The cars drew up before an ornamental gate set in a long stone wall. The drivers talked with two armed guards wearing the livery of a private estate and the thin steel collars of slaves. The gate was opened and the cars went along a graveled driveway between lawns and trees. At the far end, almost on the beach, stood a house. Everard and Van Sarawak were gestured out and led toward it.

  It was a rambling wooden structure. Gas lamps on the porch showed it painted in gaudy stripes; the gables and beam-ends were carved into dragon heads. Close by he heard the sea, and there was enough light from a sinking crescent moon for Everard to make out a ship standing in close: presumably a freighter, with a tall smokestack and a figurehead.

  The windows glowed yellow. A slave butler admitted the party. The interior was paneled in dark wood, also carved, the floors thickly carpeted. At the end of the hall was a living room with over-stuffed furniture, several paintings in a stiff conventionalized style, and a merry blaze in an enormous stone fireplace.

  Saorann ap Ceorn sat in one chair, Deirdre in another. She laid aside a book as they entered and rose, smiling. The officer puffed a cigar and glowered. Some words were swapped, and the guards disappeared. The butler fetched in wine on a tray, and Deirdre invited the Patrolmen to sit down.

  Everard sipped from his glass—the wine was an excellent Burgundy—and asked bluntly, “Why are we here?”

  Deirdre dazzled him with a smile. “Surely you find it more pleasant than the jail.”

  “Of course. As well as more ornamental. But I still want to know. Are we being released?”

  “You are…” She hunted for a diplomatic answer, but there seemed to be too much frankness in her. “You are welcome here, but may not leave the estate. We hope you can be persuaded to help us. You would be richly rewarded.”

  “Help? How?”

  “By showing our artisans and Druids how to make more weapons and magical carts like your own.”

  Everard sighed. It was no use trying to explain. They didn’t have the tools to make the tools to make what was needed, but how could he get that across to a folk who believed in witchcraft?

  “Is this your uncle’s home?” he asked.

  “No, my own,” said Deirdre. “I am the only child of my parents, who were wealthy nobles. They died last year.”

  Ap Ceorn clipped out several words. Deirdre translated with a worried frown: “The tale of your advent is known to all Catuvellaunan by now; and that includes the foreign spies. We hope you can remain hidden from them here.”

  Everard, remembering the pranks Axis and Allies had played in little neutral nations like Portugal, shivered. Men made desperate by approaching war would not likely be as courteous as the Afallonians.

  “What is this conflict going to be about?” he inquired.

  “The control of the Icenian Ocean, of course. In particular, certain rich islands we call Ynys yr Lyonnach.” Deirdre got up in a single flowing movement and pointed out Hawaii on a globe. “You see,” she went on earnestly, “as I told you, Littorn and the western alliance—including us—wore each other out fighting. The great powers today, expanding, quarreling, are Huy Braseal and Hinduraj. Their conflict sucks in the lesser nations, for the clash is not only between ambitions, but between systems: the monarchy of Hinduraj against the sun-worshipping theocracy of Huy Braseal.”

  “What is your religion, if I may ask?”

  Deirdre blinked. The question seemed almost meaningless to her. “The more educated people think that there is a Great Baal who made all the lesser gods,” she answered at last, slowly. “But naturally, we maintain the ancient cults, and pay respect to the more powerful foreign gods too, such as Littorn’s Perkunas and Czernebog, Wotan Ammon of Cumberland, Brahma, the Sun… Best not to chance their anger.”

  “I see.”

  Ap Ceorn offered cigars and matches. Van Sarawak inhaled and said querulously, “Damn it, this would have to be a time line where they don’t speak any language I know.” He brightened. “But I’m pretty quick to learn, even without hypno. I’ll get Deirdre to teach me.”

  “You and me both,” said Everard in haste. “But listen, Van.” He reported what he had learned.

  “Hm.” The younger man rubbed his chin. “Not so good, eh? Of course, if they’d just let us aboard our scooter, we could make an easy getaway. Why not play along with them?”

  “They’re not such fools,” answered Everard. “They may believe in magic, but not in undiluted altruism.”

  “Funny they should be so backward intellectu-ally, and still have combustion engines.”

  “No. It’s quite understandable. That’s why I asked about their religion. It’s always been purely pagan; even Judaism seems to have disappeared, and Buddhism hasn’t been very influential. As Whitehead pointed out, the medieval idea of one almighty God was important to the growth of science, by inculcating the notion of lawfulness in nature. And Lewis Mumford added that the early monasteries were probably responsible for the mechanical clock—a very basic invention—because of having regular hours for prayer. Clocks seem to have come late in this world.” Everard smiled wryly, a shield against the sadness within. “Odd to talk like this. Whitehead and Mumford never lived.”

  “Nevertheless—”

  “Just a minute,” Everard turned to Deirdre. “When was Afallon discovered?”

  “By white men? In the year 4827.”

  “Um… when does your reckoning start from?”

  Deirdre seemed immune to further startlement. “The creation of the world. At least, the date some philosophers have given. That is 5964 years ago.”

  Which agreed with Bishop Ussher’s famous 4004 B.C., perhaps by sheer coincidence—but still, there was definitely a Semitic element in this culture. The creation story in Genesis was of Babylonian origin too.

  “And when was steam (pneuma) first used to drive engines?” he asked.

  “About a thousand years ago. The great Druid Boroihme O’Fiona—”

  “Never mind.” Everard smoked his cigar and mulled his thoughts for a while before looking back at Van Sarawak.

  “I’m beginning to get the picture,” he said. “The Gauls were anything but the barbarians most people think. They’d learned a lot from Phoenician traders and Greek colonists, as well as from the Etruscans in cisalpine Gaul. A very energetic and enterprising race. The Romans, on the other hand, were a stolid lot, with few intellectual interests. There was little technological progress in our world till the Dark Ages, when the Empire had been swept out of the way.

  “In this history, the Romans vanished early. So, I’m pretty sure, did the Jews. My guess is, without the balance-of-power effect of Rome, the Syrians did suppress the Maccabees; it was a near thing even in our history. Judaism disappeared and therefore Christianity never came into existence. But anyhow, with Rome removed, the Gauls got the supremacy. They started exploring, building better ships, discovering America in the ninth century. But they weren’t so far ahead of the Indians that those couldn’t catch up… could even be stimulated to build empires of their own, like Huy Braseal today. In the eleventh century, the Celts began tinkering with steam engines. They seem to have gotten gunpowder too, maybe from China, and to have made several other inventions. But its all been cut-and-try, with no basis of real science.”

  Van Sarawak nodded. “I suppose you’re right. But what did happen to Rome?”

  “I don’t know. Yet. But our key point is back there somewhere.”

  Everard returned his attention to Deirdre. “This may surprise you,” he said smoothly. “Our people visited this world about 2500 years ago. That’s why I speak Greek but don’t know what has occurred since. I would like to find out from you; I take it you’re quite a scholar.”

  She flushed and lowered long dark lashes such as few redheads possess. “I will be glad to help as much as I can.” With a sudden appeal: “But will you help us in return?”

  “I don’t know,” said Everard heavily. “I’d like to. But I don’t know if we can.”

  Because after all, my job is to condemn you and your entire world to death.

  5

  When Everard was shown to his room, he discovered that local hospitality was more than generous. He was too tired and depressed to take advantage of it.… but at least, he thought on the edge of sleep, Van’s slave girl wouldn’t be disappointed.

  They got up early here. From his upstairs window, Everard saw guards pacing the beach, but they didn’t detract from the morning’s freshness. He came down with Van Sarawak to breakfast, where bacon and eggs, toast and coffee added the last touch of dream. Ap Ceorn had gone back to town to confer, said Deirdre; she herself had put wistfulness aside and chattered gaily of trivia. Everard learned that she belonged to an amateur dramatic group which sometimes gave Classical Greek plays in the original: hence her fluency. She liked to ride, hunt, sail, swim—“And shall we?” she asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Swim, of course?” Deirdre sprang from her chair on the lawn, where they had been sitting under flame-colored leaves, and whirled innocently out of her clothes. Everard thought he heard a dull clunk as Van Sarawak’s jaw hit the ground.

  “Come!” she laughed. “Last one in is a Sassenach!”

  She was already tumbling in the gray surf when Everard and Van Sarawak shuddered their way down to the beach. The Venusian groaned. “I come from a warm planet. My ancestors were Indonesians. Tropical birds.”

  “There were some Dutchmen too, weren’t there?” grinned Everard.

  “They had the sense to move to Indonesia.”

  “All right, stay ashore.”

  “Hell! If she can do it, I can!” Van Sarawak put a toe in the water and groaned again.

  Everard summoned up all the control he had ever learned and ran in. Deirdre threw water at him. He plunged, got hold of a slender leg, and pulled her under. They frolicked about for several minutes before running back to the house for a hot shower. Van Sarawak followed in a blue haze.

  “Speak about Tantalus,” he mumbled. “The most beautiful girl in the whole continuum, and I can’t talk to her and she’s half polar bear.”

  Toweled dry and dressed in the local garb by slaves, Everard returned to stand before the living-room fire. “What pattern is this?” he asked, pointing to the tartan of his kilt.

  Deirdre lifted her ruddy head. “My own clan’s,” she answered. “An honored guest is always taken as a clan member during his stay, even if a blood feud is going on.” She smiled shyly. “And there is none between us, Manslach.”

  It cast him back into bleakness. He remembered what his purpose was.

  “I’d like to ask you about history,” he said. “It is a special interest of mine.”

  She nodded, adjusted a gold fillet on her hair, and got a book from a crowded shelf. “This is the best world history, I think. I can look up any details you might wish to know.”

  And tell me what I must do to destroy you.

  Everard sat down with her on a couch. The butler wheeled in lunch. He ate moodily, untasting.

  To follow up his hunch—“Did Rome and Carthage ever fight a war?”

  “Yes. Two, in fact. They were allied at first, against Epirus, but fell out. Rome won the first war and tried to restrict Carthaginian enterprise.” Her clean profile bent over the pages, like a studious child. “The second war broke out 23 years later, and lasted… hm… 11 years all told, though the last three were only a mopping up after Hannibal had taken and burned Rome.”

  Ah-hah! Somehow, Everard did not feel happy at his success.

  The Second Punic War (they called it the Roman War here—or, rather, some crucial incident thereof—was the turning point. But partly out of curiosity, partly because he feared to tip his hand, Everard did not at once try to identify the deviation. He’d first have to get straight in his mind what had actually happened, anyway. (No… what had not happened. The reality was here, warm and breathing beside him; he was the ghost.)

  “So what came next?” he asked tonelessly.

  “The Carthaginian empire came to include Hispania, southern Gaul, and the toe of Italy,” she said. “The rest of Italy was impotent and chaotic, after the Roman confederacy had been broken up. But the Carthaginian government was too venal to remain strong. Hannibal himself was assassinated by men who thought his honesty stood in their way. Meanwhile, Syria and Parthia fought for the eastern Mediterranean, with Parthia winning and thus coming under still greater Hellenic influence than before.

  “About a hundred years after the Roman Wars, some Germanic tribes overran Italy.” (That would be the Cimbri, with their allies the Teutones and Ambrones, whom Marius had stopped in Everard’s world.) “Their destructive path through Gaul had set the Celts moving too, eventually into Hispania and North Africa as Carthage declined. And from Carthage the Gauls learned much.

  “A long period of wars followed, during which Parthia waned and the Celtic states grew. The Huns broke the Germans in middle Europe, but were in turn defeated by Parthia; so the Gauls moved in and the only Germans left were in Italy and Hyperborea.” (That must be the Scandinavian peninsula.) “As ships improved, trade grew up with the Far East, both from Arabia and directly around Africa.” (In Everard’s history, Julius Caesar had been astonished to find the Veneti building better vessels than any in the Mediterranean.) “The Celtanians discovered southern Afallon, which they thought was an island—hence the ’Ynys’—but they were thrown out by the Mayans. The Brittle colonies further north did survive, though, and eventually won their independence.

  “Meanwhile Littorn was growing apace. It swallowed up most of Europe for a while. The western end of the continent only regained its freedom as part of the peace settlement after the Hundred Years’ War I’ve told you about. The Asian countries have shaken off their exhausted European masters and modernized themselves, while the Western nations have declined in their turn.” Deirdre looked up from the book, which she had been skimming as she talked. “But this is only the barest outline, Manslach. Shall I go on?”

  Everard shook his head. “No, thanks.” After a moment: “You are very honest about the situation of your own country.”

  Deirdre said roughly, “Most of us won’t admit it, but I think it best to look truth in the eyes.”

  With a surge of eagerness: “But tell me of your own world. This is a marvel past belief.”

  Everard sighed, switched off his conscience, and began lying.

  The raid took place that afternoon.

  Van Sarawak had recovered his poise and was busily learning the Afallonian language from Deirdre.They walked through the garden hand in hand, stopping to name objects and act out verbs. Everard followed, wondering vaguely if he was a third wheel or not, most of him bent to the problem of how to get at the scooter.

  Bright sunlight spilled from a pale cloudless sky. A maple was a shout of scarlet, a drift of yellow leaves scudded across the grass. An elderly slave was raking the yard in a leisurely fashion, a young-looking guard of Indian race lounged with his rifle slung on one shoulder, a pair of wolf-hounds dozed under a hedge. It was a peaceful scene; hard to believe that men prepared murder beyond these walls.

  But man was man, in any history. This culture might not have the ruthless will and sophisticated cruelty of Western civilization; in fact, in some ways it looked strangely innocent. Still, that wasn’t for lack of trying. And in this world, a genuine science might never emerge, man might endlessly repeat the cycle of war, empire, collapse, and war. In Everard’s future, the race had finally broken out of it.

  For what? He could not honestly say that this continuum was worse or better than his own. It was different, that was all. And didn’t these people have as much right to their existence as—as his own, who were damned to nullity if he failed?

  He knotted his fists. The issue was too big. No man should have to decide something like this.

  At the showdown, he knew, no abstract sense of duty would compel him, but the little things and the little folk he remembered.

  They rounded the house and Deirdre pointed to the sea. “Awarlann,” she said. Her loose hair burned in the wind.

  “Now does that mean ’ocean’ or ’Atlantic’ or ’water’?” laughed Van Sarawak. “Let’s go see.” He led her toward the beach.

  Everard trailed. A kind of steam launch, long and fast, was skipping over the waves, a mile or two offshore. Gulls trailed it in a snowstorm of wings. He thought that if he’d been in charge, a Navy ship would have been on picket out there.

  Did he even have to decide anything? There were other Patrolmen in the pre-Roman past. They’d return to their respective eras and…

  Everard stiffened. A chill ran down his back and congealed in his belly.

  They’d return, and see what had happened, and try to correct the trouble. If any of them succeeded, this world would blink out of space-time, and he would go with it.

  Deirdre paused. Everard, standing in a sweat, hardly noticed what she was staring at, till she cried out and pointed. Then he joined her and squinted across the sea.

  The launch was standing in close, its high stack fuming smoke and sparks, the gilt snake figure-head agleam. He could see the forms of men aboard, and something white, with wings.… It rose from the poopdeck and trailed at the end of a rope, mounting. A glider! Celtic aeronautics had gotten that far, at least.

  “Pretty,” said Van Sarawak. “I suppose they have balloons too.”

  The glider cast its tow and swooped inward. One of the guards on the beach shouted. The rest pelted from behind the house. Sunlight flashed off their guns. The launch headed straight for the shore. The glider landed, plowing a furrow in the beach.

  An officer yelled and waved the Patrolmen back. Everard had a glimpse of Deirdre’s face, white and uncomprehending. Then a turret on the glider swiveled—a detached part of his mind guessed it was manually operated—and a light cannon spoke.

  Everard hit the dirt. Van Sarawak followed, dragging the girl with him. Grapeshot plowed hideously through the Afallonian soldiers.