The Shield of Time (24 page)

“Composing” is right,
she thought.
Not that they aren’t scientific accounts. Elegant diction doesn’t hurt them any. It’s this sense I got of… glossing over, here and there. Maybe I’m prejudiced.
“Of course I did,” she replied. Taking care to smile: “Including the objections you registered to my being reassigned here.”

He stayed amicable. “No reflection on you, Agent Tamberly, as I hope you realized. I simply thought it would add an unnecessary complication and risk, including the risk to you. I was overruled. Quite possibly I was mistaken. Indeed, I’m sure we can work well together. From a personal standpoint, how can I be other than happy to have company like yours?”

Tamberly made haste to sidestep that question. “No hard feelings, sir. But we won’t actually collaborate, you know. You study the, uh, Cloud People. I need to do a
winter’s worth of observations on the animals, to get a halfway Complete picture of certain life cycles that seem to be critical to the ecology.”

She had repeated the obvious as the most gracious way she could think of to say, “Let me go about my business in peace. I mean to keep out from under your feet, and from under you.”

He took it in good part: “Certainly. With experience, we’ll work out the practical details, of noninterference with one another’s projects, cooperation and mutual assistance as called for. Meanwhile, may I invite you to breakfast? Since you’ve doubtless synchronized yourself with local time, I imagine you didn’t eat before you left.”

“Well, I figured—”

“Oh, do accept. We must have a serious discussion, and it may as well be in comfort. I assure you, I am not a bad cook.”

Tamberly yielded. Corwin had arranged things inside his shelter more neatly and compactly than she had ever managed in hers, making it a trifle roomier. He insisted that she take the chair, and poured coffee from a pot already at work. “This is an upper-case Occasion,” he declared. “Ordinarily in the field one merely refuels, eh? Today, what would you say to bacon, French toast, and maple syrup?”

“I’d say, ‘Let me at ’em before I trample the fence down,’” she admitted.

“Splendid.” He busied himself at the tiny electric stove. The nuclear miniunit that powered it also kept the dome warm. She shed her mackinaw, leaned back, sipped the excellent coffee, and let her gaze rove. Books—his tastes were more highbrow than hers, unless he’d gone for these when he knew she would join him; they didn’t seem much handled. The two he had published while in academe stood among them. Some implements rested on a shelf, gifts or exchanges which he probably meant to take home for souvenirs. Among them were a lance with a composite head and a stone-bladed, antler-hafted hatchet, held together by thongs
and glue. Even the handleless cutters, scrapers, burins, and other tools were finely made. Tamberly recalled the crude work of the We; tears stung her eyes.

“I trust you are aware,” he said, keeping his look on the cookery, “the Wanayimo think you’re my wife. That is, when I told them you were coming, they took it for granted. They haven’t the free and easy sexual mores of the Tulat.”

“Wanayimo? Oh, yes, the Cloud People. Uh—”

“Not to worry. They accept that you will have your own house, to work your own magic. You’re safe among them, especially since they think of you as mine. Otherwise … fear of your powers might stay their hands, but scruples would not, and some young bucks could decide this was a test of their courage, their manhood. After all, I had to tell them beforehand what they were bound to find out, that you were earlier associated with the Tulat, whom they don’t really consider human.”

Grimness drew Tamberly’s lips tight. “I’ve gathered that, from your accounts that I’ve seen. Frankly, I wish you’d paid more attention to it. The relationship between the two peoples, I mean.”

“My dear, I can’t cover everything. Not a fraction of what I should, if this were a proper anthropological undertaking. I’ve only been with them seven months or a bit less, their chronology.” He’d gone uptime occasionally, to confer and take a rest, but unlike her among the We, always came back to a day soon after his departure. Continuity was important in human affairs, in ways that it was not when you studied wildlife.

I’ve got to admit he’s done a remarkable job in so short a span, and under a lot of other handicaps as well,
she thought.
He did have a head start on the language; it’s close to that of tribes in eastern Siberia who’d been visited
,
and not terribly different from that of later generations migrating through Canada, whom he himself had worked with. But that was his solitary advantage at the beginning. It took
nerve, too. He could’ve been killed. They’re a fierce and touchy lot …
he reports.

“And I scarcely have more time ahead of me,” Corwin continued. “Next year the tribe moves on eastward. I may or may not find it worthwhile to travel with them, or rejoin them wherever they resettle, but the interruption will be disruptive at best.”

“What?” Tamberly exclaimed. “You haven’t entered that!”

“No, not yet. It’s such a new discovery for me. At present, they fully expect to stay, they believe they’ve reached their Promised Land. In order to get some idea of how they’d develop in it, the better to understand their interaction with the next immigrants, I jaunted several years uptime. The region is abandoned. I established that will happen this coming spring. No, I don’t know why. Do they find certain resources insufficient? Perhaps you can solve the riddle. I doubt they will feel any threat from the west. I ascertained that no new Paleo-Indians will arrive in these parts for some fifty years, as slow and fitful as their migrations are.”

Then my We will have that long a peace.
The release within Tamberly lasted barely a second. She remembered what had been going on, and apparently would as long as the Cloud People remained. When they left, how many We would be alive?

She forced herself to tackle the matter. “You said a minute ago, they don’t look on the Tulat as being quite human,” she stated. “Your accounts say very little about how they actually treat them. You just mention ‘tribute.’ What is the truth?”

His tone grew slightly irritated. “I told you, I haven’t had the chance to examine every detail, and I never shall.” He broke eggs into a mixing bowl as if they were the heads of referees who had rejected an article. “I acquired the Tula language in advance. I spoke with some who came here bearing the levy; the season for that started shortly after my arrival. I mitigated the lot of two or three individuals. I paid a visit to one of their miserable little warrens on the coast. What more do you expect? Like it or not, my concern, my duty is with the
peoples who will make the future. Aren’t
you
supposed to concentrate on those things in nature that are important to them?”

His testiness evaporated. He offered her a smile. “I don’t want to seem callous,” he added. “You are new in the service, and from a country that had had a remarkably fortunate history. I don’t want to seem condescending to you, either. But the fact is that throughout humanity’s existence, till indefinitely far uptime of our birth period, clans, tribes, nations normally regard the rest of mankind as booty, potential or actual—unless somebody else is sufficiently strong to be an enemy, potential or actual.

“You’ll find the Wanayimo aren’t so bad. Not Nazis or, for that matter, Aztecs. War was thrust on them, because Siberia is becoming overpopulated for the resources available to Paleolithic technology. They keep memories of that defeat, but you can’t call them warriors when they no longer have anyone to fight. They are bold, macho, yes. That’s a requirement for the life they lead, hunting big, dangerous animals. It’s as natural for them to exploit the Tulat as it is to exploit the caribou. They are not deliberately cruel. In fact, they have a certain reverence for all life. But they take from the world what they can, for their wives, children, old ones, and themselves. They must.”

Reluctantly, Tamberly nodded. Corwin’s reports had described what a stroke of fortune it was for the Cloud People to come upon the We. Yet it would not have been that had they failed to make use of it. He had not foreseen their doing so. Such a circumstance was unprecedented in their experience. Some genius among them had made an invention—taxation—that immensely benefited those folk to whom he owed his loyalty. It would be made again and again in the millennia ahead, around the world, usually with less justification.

The wandering had been as long as and far more desperate than the mythical forty years of the Hebrews in the wilderness. No manna fell from heaven, only snow,
sleet, ice-cold rain. Others already occupied the good hunting grounds, and in a short time mustered themselves to drive the strangers onward. When at last they reached these parts, farther from the Asian motherland than men of their race had ventured before, their first winter was almost as cruel as the Pilgrims’ first winter was to be in Massachusetts.

Now they flourished. Wood brought by the We enabled them to replace improvised shelters with real houses. The breaking of a spearshaft was no longer a calamity. Usable stone, fuel, fish, flesh, fat, skins—such things they could and did get for themselves. However, what the We added was priceless. It freed the energies of the Cloud People for bolder hunts, bigger constructions, craftsmanship ever more careful, art ever more beautiful, songs and dances, thoughts and dreams.

Corwin had pointed out that, for pragmatic reasons, they were following his advice and giving their subjects some recompense, fishhooks, harpoons, needles, knives, stoneworking techniques, ideas. It was progress, he said. “Yeah, and I’ll bet the We sit happily around in the evenings singing spirituals,” Tamberly had muttered.

Still, she knew the primordial Americans were doomed. Hard though the newcomers made a life that had been tough to begin with, at least these aborigines weren’t being slaughtered like Tasmanians by nineteenth-century whites or pushed beyond their thin margin of survival like Ukrainians and Ethiopians by twentieth-century governments. Nor were alien diseases ravaging them; the bacteriological isolation of New World from Old would not start till Beringia drowned. As long as they brought their tribute and made no trouble, the We could live in their own ways. If occasionally a Wanayimo brave passing by forced himself upon a Tula girl, well, among her folk that wasn’t the shattering disgrace it would have been among his; and wasn’t it better the genes mingle than that one strain go entirely extinct? Wasn’t it?

Tamberly noticed Corwin’s regard. Time had passed. She shook herself. “Sorry,” she said. “Woolgathering.”

“Not overly pleasant, I suspect.” His voice was sympathetic. “Really, matters could be far worse. They are far worse, in too much of history. Here we can even ameliorate things a bit. Oh, just a bit, and most cautiously. But, for example, I found that, early on, the Wanayimo had taken a daughter of your friend Aryuk—Daraku, her name is; you probably know her well—they’d brought her here. She wasn’t purposely mistreated. Their idea was simply that they needed someone from whom to learn the rudiments of her language. But she’d fallen into deep depression—homesickness, culture shock, lack of companionship. I persuaded them to give her back to them.”

Tamberly had jumped to her feet. “Huh?” She stood for a moment staring. The horror receded. A measure of warmth followed. “Why, that, that’s wonderful of you. Thank you.” She swallowed.

He smiled. “Now, now. Common decency, after all, when the opportunity presented itself. Don’t get overwrought, especially not before breakfast. Which will be ready in the proverbial two lambshakes.”

The smell of frying bacon restored her mood faster than she supposed was morally right. Over the meal he kept conversation light, often humorous; yes, he could talk about something besides himself, and give her a chance to speak too. “Delightful city, San Francisco, agreed, but someday you must explore her in the 1930s, before she professionalized her charm. Tell me, though, about that Exploratorium you mentioned. It sounds like a marvelous innovation, quite in the old and truly spirit….”

When they were done and he had lighted what he called the virginal cigarette of the day, he got serious. “After I’ve washed the dishes—and no, you may not help, at any rate on this first morning—I had better take you to meet Worika-kuno.” She recognized the name, Red Wolf, from frequent mention in his reports. “A
courtesy rather than a requirement, but among themselves, the Wanayimo value courtesy as much as will the Japanese.”

“He’s the chief, right?” Tamberly asked. Her studies had not made his status perfectly clear to her.

“Not in the sense of being invested with any formal authority. Tribal decisions are a matter of consensus among the men and the old women, those who’ve survived past childbearing age. Outside of council, young women have a tacitly granted say in everyday affairs. However, by sheer ability and force of personality, someone is bound to dominate, to be the most respected, whose word usually settles things. That man is Worika-kuno. Get on the right side of him, and your path will be reasonably smooth.”

“What about the, um, medicine man?”

“Yes, the shaman does have a unique and powerful position. My relationship with him is somewhat precarious. I have to go out of my way, over and over, to show that I have no intention of becoming his rival or stealing any of his prestige. So will you. Frankly, you were dispatched to this precise date on my recommendation, after it was determined that you would return, because he’ll be preoccupied, mostly secluded, for the next several days. Give you time to learn the ropes before you come in contact with him.”

“What’s he busy at?”

“A death. Yesterday a band that had been out hunting brought home the body of a comrade. A bison gored him. That was more than a loss, it was an evil omen, because he was a skillful hunter, a good provider. Now the shaman must magic the bad luck away. Fortunately for everyone’s morale, Worika-kuno played the animal till his followers got it killed.”

Tamberly whistled softly. She knew the Pleistocene bison.