Time's Chariot (13 page)

'And the Home Time?' the Correspondent
prompted.

'The Home Time is a period of set probability
flux. There's a singularity beneath the College –
our, um, centre of operations – that makes transference
possible because it vibrates at a fixed,
unchanging probability frequency. It's a permanent
referent. An, ah, anchor that will always drag us
back home again. But it won't last forever, it's
decaying, and the day will come when it ends and
transference won't be possible any more. But we
keep our word, and you will be recalled before
then.'

'How long does it have to run? From your point
of view?'

'Is that relevant? Let's just say, not long enough.'

'You've been very forthcoming,' the Correspondent
said. 'I could still just kill you now.'

'You could,' said Herbert. 'But this is an imperfect
situation, so let's make the best of it.' His
earlier shock was all gone now and he sounded
almost in charge. 'I can't take you back with me,
just now. You've remembered me. Inconvenient,
but it's happened. Now—'

'I'm not going to carry on as a Correspondent,'
said the Correspondent. 'I might have to stay here
but I'm damned if I'm going to lift a finger for you
again.'

Herbert shrugged. 'It's not unusual for
Correspondents to take a break, go off-line for a
century or two, maybe forever. It's your decision.'
He smiled a cold, lop-sided smile. 'Maybe we can
discuss things?'

Marje?' Marje jumped: Su Zo must have been
waiting for her just outside the canteen. 'You
did say you'd see me around,' Su said with an
embarrassed smile.

'Su! Um, I, ah, yes, yes, I did,' Marje agreed.

'Good to see you. How's things?'

'Um . . . can we walk?' Su said.

'Why not? I've got to get back to the office. This
way.' They started walking towards the nearest
carryfield, side by side.

'Thanks for letting us look through the
Commissioner's things,' Su said.

'It was my pleasure.' Su was plainly ill at ease so
Marje cast around in her mind for a way to
continue the conversation. 'Did Op Garron find his
computer?'

Su shook her head. 'No. We found all kinds of
interesting things, I mean, he did a lot more transferring
than we ever thought he would have, but
not that. Marje . . .' Suddenly it all came out in a
rush. 'Rico's been suspended and there's to be an
enquiry into his conduct.'

'Oh,' said Marje, nonplussed. 'I'm, ah, sorry.'

'Supervisor Marlici cornered us at the party last
night and delivered a reprimand. Rico's third. And
suspension is automatic for an Op with three
reprimands.'

Marje shrugged. There were only so many times
she could say she was sorry, and she wasn't sure she
was. Su carried on talking.

'One of those reprimands was yours, Marje, and
I know for a fact it was, um . . .'

'Unjustified,' said Marje. 'I know, and I
apologized for it.' Now she did feel something, and
it was anger. It was just what she had been afraid of
at the time – that ass Asaldra getting Garron into
trouble. She had let it pass because surely one
reprimand wasn't career-threatening. It hadn't
occurred to her that Garron might already have
had some on his record. But if he was the kind of
man who attracted reprimands, perhaps he
deserved suspension. 'Which one was mine?' she
said.

'The second. The third . . . we had to do a
routine courier job in gamma-Vienna. Pick up the
superintendent's report, nothing special. Except
that the superintendent there was abusing his
position with the bygoners. Rico took him to task
for it . . . he must have symbed a complaint into the
report crystal I was carrying and we brought it
back without even knowing it. I reported my
version as well, but it doesn't seem to have done any
good.'

If Su had just come to beg, Marje would have
dismissed her. If Su had asked her to use her influence,
such as it was, with Fieldwork's
Commissioner Ario, the result would have been
similar. But Su was simply stating facts, and whether
by design or accident, that was the approach that
captured Marje's attention.

'Op Garron has a lot to learn about tact if he's to
make progress in Fieldwork,' she said.

'Rico used to be senior to me, Marje. He was a
Senior Field Op in Specific Operations.'

'Really?' Marje stopped walking. Now, that did
surprise her. The Specifics were the elite of
Fieldwork. 'I see,' she said, to give herself time to
think. 'Thank you for telling me, Su, I'll . . . I'll look
into it.'

Su still didn't smile: she bowed her head slightly.
'Thank you,' she said, and turned to walk away.

'Wait,' Marje said. With the matter of Garron out
of the way, something else that Su had said finally
sank in. 'What did you mean when you said Li did
more transferring than you thought?'

Ten minutes later an even more pre-occupied
Marje Orendal entered her office and sat down at
her desk. Li had gone transferring?
Li
had gone
transferring
?

Su had told her about the list of transferences
they had found in Daiho's effects. She and Garron
hadn't thought twice about them; but then,
they hadn't known the man. Marje had, and if ever
a man was born to be a stay-at-home stick-in-the-mud
it had been Li Daiho.

One transference here and now, well, maybe.

But a spate of seventeen was . . . odd. Where could
he have gone?

Well, that was easily settled. Marje called up the
list herself, on her authority as Commissioner.
'
Compare against list of approved transference sites
,' she
symbed, and the answer came back: they weren't
approved sites.

'Not approved?' Marje exclaimed out loud, in
sheer surprise. But Li must have got those coordinates
from somewhere. Co-ordinates were
assembled from historical records, or simple deduction,
or on-the-spot Field Ops, and in all cases
were entered into the database of approved sites . . .
assuming they were found to be safe. But there was
another source of information, as she of all people
should know.

'
Compare against all co-ordinates returned by correspondents
,'
she symbed cautiously.

And there it was. Marje gazed in awe at the two
lists displayed side by side across her vision. Every
site chosen had been reported by the same correspondent,
RC/1029. (Where had she seen that
correspondent's designation before? She pushed
the question away, to come back to later.) None had
subsequently been entered into the approved
general list, which could only mean one thing. Li
didn't want anyone following him.

And that would be fair enough: if a Field Op
transferred to co-ordinates that were found to be
unsuitable – for instance, they were in the middle
of a crowded room, or something – then that site
would be put on the banned list and, if bygoners
had become aware of the Home Time as a result,
the Specifics would be sent in to clear things up.
Not unusual.

But to go unerringly to seventeen unsuitable
sites? And – it took a second to check – the Specifics
had
not
been sent in. Li had kept all this secret. And
that itself was illegal.

Another thought . . .

'
Summarize the reports in which these co-ordinates were
delivered
.' Another heartbeat's pause, and then the
bald summaries were laid out before her. Each time
the correspondent had been interviewing a
philosopher.

I really did not know this man
, Marje thought. But
she remembered where she had heard of RC/1029:
Li had been getting regular reports from him. And
then, apparently, going along to see for himself.

Having a hobby was one thing – but this? What
had he been doing?

Well, she was going to find out. If her predecessor
had been engaged in illegal activity then
she had to find out; and if there was an innocent
explanation that was simply escaping her right
now . . . well, she should find it. She really
should.

And she knew just the man for the job.

'Op Garron. Come in.'

It had taken over an hour in a healer, but Rico's
wrenched thigh had been unwrenched, his bruised
tissues regenerated and the damage from the beating
was just a memory, so he was able to enter the
office without difficulty. It was only the second time
he had seen Acting Commissioner Orendal face to
face, and it seemed there was a momentary warmth
there before she froze over and became appropriately
formal. She was one of those people, Rico
decided, who for some reason felt that different
personae were needed for their private and their
public lives.

She stood up as he entered her office and held
out a hand; he hesitated for just a fraction, then
walked across the glowing carpet (Twenty-first
century? Hideous, anyway) to shake it. He had
resolved, to himself and to Su, that he would
behave himself. He was suspended and she might –
might
– be able to do something about it, so there
was no point in antagonizing her.

'Please, sit down,' she said. He sat in the chair
indicated, across the desk from her. It was more
modern than the rest of the office, an empty frame
with a forcefield for the seat. Perhaps, he thought,
Orendal was imposing her more contemporary
tastes on her predecessor's room with a wave of
modernity that emanated outwards from the desk
but hadn't yet reached the rest of the office.
She rested her elbows on the desk top, steepled
her fingers. The lines on her face showed she
was perfectly capable of smiling, if she chose.

'Thank you for coming,' she said. 'I want to
make you a proposition.'

'Please do,' Rico said.

'You've been suspended, pending a tribunal, and
that's partly my fault.'

'One of the reprimands was because of a complaint
from your office, yes,' Rico said without
expression.

'One of them,' she said pointedly. 'Of three.'
Rico said nothing. 'I've no doubt that the matter
will be cleared up at the tribunal and you'll be put
back on the active list.'

'Will you be speaking on my behalf?' Rico said
innocently.

'No,' she said. She paused a beat, while Rico
thought,
typical
, then: 'the individual who made the
complaint will be speaking instead.'

'I see.'
Nice touch
, he thought. 'May I ask what
this proposition is, Commissioner?'

'You may, but first I'd like to know about the
other reprimands.'

'They're on my record, which I expect you've
read by now,' he said.

'I just finished, yes, but I'd still like to hear about
them. The most recent one – I gather you gave a
supervisor some lip, or something like that?'

'Something like that,' Rico said, thinking,
what
the hell
. He still had no idea what she wanted with
him and his reprimands were none of her business,
but . . . 'He was a superintendent, who . . . aw, let's
name names. Superintendent Adigun is in charge
of sixteenth-century gamma-Vienna and he's
shacked up with one of the bygoner women. I . . .
well, I took exception to his using his position to
that purpose.'

Any remaining hint of humour or goodwill in
Orendal's expression had vanished. 'Go on,' she
said.

'I drew attention to the matter and he construed
my words as insulting. He made a complaint.'

'Was his conduct mentioned in your report?'

'I'm not the senior partner so it wasn't my
report. But no, it wasn't. There are firmly defined
areas, Commissioner. If he had been beating her,
we could have reported him. If he had told her anything
about the Home Time, we could have
reported him. But as it was, he wasn't doing anything
illegal.'

'Morbern's Code—'

'Isn't law,' Rico said. 'Not all of it. Physical abuse,
yes. Emotional, no.'

Orendal still held his gaze, but her eyes were
blank and he guessed she was symbing. 'Edigun?'
she said.

'Adigun.'

'Superintendent Adigun, Vienna, sixteenth
century, gamma stream. Thank you.' She seemed to
collect herself and put the matter to one side. 'The
second reprimand I know about. What about the
first?'

The first was the one Rico was both least and
most proud of. 'That one was a supervisor, also in
the field,' he said. 'Beta-Rome, C minus three. He
was cheating on two women – he had a wife here in
the Home Time and at the field site. The bygoner
already had a child. Both women suspected another
woman, the pressure was on him and he took it out
on his bygoner wife's little girl.'

'A child beater?' Rico hadn't thought Orendal's
expression could get colder, but it did.

'A child beater. I confronted him and . . . well, I
lost control. As I recall, I told him that for every
bruise I found on her, he'd get five. And I demonstrated
how. Field Ops are taught to fight unarmed,
to kill if necessary, so I was able to rough him up
quite a bit.'

'You should have reported him. They'd have
busted him.'

'I did and they did. They also kicked me out of
Specific Operations, knocked me down from
Senior Field Op and partnered me with Op Zo to
keep an eye on me.'

'Yes, I heard you were in Specific Operations,'
Orendal said. Rico could tell she was impressed.

'I certainly was,' he said. 'I didn't always have a
career escorting snotty students and collecting
reports, Commissioner. It used to be a bit more
exciting than that.'

'You were lucky not to be sacked,' Orendal said
bluntly, and while he could tell she was angry he
couldn't tell if it was at what he had done, or what
his victim had done, or both. Field Ops necessarily
spent time out of the Home Time's symb network
and hence social preparation had no way of
enforcing itself on them. A very great trust was
placed on them not to use their skills to abuse that
privilege, and while Rico's victim had betrayed
that trust, so had Rico. 'You should have gone
straight to his superiors, not taken the law into your
own hands. They'd have moved in at once, replaced
him, given him therapy . . .'

'With respect,' Rico said shortly, 'you're not
telling me anything I don't already know, and you
don't need therapy not to beat children.'

'No?'

'No. You just don't do it, it's very easy. I'm not
doing it now and I'm not even trying.'

Orendal glared at him for a few seconds in
silence, and he thought,
I've blown it
. Then,
obviously with an effort, she said, 'I suppose you've
got good reason to care about bygoner children?'

Was she trying to wind him up?
'Being one myself,
you mean?' Rico said, as mildly as he could. But it
showed she had done her homework and gone
through his records. 'No, not really. Children are
children and you don't abuse them. End of.'

To his surprise, Orendal was flushing. 'I'm sorry,'
she said. 'I said a very stupid thing. You're quite
right.'

'Why, thank you, Commissioner.'

'Purely out of interest, do you think of yourself as
a bygoner? That's a personal question which you
don't have to answer.'

'Oh, I'll answer,' Rico said. He shook his head.
'No, I don't think of myself as a bygoner. I just
happen to have been born in an accidental
timestream that the Specifics were forced to close
down. In the main stream I hadn't been born, so
they had to take my parents' memory of me from
their minds. But they couldn't just rub me out,
so they brought me here at the age of two months.
No, I belong to the Home Time.'