The Chronocide Mission

19. GEVIS

Roszt and Kaynor fled, leaving the girl lying crumpled in the hedge. Egarn leaped to his feet and gazed after them in horror. Arne, deeply puzzled as to what could have happened, leaned forward and stared. Inskel matter-of-factly started to adjust the len to follow the fleeing men, but Egarn snapped, “Leave it.” For more than an hour they watched the drama unfolding at DuRosche Court—the people gathering in consternation about the girl, ambulance and medics, her body taken away, the shock and grief displayed by those at the DuRosche mansion.

“What were Kaynor and the girl struggling over?” Arne asked finally. “It looked like—”

“It was his weapon,” Inskel said flatly.

“But why would he be carrying it in his hand? Surely there was no danger threatening. It wasn’t to be used unless all else failed.”

“Everything went too easily for them at first,” Egarn said soberly. “Now the police are searching for them, and people are talking about them, and newspapers are printing stories about them, and they were getting jittery. Even so, Kaynor had no reason to carry his weapon in his hand. Something must have frightened him.” He turned to Inskel. “Where did they go?”

Inskel first focused on their motel room, where Val was comfortably stretched out on the bed. Roszt and Kaynor weren’t there. The dog raised his head hopefully whenever he heard footsteps in the hallway.

Inskel searched the entire neighborhood around the DuRosche mansion, but there was no sign of them.

“They will have to come back eventually, if only to feed and exercise the dog,” Egarn said. “I will leave a message for them. They must get out of Rochester. This isn’t like a breaking and entering where nothing is stolen. This is a disaster. They must leave at once and go back to Buffalo.”

Egarn wrote a stern order. Gevis, who delighted in his expertise with the small machine, deftly landed it on the motel room’s table. Then they checked the various hiding places Roszt and Kaynor had established for emergencies. There was no sign of them anywhere. The despairing Egarn finally slept; Inskel continued the futile search. At intervals they focused on the motel room again. It was mid-morning the next dae when they suddenly found the room empty. Roszt and Kaynor had returned for the dog. They also had taken the message but without leaving a reply.

Inskel, hoping the two men were only walking the dog and would soon return, continued to watch the motel, but there was no further sign of them. A maid put the room in order. Then a new guest checked in, a bustling, well-fed, middle-aged businessman, who dropped his suitcase, used the toilet, and then left at once.

Roszt and Kaynor had checked out.

“We need another len,” Egarn complained. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I thought of using the small len, but it just isn’t adequate for this kind of viewing. If we had been able to watch two places at once, we wouldn’t have lost them.”

Inskel agreed. There was a duplicate in the secret emergency room, but moving anything that bulky through the cramped escape route would be a problem. He said, “Do you want me to try to bring—”

“No,” Egarn said. “It is too late now, anyway. We will grind another when we have a chance. Surely they have started for Buffalo. I told them to look up their friend the first thing. He would be willing to help them again if they paid him, and they are going to need help.”

“Do you want me to look for them in Buffalo?” Inskel asked.

“Give them time to arrive there and get settled. Then we can watch for them at the check points. You try to get some sleep. Gevis can take your place. We will keep watching that house on DuRosche Court.”

Only then did they notice that the young assistant schooler was missing. It seemed so odd that he would absent himself in the middle of a crisis that Arne went looking for him. The guards had come on duty only a short time before, and they knew nothing about him. Finally Arne consulted Fornzt, the housekeeper, who told him Gevis had gone scrounging. “He needed a breath of fresh air, and he thought no one had searched the herders’ huts. They are widely scattered, and they don’t look like places where one would find anything of value, but he said herders sometimes laid in supplies for an entire eson, including wine. There seemed no harm in looking, so I told him to go ahead.”

“It is a pity he didn’t tell me,” Arne said. “I searched all of the huts in Midlow when I first arrived. What little I found is already in your larder.”

“Anyway, he should be back soon,” Fornzt said.

In the workroom, Garzot, Inskel’s assistant, was watching the DuRosche mansion on the len. Nothing was happening there. Egarn and Inskel were sleeping. When they awoke, they switched the scene to Buffalo and found the checkpoints, but Roszt and Kaynor did not appear.

Neither did Gevis, but it was the two scouts they were worried about. While Egarn, Inskel, and Garzot focused and refocused the len, Arne moved a chair to a remote corner and sat there for some time, meditating. Finally he announced, “Kaynor surely knew how dangerous it was to be carrying the weapon in his hand. He wouldn’t have done it without a good reason.”

Egarn stopped his fussing with the len’s controls. “The girl had been visiting at the house,” he protested. “She was on her way home. No one else was near them. What sort of reason could he have?”

“He must have learned something—or suspected something—about that house or someone living there.”

Inskel agreed excitedly. “Yes. Of course. If the inventor of the Honsun Len does live there, or even if he comes there occasionally, Kaynor would have been prepared to deal with him. And he would expect him to have a weapon of his own and be able to defend himself.”

“If the girl was the Honsun Len’s inventor—” Garzot began.

“But she wasn’t,” Egarn said impatiently. “If they had suspected that, they would have acted differently. Kaynor was trying to pull away from her.”

“However it happened, Kaynor must have thought they were close to completing their mission,” Arne said. “That is why he had his weapon in his hand. If I am right, they won’t leave Rochester until their work is finished, and there is no need to search for them all over the city. All we have to do is keep watching DuRosche Court. They will be back.”

“In that case, they certainly will be back,” Egarn agreed.

Inskel made the adjustments to bring the DuRosche mansion and its grounds into focus. Egarn sat down with a sigh. “I do hope you are right,” he said. He looked about him. “What has happened to Gevis?”

When new sentries came on duty at the entrance to the ruins, Ellar, who was acting as head sentry, conferred with Havler, who was to replace him. He remarked that Gevis had gone scrounging and hadn’t yet returned.

“That is odd,” Havler said. “Where did he go?”

“He went to search some herders’ huts,” Ellar said. “I don’t think he intended to be gone this long, but maybe he found so much he is having trouble carrying it back.”

“Maybe he found some wine, and he is having trouble drinking it all,” Havler said. Then he added worriedly, “They shouldn’t have let him go alone. He was the assistant schooler—probably he had never been outside the village. Now someone will have to look for him.”

“He will be back soon,” Ellar said confidently.

Half the niot was gone when Gevis finally returned. Connol, who met him at the checkpoint, had been expecting him for hours. He identified him with a flash of light—as though Gevis’s shrill voice wasn’t immediately recognizable—and passed him on to Havler.

“What took you so long?” Havler asked.

“I went further than I had planned,” Gevis said.

“The way back is always seems further than the way out,” Havler said with a chuckle. He obligingly opened the tunnel for Gevis. As he straightened up, Gevis buried a knife in his back, pulled his body aside, and positioned himself to guard the alarm wire. That was the critical point. He had been told that over and over—he must not permit anyone to pull the alarm wire.

Only then did he shout the signal, a “Ho!” that echoed through the trees. The Lantiff, who had been stealthily edging into position in a wide circle around the ruins, surged forward. Sentries shouted the alarm and put up a token resistance, killing a number of the Lantiff with Egarn’s weapon and holding the others off long enough for the head sentry to pull the alarm wire and make his own escape—or so they thought. Then they attempted to slip away themselves, but the encircling Lantiff had already blocked all of their escape routes. Arne had not foreseen the possibility of attack by an entire army of Lantiff. The sentries continued to spread death and devastation through the forest until their weapons were exhausted. Then they killed Lantiff with their knives until they bled to death from their wounds. None of them were taken alive.

With the Lantiff fully in control of the surrounding forest, Gevis led a picked squad through the tunnel to the stairwell. He paused while the Lantiff removed their shoes, and then he clumped down the stairs in his usual noisy fashion—members of Egarn’s team used this ploy to let the guards below know one of their own was coming—and the Lantiff tiptoed after him, wincing with every step on the metal mesh of the stairs. They halted one flight from the bottom. Behind them a second squad, shoeless like the first, was silently descending half way. Behind it, a third squad was waiting its turn and a fourth was working its way through the tunnel.

Gevis moved haltingly forward through the darkness to the checkpoint where the candle flickered. He performed the prescribed ritual of standing under it and then moved on to the concealed door.

The door swung open. On this night the guard was Larnor, a refugee from the south and a former potter, who had been a special friend of Gevis’s. Larnor had an unlikely interest in history, and he had been fascinated with what Gevis told him about the world of the past. He greeted the assistant schooler with his usual question. “Anything moving up there?”

Gevis said nothing was moving, but the weather was nice. As Larnor turned to bar the door, Gevis stabbed him in the back—and then had to stab him again because Larnor began to struggle with him. As the potter slumped to the floor, Gevis murmured, “I’m sorry, Larnor—but I don’t want to be blown out like a candle.”

Gevis pushed the body aside and returned to the corridor, closing the unbarred door behind him. At the stairwell, he whistled softly. The first squad of Lantiff tiptoed to the bottom. The second squad began its descent. The third waited at the top of the stairs to charge down the moment it was needed.

Gevis returned to the door where he had killed Larnor. The Lantiff followed cautiously at a distance. Now everything depended on the next guard post, where two men were posted. They had to be killed before either could give the alarm.

Gevis was challenged, gave the password, “Green,” and waited tensely for the door to open. The Lantiff were already edging forward. Once inside, Gevis stabbed Dayla and turned to grapple with Lanklin. Dayla, fatally wounded but not yet dead, almost reached the alarm wire before the Lantiff were upon them. Lanklin was cut down; Dayla was hauled away from the wire and hacked repeatedly.

Now there were no more guard posts to pass. Unless they had the bad luck to encounter a member of the team who was off duty, they could count on complete surprise. The two dead guards were dragged outside, and the first squad of Lantiff waited just beyond the door for the second to arrive with a battering ram. Gevis closed the door and settled himself in the duty position. If anyone looked into the corridor from the other end, he would pretend to be acting as guard while Lanklin and Dayla had a break.

When all was ready, the Lantiff lit their torches. Gevis pivoted the section of brick wall for them, and they swept through the rooms where the off-duty men were sleeping. All of them were dispatched before they could struggle out of their blankets. Fornzt, cooking a meal, was cut down at his stove.

Only the steel door to the workroom remained. The Lantiff poised themselves to rush it. When they were in position, Gevis went to the pipe by the door, tapped the prescribed signal, and identified himself. Scrapping noises could be heard as the bars were removed. As the door began to open, the Lantiff rushed it.

It was the battle-wary Arne who responded to Gervis’s signal—the others were occupied with adjustments to the len. He had opened the door only a crack when the Lantiff began their charge, but that glimpse was as much as he needed. He was neither startled nor frightened; he had seen thousands upon thousands of Lantiff, in far more threatening guises. He slammed the door shut, braced himself against it, and called for help. The stout latch and Arne’s weight withstood the first rush; Inskel had the bars in place before the second.

They were confounded—the enemy at the door, no alarm given—but there was no time to wonder what had happened, no time to ponder Gevis’s apparent treachery, no time even to indulge their astonishment. Egarn and Garzot hurried into the sleeping room where the opening to the secret tunnel was located. Inskel went to the instruments and set all of the controls askew before he hurried after them. Arne hung back until Inskel called that the others were safely away. Then, with one of Egarn’s weapons, he drilled several holes through the door—and through the Lantiff congregating beyond it. The tremendous crash of his weapon drowned out the screams from the room beyond. Then he followed Inskel.

Inskel slid a panel into place behind them to conceal the secret entrance. His candle showed a tunnel stretching broadly ahead of them to a point where it curved out of sight—but that was a blind. The real escape tunnel was at one side, a hole barely large enough to crawl through. Inskel followed Arne into it. After they had inched their way along it for a few meters, he brought the ceiling down behind them. He did this four more times before they reached the end.

But that was only the beginning of the labyrinth. They labored long through concealed tunnels and passageways, each with its artfully hidden entrance, before they finally arrived at the emergency quarters Fornzt had prepared for them.

Egarn was still panting wildly from his frantic, panicky struggle through the narrow passageways. His chest was heaving violently; suddenly he pitched forward. Arne caught him, and Inskel pushed a chair into place for him.

“What happened?” Egarn gasped.

“Treachery,” Arne said grimly. “The one thing we couldn’t guard against.”

“Treachery? Gevis?”

“It would seem so.”

“Why?”

Arne shook his head.

Now there were only four of them—Egarn, Garzot, Inskel, and Arne. They sadly agreed that everyone else must be dead or captured, but they had no time for lamentations.

The room looked like the workroom they had just left except that it was larger, and there was no separate room for sleeping. Beds were placed along the walls. A small storage room had well-stocked shelves. There were large crocks of water. Fornzt had prided himself on keeping this—and an escape room on the other side of the ruins intended for the remainder of the team—ready for use.

The instruments looked identical to those in the room they had just left except for one, a small box with a len. Inskel busied himself with it. He made an adjustment, made another, and suddenly an image formed on it of the workroom they had fled from. At that moment, the Lantiff finally broke in.

The picture, of events so close in space and time, was surprisingly clear—far more so than any representation the large len produced. They watched with rage while the Lantiff poked into their possessions and gaped at the machines. Several went into the sleeping room and emerged a moment later, bewildered at finding no one there. More Lantiff entered. They began tapping the walls as though looking for hiding places.

Gevis was brought in. In spite of the success of his treachery, his new masters had no fondness for him. They handled him roughly.

Suddenly the Lantiff stiffened to attention. Through the door strode a stately female figure in a striking gold and black uniform. She was an old-young female—only Egarn could have guessed her age and he only because he knew her.

“The Peer of Lant,” he murmured. “So she has actually come here. I wonder why. I wonder if she knew I was here.”

Another female figure entered—equally tall, equally stately, wearing the same distinctively patterned uniform but in silver and black. Arne found a chair for himself and sat down heavily. “Now I understand,” he said. “It is Deline.”

“Deline?” Egarn moved closer to the len and squinted at the picture. “That is the Prince of Lant.”

“It is the former Prince of Midlow,” Arne said.

“She is the Prince of Lant. I know the uniform well. Remember—I was once the Prince of Lant’s consort.”

“Then the peer has adopted her,” Arne said. “I can’t say that I am surprised. A warrior peer would consider her an ideal warrior prince.”

Gevis was brought forward. He spoke, gesturing with his hands. He was describing the machines—how they worked, what they did.

Inskel swore an involved chain of oaths. “He knows, curse his foul soul. He knows how to operate all of them. I taught him myself.”

“His knowledge won’t be of much use to him,” Egarn said. “He can’t interfere with Roszt and Kaynor—he doesn’t know how to look for them any more than we do. Anyone he sent into the past would be helpless—he wouldn’t have the language, and he would be snapped up at once as an alien or a mental case. Has the escape tunnel from this place been inspected lately?”

“I will do that now,” Inskel said.

“Please do. All of you—forget Gevis. We must get back to work.”

He was trying to sound cheerful, but the exhausting escape and the loss of those who had looked after him for so long had broken him. Arne persuaded him to lie down and sleep. Even when he finally dozed off, he tossed fitfully. Grief about his friends, combined with the sudden appearance of a nemesis from his past, gave him nightmares.

Garzot focused the large len on the DuRosche mansion. Arne continued to watch the small len. The peer and prince were questioning Gevis. When they didn’t care for his answer, one of the Lantiff stepped forward, shook him, and slapped his face. No one loved a traitor.

Inskel finally returned to report the escape tunnel clear except for the exit. Fornzt had ended it a few feet from the surface; he didn’t intend for it to be completed unless it was needed.

“You didn’t have one of these in the other workroom,” Arne observed, indicating the small box and len.

“I made it to use while I was building these machines,” Inskel said. “Only Fornzt, Egarn, and I knew about this room, which meant there was no way Egarn could send for me if he needed me. I used this len to watch the other workroom while I worked. Then Egarn could signal if I was wanted.”

“Will it show the present anywhere else?”

“I suppose. All I was interested in was the other workroom.”

“You could have followed the war from here—watched every battle.”

Inskel shrugged. “We couldn’t have done anything to help, and it would have interfered with our work.”

Garzot continued to watch DuRosche Court on the large len. Every few minutes he surveyed the nearby streets; then he searched the mansion’s grounds and briefly focused the len on its front door. It was high noon in Rochester, and very little seemed to be happening. Very little ever happened at DuRosche Court. Early each afternoon, Calvin DuRosche was taken down the invalid ramp for a brief airing. Mrs. Halmer pushed his wheelchair the length of the drive and back. Then either Mr. Kernley or the decrepit-looking handyman, Hy, helped her push it up the ramp again. Otherwise, Hy, and occasionally Mr. Kernley, did a little yard work. They were the only ones seen outside until the woman employees left for the day. Hy dug in the garden; he trimmed bushes; he raked some of the previous year’s leaves from places that were heavily overgrown. Whatever he did, he seemed to tire or loose patience quickly and move on to something else.

The task of watching nothing happen quickly bored Arne, and he returned his attention to the scene in the old workroom. The drama being enacted there reached some kind of conclusion. Chairs were brought in. The peer, her advisors, and the prince seated themselves, and Gevis resumed his demonstration of the large len.

“Deline may have noticed something suspicious about the ruins,” Arne said thoughtfully. “The Peer of Lant told her about Egarn, and since we have the weapon, they suspected Egarn was at work here and posted a watch—which caught Gevis on his way to the herders’ huts. Then the new Prince of Lant persuaded him to change sides.”

Egarn was awake again. “Corrupted him into changing sides!” he snorted.

“Well—” Arne smiled sadly. “She can handle her wiles compellingly, and Gevis was already in love with her. All the young men in Midd Village fell in love with her when she was my assistant.”

Egarn turned curiously. “How do you know that? Did the first server also hear confessions?”

“He heard a great many complaints,” Arne said. “All of the young women complained about her influence on the young men. Gevis was in love with her, she left, his world was shattered by the Lantiff invasion, and he had nothing at all to look forward to except the end of everything when Roszt and Kaynor succeeded. Suddenly the Lantiff seized him, and he found he could choose between rewards and punishment. Not only were the rewards alluring, but he discovered he might have a future after all. What I don’t understand is why the Lantiff were slapping him. He gave them exactly what they wanted.”

“That is the Peer of Lant’s way,” Egarn said sourly. “Her word is good—if she promised him rewards, he will get rewards. But she will also have him punished severely for not coming to her voluntarily.”

They watched the dae pass in Rochester, and then another. On the morning of the girl’s funeral, a black limousine called at the mansion for those attending. After the funeral, it returned with them. Later, a young couple arrived. There seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary about them, but when the fat caretaker handed them something in a cloth, Egarn leaped up with a shout of dismay. A continuous flicker of light showed in it.

“It is a len!” he exclaimed. “They have a Honsun Len!”

Inskel focused on it as closely as he could, and they made out the fragment of black tube with a len in the end of it. “Part of Kaynor’s weapon,” Egarn breathed. “It broke off in the struggle.”

They forgot their search for Roszt and Kaynor. Inskel kept the len focused on the weapon fragment all the way to police headquarters, where it was fingerprinted and photographed, and then to a suburb where an elderly, bearded man took charge of it. In a building behind his dwelling, he began to perform what Egarn recognized as scientific tests.

“A scientist!” Egarn exclaimed. “It is the worst thing that could have happened! I wonder who he is.”

Inskel managed to focus on the dwelling’s mail box. The scientist’s name, Marcus Brock, and his street number, were displayed in luminous letters that were dazzlingly clear on the len. Of course the name of the street wasn’t given.

“This is terrible,” Egarn wailed. “Even if Roszt and Kaynor kill the inventor, there will still be an expert there who knows all about the len.”

“Then they will have to kill him, too,” Inskel said indifferently. “But maybe it won’t be necessary. If we were to snatch it back—”

“Do it! Now!”

But the instrument had to be adjusted to the new location. Then the first attempts failed—perhaps one of the scientist’s instruments produced a temporal distortion. They were still trying when the young man they had seen at DuRosche Court called on the scientist. The left off their efforts and waited for him to leave—Egarn was reluctant to snatch things while people were watching.

Their opportunity came when the older man turned off his instruments and escorted the young man back to his car. Inskel, with several quick passes, snatched the len, the clamp that was holding it, the piece of the weapon’s tube, and several of the scientist’s smaller tools.

“That settles that,” Egarn said with satisfaction. “Not only do we have the len back, but the police have lost important evidence. If I had thought of this sikes ago, I could have equipped an entire laboratory with tools and equipment and saved myself a lot of trouble. Now—back to DuRosche Court!”

It was late afternoon when Inskel managed to focus on a passing car with Roszt at the steering wheel and Kaynor seated beside him. The two men had taken the precaution of changing cars—this one was a more recent model than any they had owned previously. It even had an opening in the roof. Egarn thought it much too conspicuous.

The scouts made a leisurely circuit of the neighborhood. Then, by a devious route, they drove to one of Rochester’s parks where they did nothing at all for a time. When they finally left, they went directly back to the DuRosche Court neighborhood and made another leisurely circuit.

“They can’t see much from the car,” Inskel said. “Why don’t they walk?”

“Too many people know their descriptions,” Egarn said. “They aren’t so recognizable in the car. They are being cautious and sensible, but I would feel better if they were miles away. I understand what they are doing, though. They are looking for something, but they are afraid they will arouse suspicion if they hang around the neighborhood too long. They must consider it important. I wish I knew what they have found out about this place.”

In the old workroom, Gevis was conducting another demonstration. Peer, prince, and the peer’s high advisors were grouped around the large len, staring. Arne knew how they felt—he had stared himself when he caught his first glimpses of the past. He wondered what Gevis was showing them.

Egarn was unconcerned about it. “At least it is giving the peer something to occupy herself with, and that keeps her from wreaking havoc somewhere else.”

The afternoon waned; dusk set in. Roszt and Kaynor continued to make an occasional trip through the neighborhood. Not until it was completely dark did they park four blocks from the DuRosche mansion and set out on foot.

Blending with every tree and shrub they passed, they moved slowly toward DuRosche Court. They were only a block away when they stopped abruptly and slipped sideways behind a bush. There they remained, motionless, while those watching the len stirred impatiently. Egarn said for the tenth time, “I do wish I knew what they are looking for.”

Suddenly a parked car at the end of the block started up. Its lights came on, and it slowly moved away. It was a police car.

Egarn took a deep breath. “Did any of you notice it? I didn’t. But they did. They certainly have developed their instincts. I don’t doubt they know what they are doing. I just wish I knew what it is.”

Roszt and Kaynor didn’t stir for some time after the police car had gone. Then they began to move slowly, again blending with the shrubs and trees. They stealthily passed the entrance to DuRosche court and the drive to the house—both of which were well-lighted—and proceeded along the sidewalk to the break in the hedge where they had met the girl. They slipped through it and began moving across the grounds, two indistinguishable dark figures zigzagging from shrub to shrub through the darkness. They were approaching the house when Hy suddenly loomed beside them and swung his piece of pipe viciously.

He was recognizable even among the indistinct shapes on the flickering len because of his short stature and white shirt. The dark figure closest to Hy jerked away, but the pipe hit him solidly on the arm and must have hurt. The arm hung limply. Hy dropped the pipe, grabbed him, and drew back his knife.

Lightning flashed, impaling Hy and several bushes beyond him. Hy crumpled; the two dark figures slipped away into the night.

The handyman must have screamed. Yard lights came on. Only seconds passed before a police car turned in at DuRosche court and came quickly up the drive. Mr. Kernley came from the house armed with a flashlight and probed about the grounds with it. The beam came to rest on Hy’s still body.

Egarn said brokenly, “Now they really must leave Rochester—and quickly. Whatever it is they have found, they will have to leave it. It won’t be safe for them to be seen there again—not for sikes. The girl’s death could be written off as an accident, but this time they were trespassing, and the handyman was guarding his employer’s property. They are certain to get a long prison sentence. They can’t finish their mission now. They don’t dare.”