“See?” said Laz. “You’re already solving it. You’re so smart, Ivy.” He made sure there wasn’t a hint of irony in his tone.

  “You’re not really an asshole, Laz,” said Ivy softly. “But I get confused because you speak Assholian so fluently.”

  17

  IT WAS GOING to be Ivy’s job to figure out how to move to a different physical location while side stepping. Laz didn’t scry well enough anyway. So he continued going to different locations and making new secret Portals.

  Laz had one of the most recognizable faces in all the worlds, so he tried to stay out of sight on his Portal-making expeditions. At first he only linked Central Time to locations in the timestreams. Now it was time to start creating secret links between timestreams, without moving everything through Central Time right from the start.

  In Six, or Tessera, the world where Laz had rescued thousands of political refugees, there was a strong enclave of Berbers and Bedouins inhabiting the Atlas Mountains in the northwest corner of Africa. Ron explained to Laz that his people had been unable to determine whether the Atlas group was for or against the rebel groups who wanted to shut down the public Portal. So Laz said he’d go to where Morocco had been, to make the step and find out what was going on.

  “No, I have agents who’ll do that, through your new Portal,” said Ron. “Just figure out the best place for my people to come through, and they’ll do their best to get the information.”

  “While I twiddle my thumbs,” said Laz.

  “Or listen to audiobooks. Look, Laz,” said Ron, “what you can do is so extraordinary that it would be absurd to risk your being identified. Right now, Laz Hayerian is universally admired. Get caught spying, and you won’t recover your credibility in a hundred years.”

  It made sense, to Laz’s chagrin. “So I’m stuck doing this one thing, over and over.”

  “The ‘one thing’ you do is so powerful that it saved the human race—twice, at least.”

  “To me it’s just a way of getting out of trouble in a pinch,” said Laz.

  “A way that isn’t available to anybody else in human history,” said Ron.

  “That we know of,” said Laz.

  “It was OrigiLaz who used it as a kid to get out of trouble. You’ve only used it to help us manage the differences between timestreams.”

  “If I remember it, I did it,” said Laz. “It’s Ivy’s and my new policy.”

  “Remember this, then. You have only used side stepping to benefit other people. All three of you Lazzes have been saviors.”

  “On vastly different scales,” said Laz. “A few hundred here, a few dozen there. Nothing like opening Portals for billions to pass through.”

  “But it wasn’t OrigiLaz’s job to personally usher everybody through. We had staff for that.”

  “In other words, you.”

  “My staff, yes. Learning as we went. Believe me, the transfer from the New Place to the Safe Places went way more smoothly, after what we learned getting from the Old Place to the New Place.”

  “You’re saying that I should be happy to do my simple duty, over and over.”

  “I don’t know about ‘happy,’ Laz. Maybe ‘content’?”

  “I’m not hard to please,” said Laz. “I’m content with most things how they already are.”

  “If you can get us to the Atlas Kingdom, I’ll be thrilled.”

  “Is it an emergency? Ivy and I are working on something—”

  “If it works,” said Ron, “it’ll make your relocation project easier to bring off.”

  “Well, that’s not a bad thing, except that we probably can’t do it at all.”

  “Spend a few weeks refining your technique. But we need to move fairly quickly after that.”

  “Is there really a serious threat of war?” asked Laz.

  “Ask me again in a year or two. Right now the worlds are choosing up teams. Nobody’s fighting anybody outside their own timestream. But everybody resents Central Time. Or, specifically, the Interplanetary Portal Commission.”

  “People are calling it the Agency.”

  “Agency, Commission… it’s whatever I call it. Because I don’t talk about it much with anybody outside the IP-whatever. And inside it, we never need to name our organization.”

  “So the whole timestream called Central Time gets all the resentment really owed to the IPA.”

  “IPC,” said Ron. “Agency. Administration. Commission. Confab. Conclave.”

  “I’m glad that’s settled,” said Laz.

  That night, at home, Laz built a plan of action, then wadded it up and started over. He didn’t want to work it out on the computer, because who knew what Ron’s team—and others—might be pulling off his system. But he had no convenient way to start a fire and burn his rough drafts. Put them in the oven and set the temperature to Fahrenheit 451? Somebody would know his plans. Fortunately, his plans right now were worthless.

  He would clandestinely go to Central Time’s Morocco, side step into Six, make the secret Portal, and then step aside for Ron’s crew of spies. Er, “unofficial observers.” You have to call things by their right weasel-names.

  Ron arranged a long-distance VTOL trip to Morocco. Vertical takeoff and landing planes were slow. No supersonic speeds, not even subsonic jet speeds. But they could carry Ron’s full crew, plus Laz, plus two spools of different-colored twine, and land them exactly where they wanted to, without having to find a runway.

  The crew leader was a Berber named Willard, which was not at all a Berber name. Maybe it was his nom de guerre because anglophones could pronounce it. During the flight, Willard came and sat by him in one of the seats against the portside wall. “Where do we need to put you?” he asked in what had to be an Australian accent.

  It took Laz a moment to realize that he was asking where to land so Laz could make his Portal. “I don’t know the terrain there, Willard,” said Laz. “You actually do know it, so you pick a place where I can lay out the Portal using my strings, and not have them visible to casual observers.”

  “The best places to keep the Portal secret are in the mountains, in dry places. Except the goats will eat the string, so maybe not. Maybe someplace close to a city, so we don’t have to walk so far when we get through your Portal.”

  “Security. Convenience.” Laz made balancing motions with his hands. “You know they may not have towns in the same places that have towns in Central Time.”

  “They’ll do their best to use sites that had mosques in the Old Place. That’s what was done here in Central Time, and the Moroccan settlers here aren’t nearly as religious as the Berbers in Six are likely to be.”

  “So, what mosque?”

  “Meknes is where I grew up,” said Willard. “It’s dry and open, like most of urban Morocco. Hard to hide. But I’m thinking maybe the cemetery.”

  “Hoping superstition will keep people away?” asked Laz.

  “You can lay your twine among the ruins of the Temple of Saturn. Or the House of Venus.”

  “Willard,” said Laz. “There are no ancient ruins in any of the timestreams. The places you’re talking about only existed in the Old Place.”

  Willard smiled. “You want to know how crazy we are? Once everybody had a place to live, we had to replicate the ruins. We cut the stone from the same quarry the Romans used, built them in place, and knocked them over.”

  Laz digested this. Sentimentality? Nostalgia? Everybody gave up their original homelands, so why not try to replicate them where they’re living now? “The cemetery—no bodies?”

  “Just headstones with the original names on them. Those were our ancestors. We figured that if God wanted to burn up the Earth, who are we to complain? But we can build monuments to our people who lived and died on old Earth.”

  “Monuments that were temples to idols,” said Laz.

  “The idols were long gone. They were fallen stones that we children played among when we were little. Why not let our children play there too?”

  It was as loopy as Willard warned him it would be, but also kind of touching. “And you guys can pass through undetected? You won’t have to kick a bunch of children out of the way?”

  “Not after dark. Let us worry about detection,” said Willard. “We can’t set this vehicle down right beside where the Portal’s going to be. So we’ll have to trek a ways from the VTOL to the graveyard.”

  “And by ‘we’ you’re including me?”

  “We’re not carrying you on a litter, if that’s what you were hoping for,” said Willard.

  “No, no, I love walking. Once upon a time, I was a great walker. Or… my original was.” Why did I say that? Laz asked himself. Why remind people I’m a clone? Why not let them think I’m a person?

  Nobody ever forgot he was a clone

  “You’ll walk this one time,” said Willard. “And when you’re done, back to the VTOL.”

  “Which won’t be close by,” said Laz.

  “Close enough for a brisk walk. If you’re a walker, you can do it in good time.”

  “Then it sounds like you’ve picked a good place.”

  “I have to warn you—we can’t be sure that the Berbers on Six have rebuilt the broken-down temples like we did. They were talking about it when Tessera got huffy and interrupted all contact with the Sahara and the Mediterranean coast. Since we went ahead and rebuilt the ruins, we assume they did, too. But instead they might have begun arming themselves for when Tessera looks south and launches an invasion.”

  “Or both,” said Laz. Then he realized: “You aren’t going there to observe. You’re going there to make contact with the Berbers in Six, and if they need weapons, you’ll get them and carry them through the Portal I’m about to make.”

  Willard looked at him. “Okay, you’re the genius, just younger. I should have figured you’d figure it out.”

  Laz shook his head. “You look nervous about it. I have no objection to your helping the Berbers defend themselves from Tessera. But I’m not thrilled about it if your intention is to incite Morocco to attack Tessera and reduce some of the pressure near the Portal. Are you hoping to get Tessera to seek a rapprochement with Central Time?”

  “That’s all above my pay grade,” said Willard.

  “So, yes.”

  “Ron knows,” said Willard. “And what you said makes sense. Unless it doesn’t work.”

  “And if the Berbers suddenly have a bunch of weapons and ammo,” said Laz, “do you think Tessera won’t figure out there’s another Portal, and Central Time is supplying them?”

  “We’re not counting on Tessera being led by idiots,” said Willard. “Of course they’ll figure it out. And that means they’ll figure out that you made the secret Portal, and they may decide to kill you.”

  Laz absorbed this. “Thanks for the warning.”

  “We’ll keep you from being seen on this side and that side of the new Portal.”

  “They don’t have to see me to know that I did it,” said Laz. “There’s no competing Portal-making business.”

  “But they won’t know when you did it. They might think that the older Laz did it when he sorted out the timestreams.”

  Laz shook his head. “I don’t mind being in danger,” he said. “I never have to shoot my way out, you know.”

  Willard smiled. “I guess not. Maybe you won’t need a lot of bodyguards.”

  “Only while we’re sleeping,” said Laz. “And not even then, unless they blow us up or something.”

  “Oh, we’ll watch out for you. Maybe not this team, but Ron has a lot of highly trained operatives at his command.”

  “Where did he recruit them?”

  “A lot of career military, from a lot of countries,” said Willard. “They already had the skills. What they lacked was a purpose.”

  “To keep imperialists from conquering their neighbors?” asked Laz.

  “No,” said Willard. “Ron says that we didn’t save the human race just to boss everybody around. All we’re going to do is keep the Portals open, and if we have to, we’ll fight the ones who want to close them.”

  “Hence the secret Portals.”

  “We’re not out to conquer Tessera, or even subdue them. We’re out to distract them and give their rivals a fighting chance to keep them from controlling access to the Portal for years and decades to come.”

  “For trade?”

  “Laz, what if somebody finds an absolute cure for malaria in one of the timestreams? Or a vaccine against cancer? Or a way to power a city through cold fusion? Shouldn’t those ideas spread?”

  “But not the pocket-sized megaton nukes, right?” asked Laz. “Or does Central Time get hold of them and establish a monopoly on devastating power?”

  Willard shook his head. “Lazarus Hayerian, somebody will develop weapons we have no real defense against, and they won’t give them to us, they’ll use them against Central Time. Then they’ll break the Portals or try to control them, and we won’t be able to interfere. But when will that happen? As Ron explained it to us, our job is to make sure it doesn’t happen this year. Or next. Keep the Portals open as long as we can, to keep the worlds communicating. And when the main Portals break down or one nation or another gets control of them, maybe these back doors you’re making, maybe they’ll allow the good inventions to spread, to save lives in all the worlds.”

  Laz had to laugh. “I believe you, Willard. I think it’s a decent plan. Ron’s already got failure built into it, and has ways to keep it working anyway. The goal’s a good one, the method’s a reasonable one, maybe a minimum of killing. It’ll still be a lot less than Shiva would have killed.”

  “So,” said Willard, “you’re still going to make the Portals?”

  Laz shrugged. “If I can.”

  “And why would you not be able to?” asked Willard.

  “I’ve been getting orders from two sources. Ron is one.”

  “And the other?”

  “Hell if I know,” said Laz. “And still less do I know what would happen if I disobeyed. The other Laz and Ivy resigned from Ron’s service, and Ron didn’t punish them.”

  “No, he just woke you up,” said Willard.

  “How long is this flight, anyway?” Time to stop talking about himself and his role in all Ron’s plans.

  “Longer than usual,” said Willard. “We’re taking a kind of roundabout route to avoid passing near any populated areas. Don’t need anybody recognizing that this is a combat aircraft and speculating about where it’s going. There’s no need for military in Central Time—all the governments are running smoothly, everybody gets along between timestreams. So what will they think we’re doing? They’ll ask about it, they’ll make a stink about it, and the bagunça will get back to Tessera and then where are we? We don’t want to have to make war across the Portal to protect Central Time from Six.”

  “Glad this flight is taking so long,” said Laz.

  “You’re more understanding than I expected,” said Willard approvingly.

  “You give better explanations than Ron does on his best days,” said Laz, with a smile.

  “I’ve talked to him about his communication skills, but he says it’s not about skill, it’s about desire.”

  “So he could communicate better,” said Laz, “he just doesn’t want to.”

  Willard held up a hand and listened to something coming through his one earphone. “We’re out over the Atlantic right now, but we’re making our approach to Meknes over the bleakest, dryest, emptiest part of the coast.”

  “So only the fishermen will see us,” said Laz.

  “Fishermen see everything, and say very little,” said Willard. “And maybe they won’t look up. We’ll be too high for them to hear us.”

  “Your business,” said Laz. “I’m just along for the ride.”

  It was still more than half an hour before the VTOL lowered itself into a sheltered valley inhabited only by a small flock of goats, which rushed away as the VTOL came down.

  The crew got out their paraphernalia, including medical equipment, and set it up or stored it under a couple of large canopies. Then everybody except the two men on watch took a nap. Laz had only one question before he slept, but he thought it was an important one. “There are scorpions all over the place,” said Laz. “What will they do to me while I sleep?”

  “They won’t come near you. That injection you got just before you boarded—it causes your body to give off a strong stink of death that will keep all insects away, including mosquitoes.”

  “Scorpions are arachnids, not insects,” said Laz. “And a lot of creatures are attracted by the smell of death.”

  “Do you want the full chemical description?” asked Willard.

  “I wouldn’t understand it if you told it to me,” said Laz. “The scorpions won’t come near me?”

  “Arachnids don’t like the smell either,” said Willard.

  “Then I’m beginning my nap.”

  “Get into your mummy bag first,” said Willard.

  “It’s hot. Are you joking?”

  “Before we go anywhere near town, it’s going to be dark. And in the dark, the temperature plummets. That’s why we had you bring a serious jacket.”

  “So I came to the Sahara and I might freeze to death?”

  “You came to the Atlas Mountains,” said Willard. “We’re only Sahara-adjacent here. But I’ve been stuck outdoors at nighttime wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Please believe me and climb into your bag.”

  “Which one’s mine?” asked Laz.

  “Whichever one you crawl into,” said Willard. “They’re all new.”

  18

  IT WAS COLDER than Laz had imagined, and he thought at first that his coat would be inadequate. But there wasn’t a wind blowing, and these guys kept up a brisk enough pace that Laz was soon warm enough to be sweating under the jacket.

  All the guys looked like they could be Berbers, and Laz was surprised they hadn’t made him darken his white, untanned face. But when he whispered the question to Willard, he just rolled his eyes. “Nobody’s going to shine a light on us,” he whispered, “so you’re just a gray cat like everybody else.”