The Many-Coloured Land - 1 (8 page)

"I do a work of mercy," Madame Guderian told one investigatory panel "It is a work that would have been incomprehensible scarcely one hundred years ago, but now, in this Galactic Age, it is a blessing. One need only study the dossiers of the pathetic ones themselves to see that they are out of place in the swift-paced modern world. There have always been such persons, psychosocial anachronisms, unsuited to the age in which they were born. UnI'll the time-portal, these had no hope of altering their fate."

"Are you so confident, Madame," a commissioner asked, "that this time-portal leads to a better world? "

"It leads to a different and simpler world, at any rate, Citizen Commissioner," she retorted, 'That seems sufficient to my clients."

The auberge kept careful records of those who passed through the Pliocene gate and these would later be fascinating fodder for statisticians. For example, the travelers tended to be highly literate, intelligent, socially unconventional, and aesthetically sophisticated. Above all they were romantic. They were mostly citizens of the Old World rather than of the colonial planets. Many of the timefarers had earned their living in the professions, in science, technology, or other high disciplines. An ethnic assay of the travelers showed significant numbers of Anglo-Saxons, Celts, Germans, Slavs, Latins, Native Americans, Arabs, Turks and other Central Asiatics, and Japanese. There were few African blacks but numbers of Afro-Americans. Inuit and Polynesian peoples were attracted by the Pliocene world; Chinese and Indo-Dravidians were not. Fewer agnostics than believers chose to abandon the present; but the devout time-travelers were often fanatics or conservatives disillusioned about modern religious trends, particularly the Milieu dicta that proscribed revolutionary socialism, jihads, or any style of theocracy. Many nonreligious, but few orthodox, Jews were tempted to escape to the past; a disproportionate number of Muslims and Catholics wanted to make the trip.

The psychoprofiles of the travelers showed that a significant percentage of the applicants was highly aggressive. Small-time ex-convicts were common clients, but the more formidable reformed evildoers apparently preferred the contemporary scene. There was a small but persistent trickle of broken-hearted lovers, both homophile and heterosexual. As was to be expected, many of the applicants were narcissistic and addicted to fantasy. These people were apt to appear at the auberge in the guise of Tarzan or Crusoe or Pocahontas or Rima, or else costumed as throwbacks to every conceivable Old World era and culture.

Some, like Richter, outfitted themselves for the journey with Spartan pragmatism. Others wanted to bring along "desert island" treasures such as whole libraries of old-fashioned paged books, musical instruments and recordings, elaborate armories, or wardrobes. The more practical gathered together' livestock, seeds, and tools for homesteading in the style of the Swiss Family Robinson. Collectors and naturalists brought their paraphernalia. Writers came equipped with goose quills and flagons of sepia ink, or the latest in voice writers with reams of durofilm sheets and book-plaque transcribers. The frivolous cherished delicacies of food and drink and psycho-active chemicals.

Madame did her utmost to accommodate the impedimenta, given the physical restriction of the gazebo's volume, which was roughly six cubic meters. She urged the travelers to consider pooling their resources, and sometimes this was done. (The Gypsies, the Amish, the Russian Old Believers, and the Inuit were particularly shrewd in such matters.) But given the idiosyncratic nature of the timefarers, many preferred to be completely independent of fellow humans, while others ignored practicalities in favour of romantic ideals or precious fetishes.

Madame saw to it that each person had the minimal survival necessities, and extra shipments of medical supplies were regularly sent through the gate. Beyond that, one could only trust in Providence.

For nearly sixty-five years and throughout two rejuvenations, Angelique Guderian personally supervised the psychosocial evaluation of her clients and their eventual dispatch to the Pliocene. As the uneasy cupidity of her early years was finally submerged in compassion for those she served, the fees for passage became highly negotiable and were often waived. The number of prospective travelers increased steadily, and there came to be a long waiting list. By the turn of the twenty-second century, more than ninety thousand fugitives had passed through the time-portal to an unknown fate.

In 2106, Madame Guderian herself entered the Pliocene world called Exile, alone, dressed in her gardening clothes, carrying a simple rucksack and a bundle of cuttings from her favorite roses. Since she had always despised the Standard English of the Milieu as an insult to her French heritage, the note she left said:

"Plus qu'il n'en faut"

The Human Polity of the Galactic Concilium was not willing to accept this "more than enough" judgement however; the time-portal obviously filled a need as a glory hole for inconvenient aberrants. Organized in a humane and somewhat more efficient manner, it was allowed to continue in operation. There was no advertisement of the service, and referrals were kept discreetly professional.

The ethical dilemma of permitting persons to exile themselves to the Pliocene was tabled. Study confirmed that no time-paradox was possible. As for the fate of the travelers, they were all doomed in one way or another anyhow.

CHAPTER NINE

All the way back to Earth from Brevon-su-Mirikon, Bryan Grenfell planned the way he would do it. He would call Mercy from Unst Starport just as soon as he got through the decon and remind her that she had agreed to go sailing with him. They could meet at Cannes on Friday evening, which would allow him time to drop off the conference data at the CAS in London and pick up some clothes and the boat from his flat. Fair weather was scheduled for the next three days, so they could cruise to Corse or even Sardegna.

In some secluded cove, with moonlight on the Mediterranean and soft music playing, he would nail her.

"This is your Captain speaking. We are five minutes from reentry into normal space above the planet Earth. There will be a momentary discomfort as we pass through the superficies, which may inconvenience sensitive persons. Please do not hesitate to call your flight attendant if you require an anodyne, and remember that your satisfaction is our prime directive. Thank you for traveling United."

Grenfell leaned toward the com. "Glendessarry and Evian." When the drink appeared he tossed it off, closed his eyes and thought of Mercy. Those sad sea-colored eyes, ringed by the dark lashes. The hair of cedarwood red framing her pale high-boned cheeks. Her body, almost as thin as a child's but tall and elegant in a long gown of leaf green with trailing darker ribbons. He could hear her voice, lilting and resonant, as they walked in the apple orchard that evening after the medieval pageant.

"There is no such thing as love at first sight, Bryan. There's only sex at first sight. And if my scrawny charms inflame you, then let's lie together, because you're a sweet man and I'm in need of comfort. But don't talk about love."

He had, though. He couldn't help it. Realizing the illogic of the thing, observing himself from afar with a chagrined detachment but still unable to control the situation, he knew he loved her from the first moment they met. Carefully, he had tried to explain without appearing a complete ass. She had only laughed and pulled him down onto the petal-strewn lawn. Their passion had delighted them both but brought him no true release. He was caught by her. He would have to share her life forever or go in misery apart.

Only one day with her! One day before he had to travel to the important meeting on the Poltroyan planet. She had wanted him to stay, suggesting the sailing holiday, but he, duty-bound, had put her off. Imbecile. She might have needed him. How could he have left her alone?

Only one day...

Bryan's old friend Gaston Deschamps, encountered fortuitously in a Paris restaurant, had invited him to kill some empty hours observing the Fête d'Auvergne from behind the scenes. Gaston, the pageant director, had called it a droll exercise in applied ethnology. And so it had been, unI'll the introduction.

"Now we will return to those thrilling days d'antan," Gaston had proclaimed after giving him the fifty-pence tour of the village and the chateau. The director had led the way to a high tower, thrown open the door to the elaborate pageant control room, and she had been sitting there.

"You must meet my fellow wonder-worker, the associate director of the Fête, and the most medieval lady now alive in the Galactic Milieu . . . Mademoiselle Mercedes Lamballe!"

She had looked up from her console and smiled, piercing him to the heart...

"This is your Captain speaking. We are now reentering normal space above the planet Earth. The procedure will take only two seconds, so please bear with us during the brief period of mild discomfort."

Zang,

Toothextractionhammeredthumbwhangedfunnybone.

Zung.

"Thank you for your patience, ladies and gentlemen and distinguished passengers of other sexes. We will be landing at Unst Starport in the beautiful Shetland Islands of Earth at exactly 1500 hours Planet Mean Time."

Grenfell mopped his high brow and ordered another drink. This time, he sipped. Unbidden, an ancient song began unreeling in his mind, and he smiled because the song was so tike Mercy.

There is a lady sweet and kind

Was never face so pleased my mind.

I did but see her passing by,

And yet I love her I'lll I die.

He would take the tube to Nice and egg on to Cannes. She would be waiting for him at the quay of that peaceful old town, perhaps wearing a green playsuit Her eyes would have that expression of gentle melancholy and be green or gray, changeable as the sea and as deep. He would stagger up with his duffle-bag and a fitted picnic hamper full of food and drink (champagne, SI'llton, gooseliver sausage, sweet butter, long loaves, oranges, black cherries), and he would trip over his feet and she would smile at last.

He would take out the boat and make the small boys at the slip stand back. (There were always small boys now that families had rediscovered the quiet Côte d'Azur.) He would attach the thin tube of the tiny inflator and throw the wadded packet of silver-and-black decamole film into the water. Slowly, slowly as the boys gaped, the eight-meter sloop would grow: bulb keels, hull, decks, furniture fixed below, cabin, cockpit, railings, mast. Then he would produce the separate pieces, rudder and I'lller, stabilizer, boom with sails still furled, lines, deck seats, lockers, buckets, bedding and all, born miraculously of taut decamole and compressed air. Dockside dispensers would fill the keels and stabilizer with mercury and ballast the rest of the boat and its fittings with distilled water, adding mass to the rigid microstructure of the decamole. He would rent the auxiliary, the lamps, pump, navigear, the gooseneck, CQR anchor, and other hardware, pay off the harbormaster and bribe the small boys not to spit over the quayside into the cockpit.

She would board. He would cast off. With a fresh breeze, it would be up sail for Ajaccio! And somehow, in the next days, he would get her to agree to many him.

I did but see her passing by...

When the starship landed in the beautiful Shetlands it was six degrees Celsius and blowing a deary northeast gale. Mercedes Lamballe's teleview number responded with a SUBSCRIBER CANCELED SERVICE notice.

In a panic, Grenfell finally got hold of Gaston Deschamps.

The pageant director was evasive, then angry, then apologetic. The fact is, Bry, the damn woman's chucked it. Must have been the day after you went offworld two months ago. Left us flat, and the busiest time of the season, too."

"But where, Gaston? Where's she gone?"

On the view screen, Deschamps let his gaze slide away. "Through that damn time-portal into Exile. I'm sick about it, Bry. She had everything to live for. A bit off her bonk, of course, but none of us suspected she was that far gone. It's a damn shame. She had the best feel for the medieval of anyone I've ever known."

"I see. Thanks for telling me. I'm very sorry."

He broke the connection and sat in the teleview kiosk, a middle-aged anthropologist of some reputation, mild-faced, conservatively dressed, holding a portfolio full of Proceedings of the Fifteenth Galactic Conference on Culture Theory. Two Simbiari who had come in on the same ship with him waited patiently outside for some minutes before tapping on the kiosk door, leaving little green smears on the window.

And yet I love her ...

Bryan Grenfell held up one apologetic finger to the Simbiari and turned back to the teleview. He touched the stall.

"Information for what city, please? "

"Lyon," he said.

...I'lll I die.

Bryan posted the data to the CAS and picked up his own egg in London. Even though he could have done the research just as easily at home, he took off for France that same afternoon. Installing himself in the Galaxie-Lyon, he ordered a supper of grilled langouste, orange soufflee, and Chablis, and immediately began to search the literature.

The library unit in his room displayed a depressingly long list of books, theses, and articles on the Guderian time-portal He thought about skipping over those catalogued under Physics and Paleobiology and concentrating on the Psychoanalogy and Psychosociology entries; but this seemed unworthy of her, so he poked his card into the slot and resignedly ordered the entire collection. The machine spat out enough thin plaque-books to pave the large hotel room six times over. He sorted them methodically and began to assimilate, projecting some, reading others, sleep-soaking the most tedious. Three days later he fed the books back into the unit. He checked out of the hotel and requested his egg, then went up to the roof to wait for it. The corpus he had just absorbed sloshed about in his mind without form or structure. He knew he was subconsciously rejecting it and its implications, but the realization was no great help.

Broken hearts healed and memories of vanished love faded away, even of this strange love whose like he had never known before. He realized that this had to be true. Measured judgement, consideration of the scary data he had stuffed himself with, common sense uncharged with emotion told him what he must do. Sensibly do.