“An agent of ours had ‘already’ reported outsiders active in the court of the Inca, some years before Pizarro arrived. It seems they tried and failed to head off a division of the royal power, which led to civil war and paved the way for that corporal’s guard of invaders. In the light of what you’ve told me, I’m sure they were the Exaltationists, attempting to change history. When it didn’t work, they decided they’d at least hijack Atahuallpa’s ransom. That’d be disruptive enough, and could well enable them to do still more mischief.”

  “Why?” she whispered.

  “Why, to abort the whole future. Make themselves overlords, first in America, eventually throughout the world. There’d never have been a you or a me, a United States, a Danellian destiny, a Time Patrol . . . unless they organized one of their own to protect the misshapen history they brought into being. Not that I think they could long have stayed in charge. Selfishness like that generally turns on itself. Battles through time, a chaos of changes—I wonder how much flux the space-time fabric could survive.”

  She whitened, then whistled. “Ye gods, Manse!”

  He stopped his prowling, leaned over, touched her below the chin to bring her face upward toward his, and asked with a crooked smile, “How does it feel knowing you may have saved the universe?”

  15 APRIL 1610

  The spacecraft was black, lest they on Earth see a star pass over them, swift before sunrise or after sunset, and know they were watched. Nevertheless, a broad one-way transparency filled it with light. It was orbiting dayside when Everard arrived, and the planet stretched vast, blue swirled with white around the ruddinesses that were continents.

  His cycle appeared in the receiver bay and he jumped off without pausing to love the sight as he had done often and often. The gravitor put full weight under his feet. He hastened to the pilot deck. Three agents whom he knew, though centuries sundered their births, awaited him.

  “We believe we’ve acquired the moment,” said Umfanduma immediately. “Here’s the playback.”

  Another vessel, of those that between them kept Machu Picchu under surveillance, had taken the data. This was the command ship. Everard had come as soon as messages transmitted through space relayed through time reached him. The image was from minutes earlier. At ultramagnification after light had crossed atmosphere, it was blurry. Yet when Everard froze its motion and peered closer, he saw metal shine on the head and torso of a man. That one and another were getting to their feet beside a timecycle, on a platform where the view swept from end to end of the great dead city, on to the mountains around. Dark-clad people crowded near.

  He nodded. “Got to be,” he said. “We don’t know just when Castelar will make his break for freedom, but I’d guess it as within the next two or three hours. What we want to do is hit the Exaltationists right afterward.”

  Not before, because that did not happen. We dare not undermine even this forbidden pattern of events. The enemy dares do anything. That is why we must destroy him.

  Umfanduma frowned. “Tricky,” she said. “They always keep a machine aloft, well equipped with detectors. I’m sure they’re prepared to flee at an instant’s notice.”

  “Uh-huh. However, their scooters are too few to carry them all at once. They’d have to ferry. Or else, likelier, abandon those who aren’t so lucky as to be right by the transportation. We won’t need many of our own. Let’s get organized.”

  In the span that followed, the ships filled with armed vehicles and their riders. Tight-beamed communications flickered back and forth. Everard developed his plan, gave out his assignments.

  Thereafter he must stand by, try to keep his nerves quiet, abide the word. He found it helpful to think about Wanda Tamberly.

  “Now!”

  He leaped to the saddle. Gunner Tetsuo Motonobu was already in place. Everard’s fingers flew over the console.

  They hung aloft in enormous azure. A condor wheeled afar. The mountainscape spread beneath, a majestic labyrinth, intensely green save where snow flashed on peaks or gorges plunged in shadows. Machu Picchu was mightiness in stone. What would the civilization that created it have done, had fate allowed it to live?

  Again Everard could not pause to wonder. The Exaltationist sentry hovered yards off. He saw the man clearly in thin air and candent sunlight, astounded but fierce, snatching for a sidearm. Motonobu fired his energy gun. Lightning flared, thunder crashed. The man dropped charred from his mount and fell as Lucifer fell. Smoke trailed him. The vehicle wavered out of control.

  We’ll take care of it later. Down!

  Everard didn’t overjump the space between. He wanted an overview. As he power-dived, wind roared around an invisible force screen. The buildings swelled in his vision.

  His fellow Patrolmen were raking them with fire. Bolts flew hell-colored. When Everard got there, the battle was over.

  —Evening yellowed the western sky. Night rose from the valleys to lap ever higher around the walls of Machu Picchu. It had grown chilly and hushed.

  Everard left the house he had used for interrogation. Two agents stood outside. “Round up the rest of the squad, bring out the prisoners, prepare to return to base,” he said wearily.

  “Have you learned something, sir?” asked Motonobu.

  Everard shrugged. “Something. The intelligence staff will get more out of them, of course, though I doubt it’ll prove of much use. I did find one who’s willing to cooperate in return for a promise of comfortable surroundings on the exile planet. Trouble is, he doesn’t know what I wish he did.”

  “Where-when those that got away have gone?”

  Everard nodded. “The ringleader, name of Merau Varagan, took a bad sword wound when Castelar fought free. A couple of his men were about to whisk him off to a distination he alone knew to tell them, for medical care. So they were in position to scram with him when we showed up. Three more managed it too.”

  He straightened. “Ah,” he said, “we succeeded as well as could be looked for. The bulk of the gang are dead or under arrest. The few who escaped must have scattered randomly. They may never find each other. The conspiracy’s broken.”

  Motonobu’s tone was wistful. “If only we could have come earlier, arranged a proper trap. We’d have bagged the lot.”

  “We couldn’t because we didn’t,” said Everard sharply. “We are the law, remember?”

  “Yes, sir. What I also remember is that crazy Spaniard and the havoc he may yet make. How’re we going to track him down . . . before it’s too late?”

  Everard made no reply, but turned toward the esplanade where the vehicles were parked. To the east he saw the Gate of the Sun on its ridge, etched black against heaven.

  24 MAY 1987

  Wanda let him in when he knocked on her door. “Hi!” she exclaimed breathlessly. “How are you? How’d things go?”

  “They went,” he said.

  She took both his hands. Her voice softened. “I’ve been so worried about you, Manse.”

  That felt almighty good to hear. “Oh, I take care of my hide. The operation, well, we nabbed most of the bandits without loss to ourselves. Machu Picchu is clean once more.” Was clean. Was left in its loneliness for another three centuries. Now tourists halloo everywhere. But a Patrolman shouldn’t pass judgments. He needs to be case-hardened if he’s to work in the history of humankind.

  “Marvelous!” Impulsively, she hugged him. He hugged back. They retreated in a slight, shared confusion.

  “If you’d come ten minutes ago, you wouldn’t’ve found me,” she said. “I couldn’t sit and do nothing. Went for a long, long walk.”

  Dismayed, he snapped, “I told you not to leave this place! You aren’t safe. We’ve planted an instrument here that’ll warn of any intruder, but we can’t trail around after you. Damnation, girl, Castelarr’s still at large.”

  She wrinkled her nose at him. “Better I should climb these walls? Why would he chase after me again?”

  “You were his single twentieth-century contact. You could possibly give us a lead to him. Or so he may fear.”

  She grew serious. “As a matter of fact, I can.”

  “Huh? What do you mean?”

  She tugged his hand. How warm hers was. “C’mon, relax, let me fetch us a beer, and we’ll talk. That hike I took cleared my head. I started thinking back, reliving the whole business, except free of terror and unfamiliarity. And, yes, I believe I can tell you what point Luis is bound to make for.”

  He stood where he was. His pulse slugged. “How?”

  The blue eyes searched him. “I did get to know the man,” she said low. “Not what you’d call intimately, but the relationship sure was intense while it lasted. He isn’t a monster. By our standards he’s cruel, but he’s a son of his era. Ambitious and greedy—and in his heart a knight-errant. I searched my memory, minute by minute. Kind of stood outside and watched the two of us. And I saw how he reacted when he learned the Indians would rebel and besiege Francisco Pizarro’s brothers in Cuzco, and the troubles that would follow. If he appears as if by miracle and raises the siege, that’ll put him straightaway in command of the whole shebang. But over and above any such calculations, Manse, he has got to be there. His honor calls him.”

  6 FEBRUARY 1536

  (JULIAN CALENDAR)

  In the upland dawn, the imperial city burned. Fire arrows and rocks wrapped in blazing oil-soaked cotton flew like meteors. Thatch and wood kindled. Stone walls enclosed furnaces. Flames howled high, sparks showered, smoke roiled thick on the wind. Soot dulled the rivers where they met. Through the noise, conchs lowed, throats shrieked. In their tens of thousands, the Indios seethed around Cuzco. They were a brown tide, out of which tossed chieftainly banners, feather crests, copper-edged axes and spears. They surged against the thin Spanish lines, smote, struggled, recoiled in blood and turmoil, billowed again forward.

  Castelar arrived above a citadel that brooded north of the combat. He glimpsed its massiveness filled with natives. For an instant he wanted to swoop down, kill and kill and kill. But no, yonder was where his comrades fought. Sword in right hand, left on the helm board, he rushed through the air to their deliverance.

  What matter if he had failed to bring guns from the future? His blade was sharp, his arm strong, and the archangel of war winged over his bare head. Nonetheless he kept wholly alert. Foes might lurk in this sky or snap forth out of nowhere. Let him be ready to jump through time, evade pursuit, return to strike swiftly again and again, as a wolf slashes at an elk.

  He swept above a central square, where a great building raged with conflagration. Horsemen trotted down a street. Their steel flashed, their pennons streamed. They were bound on a sally, out into the enemy horde.

  Castelar’s decision sprang into being. He would veer off, wait a few minutes, let them become engaged, and then smite. With such an avenging eagle on their side, the Spanish would know God had heard him, and hew a road through foemen smitten with panic.

  Some saw him pass over. He glimpsed upturned faces, heard cries. There followed a thunder of gallop, a deep-toned “Sant’Iago and at them!”

  He crossed the southern bounds of the city, banked, swung about for his onslaught. Now that he knew this machine, how splendidly it responded to him—his horse of the wind, that he would ride into liberated Jerusalem—and at last, at last, into the presence of the Savior on earth?

  Ya-a-a!

  Alongside him, another flyer, two men upon it. His fingers stabbed for the controls. Agony seared. “Mother of God, have mercy!” His steed was slain. It toppled through emptiness. At least he would die in battle. Though the forces of Satan had prevailed against him, they would not against the gates of Heaven that stood wide for Christ’s soldier.

  His soul whirled from him, away into night.

  24 MAY 1987

  “The ambush worked almost perfectly,” Carlos Navarro reported to Everard. “When we spotted him from space, we activated the electromagnetic generator and jumped to his vicinity. The field it projected induced voltages that caused his machine to give him a severe electric shock. Disabled it, too, scrambled the electronics. But you know this. We gave him a stun shot to make sure and plucked him out of the air before he hit the ground. Meanwhile the cargo carrier appeared, scooped up the crippled vehicle, and made off. Everything was complete in less than two minutes. I suppose a number of men glimpsed us, but it would have been fleetingly, and in the general confusion of battle.”

  “Good work,” said Everard. He leaned back in his shabby old armchair. His New York apartment surrounded them, comfortable with souvenirs—Bronze Age helmet and spears above the bar, polar bear rug from Viking Age Greenland on the floor, stuff such as would not cause outsiders to wonder much but did hold memories for him.

  He hadn’t gone on the mission. No reason thus to waste an Unattached agent’s lifespan. There had been no danger, except that Castelar would be too quick and get away. The electric gimmick prevented that.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “your operation is part of history.” He gestured at the volume of Prescott on an end table beside him. “I’ve been reading that. The Spanish chronicles describe apparitions of the Virgin above the burning hall of Viracocha, where the cathedral was later built, and of St. James on the battlefield, inspiring the troops. That’s generally taken to be a pious legend, or an account of hysterical illusions, but—Ah, well. How’s the prisioner?”

  “When I left him, he was resting under sedation,” Navarro replied. “His bums will heal without scars. What will they do with him?”

  “That depends on a number of things.” Everard took his pipe from the ashtray where he had laid it and coaxed it back to life. “High on the list is Stephen Tamberly. You know about him?”

  “Yes.” Navarro scowled. “Unfortunately, though unavoidably, the current surge through the vehicle wiped the molecular record of where and when it’s traveled. Castelar’s gotten a preliminary kyradex quiz—we knew you’d want to know—and doesn’t recall the place and date he left Tamberly at, merely that it was thousands of years ago and near the Pacific coast of South America. He knew he could retrieve the exact data if he wanted to, and rather doubted he would. Therefore he didn’t bother memorizing the coordinates.”

  Everard sighed. “I was afraid of that. Poor Wanda.”

  “Sir?”

  “Never mind.” Everard consoled himself with smoke. “You may leave. Go out on the town and enjoy yourself.”

  “Wouldn’t you like to come along?” Navarro asked diffidently.

  Everard shook his head. “I’ll sit tight for a while. It’s barely possible that Tamberly found some way to get rescued. If so, he was brought first to one of our bases for debriefing, and inquiry has shown I’m involved in his case, and I’ll be informed. Naturally, that couldn’t be before we wind up this job otherwise. Maybe I’ll get a call soon.”

  “I see. Thank you. Goodbye.”

  Navarro departed. Everard settled back down. Dusk seeped into the room, but he didn’t turn on the lights. He wanted just to sit thinking, and quietly hoping.

  18 AUGUST 2930 B.C.

  Where the river met the sea, the village clustered its houses of clay. Only two dugout canoes lay drawn up on the shore, for fishers were out on this calm day. Most women were likewise gone, cultivating small patches of gourd, squash, potato, and cotton at the edge of the mangrove swamp. Smoke lifted slow from the communal fire that an old person always tended. Other women and aged men had tasks to do in their homes, while small children took care of smaller. Folk wore brief skirts of twisted fiber, ornaments of shell, teeth, feathers. They laughed and chattered.

  The Vesselmaker sat cross-legged in the doorway of his dwelling. Today he did not shape pots and bowls or bake them hard. Instead, he stared into space and kept silence. He often did since he learned the speech of men and began his wondrous labors. It must be respected. He was kindly, but these fits came upon him. Perhaps he planned a beautiful new piece of work, or perhaps he communed with spirits. Certainly he was a special being, with his great height, pale skin and hair and eyes, enormous whiskers. A cape decked him against the sun, which he found harsher than common folk did. Inside the house, his woman ground wild seed in her mortar. Their two living infants slept.

  Shouts arose. The field tillers swarmed into sight. People in the village hurried to see what this meant. The Vesselmaker rose and followed them.

  Along the riverbank came a stranger striding. Visitors were frequent, mainly bringing trade goods, but nobody had seen this man before. He looked much like anyone else, though heavier-muscled. His garb was noticeably different. Something hard and shiny rested in a sheath on his hip.

  Where could he be from? Surely hunters would days ago have noticed a newcomer making his way down the valley. The women squealed when he hailed them. The old men gestured them back and offered seemly greeting.

  The Vesselmaker arrived.

  For a long while Tamberly and the explorer stood gaze upon gaze. He’s of the local race. Odd how calm the knowledge was in him, now when at last time had brought him to the goal of his yearnings. Would be. Best not to raise extra questions, even in the heads of simple Stone Agers. How’d he plan to explain that sidearm?

  The explorer nodded. “I half expected this,” he said in slow Temporal. “Do you understand me?”

  The language had rusted in Tamberly. However—“I do. Welcome. You’re what I’ve waited for these past . . . seven years, I think.”

  “I am Guillem Cisneros. Thirtieth century born, but with the Universarium of Halla.”—in a milieu after time travel had been achieved and could therefore be done openly.

  “And I, Stephen Tamberly, twentieth century, field historian for the Patrol.”