The Overlords of War (5 page)

He started to laugh. “Since our last meeting, you mean?”

With an effort she composed her face into something more like its former calm expression.

“In a way, yes, Corson,” she said. “You’ll understand by and by.”

“When I’m a big boy?”

He rose and held out his hand to her. “Now I have an extra reason for getting off Uria,” he added.

She shook her head. “You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“At any transmat terminal, on any world, they’ll arrest you and make you undergo treatment. Oh, they won’t kill you, but you’ll never be the same man again. You won’t have any memories left, and precious few desires. It would be like dying.”

“Worse,” he said slowly. “And is that what they do to all interstellar travelers?”

“Only to war criminals!”

He was aghast. The universe about him seemed full of baffling mist. To a certain extent he could understand the behavior of this girl, no matter how obscure were her motives. After all, it was no more extraordinary than these airborne cities balanced on vertical rivers and populated by madmen flitting about in flying yachts. But what Antonella had just said was at the same time incomprehensible and pregnant with menace.

War criminal? Because I took part in a war that’s been over for more than a thousand years?

“I don’t get it,” he said at last.

“Try, try! Anyway it’s plain enough. The Security Office has no jurisdiction on a planetary surface. They only step in when a criminal goes from one world to another. If you take a transmatter, even to one of the local moons, they’ll grab you. You won’t have one chance in a million of escaping.”

“But why should they want my hide?”

Antonella’s face grew hard.

“I’ve told you once, and I’d rather not say it again. Do you think I enjoy calling the man I love a war criminal?”

He caught her wrists and pressed them as hard as he could. “Antonella, I beg you! Tell me what war—what war?”

She struggled to break loose.

“Beast! Let me go! How do you expect me to tell you that? You must know better than I do! Thousands of wars happened in the past —it doesn’t matter which one you came from!”

He released her. A bright fog danced before his eyes. He rubbed his forehead.

“Antonella, you’ve got to help me. Did you ever hear about the war between the Solar Powers and the Princes of Uria?”

She frowned. “It must have been a very long time ago. The last war which involved Uria happened more than a millennium ago.” “Between the humans and the natives?”

She shook her head. “Certainly not. Humans and Urians have shared this planet for over six thousand years.”

“Then,” he said with relief, “I’m the last survivor of a war which took place more than six thousand years ago. I suppose there’s an amnesty.”

She raised her head and stared at him, her big brown eyes full of astonishment.

“No amnesty is possible,” she said in a level tone. “It would be too easy to abuse it. All you’d have to do, at the end of a war you’d lost, would be to jump far enough into the future to escape retribution. Maybe to start fighting all over again. I’m afraid you underestimate the Office.”

The truth was being borne in on him now. For centuries, perhaps millennia, men had been able to travel in time. And defeated generals, dethroned tyrants, had systematically sought refuge in the past or future rather than endure their enemies’ revenge. So peaceful epochs were compelled to protect themselves against these invaders. Otherwise wars might last for all eternity, interlocking in a cosmic network of alliances slashed across here and there by the indeterminate outcome of battles which were ceaselessly being fought over and over again. This Office Antonella had spoken of supervised the stability of time. It ignored conflicts that broke out on the surface of a single planet, but by its control of communications it prevented any war from spreading to a galactic or historic scale. It was a dizzying task. One had to picture the inexhaustible resources of an endless future before it was even conceivable.

And George Corson, emerging suddenly from the past, a warrior lost among the centuries, had been automatically labeled a war criminal. Images of the fight between the Solar Powers and the Princes of Uria passed fleetingly before his eyes. On both sides the war had been conducted without mercy and without quarter. Back then he would not have wasted a moment on the ridiculous idea that a human might feel sympathy for a Urian. But six millennia or more had passed away. He was ashamed for himself, for his old comrades, for both species, at the kind of evil joy he had experienced when he realized the Monster had been delivered safely.

“But I’m not a war criminal,” he said eventually. “Not exactly. I did take part in a long-ago war, but nobody asked my opinion about it. I was born on a world at war and when I came of age I was put through training and I was told to go into combat. I didn’t try and dodge my responsibilities by jumping through time. I was flung into the future by—well, by an accident, by an experiment that went wrong. I’ll cheerfully undergo any kind of interrogation provided it doesn’t harm my personality. I think I could convince any impartial judge.”

Twin tears shone in Antonella’s eyes.

“I so much want to believe you! You can’t imagine how I suffered when they told me what you were! I’ve loved you since the first time we met. And I thought I’d never have the guts to carry out this assignment.”

He took her by the shoulders and kissed her.

So now he was certain of one thing. He would see her again in the future. He would find her at a time when she had not yet met him. In some fashion he could not fully understand, their destinies were intertwined. Today was the first time he had seen her, yet she had known him already. And the exact opposite was going to happen one day. It was a trifle complicated, but it did make a crazy kind of sense.

“Is there such a thing as a government on this planet?” he asked. “I have some news to pass on.”

She hesitated a moment before answering. He told himself she must have been so upset that she was unable to cog his question.

“A central authority? No, there’s been nothing like that on Uria for nearly a thousand years. Nor on any other advanced world. Governments belong to the primitive period of mankind. We have machines that take care of things like the distribution of goods. And we have a police force. But that hardly ever does anything.”

“What about the Security Office?”

“It supervises nothing but communications. Oh—and, I believe, the opening up of new planets.”

“So who looks after Uria’s relations with the Office?”

“There’s a Council. Three humans and a Urian.”

“Is that who you work for?”

She seemed shocked. “I don’t work for anybody! They asked me to see you, that’s all, and warn you about what will happen if you try to leave the planet.”

“Why did you agree?” Corson said sharply.

“Because if you do try and leave here, you’ll lose your personality, your future will be changed, and you’ll never meet me again.” Her lips trembled.

“That’s a private reason,” Corson said. “But why is the Council interested in me?”

“They didn’t say. I think they believe Uria will have need of you. They’re afraid some danger threatens the planet and they’re convinced that only you can avert it. Why, I just don’t know.”

“I have some idea,” Corson said. “Can you take me to them?” Antonella seemed dismayed by the question.

“That might be rather difficult,” she said. “They live three hundred years ahead, and I myself have no means of traveling in time.”

Corson broke the subsequent silence with an effort.

“You’re trying to tell me you come from three centuries in the future?”

She agreed.

“And what assignment does this Council of yours plan to give me?” She shook her head, her hair swooping around her shoulders. “None that I know of. They simply want you to stay on this world.”

“I can prevent the disaster just by sticking around?”

“Something like that.”

“Very comforting. And at this moment, while we’re talking, nobody is exercising any direct responsibility on this planet?”

“No. The present Council supervises a period of a little over seven centuries. It’s not very much. I’ve heard of Councils on other worlds which have to look after a millennium or more.”

“Well, at least that has the advantage of guaranteeing a stable power structure,” Corson sighed. “And how do you intend to get back to your own age?”

“I don’t know. The idea is that you’re supposed to find a way." Corson whistled. “They’re landing me with more and more problems, aren’t they? Well, we have this much in common, anyhow: we’re both lost in timel”

She took his hand.

“I’m not lost,” she said. “Let’s go back. The light’s failing.”

They returned to the floater, deep in thought and with bowed heads.

“One thing at least is definite,” Corson said. “If you’re telling the truth, I’m going to find some means I don’t yet know about to reach that period of the future that you hail from, and up there I’m going to meet you even before you come to give me this warning. You’ll see me for the first time, I’ll see you for the second. I shall make advances that you’ll find incomprehensible. And at the end of that trip perhaps I’ll make sense of this unfathomable muddle.”

He dropped on the cushions, and sleep overcame him while they flew toward the airborne city, its pyramidal splendor licked by the violet tongues of the sunset.

He was awakened by cries, grinding noises, the clumping of boots on a rough surface, orders shouted in a snarling voice, the spiteful clatter of weapons. It was absolutely dark. The floater was swaying from side to side. He turned toward Antonella, whose face he could not even discern in the inky blackness.

“Has there been an accident?” “No, we're being attacked. I didn’t cog anything but this black cloud, and I couldn’t work out what it was.”

“And what’s going to happen next?”

“I can’t see anything. Just darkness, utter darkness.” There was despair in her tone.

He reached out and squeezed her shoulder for reassurance. But in this total obscurity, no contact, however intimate, could dispel the sense of separation.

He whispered, “I’ve got a gun, you know!”

And in a single continuous movement he drew the weapon from its holster and swept the space around, trigger hard down. Instead of the fierce silver ray he was used to, a weak beam of violet shone from the muzzle. Two hands’ breadths away, it faded into nothing. This must be a force field, tuned to absorb not only light but even the most penetrating types of radiant energy. Within his very body Corson felt a nasty prickling sensation, as though his cells were threatening to lose their grip on each other.

A voice so deep and powerful it was like a blow in the belly boomed from an incredibly distant cave.

“Corson, don’t shoot—we’re friends!”

“Who are you?” he cried, but the words were as shrill as though he were hearing through a tiny, tiny spy mike.

“Colonel Veran,” the voice answered. “You don’t know me, but that doesn’t matter. Hide your eyes—we’re going to lift the screen.”

Corson put away his gun and in the darkness felt for Antonella’s hand.

“Do as he says. Does the name mean anything to you?”

She whispered, “I don’t know anybody called ‘Colonel’!"

“That’s a rank, a military rank. His name is Veran. I don’t know him any more than you do, but—”

Like a lightning flash. Between his fingers Corson saw at first only a blank whiteness, which shortly dissolved into a horde of needles as red as blood that drove through his closed lids. When he was able to open his eyes properly he saw that the floater was hovering in a forest glade. It was broad day. They were surrounded by men in gray uniforms, carrying unknown weapons. Beyond the ring of soldiers he could make out two machines, or two mounds of something, whose details were blurred to his suffering eyes. There were two more like them on each side, and when he turned his head he found two more still at his back. More soldiers were standing guard on them.

Tanks?

Then one of the things moved, and Corson almost cried out.

Those “mounds” were Monsters!

Monsters exactly like the one which the Archimedes had been sent to turn loose on Uria. Creatures so terrifying that human beings of Corson’s day, in that age when war had impoverished language, had been able to invent no other name for them but Monster.

Corson glanced at Antonella. Tight-lipped, she was keeping up a pretty good front.

Now a man in a green uniform left the group of gray-clad soldiers and approached the floater. Three meters away he drew himself up stiffly and said in a sharp voice, “Colonel Veran! Miraculously escaped with the rump of the 623rd Cavalry Regiment from the Aergistal disaster. Thanks to you, Corson. Your idea of setting up a beacon saved our lives. What’s more I see you’ve managed to get hold of a hostage. Fine. We shall interrogate her later.”

“I was never—” Corson began. Then he fell silent. If this alarming person felt he owed Corson a debt, let him go on thinking so.

He jumped down from the floater. It was only then that he noticed the soldiers’ uniforms were torn and stained, and there were deep dents in the blackened masks which covered their faces. Oddly, none of the men in sight appeared to be wounded, even slightly. The reason sprang to Corson’s mind from his past experience.

Casualties get finished off . . .

That name “Aergistal” meant nothing to him. These uniforms were none he recognized. The rank which translated into Pangal as “colonel” must have been used for fifteen thousand years at least. This Colonel Veran might have emerged from any battle fought between Corson’s time and the present, although the fact that his men used trained Monsters did indicate that he must come from a period fairly long after Corson’s own. How long would it have taken to communicate with the Monsters, train them, following the first tentative experiments by the Solar Powers—ten years, a hundred, a thousand?

“What was your rank?” demanded Colonel Veran.