"My father did. He's there now. Listen to me, Barwan! There's so much
going on that you Century Agents either know nothing about or do
nothing about."
"What do you mean by that?"
"Clearly, this monopolist is a big-shot in our own day, with plenty of
power."
"Dorlup?"
"I never heard of him."
"Solidio writer, but never mind. And this talk won't get you anywhere.
You're going back with me."
"I didn't think it would. But I want to show you a few things." Laniq
stood up, crossed the floor to him even though he waved the atomic
pistol in warning. "Oh, put that thing away. If the fact that you're
armed and I'm not stands between free world and slave world, you might
as well go ahead and shoot me if it will make you happy."
* * * * *
Laniq came so close Tedor could have reached out and touched her. The
zipper on her blouse had been closed hastily half-way, revealing white
throat and curving breasts.
"Give me the pistol," Laniq said.
Tedor looked at her, snorted in disbelief. But he put the weapon in
his pocket and told her, "Go ahead and talk."
Laniq grasped his shoulder impulsively. "Barwan, you've got to listen!
We can make a quick tour through time, just hitting the high spots.
I can show you things; I can show you a man from our own time behind
every important dictator in history. We've beaten them all along the
line, so you don't have to worry about it. Except for the twentieth
century. It's a crucial age, Barwan, and we're not winning. The whole
course of future history might be changed if we don't.
"That's crazy. Future history already _is_."
"I'm surprised at you. Why do you Agents make all that fuss about
time-tinkering? There's no telling what might happen if history is
changed--it's never gotten out of hand yet. But change its flow in the
mid-twentieth century and we could be in for a mess of trouble. Maybe
there's an alternate time-stream, perhaps we'll be thrust into it. I
don't know--and neither do you."
What she said was perfectly true. Mulid Ruscar had always been very
strong on that point. _Don't wait to find out_, he always said.
"Okay," Tedor told her. "All right, you win. We'll take this tour
of yours. But remember this: I still think you know more about
Fornswitthe's death than you're telling me. If you try to get away,
I'll kill you. On the other hand, if you prove your point I have a
month at my disposal. I can help you."
Laniq grinned happily. "I could kiss you, Barwan. Here, let me at those
controls."
Tedor stepped aside and waited with mounting impatience while she
set the time-conveyor for their first stop. Would Ruscar approve? He
doubted it. Still, he was on vacation and he sensed a ring of sincerity
in what Laniq had told him. He wondered how much her breathless beauty
had to do with his decision, then found himself snorting again. He'd
never lacked women, not as a Century Agent. But they'd always come to
him, whining his name, begging almost. Laniq he would have to go and
fetch.
And then Tedor felt the familiar sensation as the conveyor purred off
into the time-stream.
* * * * *
"Turn of the century," said Laniq when they had stopped. "Eighth and
ninth centuries A. D. Did you ever hear of Charlemagne?"
"Of course," Tedor nodded. "Ruler of the Franks, later of Germany,
Italy; first emperor of the Holy Roman Empire."
"He needed help," Laniq said. "Come."
Tedor followed her outside into a murky summer night. The torch-lights
of an ancient city pulsed and throbbed off to their left.
"His capital, Aix-la-Chapelle," said Laniq. "Charlemagne got help from
the monopolist, Barwan. Fortunately, when Charles the Great died his
Paladins couldn't hold the Empire together. Despite Papal acceptance,
the Holy Roman Empire was a paper kingdom after Charlemagne."
Outside Tours proper, Charlemagne had set up a tent city in which the
elite of his Army bivouacked. Clusters of tents dotted the plain,
cook-fires cast eerie light, sentries prowled and plodded sleepily.
Tedor heard loud talking in the old dialect of the Franks. Hypnosleep
had yielded a new language to him again in a matter of minutes.
They crept up behind a sentry, were on the point of passing him when
Laniq stumbled. The sentry whirled, spear poised, but Tedor ducked
under it in the darkness and used the edge of his hand against the
sentry's Adam's apple. It was dirty fighting, but necessary. The sentry
went down silently and Tedor grabbed the spear before it could clatter.
"Stay here," he told Laniq. He had materialized for himself the
clothing of a Frank warrior. With it and his spear he strode boldly to
Charlemagne's own tent, relieving the sentry who paced outside it, then
a few moments later relieving the guard inside.
"I don't know you," the man grumbled.
"I'm new," said Tedor. "German. Go to sleep."
Charlemagne was a tall, slender man fully six and a half feet in
height, with white hair and a long white beard. He paced back and forth
anxiously, great hands folded behind his richly robed back.
"The road to Rome is not open," he said to someone irritably, as if he
had said if before but the man refused to take no for an answer.
"Not yet, it isn't," his guest answered suavely. He was a younger man,
clean-shaven like Tedor. "I can open it for you. Empire awaits you,
Charles; don't turn away from it."
"I still do not even know who you are."
"Nor will you--ever."
"What do you want if you help me attain this Empire?"
"Assistance. Troops if we demand them. Labor conscripted in your border
countries. Certain minerals."
"Not gold?"
"Not gold."
Tedor stood his watch not a dozen feet from them at the entrance to
the tent. The stranger might be from the future, although Tedor had
seen nothing to prove it. He activated the transmitter embedded in his
palate with his tongue, whispered almost inaudibly, "You are not alone."
Charlemagne had not heard him. The stranger could not have heard,
either, unless he had a receiver in his ear. The stranger jumped as if
stung. "Where are you?" Tedor heard in his ear, then watched as the
stranger made a great show of clearing his throat.
"You are sure?" Charlemagne was saying. "No gold?"
Tedor never heard the answer. He fled back the way he had come, found
Laniq crouching near one of the cook-fires.
"You might have escaped," he said.
"Did you see?"
"I saw. I knew you wouldn't try anything. I'm ready for another visit,
Laniq."
Then was there indeed a monopolist? Ruscar had scoffed at the idea.
Domique Hadrien had gone into hiding. The twentieth century, Laniq
had said. But if Hadrien knew what he was talking about, Tedor must
find more evidence and return with it to Ruscar. Once Ruscar had said
something about tinkering on the grand scale. This made all other
tinkering seem meaningless by comparison, and Tedor shuddered when he
thought of the consequences it might have for the future. Laniq claimed
they had beaten it in every age but Tedor's own stamping grounds, the
twentieth century, but he knew that century alone could be more than
sufficient, for it was one of the great turning points in history. Was
that why Dorlup was interested?
"Come on," said Laniq.
* * * * *
"The dialect you learned," she told him later, "is Yakka Mongol. This
is the thirteenth century, Barwan. We are in the Gobi desert. You know
of Genghis Kahn?"
"Of course. A mongol leader who conquered all of Asia--his own Gobi,
India, China. He moved on into Europe, too, sweeping the Russian,
Polish and Hungarian Armies to defeat. He probably conquered more of
the world than any other single man."
They stood on a high, wind-swept plateau with vast reaches of
glistening white sand all around them. Legions of wind-driven dunes
marched endlessly to the horizon, but a mile or so to the east
reed-bordered ponds ruled over a verdantly green oasis. Surrounding the
oasis was Genghis Kahn's city of yurts--the dwellings borrowing some of
the features of the tent and some of the American aborigine tepees.
Dung-fires tainted the air with an unpleasant pungency. Strangely,
Tedor discovered, there were no guards, no sentries.
"Their sentries have outposts on the desert," Laniq explained. "If a
large body of horsemen arrives, they will see it in plenty of time. As
for the lone traveler, he could be nothing but a friend. An enemy would
not live long in this place."
They advanced on the oasis, the unfamiliar yakskin clothing itching
Tedor's skin, the stain which converted him to a Mongol in appearance
smarting in his eyes. Before long the black felt yurts were not ahead
of them but all around them and they walked, completely uncontested, to
the very door of Genghis Kahn's own yurt, the standard of the nine yak
tails billowing above it in the stiff wind.
The Kha Khan, the Emperor of Mankind, the Power of God on Earth, the
Master of Thrones and Crowns, the Mighty Manslayer--Genghis Kahn
squatted, Oriental fashion, by his dung fire. With him were two men,
the first old and bent, a scraggly white beard falling to his ornate
belt. The second was younger and--Tedor may have imagined it--he seemed
to be squirming and scratching in the yakskin clothing.
"He can work magic," the ancient man declared. "I have seen him blast
rocks, Oh Kahn. I have seen him make fire from a simple tube. Heed
wisely his words, Oh Kahn."
Genghis Kahn wore long, plaited, greased red hair. His coarse,
wind-beaten features worked themselves into a scowl. "He speaks
fantasies," said the Kahn.
"Not fantasy," the third man at the fire said, sniffing distastefully,
Tedor thought, at the dung-fumes. "Truth. I say this: Genghis Kahn can
one day master all the world, from the Land of Morning Calm to the city
called Vienna."
"Of Vienna I have never heard."
"One day you will," the younger man promised, "but sure, bold strokes
are essential. The Shah of Persia would stop you. You balk at crossing
his frontiers. You would return to Karakorum and rest."
"Yes. My capital is a beautiful city, and I _would_ rest."
"You must never rest, not with all mankind ready to fall at your feet!
The Shah of Persia anticipates border actions, clashes, sorties,
patrols. Fool him. Strike with your entire army at the gateway city.
It is far to the south of here, in a warmer land, but it is the gateway
to the West for your people, Oh Kahn."
"Who is he?" Tedor whispered.
"Working for the monopolist, from our own time. Here in this age they
call him Chepe Noyon and he is one of the Kahn's two greatest generals.
Shh."
"I will lead your army, Oh Kahn. I, Chepe will lead it, and if I fall
you may have me flayed."
"He can work magic," said the shaman.
"He had better," the Kahn declared dryly. "For we march from here to
Karakorum to resupply our Army and from Karakorum we will take the
southern route across the mountains to Tibet to the West. We will hit
Bokhara in the spring."
"The Kahn is wise," said Chepe Noyon, still scratching at his yakskin
garments.
"Let's get out of here," Tedor whispered.
But the shaman looked up, said; "And who are those two, that man and
woman?"
Genghis Kahn shrugged imperial shoulders. Chepe shook his head.
"Then I say they are an evil omen."
"Ho!" roared Genghis Kahn, evidently more superstitious than history
had suspected. "Detain them!"
* * * * *
Yakka warriors converged on them. Tedor grabbed Laniq's hand and
started running, fanning his atomic pistol's fire all around them.
He caught a glimpse of Chepe Noyon's face, astonishment stamping the
features, and then he forgot everything but the fact that they had to
run--and hard--over the shifting, seething sand.
The desert was strewn with corpses, but the warriors kept coming,
for life was cheap on the Gobi. Presently they showed sufficient
imagination to keep well back out of range of the atomic pistol,
however, and when Tedor and Laniq reached the time-conveyor they were
alone.
They tumbled inside, Laniq running to the controls and Tedor bolting
the door. Tedor would never forget Chepe Noyon's face as they departed.
He did not have to say _you are not alone_. Clearly Chepe knew it.
"Enough!" Tedor cried. "I believe you." His head was whirling, but
if the girl said her people had beaten the monopolist in all but the
twentieth century, he wanted to go there at once.