Daniel Keys Moran - A Tale of the Continuing Time 01

EMERALD EYES

A Bantam Spectra Book I July 1988

Grateful acknowledgment Is made for permission to reprint lyrics

from "Lost Boys and Golden Girls" by Jim Steinman. Courtesy of

Jim Steinman.

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“In The

Beginning”

I am the Storyteller.

Hear now my voice. From out of the white noise of Creation, listen to my words...

They were our forerunners, and they made plans, yes, for they were human, even as you and I. I have

told this story before, and I shall someday tell it again, in a different fashion; but for Now, know the story

so...

They made plans, you see, and the universe, which cared no more for them than for you or I, struck

them down; and its tool was nothing less than a pair of Gods of the Zaradin Church, one of them myself,

fighting a battle in a war that was ended near sixty-five thousand years before they were ever born.

I will tell you of those days.

Darryl Amnier was a man without a title.

A title makes one knowable.

"Tell me about them," he said softly.

"Oui." Amnier's assistant was French; a depressingly large number of government employees were these

days. "The director's name is Montignet, Suzanne Montignet. She is French born, but arrived in the United

States in 2015. It is thought that her parents were fleeing the European theater of the War. She was fourteen

then. We do not have accurate records for her after leaving France; she arrived in America just a year before

the Unification War reached that continent. Her parents were killed, apparently by Americans, after the War

began. One would have expected this to turn a young girl against the country in which she found herself, but

obviously not. When next we have accurate records of her, beginning in 2018, she was studying under a

scholarship at the College of the Camden Protectorate, in New Jersey. She had by then, and retains today, a

substantially American accent. Though she spells her name 'Suzanne' she had further taken to pronouncing

her name 'Susan' in the American style, a habit which she also retains. In 2024 she graduated with high

honors; two years ago, her work in genetics—it says here, sir, dee en ay, and ar en ay, Monsieur Amnier,

which are explained to mean—"

"I know what they mean."

". . . oui. This work led to her current position with the United Nations Advanced Biotechnology Research

Laboratory in New Jersey, this 'Project Superman.' "

"Don't use that name. It's not correct."

The command did not seem to require an answer; after a pause Amnier's aide continued. "The Ministry of

Population Control has granted her an unlimited parenting license. She seems apolitical, aside from her

personal habits."

"By which you mean?"

"Monsieur, she lives in Occupied America, among a proud people who have been, hmm, conquered?

Conquered. An apparent distaste for the United Nations might be expedient."

"Not when dealing with the United Nations purse strings."

"Oui. As you say."

"What of Malko Kalharri?"

"What of Kalharri?" Amnier's aide seemed to find the question amusing. "Sir, I think there is very little I

can tell you which you do not already know about Colonel Kalharri."

With a shower of gamma rays I came into existence at the fast end of time.

A wind was raised with my appearance in the empty corridor. Had there been any to observe, they would

have heard the sharp crack created as air was moved aside at greater than the speed of sound, and might

have felt a brief warmth. Those with sharp eyes might have noticed a shadow in the fraction of an instant

before I moved away from the spot of my appearance. They would not have seen any more of me. Even at

my end of time they would have seen little to note; a human, dressed all in white, from the boots on my feet

to the white cowl that covered my head. Even with the visual distortion that is unavoidable when time is sped

so drastically, men of their century would have found the lack of focus upon the surface of a white shadow

cloak a striking thing.

Of course they were not in fast time, nor could be.

I began trudging through the air, toward my destination. The corridor was almost entirely dark; flashes of

ultraviolet light marked the passage of X-rays, each flash illuminating the corridor like a small lightning. The

normal visible spectrum was shifted too deeply into the radio to be of use to me.

I was in a hurry, pushing through the resisting atmosphere, and I am a man unaccustomed to hurrying;

but I was being closely followed by an enemy who had promised to cut my heart out and eat it—and I rather

believed Camber Tremodian would do just exactly that, given the chance.

I did not intend to give him the chance. At the fast end of time I hurried through the slow air.

Monday, December 11, 2029; the United Nations Advanced Biotechnology Research Laboratories,

in New Jersey.

He arrived from Capital City just before eight o'clock; security let Darryl Amnier into Suzanne Montignet's

office more than two hours early. They were uneasy, doing it.

But they did it nonetheless.

He sat behind her desk, in her chair, with the lights dimmed. A small man, with paper-white hair and

wrinkles around his eyes and mouth that made him look far older than he was, he found Montignet's chair

slightly too high for his taste. He did not readjust it. Her office had no window, which pleased him to the

degree that he ever allowed himself to be pleased. A crank with a rifle was that much less likely to bring

three quarters of a million Credit Units' worth of research grinding to a halt with a single shot.

The decor was standardized, little different from what Amnier had seen in over twenty other research

installations in the last four months. Amnier was not certain whether that surprised him or not. From a woman

of such exceptional skills, one might reasonably have expected anything.

The same comment, of course, might be made about Malko Kalharri, the director of security for the

installation.

An Information Network terminal, left turned on and connected to the Mead Data Central medical

database, sat at attention immediately next to her desk. Amnier made a note to find out what sort of bill the

laboratories were running up on the Network. An ornamental bookshelf against one wall held reference works

in too excellent condition. There were no holographs, not even of Colonel Kalharri, who was reputed to be her

lover. Nor were there paintings. The desk was locked. Amnier considered picking it, and decided not to. There

was unlikely to be anything inside that he would either understand or find incriminating, and whether he

opened it or not, Montignet was certain to suspect he had.

Which was the whole point.

The empty corridor in which I appeared connected the sterile genegineers' labs with the showers which

led to the unsterile outer world, on the first floor of the New Jersey Laboratories of the United Nations Bureau

of Biotechnology Research. The entrance to the genegineer's labs was through a small room with sealed

doorways at both ends. They were not airlocks, though the technology of the day was sufficient to allow the

use of airlocks; indeed, at the interface between the showers and the rest of the installation airlocks were in

use. But it was cheaper to keep the laboratories under a slight overpressure; when the door opened, the

wind, and any contaminants, blew outward.

The door swung wide, and a pair of laboratory technicians in white gowns and gloves strode through. The

resemblance between their garb and mine brought the ghost of a smile to my lips.

As they left, I, the god Named Storyteller, entered.

Suzanne Montignet stopped by Malko Kalharri's office on the way to her own. The lights in his office had

not yet been turned on that morning. Entering the room from the brightly lit hallway, Suzanne found it difficult

even to see Kalharri at first.

"Malko?"

"Yes?" The office lacked a desk; the man who was sprawled loosely on the couch, one oversized hand

wrapped loosely around a steaming coffee cup, did not look away from the holo tank in the corner of his

office. Kalharri did not resemble his name, which he had received by way of his grandfather; he was a big

blond man with a tan. The channel light glowed at 35: S-STR, the political news station.

"What's happening?"

Malko Kalharri had been a soldier for too many years; he never moved quickly when the situation did not

warrant it. After a moment he said simply, "The Unification Council is 'discussing'—this is the word they have

used all morning for the screaming and threats—the feasibility of adding an amendment to their damned

Statement of Principles, to allow the Secretary General to hold office for more than three four-year terms.

Sarah Almundsen must be turning over in her grave; the first amendment ever proposed to that brilliant

piece

of writing being a tool to keep one of her more foolish successors in office a little while longer." He shook his

head. "It's not going well at any rate; SecGen Tenerat didn't think this one through all the way, silly damn

frog that he is." He paused a moment and without looking at her said, "No offense meant."

"None taken," said Suzanne Montignet drily.

"Not that the opposition has prepared for it either. The Unification Councillor for Sri Lanka opened the

floor for discussion on the subject; so far this morning that's been the most coherent thing anybody's said."

"I see."

Kalharri turned his head then to look at her. He grinned broadly. "I've been watching this damned box all

morning, you know. I tried turning up the brightness control earlier..."

"It didn't work."

"Afraid not." He turned back to the screen.

"Amnier's here."

Kalharri did not look back. He took a sip from his coffee before replying. "The guards told me. You're

supposed to believe that he's gone through all of your documents in the last hour or so; torn your office

apart, so to speak, however neatly. He's been there for an hour already; he knows you don't usually get in

until 9 a.m., and he'll be expecting you to come charging up to your office as soon as you learn that he had

himself let in to wait."

"Wheels within wheels. What do I do?"

"Command," said Malko Kalharri, "bring coffee." The word Acknowledged blinked briefly in the lower right

hand corner of the 3-D tank, and vanished. He lowered his voice slightly to normal conversational levels.

"Amnier's appointment isn't until ten o'clock."

"So?"

Filled cups and condiments appeared on the floor next to the couch; memory plastic raised itself up from

the floor to become a table at Kalharri's right hand. Kalharri took his cup and sent the table gliding across the

floor toward Montignet. "I don't like surprises, my dear. They have a terrible tendency to be lethal."

"So?"

"Darryl's the same way, he doesn't like surprises. Right now he's expecting you to arrive any moment,

angry. So, have

a seat," he said cheerfully, "drink your coffee and watch the politicians, and make the bastard wait."

Excerpted from the Name Historian's Looking Backwards From the Year 3000; pub. 3018,

Alternities Press, CU:110.00 Zaradin.

Wars which were, by the standards of provincial humanity, notably severe—the wars were referred to as

World War I and World War II—brought home to the societies of the time the need for some social

mechanism that would prevent similar man-made catastrophes from occurring again. With the development

of thermonuclear explosives capable of ending all life within the biosphere of Earth, it became clear that some

form of containment was required to prevent the species from destroying itself, and its planet into the

bargain.

In 1969, a child named Sarah Almundsen was born in America.

Sarah Almundsen became Secretary General of the United Nations in the year 2014. With aid from

members of the French and Chinese military, she assumed control of the orbital laser weaponry, formed the

United Nations Peace Keeping Force, and declared the United Nations to be, under her "Charter of Principles,"

the sole legal government of Earth. China and France were the first two sovereign governments to agree to

this; both were in grave geopolitical troubles at the time, caught between the vise of Japanese, Soviet, and

American interests. Brazil followed, and before the end of the year 2014, two thirds of the planet

acknowledged the United Nations as the Earth's legitimate government.

Three notable holdouts were, of course, the United States and the Soviet Union and Japan. Sarah

Almundsen used tactical thermonuclear weapons and orbital lasers and sliced the USSR into ribbons. The

Soviets, whose citizens were in open revolt after the second week of war with the United Nations, surrendered

after Moscow was vaporized, Japan never surrendered; although members of the new government committed

suicide after performing their duty, the United Nations did explode more than a dozen thermonuclear

warheads over Japanese territory until the Japanese were no longer capable of resistance.

North America, specifically the United States, was a more delicate matter; the United Nations offices were

located there. Further, whole battalions of the U.S. Armed Forces deserted to the United Nations in the earliest

days of the Unification War. Sarah Almundsen was an American, an honorable woman who was known to

keep her word; sentiment to deal with her ran strong in many parts of the U.S.

The Sons of Liberty, a group of soldiers led by the President of the United States, composed of large

portions of the Armed Forces, with nearly all of the Marine Corps, prevented that. The Unification War

reached America in 2016 and stretched into 2017, and then into 2018. Throughout the first half of 2018, the

Sons of Liberty fought a rearguard action as the better-equipped, better-fed, better-supported United Nations

Peace Keeping Forces swept them north and east, across the Plains states and onto the Eastern seaboard.

The Unification War, after causing more casualties than any other war in American history, officially ended in

the summer of 2018 with the Treaty of New York, which detailed the particulars of the surrender of the

mightiest nation the Earth had ever known, the United States of America.

The door slid aside at exactly ten a.m.

"What the fuck are you doing in my office?"

Suzanne Montignet was, Darryl Amnier thought in immediate surprise, an astonishing beauty. The holos

in her files did her not the faintest trace of justice. Her blond hair was tucked up under a net that reminded

him, strangely, of the hair net the Sisters had worn at St. Margaret Mary's, the Catholic school he'd been

taught at as a child. She stared at him, waiting for an answer. He wondered at her anger; forty-five minutes

ago it had undoubtedly been real. Now it was simply a mask stamped across features that were, perhaps,

slightly too delicate. It seemed to Amnier that she was undernourished as well; she must have lost five

kilograms since the most recent holographs of her had been taken.

Darryl Amnier rose belatedly from behind Montignet's desk, removed his hat, and sketched a bow. "I am

Monsieur Amnier, here for my appointment." It was his best French.

Suzanne Montignet looked him

over as though he were something unpleasant she'd found in her salad, and shook her head in a tired

motion. She dropped the pile of folders she'd entered with on her desktop. "Lights," she said in English.

The fluorescent lamps came up bright, and Darryl Amnier realized that the odd gray of her eyes, which

he'd assumed an error in her holo reproductions, was their true color. "I know who you are. Do you

usually pop into people's offices two damned hours ahead of time?"

Amnier found himself caught in the challenge of her gaze. Without thought he found his posture

straightening. With perfect honesty he replied, "Mademoiselle, only when I wish for the person with whom I

am meeting to be ill at ease." He shook his head. "In this instance, I regret the use of the technique—and

have for the last half hour."

Suzanne Montignet looked him over briefly, and smiled rather wearily. She held out her hand. "I have,"

she said softly, "been looking forward to meeting you, Mister Amnier." He took her hand, and was not

surprised at the strength in her grip. "As has Colonel Kalharri."

Someday I shall tell you of the life of Jorge Rodriguez; it is the least one can do for a man one has killed.

It is the truth that I killed Jorge Rodriguez.

Like all truths it is susceptible to interpretation. I had taken all the precautions available to me that my

visit to this time might not cause more damage than good; but it is never possible to know all of what may

come from any course of action. This is as true of a God of the Zaradin Church as it is of any other sentient.

Jorge Rodriguez entered the small room with two doors only moments after his fellow technicians had left

through the other. The doors were so designed that they could not both be open at the same time. I waited

patiently as the man came through the door leading to the laboratories proper. There was time for me,

despite the poor quality of ultraviolet light, to puzzle out his name badge, which was mounted on a piece of

dark plastic with a strip of a clear film upon it. He entered as the door had just barely opened, and then stood

in the doorway, preventing my passage, as the door slid shut again. It should not have been a problem; he

would continue through the next door, and I would open the door to the laboratories after he was gone. It

would appear to those inside as if the door had slid aside of its own accord; unusual, but given the relatively

primitive stage of their technology, it would not be so strange as to cause excitement in and of itself.

A glitch, they would call it.

But Jorge Rodriguez did not leave immediately As long minutes fled by on my personal time scale,

Rodriguez slumped back against the door to the laboratories With excruciating slowness he reached inside his

coat and withdrew a small cylinder, which he placed within his mouth. As far away as the small room would

allow me to get, I paced slowly back and forth to prevent my image from flickering into an instant of

appearance. It must have raised ever so faint a breeze

Rodriguez puffed on the cylinder, his back to the door through which I desperately needed to pass. It was

likely tobacco or marijuana, two preeminent inhalants of the period. I could not recall how long a typical

cylinder of either inhalant should have taken to be consumed, but it was soon apparent that whatever the

period was would be far longer than I had available.

I came down into Time.

It was instantaneous for me; for Rodriguez I appeared as a frozen statue for most of a second. His eyes

were opened wide in a surprise that would soon be terror, and he was drawing in air to shout. I reached past

the rising wave of fear, into his forebrain, and sent him into sleep as gently as I was able. His body began to

sag almost instantly; his breath exhaled in a loud sigh as he fell. I caught him before he had struck the

ground, and carried him out through the door into the corridor. In Time I erased his memories of me, and in

Time I returned to the small room where I had killed Jorge Rodriguez. I touched the pressure pad that

opened the door into the laboratories, and as it opened I ascended into fast time once more.

The small badge that Jorge Rodriguez wore had turned from clear to black while he stood in that room

with me. I had lived a thousand times as fast as he; the heat of my body had struck him as gamma rays for

more than long enough.

"A remarkably impersonal room, this." Amnier stood in front of her bookcase, ran one finger down the

spine of a text by de Nostri on fine neural structure. "No paintings, no holos . . ." Without subtlety, he watched

her as he spoke. She held herself like a man, shoulders squared back.

Montignet moved by him, to seat herself behind her desk. She pressed her thumb against the lock and

slid open the filing drawer "I'm rarely here I generally work downstairs at the lab. I have a desk there, and

there are cots for when we draw night duty." From the filing drawer she withdrew two folders, and closed the

drawer again. The drawer locked itself automatically "The books are mostly gifts." Amnier turned back to her

"The de Nostri was from de Nostri, the man's an incredible egotist."

"Ah," said Amnier, and Suzanne had to repress a rather evil grin at how eagerly he leapt upon the

opening, "an egotist, yes, but a successful egotist "

Suzanne Montignet did smile then, and watched as her smile struck Amnier. His face became very calm.

So then, he was not, as Malko had thought, attracted only to boys. "I would not say that our work here has

been a failure."

"But neither has it produced a clear success. De Nostri has—children, if that is the correct word—who are

nearly two years of age."

"Children," said Suzanne Montignet with some anger, "is not the correct word Mister, any fool can

produce monsters. Mixing variant gene sets is not so very difficult Slapping together genes from humans and

leopards, among reputable scientists, that's known as playing mix and match What we're doing is more

difficult, and you know it. The foeti we have designed here, from the ground up, are human. They will be

human children "

"But they do not live."

"Not. ." Not yet, she had started to say; Suzanne Montignet clamped down upon her anger. It was almost

as though Malko were there in the room with her, whispering in her ear. Amnier delighted in argument;

directness was the way to handle him "Did you," she asked slowly, "come here to shut us down?"

"I have come," said the small man, as honestly as he was able, "to decide."

They were still staring at each other when the alarms went off.

It was strange, looking down upon the bundle of ammo acids which was my ancestor.

They had assembled him with lasers and viruses, in a process that the histories said would be obsolete

within a decade. It was a primitive process, far likelier to fail than otherwise; the histories were unclear

as to how many times the technique had ever functioned properly in the decade in which it was

employed.

There are moments when Destiny itself reaches out to trace a finger down my cheek, with the touch of a

lover. I do not know if it is the same for Camber Tremodian; he is an immensely practical man in some ways.

The tiny bit of matter before me was the great-grandfather of the first of my line; and it was right that it was

with the Gift of the House of November that I reached out, and took the broken long chains of unliving matter,

and brought them together in the pattern which would let Carl Castanaveras live.

Robin Maclntyre finished reading off status reports in a dull monotone. "We hustled the decon unit

downstairs, and—"

"Radiation?"

"All over the place. Low levels most places, but—Jorge's badge was totally black." For the first time

Suzanne understood the grief-stricken expression on Robin's face; Jorge, Robin's closest friend on the staff,

was as good as dead. "They're taking Jorge to the hospital; I'm going to log out and go with him."

"No." It was Amnier, standing on the other side of the Information Network terminal. He could not see

either Robin or the status reports that were filling up the other half of the screen. "You can't take him out of

here."

Suzanne was not sure Robin had heard Amnier; she'd slapped down on the silence point as soon as he'd

begun speaking. "Why the hell not?"

"If his badge is black," said Amnier patiently, "he's dead regardless. I saw enough of that during the war;

so did Malko. Check with him if you must; medical technology hasn't advanced as much as all that in the last

decade. Taking him to the hospital will be of use to nobody except this Robin person, and it will, by releasing

knowledge of this radiation contamination into the general populace, place a very potent weapon into the

hands of those who do wish to close you down."

Robin was gesturing on the terminal's screen. Suzanne lifted her thumb from the pressure point. "One

moment, Robin." She pressed down again. "How so?"

"It will mean that you are either incompetent enough to have allowed radioactives to escape from

confinement—"

"We don't even use radioactives."

"Irrelevant. Or it will mean that you have been targeted by ideologs." Amnier shook his head. "The

Unification Council would find that an excellent excuse to shut you down. We have not the resources to guard

an installation of questionable worth against a group of determined ideologs."

An override suddenly flashed on Suzanne's terminal. "Malko here. I'll meet you at the showers. Bring

Amnier." The override ended, and Robin's form appeared again in the terminal.

"This is," said Suzanne, the instant the thought struck her, "a fascinating coincidence, that this should

happen while you are visiting."

Darryl Amnier smiled at her, the first true smile she had seen from him. He spoke with chilling precision.

"I have thought that myself."

Terence Kniessen, a tall fat man with a shock of red hair, met them at the showers. He was wearing his

head bubble— a barely visible line of refraction ran five centimeters around the perimeter of his skull—but his

gloves had been removed. Malko was already there, undressing preparatory to entering the chemical

showers; Amnier flinched visibly at the sight of the long laser scars that crisscrossed Kalharri's body. Almost

hidden among the marks of the lasers were the small round puckered scars where bullets had entered his

flesh. Kalharri did not even glance at Amnier. He entered the first shower in the row as they began

undressing.

Terence was sweating; he took Amnier's coat, babbling instructions at the man. ". . . and then gargle with

the mouth-wash, you'll have to swallow the second mouthful. I'll meet you on the other side and show you

how to—"

Suzanne interrupted him. "Terence."

He stopped speaking instantly and glanced at her sideways—he was more of a prude than most of the

rest of the staff. "Yes ma'am?"

"You took your gloves off."

Terence let out a low moan. "Oh, damn," he swore, and began stripping down even more quickly than the

others.

The first thing that Amnier noticed, as they cycled through the double doors that led into the labs, was the

faint smell of ozone. The bubble let filtered air through, and it was not supposed to filter anything so small as

an ozone molecule; but before he could be certain about the smell, he was led through the inner door and

found himself upon a catwalk that looked down upon chaos.

Kalharri was down there, with a pair of technicians wearing decon badges. Only one of the decon badges

bore the radiating triangle insignia that meant its wearer had passed training to deal with radioactive

materials. The tech who wore that badge was probably paid twice as much as the tech who did not; even

today, eleven-and-a-half years after the end of the Unification War, there were not enough skilled radiation

decon techs to go around.

The lab itself was huge; it was easily the largest room in what was not a small building. This, thought

Amnier, is where they work. The things that had been missing everywhere else were in abundance here:

comic strips had been inscribed in the glowpaint, and decorative calendars were hung in three different

places. The dozen or so desks that were scattered across the place were personalized to various degrees;

one that caught his eye held the holograph of a ballerina, turning eternally on point.

The laboratory was the first place Amnier had seen in the building where glowpaint gave an

approximation of yellow sunlight.

A huge laser hung nose-down from the ceiling, pointing at a table that bore a ceramic depression nearly a

meter in diameter. In the middle of the depression was a small transparent container that had been clamped

into position; tubes so small that Amnier could barely see them from where he stood led to the container.

Amnier made his way down from the catwalk slowly. Montignet was already down at floor level. One of

the technicians was showing her listings from the devices that were attached to the transparent container;

Montignet rose up from

the computer, shouted, "Ellie, get me nutrient flow now," and went back instantly to the readouts.

Amnier reached the floor and found Malko Kalharri there, waiting for him. Kalharri was standing with his

arms crossed, pale blue eyes calm and rather relaxed. "Hello, Darryl."

Amnier sat down abruptly on a step four from the bottom. It put his eyes almost on a level with

Kalharri's. "Hello, Malko. How have you been?"

"Well. And yourself?"

Amnier shrugged. "Busy. I work. What is happening?"

"There was a source of radiation." Kalharri eyed Amnier speculatively. "It's gone now. Vanished. We

haven't been able to track it down."

"Assuming," said Amnier, "that you yourself have not caused this excitement—and I do not put it past

you, Malko —please accept my assurance that I am not responsible for whatever has happened here today."

He looked directly at Malko. "Did you let them take this Jorge person to the hospital?"

"No. Of course not."

"It grieves you that you could not do so."

"It would have made Robin feel better."

"But he would still die."

Kalharri nodded. "Yes."

Amnier watched the technicians in silence for a moment as they rushed about at errands that he, and he

suspected Kalharri also, found totally incomprehensible. "If a living foetus comes out of this, and what I am

hearing leads me to believe it might, I shall find it all most suspect."

Amnier thought a smile might have touched Kalharri's lips for an instant. It was difficult to be certain.

"You're flattering yourself, Darryl."

"Perhaps. It is a danger in my profession." Amnier paused. "Our profession, I might say. You have not

forgotten how the thought processes operate, at any rate. I have not needed to say a startling number of

things."

"I have been thinking," said Kalharri, "about what you said to me the last time we talked."

Darryl Amnier stared at him in utter, complete amazement. "Malko, that was seventeen years ago."

"I think you may have been right. The United States was crumbling, in some ways." Kalharri spoke

slowly, with what was as close to reluctance as Amnier had ever seen from him. "I mean politically. In other

ways it was not. The Unification Council—the entire superstructure which your Sarah Almundsen designed—it

is, in some ways, more vigorous than what we had; certainly better than what the Russians had, or the

Chinese. Perhaps this United Nations is better. Perhaps it was even worth the deaths that came about in the

War."

"It's good of you to say so."

"Darryl."

"Yes?"

"You are—all of you—already losing sight of what you fought for. I did not agree with you, and today I am

not certain that I was right—but your government is being overrun by the barbarians. It's already happening."

He said slowly, "I don't know if Americans will tolerate it."

Amnier said gently, "You're too much of a philosopher, Malko. It was charming when we were boys. But it

helped you lose the War. And it's not helping you at all now."

" '. . . In republics there is greater life, greater hatred, and more desire for vengeance; they do not and

cannot cast aside the memory of their ancient liberty.' "

Amnier looked at him quizzically. "Niccolo Machiavelli," he said after a moment. "The Prince, of course . .

. The Old Man would have been proud of you." He smiled distantly. "In the same work it says, this is a

paraphrase, 'A city used to liberty can be more easily held by means of its citizens than in any other way, if

you wish to preserve it.' "

"You just don't get it, do you?"

Amnier did not answer. There was a silence that continued until Suzanne left her work station and

returned to where they waited. Amnier sat with his eyes unfocused, looking off into a distance that did not

exist; Kalharri stood, eyes fixed on Amnier's face. Neither saw what they looked upon.

"Malko?" Amnier looked up at the woman, flushed with some strong emotion, and thought again, You are

so very lovely. Montignet continued, "We have one. It's going to live."

"Fascinating," murmured Amnier. He looked down at the steel stairway upon which he sat. When he

looked up again there was a flat snapping sound, like a whip being cracked. For the merest instant Amnier

stared directly at the flat, black cutout of a man, merely the outline of a shape. I doubt that he ever again

fully believed his own eyes after that; Camber

Tremodian was gone before Amnier could be certain of what he had seen.

None of the others appeared to have noticed. "Which one is it?" asked Malko quietly.

"Number fifty-five. Series C, number C; we've been calling it Charlie Chan."

"Do you know its sex yet?"

"Male."

Malko Kalharri had not yet turned away from Darryl Amnier; now he came closer, squatted until his eyes

were on a level with Amnier's. "I think we shall name him Carl . . . Castanaveras, perhaps. Yes."

Amnier blinked. His mind seemed to be elsewhere. "Oh?"

"Yes," said Malko Kalharri, "Castanaveras. I think that is an appropriate name."

Three days after my life brushed against his, Jorge Rodriguez died of radiation burns.

We have kept the costs of the battle down, Camber and I; Jorge Rodriguez was only the third human

being in sequential Time to die in one of the battles of the Time Wars.

It might have comforted him to know that.

Or not.

INTERLUDE:

2030-2062

And so three decades passed.

When Carl Castanaveras was still a very young boy, before puberty turned him into a Peaceforcer

weapon, an officer of the United Nations Peace Keeping Force once asked him what he wished to do with his

life.

The question startled the boy. He had been raised by doctors and scientists and Malko Kalharri; the

Peaceforcer's question was not the sort of thing anyone had ever asked of him before.

After a moment's consideration he said, "Am I supposed to do something with it?"

There can be good mistakes. Fact and truth and history are rarely related. The facts are these.

Carl Castanaveras was born on the eighteenth of September in the year 2030. He was named after a

soldier who, fighting for his country, died during the Unification War; he was raised in a world that still bore

the scars of that war. The America in which he was raised was an occupied country; there were more

Peaceforcers in the United States than police. The war was history already by the time he was old enough to

understand its causes. In classes he was taught about its great battles; how after the Battle of Yorktown, the

young Marine Corps sergeant who was in command of what was left of the United States Marine Corps forced

the U.N. forces to withdraw into a neighboring city before he would agree to surrender his forces. In agreeing

to surrender, a young Marine named Neil Corona produced the most memorable quote of the War: "We will

fry under your goddamn cannon," he said, "before a single Marine will lay down his arms in Yorktown."

After that war's end, the slow task of rebuilding began. France, alone among the industrial nations of the

time, emerged unscathed from the Unification War. In the years that followed the war, it attained a position of

preeminence among the bodies that constituted the United Nations.

The gene pattern which produced Carl Castanaveras was not successfully reproduced until April the

eighteenth, in 2035, when a design which became Jane McConnell was successfully imprinted upon a sterile

egg. In creating her, Suzanne Montignet localized three unique genes that Carl Castanaveras possessed and

no other living human being did Jane McConnell was, aside from her gender, his clone She was the first and

last instance in which Suzanne Montignet had to resort to relatively clumsy cloning techniques to ensure that

the gene complex took properly, Johann MacArthur was brought to term late in 2036; unlike Jane McConnell

he was a true genie, assembled gene by gene until a design was found that Suzanne Montignet approved. Six

such others were born between 2036 and 2042

In the year 2040, a man named Darryl Amnier was appointed to the position of Prosecutor General to the

Unification Council.

For over a decade the U.N. Bureau of Biotechnology Research, and the Peaceforcers who controlled

them, thought Carl Castanaveras a failure.

An interesting failure.

He seemed to be slightly stronger than his muscle mass should have warranted, with greater endurance;

but his muscle mass, even with physical conditioning, was not exceptional. He moved with abnormal speed,

and was emotionally unstable.

At the age of twelve, when puberty struck him with full force, Carl Castanaveras awoke one day and

found that he could read minds.

He let others know; specifically, a Unification Councillor named Jerril Carson, who was at that time the

Chairman of the Unification Council to supervise the Bureau of Biotechnology Research That was the first

mistake By the time the other abilities began to manifest, he had learned enough to know that in knowledge

there is power. As he grew older, what would be known, more than a thousand years later, as the Gift of the

House of November, grew also. Carl Castanaveras learned to hide that which he did not wish revealed.

Throughout history, slaves have always found this a useful skill.

They were slaves, no less so than the indentured hunters of twenty-third century Tin Woodman, or the

blacks of the early American South. After the first shakeout, the Peaceforcers had three facilities where their

experiments in genetic engineering were conducted; following the death of pioneer genegineer Jean Louis de

Nostri, the facilities were consolidated under the control of Suzanne Montignet. The slaves— the

"genies"—were, of course, relocated along with the research teams; and for the first time, the telepaths met

the de Nostri.

And Carl Castanaveras found a friend, who was killed.

There were times when Shana de Nostri did not mind the fact that she was not human.

Now was not one of those times.

She sat brooding on the mat at the side of the gym as a group of five Peaceforcers put Carl

Castanaveras through his paces. Her girlfriend Lorette was with her, and the two of them were striking

enough that the four Peaceforcers who were not engaged with Carl kept sneaking glances, mostly at Shana.

She was no better looking than Lorette, only less modestly dressed. In gross physiological detail they

resembled human women closely enough that human men often found them attractive. The differences were

minor enough that a good cosmetic bio-sculptor might have made them look human, had they desired to look

human. At one point while he lived, Dr de Nostri had, in a fit of conscience, offered that option to the de

Nostri. Their tails would have had to be amputated, and their fur removed permanently; the claws would have

been replaced with fingernails. Facial reconstruction would have lowered the very high cheekbones, replaced

their flat, wide noses with noses that protruded properly. Sexually they were more like humans than the

cougars from whom the balance of their genetic makeup was derived; male and female genitalia closely

resembled those of normal humans. The females had breasts that would, very likely, produce milk in the

likely event that any of the maturing seventy-three de Nostri females ever bore children.

The de Nostri had, as a group, rejected the offer.

The de Nostri were proud of their appearance.

Lorette had, like most of the female de Nostri, made concessions to the morals of the—mostly

American—humans

among whom they now found themselves. Her breasts were covered by a loose blouse, and her genitals were

covered by a pair of baggy pants that had been altered to accommodate her tail.

Shana was nude except for her fur. Her nipples were clearly visible, and a human who stared—and some

had, though not more than once—could have made out the outline of her genitalia through her fur.

She was damned if she was going to put on a second layer of skin when the weather did not require it.

Just now, Carl was sparring with a hulk of a Peaceforcer who had to outmass him two to one. Shana and

Lorette were practicing speaking in English, rather than the French they had learned as children. Though most

of the staff spoke understandable, hideously accented French, most of the thirty or so genies with whom the

de Nostri were sharing the buildings did not. It was a failing shared, in even greater measure, by the New

York City residents.

"I cannot see that it matters," said Lorette primly, running her claws gently through the

brown-and-white-striped fur that covered Shana's back and shoulders. "Talk to the telepath if you must, your

boyfriend over there . . ."

Shana's muscles tensed, and she growled so quietly that no human and most genies who were not de

Nostri would have heard it. Lorette's ears pricked slightly, and without pausing she continued, ". . . or only

your friend, if you will have it that way. But . . ."

She broke off again; the Peaceforcer sparring with Carl had picked the boy up and thrown him a full five

meters. Shana sucked in her breath, and her claws unsheathed of their own accord. The boy struck the mat

rolling and came to his feet running backward. The Peaceforcer was right there, a long kick whistling through

the space the boy's body had occupied only an instant before.

There was a moment when the two stood facing each other, motionlessly, before engaging again, and

Lorette continued speaking as though she had never been interrupted. "But the people in the city," she said,

lips drawn back from her teeth in a reflex that had nothing to do with a human's smile, "animals. They stare

so." She stopped scratching Shana. "How is that?"

"I still itch in all places."

Lorette sighed, switched to French. "What did they inject you with?"

The snarl in Shana's voice would have been audible even to a human. "They did not tell me, except it is

supposed to make me strong. If I was a human, even a genie, they would have said."

Lorette chuckled without amusement. "If you were a human citizen they could not even have injected

you without permission."

Shana was silent, watching as a somewhat smaller Peaceforcer took over from the very large one. The

boy had no time to catch his breath; within seconds the two were fighting, each wielding a meter-long rod of

wood with a rounded, metal cap at each end.

"Really?"

Lorette sighed, and returned to English. "It is what Albert says."

"Albert says things just to say them," said Shana sullenly.

"True." Lorette was struck by something amusing, and she leaned forward to whisper in Shana's ear.

"Albert told me that he has watched Carl spar and that he is better."

"Scratch my shoulders, please," said Shana. Lorette's claws moved up after the new itch, and Shana

sighed with pleasure when they caught it. "Albert is a fool. He is four years older than Carl, and he is jealous

because he is not as important. He is one of many de Nostri, and Carl is the only telepath." She thought

about the subject for a moment. "Perhaps it is even true that he is better than Carl, with an advantage of

only six years study in martial discipline. Carl began learning only after they found he was a telepath and

realized it might be necessary to use him in the field. But I will tell you this much, Albert may best Carl on the

mat. If they ever fight truly, Carl will win." Shana had to catch her breath after speaking; she was slightly

winded.

"I have talked to Carl once," said Lorette thoughtfully. "He says when they take him on assignment he is

well protected."

Shana nodded. "Yes. He is their only telepath, unless the little dark-haired girl is one also, and they will

not know that until, what is it . . ." and she took a long, deep breath, to bring the air into her lungs, and

spoke in her native tongue, "Comment dit-on en anglais 'menarche'?"

"Puberty," said Lorette, "but it means for boys and girls both. They do not have a word for menarche."

"They will not know until Jany reaches puberty, then." Shana coughed, a deep, guttural sound, and said,

"It makes him special."

Lorette brightened. "Look, the fourth match is finished. One more and we can go to lunch."

Shana shook her head slowly. Her ears had begun twitching without stop. "I think perhaps I should go to

the infirmary."

"Shana?"

"I ... I do not feel well."

Carl Castanaveras did not even look away from his match as they left.

The field image wavered slightly. Suzanne Montignet's image waited for nearly three seconds after Malko

had finished speaking; round-trip signal time from the PKF Elite SpaceBase One, at L-5. "You've got to be

kidding."

Malko shook his head no. "They weren't sure at first what was happening. It took nearly a day before the

transform virus killed her. I had Carson on the line after it happened. He denied—"

"Of course the virus killed her," Suzanne exploded after the strange delay that Malko found himself

unable to become used to. "What did the bloody fools expect? She was a de Nostri, for God's sake! Their

muscle cells behave differently!"

Malko waited until there was silence before he continued. "Ellie Samuels did the work, and she says she

received her orders directly from Councillor Carson. You weren't available for her to check with, which is

pretty clearly intentional."

Suzanne was nodding tensely. "Of course it was. Carson's wanted to try seeding one of the de Nostri with

the enhanced-strength transform virus for the last year. They're so strong to begin with, the damn fool

figures this should make them even stronger. I told him the odds were terrible." She looked broodingly into

the camera, eyes slightly unfocused; she was not looking at the screen that held Malko's image. "It's been

fascinating, seeing the work the Peaceforcers have been doing in transform viruses, but it still didn't make

sense, how insistent they were that I make the trip to L-5, until now. Carson wanted me up here so that I

couldn't interfere down there. Have you heard from Amnier?"

"Not a word. The Prosecutor General's office won't even return my calls. I think they're going to let

Carson get away with it."

"Has Shana been autopsied yet?"

"No."

"How's Carl?"

Malko hesitated. ". . . angry."

"That bad?"

"I've never seen it worse."

She seemed to reach a decision. "Very well. Don't let her be autopsied until I get back. I want to be

there. Ellie might not have known what she was doing when she got her orders. . . ." She was looking

off-screen at something. "Ship leaves at 2300 hours. I can be in Manhattan by this time tomorrow. Have Carl

confined."

"I'll try." The holo field went silver, then flattened, and Suzanne's figure vanished without saying

anything further.

If, thought Malko quietly, I can find him.

The receptionist sat at the wide front desk, in the inner lobby of the offices of the Unification Council, at

the United Nations Building in New York City. Sunlight struck a warm, late afternoon glow through the bay

windows that surrounded the lobby on three sides, washed in and overrode the clean white glowpaint. The

receptionist thought she saw movement outside, through the window, and dismissed it as a figment of her

imagination.

The doors slid aside, and by reflex she touched the pressure point at the side of her desk, marked

security, the instant the young man walked in. By appearance he was perhaps fifteen or sixteen years of

age; young, but old enough to be dangerous.

And she should have received some warning before he had ever reached the inner lobby.

"Can I help you?"

His voice was odd. She had to strain to hear him, and— surely his lips had moved?

I have come to see Councillor Carson.

His eyes were green, some portion of her mind noted uneasily, and very large And familiar "I'm sorry," she

stumbled, "but the Councillors do not see people without an appointment "

He moved closer to her, head cocked slightly to one side An intangible, electric shock of danger ran

through her There was rage in him, an anger so vast she had never experienced its like before Please tell

him that I am here

She did know him, she was certain of it Thought came slowly, as though from a great distance She could

not take her gaze away from the brilliant, luminescent green of his eyes She activated her inskin data link

without knowing she was doing so, and paged the Councillor to the reception area

Another Councillor, with two of his staff, came through the lobby as they waited, and eyed the boy with a

touch of curiosity The boy stood silently, motionless, and did not look at them He kept his gaze locked to the

receptionist They found it, and him, somewhat odd, but of course he would not have been there if he had not

belonged there, and so they continued on their way, and forgot the boy and the strange tableau with a speed

which Jerril Carson would have found instructive

The lift doors, at the far end of the lobby, slid aside, and Jerril Carson stood framed between the sliding

doors, with a Peaceforcer at his side

Suddenly a weight lifted itself from the receptionist's mind, and the dark-haired boy's features moved into

sharp focus The blood had entirely drained from his face at Jerril Carson's appearance, leaving it shockingly

white beneath the straight black hair, but she recognized the boy nonetheless "Of course," she said aloud

"Why didn't...."

Carson lifted an eyebrow in mild surprise "Carl?"

The voice echoed, as though something else spoke through the boy, used him as an instrument of

expression "You killed Shana "

The boy said nothing else, and Carson was still looking at him when the windows exploded outward A

great invisible hand slammed the Peaceforcer down to the floor, dragged him out of the lift and across the

pale blue carpeting The Unification Councillor stumbled back into the lift, mouth open and working as though

he would say something

But no words came, and Carl Castanaveras, with an insane rage stamped upon his features, went in after him

The doors slid quietly shut before the screams began

There can be good mistakes, and otherwise

Jane McConnell underwent puberty early in the year 2047 The Peaceforcers were waiting, as, most

specifically, was a man named Jerril Carson

She too had the Gift

For the predominantly French Peaceforcers, struggling to keep order in a world that hated and distrusted

them, it was confirmation enough of the information-gathering godsend that fate had sent them

Castanaveras had already proven that he could retrieve information reliably when physically near his target,

but one, or even ten such telepaths, were only mist in the desert of their need

2048, the year Jerril Carson became the chairman of the Peace Keeping Force Oversight Committee in

the Unification Council, was, not coincidentally, also the year Suzanne Montignet was removed from control of

what was popularly called Protect Superman In that year forty-three telepathic children were brought to term

All were given the surname Castanaveras, the technicians had tired of inventing individual surnames In 2049

there were seventy-three, and another eighty-six in the year 2050

In 2051 the year Trent Castanaveras was born, there were only twenty-four telepathic children brought

into the world The Peaceforcers were beginning to learn enough to wonder if they should be afraid of the

powers they had helped create Many of them were afraid of Carl Castanaveras With some help from

Castanaveras himself, the assembly-line program to produce telepaths for the Peaceforcers was terminated

by the middle of the year

In 2052, Darryl Amnier became the Secretary General of the United Nations

In 2053, twins were born to Carl Castanaveras and Jane McConnell, twins named David and, yes, the

Denies who became Denice Ripper, from whom our line descends

Those are the facts There have been many histories written concerning those twenty years when

telepaths first walked the Earth, but historians are primarily concerned with truth, and a concern for truth can

make one leery of those cold facts that might conflict with a precious, closely held "truth."

It is better to be a Storyteller.

EMERALD EYES

1

Daniel Keys Moran - A Tale of the Continuing Time 01 - Emerald Eyes

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