The Fourth Rome (41 page)

You had to let Chun verify whatever you were told by a captive. Etkin, like anybody else, couldn’t be trusted to tell the
whole truth, even if he swore he was cooperating voluntarily. The ARC Riders had to be thorough. Their mission parameters
included apprehending every principal and collaborator involved with this particular bad idea, and dumping the lot in 50K
before heading back to ARC Central. Luckily, the pickings were easy when you had a couple of principals who just wouldn’t
be able to resist telling you whatever they knew.

Sasha Matsak met him in the corridor. In the narrow confines, Matsak pulled out a pack of Marlboros. “Cigarette?”

“Shit, not in here.” He wished he could have one. “Can’t smoke in the TC.” Maybe when they stopped over in 50K, he and Matsak
could step outside for a smoke “Sasha, I got a bunch more American cigarettes, and lots of dollars I don’t need. When we drop
you back in Moscow, be sure to remind me. You can take them with you.”

“Spacebo.”
Matsak smiled. “Perhaps you will have a chance to see more of my city one day. If not toda y, then when Roebecka comes to
pick up the young girl she will adopt. In my opinion, it will take some time to find this girl, but my Ministry will make
her a priority. On our side, I understand we must establish that the girl and her mother will die from the radiation … ah
… accident. Or verify that the girl has no mother. This is a relatively simple matter. We still have our ways.”

“You’re kidding me. What girl?” It was out of the question to go around saving innocent indigs, kid or not, about to die or
not. What was Roebeck thinking, adopting a Russian kid? Then again, maybe this whole question was above his pay grade. What
Roebeck did in her spare time was not his business. “Never mind. Sasha, what do you know about the implant work that Orlov’s
scientists were doing? 2x)tov slipped me a sample.” Zotov was dead. He wasn’t betraying a confidence.

“Oh, well. The implants.” Matsak shrugged. His hand waved as if gesturing with a lit cigarette. “This is … program to save
endangered species.”

“What?”

“Do not laugh, this is official Academy of Sciences program, funded through Foreign Ministry by KGB. Implant is put into member
of species which is in danger of not existing. Specimen is sent … back through time to find others like itself and improve
species chance for survival.” Matsak’s eyes were boring into him. “Orlov is such a specimen. The implant in his body will
send him back in time to whatever place the operator of the program chooses. This is very secret technology, of course.”

“Of course. And Zotov and his boys reverse engineered the control mechanism from the crashed capsule at Obninsk, right?”

“Umm … So sorry, Tim. Not precisely correct. My side has been studying Obninsk artifact for many years without
concretne
result until Etkin came on the scene. It is under Security Service direction that the Foreign Ministry’s Academy scientists
have achieved—had achieved, for now there is
nyet
program,
nyet
key scientists left—the ability to send an implanted specimen to the past.”

“Came on the scene? Are you telling me that Etkin
survived
the nuclear explosion of the UTL capsule I saw on that tape?” It was possible, if Etkin had been wearing the right hardsuit.
The suits on the tape were more like the new exo-suits that the ARC Riders requisitioned at Central than the standard ARC
issue. But why hadn’t Etkin displaced back Up The Line? Suit malfunction? Blast damage? Unless Etkin had been in an active
bubble or hanging out phase, crippling suit damage was a real possibility anywhere near ground zero. The UTL capsule that
had displaced to that Russian town was capturing young adult Russians to implant, probably for the 9 AD operation. … Grainger’s
mind was racing, picking up pieces and fitting them into the puzzle. A picture was beginning to emerge.
Don ’tjump to conclusions.

“Tim, I am saying you only what I know for certain. Etkin was no one of importance before the UFO came to Obninsk. After this,
he is
bolshoi
senior official with sweeping powers in Section 6, KGB. Boss of Orlov’s scientists, Lipinsky, many others.”

Then Grainger finally realized what he had been missing. “Those implants. Just the living organism goes, right? And what he’s
physically carrying. If I understand the methodology, you couldn’t carry much, no significant hardware, with you through time
that way. So how do you get back? The handheld enabler? Or is the implant a round-trip mechanism, set with some sort of elapsed-time
delay. Or what?”

“You do not.”

“You do not what?”

“You do not get back,” Matsak said flatly. He shook his head sadly. “Still you think like an American. The agents in the past—so
what if they stay there forever? They are agents. If their mission is in the past, then in the past is where they will be.
Ruslde
scientists have not yet perfected the travel to the future. Perhaps now, they will not.”

Grainger was staggered. His mouth was hanging open. He shut it. He leaned back against the bulkhead wall. “My error,” he said
with a weak grin. “I forgot this was a
Ruslde
operation.” It sounded like Etkin had been stranded in Russia, unable to get home in a damaged displacement suit when his
temporal capsule was destroyed by a Russian nuke. MIA—Missing in Action. Presumed dead Up The Line. He’d continued his mission
from the Russian staging area where he’d become a castaway. “I didn’t really understand what you were trying to tell me until
now. So where does Orlov fit in?”

“It is my fault. So sorry for my poor English. Orlov is next … traveler by implant, yes? He will go—would have gone, since
you have interfered—to the past. To wherever Etkin is—was—sending KGB agents.”

“And Orlov knows he can’t get back?”

“Ha! I do not think Orlov knows this. Only real scientists know this. Boys and show scientists think that anything is possible,
including travel to future. It would be amusing to tell Orlov this, if he will be free with Etkin and Lipinsky at the same
time and place.”

Once a Russian senior official, always a Russi.in senior official.

“I—Sasha, that implant doesn’t automatically trigger a displacement, right? Orlov’s not going to disappear into the past before
our eyes, is he? You have an enabler—a piece of hardware, right, to trigger the system?” Grainger was poised on the balls
of his feet, ready to push by Matsak and warn Roebeck that they’d better get that implant out of Oriov before they lost their
captive.

Matsak said, “
Nyet problema.
The enabling technology is among the artifacts you captured.”

So the ARC Riders had it all. The implant. The enabler. A bag full of advanced UTL technology. Etkin. Orlov. Neat. And Matsak,
a bonus. Finally, Grainger relaxed. His whole body seemed heavy. Tired. His head hurt. His bruises throbbed. His ribs ached
where Iipinsky had beaten him. But despite it all, he felt pretty good. Satisfied. “
Spacebo,
Sasha. Thanks for the overview. I owe you one.”

“You are giving me one—a new hope for future. So sorry, my country is broken. We are fixing it. You will see. Someday Russia
will be great once more.”

“Yeah. I know,” Grainger replied thickly. Luckily, that day wouldn’t be hastened by Etkin, Orlov, Lipinsky, and a bunch of
unwitting kamikaze revisionists. That day would come soon enough for a lucky Russian kid who Roebeck was adopting. And for
Matsak, the ARC’s new agent in place. “Guess I’d better start explaining how you file reports with the ARC. How to contact
Roebeck about her kid when you’re ready. Or us. Whenever you need us.”

“This is very well,” said Matsak with a smile. “Very well indeed.”

Under Grainger’s feet, the bulkhead shivered slightly as Chun took the TC out of phase, displacing to 50K.

P
auli braced one foot on the bear’s shoulder ;ind drew up on the javelin with all his considerable strength. The point was
deep in a neck tendon. When it released, the iron came out kinked just as it was designed to do.

Archers walked skittishly toward the team, obviously nervous. Beckie eyed them and said, “Is there any chance the capsule
will arrive in—”

She corrected herself. “Soon, that is?” Her voice was steady.

“No,” Pauli said. “They’ll arrive next week as we decided. They can’t view the horizon without shifting the revisionists.”

He threw down the useless javelin. The base of the blade was tempered soft so that it bent on impact. An enemy couldn’t throw
the javelin back or even pull its weight out of his shield.

What it meant at the moment was that Patli Weigand couldn’t threaten the oncoming archers with the javelin. It wouldn’t have
been much of a threat anyway, jut you use what you have.

Gerd Barthuli seated himself on the sand. “Neil her Nan nor the automatic systems could hold the capsule sufficiently far
out of phase to view the horizon without displacing the revisionists,” he said. “Quo on occasion has demonstrated quite remarkable
delicacy with the controls, however.”

“I didn’t think I could get Svetlanov’s gun,” Beckie said. “I thought I’d be more use here.”

The only thing she could do here in the arena was die with her teammate. Pauli’s conscious mind wanted that less than anything
else in the world, but a part of his subconscious was glad of the company.

“I was creche-raised,” said Gerd as he sat cross-legged, bending over his sensor pack. “I suppose you were also, Pauli. I’ve
always found it interesting to view earlier time horizons in which family groupings are the norm.”

“Trust me,” Beckie said dryly. “This team works better than any family
I
knew when I was growing up.”

“Gerd, let me have your pistol,” Pauli said. “Can you make a hologram to draw their attention?”

“I’ve been trying,” the analyst said. His right hand continued to key the air as he reached across with his left to give Pauli
the microwave pistol. “In daylight I can’t get sufficient contrast in an image large enough to be seen at a distance.”

A waver at the corner of Pauli’s eye hinted that a giant figure stood beside them. Except for Gerd’s statement, even Pauli
would have thought it was a heat shimmer.

“All right,” he said. It was what he’d expected. He’d also expected that Gerd would be trying.

The archers halted a hundred meters from the team. They’d spread out just as the pack of dogs had done, facing the team in
a broad arc.

Pauli raised his hand and called, “Halt or feel my power!”

A brawny, black-haired man in leather vest and breeches nocked an arrow and drew it back. From the look of him, he didn’t
even understand the Latin words. He probably couldn’t hear Pauli’s voice over the crowd noise anyway.

Pauli aimed with the grace of long practice and squeezed his pistol’s trigger. The arrow twisted away from the bow and fell
to the sand. The microwave pistols couldn’t seriously affect a human being at this range, but a pulse
could
flick a few ounces of wood to the side.

The archer’s mouth opened in amazement. He reached for another arrow, then dropped his bow and backed away from it.

A man on one end of the line drew and loosed with a convulsive jerk. The arrow flew so wildly that he must have dosed his
eyes at the moment of release, but his attempt broke the spell. The fact he
could
shoot without being siiuck down by magic encouraged a dozen more to raise their bows.

Pauli swept his pistol across the line; beside him, Beckie was doing the same thing. It didn’t help. An arrow spiked so close
in front of Gerd that it kicked sand onto the sensor in lus lap.

A spot of vivid yellow light appeared in the middle of the arena and grew instantly into a ball ten meters in diameter. The
archers ran back, stumbling and spilling arrows in their haste.

The ball became paler as it formed into a woman twenty meters high. You could vaguely see the seats on the other side of the
amphitheater through her, as if the image wfis a sheet of colored glass.

“It’s Nan!” Beckie cried.

“They’re copying the apparition that came to Drusus just before he died on the Elbe seventeen years ago!” Gerd said in delight.
“Brilliant! A brilliant thought!”

“Come on!” Pauli said. “Gerd, you were sure right about Quo being able to handle the capsule!”

He grabbed the analyst to help him up. TC 779 shimmered into phase beneath the giant image. Tim Grainger stood in the open
hatchway with a fléchette gun ready to cover F’auli’s team.

Pauli knew the giant figure was a hologram of Nan Roe-beck, but he could still feel awe at its translucent majesty. The figure
pointed its forefinger at Tiberius.

“Oh, rash man!” its voice thundered. “Know that if you attempt to conquer Germany, your life shall end there as surely as
your brother’s did!”

That
would put paid to any chance of Rome mounting a major invasion of Germany for the next generation. After that Rome’s opportunity
would be lost forever. Nan wasn’t one to do a job halfway.

None of them were. They’d done the job with minimal resources and by heaven! they’d done it.

Pauli Weigand shouted in triumph as his team sprang aboard TC 779. Behind them the emperor-to-be stared without expression
at the team that had saved his life and their own future.

D
AVID
D
RAKE
was born in Dubuque, Iowa, in 1945. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Iowa, majoring in history (with honors)
and Latin. He was attending Duke University Law School when he was drafted. He served the next two years in the Army, spending
1970 as an enlisted interrogator with the 11th Armored Cavalry in Viet Nam and Cambodia.

Upon return he completed his law degree at Duke and was for eight years Assistant Town Attorney for Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
He then drove a city bus for a year and, since 1981, has been a full-time freelance writer.