Sometimes I myself have chafed at the restrictions on me. “Ah, Love! could thou and I with Fate conspire To grasp this sorry Scheme of Things entire-”
“Besides,” he added, “conceivably the Danellians will countermand the decision and order us to release the secret. I could return home to find that feature of my world wasn’t the same any longer. A trivial variation as far as the twentieth century is concerned, affecting nothing noticeable.”
“But later centuries?” the woman gasped.
“Yeah. We’ve only the gang’s word that it’ll confine its attentions to planets in the far future and beyond the Solar System. I’ll bet whatever you like that that word is worthless. Given the capabilities of the transmuter, why shouldn’t they play fast and loose with Earth? It’ll always be the human globe, and I don’t see how the Patrol can stop them.”
“Who are they?” Chaim whispered. “Have you any idea?”
Everard drank whisky and smoke, as if warmth could seep through his tongue into his spirit. “Too early to say, on my personal world line… or yours, hm? Plain to see, they’re from far uptime, though short of the Era of Oneness that precedes the Danellians. In the course of many millennia, information about the transmuter was bound to leak out – enough to give somebody a clear notion of the thing and of what he might do with it. Certainly he and his buddies are rootless desperados; they don’t give a damn that their action threatens to eliminate the society that begot them, and everybody living in it whom they ever knew. But I don’t think they are, say, Neldorians. This operation is too sophisticated. The enemy’s got to have spent a lot of lifespan, a lot of effort, getting to know the Phoenician milieu well and establishing that it is in fact a nexus.
“The organizing brain must be of genius level. But with a touch of childishness – did you notice that Friday the thirteenth date? Likewise, performing the sabotage practically next door to you. The M.O. – and my being recognized as a Patrolman-those do suggest – Merau Varagan?”
“Who?”
Everard didn’t reply. He went on mumbling, mostly to himself: “Could be, could be. Not that that’s much help. The gang did its homework, downtime of today, surely – yes, they’d want an informational baseline covering quite a few years. And this post is undermanned. The whole goddamn Patrol is.” Regardless of agents’ longevity. Sooner or later, something or other will get each and every one of us. And we don’t go back to cancel the deaths of our comrades, nor to see them again while they lived, because that could start an eddy in time, which might grow into a maelstrom; or if not, it would at least rack us too cruelly. “We can detect time vehicles arriving and departing, if we know where and when to aim our instruments. That may be how the gang discovered this is Patrol HQ, if they didn’t learn it routinely in the guise of honest visitors. Or they could have entered this era elsewhere and come by ordinary transportation, looking like any of countless legitimate contemporary people, the same way I tried to.
“We can’t ransack every bit of local space-time. We haven’t the manpower, nor dare we risk the disruption that so much activity of ours could cause. No, Chaim, Yael, we’ve got to find ourselves some clues, to narrow down our search. But how? Where do I start?”
His disguise being penetrated, Everard accepted the Zorachs’ offer of a guestroom. He’d be more comfortable here than in an inn, and handier to whatever gadgets he might need. However, he’d also be cut off from the real life of the city.
“I’ll arrange an interview with the king for you,” his host promised. “No difficulty; he’s a brilliant man, bound to be interested in an exotic like you.” He chuckled. “Therefore it will be very natural for Zakarbaal the Sidonian, who needs to cultivate the friendship of the Tyrians, to inform him of a chance meeting with you.”
“That’s fine,” Everard replied, “and I’ll enjoy paying the call. Maybe he can even be some help to us. Meanwhile, uh, we’ve got several hours of daylight left. I think I’ll stroll around town, start getting the feel of it, pick up a scent if I’m lucky.”