Piper, H Beam - Lord Kalvan Of Otherwhen

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H. Beam Pipper

Lord Kalvan of Otherwhen

TORTHA Karf, Chief of Paratime Police, told himself to stop fretting. He was

only three hundred years old, so by the barest life-expectancy of his race he

was good for another two centuries. Two hundred more days wouldn't matter.

Then it would be Year-End Day, and precisely at midnight, he would rise from

this chair and Verkan Vall would sit down in it, and after that he would be

free to raise grapes and lemons and wage guerrilla war against the rabbits on

the island of Sicily, which he owned outright on one uninhabited Fifth Level

time-line. He wondered how long it would take Vall to become as tired of the

Chief's seat as he was now.

Actually, Karf knew, Verkan Vall had never wanted to be Chief. Prestige and

authority meant little to him, and freedom much. Vall liked to work outtime.

But it was a job somebody had to do, and it was the job for which Vall had

been trained, so he'd take it, and do it, Karf suspected, better than he'd

done it himself. The job of policing a near-infinity of worlds, each of which

was this same planet Earth, would be safe with Verkan Vall.

Twelve thousand years ago, facing extinction on an exhausted planet, the First

Level race had discovered the existence of a second, lateral, time dimension

and a means of physical transposition to and from a near-infinity of worlds of

alternate probability parallel to their own. So the conveyers had

gone out by stealth, bringing back wealth to Home Time-Line a little from this

one, a little from that, never enough to be missed anywhen.

It all had to be policed. Some paratimers were less than scrupulous in dealing

with outtime races he'd have retired ten years ago except for the discovery of

a huge paratemporal slave-trade, only recently smashed. More often, somebody's

bad luck or indiscretion would endanger the Paratime Secret, or some incident-

nobody's fault, something that just happened' would have to be explained away.

But, at all costs, the Paratime Secret must be preserved. Not merely the

actual technique of transposition-that went without saying-but the very

existence of a race possessing it. If for no other reason (and there were many

others), it would be utterly immoral to make any outtime race live with the

knowledge that there w 'ere among them aliens indistinguishable from

themselves, watching and exploiting. It was a big police-beat.

Second Level that had been civilized almost as long as the First, but there

had been dark-age interludes. Except for paratemporal transposition, most of

its sectors equaled First Level, and from many, Home Time Line had learned

much. The Third Level civilizations were more recent, but still of respectable

antiquity and advancement. Fourth Level had started late and progressed

slowly; some Fourth Level genius was first domesticating animals long after

the steam engine was obsolescent all over the Third. And Fifth Level on a few

sectors, subhuman brutes, speechless and fireless, were cracking nuts and each

other's heads with stones, and on most of it nothing even vaguely humanoid had

appeared.

Fourth Level was the big one. The others had devolved from low-probability

genetic accidents; it was the maximum probability. It was divided into many

sectors and subsectors, on most of which human civilization had first appeared

in the valleys of the Nile and Tigris-Euphrates, and on the Indus and Yangtze.

Europo-American Sector they might have to pull out of that entirely, but that

would be for Chief Verkan to decide. Too many thermonuclear weapons and too

many competing national sovereignties. That had happened all over Third Level

at one time or another within Home Time Line experience. Alexandrian-Roman off

to a fine start with the pooling of Greek theory and Roman engineering talent,

and then, a thousand years ago, two half forgotten religions had been rummaged

out of the dustbin and fanatics had begun massacring one another. They were

still at it, with pikes and matchlocks, having lost the ability to make

anything better. Europo-American could come to that if its rival political and

economic sectarians kept on. Sino

Hindic that wasn't a civilization; it was a bad case of cultural paralysis.

And so was Indo-Turanian-about where Europo-American had been ten centuries

ago.

And Aryan-Oriental. the Aryan migration of three thousand years ago, instead

of moving west and south, as on most sectors, had rolled east into China. And

Aryan-Transpacific, an offshoot on one sector, some of them had built ships

and sailed north and east along the Kuriles and the Aleutians and settled in

North America, bringing with them horses and cattle and iron working skills,

exterminating the Amerinds, warring with one another, splitting into diverse

peoples and cultures. There was a civilization, now decadent, on the Pacific

coast, and nomads on the central plains herding bison and crossbreeding them

with Asian cattle, and a civilization around the Great Lakes and one in the

Mississippi Valley, and a new one, five or six centuries old, along the

Atlantic and in the Appalachians. Technological level premechanical, water-

and-animal power; a few subsectors had gotten as far as gunpowder.

But Aryan-Transpacific was a sector to watch. They were going forward; things

were ripe to start happening soon.

Let Chief Verkan watch it, for the next couple of centuries. After Year-End

Day, ex-Chief Tortha would have his vineyards and lemon-groves to watch.

RYLLA tried to close her mind to the voices around her in the tapestried room,

and stared at the map spread in front of her and her father. There was Tarr-

Hostigos overlooking the gap, only a tiny fleck of gold on the parchment, but

she could see it in her mind's eye-the walled outer bailey with the sheds and

stables and workshops inside, the inner bailey and the citadel and keep, the

watchtower pointing a blunt finger skyward. Below, the little Darro flowed

north to join the Listra and, with it, the broad Athan to the east. Hostigos

Town, white walls and slate roofs and busy streets; the checkerboard of fields

to the west and south; the forest, broken by farms, to the west.

A voice, louder and harsher than the others, brought her back to reality. Her

cousin, Sthentros.

"He'll do nothing at all? Well, what in Draim's holy name is a Great King for,

but to keep the peace?"

She looked along the table, from one to another. Phosg, the speaker for the

peasants, at the foot, uncomfortable in his feast-day clothes and ill at ease

seated among his betters. The speakers for the artisans' guilds, and for the

merchants and the townsfolk; the lesser family members and marriagekin; the

barons and landholders. Old Chartiphon, the chief-captain, his golden beard

streaked with gray like the lead splotches on his gilded breastplate, his long

sword on the table in front of him. Xentos, the cowl of his priestly robe

thrown back from his snowy head, his blue eyes troubled. And beside her, at

the table's head, her father, Prince Ptosphes, his mouth tight between pointed

gray mustache and pointed gray beard. How long it had been since she had seen

her father smile!

Xentos passed a hand negatively across his face. "King Kaiphranos said that it

was every Prince's duty to guard his own realm; that it was for Prince

Ptosphes, not for him, to keep bandits out of Hostigos."

"Bandits? They're Nostori soldiers!" Sthentros shouted. "Gormoth of Nostor

means to take all Hostigos, as his grandfather took Sevenhills Valley after

the traitor we don't name sold him Tarr-Dombra."

That was a part of the map her eyes had shunned the bowl valley to the east,

where Dombra Gap split the Mountains of Hostigos. It was from thence that

Gormoth's mercenary cavalry raided into 14ostigos.

"And what hope have we from Styphon's House?" her father asked. He knew the

answer; he wanted the others to hear it at first hand.

"The Archpriest wouldn't talk to me; the priests of Styphon hold no speech

with priests of other gods," Xentos said.

"The Archpriest wouldn't talk to me, either," Chartiphon said. "Only one of

the upper-priests of the temple. He took our offerings and said he would pray

to Styphon for us. When I asked for fireseed, he would give me none."

"None at all?" somebody down the table cried. "Then we are indeed under the

ban."

Her father rapped with the pommel of his poignard. "You've heard the worst,

now. What's in your minds that we should do? You first, Phosg."

The peasant representative rose and cleared his throat. "Lord Prince, this

castle is no more dear to you than my cottage is to me.

I'll fight for mine as you would for yours." There was a quick mutter of

approval along the table. "Well said, Phosg!" "An example for all of us!" The

others spoke in turn; a few tried to make speeches. Chartiphon said "Fight.

What else."

"I am a priest of Dralm," Xentos said, "and Dralm is a god of peace, but I

say, fight with Dralm's blessing. Submission to evil men is the worst of all

sins."

"Rylla' " her father said. "Better die in armor than live in chains," she

replied. "When the time

comes, I will be in armor with the rest of you." Her father nodded. "I

expected no less from any of you." He rose, and all with him. "I thank you. At

sunset we will dine together; until then servants will attend you. Now, if you

please, leave me with my daughter. Chartiphon, you and Xentos stay."

Chairs scraped and feet scuffed as they went out. The closing door cut off the

murmur of voices. Chartiphon had begun to fill his stubby pipe.

"I know there's no use looking to Balthar of Beshta '" Rylla said, "but

wouldn't Sarrask of Sask aid us? We're better neighbors to him than Gormoth

would be."

"Sarrask of Sask's a fool," Chartiphon said shortly. "He doesn't know that

once Gormoth has Hostigos, his turn will come next."

"He knows that," Xentos differed. "He'll try to strike before Gorinoth does,

or catch Gorrnoth battered from having fought us. But even if he wanted to

help us, he dares not. Even King Kaiphranos dares not aid those whom Styphon's

House would destroy."

"They want that land in Wolf Valley, for a temple-farm," she considered. "I

know that would be bad, but. . . "

"Too late," Xentos told her. "They have made a compact with Gormoth, to famish

him fireseed and money to hire mercenaries, and when he has conquered Hostigos

he will give them the land." He paused and added "And it was on my advice,

Prince, that you refused them."

"I'd have refused against your advice, Xentos," her father said. "Long ago I

vowed that Styphon's House should never come into Hostigos while I lived, and

by Dralm and by Galzar neither shall they! They come into a princedom, they

build a temple, they make temple-farms and slaves of everybody on them. They

tax the Prince, and make him tax the people, till nobody has anything left.

Look at that temple-farm in Sevenhills Valley!"

"Yes, you'd hardly believe it," Chartiphon said. "Why, they even make the

peasants for miles around cart their manure in, till they have none left for

their own fields. Dralm only knows what they do with it." He puffed at his

pipe. "I wonder why they want Sevenhilis Valley."

"There's something in the ground there that makes the water of those springs

taste and smell badly," her father said.

"Sulfur," said Xentos, "But why do they want sulfur?"

CORPORAL Calvin Morrison, Pennsylvania State Police, squatted in the brush at

the edge of the old field and looked across the small brook at the farmhouse

two hundred yards away. It was scabrous with peeling yellow paint, and

festooned with a sagging porch-roof. A few white chickens pecked

uninterestedly in the littered barnyard; there was no other sign of life, but

he knew that there was a man inside. A man with a rifle, who would use it; a

man who had murdered once, broken jail, would murder again.

He looked at his watch; the minute-hand was squarely on the nine. Jack French

and Steve Kovac would be starting down on the road above, where they had left

the car. He rose, unsnapping the retaining-strap of his holster.

"Watch that middle upstairs window," he said. "I'm starting now." "I'm

watching it 'Behind him, a rifle-action clattered softly as a cartridge

went into the chamber. "Luck." He started forward across the seedling-dotted

field. He was scared, as scared as he had been the first time, back in '5 1,

in Korea, but there was nothing he could do about that. He just told his legs

to keep moving, knowing that in a few moments he wouldn't have time to be

scared.

He was within a few feet of the little brook, his hand close to the butt of

the Colt, when it happened.

There was a blinding flash, followed by a moment's darkness. He thought he'd

been shot; by pure reflex, the. 38-special was in his hand. Then, all around

him, a flickering iridescence of many colors glowed, a perfect hemisphere

fifteen feet high and thirty across, and in front of him was an oval desk with

an instrument-panel over it, and a swivel-chair from which a man was rising.

Young, well-built; a white man but, he was sure, not an American. He wore

loose green, trousers and black ankle-boots and a pale green shirt. There was

a shoulder holster under his left arm, and a weapon in his right hand.

He was sure it was a weapon, though it looked more like an electric soldering-

iron, with two slender rods instead of a barrel, joined, at what should be the

muzzle, by a blue ceramic or plastic knob. It was probably something that made

his own Colt Official Police look like a kid's cap-pistol, and it was coming

up fast to line on him.

He fired, held the trigger back to keep the hammer down on the fired chamber,

and flung himself to one side, coming down, on his left hand and left hip, on

a smooth, polished floor. Something, probably the chair, fell with a crash. He

rolled, and kept on rolling until he was out of the nacreous dome of light and

bumped hard against something. For a moment he lay still, then rose to his

feet, letting out the trigger of the Colt.

What he'd bumped into was a tree. For a moment he accepted that, then realized

that there should be no trees here, nothing but low brush. And this tree, and

the ones all around, were huge; great rough columns rising to support a green

roof through which only a few stray gleams of sunlight leaked. Hemlocks; must

have been growing here while Columbus was still conning Isabella into hocking

her jewelry. He looked at the little stream he had been about to cross when

this had happened. It was the one thing about this that wasn't completely

crazy. Or maybe it was the craziest thing of all.

He began wondering how he was going to explain this. "While approaching the

house," he began, aloud and in a formal tone, "I was intercepted by a flying

saucer landing in front of me, the operator of which threatened me with a ray-

pistol. I defended myself with my revolver, firing one round..

No. That wouldn't do at all. He looked at the brook again, and began to

suspect that there might be nobody to explain to. Swinging out the cylinder of

his Colt, he replaced the fired round. Then he decided to junk the regulation

about carrying the hammer on an empty chamber, and put in another one.

VERKAN Vall watched the landscape outside the almost invisible shimmer of the

transposition-field; now he was in the forests of the Fifth Level. The

mountains, of course, were always the same, but the woods around flickered and

shifted. There was a great deal of randomness about which tree grew where,

from time-line to time-line. Now and then he would catch fleeting glimpses of

open country, and the buildings and airport installations of his own people.

The red light overhead went off and on, a buzzer sounding each time. The

conveyer dome became a solid iridescence, and then a mesh of cold inert metal.

The red light turned green. He picked up a sigma-ray needier from the desk in

front of him and bolstered it. As he did, the door slid open and two men in

Paratime Police green, a lieutenant and a patrolman, entered. When they saw

him, they relaxed, bolstering their own weapons.

"Hello, Chief's Assistant," the lieutenant said. "Didn't pick anything up, did

you?"

In theory, the Ghaldron-Hesthor transposition-field was impenetrable; in

practice, especially when two paratemporal vehicles going in opposite

"directions" interpenetrated, the field would weaken briefly, and external

objects, sometimes alive and hostile, would intrude. That was why paratimers

kept weapons ready at hand, and why conveyers were checked immediately upon

materializing. It was also why some paratimers didn't make it home.

"Not this trip. Is my rocket ready?" "Yes, sir. Be a little delay about an

aircar for the rocket-port." The patrolman had begun to take the transposition

record-tapes out of the cabinet. "They'll call you when it's ready."

He and the lieutenant strolled out into the noise and colorful confusion of

the conveyor-head rotunda. He got out his cigarette case and offered it; the

lieutenant flicked his lighter. They had only taken a few puffs when another

conveyer quietly materialized in a vacant circle a little to their left.

A couple of Paracops strolled over as the door opened, drawing their neediers,

and peeped inside. Immediately, one backed away, snatching the hand-phone of

his belt radio and speaking quickly into it. The other went inside. Throwing

away their cigarettes, he and the lieutenant hastened to the conveyer.

Inside, the chair at the desk was overturned. A Paracop lay on the floor, his

needier a few inches from his out flung hand. His tunic was off and his shirt,

pale green, was darkened by blood. The lieutenant, without touching him, bent

over him.

"Still alive," he said. "Bullet or sword-thrust?" "Bullet. I smell nitro

powder." Then he saw the hat lying on the floor, and stepped around the fallen

man. Two men were entering with an antigrav stretcher; they got the wounded

man onto it and floated him out. "Look at this, Lieutenant."

The lieutenant looked at the hat-gray felt, wide-brimmed, the crown peaked by

four indentations.

"Fourth Level," he said. "Europo-American, Hispano-Colombian Subsector."

He picked up the hat and glanced inside. The lieutenant was right. The sweat-

band was stamped in golden Roman-alphabet letters, JOHN B. STETSON COMPANY.

PHILADF-LPIFIA, PA., and, hand-inked, Cpl. Calvin Morrison, Pensilvania'a

State Police, and a number.

"I know that crowd ' the lieutenant said. "Good men, every bit as good as

ours.

"One was a split second better than one of ours." He got out his cigarette

case. "Lieutenant, this is going to be a real badie. This pickup's going to be

missed, and the people who'll miss him will be one of the ten best

constabulary organizations in the world, on their time-line. We won't satisfy

them with the kind of lame-brained explanations that usually get by in that

sector. And we'll have to find out where he emerged, and what he's doing. A

man who can beat a Paracop to the draw after being sucked into a conveyer

won't just sink into obscurity on any time-line. By the time we get to him,

he'll be kicking up a small fuss."

"I hope he got dragged out of his own Subsector. Suppose he comes out on a

next-door time-line, and reports to his police post, where a duplicate of

himself, with duplicate fingerprints, is on duty."

. "Yes. Wouldn't that be dandy, now?" He lit a cigarette. ""en the aircar

comes, send it back. I'm going over the photo-records myself. Have the rocket

held; I'll need it in a few hours. I'm making this case my own personal baby."

CALVIN Morrison dangled his black-booted legs over the edge of the low cliff

and wished, again, that he hadn't lost his hat. He knew exactly where he was

he was right at the same place he had been, sitting on the little cliff above

the road where he and Larry Stacey and Jack French and Steve Kovae had left

the car, only there was no road there now, and never had been one. There was a

hemlock, four feet thick at the butt, growing where the farmhouse should have

been, and no trace of the stonework of the foundations of house or barn. But

the really permanent features, like the Bald Eagles to the north and Nittany

Mountain to the south, were exactly as they should be.

That flash and momentary darkness could have been subjective; put that in the

unproven column. He was sure the strangely beautiful dome of shimmering light

had been real, and so had the desk and the instrument-panel, and the man with

the odd weapon. And there was nothing at all subjective about all this virgin

timber where farmlands should have been. So he puffed slowly on his pipe and

tried to remember and to analyze what had happened to him.

He hadn't been shot and taken to a hospital where he was now lying delirious,

he was sure of that. This wasn't delirium. Nor did he consider for an instant

questioning either his sanity or his senses, nor did he indulge in dirty

language like "incredible" or "impossible." Extraordinary-now there was a good

word. He was quite sure that something extraordinary had happened to him. It

seemed to break into two parts one, blundering into that dome of

pearly light, what had happened inside of it, and rolling out of it; and two,

this same-but-different place in which he now found himself.

What was wrong with both was anachronism, and the anachronisms were mutually

contradictory. None of the first part belonged in 1964 or, he suspected, for

many centuries to come; portable energy-weapons, for instance. None of the

second part belonged in 1964, either, or for at least a century in the past.

His pipe had gone out. For awhile he forgot to relight it, while he tossed

those two facts back and forth in his mind. He still didn't use those dirty

words. He used one small boys like to scribble on privy, walls.

In spite-no, because-of his clergyman father's insistence that he study for

and enter the Presbyterian ministry, he was an agnostic. Agnosticism, for him,

was refusal to accept or to deny without proof. A good philosophy for a cop,

by the way. Well, he wasn't going to reject the possibility of time machines;

not after having been shanghaied aboard one and having to shoot his way out of

it. That thing had been a time-machine, and whenever he was now, it wasn't the

twentieth century, and he was never going to get back to it. He settled that

point in his mind and accepted it once and for all.

His pipe was out; he started to knock out the heel, then stirred it with a

twig and relit it. He couldn't afford to waste anything now. Sixteen rounds of

ammunition; he couldn't do a hell of a lot of Indian-fighting on that. The

blackjack might be some good at close quarters. The value of the handcuffs and

the whistle was problematical. When he had smoked the contents of his pipe

down to ash, he emptied and pocketed it and climbed down from the little

cliff, going to the brook and following it down to where it joined a larger

stream.

A bluejay made a fuss at his approach. Two deer ran in front of him. A small

black bear regarded him suspiciously and hastened away. Now, if he could only

find some Indians who wouldn't throw tomahawks first and ask questions

afterward....

A road dipped in front of him to cross the stream. For an instant he accepted

that calmly, then caught his breath. A real, wheel-rutted road. And brown

horse-droppings in it-they were the most beautiful things he had ever seen.

They meant he hadn't beaten Columbus here, after all. Maybe he might have

trouble giving a plausible account of himself, but at least he could do it in

English. He waded through the little ford and started down the road, toward

where he thought Bellefonte ought to be. Maybe he was in time to get into the

Civil War. That would be more fun than Korea had been.

The sun went down in front of him. By now he was out of the big hemlocks;

they'd been lumbered off on both sides of the road, and there was a

respectable second growth, mostly hardwoods. Finally, in the dusk, he smelled

freshly turned earth. It was full dark when he saw a light ahead.

The house was only a dim shape; the light came from one window on the end and

two in front, horizontal slits under the roof overhang. Behind, he thought,

were stables. And a pigpen-his nose told him that. Two dogs, outside, began

whauff whauffmg in the road in front of him.

"Hello, in there!" he called. Through the open windows, too high to see into,

he heard voices a man's, a woman's, another man's. He called again, and came

closer. A bar scraped, and the door swung open. For a moment a heavy-bodied

woman in a sleeveless dark dress stood in it. Then she spoke to him and

stepped inside. He entered.

It was a big room, lighted by two candles, one on a table spread with a meal

and the other on the mantel, and by the fire on the hearth. Double-deck bunks

along one wall, fireplace with things stacked against it. There were three men

and another, younger, woman, besides the one who had admitted the comer of his

eye he could see children peering around a door that seemed to open into a

shed-annex. One of the men, big and blonde-bearded, stood with his back to the

fireplace, holding what looked like a short gun.

No, it wasn't, either. It was a crossbow, bent, with a quarrel in the groove.

The other two men were younger-probably his sons, Both were bearded,

though one's beard was only a blonde fuzz. He held an axe; his older brother

had a halberd. All three wore sleeveless leather jerkins, short-sleeved

shirts, and cross-garnered hose. The older woman spoke in a whisper to the

younger woman, who went through the door at the side, hustling the children

ahead of her.

He had raised his hands pacifically as he entered. "I'm a friend' he said.

"I'm going to Bellefonte; how far is it?"

The man with the crossbow said something. The woman replied. The youth with

the axe said something, and they all laughed.

"My name's Morrison. Corporal, Pennsylvania State Police." Hell, they wouldn't

know the State Police from the Swiss Marines. "Am I on the road to

Bellefonte?" They ought to know where that was, it had been settled in 1770,

and this couldn't be any earlier than that.

More back-and-forth. They weren't talking Pennsylvania Dutch-he knew a little

of it. Maybe Polish. no, he'd heard enough of that in the hard-coal country to

recognize it, at least. He looked around while they argued, and noticed, on a

shelf in the far corner, three images. He meant to get a closer look at them.

Roman Catholics used images, so did Greek Catholics, and he knew the

difference.

The man with the crossbow laid the weapon down, but kept it bent with the

quarrel in place, and spoke slowly and distinctly. It was no language he had

ever heard before. He replied, just as distinctly, in English. They looked at

one another, and passed their hands back and forth across their faces. On a

thousand-to-one chance, he tried Japanese. It didn't pay off. By signs, they

invited him to sit and eat with them, and the children, six of them, trooped

in.

The meal was ham, potatoes and succotash. The eating tools were knives and a

few horn spoons; the plates were stabs of com-bread. The men used their belt-

knives. He took out his jackknife, a big switchblade he'd taken off a j.d.

arrest, and caused a sensation with it. He had to demonstrate several times.

There was also elderberry wine, strong but not particularly good. When they

left the table for the women to clear, the men filled pipes from a tobacco-jar

on the mantel, offering it to him. He filled his own, lighting it, as they

had, with a twig from the hearth. Stepping back, he got a look at the images.

The central figure was an elderly man in a white robe with a blue eight

pointed star on his breast. Flanking him, on the left, was a seated female

figure, nude and exaggeratedly pregnant, crowned with wheat and holding a

cornstalk; and on the right a masculine figure in a mail shirt, holding a

spiked mace. The only really odd thing about him was that he had the head of a

wolf. Father god, fertility goddess, war god. No, this crowd weren't Catholics

Greek, Roman or any other kind.

He bowed to the central figure, touching his forehead, and repeated the

gesture to the other two. There was a gratified murmur behind him; anybody

could see he wasn't any heathen. Then he sat down on a chest with his back to

the wall.

They hadn't re-barred the door. The children had been herded back into the

annex by the younger woman. Now that he recalled, there'd been a vacant place,

which he had taken, at the table. Somebody had gone off somewhere with a

message. As soon as he finished his pipe, he pocketed it, managing,

unobtrusively, to unsnap the strap of his holster.

Some half an hour later, he caught the galloping thud of hooves down the road-

at least six horses. He pretended not to hear it; so did the others. The

father moved to where he had put down the crossbow; the older son got hold of

the halberd, and the fuzz-chinned youth moved to the door. The horses stopped

outside; the dogs began barking frantically. There was a clatter of

accoutrements as men dismounted. He slipped the. 3 8 out and cocked it.

The youth went to the door, but before he could open it, it flew back in his

face, knocking him backward, and a man-bearded face under a high combed

helmet, steel long sword in front of him-entered. There was another helmeted

head behind, and the muzzle of a musket. Everybody in the room shouted in

alarm; this wasn't what they'd been expecting, at all. Outside, a pistol

banged, and a dog howled briefly.

Rising from the chest, he shot the man with the sword. Half-cocking with the

double-action and thumbing the hammer back the rest of the way, he shot the

man with the musket, which went off into the. ceiling. A man behind him caught

a crossbow quarrel in the forehead and pitched forward, dropping a long pistol

unfired.

Shifting the Colt to his left hand, he caught up the sword the first man had

dropped. Double-edged, with a swept guard, it was lighter than it looked, and

beautifully balanced. He stepped over the body of the first man he had shot,

to be confronted by a swordsman from outside, trying to get over the other

two. For a few moments they cut and parried, and then he drove the point into

his opponent's unarmored face, then tugged his blade free as the man went

down. The boy, who had gotten hold of the dropped pistol, fired past him and

hit a man holding a clump of horses in the road. Then he was outside, and the

man with the halberd along with him, chopping down another of the party. The

father followed; he'd gotten the musket and powder-flask, and was reloading

it.

Driving the point of the sword into the ground, he bolstered his Colt and as

one of the loose horses passed, caught the reins, throwing himself into the

saddle. Then, when his feet had found the stirrups, he stooped and retrieved

the sword, thankful that even in a motorized age the state police taught their

men to ride.

The fight was over, at least here. Six attackers were down, presumably dead;

two more were galloping away. Five loose horses milled about, and the two

young men were trying to catch them. Their father had charged the short

musket, and was priming the pan.

This had only been a sideshow fight, though. The main event was a half mile

down the road; he could hear shots, yells and screams, and a sudden orange

glare mounted into the night. While he was quieting the horse and trying to

accustom him to the change of ownership, a couple more fires blazed up. He was

wondering just what he had cut himself in on when the fugitives began

streaming up the road. He had no trouble identifying them as such; he'd seen

enough of that in Korea.

There were more than fifty of them-men, women and children. Some of the men

had weapons spears, axes, a few bows, one musket almost six feet long. His

bearded host shouted at them, and they paused.

"What's going on down there?" he demanded. Babble answered him. One or two

tried to push past; he cursed them luridly and slapped at them with his flat.

The words meant nothing, but the tone did. That had worked for him in Korea,

too. They all stopped in a clump, while the bearded man spoke to them. A few

cheered. He looked them over; call it twenty electives. The bodies in the road

were stripped of weapons; out of the comer of his eye he saw the two women

passing things out the cottage door. Four of the riderless horses had been

caught and mounted. More fugitives came up, saw what was going on, and joined.

"All right, you guys! You want to live forever?" He swung his sword to include

all of them, then pointed down the road to where a whole village must now be

burning. "Come on, let's go get them!"

A general cheer went up as he started his horse forward, and the whole mob

poured after him, shouting. They met more and more fugitives, who saw that a

counter-attack had been organized, if that was the word for it. The shooting

ahead had stopped. Nothing left in the village to shoot at, he supposed.

Then, when they were within four or five hundred yards of the burning houses,

there was a blast of forty or fifty shots in less than ten seconds, and loud

yells, some in alarm. More shots, and then mounted men came pelting toward

them. This wasn't an attack; it was a rout. Whoever had raided that village

had been hit from behind. Everybody with guns or bows let fly at once. A horse

went down, and a saddle was emptied. Remembering how many shots it had taken

for one casualty in Korea, that wasn't bad. He stood up in his stirrups, which

were an inch or so too short for him to begin with, waved his sword, and

shouted, "Chaaarge! " Then he and the others who were mounted kicked their

horses into a gallop, and the infantry-axes, scythes, pitchforks and all-ran

after them.

A horseman coming in the opposite direction aimed a sword-cut at his bare

head. He parried and thrust, the point glancing from a breastplate. Before

either could recover, the other man's horse had carried him on past and among

the spears and pitchforks behind. Then he was trading thrusts for cuts with

another rider, wondering if none of these imbeciles had ever heard that a

sword had a point. By this time the road for a hundred yards in front, and the

fields on either side, were full of horsemen, chopping and shooting at one

another in the firelight.

He got his point in under his opponent's arm, the memory-voice of a history

professor of long ago reminded him of the gap in a cuirass there, and almost

had the sword wrenched from his hand before he cleared it. Then another rider

was coming at him, unarmored, wearing a cloak and a broad hat, aiming a pistol

almost as long as the arm that held it. He swung back for a cut, urging his

horse forward, and knew he'd never make it. A11 right, Cal, your luck's run

out!

There was an up flash from the pan, a belch off flame from the muzzle, and

something hammered him in the chest. He hung onto consciousness long enough to

kick his feet free of the stirrups. In that last moment, he realized that the

rider who had shot him had been a girl.

RYLLA sat with her father at the table in the small study. Chartiphon was at

one end and Xentos at the other, and Harmakros, the cavalry captain, in a

chair by the hearth, his helmet on the floor beside him. Vurth, the peasant,

stood facing them, a short horseman's musketoon slung from his shoulder and a

horn flask and bullet-bag on his belt.

"You did well, Vurth," her father commended. "By sending the message, and in

the fighting, and by telling Princess Rylla that the stranger was a friend.

I'll see you're rewarded."

Vurth smiled. "But, Prince, I have this gun, and fireseed for it," he replied.

"And my son caught a horse, with all its gear, even pistols in the holsters,

and the Princess says we may keep it all."

"Fair battle-spoil, yours by right. But I'll see that something is sent to

your farm tomorrow. Just don't waste that fireseed on deer. You'll need it to

kill more Nostori before long."

He nodded in dismissal, and Vurth grinned and bowed, and backed out,

stammering thanks. Chartiphon looked after him, remarking that there went a

man Gormoth of Nostor would find costly to kill.

"He didn't pay cheaply for anything tonight," Harmakros said. "Eight houses

burned, a dozen peasants butchered, four of our troopers killed and six

wounded, and we counted better than thirty of his dead in the village on the

road, and six more at Vurth's farm. And the horses we caught, and the

weapons." He thought briefly. "I'd question if a dozen of them got away alive

and hale."

Her father gave a mirthless chuckle. "I'm glad some did. They'll have a fine

tale to carry back. I'd like to see Gormoth's face at the telling."'

"We owe the stranger for most of it," she said. "If he hadn't rallied those

people at Vurth's farm and led them back, most of the Nostori would have

gotten away. And then I had to shoot him myself"

. "You couldn't know, kitten," Chartiphon told her. "I've been near killed by

friends myself, in fights like that." He turned to Xentos. "How is he?"

"He'll live to hear our thanks," the old priest said. "The ornament on his

breast broke the force of the bullet. He has a broken rib, and a nasty hole in

him-our Rylia doesn't load her pistols lightly. He's lost more blood than I'd

want to, but he's young and strong, and Brother Mytron has much skill. We'll

have him on his feet again in a half-moon."

She smiled happily. It would be terrible for him to die, and at her hand, a

stranger who had fought so well for them. And such a handsome and valiant

stranger, too. She wondered who he was. Some noble, or some great captain, of

course.

"We owe much to Princess Rylia," Harmakros insisted. "When this man from the

village overtook us, I was for riding back with three or four to see about

this stranger of Vurth's, but the Princess said, 'We've only Vurth's word

there's but one; there may be a hundred Vurth hasn't seen.' So back we all

went, and you know the rest."

"We owe most of all to Dram." Old Xentos's face lit with a calm joy. "And

Galzar Wolfhead, of course," he added. "it is a sign that the gods will not

turn their backs upon Hostigos. This stranger, whoever he may be, was sent by

the gods to be our aid."

VERKAN Vall put the lighter back on the desk and took the cigarette from his

mouth, blowing a streamer of smoke.

"Chief, it's what I've been saying all along. We'll have to do something."

After Year-End Day, he added mentally, I'll do something. "We know what causes

this conveyers interpenetrating in transposition. It'll have to be sorted."

Tortha Karf laughed. "The reason I'm laughing he explained, "is that I said

just that, about a hundred and fifty years ago, to old Zarvan Tharg, when I

was taking over from him, and he laughed at me just as I'm laughing at you,

because he'd said the same thing to the retiring Chief when he was taking

over. Have you ever seen an all-time-line conveyer-head map?"

No. He couldn't recall. He blanked his mind to everything else and

concentrated with all his mental power.

"No, I haven't -" , "I should guess not. With the finest dots, on the biggest

map, all the inhabited areas would be indistinguishable blotches. There must

be a couple of conveyers interpenetrating every second of every minute of

every day. You know," he added gently, "we're rather extensively spread out."

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H.BeamPipperLordKalvanofOtherwhenTORTHAKarf,ChiefofParatimePolice,toldhimselftostopfretting.Hewasonlythreehundredyearsold,sobythebarestlife-expectancyofhisracehewasgoodforanothertwocenturies.Twohundredmoredayswouldn'tmatter.ThenitwouldbeYear-EndDay,andpreciselyatmidnight,hewouldrisefromthischairandV...

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Piper, H Beam - Lord Kalvan Of Otherwhen

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