The Shield of Time (21 page)

Irritation somehow countered anxiety. When he added, “Remember, quite likely you are borrowing trouble and in fact nothing dreadful ever happened to your friends,” she could accept it. Why had her moods been seesawing like this, anyway? Well, she was newly back from wilderness, tossed into a period whose likeness and unlikeness to home were equally disturbing. She was rebellious at having her work stopped uncompleted, concerned about the We, grieved that she might never see them again, skittish at meeting a man who had decades of Patrol experience under his belt against her paltry four.
High time you calmed down, gal

“Your coffee’s gone cold,” Corwin said. “Here, I’ll see to that.” He took her cup away, brought it back empty, gave it a partial refill from the pot, and held a flask of brandy above. “I prescribe a spot of additive for both of us.”

“M-m, a … a microspot,” she yielded.

It helped, more as a gesture and a taste than through the minute alcohol content. He didn’t press more on her. Instead, he got to business. Intelligent queries and comments were the real medicine for strained nerves.

He fetched books, opened them to maps, showed her the geological ages of the land where she had camped. She had studied the history before, of course, but he recalled the larger context to her, vividly and with fresh details.

In the era she knew, Beringia had shrunk from its greatest extent. However, it was still a big territory, joining Siberia to Alaska, and its disappearance would take a
long while if you reckoned in human lives. Finally the sea, rising as the ice melted, would drown it; but by then America would be well peopled from the Arctic Ocean to the Land of Fire.

She had much to tell about the wildlife, less about the wild folk, yet she had inevitably and happily come to know those in some degree. Already implanted in him was the knowledge acquired by the first expedition, the Tula language, something of the customs and beliefs. She found he had pondered it, compared it to what he knew of savages elsewhere and elsewhen, extrapolated from his own experience.

That had been among the Paleo-Indians as they drifted southward through Canada. His aim was to trace their migrations back to the sources. Only by knowing what had happened could the Patrol hope to know what the nexus points were over which it should keep special watch. Though skeletal at best, the data would be better than nothing. Besides, others uptime were intensely interested as well, anthropologists, folklorists, artists of every kind seeking fresh inspiration.

Under Corwin’s guidance, Tamberly felt her recollections grow more fully fleshed than before—family groups dwelling apart, periodically gathering together, oftener linked by individual travelers, among whom young men in search of mates were commonest—simple rites, frequently grisly legends, pervasive fear of demons and ghosts, of storm and predator, of sickness and starvation—withal, merriment, much loving kindness, childlike joy whenever life offered pleasure—a special reverence for the bear, which might be older than the race itself—

“My goodness!” she exclaimed. Shadows stretched across the street outside. “I’d no idea we’d been at it this long.”

“Nor I,” Corwin said. “Time goes fast in company like yours. Best we call it a day, eh?”

“For sure. I can do horrid things to a hamburger and a beer.”

“You are staying in San Francisco?”

“Yes, at a small hotel near HQ till I’ve finished this debriefing. No sense in commuting between now and 1990.”

“Look here, you deserve better than a café meal. May I invite you to dinner? I know the worthwhile places in these years.”

“Uh, m-m—
”

“That dress of yours is perfectly fine. I’ll make myself presentable. Half a tick.” He rose and left the room before she could respond.

Whew!
…
Oh, why not? In fact
—
hm, easy there, gal, It has been a long while, but
—

Corwin returned as fast as promised, sporting tweed jacket and bolo tie. He drove them across the bridge to a Japanese restaurant near Fisherman’s Wharf. Over cocktails he suggested that perhaps, if she really wanted to continue in Beringia, he might just possibly arrange for a partnership. She decided on the spot that she’d better take that as a joke. When the cook came to prepare their sukiyaki at the table, Corwin told the man to stand aside and did the job himself, declaring, “Hokkaido style.” He described his experiences among the Paleo-Indians of Canada at length, dwelling on the dangerous moments. “Admirable chaps, but ferocious, touchy, no inhibitions about violence.” If any implications of that had crossed his mind, he didn’t seem to think they might occur to Tamberly.

After they were done, he proposed a drink at the Top of the Mark. She pleaded tiredness. Outside her hotel she gave him a handshake. “We should finish tomorrow,” she said, “and then I really must go straight uptime and see my folks.”

Every fall We met at Bubbling Springs. When weather grew daily more chill it was very good to wallow in warm mud and wash in the hot water that welled up thereabouts. Strong tastes and smells were defense against sickness; steam-wraiths kept unfriendly ghosts at a distance. We came from dwelling places along the whole coast, as far as the known world reached, for the jolliest of the year’s festivities. They brought plenty of food, since no one family could feed such a crowd, and shared it around. Among the special delicacies were the tasty oysters of Walrus Bay, carried alive in water-filled skins; fish, fowl, animals freshly caught, stuffed with herbs; dried berries and flowers gathered on sunny slopes; blubber if someone had killed a seal ashore or, wonder of wonders, a whale had gone aground. They also brought things to trade, fine pelts, pretty feathers and stones. They gorged, sang, danced, jested, freely made love. They swapped news, dickered, laid plans, sighing recalled old days and smiling watched their little ones stump about. Sometimes they quarreled, but friends al
ways composed that. When the food was gone, they thanked Ulungu for hosting them and went home, well provided with memories to brighten the dark months ahead.

So it had ever been. So should it ever have been. But the time came when a sorrow and a fear lay over Us. Talk was of the outsiders who, this summer, had arrived to live somewhere inland. Though few households had seen any, word had flitted on the lips of wandering youths and of fathers who sought their nearest neighbors. Unsightly, speaking with the tongues of wolves, wrapped in leather, fearsomely armed, the invaders went in small bands wherever they chose. When they came upon a homestead they helped themselves to whatever they wanted, food, goods, women, not like guests but like eagles robbing osprey. Men who tried to withstand them had been badly hurt, pierced or slashed. Orak’s wound got inflamed and he died.

You Who Know Strangeness, why have you forsaken Us?

The celebration at Bubbling Springs went heavily, the laughter was often too loud. Perhaps the bad ones would go away, as bad years when snow lay well into summer finally did. Those left many dead behind them. What of this new evil? Folk drew aside and muttered to each other.

Suddenly a boy who had strolled a ways off sped back shouting. Fright went in a wave through the crowd, dashing bodies to and fro. Aryuk of Alder River seized the lead, shook or drubbed the panic-stricken, called the men to him, until everyone but the infants was quiet, shuddering only under the skin. He had grown broody and short-spoken in the past season. Now he stood before the men, outside the settlement. Each gripped a hand ax or a club. Their women and young huddled among the huts.

Behind them surf growled, above them birds shrilled, around them wind whistled emptily. It was a clear day, just a few rapid clouds. Westering, the sun cast heatless
light over hills turning yellow-gray with autumn. A pool simmered nearby, its brown the deepest color in sight. Wind scattered its warmth, vapors, and magical smells into nothingness.

Other men walked toward Us. The pointed shafts that they carried swayed to their stride.

Aryuk shaded his eyes and peered. “Yes, the outsiders,” he said, low in his gullet. “Fewer than Us, I think. Stand together. Stand fast.”

As they drew near: “But what, who is that with them? A woman? Clad the same, but—her hair and—Daraku!” he screamed. “Daraku, my daughter they took!”

He started to run, halted, returned, stood atremble. Soon she reached him. Her face was thin, and something had departed from behind those hollow eyes. A hunter went beside her, the rest spread right and left. Eagerness shone and shivered in them.

“Daraku,” Aryuk cried through tears, “what is this? Have you come back to your mother and me?”

“I am theirs,” she answered dully. Pointing at the man next to her: “He, the Red Wolf, wants me to help speak. They have not yet learned much about our speaking. I know some of theirs.”

“How … how have you been, my dear, oh, my dear?”

“Men use me. I work. Two of the women are kind when they meet me.”

Aryuk wiped his eyes with the back of his free hand. He swallowed a lump of vomit. To the Red Wolf he said, “I know you. We met when you first came and I was with my powerful friend. Afterward, when she had gone away, you sought me out and took my girl. What wicked ghost is in you?”

The hunter made the motion of one who brushes off a fly. Had he understood? Did he care?
“Wanayimo—
Cloud People,” he answered. Aryuk could barely follow the thick utterance. “Want wood, fish,
omulaiyeh
—” He looked at Daraku and snarled a string of sounds.

She talked in words, tonelessly, staring past her father
and brothers. “I told them how you meet here. I had to. They said it is a good time to come to tell you. They want Us—they want you to bring them things. Always. They will tell you what and how much. You must.”

“What do they mean?” cried Huyok of Otter Strand. “Are they hungry? We have little to spare, but—but—”

The Red Wolf ripped forth more noises. Daraku wet her lips. “Do what they say and they will not harm you. I am their mouth today.”

“We can trade—” Huyok began.

A roar cut him off. Khongan of Curlew Marsh was the boldest among Us. He had raged when he heard what the invaders did. “They do not trade! They take! Does the mink trade his skin for the bait in the trap? Tell them no! Drive them out!”

The hunters scowled and hefted their weapons. Aryuk knew he should signal for calm. His hands were too heavy, his throat too tight. One by one, his men took up Khongan’s shout. “No! No!”

Somebody threw a stone. Somebody else dashed forth and chopped at a hunter with a hand ax. Or so Aryuk afterward thought. He was never sure quite what happened. There was an uproar, a brawl, wildness, nightmare. Then We had fled. Scattered, they stared back and saw the invaders stand unharmed, blood dripping off edged stone.

Two men of Us sprawled dead. Guts spilled from a gashed belly, brains from a split skull. The less wounded had escaped, except for Khongan. Pierced again and again, he threshed on the earth and moaned a long while before he lay still. Daraku knelt at the Red Wolf’s feet and wept.

“Hi,” said Manse Everard’s answering machine. “This is Wanda Tamberly in San Francisco. Remember?” The sprightliness faded. It must have been forced. “Of course you do. Been, oh, like three years, though, hasn’t it? On my lifeline, anyway. I’m sorry. Time just slipped past and you—Never mind.”
You didn’t get in touch again. Why should you? An Unattached agent has important things to do.
“Manse, uh, sir, I feel bad about calling you, especially after so long. I oughtn’t go asking for special privileges. But I don’t know where else to turn. Could you possibly give me a ring, at least? Let me try to explain? If you then tell me I’m out of line, I’ll shut up and not pester you again. Please. I think it’s pretty big. Maybe you’ll agree. Please. You can reach me at—” There followed a telephone number and a list of hours on successive days in this February. “Thanks ever so much for listening. That’s all now. Thank you.” Silence.

Having heard, he stopped the tape and stood for several minutes. It was as if his apartment had withdrawn from New York to a space of its own. At length he
shrugged, grinned ruefully, but nodded to himself. The remaining messages had no urgency that he couldn’t handle with a bit of time hopping. Nor did Wanda’s, actually. However—

He went to the little bar across the room. The floor felt bare, merely carpeted. He’d removed his polar bear rug. Too many visitors had been reproaching him for it. He couldn’t explain to them that it was from tenth-century Greenland, when, far from polar bears being an endangered species, things were oftenest the other way around. And truth to tell, it had gotten rather scruffy. The helmet and crossed spears remained on their wall; nobody could see they were not replicas of Bronze Age work.

He prepared a stiffish Scotch and soda, charged and lighted his pipe, retired to his study. The armchair received him as an old shoe would. He didn’t let many contemporary people in here. When it happened, they were apt to tell him how much better off he’d be with their brand of personal computer. He’d say, “I’ll look into it,” and change the subject. Most of what they saw on his desk was dummy.

“Give me the file to present date on Specialist Wanda May Tamberly,” he ordered, adding sufficient information to identify. When he had studied what appeared before him, he pondered, then started a search through related matters. Presently he thought he was on the right track, and called up details. Dusk stole in to surround him. He realized, startled, that he’d been busy for hours and was hungry. Hadn’t even unpacked from his latest trip.

Too restless to go out, he thawed some hamburger in the microwave, fried it, constructed a large sandwich, cracked a beer for accompaniment, and never noticed how anything tasted. A creative synthesizer could have whipped up a Cordon Bleu meal, but if you based yourself in a milieu before the technology to overleap space-time was developed, you didn’t keep any future stuff around that you didn’t absolutely require, and you kept
it hidden or well disguised. When he had finished, the time in California was the third of the hours she had named. He went back to the living room and picked up the phone. Ridiculous, how his heartbeat speeded.