Debt of Ages (19 page)

"Well," the young transtemporal voyager replied, "the deterioration hasn't really been steady. But the trend is downhill. Nevertheless, nobody thinks his life is in any immediate danger, and there's been no talk of recalling Ecdicius from the Danube."

"Given what passes for medical science here, that's not too reassuring," Sarnac said dourly. "A turn for the worse could kill him in no time."

"That's true," Andreas acknowledged. "I don't think I'll ever get used to watching what these people endure under the name of medical care." But his tone was that of a man admitting a flaw in a milieu to which he seemed to have taken like a duck to water. He'd changed dramatically in the time since they'd been apart—cheerier and generally more alive. Of course, Sarnac reminded himself, it had been a considerably longer subjective time for Andreas than for the rest of them. But he wondered what had happened during that time to banish the moody, withdrawn Andreas he remembered.

"Nevertheless," Tylar put in, "we can't be taken by surprise even if that should happen. We don't know many of the details, but we do know that the Restorer doesn't die until after Ecdicius returns to Constantinople and is assassinated. Speaking of Ecdicius, I trust you've gained the confidence of his family as we'd planned."

"Oh, yes," Andreas nodded. "The Restorer introduced me to them as a nobleman from Bithynia, in Asia Minor. I could get away with it because Ecdicius's wife Faustina is also from Gaul and this is the furthest east she's ever been. In the years since then, I've gotten to know them well on my various 'visits to Constantinople' between spells in stasis. I don't mind telling you it's bothered me, deceiving them. Faustina's a true lady. And Julia—that's the oldest child, eighteen now—is so charming that . . . ! Well, you've met her, haven't you, Koreel? You know the way she . . ."

Aha!
thought Sarnac.

Tylar dragged Andreas back to earth. "Now, now! Remember, all the dissembling is in a good cause."

"Of course! We can't leave them behind in Constantinople when we get Ecdicius out!"

"Indeed not," Tylar affirmed. "If captured, they could be used as hostages, giving the usurpers potentially disastrous leverage with Ecdicius." Andreas blinked; he clearly hadn't been thinking of that aspect of things. "Which leads to my next question: how are the preparations for our flight progressing?"

"On schedule," Koreel said. "The Restorer has let us use the Boucoleon Harbor, adjacent to the Sacred Palace. I've bought a ship, allegedly for my 'trading fleet,' and quietly moored it there. The Restorer secretly supplied a crew; they're all Britons, old salts from the Saxon Shore Fleet but with a lot of experience in these waters. Just as importantly, they're personally loyal to him. All they know is that they're to perform a mission of vital importance to him, and that's enough for them. They'll keep their mouths shut and ask no questions. We're holding them on standby; money's no object, of course."

"It seems you've both done well," Tylar approved. "And now comes the most difficult part for all of us: waiting for Ecdicius to return to Constantinople. As soon as he does, we must activate the plan and get him out at once, for we've no idea how long he's in the city before the assassins strike. So some of us at least must be active and on watch at all times. We can use stasis to alleviate the tedium, but only in shifts."

For a moment they all sipped their wine in silence. Then Artorius finished his, set the cup down with a click and excused himself. If Andreas had become more animated, the former High King had become less so. Sarnac wondered if it was related to reawakened feelings where Gwenhwyvaer was concerned and a too-brief reunion. But his moroseness didn't seem precisely of that sort. Then understanding came, and Sarnac bit his tongue at the thought of his earlier "sudden death" remark as he belatedly recalled
whose
death was under discussion.

Presently Koreel and Andreas also said their goodnights. Sarnac, who didn't feel sleepy and got the impression that Tylar didn't either, poured another round of wine for the two of them. The time traveller inclined his head in grave thanks and they regarded each other in the wretched light of the room's oil lamps.
People must wear their eyes out young, trying to read in what this era uses for artificial light,
Sarnac thought.
And spectacles won't be invented for another eight hundred years in my timeline, God knows when in this one. Well, it's not a problem for the majority, I suppose; they're illiterate.

"Well," he broke the silence after a moment, "we've settled one question." Tylar raised an interrogatory eyebrow. "Andreas," Sarnac amplified. "He's still with us. He didn't vanish with a pop or anything like that the instant we first changed this timeline. And we
have
changed it, you know."

"Our program of directing this history's flow into a desired channel is very far from completed," Tylar cautioned. "Indeed, it's barely commenced."

"Yeah, I know. If we dropped dead tonight, the divergences from recorded history as Andreas knows it would be unpredictable. But there would
be
divergences! Acacius' restoration to the Patriarchy in 486 and the Restorer's subsequent pro-Monophysite moves didn't happen according to Andreas's history books. And we've planted the notion of separation in Gwenhwyvaer and Cerdic."

"There's no way to know whether those changes are sufficient to preclude Andreas's existence, on the assumption that it
can
be precluded. But I'm quibbling. In general terms, you're right. This history has, to some extent at least, been irrevocably changed. It is now up to us to direct the change."

"Tylar," Sarnac said after a pause, "you mentioned earlier that most of your people wouldn't be able to handle this mission, which flies in the face of their whole history-preserving orientation. How are
you
handling it?"

"Better than I expected," the time traveller answered briskly, "considering that my life has, as you say, been devoted to preserving the past. We were firmly convinced that alternate realities were impossible—and I continue to believe that this is the only one in existence. But it
does
exist, and in it the rationale for my life's work doesn't obtain. I can . . . it's almost . . . well, I hardly know how to describe it. There's something deliciously wicked about it."

"Hey," Sarnac said, alarmed, "this isn't going to become habit-forming, is it?"

"Oh, no." Beneath Tylar's reassuring tones, Sarnac detected a faint sigh. "I'm doing this to fulfill an ethical obligation, as you know. But I can't claim I'm sorry to have come." He gave Sarnac a look whose sharpness was visible in the room's dimness. "And what about you, Robert? Are you glad you came?"

The quietly spoken question was so unlike Tylar that it took Sarnac aback. He hadn't often had conversations like this with the time traveller, for his awareness of the gulf between them was a barrier to intimacy.
My supply of conversation openers has always been kind of limited. "What's your world like, Tylar?" doesn't quite make it. Could I go back fifty thousand years, sit down at a campfire and tell the Cro-Magnons about the twenty-third century?
But now Tylar had, uncharacteristically, come forward with a question about his own thoughts and feelings.

"Yes," he finally said. "I think I am. And I'll tell you why. You once said that your people always had to suppress any impulse to take sides, regardless of what they witnessed in history. You explained that this wasn't just because history as recorded was sacrosanct, but also because your projections of probable outcomes suggested that things generally seemed to work out for the best in the long run. So intervening on the side of the good guys was as likely as not to have catastrophic long-term consequences."

"Yes, I recall commenting on the irony involved. Of course," Tylar continued, settling back into his accustomed pedantic mode, "you must bear in mind that it's difficult to generalize on the subject. Historically, the 'good guys' have won so seldom that the total of such instances doesn't make for a very meaningful statistical universe."

"Yeah, so I'd gathered. Well, I accepted what you said. But I didn't have to like it! Now, this time . . ." He leaned forward, and the disconcertingly light-blue eyes in his dark face held Tylar—and all at once the time traveller understood why the human race had endured long enough to give birth to his own people.

"This time," Sarnac repeated, "the good guys are going to win! They're going to win, and there's going to be no ambiguity about the consequences of their victory. We're going to make history do something right, for a change—and we're going to make history
like
it! I personally guarantee it, Tylar!" The cold flame that shone through his eyes died down and he spoke more softly. "Yeah, I'm glad I came."

* * *

Winter gave way to spring and the Restorer's health continued to fail. Pope Gaius came to Constantinople to be present at the end—Sarnac glimpsed his arrival from among the street crowd and observed that Sidonius Apollinaris had put on weight. And the death watch, as he thought of it, went on.

At least the weather's better for it now
, he thought as he swung over the gunwale of their ship and gazed around at the Boucoleon Harbor and the imperial gardens that rose in terraces above it to the Sacred Palace's eastern front. He'd had the good fortune to spend most of March in stasis. Now, the arrival of the Pope—who they knew had been around for the assassination—had set off warning bells, and Tylar had decreed that only one of them could be in stasis at any given time. At the moment the carefully hidden device held Artorius.

He considered the ship with the eye of one who'd done some sailing in his youth. She was a hundred-footer, whose twenty-five-foot beam gave her the stubby lines typical of Roman merchantmen. Many such ships were over twice as large in both dimensions, but
Nereid's Wake
was large enough for their needs, and would attract less attention at what was basically a yacht harbor than would one of the massive grain ships. She lacked the mizzenmast possessed by some larger ships, having only a mainmast with a large square sail and two little triangular topsails, and a rakishly forward-slanted
artemon
foremast that was more for steering than anything else. Despite her tubby dimensions,
Nereid's Wake
had a certain grace of line, with her sternpost rising in a smooth curve to a carved swan-head.

"Quite a beauty, isn't she?" He remarked to Andreas as the latter climbed up from below decks. "In spite of . . ." His gesture took in a paint job and assorted decorations that were, from his standpoint, typical of the place and time: garish and overdone.

"No doubt," Andreas replied in carefully neutral tones. The colonists of Chiron had had neither time nor wealth to spend on recreational revivals of obsolete technology, and he'd never set foot on a sailing vessel in his life. At least, Sarnac thought, he'd never experienced seasickness and was therefore blissfully ignorant of what he was in for.

Tylar had explained why they had to use this kind of transportation. Meeting the younger image of Artorius was the sort of marvel Ecdicius and Sidonius could be made to accept; but as for stepping through a glowing door from Constantinople into Italy . . . no. The miracles to which they would be exposed must be held to a minimum, to avoid contamination of this world's intellectual development. The scientific mind-set is born of the dawning realization that the universe is orderly and predictable, subject to laws which can be understood; it might well be aborted if these people had their noses rubbed in things too far beyond their horizons (
Or mine,
Sarnac thought ruefully) to be fitted into a rational world-picture. The last thing Tylar wanted was to revive the notion that the world is a terrifying chaos of incomprehensible forces wielded by capricious deities.

Still, Andreas looked as though he had some vague idea of how little he was going to like this voyage.

"Aw, come on!" Sarnac jollied him, leaning against the gunwale and grasping a shroud just above the deadeyes—a Roman invention, he recalled Tylar saying. "It's a beautiful afternoon, everything's in readiness, and we can relax for a while."

Naturally, it was at that moment that the emergency chime of his implant communicator tolled inside his skull.

He and Andreas exchanged a sharp look—the other had clearly been signalled also—and he glanced around the deck. The only crew member aboard was old Corineus, the skipper. He wasn't paying any particular attention, so he must not have noticed their startlement. But there was, Sarnac decided, no need to arouse the Briton's curiosity by appearing to talk to himself. He activated the communicator and subvocalized.

"What is it, Tylar?"

"It's happened." The time traveler's voice held and uncharacteristic repressed excitement. "Ecdicius has arrived in the city. He should be arriving at the sacred palace shortly."

So all the pieces are in place,
Sarnac thought.
Let the games begin.

"We have no idea how much or how little time we have before the assassins make their move," Tylar went on. "So we'd best set the plan in motion at once. I'll deactivate the stasis field. Are any of the crewmen immediately available?"

"Yeah. Corineus is aboard."

"Excellent. Send him to gather the rest of the crew. Artorius and I will be aboard shortly."

"Right." Sarnac broke the connection and spoke aloud in British. "Corineus, Tertullian sent me to tell you that we'll be departing sooner than we expected. Go ashore and round up the rest of the lads."

"Aye, Bedwyr." Like most contemporary people over thirty or so, Corineus looked older than he was. He also looked tough as well-aged oak, and the Mediterranean sun had burned his skin a like color. Given the right clothes and the right language, he would have fit in aboard a pirate ship of the seventeenth-century Spanish Main like part of the rigging. "Will we be departing this night? If so, I'll have to find some rowers to warp us out of this harbor."

"I can't say for certain, but probably so. Ask Tertullian. He should be here by the time you get back, and Gerontius." They had used Artorius's cover name with the crew, adding the detail that he was a relative of the Restorer. The imperial face was too well known for them not to notice a close family resemblance. But these weren't exactly men who moved in the Emperor's social circles; they wouldn't realize that it was
too
close.