Saint Vidicon to the Rescue

Chapter 11

When the Manchus conquered China, they made the Chinese men shave their heads except for a pigtail down the back. When Hung So-Chien declared the advent of the T’ai-Ping Tien Kwoh, the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace with himself as emperor, and his troops conquered most of southern China, he banned the pigtail as a badge of Manchu oppression. For his masquerade as a T’ai-Ping soldier, Chu-Yi had only had to let his hair grow—but now, as a Chinese fighting for the Manchu Emperor, even though he was supposed to be a blatant mercenary working only for Gordon’s pay, he would still have to wear the pigtail—and no makeup would do when he would have to maintain the appearance for several days, sleeping and waking and in battle—so the barber shaved his head except for the small round of hair in the back, which he plaited into a queue. So, shaved and dressed in traditional Chinese costume, Chu-Yi stepped into the time machine to enlist in Gordon’s Ever-Victorious Army.

“This foreign devil is crazier than the last one!” Po Chao grumbled as he cleaned his musket.

“Maybe, but he wins the battles.” Chang Chu-Yi ran the whetstone along the blade of his knife. “I thought he was a fool, naming us the ‘Ever-Victorious Army’ when we’d never even won a skirmish.”

Chao shrugged. “It sounded good to the merchants, and they’re the ones who pay us to keep Shanghai safe from these crazy T’ai-Pings.”

“Assemble!” the sergeant bawled.

Po Chao came to his feet with a sigh and shoved the ramrod back into its holder. “At least he waited until I’d finished cleaning. What is it now, I wonder?”

“Probably another of this foreign devil’s ‘parades,’ ” Chu-Yi said, resigned. “Well, I don’t mind his checking our gear as long as we win.”

They trotted down to the bare, beaten ground fringed by the bulrushes and reeds of the river and fell into place in the line, and the sergeants bawled, “Atten-hut!” in the finest English style as they stiffened into brace. The lean young Englishman stepped out between them and began to prowl along the front rank, his ludicrous rattan cane stuck under his arm.

It was typical of the Western ethnocentrism of the time, Chu-Yi thought, that Gordon regarded the English form of drill as the only acceptable one. The Emperor’s troops knew how to line up, of course, but they didn’t have to subject themselves to the ludicrous postures Gordon called the Manual of Arms. Still, Chu-Yi stood at attention like the rest, musket slanted forward at ten degrees from the vertical, and waited for Charles George Gordon to find some miniscule fault in his uniform. Not his musket, of course—Chu-Yi made sure it was immaculate. He didn’t want Gordon inspecting it too closely, gazing down the barrel or such. He might have noticed the rifling inside.

Outwardly, the piece looked like any of the others in the hodgepodge of arms Gordon’s soldiers had managed to assemble, but the rifling made it far more accurate. It had to be, because Chu-Yi was going to have to shoot a poor T’ai-Ping soldier with it—not just any T’ai-Ping, but the one who would shoot Gordon in this battle.

Gordon finished rebuking a German mercenary for the speck of dust on his boot. The Ever-Victorious Army was a mongrel accumulation of the gutter-sweepings of every band of soldiers that had ever visited China. Most of them were Chinese, but there were also Germans, French, English, Americans, and a few others. Chu-Yi felt right at home, for he had been reared Western-style in Dr. Angus McAran’s time-travel complex inside the Rocky Mountains. The Chinese, ironically, were more alien to him than the Westerners, never mind that he had himself been born in China of Chinese parents. But he had been rescued from exposure on a hillside, and the only other Chinese he had known were the few dozen who were his fellow time-travel agents—until his tutors had started bringing him back for a tour of China’s history. Chu-Yi had visited Chang-An, the T’ang Dynasty capital; had been a soldier on the Great Wall when it was brand-new; had been a water-carrier in Canton drafted into the fabled exploring expedition that sailed as far south as the admiral could (he had escaped at the last minute from that one); and had played a dozen other roles at various times in China’s past and future. He had known even before he joined as a time-travel agent that he would be assigned to missions in China. Why else would Doc Angus be rescuing Chinese babies who were fated to die? He needed Chinese agents to help finance his time travellers by bringing back lost treasures from ancient days, and as troubleshooters to visit Chang An and Annam and Shanghai and Hangzhow, to keep historical accidents from changing the world in which he lived.

At least, that was his excuse. The real reason, as everyone knew but nobody said, was because Doc Angus was outraged at the idea of letting babies die and children be exiled simply for being different. Since his own body wasn’t exactly an example of normality, he sympathized with the maimed and lame and twisted—and being a scholar, he had just as much sympathy for the ones whose ideas got them into trouble.

Yesterday, Chu-Yi’s mission had been simple—to spy out the soldier whose bullet had killed Gordon as he led the Ever-Victorious Army in its third attack with no weapon but that silly rattan cane—Gordon the invincible, whom bullets never touched.

Well, this bullet had—but Chu-Yi was going to prevent that.

Of course, it was tempting to kill the Englishman himself, and right now, because Gordon was drawing himself up in the manner that meant he was going to give an inspirational speech. Chu-Yi sighed and braced himself for boredom.

Gordon spoke to the sergeants, who bawled, “At ease!”

Chu-Yi took a half step to his left and slapped his left hand against the small of his back. This was supposed to be more relaxing?

Gordon raised his voice and called out in English; his sergeant spoke in Chinese half a sentence behind him, translating. Chu-Yi, able to understand both the original and the translation, had to give the sergeant credit—he might not have been all that accurate, but he was fast.

“Men,” Gordon was saying, “rejoice! Your time of waiting is over! Today we go to attack Hangzhow!”

The men to either side of Chu-Yi stiffened. Battle hadn’t been exactly what they’d desired.

“Of course, there will be no looting, no . . . unmentionable and ungentlemanly activities,” Gordon went on.

The sergeant was more blunt. “Usual rules—no looting, no raping, no beating up civilians.”

The soldiers looked grim.

“But we will win, and there will be a bonus for each of you!” Gordon exulted. “Now take ship, and may Heaven speed our enterprise!”

“Fall out!” the sergeant bawled. “Board ship!”

The gong sounded and Chu-Yi relaxed with a sigh. So did Po Chao, grumbling, “I never did like boats. Why can’t we march there, like ordinary people?”

“Because the streams that run through this giant marsh are faster than walking,” Chu-Yi told him, “and with those little cannon in front and in back, they’re a lot less likely to attract T’ai-Ping ambushes than we would be on the march—especially considering that we’d probably blunder into a bog every dozen feet.”

“I know, I know!” Chao said. “I can’t complain about something that keeps me alive—or, for that matter, saves me work. May I see you tonight, Chu-Yi.”

“And I you, Chao.” It was their homemade good luck charm, for they would both have to be alive to see one another that evening.

They filed aboard the Hyperion, Gordon’s “flag-ship,” with the rest of their half of the Ever-Victorious Army and braced themselves as the little steamer pulled away from its dock.

Li had kept the T’ai-Pings boxed up in Hangzhow for a month, so they were running short of supplies and had to try to break out. Gordon had kept his troops out of sight with only a picket line to guard the gate, so it would look to the T’ai-Pings as though this side of the city was weakly enclosed. Now his sentries had heard men gathering and had sent word.

As the Hyperion pulled up to the bank, the western gate opened and the T’ai-Pings came charging out. “Form up!” Gordon shouted, and the sergeants repeated the order in Cantonese. The soldiers came off the boats at the double and formed up in ranks and columns.

The T’ai-Pings, seeing them, formed their line of marching circles and began to lay down a field of fire.

The sergeants bawled their translation, but Chu-Yi heard Gordon call out the original. “They’re weak from hunger, but you are well fed! Only a little courage and we’ll have them surrendering! Forward—MARCH!”

Gordon turned his back and set off toward the city at the double. Firing as they went, the Ever-Victorious Army followed him.

Chu-Yi followed more closely than any, firing, reloading, and firing again until he was close enough to make out the features of the man whose shot would kill Gordon. Levelling his musket, Chu-Yi aimed at the man’s leg and fired.

He could tell from the way the man fell that he had missed and hit the soldier in the chest. The T’ai-Ping was dead.

Then the whole world seemed to shift subtly, and Chu-Yi was looking at the man through his musket sights again. Somehow, incredibly, he had another chance to save the fellow’s life. He raised his aim and squeezed off another round.

Again, the man clutched his chest and fell.

Again, the world seemed to shift suddenly.

Again, Chu-Yi raised his aim and fired.

As the man clutched his chest and fell once more, Chu-Yi realized, with a sense of despair, that he was doomed to repeat the same action forever, and that not even starvation would come to stop him. In desperation, he dropped his aim—but the T-ai-Ping fired, Gordon fell, the world shifted, and somehow Chu-Yi was staring through the sights of his disguised rifle at the same blasted soldier.

Tony hovered unseen over the battlefield, appalled as he watched men die and saw the blood spreading. It was raw, it was gruesome, it wasn’t at all the way Hollywood would have done it.

Then he felt the world shift and saw Chu-Yi drop his aim, saw Gordon jolt backward and fall, felt the world shift again. The problem wasn’t with Chu-Yi’s musket, then. In fact, there wasn’t anything on this battlefield that was of a high enough level of technology to attract gremlins.

But there was a time machine—maybe not here, but behind the events he was watching. Even Tony had learned in world history that Gordon had only been wounded once during the T’ai-Ping Rebellion, and he hadn’t let it keep him from the next battle. Indeed, he had survived to become a hale and hearty old maverick of a general who’d died in the Sudan, facing the Mahdi’s army of desert marauders at Khartoum. What did a computer programmer know about time travel?

Well, it was an exercise in logic, wasn’t it? Handicapped without a keyboard, without even a piece of paper, Tony tried to trace the sequence of events in his mind: Chu-Yi had killed a T’ai-Ping soldier and Gordon had survived. But somehow, that soldier’s death had wiped out Chu-Yi’s shooting, and the soldier had lived after all, to fire the shot that killed Gordon. But if Gordon had died, then the earlier Chu-Yi who had been watching from the T-ai-Ping side had lived to go ahead in time to become one of Gordon’s soldiers and protect him by shooting the T’ai-Ping—but the soldier’s death had negated Chu-Yi’s actions, and so on around and around in a neat little circle.

A feedback cycle.

A logical loop.

Why?

Tony flashed over to the T’ai-Ping side as the world wobbled again. He sank into the T’ai-Ping soldier’s head for a few moments, long enough to read his memories and learn his biography.

His name was Chang Kuo-Feng, and he was a time traveller. Not only that, he was Chu-Yi’s grandson.

He was one of Dr. Angus’s agents, to be specific. He was stationed in 2047, which was why Chu-Yi had never met him. Kuo-Feng had just finished a scouting trip, living through this section of time to find out whose musket ball had killed Chu-Yi. He had seen the T’ai-Ping soldier shoot and seen Chu-Yi die. Then he had gone back in time a few minutes and tripped the T’ai-Ping before he could fire the musket ball that would have killed Chu-Yi. Instantly Kuo-Feng had fired a wild shot for camouflage—but had unwittingly killed Gordon.

Then he had found himself reliving those few minutes again, but this time, before he could shoot Gordon, pain had exploded in his chest, and the world had faded into darkness.

Then, suddenly, he was alive again, and men were firing their muskets all around him, and Kuo-Feng realized more clearly than he ever had that he was putting his life on the line. Duty was duty, though, and he had a sentimental attachment to his grandfather, so he had tripped the T’ai-Ping before he could fire the musket ball that would have killed Chu-Yi. Then Kuo-Feng had fired his next wild shot for camouflage—but had unwittingly killed Gordon.

Then the world had shifted, and Kuo-Feng had felt a tearing pain in his chest, and the world had gone black again . . .

So why was he on his feet in the midst of men firing muskets again? This time, though, he was dazed enough so that he forgot to trip the T-ai-Ping, and Chu-Yi had fallen with a musket ball in his chest.

Now, under normal conditions, watching your grandfather die is shortly followed by ceasing to exist—but because Chu-Yi had started a time loop, his descendant had found himself reliving the last few minutes over again. This time he did remember to trip the man next to him, the soldier who was aiming at Chu-Yi, then fired a shot himself to seem innocent, not knowing his musket ball would go through Gordon’s ribs—but Chu-Yi had come back in time to shoot his fellow agent first, not knowing the man was:

one of his own band,

saving his life, and

his grandson.

So Kuo-Feng had died before he could shoot Gordon after all—but he also hadn’t been there to trip the soldier whose shot had killed Chu-Yi. So Chu-Yi had died, but having died, he hadn’t been there to shoot Kuo-Feng, who therefore had tripped his fellow soldier, saving Chu-Yi’s life so Chu-Yi could shoot him, thereby signing his own death warrant . . .

Or, rather, dooming them both to keep living and dying again and again, in that same loop of time—unless Tony could figure out a way to stop the paradox.

Tony pulled out of the man’s head, dizzy with the circularity of it, trying instead to figure out how to solve the paradox and break the time loop. He knew the basic principle, of course—step outside the terms of the paradox—but how did you do that in this case? It was one thing to do it when you were only solving a puzzle in a classroom—then you could reassign functions—but this paradox was happening in the middle of a battle, and he couldn’t change Chu-Yi’s grandson into someone else’s descendant, nor persuade Doc Angus—he’d never even met the man, and probably never would—to assign a different agent for this job.

But he could spike Kuo-Feng’s gun.

He flashed back in time a few minutes, hovered beside Chu-Yi’s grandson long enough to get his bearings, then plunged into the lock mechanism of the musket.

It was a flintlock, considerably more primitive than the kind of technology Tony was used to working with, but he thought he could grasp the general principles anyway. He started rearranging subatomic particles, stripping electrons off atoms and making them flow through the lock mechanism in a circle.

Sure enough, a diminutive head popped up, and a gremlkin glared at him over the hammer’s spring. “Begone, mortal! This is my meat, not yours!”

Tony was only too glad to oblige.

Kuo-Feng tripped the T’ai-Ping, then pulled his trigger, and the hammer drove the flint into the pan—but the gremlkin had done its work, so the spark made a pretty flash but did absolutely nothing else. Kuo-Feng frowned and looked down at his musket, then shrugged and sprinkled on new priming powder.

Tony grinned; he’d been pretty sure a flow of electrons would attract a gremlkin. After all, before the invention of electric lights, before the invention of radio, during a time when the only technology using electricity was the telegraph, there had to be a huge number of unemployed gremlkins looking for a chance to work mischief. Tony flashed over to the Ever-Victorious Army and saw Chu-Yi hesitate with his rifle levelled, wondering why the T’ai-Ping hadn’t fired at Gordon. When the man did fire, his musket was pointed ten feet away. An American soldier spun about with blood streaming from his thigh and fell.

Chu-Yi, very confused, lowered his musket. He didn’t know why the time line had changed, but he knew it had and was wary of doing anything to change that change.

Tony grinned, rising above the battle to watch grandfather and grandson for a few minutes until the T’ai-Ping line broke and the soldiers ran for cover. Kuo-Feng plunged into a thicket of bulrushes and never came out—but he did step out of a time machine in 2047. Chu-Yi, ostensibly chasing fleeing enemies, dashed into another clump—and promptly disappeared, back to the time lab in the mid-1950s.

That left only a horrible scene of men hunting down other men. Tony’s stomach churned, and he gratefully shot back to Father Vidicon.

As the ruby tunnel formed around him again, he wished he could be in Doc Angus’s time lab to hear Chu-Yi trying to make sense of the events. But Gordon had lived, that was all that mattered to history—and Chu-Yi and his grandson were out of the time-loop trap, and that was all that mattered to Tony. Sure, it would be nice if they knew what he had done and could thank him for it, but this was definitely one case in which the work would have to be its own reward.

“You’ve taken her on twenty dates,” Father Vidicon said, “first Saturday nights, then Friday nights too, and now you’re seeing each other on Sunday afternoons and one or two other evenings into the bargain.”

“Those aren’t really dates,” Tony protested, “just hanging around together—and they don’t always end with going back to her apartment. I mean, well, they do, but most of the time just to drop her off.”

“I’m glad that petting hasn’t become a required part of your agenda,” Father Vidicon said. “When it becomes obligatory, it can start becoming boring. But you’re together that often, your relationship’s been growing through five months, and you wonder that she expects it to become more intimate?”

“I’m ready to propose,” Tony objected.

“But she’s not ready to accept.” Father Vidicon shook his head with a sigh. “Your generation! Expecting the final intimacy as a step toward marriage rather than the culmination of a courtship! But the young woman does have some right to expect a deepening of the relationship. It won’t remain static forever, you know. It can’t—it has to grow or wither, like everything else that lives. Besides, it would be very imprudent for her to tie herself to you for life and have you turn out to be a lackadaisical lover. Much though it grieves me to say it, your generation does seem to have grown to expect a trial marriage.”

“You’re not saying I should have sex with her!”

“Of course not—no priest would ever say that. I am, however, trying to understand her viewpoint.” He lifted his head, turning to look at his protégé. “Perhaps it’s time to fish or cut bait, Tony. If you’re going to insist on being steadfast in virtue, as indeed you should, perhaps you should free her to seek out another.”

The thrill of horror that froze Tony amazed him. He hadn’t realized how much he’d begun to count on Sandy being part of his life.