The Nick Of Time Part 7

"Well, that's them," said Ray. "The brighter side of the coin is that there's a very good chance you'll end up just where you want to be, back in your very own 1996. The people in the future may be maneuvering things toward a happy ending, if they like your looks. In that case, you won't need to go totheir time. That may be why you haven't been caught by the SS. The people of the future may be clearing a path for you."

"If that's true," said Cheryl, "we won't have any trouble from now on, either."

"Right," said Ray. "We'll see."

Paradoxes and nonlinear time-flow made Mihalik feel the same way he did when he tried to read poetry that didn't rhyme. "So where are we going?" he asked.

Ray's sleek car squealed around a corner, and Agency Plaza stood before them about a mile away.

"Oh," said Cheryl.

"Don't worry," said Ray. "We're all well-known faces in there. I'll be able to get us into the transmission room. I can set the coordinates and all the rest. If you haven't been stopped by now, you can a.s.sume that you'll get away clean."

They left the car in Ray's a.s.signed place in the parking garage, and once more hurried up the icy marble steps. Ray led them to the elevator, and they rode up to the project's facilities on the fifty-seventh floor. No one challenged them. Mihalik began to feel more confident; it was beginning to look as if Ray was right. They said h.e.l.lo to a bored Agency man -- guard or janitor they couldn't tell -- and hurried to the transmission room. It didn't resemble the equipment Mihalik had used, but this world had the benefit of a helping hand from the future. The two nervous time travelers took their places on the transmission stage while Ray went about the business of setting the controls; evidently, once perfected, the procedures involved with time travel were not especially complicated.

"I wish you could stay here longer," said Ray, when he'd finished getting everything ready. "After you leave, there won't be a Frank or Cheryl in this world."

"Maybe your own will come back," said Mihalik.

"Maybe," said Ray dubiously. "Anyway, give my regards to the Ray in your time. Are you all set?"

"All set," said Mihalik. He took Cheryl's slim hand and pulled her close. "Once more into the Unknown!"

At that moment they were interrupted by danger in the form of Dr. Waters and six armed Agency soldiers. "Stop them!" cried the ruler of the world.

Mihalik silently d.a.m.ned all theories and the people who inflicted them on normal folk. "Push the b.u.t.ton!" he yelled.

"Wait!" shouted Waters. "Listen! I've got something important to tell you! When you hear this, you'll think twice about taking your chances with another jump through time." He looked from Mihalik to Cheryl. He eyed them magnetically.

Before Mihalik had a chance to make a courageous sardonic reply, there was a flicker of amber light, a sizzle, a snap, and a moderate clap of thunder. It was obvious that a few things had changed slightly during those seconds. The room looked just a little different, larger, and brighter; the electronic equipment was bulkier and less sophisticated; the armed guards were gone; Dr. Waters was younger, smiling, and once more sported a devilish mustache; Ray was pretty much the same, except now he and Dr. Waters were dressed in olive green jumpsuits, the same as Mihalik and Cheryl wore. Most happily of all, a buffet table was set up, but this one did not bear fantastically abundant and sumptuous food; instead, there were platters of frozen Milky Way bars and caramel apples without the apples and sheets of little candy b.u.t.tons stuck on paper. To drink there were bottles of Vernor's ginger ale, the Official Beverage of the Conquest of Time. Civilization had gone back on the candy standard.

"Ray was right," said Cheryl with wonder. "We're home."

"Good old Ray," said Mihalik, helping her down from the transmission stage. They turned to receive their welcome. It wasn't so elaborate as their reception in the false 1996, but it was infinitely more pleasant. That thought led Mihalik to another: he felt grateful that they had managed to find the right suite, somehow, in the Infinite Hotel. They had come a long way, and they could use some rest.

"I'll bet you're glad to see me," said Dr. Waters.

"Wait until we tell you about it," said Mihalik.

"That can wait," said Dr. Waters. "First, I'm sure you'll want to rest and get cleaned up. Then we cantalk."

"Have you ever thought about shaving off your mustache?" asked Cheryl.

Dr. Waters looked at her, bewildered. "No," he said slowly.

"Don't," said Mihalik. "Don't ask me why, just don't."

"Anybody want a jawbreaker?" asked Ray.

Mihalik turned and looked at his faithful backup man. It was nice to be back.

Book Three

Just Because Everything Is Different Doesn't Mean Anything Has Changed

Almost Only Counts in Horseshoes and Hand Grenades

Dr. Waters was holding a large box of gold foil-wrapped chocolate-covered cherry-flavored processed food product. Real cherries had disappeared years before during a worldwide frenzy of hatred directed against anything that grew on trees. Trees needed to grow on land, and most people believed that housing was more important than fruit. For a time, many nations operated their own orchards; then it was learned that high officials in certain countries had made themselves wealthy by tearing down low-income housing projects and leasing the property to the government as prime nectarine acreage or guava plantations. The public rose up in its wrath and its anger could not be appeased. In those days, the expression "I do not care a fig" took on a whole new meaning. It seemed that chaos would overthrow democracy and totalitarianism alike. Then, miraculously, in 1992 a scientist named Rod Marquand, nephew of the physicist Zach Marquand, learned to grow quinces, whortleberries, and grapefruits on vines that climbed up buildings like claw ivy. Some fruits of almost every variety were making a comeback, no longer dangling from s.p.a.ce-wasting trees, but sagging ponderously from elegant, rapidly spreading creepers. Many buildings were entirely clad in green leaves, and people could reach right outside their windows to harvest guavas, plums, walnuts, satsumas, cranberries, or almost any other fruit. Except cherries. It was too late for cherries; they had sadly been the victim of the indignant fury of the ma.s.ses. Marquand tried his best to recreate the cherry by sophisticated botanical methods, but all he could come up with was a kind of maraschino grape that fooled n.o.body.

"Here," said Dr. Waters, "have another one." His magnetic eyes sparkled with good humor.

"I couldn't eat another thing," said Mihalik.

"What I'd really like," said Cheryl, "is a hot bath and a clean jumpsuit. We weren't in the alternate 1996 long enough to have either, and there was a terrible lack of washaterias in 1939. We had to take our clothes down to the East River and pound them on rocks."

Dr. Waters and Ray laughed. "That's the past for you," said Ray in his gentle cheerful manner, "always primogenial. You can't get away from it."

"I guess not," said Cheryl. She took a sip of club soda.

"But you're here now," said Dr. Waters, "and all those experiences are behind you. I know you'd like a little time to rest up and relax, and let me a.s.sure you that you'll have it. You don't know how critical things are here. I've worked out a rather delicate a.s.signment that needs someone with experience in handling emergencies. None of our field operatives has suffered the kind of bad luck that you ran into. As soon as you're able, I'd be grateful if you'd come into my office to discuss the matter with me. Maybe in ten days or two weeks. Enjoy yourself in the meantime."

"Fine, boss," said Mihalik. He glanced at Cheryl, whose face had gone pale. "What's the matter, honey?" he asked. "Dr. Waters just said something about 'field operatives.' What kind of field operatives?" "Agency field operatives, of course," said Ray.

There was no need for Cheryl to explain it to Mihalik. They just looked at each other; they weren't home, after all. They had arrived in a 1996 very similar to their own, but it was still not the right one.

"Close, but no cigar," said Cheryl.

"You're just now realizing that you're not in the right universe," said Dr. Waters.

"Yeah," said Mihalik. "So how did you know we were coming? You seem to have expected us."

"My equations predicted it." Dr. Waters didn't bother to elaborate. "They tell me how to send you home, as well. To the correct reality."

"Don't tell me," said Mihalik, "we'll have to do you some kind of favor first. This delicate a.s.signment you were talking about."

Dr. Waters shrugged. "I'd send you home immediately, if I could. Believe me. But we're engaged in a sort of time war, with a rebel group trying to destroy the Agency. We'll have to root them out of the past before we can regain control of the cross-temporal matrix."

"And you want us to do the rooting for you," said Cheryl.

"It seems only fair," said Ray. "You're going to create the rebel army yourselves. You're responsible for the whole mess in the first place."

"I wouldn't do something like that," objected Mihalik.

"You can't help it," said Dr. Waters sadly. "You're doomed to lay the groundwork for the Temporary Underground. It's your destiny, it's fate. You can call it kismet, Frank, or karma. It's in the cards."

"In the cards," said Mihalik. "Do your equations tell you all this, too?"

"More or less. I have other means of knowing the future, but that's not important now. Listen, Frank, I don't hold it against you. About founding the Underground, I mean. I can't expect you to love the Agency. It doesn't exist where you come from. You can't understand how vital the Agency is in maintaining order in a cosmos that doesn't particularly enjoy order. I can tell you this much, though: you aren't going to attack the Agency directly. You aren't going to lead the revolution yourself. But things that you do and say are going to impress men and women of an insufficient morality, and they will exaggerate and distort your ideas. From that corruption will arise the Temporary Undergound, and we will have to fight them on battlefields all up and down the thoroughfares of time. We are fighting them now. In a sense, we have always been fighting them. And we need you. Both of you."

Mihalik considered Dr. Waters's words for only a few seconds. "You can count on me, sir," he said.

He had cast his lot with the forces of truth and justice. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time.

"And me, too," said Cheryl.

"I knew you'd have no problem making up your mind," said Dr. Waters. He looked at both of them in turn; his eyes were serious and stern, yet at the same time friendly and wistful, and a little magnetic, and courageous and weary and brown. "Ray will get in touch with you next week, and we'll give you a briefing. Our ESB techniques of implanting essential knowledge are much advanced over those in your own world. Your mission will be to a time far in the past, but you'll have nothing to fear: you'll fit right into whatever era we send you to."

Frank and Cheryl in Duel Roles The ESB training made the a.s.sumption that virtually everyone would hold a sword in the right hand, so quite naturally it was just Mihalik's luck that the Cardinal's Guard who attacked him was a left-hander.

"Monsieur," said Mihalik, "has no one troubled to inform you that you fence perversely? Surely the cardinal would not countenance such an abominable disregard for convention."

"I pray to advise you, monsieur," said the guardsman, "that the cardinal does not concern himself overmuch with convention. His Eminence cares only for victories, and I am compelled to admit that in that regard I have always provided him with great satisfaction."

Their rapiers touched briefly, and Mihalik retreated beyond the other's reach, observing the fighting style of his foe. "You mean, monsieur, that you have managed to survive. That may not -- will not --always be the case. In any event, it is not the fierce lion alone that outlives the victims of his fangs and claws."

"I fear, monsieur, that I do not apprehend your meaning." The guardsman gave a little flourish by way of salute, then drove forward to the attack.

"Timid rabbits that flee the battle also survive their more conventional brothers." Mihalik fell back a few steps in mock retreat, drawing his angry opponent toward him. The guardsman started a lunging attack from low position; Mihalik tapped the man's blade on the outside, turning it in, and in the same motion scored a b.l.o.o.d.y touch on the guardsman's shoulder.

"d.a.m.n," muttered the cardinal's man. Mihalik's stinging taunt about fleeing bunnies had made the guardsman careless. He drew back now with more respect for Mihalik's clever swordplay.

Despite his inexperience in dueling left-handed swordsmen, Mihalik knew from the instant they crossed blades that this man of the cardinal's was as good as vanquished. A red mist seemed to float before Mihalik's eyes, and a grim fighting smile played upon his lips. He waited, inviting in octave, certain that his opponent would eventually display a fatal weakness. The guardsman guarded in sixte, as he would in a practice match with foils; it was an error in real combat that would cost him dearly. Mihalik noticed immediately that the other man's elbow was bent too much and the undersurface of the forearm was entirely exposed. He extended his rapier and began a feinting attack; the guardsman parried but did not riposte. Mihalik recovered forward and lunged, his sword's point thrusting under the other's guard, piercing the cardinalist's forearm. The guardsman fell back quickly, changing the sword from his left hand to his right.

"You waver, monsieur, as you retreat," Mihalik criticised. "Your difficulties arise from your lack of balance."

"You perceive correctly, though it pains me to admit it. However, I have defeated many a confident musketeer possessed of superior equilibrium, but insufficient stamina."

Mihalik smiled. "Oh la, monsieur! You force upon me the observation that our encounter must be brought to an early end." He lunged, and the guardsman fell back; he lunged again, and once more the other man retreated. Mihalik stood up straight and dropped his point, inviting attack. As the guardsman extended his rapier, Mihalik relaxed on guard, his blade in octave. The cardinalist lunged forward, attacking Mihalik's front leg above the knee, intending to pierce the thigh and restrict Mihalik's movement. Mihalik counterattacked, thrusting forward and drawing his front foot back at the same moment. The unbalanced left-hander ducked his head as he continued his downward stroke -- and Mihalik drove his point through the man's throat. The guardsman gave a gurgling cry and fell to the courtyard's stone pavement.

Mihalik glanced around quickly, to see which of his comrades most needed his aid. Porthos was toying with a young guardsman who was hardly more than a boy; it seemed that the boastful Musketeer was reluctant to end the youth's life, and was giving him a lesson in the finer points of swordplay. Athos had already dispatched one foe and was pressing a second unmercifully. Aramis was reciting a psalm in a cheerful voice as he dueled; he did not seem to be in any immediate difficulty. Cheryl was still disguised as a man, and she also seemed quite in control of her opponent. Mihalik took the opportunity to catch his breath. He watched as Porthos disarmed the boy, sending the rapier clattering across the stones. "I beg of you, my son," said Porthos sadly, "don't retrieve the weapon."

"I must," said the young guardsman. He ran after it. Mihalik was closer to it. He scooped up the sword and refused to relinquish it.

"Then I must surrender," said the boy. "The cardinal will not be pleased."

Porthos put his huge hand on the young man's shoulder. "When you tell him that it was Porthos of the King's Musketeers who defeated you," he said, "the cardinal will have nothing but admiration for your courage."

Athos joined them. The fleeting joy of victory faded rapidly from his face; then he was the grim inscrutable man who commanded the awe of everyone who knew him. He nodded to Mihalik and to Porthos, but he did not speak. "Come along, Aramis," called Porthos. "Finish your sermon and have an end to it. You need not quote Holy Scripture to your man; he'll meet the Author himself soon enough."

"As you say, my friend," said Aramis. With an elegant combination of binding and thrusting, he drove his rapier through the luckless guardsman's heart.

"How unfortunate that His Eminence could not spare more of his loyal defenders this afternoon," said Porthos. "This was barely worth the inconvenience to five such stalwarts as us."

Only Cheryl still battled in the chilly March afternoon. The ringing of her blade against the guardsman's echoed in the stillness. Slowly she drove her man back; she lunged and he retreated out of reach, trying to avoid her flas.h.i.+ng rapier. It seemed to Mihalik that she was weaving a deadly net of steel around the cardinal's man. At last he was brought up against a wall of the courtyard; he grunted, unable to retreat farther. She looked at him calmly, dropping her point into low position, allowing him a gracious final chance. The man snarled a few unintelligible words and launched a furious flailing attack. Cheryl did not flinch. She held her ground, taking his blade on hers, deflecting it, and riposting immediately. She slipped inside his guard and impaled him. He fell forward, tearing the sword from her hand.

"Very pretty," said Mihalik, as Cheryl stooped to recover her weapon. She smiled at him.

"You two young lads fight as well as anyone in France," remarked Aramis.

"From the lips of one of France's greatest swordsmen," said Cheryl, "that is the supreme compliment."

Athos gave a short-lived smile. "It was well earned, without a doubt. And our dinner is also well earned. Let us retire to consider the proper care of our weary bodies, which have served us so well this afternoon."

"And let us not neglect our spiritual selves," said Aramis.

"No," said Porthos lightly, "we must remember to light a candle at our convenience, and attend ma.s.s sometime in the future, and perhaps even go to confession, though in my case all such activity is only for the sake of good form and custom. The cardinal's villains leave me no spare time to commit an honest sin for which to repent."

They all laughed heartily and walked arm in arm out of the courtyard, in search of honor, fame, and a fine roast fowl.

Reporting for Work in Someone Else's Novel Paris: City of Light, Capital of the World, the city that is like a woman with flowers in her hair. Paris: the tree-lined boulevards, the bookstalls and intimate cafes, the artists and poets, the city of lovers. But she was not always so. In the days of Louis XIII, Paris was a city of poverty and misery, burdened by the policies and taxes imposed by the King's chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu. Revolts against the cardinal were plotted all over France, by peasants and by dissatisfied n.o.blemen. In this time of intrigue and danger, Frank Mihalik and the lissome Cheryl hoped to stay alive long enough to complete the mission Dr. Waters had given them.

Cheryl's auburn hair was cut short and hidden beneath a dark wig in the style worn by gentlemen in the mid-1600s. Her features were regular but ambiguous in gender: dressed in masculine clothing in the uniform of the King's Musketeers, with a plumed hat riding her artificial ringlets, Cheryl appeared to be a young man, old enough to seek his fortune, young enough so that the lack of a beard and a man's sterner expression did not arouse suspicion.

Mihalik and Cheryl shared a single room above a butcher shop in the Rue de Charpie. Unlike other newly made musketeers, they had no man-servant to act as squire. Cheryl explained this to those who inquired by pleading poverty, though it was clear from her clothing that her concept of poverty included a certain allowance for style and fas.h.i.+on. The truth was that they did not trust the generally dull-witted yet inquisitive lackeys available for hire. In any event, they did not plan to remain long in the seventeenth century.

"It's kind of fun to be able to handle a rapier so well," said Cheryl one morning.

Mihalik grunted; he was wolfing down large chunks of stale bread dunked in a rather coa.r.s.e red wine."I still feel funny stabbing another man to death. I don't enjoy killing people."

Cheryl gave a sad smile. "Dr. Waters told us not to worry about that. This isn't real life, here. These people aren't real. We're not really killing anybody." Her expression was dubious, however.

Mihalik didn't share that view, either. When he'd skewered the guardsman earlier, the dying man shed dark red blood and fell to the ground in a very persuasive imitation of death.

The day was as gray and chilly as winter could be. Mihalik and Cheryl dressed in their musketeers'

doublets, with rapiers belted securely in place, and soft floppy leather boots protecting their feet from the muck and mire of the Parisian streets. They walked to their headquarters, the Hotel de Treville.

They were greeted warmly by the other Royal Musketeers who lounged, gambled, bragged, fenced, joked, drank, and otherwise entertained themselves while filling up the house of their captain. Monsieur de Treville. The story of the encounter with the Cardinal's Guards had pa.s.sed from Musketeer to Musketeer, growing a little in each telling. By midmorning, Mihalik and Cheryl had attained quite a little reputation of their own, which did not suffer by its connection with the G.o.dlike trio of Athos, Porthos, and Aramis.

"Messieurs," said a Musketeer whose name Mihalik did not yet know, "Monsieur de Treville has ordered that you wait upon his pleasure in his chamber immediately."

"Thank you, Guichard," said Cheryl. She shot a glance at Mihalik, who read nothing in the look. He wondered if Treville would be angry or joyful about their defeat of the cardinal's men.

Cheryl rapped lightly on Treville's door. "Come in," called the captain's strong voice. Cheryl grasped the k.n.o.b and opened the door. Mihalik followed her in; Athos, Porthos, and Aramis were already a.s.sembled before Treville's great desk.

"Ah, Juvin," said Treville, addressing Cheryl by her nom de guerre. The captain stood and offered his hand; Cheryl removed her magnificent plumed hat and her gauntlet, bowed, and shook Treville's hand.

"You will recall my comrade from Ste. Clothilde," said Cheryl, indicating Mihalik.