loves me," Rod answered. "Besides, I've got some power myself, you know. I could survive long enough to get out of range."

They turned into a stairway. As they came out at the bottom, they saw a dozen men blocking their path with iron nets. Gwen narrowed her eyes, and the strands glowed white-hot. Flames licked out along them, and the guardsmen dropped them, cursing. Gwen surged forward, and the force field crashed into the dozen, bulldozing them out of the way. Some of them screamed as it squashed them against the wall, but Gwen paid no heed.

They turned a corner into a wide hallway. Twenty men were drawn up in front of a high double door in two ranks, one kneeling, one standing, all with blasters ready.

The blasters melted in their hands.

They threw them away with yowls of agony, just before the door behind them exploded into iron filings. The guards leaped aside, staring in terror. The iron filings filtered softly to the floor.

Gwen stepped through the door.

A lone technician stood by a wall full of keys, pressure-pads, and sliders, with an open-faced cubicle six feet wide set into it. At the sight of them, his mouth stretched in a grimace of horror, but he whirled and started slapping at keys and pads.

Gwen glared.

An invisible hand yanked the man off his feet, three feet into the air. Suddenly he slumped, unconscious, and the unseen hand dropped him in an untidy bundle.

"He sleeps," Gwen explained. The moire around them disappeared.

Yorick leaped for the wall and started turning and punching.

Rod stood slack-limbed in reaction. Only once before had he ever seen Gwen in a real towering rage, and there hadn't been anywhere nearly as much power arrayed against her.

"Dost'a truly know how this device doth function?" Gwen demanded.

"No fear," Yorick snapped. "I know the standard settings by heart."

"But this isn't your brand," Rod protested.

"No," Yorick agreed, "it's a copy. Who do you think invented the damn thing, anyway?" He twisted a final key. "There! That's date!" He pushed a slider. "That's location!" He punched a sequence on a keypad. "That's the security code! And the instruction to forget!" He punched at a pressure-pad. "And that's the time-delay control! Everybody inside! It'll start up in one minute!"

A huge, hulking shape filled the shattered doorway.

"Laser cannon!" Chornoi yelped.

"Inside, quick!" Rod all but threw her into the six-foot cubicle. Yorick leaped in after her, and Gwen stepped up. Rod was right behind her. He turned just as the cannon rotated, its huge maw facing them. Rod stared into doom.

Doom was suddenly warped and twisted and shot through with the color-swirl of the moire. Gwen clasped his hand with both of hers. "Tis as thick a field as I can manage. Now, husband, lend me of thy strength!"

It took a moment. There had been so much power flying around loose during that march from the torture chamber— and she'd been learning so horribly much about electronics! But after that moment, Rod managed to remember the girl in the haystack, the mother with the baby in her arms, the gentle partner, and his thoughts flowed and melded with hers.

"Thirty seconds," Yorick groaned.

A stream of ruby light lit the force field.

The whole doorway filled with a sheet of flame. It raged and twisted in convolutions—not in a single blast, but in an endless roiling rage.

Sweat sprang out on Gwen's brow. Her hold tightened on Rod's hand.

Rod gave her all the energy he had, all there was of him.

She paled, trembling.

Concern flooded him, and washed into her—concern, tenderness, love.

Heat seared him, a Sahara noon, an oven, a flaming furnace. Chornoi gasped, and Yorick groaned, "Ten seconds."

It was ten seconds of eternity, ten seconds of agony, ten seconds of the sickening realization that, this time, they just might not make it, as the flames baked and raged—but it was ten seconds that were just long enough for their minds to meld completely, and for Rod to realize, in the midst of Hellfire, that she was still the same, loving partner, and that she was still his self-interest, as the flame wrapped them up…

The floor lurched, slamming them against each other, and air flooded in, blessedly cool. Dazed, Rod straightened, clinging to Gwen, gradually becoming aware that the flame was gone, that he was staring into a vast chamber filled with bench after bench full of electronic equipment, huge wardrobes, tall cabinets…

And, right in front of them, a short, spare man in a white lab coat, with a mane of white hair and an eagle's face, on a head that was too large. He glared up at them with a gaze that was so piercing Rod almost shuddered, even though he had borne that stare before.

But he pulled himself together, squared his shoulders and took a deep breath, then stepped down out of the time machine carefully and said, "Dr. McAran, I presume."

They were sitting around a circular table, drinking restoratives (hundred proof). Around them, other tables filled the large room, with a variety of people clustered in discussion groups. Egyptian scribes rubbed elbows with ninth-century paladins; Sumerian peasants chatted with Ming Dynasty bureaucrats. The whole room was a glorious melange of periods and styles, a meeting place of the centuries in a riot of colors, with a nonstop buzz of conversation in a pidgin English that Rod could just barely recognize as the ancestor of his own century's Anglic.

He frowned intently at McAran's last comment. "Well, sure. Of course I understand that Gramarye's pivotal. If it develops into a constitutional monarchy, it'll be able to provide the communications system the DDT will need to keep democracy alive."

"More than that," McAran said. "Your neighbors aren't going to be standoffish, Major. They're going to leave their home planet, lots of them, and they're going to fall in love and marry, wherever they go. A thousand years from now, about half the people in the Terran Sphere will be telepaths—because of your people."

Rod just stared. He felt Gwen's hand tighten on his, and squeezed back.

McAran waved his last earthquake away. "But that's really secondary. Gramarye's real contribution will be the wiping out of this artificial dichotomy we've developed between intuition and intellect, humanity and technology. Your local chapter of the Order of St. Vidicon is the cutting edge of that revolution, but it's simply formalizing something your whole people have been developing since they landed on Gramarye. Of course, they just view it as magic and mechanics—and they see absolutely no reason why one person can't be gifted in both."

Rod transferred his stare to Gwen.

She looked about her, confused, then back at him. "Milord?"

"Uh… nothing. We'll talk about it later." But he tucked her hand into his elbow and kept firm hold of it with the other hand, as he turned back to McAran. "Okay, so Gramarye is immensely important to the future of democracy, maybe even to the future of humanity, period. So what does that have to do with your coming eleven hundred years into your future, just to meet me?"

McAran looked a little uncomfortable. "Well, I really only came over to the time machine that was bringing you in. You're in the twentieth century right now, Major—technically."

Rod pushed his jaw back into place.

Yorick erased the problem. "Doesn't really matter, Major. This time-travel base could be located in any century. It is, in fact—just keeps going for a couple of thousand years, all the way through the Fourth Millennium. And it was just as easy to set the controls for this century, as for the one we were in. Easier, in fact—these are the ones I have memorized. Quicker to punch in, when you're in a rush."

Rod gave his head a shake. "Okay, if you say so. But…"

"Why did I want to meet you?" McAran wore his grim smile. "Well, I've heard so much about you, Major!"

"Great. Can I present my side of it?"

"No. Because if Gramarye is pivotal in the development of democracy, you're pivotal in the development of Gramarye."

Rod froze.

Gwen gazed at him, wide-eyed.

"Me?"

McAran nodded.

"Why not her?" Rod jabbed a finger at Gwen. "She's at least as powerful as I am! And she's done as much as I have toward putting Gramarye on the road to freedom!"

"Aye, yet I've espoused thy cause only for reason that

I've espoused thee," Gwen said softly, "and so would I continue to do, e'en—God forbid!—an thou wert ta'en from me. Yet had I never known thee, I ne'er would have so much as thought of it."

McAran nodded. "She was reared in a medieval monarchy, Major; she didn't have the vaguest notion of democracy. Nobody there did—except the future totalitarians and anarchists, who had come back in time to subvert Gramarye."

"And she wouldn't have learned advanced technology if those Futurians hadn't kidnapped the two of you back in time," Yorick said.

Gwen shook her head. "Thou canst not avoid it, my lord. Thou mayest not be the person who doth bring matters to fruition, but thou art the one who doth sow the seed." She flushed, smiling, and turned to McAran. "Which doth bring to mind that thou hast not spoken of the role our children are to play in this."

"Mighty," McAran assured her, "but only an extension of what you two are doing. An extension and an expansion, I should say, there are four of them, and each of them will grow up to be more powerful than either of you. Still, they'll only carry on what you've begun." His frosty smile etched itself on his face again. "Even if they don't quite realize it."

The exchange had given Rod a moment to recover. He took a deep breath. "But that still doesn't tell me what I'm doing here, talking to you."

"Do I have to lay it out for you?" McAran growled. "I want to make sure which side you're on."

"Why… democracy's."

McAran just regarded him, with a glittering eye.

"No," Rod said slowly, finally recognizing the transformation within himself. "Gramarye's."

McAran nodded.

"But democracy is in Gramarye's best interest!"

"If you're so sure about that," McAran grated, "you won't mind joining GRIPE."

Rod sat still for a minute, letting the shock pass. Then he said, "I'm already a SCENT agent. Doesn't that make me an affiliate member?"

McAran shook his head. "There's no official alliance between the two groups—just common interest. We don't even have a formal tie to the Decentralized Democratic Tribunal. In fact, neither of them knows we exist—and frankly, we like it that way. So, of course, one of the responsibilities of membership is maintaining that secrecy."

"Of course," Yorick added, "we do have overlapping membership. Other than you, I mean."

McAran nodded. "Some of our best agents are SCENT operatives. We even have a few DDT bureaucrats, and the odd tribune or two."

"Must be pretty odd, all right," Rod muttered.

"So how about you?" The eagle's eye was still on him. "Are you for us or not, Major?"

Rod met McAran's stare, and took a deep breath. "For you—but not part of you. Call me an associate member."

McAran sat still for a moment. Then he nodded. "As long as you're for us, and not against us." He stood, holding out his hand. Rod stood, and clasped it. He was amazed at how fragile and slender the scientist's hand seemed.

But McAran was nodding, and smiling again. "Good to have you, Major. Now, would you like to go back where you came from?"

"I would indeed," Gwen said instantly. "Eh, my little ones!"

Rod nodded, grinning. "Yeah. I think I've had my fill of high-tech society for another dozen years or so. Send me home."

McAran turned to Chornoi. "What do you want to do, O worm in the woodwork?"

"Worm?" She leaped to her feet. "Who the hell do you think you are, throwing insults around like lava?"

"The volcano on whose slopes the tyrants live," Doc Angus snapped, glaring.

Chornoi's eyes narrowed. "I made a mistake. It was a bad one, and I helped hurt a lot of people. But I think I've kind of paid for some of that on this trip—even if Gwen and her husband did help me as much as I helped them."

McAran's smile was sarcastic. "Oh. You don't like dictators anymore, huh?"

"No," Chornoi snapped, "especially on the personal level."

"Prove it," McAran jibed. "Join GRIPE."

Chornoi stared, totally floored.

"He means it, Miz," Yorick said softly.

"But… but… how can you?" Chornoi exploded. "For all you know, I could be the worst PEST agent alive, trying to infiltrate your organization!"

McAran nodded. "Possible, very possible—but if you were, you wouldn't have been helping fight totalitarianism at every turn."

Chornoi frowned. "When did I do that?"

"When you helped avert a war on Wolmar," Yorick reminded her, "and when you helped us fight off Eaves and his buddies on Otranto. Listen, Miz, if you were really a PEST agent, you would have shoved a knife in Whitey the Wino's ribs at your first chance. He's at least as important to democracy as we are."

Rod nodded. "Charley Barman, too, and you never lifted a hand against him."

"But… but… I didn't know! I didn't know either of them were important to democracy!"

"Yeah, but you would have, if you were still a PEST agent. Besides, you helped get the Gallowglasses through."

"Only because I liked them—personally!"

Gwen's smile was radiant.

"Him, too!" Chornoi stabbed a finger at Yorick. "It's not just them, you know!"

"Yes, I know," McAran said grimly, "and I'll bet this is the first time in your life you've found people who liked you."

Chornoi stood very still.

"I'll take personal loyalty," McAran said. "I'll take it over loyalty to an idea, any time—even if it's loyalty to the group, and not to me."

"I might not like your other people as well as I like him," Chornoi said slowly.

"Then again, you might." The frosty smile was back. "Why don't you circulate a little, get to know them better?"

"Yeah—kick around for a while, Miz!" Yorick grinned. "I've got some buddies here I think you'd like."

"Buddies?" Her tone was frigid. "No women?"

"Of course." Yorick shrugged. "What do you want me to say, 'bosom buddies'?"

Chornoi's eyes narrowed. "Definitely not."

"Okay, then—friends. A person's a person. So I've got friends, all right? And I think they'd like you. Okay? So why don't you come and meet them?"

"Yes," Chornoi said slowly. "Yes," she said, nodding. "Yes, I think I will."

Yorick grinned, and held out an elbow.

Chornoi hooked her hand through it, and turned to Rod and Gwen. "Major—Milady—a pleasure meeting you." She actually inclined her head, smiling.

Rod grinned, lifting a hand. "See you in the time zones."

Chornoi smiled, tossing her head proudly, and whisked away on Yorick's arm. They stopped two tables away, where Yorick introduced her to a small troupe of Mongolian barbarians. She pressed palms.

McAran watched her go with a victorious smile. Then he turned back to Rod and Gwen, leading them away. "That's the basis of our organization here—misfits. None of my people ever had any friends, never felt they belonged— until they found us." He cocked his head to the side. "Doesn't apply to the two of you, of course."

"Oh, I wouldn't say that," Rod mused.

"Thou hast never been a Gramarye witch or warlock," Gwen agreed.

"Could be." The frosty smile turned into amusement. "Could very well be."

They came up to a thirty-by-thirty area, lined with time machines. One of them had a large sign over the portal, which said in Gothic lettering,

GRAMARYE

Rod's eyebrows lifted. "We rate a machine all to ourselves?"

McAran nodded. "I told you Gramarye's important to us. It's locked onto real-time there, dating from…" he coughed into his fist. "… from that little incident we had, with those Neanderthals."

"Yeah." Rod frowned. "I've been meaning to ask you about that."

"Some other time, okay?" McAran said quickly. "Right now, there're some people who've been waiting to see you for a couple of weeks."

"Aye—we must needs be gone to them, right quickly!" Gwen leaped into the time machine's cubicle. "Send us to them at once, doctor, an it please thee!"

"Oh, I could send you quicker than that." McAran peered closely at the date. "I could set it back a couple of weeks, and return you to the same night you were kidnapped."

Gwen's eyes lit, but Rod frowned. "How long would it take?"

"Only a minute, to reset the machine," McAran answered, "but the trip itself would take a couple of hours, because the time-matrix would have to readjust itself into a different configuration."

"I cannot wait so long." Gwen clasped Rod's arm. "I doubt me not an they have been well tended in our absence—and I burn to see them once again!"

Rod shrugged. "It'll probably have done them good to be without us for a while, especially since their baby-sitters have probably been indulging them horribly."

"Oh!" Gwen clasped her hand over her mouth, eyes wide. "Robin will be wroth with us, to have been so long away!"

"Yeah, but think how glad he'll be to see us come back!"

"There's some truth to that." Gwen turned back to McAran. "Send us now, doctor, I beg of thee!"

McAran shrugged. "As the customer orders." He reached out and pressed a button.

Rod and Gwen felt a twisting lurch, and were just fighting down nausea when they realized they were staring around at twilit woodlands, and the calm sheen of a pond.

Rod blinked, staring around him in surprise. "Well! Right back at the pretty little woodland pool I told you about!"

"An thou'lt pardon it, I'd liefer not stay to contemplate it," Gwen said, "especially an I doubt the virtue of that crone who told thee of it."

Gwen threw her arms around his neck. "Eh, husband! We are home!"

"Yeah!" Rod hugged her to him with massive relief.

Then he remembered the power he'd seen her wield, and that reminded him how much she'd learned about electronics; and he felt the cold fear seeping through him, at the thought of grappling a woman who could wreak such mayhem—especially since it was his own kind of mayhem. And wreaked at least as well as he could, himself.

She felt the change. "Husband? My lord?"

He held her off at arm's length. "We're not exactly the same people who left here, are we?"

"Wherefore not?" Gwen stared, startled and hurt. "We are still ourselves, my lord. Who else could we be?"

"Well, all right, still us," Rod growled, "but we've changed. And you, shall we say, have learned a lot in the process?"

"Yet it hath not changed who I am, nor the way I do feel toward thee," Gwen protested. "Nay, my lord. Do not think— i

ever!—that only because I learn more, or gain more skill or power, that I shall ever love thee less!"

"Yeah, but it's not just your kind of learning." Rod hooked his hands in frustration at trying to find the right words. "It's that you're learning my kind of knowledge!"

Gwen stilled, staring up at him. Then she said, "Ah, then. So that is the way of it."

"Yes," Rod admitted. "The skills and knowledge I had, that you lacked, were all that were keeping me thinking I was good enough for you."

"Oh, how poorly thou dost know thyself, Rod Gallowglass!" She threw her arms about his neck and pulled his head down to hers. "Thy goodness and thy greatness have so little to do with thy knowledge or skill, or even thy power! 'Tis thy gentle, caring self that drew me into love of thee, and the strength of thy resolve that doth shelter me and mine! 'Tis thee I love—not thine attributes!" She drew back a little, cocking her head to the side. "And, in fairness, thou must needs own that thou hast learned my skills and knowledge, even as I've but now learned thine."

"Well, yes," Rod admitted, "but that's different."

"Only in that I rejoice at such joining, where thou dost seem to dread it," Gwen returned. "Yet thou hast no need of such trepidation, for 'tis thee I love, that inexplicable, unwordable, indescribable essence that is Rod Gallowglass—and only that! Not thy power or knowledge!"

Then she frowned as a new thought came. "Or dost thou love me less, because I know summat of thy magicks?"

Rod stared at her, horrified. Then, slowly, he smiled. "Love you less, no—but I do feel threatened by it. I'm sure I'll get over that, though." He caught her hands. "After all, if you've managed to adapt magic to advanced technology, I've learned to adapt technology to magic!"

Gwen threw her head back with a silvery laugh, and kept her lips parted as she swayed back up against him. He buried himself in her kiss.

Finally, he had to give up and gasp, though he did wish he'd seen the kiss coming in time to hyperventilate a little. He hooked an arm about her waist and pointed at the path that wound away through the trees. "We do have to get back to the children, you know. Besides, we have a bed in the house."

She beamed up at him. "I think 'twill be an early slumbering for them this night, my lord."

And, arm in arm, they strolled away through the trees, hand in hand, mind in mind, pausing only occasionally to scan for mental traces of ambushers.

They came in the door with a word of cheery greeting— but it died on their lips. Rod stared, aghast. The table and chairs had been pushed back against the walls. A giant of a man, at least eight feet tall, took up most of the living room floor, with two people of standard size beside him, one wearing a robe and pointed hat of dark blue, sprinkled with signs of the zodiac, and the other a pretty lass in her twenties with her hair bound in a kerchief. The three of them were so tightly wrapped in hempen rope that they looked like candidates for a joint sarcophagus.

Geoffrey stood over the giant with a cudgel in his hand; Cordelia sat at the woman's feet, singing lightly and embroidering a handkerchief; Magnus stood over the wizard, arms akimbo, as though he were daring the man to try a spell; and Gregory sat cross-legged on the mantelpiece, contemplating the whole mess.

By the hearth sat a very worried-looking Puck. At the sound of Rod's voice, his head snapped up; he took one look at Rod and Gwen, moaned, leaped into the fireplace, and darted up the chimney with a howl of despair.

Gwen stared, appalled.

Then she took a deep breath.

But Rod beat her to it. "And just what do you think you've been doing!?!"

The End