“I was born in your state in 1924,” he explained. “Entered the Patrol at age thirty. That’s why I decided I should be the guy who interviewed you. We have pretty much the same background; we ought to understand each other.”
I took a steadying gulp of the whisky and soda he’d poured for us and said cautiously, “I’m not too sure, sir. Heard something about you at the school. Seems you led quite an adventurous life even before you joined. And afterward – Me, I’ve been a quiet, stick-in-the-mud type.”
“Not really.” Everard glanced at a sheet of notes he held. His left hand curled around a battered briar pipe. Once in a while he’d take a puff or a sip. “Let’s refresh my memory, shall we? You didn’t see combat during your Army hitch, but that was because you served your two years in what we laughingly call peacetime. You did, though, make top scores on the target range. You’ve always been an outdoorsman, mountaineering, skiing, sailing, swimming. In college, you played football and won your letter in spite of that lanky build. In grad school your hobbies included fencing and archery. You’ve traveled a fair amount, not always to the safe and standard places. Yes, I’d call you adventurous enough for our purposes. Possibly a tad too adventurous. That’s one thing I’m trying to sound you out about.”
Feeling awkward, I glanced again around the room. On a high floor, it was an oasis of quiet and cleanliness. Bookshelves lined the walls, save for three excellent pictures and a pair of Bronze Age spears. Else the only obvious souvenir was a polar bear rug that he had remarked was from tenth-century Greenland.
“You’ve been married twenty-three years, to the same lady,” Everard remarked. “These days, that indicates a stable character.”
There was no sign of femininity here. To be sure, he might well keep a wife, or wives, elsewhen. “No children,” Everard went on. “Hm, none of my business, but you do know, don’t you, that if you want, our medics can repair every cause of infertility this side of menopause? They can compensate for a late start on pregnancies, too.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Fallopian tubes – Yes, Laurie and I have discussed it. We may well take advantage someday. But we don’t think we’d be wise to begin parenthood and my new career simultaneously.” I formed a chuckle. “If simultaneity means anything to a Patroller.”
“A responsible attitude. I like that.” Everard nodded.
“Why this review, sir?” I ventured. “I wasn’t invited to enlist merely on the strength of Herbert Ganz’s recommendation. Your -people put me through a whole battery of far-future psych tests before they told me what it meant.”
They’d called it a set of scientific experiments. I’d cooperated because Ganz had asked me to, as a favor to a friend of his. It wasn’t his field; he was in Germanic languages and literature, the same as me. We’d met at a professional gathering, become drinking buddies, and corresponded quite a bit. He’d admired my papers on Deor and Widsith, I’d admired his on the Gothic Bible.
Naturally, I did not know then that it was his. It was published in Berlin in 1853. Later he was recruited into the Patrol, and eventually he came uptime under an alias, in search of fresh talent for his undertaking.
Everard leaned back. Across the pipe, his gaze probed at me. “Well,” he said, “the machines told us you and your wife are trustworthy, and would both be delighted by the truth. What they could not measure was how competent you’d be in the job for which you were proposed. Excuse me, no insult intended. Nobody is good at everything, and these missions will be tough, lonesome, delicate.” He paused. “Yes, delicate. The Goths may be barbarians, but that doesn’t mean they are stupid, or that they can’t be hurt as badly as you or me.”
“I understand,” I said. “But look, all you need do is read the reports I’ll have filed in my own personal future. If the early accounts show me bungling, why, just tell me to stay home and become a book researcher. The outfit needs those too, doesn’t it?”