374

  Ermanaric sat alone beneath the stars. Wind whimpered. From afar he heard wolves howl.

  After the messengers had brought their news, he could soon endure no more of the terror and the gabble that followed. At his command, two warriors had helped him up the stairs to the flat roof of this blockhouse. They set him down on a bench by the parapet and wrapped a fur cloak about his hunched shoulders. “Go!” he barked, and they went, fear upon them.

  He had watched sunset smolder away in the west, while thunderheads gathered blue-black in the east. Those clouds now loomed across a fourth of heaven. Lightnings played through their caverns. Before dawn, the storm would be here. As yet, though, only its forerunner wind had arrived, winter-cold in the middle of summer. Elsewhere the stars still shone in their hordes.

  They were small and strange and without pity. Ermanaric’s gaze tried to flee the sight of Wodan’s Wain, where it wheeled around the Eye of Tiwaz that forever watches from the north. But always the sign of the Wanderer drew him back. “I did not heed you, gods,” he mumbled once. “I trusted in my own strength. You are more tricky and cruel than I knew.”

  Here he sat, he the mighty, lame of hand and foot, able to do naught but hear how the foe had crossed the river and smashed underhoof the army that sought to stay them. He should be thinking what next to try, giving his orders, rallying his folk. They were not undone, if they got the right leadership. But the king’s head felt hollow.

  Hollow, not empty. Dead men filled that hall of bone, the men who fell with Hathawulf and Solbern, the flower of the East Goths. Had they been alive during these past days, together they would have hurled back the Huns, Ermanaric at their forefront. But Ermanaric had died too, in the same slaughter. Nothing was left but a cripple, whose endless pains gnawed holes in his mind.

  Naught could he do for his kingdom but let go of it, in hopes that his oldest living son might be worthier, might be victorious. Ermanaric bared teeth at the stars. Too well did he know how that hope lied. Before the Ostrogoths lay defeat, rapine, butchery, subjection. If ever they became free again, it would be long after he had moldered back into the earth.

  He—how blessed that would be—or merely his flesh? What waited for him beyond the dark?

  He drew his knife. Starlight and lightninglight shimmered on the steel. For a while it trembled in his hand. The wind whittered.

  “Have done!” he screamed. He ruffled his beard aside and brought the point under the right corner of his jaw. Eyes lifted anew, as if of themselves, to the Wain. Something white flickered yonder—a scrap of cloud, or Swanhild riding behind the Wanderer? Ermanaric called forth all the courage that remained to him. He thrust the knife inward and hauled it across.

  Blood spurted from the slashed throat. He sagged and fell to the deck. The last thing he heard was thunder. It sounded like the hoofs of horses bearing westward the Hunnish midnight.

  POUL ANDERSON

  THE YEAR OF

  THE RANSOM

  In the year 1532, Francisco Pizarro and his band of conquistadors have captured the Inca Atahualpa. They are holding him for a huge ransom—two rooms full of silver and one room full of gold.

  In the year 1987, a young American woman takes a day of relaxation after working all summer as a guide in the Galapagos Islands.

  In the year 1885, a wife in London worries, and wonders whether she will ever see her husband again.

  In the year 1610, outlaws plan to steal the ransom of Atahualpa.

  In the peculiar world of the Time Patrol, all these events are tied together, and it is Manse Everard’s job to sort them out and keep them from changing history.

  And a rogue conquistador with a stolen time machine may be more than Manse can handle!

  In The Year of the Ransom Poul Anderson, author of the classic novels The Dancer From Atlantis and Tau Zero, and winner of eleven major awards for his fiction and poetry, continues the saga of the Time Patrol with the daring and panache familiar to his millions of fans.

  THE YEAR OF

  THE RANSOM

  Books in the Millennium Series

  THE LEGACY OF LEHR

  by Katherine Kurtz

  A DARK TRAVELING

  by Roger Zelazny

  CHESS WITH A DRAGON

  by David Gerrold

  PROJECT PENDULUM

  by Robert Silverberg

  THE FOREVER CITY

  by Richard A. Lupoff

  THE YEAR OF THE RANSOM

  by Poul Anderson

  THE YEAR OF THE RANSOM

  Millennium™ Books

  All rights reserved.

  THE YEAR OF THE RANSOM Copyright © 1988

  by Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc.

  Text copyright © 1988 by Poul Anderson.

  Illustrations copyright © 1988

  by Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc.

  Cover painting by Paul Rivoche.

  Book design by Alex Jay/Studio J.

  Book edited by David M. Harris.

  Special thanks to Ted Chichak and Amy Shields.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part,

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  For information adddress: Walker and Company,

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  Millennium Books and the Millennium symbol are trademarks of Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Anderson, Poul, 1926–

  The year of the ransom / Poul Anderson ; illustrated by Paul Rivoche.

  p. cm.—(A Millennium book)

  “A Bryon Preiss book.”

  ISBN 0-8027-6800-8. ISBN 0-8027-6801-6 (pbk.)

  I. Title. II. Series.

  PS3551.N378Y4 1988

  87-29054

  81334—dcl9

  CIP

  Printed in the United States of America.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  THE YEAR OF

  THE RANSOM

  10 SEPTEMBER 1987

  “Excellent loneliness.” Yes, Kipling could say it. I remember how those lines of his rolled up and down my spine when first I heard them, Uncle Steve reading aloud to me. Though that must have been a dozen years ago, they still do. The poem’s about the sea and the mountains, of course; but so are the Galapagos, the Enchanted Islands.

  Today I need just a little of their loneliness. The tourists were mostly bright, decent people. Still, a season of herding them along the trails, answering the same questions over and over, does begin to wear on a person. Now they’ve become fewer, my summer job has ended, soon I’ll be home Stateside, commencing grad school. Here is my last chance.

  “Wanda, dear!” The word Roberto used is querida, which could mean quite a lot. Not necessarily. I wonder about it for a flicker or two while he says, “Please, at least let me come along.”

  Headshake. “I’m sorry, my friend.” No, not exactly; amigo doesn’t translate one-on-one into English, either. “I’m not sulking or anything. Far from it. All I want is a few hours by myself. Haven’t you ever?”

  I’m being honest. My fellow guides are fine. I wish the friendships I’ve made among them will keep. Surely they will if we can get back together. But that’s uncertain. I may or may not be able to return next year. Eventually I may or may not make my dream of joining the research staff at Darwin Station. It can’t take many scientists; or another dream could come along meanwhile and take me. This trip, on which half a dozen of us are knocking around the archipelago with a boat and a camping permit, may well be the end of what we’ve called el companerismo, the Fellowship. Oh, I suppose a Christmas card or two.

  “You need protection.” Roberto has put on his dramatic style. “That strange man we heard of, asking around Puerto Ayora about the blonde young North American woman.”

  Let Roberto escort me? Temptation. He’s handsome, lively, and a gentleman. We haven’t exactly carried on a romance these past months, but we’ve gotten pretty close. While he’s never told me in words, I know how much he’s hoped we’d get closer yet. It hasn’t been easy resisting.

  Must be done, for his sake more than mine. Not because of his nationality. I think Ecuador is the Latin American country where most yanquis feel most at home. By our standards, things work right there. Quito is charming, and even Guayaquil—ugly, smog-choked, exploding with energy—reminds me of Los Angeles. However, Ecuador is not the U.S.A., and from its standpoint I’ve got a lot wrong with me, starting with the fact that I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to settle down, if ever.

  Therefore, laughing, “Oh, yes, Sr. Fuentes in the post office told me. Poor dear, how worried he was. The stranger’s funny clothes and accent and everything. Hasn’t he learned what can crawl off the cruise ships? And how many blondes do the Islands see, these days? Five hundred a year?”

  “How would Wanda’s secret admirer follow her, anyway?” Jennifer adds. “Swim?”

  We happen to know that none of the ships has touched at Bartoleme since we left Santa Cruz; no yachts are nearby; and everybody would have recognized a local fisherman.

  Roberto goes red under the tan we share. With pity, I pat his hand while telling the group, “Go ahead, folks, snorkel or whatever else you feel like. I’ll be back in time for my share of supper chores.”

  Quickly, then, striding from the bight. I really do need some solitude in this weird, harsh, beautiful nature.

  I could merge myself in it skindiving. The water’s glass-clear, silky around me; now and then I see a penguin, not so much swimming as flying through it; fish dance like fireworks, seaweeds do a stately hula; I can get friendly with the sea lions. But other swimmers, never mind how dear they are, will talk. What I want is to commune with the land. In company I couldn’t admit that. It’d sound too pompous, as though I were from Greenpeace or the People’s Republic of Berkeley.

  Now I’ve laid white-shell sand and mangroves behind me, I seem to have utter desolation underfoot. Bartolome is volcanic, like its sisters, but bears hardly any soil. It’s already hot beneath the morning sun; and never a cloud to soften the glare. Here and there sprawl gaunt shrubs or tussocks of grass, but they become few as I walk toward Pinnacle Rock. My Adidases whisper on dark lava, in simmering silence.

  However . . . among boulders and tide pools, Sally Lightfoot crabs scuttle, brilliant orange-and-blue. Bound inland, I spy a lizard of a kind unique to this place. I’m within a yard of a blue-footed booby; she could flap off, but simply watches me, the naive creature. A finch flitting across my vision; it was the Galapagos finches that helped Darwin understand how life works through time. An albatross wheeling white. Higher cruises a frigate bird. Unship the binoculars hung at my neck and catch the arrogance of his wings in the spilling sunlight, the split tail like a buccaneer’s twin swords.

  Here are none of the paths I’ve generally required my tourists to stay on. Ecuadorian government strict about that. Given its all too limited resources, it’s doing a great job trying to protect and restore the environment. Care where I put my feet, as becomes a biologist.

  I’ll circle around to the eastern end of the islet and there take the trail and stairs leading to the central peak. The view from the peak across to Santiago Island and widely over the ocean, is stunning; today I’ll have it to myself. Probably that’s where I’ll eat the lunch I’ve packed along. May later go down to the cove, peel off shirt and jeans, enjoy a private dip before turning westward.

  Careful about that, kid! You’re a bare twenty klicks below the Equator. This sun wants respect. Tilt my hat brim against it and stop for a drink from my canteen.

  Catch a breath, take a look around. I’ve gained some altitude, which I must give back before reaching the trailhead. Beach and camp are out of sight. Instead, I see a sweep and tumble of stone down to Sullivan Bay, fiery-blue water, Point Martinez lifting grayish on the big island. Is that a hawk there? Reach for the binoculars.

  A flash in the sky. Light off metal. An airplane? No, can’t be. It’s gone.

  Puzzled, I lower the glasses. I’ve heard enough about flying saucers, or UFOs, to give them the more respectable name. Never taken them seriously. Dad gave his children a healthy inoculation of skepticism. Well, he’s an electronics engineer. Uncle Steve, the archaeologist, has knocked around a lot more in the world, and claims it’s full of things we don’t understand. I suppose I’ll simply never know what it was I glimpsed. Let’s push on.

  Out of nowhere, a moment’s gust. The air thuds softly. A shadow falls over me. I turn my face upward.

  Can’t be!

  An outsize motorcycle, except every last detail is different, and it has no wheels, and it hangs there, ten feet up, unsupported, silent. A man in the front saddle grips what might be handlebars. I see him with knife sharpness. Each second takes forever. Terror has me, like nothing since I was seventeen, driving along the clifftops near Big Sur in a rainstorm, and the car went into a skid.

  I pulled out of that one. This doesn’t stop.

  He’s about five feet nine, rawboned but broad-shouldered, brown-skinned, pockmarked, hook-nosed, black hair falling past his ears, black beard and mustache trimmed to points, though getting shaggy. His outfit is what’s absolutely wrong, on top of such a machine. Floppy boots, saggy brown hose poking out of short puffed breeches, long-sleeved loose shirt that might be saffron below its grime—steel breastplate, helmet, red cloak, sword scabbarded at left hip.

  As if across a hundred miles: “Are you the lady Wanda Tamberly?”

  Somehow that snaps me back from the edge of screaming. Whatever is going on, I can meet it. Hysteria never has been compulsory. Nightmare, fever dream? I don’t believe so. The sun is too warm on my back and off the rocks, the sea too steadily bright, and I could count every spine on yonder cactus. Prank, stunt, psychological experiment? Less possible than the thing itself . . . His Spanish is the Castilian sort, but I never met that accent till now.

  “Who are you?” I force out of my throat. “What are you after?”

  His lips draw tight. Bad teeth. His tone is half fierce, half desperate. “Quickly! I must find Wanda Tamberly. Her uncle Esteban is in terrible danger.”

  “I am she, ” blurts my mouth.

  He barks a laugh. His vehicle swoops down at me. Run!

  He draws alongside, leans over, throws his right arm around my waist. Those muscles are titanium steel. Hauls me off my feet. That course I took in self-defense. My spread fingers jab for his eyes. He’s too fast. Knocks my hand aside. Does something to a control board. Suddenly we’re elsewhere.

  3 JUNE 1533

  (JULIAN CALENDAR)

  This day the Peruvians brought to Caxamalca another load of the treasure that was to buy their king free. Luis Ildefonso Castelar y Moreno saw them from afar. He had been out exercising the horsemen under his command. They were now bound back, for the sun was low above western heights. Against shadows grown long throughout the valley, the river gleamed, and vapors turned golden as they rose from the hot springs of the royal baths. Llamas and human porters plodded in a line down the road from the south, wearied by burdens and many leagues. Natives stopped their labor in the fields to stare, then got hastily on with it. Obedience was ingrained, no matter who their overlord might be.

  “Take charge,” Castelar ordered his lieutenant, and put spurs to stallion. He drew rein just outside the small city and waited for the caravan.

  A movement on the left caught his glance. Another man emerged afoot from between two white-plastered, thatch-roofed clay buildings. The man was tall; were both standing, he would top the rider by three inches or more. The hair around his tonsure was the same dusty brown as his Franciscan robe, but age had scarcely marked the sharp, light-complexioned visage—nor had the pox—and not a tooth was missing. Even after weeks and adventures, Castelar knew Fray Esteban Tanaquil. The recognition was mutual.

  “Greetings, reverend sir,” he said.

  “God be with you,” answered the friar. He stopped by the stirrup. The treasure train reached them and went on. Shouts of jubilation sounded from within the city.

  “Ah,” Castelar rejoiced, “a splendid sight, no?”

  When he got no reply, he looked down. Pain touched the other face. “Is something wrong?” Castelar asked.

  Tanaquil sighed. “I cannot help myself. I see how worn and footsore those men are. I think what a heritage of ages they carry, and how it has been wrung from them.”

  Castelar stiffened. “Would you speak against our captain?”

  This was an odd fellow at best, he thought: beginning with his order, when the religious with the expedition were nearly all Dominicans. It was something of a puzzle how Tanaquil had come along in the first place, and eventually won the confidence of Francisco Pizzaro. Well, that last must be due to his learning and gentle manners, both rare in this company.

  “No, no, of course not,” the friar said. “And yet—” His voice trailed off.

  Castelar squirmed a bit. He believed he knew what went on beneath the shaven pate. He himself had wondered about the righteousness of what they did last year. The Inca Atahuallpa received the Spaniards peacefully; he let them quarter themselves in

  Caxamalca; he entered the city by invitation, to continue negotiations; and his litter carried him into an ambush, where his attendants were gunned down and cut down by the hundreds while he was made prisoner. Now, at his bidding, his subjects stripped the country of wealth to fill a room with gold and another room twice with silver, the price of his liberty.

  “God’s will, ” Castelar snapped. “We bring the Faith to these heathen. The king’s well treated, isn’t he? He even has his wives and servants to attend him. As for the ransom, Christ—” He cleared his throat. “Sant’Iago, like every good leader, rewards his troops well.”

  The friar cast a wry smile upward. It seemed to retort that preaching was not the proper business of a soldier. Outwardly, he shrugged and said, “Tonight I will see how well.”