Time Storm

28

Paula took the news coolly. Whether this was because some of her people had already picked up the word of it that was spreading rapidly through the ranks of our own people, or simply because it was a strategy on her part to act as if her enlisting me had never been in doubt, was impossible to tell. In either case, it made no difference to me, who was going with her for my own private reasons.

“All right,” she said, over the breakfast table. “How soon can you be ready?”

“Six hours, maybe,” I said.

“In that case, I’ll wait for you and you can join my staff right here. If you hadn’t been able to move quickly, I’d have needed to let you catch up with me. I’ll send word to my officers. No offense to your kitchen help, Marc, but I’ll be glad to get back to my own headquarters and have some decent coffee.”

There was only one small incident of interest in our leaving. Paula’s people had already climbed aboard the helicopters that had been sitting parked and waiting for them, and I was not yet aboard the one carrying Paula herself. The Old Man, as I said, had shown no liking for Paula; and now he had made himself scarce. Doc had found him, finally, about half a mile from the summer palace among the rocks of the hillside and literally held an automatic pistol at his head to get him to come along back to the takeoff point. The Old Man knew what human weapons were and came, but not happily.

When I finally saw him approaching, squatting ominously beside Doc in the front of the jeep, I changed my mind about taking him.

“Look,” I said to Doc, under my breath, when the jeep drove up and stopped by the entrance ladder of the ’copter, “this isn’t going to work. If he’s going to bolt the minute I take my eyes off him, this’ll never work. Leave him here and you come along instead while we figure things out. Then I can send you back with word.”

“All right,” said Doc, climbing out of the jeep. “Do I have time to pick up any gear, or—”

But at that point, the Old Man solved the problem for us. He had been staring at the ’copter, and at me, all the while the jeep was driving out to us on the open area. He was not unintelligent and he must have finally realized that I was actually going, with or without him. At any rate, he took a sudden leap out of the jeep directly onto the first step of the ladder, caught my hand and pulled me toward him and the steps.

“That’s all right, then,” I said to Doc. “But why don’t you come along anyway, at least until I’ve had a chance to settle down. No, you won’t have time to bring anything. Got any kind of weapon with you?”

“Pistol.”

“All right. I can shake down Paula’s people for what you’ll need beyond that, and what you’ll need to get back here from wherever she’s headed next. Let’s get inside.”

He followed me up the ladder, the Old Man preceding us.

“What’s this?” said Paula when we were inside and the ladder was being taken in, the entry hatch being shut behind us. She looked from Doc to me.

“There’s some unfinished business,” I said. “I’ve got some decisions yet to make. He can carry word back from wherever we stop, a couple of days from now—if that’s all right with you?”

“Certainly. Why not?” She turned her attention to the Old Man who still clung to my hand. “This is the creature? I thought I saw it around earlier. Is it housebroken?”

“Since long before I met him,” I said. “All his people learn to live like human beings while they’re growing up, just as our children do.”

“People?” She smiled. “Well, keep him out of the way. Find your seats now.”

She turned away.

Apparently, we were not to return to where her camp had been when I had visited. Her orders had already gone out, and her troops and wagons had been on the move from an hour after I had broken the news to her over our breakfast table. We flew on eastward and put down by a river about twenty-five miles further on, where the motorized section of Paula’s transport had already arrived and set up her personal tents. Later, that evening, the main body of her wagons and infantry arrived.

I kept Doc with me for four days, mainly so he could prowl around and get acquainted with the way Paula’s people did things; then I sent him home before they saw through the bright-eyed, teenage image he had been careful to wear anywhere near her and them. The Old Man stayed close in the tent I had assigned to me for my exclusive use and was no problem. I found myself happy to have him there. He was, after all, a small touch of home.

We continued to move steadily eastward. In open country, between objectives, the pattern seemed to be for Paula’s headquarters to stay comfortably put for three days while her army marched forward. Then her motorized division would move the headquarters tents and equipment forward one short day’s trek in their jeeps and trucks. Meanwhile Paula, her general, and a handful of us who were at the top of the table of organization took it easy for most of the day, then struck the pavilion tent and made a half to three-quarters of an hour hop in a single ’copter to the new site, while the other two aircraft followed empty except for pilots and copilots.

It was a pleasant life, but monotonous; particularly when it began to be obvious that Paula had no real need for services from me, but was only carrying me along as a satellite to impress possible enemies and reluctant allies. I had a great deal of time on my hands; but it turned out this had been provided for by Paula’s foresight. I discovered one of the main duties of her large staff of women clerks and attendants.

Briefly, they were there to keep everyone happy, from me down to the lowest officer in the army; and also to keep us out of Paula’s way and off her mind, except when she had a need for us. A good share of this, I picked up from my own observation; but it was General Pierre de Coucy Aruba who dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s for me.

The general was a drinker. That is, he could not yet be called a drunk because he held his alcohol without visible sign and never seemed to prolong his drinking beyond three or four drinks. But those drinks came at every lunch, dinner, cocktail hour and late supper at which I ever saw him.

“You could call me a philosopher,” he told me one evening in his tent, after a post-dinner planning session with his staff had concluded. His officers were gone and he had invited me in for a private chat with just the two of us.

“You might think that I could probably set up with my own army and carve out a nice little empire for myself,” he went on. “And I could—I could. But I’m not the kind who wants an empire for himself. ‘Everybody’s a little mad except thee and me, and I even have my doubts about thee!’ People intrigue me. I like to be comfortable and watch them. So I’m the perfect commander for our Empress. She knows she never needs to worry about a military coup as long as I’m in control.”

“I can see she’d appreciate that,” I said.

“Yes, indeed.” He smiled at me—and it was a smile, not a grin, with the sun-wrinkles deepening at the corners of his eyes and the tidy, little grey mustache quirking upwards at the corners. “Wouldn’t you, in her shoes?”

“I gather she makes a good boss?” I said.

“A good Empress, you mean.” He waggled a forefinger at me. “Always remember that. An Empress has to be an Empress, at all times. That’s why the young ladies.”

“The young ladies?”

“Of course. Familiarity breeds contempt.” He smiled again. “And there’s no familiarity like that in bed, eh?”

“That’s true enough,” I said soberly, thinking of my own two women.

“Most queens had trouble out of getting laid,” he said. “Most empresses, too. Queen Elizabeth... Catherine of Russia... notice none of the girls around here, though, are quite as good-looking as the Empress?”

“I had,” I told him.

“Obviously. The art of controlling a man with your female presence is to be just out of reach, but out of reach. You understand?”

I did. Not only did I understand, but a certain near-demonic impulse moved in me, and my trader’s instinct was challenged. During the days when Paula had been talking to me about coming with her on her road of conquest, she had sent up clear signals that she was attracted to me personally. I had taken for granted, that part, if not all of this was calculated, to gain her own ends. But, as it turned out, she had wanted me neither for my services as a magician nor myself; she had simply bought herself a show piece at the cost of nothing more than promises, rather than having to spend her troops and materiel to get it. Again, it had been a case of “seller beware”; so I really had no kick coming if I had taken counterfeit currency for what I had sold. But for her to assume that, after having been sharped, I would cheerfully reconcile myself, given the equivalent of two cents on the dollar, was something of an insult.

Accordingly, I played the game with the female staff, so as not to arouse any suspicions; but privately, I set my sights on Paula after all. I was patient. I had my ability to see patterns working for me. Success would be along, down the line there, somewhere.

Meanwhile, in the patterns, I had found another hobby to occupy my time. Now I had broken through twice to the oneness of the universe, and there was no longer any doubt in my mind that such a state of mind existed; and if that was so, anything was possible, even the destruction of the time storm. I made it an invisible exercise to look around me for patterns constantly, and to develop my perception of them to the point where that perception and recognition and understanding of the patterns would be simultaneous.

The work paid off. The patterns were there, all about me all the time. They were there in the interactions of people, in their physical movements, their speech, their reactions, and their thinking; and in all else about fauna, flora, earth, and sky. Little by little, my knowledge of such patterns became deeper and surer, until it began to approach eerily close to the true magic of telepathy and second sight. I could have played chess now, better than anyone I had ever encountered; but the chess patterns, for all that they were fascinating and innumerable, were dead patterns. I preferred the live patterns created by my fellow men and women.

So I observed and learned; and, curiously, I could feel the Old Man learning through me.

Meanwhile, we were marching to the Atlantic seaboard. The points we searched out were sometimes the fragments of cities or towns that still held supplies or needed equipment; or sometimes they were population centers like my own community, which had not existed before the time storm forces had been balanced, but which had sprung up since around some acquired communication equipment or military force.

In every case, however, these places and the people in them were plainly inferior to the armed strength of the Empress. They sometimes bluffed for a day or two before yielding, but in the end they all acknowledged her as their overlady. Then, at last, we ran into opposition.

We had reached the ocean and a place that called itself Capitol, which once had been half Washington International Airport, and was now half that and half something else, because deep-water ocean lapped up against the base of cliffs that abruptly cut off the main road into the airport. On the ocean, moored out a little distance from a jerry-built wharf, were a number of small oceangoing craft. Still hangared about the airport were a number of 1980 commercial passenger jets and—on the land area of that part that now opened to the ocean—some light, five-passenger craft, that were like flying bubbles with stubby wings, and a tiny power plant that seemed permanently fueled with an inexhaustible, built-in supply of energy.

These were from some time later than the twentieth century; and these also were the real prize from Paula’s point of view. The craft, in their own right, were almost as famous as I was in mine. For, although there were still large cruise ships and other massive watercraft to be found up and down the Atlantic coast, there was no way now to either maintain or operate them. It was still possible to cross the Atlantic in boats up to the size of small yachts. But the trip would be uncomfortable and a matter of some weeks. With these light aircraft out of the post-twentieth century, the ocean could be crossed in hours.

Once more, Paula moved in, going gutsily herself with a small guard to negotiate, while readying her armed forces and artillery behind her. But this time, the target did not yield; and she was forced to fight for what she wanted.

Not only that, but these people fought hard. It took nearly a week for Aruba and his soldiers to take the place and subdue its inhabitants; and it cost them over half of their strength in casualties. Replacements would have to be marched across the continent from the west coast, since she could not trust any of the recently subjugated communities in between to furnish her with loyal fighters. That meant months. Fall and winter would be upon us before they were here and trained. Paula herself, and her inner staff officers, could cross the ocean by air at any time; but the small boats available could not ferry her army across the Atlantic in bad weather. We were stuck where we were until spring.

I saw the pattern of this situation evolving ten days before the rest of them did. It solidified in my mind on the first day of hard fighting in which they pounded the enemy positions with artillery and confidently advanced afterwards, only to be cut to pieces by machine gun fire. I saw it; and I raged inside at the inevitable delay it implied for Paula’s plans of world conquest. Doc was overdue for one of his periodic visits, and for the first time, I found myself fearing, rather than hoping, that he would bring me word that Porniarsk had found the ultimate universe pattern possible to the viewing tank. If the avatar had found it, I had no choice. I could not delay going home, with the risk that, in the meantime, some chance here might kill me, cripple me, or somehow prevent me from returning at all.

On the other hand, I told myself, I did not want Paula still on the North American continent when I left her, without leave, and headed once more for my own territory. I wanted her on the other side of the world, by preference; or at least across the Atlantic, so that the trouble and expense of sending forces after me to bring me back would be so great she would delay as long as possible in doing so. It was, I believed, a reasonable reason for wishing her success. Therefore, as the week of fighting went on and casualties mounted, I looked grim along with everyone else in the Empress’ camp—but for my own private reasons.

About Thursday, Doc finally arrived.

“Porniarsk’s found it?” I said, the moment we could get off someplace where we were safe from being overheard. In this daylight instance, that meant a training area behind the field hospital, where we could see there was no one else within earshot.

“No,” he said. “Not yet.”

“Good!” I said. He stared at me for a fraction of a second.

“Never mind,” I told him. “I’ll explain later. What’s the rest of the news?”

“I was going to say,” he said, “Porniarsk doesn’t have it yet, but he thinks he’s close—”

“Hell’s bloody buckets!”

This time he really did stare at me, his tanned young face stretched smooth-skinned with puzzlement.

“I’ve got a reason,” I said. “Go on.”

“I was saying, Porniarsk hasn’t found the furthest possible future configuration the device can show; but he did find a sort of sticking point—some point where he got hung up for some reason. He’s pretty sure he can get the tank to go beyond it, with a little more work; but he says to tell you he thinks this sticking point is some kind of sign he’s close to the ultimate.”

I took a deep breath.

“All right,” I said. “If he has, he has. I’ll talk to you about that in a minute. Anything else important? How’s everybody? The community running the way it should?”

“Nothing else. I’ve got some letters for you, of course.” He tapped the leather wallet that hung from one of his shoulders. He always brought me a bundle of personal mail, that being the ostensible reason for his coming. “But everyone’s fine. And the place’s running, like always, on the button.”

“Fine. Let’s go back to my tent.”

We headed toward it. It was a matter of elementary caution not to talk to him for more than a few seconds as we were now, for fear of triggering off suspicions. Given the important and general news, we could do a fairly good job of discussing matters in hyperbole while I went through the home mail, even if there might be ears listening.

At the tent the Old Man leaped up to seize my hand, then turned to grasp one of Doc’s as well. He walked with us to a pair of armchairs, still hanging on, and hunkered down between us.

Since he and I had been away from home, he had become more dependent, not only on me, who had been the only human, originally, he would get close to, but on Doc during Doc’s brief visits.

“Make yourself a drink,” I said to Doc now, “while I go through these letters.”

“Thanks,” he said enthusiastically. He pried his hand loose from the Old Man’s and went over to the table that did duty as my liquor cabinet. Doc was, in fact, a nondrinker as well as a non-smoker. But he always carried cigarettes with him, and he was expert at making a show of both smoking and drinking, these being only two of a large number of casual acts he had perfected, apparently on the off-chance that the misdirection in them might prove useful-someday. I ripped open my letters and read them.

They were perfectly ordinary, personal mail from home; and in spite of the fact that they were intended primarily as camouflage, I found myself going through them as eagerly as anyone else would, away from home and family against his will. Marie was still worried about Wendy, who herself had written me a few lines of pure prattle—under duress probably. Ellen had written almost as brief a note, saying that things were fine, just the way I’d left them, and there was no need to worry about anything. I read the last line as a hint to take Marie’s motherly concern with a certain amount of advisement. Ellen’s language could not have been any more spare and stiff if she herself had been a soldier in the field; so that the word “love” at the end looked incongruous. But I knew her.

Bill wrote he was pleased with the way things were going. From him, this would be a reference to Porniarsk’s work. Also, he mentioned that he had finally refined the “emergency harvest plans,” which would be a reference to my orders that they all split up and scatter if Paula suddenly decided to take some of them hostage as insurance against my noncooperation. Porniarsk sent no message.

“Good,” I said to Doc, when the last letter had been read. “Things seem all right at home.”

“They are,” he answered. “Have you got letters for me to take back?”

“Over on the writing table, there,” I said. He went to get them. “Were you planning on heading back right away?”

“Unless there’s something to keep me here.”

He tucked the letters I had written into his wallet, came back and sat down. The Old Man took his hand again.

“I was just thinking—why don’t you stick around a day or so until we’ve taken this local area? They’re putting up quite a fight, and if you stay you’ll be able to go back and tell the women personally that I didn’t get hurt in the process.”

“Glad to,” said Doc. “You’ve got a good life here. Far as I’m concerned, it’s a vacation with all expenses paid.”

He had a nice, light tone to his voice as he said it; but his eyes were sharp on mine, ready to read why I was asking him to stick around. I shook my head very slightly, to tell him not now, and started to talk about the situation, saying nothing that wasn’t highly complimentary to Paula and confident about her eventual achievements here, but filling him bit by bit with data on the actual state of affairs militarily. When I was done, he knew what the facts were, but not what the connection was between these and the reason I wanted him to stick around.

That was the third day of the battle for control of the area. It was not until Sunday that Paula’s soldiers overran most of the strong points of the opposition and not until Monday afternoon that they finished mopping up.

“As long as you’ve stayed this long, you might as well stay for the victory celebration, too,” I told Doc.

“Suits me,” he said. His voice sounded a little thickly from one of the couches in my tent where he sprawled with a glass in his hand; but his eyes were as clean and steady as the eyes of a sniper looking along the sights of his rifle.

I was more glad to have him there than I had thought. I had seen the pattern of the battle’s consequences building all week. Paula and Aruba, in particular, must be seeing the same thing themselves, now that the fight was over and the returns were in. So, while the rank and file survivors whooped it up in celebration, Paula herself and her immediate staff would now be biting into the bitter fruit of a win that had cost so highly. The way they would react, I had told myself, could tell me a lot more about their patterns; and part of what I might learn might be useful information to send home with Doc.

Paula had already had to face one particular ugly truth; that there was a point beyond which her well-trained soldiers would not obey her. From dressed-up recruits they had turned into veterans in the bloodbath of the last seven days; and commanders back to the dawn of history could have told her what would happen when such soldiers were finally allowed to overrun an enemy who had bled them heavily in preceding days. Her kids had turned into killers. They slaughtered right and left on that Monday afternoon as they subjugated the conquered people.

It was Paula’s first setback. There were aircraft mechanics and boat mechanics, as well as other experts, among her former enemies that were worth regiments to her; but there was no way she could hold her blood-high soldiery back long enough to weed out such valuable individuals from the otherwise killable chaff of the local population. Monday cost her dearly.

Nonetheless, she had to put a good face on it and appear to encourage the wild celebration that ensued that night. It began at late afternoon and went on until dawn, by which time all but a few rarely tough individuals had collapsed. It was at dawn that Aruba came for me.

That he came himself for me, rather than sent for me, was an index of his upset. He stepped into my tent, peered for a second at the still form of Doc, who appeared to be asleep on one of the couches, and then looked back at me. In the early daylight coming through the plastic windows of the tent, his face was sallow, the shade of new liverwurst.

“She wants to see you,” he said.

“Paula?” I asked.

He nodded. I got to my feet. I was still dressed. Anything could have happened in that night just past and I had not felt like trying to sleep.

“What about?” I asked, as I went with him out into the cool morning. A breeze was blowing from the ocean.

“She’ll want to tell you herself,” he said and licked his lips. He had been badly shaken and I could see him reaching for a bottle the minute he was alone in his own quarters.

I nodded indifferently enough, but inwardly I braced myself. On this morning, her purpose in wanting to see me would not be good. I walked alongside Aruba to the entrance of the pavilion tent, where two of her officers—colonels—now stood with machine rifles, doing sentry duty. He stopped at the tent flap.

“Go in,” he said, “she’s waiting for you.”

I went in alone. Paula was alone also, wearing a filmy yellow dressing gown as if she had just risen from bed; but her face was hard and weary with the look that comes from being up and tensely awake for hours.

“Marc,” she said, and her voice was pure industrial diamond in tone, “there’s a paper over there on the desk. Sign it.”

“Sign...?” I went across to the desk and looked down. It was a neatly typed letter, several pages long, beneath the letterhead she had given me as one of her staff.

“Just sign it,” she said.

“Not until I read it,” I answered.

Our eyes clashed. Then she shrugged and turned away; but I could almost see the note her memory made of this, my balking at her command. It would be recalled when the hour was right.

“Of course,” she said.

I bent my head to the letter again and read. It was like being unexpectedly hit in the stomach. Or, more accurately, it was like a sickening collision in the dark, running full tilt into a concrete wall you had known was there all the time, but whose existence you had put out of mind—an impact so unexpected and brutal it left you nauseated; because suddenly I understood Paula, saw her complete and naked in the glaring, fluorescent light of what she was planning to set me up for.

I read that I had been shocked by the irresponsible behavior of some of her soldiers in taking over the enemy area. But, over and above my shock, I had been aghast to see the criminal murder of certain innocent individuals among the defenders; artisans and mechanics, as well as other trained personnel, who had only been in the enemy camp under duress. The slaughter of these innocents was not only a heinous crime against them as individuals, but amounted to treason against the Empire, since the Empress was now deprived of the willing services of these people and many of her subjects would suffer because of that lack. Consequently, I called upon her formally to take action against the criminals responsible and see that they were brought to justice, since I, with the skills that had allowed me to halt the ravages of the time storm, could see more deeply and clearly than anyone into the terrible cost we must all bear because of the deaths of these innocents.

Suddenly, reading this, the pattern I had been building on Paula was complete. I saw the hell she had in mind not only for the soldiers responsible for delaying her here over the coming winter, but for anyone who had been around to witness this happening to her; and that told me more about her than she might have betrayed to me in two more years of my observing her.

I signed.

“I’m proud to do this,” I said, taking the letter over to her. “It doesn’t say anything I didn’t feel myself. No wonder you’re the Empress, Paula. You can even read minds.”

She smiled and took the letter. I was by no means forgiven for wanting to read before signing, but for the present small moment, the smile was genuine. I would never have risked flattering her so grossly before I had stepped through the flap of this tent; but now I knew when and where she was vulnerable.

“Dear Marc,” she said. “You understand.”

She looked at me; and I understood, all right. Ironically, suddenly the moment I had patiently waited for, in which I could gain control over her by securing her physically, was with me. In this devastated moment she was available, if I had still wanted her. But the fact was, after reading that letter, I now would not have touched her with a shark-stick.

“More than ever before,” I said. “Do you want me to let other people know I’ve written you this letter?”

She hesitated, but it was only the habit of caution operating in her. Again, if she had been herself, I myself would have hesitated to show her such rapid agreement. But she was not herself. That was the crucial truth that had broken out into the open, with the completing of her pattern in my mind just now. She had a flaw I had never really appreciated until now, a deep flaw that would cost her the rulership of the world that had seemed so possible up until now. Already, she was adapting to my own hint that I was eager to accept the authorship of the letter she held. Already she was beginning to make herself believe the attractive idea that I had indeed written it on my own initiative.

“If I just drop the letter with you and go out to spread the word, I know your officers’ll be eager to back me up. I know they will,” I said. “Then we can arrest the guilty ones and bring them to justice before they have time to fill the minds of their fellow soldiers with lies.”

“Yes.” She laid the letter softly down on the end-table beside her. “Of course. You’ve got my permission to tell what you’ve written me. Justice should be speedy.”

“I’ll go right now, then,” I said. “Wait a second, though. Maybe if you give me a written order to do what’s necessary, I can make sure none of them escape. Or, for that matter, with that kind of authority I could do anything necessary in connection with the matter....”

She smiled dazzlingly, seeing me setting the noose of responsibility for this so firmly around my own neck.

“Of course,” she said.

She crossed to the desk, wrote on the top sheet of an order pad sandwich, tore off the top sheet and pushed the carbon copy to the back of the desk.

“There you are.”

“Thank you.” I took it without looking at it and moved toward the door. “Probably I shouldn’t waste time....”

“No. No, you shouldn’t. I have to rest now; but—see me after lunch, Marc. Dear Marc.... What would I do without you?”

“Come on, now. You’re the Empress. You can do anything.”

She smiled dazzlingly.

I went out. Aruba was gone, as I had expected him to be; and I went directly back to my own tent. Doc was off the couch and on his feet the second the tent flap fell behind me.

“We’re leaving for home right away,” I said. “I’ll explain as we go. You armed?”

“My rifle’s with the jeep,” he said. He patted his shirt at belt level before and behind. “Belly gun and knife.”

“Right. I want your help in bringing some blood-soaked criminals to justice,” I said. “The Empress has given me special authority to corral the soldiers who committed atrocities on certain innocent people among the civilian population opposing us until tonight.”

His eyebrows went up ironically. I reached into my shirt pocket where I had put the order after folding it up, still without having read it. I unfolded it and read it now, then passed it to him.

“’Marc Despard has asked for authority from me, and I have given it to him, to do whatever is required...’” he nodded slowly. “All riiight!”

I took the order back from him and replaced it in my pocket.

“The first thing I want to do is check those future-built aircraft we captured,” I said, “to make sure none of those responsible for the atrocities are planning on using them for escaping. They may even have explosives to destroy the aircraft they can’t use. You’re an expert on explosives. What kind do you think they might be able to get hold of for something like that?”

He grinned and patted himself at belt level again.

“Primer cord,” he said. “It wouldn’t take much to do a lot of damage—particularly if they know what they’re doing.”

“That’s what we’ll search the area for, then. Come along.”

We headed out the door. The Old Man came with us.

“Want me to put him back inside?” Doc asked, as we stopped just beyond the tent.

“Why, no,” I said. “Seeing him with us, they won’t think I’m doing anything important. It’ll serve to allay suspicions—Major!”

I called out to a short, swarthy block of an officer in his mid-twenties who was passing by. The fact that he was on his feet at all this morning meant that he had not been deeply involved in the celebrations of the night before. He came closer and I recognized him. There were only so many majors in Paula’s army, in any case.

“Major Debrow? Sorry to interrupt whatever you’re doing; but I’ve got a special job and I’m going to have to ask you to help. Take a look at this.”

I passed him Paula’s authorization.

“You see,” I said, while he read it, “we want to move before these criminals take off on us—don’t we, Major?”

His face did not agree. Someone who was unprejudiced might have found a trace of loathing in it for me, a civilian who called combat-battered soldiers “criminals.”

“Yes, Mr. Despard.”

“Good. I knew I could count on you, Major. We’ve got an idea that some of them might be trying to get away in some of the valuable future aircraft these people had. We’re going to go and check. I want you to come along with us.”

“Those planes are locked up, as well as being under guard,” Debrow said. “Nobody could get away with one of them.”

“Let’s make sure.”

We walked toward that part of the former airport where the post-twentieth-century planes were kept. It was not a short distance, but eventually we clambered over a low barrier of sandbags and found ourselves not more than forty feet from the entrance to a separate hangar, around which perhaps a dozen apparently sober and competent male soldiers stood guard.

“Go get their officer and bring him here, quietly, so we can explain things, will you, Major?”

“Just what is it you want?” Debrow asked. “What do you want him to do?”

“I want to check the men on guard and have a look inside,” I said. “And I want the officer with us when we do that.”

Debrow went forward to the two soldiers on guard at the hangar door and was challenged. As he answered, I turned to Doc and saw him looking at me questioningly.

“I want you and me to take off from here in one of those planes inside,” I said in a low voice. “I don’t want the other planes left behind to be workable; and I want the soldiers on guard here out of action. I’ll try to arrange it to give you a chance at them, one at a time.”

“Just the two of us to leave. Not the major?”

“Not the major.”

Doc nodded. Debrow came back, led us forward to the hangar doors and in through a small personnel door set in one of them. Inside was the large, dim, echoing interior of the hangar with small, pearly glowings in the gloom that were the future aircraft. To our right was a glassed-in office brightly lit with self-powered battle fluorescents, standing in for the built-in fluorescent lights in the ceiling, now dark for lack of power from the community’s central supply.

Inside at a desk was a single thin, young officer with first lieutenant’s silver bars on the straps of his uniform leather jacket. He got to his feet as we came in.

“Major?” he said.

“Lieutenant,” said Debrow. “This is Marc Despard.”

“I know Mr. Despard,” said the lieutenant.

“And his . . Debrow glanced at Doc and the Old Man, “servants. Mr. Despard has some special authority from the Empress for you to see.”

I passed Paula’s authorization to the lieutenant. The light blond eyebrows jumped several times while he was reading it, although the rest of his narrow face remained calm.

“Yes sir,” he said passing the letter back to me. “What is it you want, Mr. Despard?”

“First,” I said, “I want to check the future aircraft, without making a fuss about it. Just you, the Major and I, and Doc here.”

I nodded at Doc.

“Doc,” I said, “has had some experience in handling sabotage. If we find one or more of the aircraft has been booby-trapped, he may be of help to us in disarming it. This Experimental with us is called the Old Man. His sense of smell, particularly, is much more acute than ours, and he works well with Doc on jobs like this. Now, how many of the future planes are there?”

“Nine,” said the lieutenant.

“Does anyone here know how to fly them?”

“Nobody’s tried so far,” said the lieutenant. “I believe the plan is to talk first to these people who had them.”

“It seems to me I heard they weren’t hard to operate,” I said. “The criminals we’re looking for may have heard that, too. These planes would buy them anything they wanted, anywhere in the rest of the world, if they could successfully steal them from the Empress.”

I saw both officers looking at me oddly and wondered if I’d been laying on my image of self-importance too thickly.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s go then. Major, Lieutenant, we’ll take three planes apiece. We won’t take the Experimental on this first search. I’ll keep Doc and the Experimental with me until they’re needed. Do you have flashlights?”

“You mean hand torches?” said the lieutenant. “Yes, sir.” He went to a locker across the office and came back with flashlights for Debrow and myself. Leaving the Old Man in the office, we went out into the hangar proper and split up.

I took the three planes closest to me, forcing the two officers to take the ones further over. In the illumination of the flashlight, the first aircraft I came to seemed to glow with an inner gleam of its own. It was made of some milky, semi-translucent plastic and looked light enough to float up in the air if it was breathed on too heavily. But in spite of appearances, it was solid and firm when I pulled open the door in its curving side and stepped in. Within, possibly because of the almost egg-shaped hull, there was more room than I would have guessed. I went forward to the control panel.

It was a simple-looking affair, a single small television-like screen inset in the panel and a five-key keyboard just below it. I pushed down one of the keys at random and the lights went on; not only on the panel but all over within the aircraft.

“Ready,” said a voice.

I grinned. There had been no pattern at all to what I was looking at; and now, suddenly, there was very nearly a complete one.

“How do I take off?” I asked.

“You may pilot yourself, or instruct a takeoff and flight.”

“Thanks. Go back to sleep.” I punched the same key again and the lights went out. Experimentally, in the glow of the flashlight, I punched another of the keys.

“Ready,” said a voice, as the lights went on once more.

“Go back to sleep.”

So, that was it. The secret to flying these things. It was that there was no secret at all. I punched off again, the lights went out and I beckoned Doc to follow me. Together, we left the plane.

“All right,” I whispered to him, “get busy taking out those other planes. I’ll take my time with the two I’ve still got to look at. Meet you at the last one, the third one up straight ahead near the back of the hangar. I’ll go as slow as I can, but don’t let those two officers see you.”

“They won’t,” said Doc and he evaporated in the gloom.

I took the Old Man and went on to the next plane and let myself in, then sat down before the control panel and turned it on. I had quite a little conversation with the computer, or whatever it was, on this second aircraft; and by the time I had finished asking questions, I had as good a general knowledge of this kind of craft as if I had kept one around for some years. They were ridiculously, child-level foolproof, and operable.

After I had wasted as many minutes as I thought I reasonably could, I went on to the third craft, poked about inside for a while, and then stepped out again. Neither Doc nor the other two men were in sight. I stepped around to the far side of the plane to wait; and a finger tapped me on the shoulder.

I whirled, stepping back instinctively as I did so, and found Doc grinning at me.

“All set,” he said.

“Good. Come on then.”

We walked toward the next plane over and found the lieutenant there, conscientiously examining the craft’s undercarriage with his flashlight.

“Did you find anything, Lieutenant?”

He got to his feet.

“No sir. You, sir?”

“No luck for me, either. Maybe Major Debrow’s found something. Shall we go see?”

We all moved over and found Debrow inside his last aircraft. After a moment he came out.

“Nothing,” he said.

“I’m greatly relieved,” I said. “Now, if you don’t mind, Lieutenant, I’d like to examine the men you’ve got on guard here?”

“But why, sir? We didn’t find anything.”

“For that very reason. We want to be sure. The Empress wants us to be sure. Doesn’t she, Major?”

“Lieutenant,” said Debrow with a tight throat.

“Yes, Major. Yes, Mr. Despard. If you’ll come up to the office, I’ll bring in the men on the doors first—”

“You’ll bring them in one at a time, Lieutenant,” I said. “Is there another door to this hangar besides those in the front?”

“There’s a small service entrance in the back wall.”

“Good.” I turned to Doc. “After we examine each one, I’d like you to take him out the back way and back to his post. See he doesn’t talk to any of the others, particularly not to any who haven’t been examined yet. You go out with the lieutenant here, so you’ll know where to bring them back to. Lieutenant?”

“Mr. Despard?”

“I imagine you’ll be taking the place of each of your guards as you relieve them. If Doc should come for you without returning the man he last took—if he comes for you alone—it’ll mean we’ve found one of them. I’d like you to come back with Doc as naturally as possible, so as not to alarm any of the others we may find.”

The lieutenant opened his mouth, glanced at the Major and closed it again.

“Perhaps,” said Debrow, “it might be better if the lieutenant simply stayed here, Mr. Despard. It’s a little unusual, his filling in for one of the enlisted men on post; and—”

“If you don’t mind, Major?” I said.

“No sir,” said Debrow slowly. “I don’t mind, sir.”

“Then we’ll do it this way, I think. Lieutenant, will you take Doc out so he can get the first guard?”

They went off. I turned to Debrow.

“Major, how well do you know the lieutenant?”

“I’ve known him for several years. More than three years, I’d say.”

“But do you know him well?”

Debrow looked at me with sudden caution. After a second he answered, slowly.

“I couldn’t say... well, Mr. Despard.”

“Yes,” I said.

I left it at that. After a few minutes of silence on both our parts, Doc came back with the first guard, a chunky lance corporal five and a half feet tall and looking about the age of the lieutenant.

“Your name?” I asked.

“Lance Corporal Charles Onash, sir. Third Platoon, Fourth Company, Blue Regiment.”

“Have you ever ridden a motorcycle, Corporal Onash?”

“No sir.”

“Good. You can go. Take him back, Doc.”

The next man had never ridden a motorcycle either. No more had the three after that. The fifth man we questioned had. I had to reach for some other mysterious question.

“Ever fly a sailplane, Private Mahn?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, sir.”

“How about drive a hydroplane?”

“Yes sir.”

Debrow shifted uneasily in the seat he had taken behind one of the desks. I was beginning to feel a little trapped.

“How are you on reading Sanskrit?”

“Sir?”

“I said, can you read Sanskrit?”

“No sir.”

“All right,” I said, with inner relief, “take him back, Doc.”

“Sir?” said Debrow, almost a little timidly, after Private Mahn had left. “I’m afraid I don’t understand “You will, in due course.”

He sat back without saying anything more. The seven more enlisted men on duty there came through and I managed to send them all back after getting each one to admit he didn’t know how to do something or other.

“Mr. Despard,” began Debrow, after the final one had left. “That’s all the men on duty here. Does that mean—”

“It means this situation is a good deal more serious than I thought. Are you armed, Major?”

“No sir.”

“That’s unfortunate. Well, we’ll have to do what we can. I’ll stay here. Will you go quietly to the personnel door we came in by, and stand just inside it. Lock it if you can, and listen for any sounds you can hear on the other side. If anyone tries to force it open, let them; but stand back out of sight and when they’re through, go for help.”

“Yes sir. But for Christ’s sake, Mr. Despard, what’s supposed to be going on here?”

“I can’t tell you quite yet. I’ve my duty to Paula—to the Empress—to think of,” I said. “Get going now. I’m going to step off into the shadows just outside this office and be ready to warn you if anyone who shouldn’t comes from the other end of the building.”

He went. I took the Old Man by the hand and followed the Major out, moving off to where the shadows hid us from him, but where we would be in line to intercept Doc, coming back from returning the last soldier to his post. From where we were, I could see the thin line of daylight showing around the personnel door, blocked out now and then by an uneasily shifting body standing just this side of it. Eventually, this occultation ceased, and a second or two later, Doc emerged alone from the dimness in front of us.

“All set,” he said under his breath.

“All taken care of?” I asked.

He nodded.

“The lieutenant?”

“I saved him until next to last.”

“All right. The Major’s over by the personnel door.”

“Was. I’ve taken care of him, too. He was the last of them.”

I wanted to ask how many of them were dead, but the words stuck in my throat. It was a lifesaver to have a young timberwolf like Doc for a friend, but it was a little illogical to demand he be wolf and harmless at the same time.

“How about the aircraft?” I asked.

“The first one you looked at, I didn’t touch,” Doc answered. “The rest are set to blow any time you want.”

“All right. I’ve got to see if we can get the hangar doors open easily. Otherwise, you may have to blow a hole in them—”

“No sweat there either. They’re supposed to be electrically operated, but there’s a chain block-and-tackle type dingus to use if the power’s off. Can you fly that thing, Marc?”

“I can fly it. Or rather, I can tell it to fly itself and it will.”

“Just checking,” he said; and I could barely see his grin in the gloom.

“I don’t blame you. I would too,” I told him. I was very tired, suddenly. “Why don’t you rig the other planes to destruct as soon as we’re safely out of here, and I’ll move the one we’re taking up to this side of the doors? Then you open the door, hop in, and we’ll move.”

“Right.”

He moved off. I turned on my flashlight and led the Old Man toward the aircraft Doc had specified as untouched. We climbed in, shut the door, and I depressed one of the keys.

“Ready.”

“Move up slowly on the ground to the inside of the doors to this building. Or—to put it another way—move slowly forward along the ground and I’ll tell you which way to turn and when to stop.”

The craft stirred and seemed to slide rather than roll forward.

“Left,” I told it. “Left maybe ten degrees. Now maybe five degrees more. All right, straight ahead... stop!”

We halted just inside the hangar doors. I opened the door of the craft and waited. In a moment, there was a faint, rattling sound to be heard through the opening; and the big doors slid apart to either side of the opening they guarded, and bright sunlight blinded us.

“That’s good enough!” I called softly into the brilliance after a moment. But the doors had already stopped parting with just enough room for us to go through. I heard a faint thud and Doc was in the cabin, shutting the aircraft door behind him.

“All set,” he said.

“Go!” I told the craft, “Straight ahead, out on the ground through this opening, take off and climb to three thousand meters. Head west”

It slid forward through the doors into the full sunlight. Without any run, it leaped suddenly skyward. There was a sound like a paper bag popping below and behind us. I glanced back and down to see smoke coming from the open doorway of the hangar building, dwindling rapidly to toy size below us. A second later, we were up where the roads looked like thick pencil lines and the landscape was starting to move backwards beneath us toward the sun half way up in the clear sky.

“That takes care of everything, I guess,” Doc said. He came forward and pushed the Old Man off the seat next to mine—a move the Old Man took without complaint. It was surprising what the Old Man would take from Doc, nowadays. Almost as much as Sunday used to take from Ellen. Doc seated himself where the Old Man had been.

“Need any help flying, or anything like that?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Then I’ll get some sleep,” he said, imperturbably. “This gadget’s better than a locked door. No one’s going to break in and surprise you in the middle of the air.”

He curled up in the seat, closed his eyes, and dropped off.

I was not so lucky.