The Timekeeper Conspiracy

2

The briefing took place in a secured area on the sixty-second level of the TAC-HQ building. Normally, this was a floor occupied by the administrative personnel working directly under the local office of the Referee Corps, but this morning they had all been assigned to other office space, on other floors. There was no one allowed on the sixty-second level who had not been cleared and checked through by the TIA. They had taken over the floor the previous night and even while Finn and Lucas sat drinking in the lounge, agents had been securing the area, failsafing it against surveillance.

Finn and Lucas walked together down the empty corridor, having been checked through by the agents at the lift tube.

"These people give me the creeps," said Finn.

"You might as well get used to it," said Lucas. "This is going to be their ballgame."

"Oh, I'll get used to it," said Finn, "but I won't like it."

They came to the briefing room and were checked through again, their papers verified and their retinal patterns scanned for positive identification.

"Bunch of paranoid assholes," mumbled Finn.

Forrester was waiting for them in the briefing room, along with a referee, one other man, and a woman seated at a desk terminal.

"Gentlemen, please be seated," said the referee. He waited until they had taken chairs and until one of the agents outside brought them coffee.

"That was thoughtful," said Lucas.

"I'll wait until you taste it first," said Finn.

"All right," said the referee. "Let's begin, shall we?"

"Sir?" said Lucas.

"Captain?"

"Aren't we missing some people? Like, the rest of the team?"

"No, Captain, we're not."

"You mean, we're it?"

"Not exactly, Captain. I don't know how much Major Forrester told you, but this is a TIA affair. You'll be on loan to the agency for the duration. We have an adjustment on our hands, or a potential one, at any rate. It's a unique situation, one in which the functions of the TIA and those of the corps overlap. Frankly, they're more qualified to handle this one, but as the case could develop into an adjustment, they've requested commandos to supplement their effort. Your role in this mission will be defined as you go along, but it will be defined by the agency. Therefore, I am turning this briefing over to Mr. Darrow, of the TIA."

The ref turned to the agency man and nodded. Darrow was a slender man whose hair was graying. He was dressed in a nondescript clingsuit. He was of average height and average weight. A man who would not stand out in a crowd.

"I'll bet it's not even his real name," said Finn, softly.

"No, it isn't," said the man called Darrow. He stretched his lips into a mirthless smile. "I have excellent hearing, Mr. Delaney. And there's nothing wrong with your coffee, by the way. You can drink it safely. If you have any other pertinent comments, I'd like to hear them now, so we may proceed."

Finn cleared his throat uneasily and shook his head. Lucas grinned.

"Very well, then," Darrow said. "Are you gentlemen familiar with a group calling itself the Timekeepers?"

"Terrorist organization," said Lucas.

"Correct, Captain. Specifically, they are the terrorist faction of the Temporal Preservation League."

"Mensinger's group?" Finn frowned. "I had no idea they were in any way connected."

"Supposedly, they're not," said Darrow. "The league has formally disassociated itself from the Timekeepers, condemning their actions and branding them fanatics. A case of the pot calling the kettle black, but be that as it may. We believe that the league is still funneling funds and providing other means of support to the Timekeepers."

"I can't see that as being consistent with Mensinger's aims," said Finn.

"Yes, well, he's dead, isn't he?" said Darrow. "And politics, especially the politics of fanaticism, makes for strange bedfellows. But not so strange, perhaps. The league functions openly, lobbying and agitating, all perfectly legal and above-board. The Timekeepers prefer a rather more extreme means of persuasion, but their goals are still the same. Cessation of temporal warfare and the cessation of time travel. That last is a somewhat more extreme position than the late Dr. Mensinger's, but it's still roughly consistent with his ideas, wouldn't you say, Mr. Delaney? You're the expert."

"All right, so you know I studied Mensinger's research," said Finn. "You probably also know when I spoke out of turn as a kid and when I wiped my ass for the first time. Mensinger was still far from a fanatic. Get to the point."

"Delaney, shut your mouth!" said Forrester.

"That's quite all right, Major," Darrow said. "I'm well aware of the fact that Private Delaney has a rather low opinion of the agency. That's of no consequence, unless it were to interfere with his performance on this mission."

"It won't," said Finn.

"Yes, I know," said Darrow, giving him his mirthless smile. "Your record is particularly impressive. I'm not especially interested in your disciplinary problems. Some of our finest operatives have spent time in military prisons, a singular distinction which you have been spared. So far. But you wanted me to get to the point.

"We had succeeded in infiltrating the league some years ago. However, it wasn't until recently that we were able to infiltrate the Timekeepers. They've been escalating their terrorist campaigns lately and we had a feeling that they were building up to something big. In point of fact, we underestimated them.

"They're more clever than we thought. They managed to penetrate our agent's cover and eliminate him. However, he managed to leave behind a message. He didn't live long enough to complete it, unfortunately. Pity. As a result, we don't know the full extent of their plans. What we do know doesn't make us very happy.

"Our agent had reported earlier that the Timekeepers had made contact with someone in the underground. One of your old people gone bad. The logical assumption was that, since they made this contact in Plus Time, this deserter was obviously one of those having access to a stolen chronoplate." He glanced at the referee briefly. "It's bothersome to us how those things have a habit of walking away from time to time. At any rate, we assumed that the connection had been made in order to allow them to escape to Minus Time to avoid detection following their terrorist acts, but they evidently have something much more ambitious in mind.

"Terrorists are not the most logical of people. They see their goal as being to tear down an established system and they often don't think much past that point. To date, their activities have been limited to the more traditional methods. Bombing, kidnapping, assassination, etc. They're especially fond of taking hostages to use as leverage for their demands. Well, this time, they've outdone themselves. They've taken time itself hostage.

"They now have a chronoplate in their possession and they're using it to blackmail the Referee Corps. Their demands are that the apparatus for fighting the time wars be dismantled, that the Referee and Observer Corps be disbanded, along with our agency, and that time travel cease. Otherwise, they will create a timestream split."

"They're bluffing," said Delaney. "The threat of a time-stream split is the sole reason why the league came into being. What you're saying is that they're threatening to create the very thing that their whole aim is to prevent!"

"Mr. Delaney, if there's one thing that we've learned in our efforts to break the Timekeepers, it's that they never bluff. I told you, they're fanatics. Fanatics are not rational human beings. They have no reason to bluff; they're holding a hell of a hand. Look at your history. There have been terrorist organizations in the past who have had peace as their goal, and yet they didn't hesitate to use violence in its pursuit. There is no logic to terrorism, there's only the very unpleasant reality of its existence."

"Jesus, it's just like the last time," Finn said. "It's going to be hell trying to stop someone with a chronoplate."

"Not necessarily," said Darrow. "Remember, they don't know that our agent had a chance to communicate their plans to us. They will be proceeding on the assumption that we won't know where they'll be in time nor what they'll try to do to effect the split in the event we refuse to meet their demands. And, obviously, meeting their demands is unthinkable. Well, we don't know exactly what they're going to do or how they'll do it, but we do know where they'll be. And unless something occurs to change their plans at the last minute, we've got a chance to stop them.

"We know that they have selected as their operating time the month of April in the year 1625. We know that they'll be operating out of Paris, France. And we know that was a particularly volatile time period. Can we have a brief readout on that, please?"

The woman seated at the desk terminal began to speak in a monotone.

"France in the period 1610 to 1643, reign of King Louis XIII, regency of his mother, Marie de' Medici, 1573 to 1642. The king was declared of age in the year 1614, the year of the Summons of the States-General. The queen mother was banished to Blois in the year 1617, with the king under the influence of the Duke of Luynes. 1619, Armand Jean du Plessis, Cardinal-Duke of Richelieu, mediated a treaty between the queen mother and the Duke of Luynes. Civil war. Marie de' Medici and Richelieu in control following death of Luynes in 1621. 1624 to 1642, administration of Cardinal Richelieu, who became the man behind the throne in France. 1625, the Huguenot Revolt under the Dukes of Rohan and Soubise. Siege of La Rochelle in 1627 to 1628. England dispatched three fleets to the aid of the Huguenots, but the city surrendered on October 28, 1628 after a fourteen-month-long resistance. War in Italy with Spain, Richelieu in command of army. Treaty of Cherasco in 1631, beginning of French participation in the Thirty Years' War. Foundation of the Academie Franqaise in-"

"Thank you," Darrow said, "that will do. As you can see, gentlemen, it was a violent time, full of intrigues, conspiracies, wars, and alliances. They couldn't have picked a better milieu within which to function. Nor, we believe, could they have picked a more difficult time period in which to effect an adjustment, if it came to that."

"So you believe their target to be Richelieu?" said Lucas.

"We don't know for certain, Captain. Our agent died before he could complete his message. But we're assuming that Cardinal Richelieu will be involved, either directly or indirectly. He was without a doubt the most influential man in France at the time and he's a pivotal character in history. However, our research department has brought out yet another factor which we find extremely significant.

"The month of April in 1625 was when a young man named D'Artagnan arrived in Paris."

The last time she had been in France had been almost five hundred years earlier. Her name had not been Andre de la Croix then. It was not her real name, but her real name no longer mattered to her. That had been another time, another life.

She had not belonged in 12th-century England any more than she belonged in 17th-century France. She had been born in the western Pyrenees, Basque country, but she often felt that she did not belong in any time or place at all. The feeling of being different, of not fitting in, went back almost as far as she could remember.

It had started when her parents died, leaving her to take care of her little brother. She had been just a child herself. It had not taken her very long at all to find out just how vulnerable a young girl could be, so she had learned to act the part of a young boy. That deception had constituted the first major change in her young life.

She had continued the masquerade into adulthood, having learned that being a man offered far greater opportunities than being a woman. Her breasts were small and easily, if uncomfortably, concealed and the hard life she had led as a "young boy" had given her a body that was lean and strong. After years spent as itinerant thieves and beggars, she and her brother had been taken in as squires by an aging knight-errant whose brain had been befuddled by one too many injuries. The old knight had never learned her secret and he had trained her in the martial arts of chivalry. That had been the second major change in her life.

She had known that living free in a time when freedom was a commodity in scarce supply meant becoming strong and self-reliant. She worked hard, developing her body into an efficient fighting machine. She was taller than most women of her time, broad-shouldered, and long of limb. Her drive and physical characteristics combined to give her a body and a degree of fitness that would be unknown to women for several hundred years. She became the physical equal of most men in strength and the superior of most in endurance and reflexes. After the death of her mentor, she took her own brother as her squire and became a mercenary knight, a "free companion" with the fictitious name of Andre de la Croix. She chose for her device a fleury cross of white on red. Guarding her secret with her life, for that was what exposure as a woman would have cost her, she entered into the service of Prince John of Anjou. Shortly thereafter, she met a man she took to be a sorcerer and he had brought her to the third and greatest change in her young life.

His name was Reese Hunter and he, too, did not fit into his own time. On the day she met him, his time would not yet come for another fourteen hundred years. He was a deserter from the Temporal Corps and he possessed a device he called a chronoplate, a machine for traveling through time.

He had told her that he was not a sorcerer, yet what he called "science" seemed nothing less than magic. Though he had learned her secret, he was the only man she had ever met who did not treat women as inferiors, as possessions. He had told her that there would come a time when she would not have to resort to her deception to live life on her terms. That time would not come for many hundreds of years, but he could take her there. He had told her of the life he led, the times and places he had been to, and she had been both awed and frightened. She would not have believed him, would have thought him mad, had he not demonstrated the power of his science. He said that he saw in her a kindred spirit, a person out of time. He had offered her an equal partnership, on her own terms.

She had lost her brother to a traitor's sword and Hunter had helped her to avenge his death. Once that was done, there had no longer been a reason for her to remain in England or in the year 1194. She had joined Hunter and left England and her time behind. She became part of the underground.

Antoinette de la Croix was not her real name, either. She felt less comfortable with it than with her masculine alias. They had only just arrived in the 17th century and it had taken Hunter some time to purchase what he called "necessities." These included their clothes, their horses, their carriage, and the services of liveried footmen. They were on their way to Paris and they had stopped for the night at a small roadhouse.

Andre had undressed to her undergarments. She didn't like them, but at least they were more comfortable worn alone than with her outer clothing. The silks and ruffles, the lace and the dainty shoes were all impractical and, worse, uncomfortable. She recalled that armor had never been comfortable to wear, but at least it had a function. She could see no purpose to her ornate apparel and she had remarked to Hunter that in this time, at least, the role of women seemed not to have changed at all. They were still dressed as dolls for men to play with, only now they had to dress up more. She had gone along with the clothing, but she had refused to have her hair "arranged." Instead, she had worn a wig that Hunter had bought for her, a wig of tight blonde curls whose color matched her own somewhat shorter, straighter hair. She had ripped it off upon entering their rooms and now she paced back and forth like a caged animal, scratching her head irritably. She much preferred the apparel of the men, though even that seemed senselessly foppish to her.

She thought that Hunter looked amusing in his scarlet doublet, ornately worked baldrick, and long cloak of dark burgundy velvet. Somehow, she thought he looked more natural in the magician's robe he had been wearing when they met, back in Sherwood Forest. His high boots seemed practical for horseback riding, but the lace collar, cuffs and boot tops seemed out of place, as did the wide black sash he wore around his waist. What puzzled her the most was Hunter's rapier.

He had laid it down upon the bed when they came into the room and now she picked it up, hefting it experimentally.

"This is a sword?" she said, dubiously. She had been curious about it all that day, but she had not wanted to overburden Hunter with too many questions.

"It's called a rapier," Hunter said, "and yes, it is a sword."

She swung it once or twice, holding it awkwardly, as though uncertain of its sturdiness.

"There is no weight to it," she said. "And the blade is far too narrow. It would never penetrate armor and a single stroke with a good sword would break it in an instant." She threw it back down onto the bed disdainfully.

Hunter picked it up. "To begin with, it isn't meant for use against an armored knight. And no one uses broadswords here. In this period, things are done a little differently. I suppose you'd say that this was a more genteel weapon."

He made a few passes with the rapier, showing her the wrist action, a beat and riposte against an imaginary opponent, and a lunge.

"It's used primarily for thrusting, but you can also slash," said Hunter. "It's called fencing."

She frowned. "So is the enclosure used to keep in goats. I see no connection."

"There isn't one."

"So why is it called fencing?"

"I don't know why it's called fencing. It just is, that's all."

"It's foolish. These clothes are foolish. This is a foolish time. I do not like it. This is nothing like what you told me."

"Give it a chance, Andre. You've only been here for one day."

"I see no reason why we have to wear these foolish clothes. I saw other people on the road who did not dress this way."

"They were peasants," Hunter said. "This is how people who are reasonably well off dress in this time period. We're going to have to stay here for a while, until I can contact my friend in the underground. I explained all that to you. If we're going to travel to the time I spoke of, you're going to need an implant and not just any implant, but one that can't be traced. It's the only way for you to learn things that would otherwise take you a lifetime of education. You're going to need that knowledge in order to survive. It's a very complicated procedure."

"Why can we not go directly to the time you came from to get this implant?"

"Because it would be too dangerous. Besides, it has to be surgically implanted and-"

"It has to be what?"

"Implanted. The implant must be implanted."

"I do not understand. I thought it was a device."

"It is a device."

"Then what does 'implanted' mean?"

"It's an action. You must implant an implant."

"How can it be a device and an action at the same time? And what does this word surgically mean?"

"It's too difficult to explain right now," said Hunter. He knew only too well how her 12th-century mind would react to the idea of minor brain surgery. "What matters is that I have to get in touch with a certain person who has the skills to accomplish this and that person chooses to reside in Paris, in this time period. Our mission will go easier for us if we assume the character of people of a certain social class."

"Why can I not wear man's clothing?" she said. "It certainly appears to be more comfortable than this dress and these absurd undergarments."

"It probably is," said Hunter, "but that's not the point. The point is that you're a woman and you've never had a chance to learn to act like one. You never know, the knack might come in handy someday."

"I see no advantage in learning how to flirt and simper and use my sex to advance myself."

"I think there's a little more to being a woman than that," said Hunter.

"If there is, then I have not observed it."

"Well, even if there wasn't," Hunter said, "the simple fact is that using your sex to advance yourself, as you put it, works on occasion, and I believe that one should use anything that works."

"Then why use that child's plaything of a sword?"

"Child's plaything, is it?" Hunter tossed her his rapier, then unwrapped a spare one from its cloth covering. He tossed both cloth covering and scabbard onto the bed. "Let's see just how much of a plaything this is," he said. "Attack me."

She swung the sword, awkwardly. Hunter parried easily, using the Florentine style-rapier in one hand, dagger in the other. He had little difficulty in blocking her crude strokes. The weapon was strange to her and she was uncomfortable with it.

"It's not a broadsword," Hunter said. "It's meant for speed. Watch."

This time he went on the offensive and she redoubled her efforts, taking her cue from him but still parrying clumsily. In seconds, he had disarmed her of the rapier, tapping her wrist lightly with the flat of the blade after hooking her sword, showing how a slash there would have caused her to drop her weapon and sustain a wound at the same time.

She looked down at the floor, then picked up the rapier he had disarmed her of so easily. She stood silently for a moment, studying it.

"I have misjudged this weapon," she said. "That was unwise of me. Clearly, there is a skill to using it correctly. I will learn it."

"Fencing isn't exactly something one picks up overnight," said Hunter. "You're not exactly a beginner, but-"

"No, I am far from a beginner. I have lived by the sword most of my life," she said. "This is a different blade, but it is still a sword. It will not take me long to learn. Teach me."

"There's really not much point to it," said Hunter.

"Why?"

"Because women in Paris don't carry rapiers," he said. "Sometimes they carry daggers, but mostly they carry fans and handkerchiefs." He grinned.

"Truly potent weapons," she said, sarcastically.

"It all depends on how you use them. Well, all right. I'll teach you. It may not take you very long to learn, at that. You're already a demon with a broadsword. You're strong and you've got terrific reflexes. You just lack the correct technique. I think it will probably be tougher to teach you how to use a fan."

"I see. You imply that you are qualified to teach me how to be a woman, is that it?" she said.

"Not me," said Hunter. "You're already more woman than any man I know can handle. The trick is not to let men know that. That shouldn't be too hard. Most of us aren't very smart when it comes to women."

"And you are one of the smart ones, I suppose."

"No, unfortunately, I'm one of the stupid ones," said Hunter. "But I've learned a lot because of that."

"Very well," said Andre. "I owe you much. I will learn to act the part of a fine lady if you think it will prove helpful."

"Just call me Professor Higgins."

"Who is Professor Higgins?"

"He was another stupid man," said Hunter. "But never mind. For a start, let's see what we can do about that walk of yours. You can dress the part of a woman, but you still swagger like a soldier. Now, take this book…"