The Overlords of War

Chapter 10

Corson broke the subsequent silence with an effort.

“You’re trying to tell me you come from three centuries in the future?”

She agreed.

“And what assignment does this Council of yours plan to give me?” She shook her head, her hair swooping around her shoulders. “None that I know of. They simply want you to stay on this world.”

“I can prevent the disaster just by sticking around?”

“Something like that.”

“Very comforting. And at this moment, while we’re talking, nobody is exercising any direct responsibility on this planet?”

“No. The present Council supervises a period of a little over seven centuries. It’s not very much. I’ve heard of Councils on other worlds which have to look after a millennium or more.”

“Well, at least that has the advantage of guaranteeing a stable power structure,” Corson sighed. “And how do you intend to get back to your own age?”

“I don’t know. The idea is that you’re supposed to find a way.” Corson whistled. “They’re landing me with more and more problems, aren’t they? Well, we have this much in common, anyhow: we’re both lost in timel”

She took his hand.

“I’m not lost,” she said. “Let’s go back. The light’s failing.”

They returned to the floater, deep in thought and with bowed heads.

“One thing at least is definite,” Corson said. “If you’re telling the truth, I’m going to find some means I don’t yet know about to reach that period of the future that you hail from, and up there I’m going to meet you even before you come to give me this warning. You’ll see me for the first time, I’ll see you for the second. I shall make advances that you’ll find incomprehensible. And at the end of that trip perhaps I’ll make sense of this unfathomable muddle.”

He dropped on the cushions, and sleep overcame him while they flew toward the airborne city, its pyramidal splendor licked by the violet tongues of the sunset.