The Year of the Ransom

22 May 1987

Blink. We’re there. Like a blow to the solar plexus. I almost fall off. Grab his waist. Face burrows into roughness of his cloak.

Calm, lassie. He told you to expect this . . . transition. He’s awed. Hasty in the wind, “Ave Maria gratiae plena—” It’s cold up here in heaven. No moon, but stars everywhere. Riding lights of a plane, blink, blink, blink.

The Peninsula tremendous, a sprawled galaxy, half a mile underneath us. White, yellow, red, green, blue, shining blood-flow of cars, from San Jose to San Francisco. Hulks of black to the left where the hills rise. Shimmering darkness to the right, the Bay, fire-streaked by the bridges. Towns glimpsed, clusters of sparks, on the far shore. About ten o’clock of a Friday evening.

How often have I seen this before? From airliners. A space-time bike hanging aloft, me in the buddy seat behind a man born almost five centuries ago, that’s something else.

He masters himself. The sheer lion courage of him—except a lion wouldn’t charge headlong into the unknown, the way those guys did after Columbus showed them half a world to plunder. “Is this the realm of Morgana la Hada?” he breathes.

“No, it’s where I live, those are lamps you see, lamps in the streets and houses and . . . on the wagons. They move by themselves, the wagons, without horses. Yonder goes a flying vessel. But it can’t skip from place to place and year to year like this one.”

A superwoman wouldn’t babble facts. She’d feed him a line, mislead him, use his ignorance to trap him somehow. Yeah, “somehow,” that’s the catch. I’m just me, and he’s a superman, or pretty close to it. Natural selection, back in his day. If you weren’t physically tough, you didn’t live to have kids. And a peasant could be stupid, might even do better if he was, but not a military officer who didn’t have a Pentagon to plan his moves for him. Also, those hours of questioning on Santa Cruz Island (which I, Wanda May Tamberly, am the first woman ever to walk on) have beaten me down. He never laid a hand on me, but he kept at it and kept at it. Eroded the resistance out of me. My main thought right now is that I’d better cooperate. Otherwise he could too easily make some blunder that’d kill us both and leave Uncle Steve stranded.

“I have thought the saints might dwell in such a blaze of glory,” Luis murmurs. The cities he knew went blackout after dark. You needed a lantern to find your way. If it was a fine city, it put stepping stones down the middle of the sidewalkless streets, to keep you above the horse droppings and garbage.

He turns tactical. “Can we descend unseen?”

“If you’re careful. Go slowly as I guide you.” I recognize the Stanford campus, a mostly unlighted patch. Lean forward against him, left hand holding onto the cloak. These are well-designed seats; my knees will keep me in place. That’s a mighty long drop, though. Reach right arm past his side. Point. “Toward there.”

The machine tilts forward. We slant down. My nose fills with the scents of him. I’ve already noticed: pungent rather than sour, yes, very macho.

Got to admire him. A hero, on his own terms. Can’t stop a sneaking wish that he’ll get away with his desperate caper.

Whoa, girl. That’s a pitfall. You’ve heard about kidnapped people, even tortured people, developing sympathy with their captors. Don’t you be a Patty Hearst.

Still, damn it, what Luis has done is fantastic. Brains as well as bravery. Think back. Try, while we chase through the air, try to get straight in your mind what he told you, what you saw, what you figured out.

Hard to. He admitted a lot of confusion himself. Mainly he hews to his faith in the Trinity and the warlike saints. He’ll succeed, dedicating his victories to them, and become greater than the Holy Roman Emperor; or he’ll die in the attempt and go to Paradise, all sins forgiven because what he did was in the cause of Christendom. Catholic Christendom.

Time travel for real. Some kind of guarda del tiempo, and Uncle Steve works for it. (Oh, Uncle Steve, while we laughed and chatted and went on family picnics and watched TV and played chess or tennis, this was behind your eyes.) Some kind of bandits or pirates also running loose through history, and isn’t that a terrifying thought? Luis escaped from them, has this machine, has me, for his wild purposes.

How he got at me—wrung the basic information out of Uncle Steve. I’m afraid to imagine how, though he claims he didn’t do any permanent damage. Flitted to the Galapagos, established camp before the islands were discovered. Made cautious reconnaissance trips into the twentieth century, 1987 to be exact. He knew I’d be around then, and I was the one person he had any hope of . . . using.

The campsite’s in the arboretum behind Darwin Station. He could safely leave the machine there for a few hours at a stretch, especially in the early morning or late afternoon and at night. Walk into town or around the area, minus his armor. Clothes look funny, but he’s careful to approach only working-class locals, and they’re used to crazy tourists. Wheedle some, browbeat some, maybe bribe some. I got the impression he stole money. Ruthless. Anyhow, a few shrewd inquiries, at well-spaced intervals. Found out things about this era. Found out things about me. Once he knew I’d gone off on terminal leave, and roughly where, he could hover too high for us to see, watch through that magnifying screen he showed me, wait for an opportunity, swoop. And here we are.

He will do these things, come September. This is Memorial Day weekend. He wanted me to bring him to my home at a time when nobody would disturb us. Mainly me. (What’s it like, meeting yourself in the living flesh?) I’m with Dad and Mom and Suzy in San Francisco. Tomorrow we’re bound for Yosemite. Won’t be back till Monday evening.

Him and me in my apartment. The other three units are vacant, I know, students also away for the holiday.

Well, I dare hope he’ll continue “respecting my honor.” He did make that nasty crack about me dressing like a man o una puta. Thank—well, be glad I had the wit to get up indignant and tell him this is respectable ladies’ garb where I come from. He apologized, sort of. Said I was a white woman, in spite of being a heretic. Indian women’s feelings didn’t count, of course.

What will he do next? What does he want of me? I don’t know. Probably he isn’t sure either, yet. If I got the same chance he’s got, how would I use it? It’s a godlike power. Hard to stay sensible with those controls between your hands.

“Turn right. Slowly, now.”

We’ve flown above University Avenue, across Middlefield, and yonder’s the Plaza; my street’s that—a-way. Yep. “Halt.” We stop. I look past his shoulder at the square building, ten feet below us and twenty ahead. The windows glimmer blind.

“I have rooms in that upper story.”

“Have you space for the chariot?”

Gulp. “Well, yes, in the largest chamber. A few feet”—how many, damn it?—“about three feet behind those panes at the very corner.” I’m guessing the Spanish foot of his day is not too different from the English foot of mine.

Evidently not. He leans forward, peers, gauges. My pulse gallops. Sweat prickles my skin. He means to make a quantum jump through space (no, not really through space. Around it?) and appear in my living room. What if we come out in the middle of something?

Oh, he’s experimented, in his Galapagos retreat. The nerve that that took! He’s made discoveries. He tried to explain them to me. As near as I can follow it, put in twentieth-century words, you pass directly from one set of space-time coordinates to another. Maybe it’s through a “wormhole”—vague recollection of articles in Scientific American, Science News, Analog—and for a moment your dimensions equal zero; then as you expand into your destination volume, you displace whatever matter is there. Air molecules, obviously. Luis found out that if a small solid object is in the way, it gets pushed aside. A big object, and the machine, with you aboard, settles beside it, off the exact spot you punched for. Probably mutual displacement. Action equals reaction. Agreed, Sir Isaac?

There must be limits. Suppose he gets it badly wrong and we end up in the wall. Splintering studs, nails shoved through my guts, stucco and plaster like cannonball, and a ten- or twelve-foot drop to the ground on this heavy thing.

“Saint James be with us,” he says. I feel his motions. Whoops!

We’re here, inches above the floor. He sets us down. We’re here.

Street glow dim through the windows. Get off. Knees weak. Start. Stop—his grip on my arm like jaws. “Halt,” he commands.

“I only want to give us better light.”

“I will make quite sure of that, my lady.” He comes along. When I flick the switch and everything turns bright, he gasps. His fingers close bruisingly hard. “Ow!” He lets go and stares around him.

Must have seen electric bulbs on Santa Cruz. But Puerto Ayora’s a poor little village, and I don’t suppose he peeped into the station personnel’s quarters. Try to look at this through his eyes. Difficult. I take it all for granted. How much can he actually see, as alien as it is to him?

Bike fills most of the rug. Crowds my desk, the sofa, the entertainment cabinet and bookshelf. It knocked two chairs over. Fourth wall, door open on the short hall. Bathroom and broom closet to the left, bedroom and clothes closet to the right, kitchen at the end, those doors closed. Cubbyholes. And I’ll bet nobody less than a merchant prince lived like this in the sixteenth century.

What immediately astounds him: “So many books? You cannot be a cleric.”

Why, I doubt if I have a hundred, texts included. And Gutenberg was before Columbus, wasn’t he?

“How poorly bound they are.” That seems to renew his confidence. I suppose books were still scarce and expensive. And no paperbacks.

He shakes his head at a couple of magazines; the covers must seem downright garish. Harshness again. “You will show me these lodgings.”

I do, explaining things as best I can. He has glimpsed (will glimpse) faucets and flush toilets in Puerto Ayora. “How I wish for a bath,” I sigh. Give me a hot shower and clean clothes, you can keep your Paradise, Don Luis.

“Presently, if you like. However, it shall be in my sight, like all else you do.”

“What? Even the, uh, even that?”

He’s embarrassed but determined. “I regret this, my lady, and will keep my face averted, save that I must see enough to be certain you make ready no trick. For I believe yours to be a valiant soul, and you have mysteries and devices that I do not fathom at your beck.”

Ha. If only I did keep a .45 under my lingerie. At that, I’ve a bit of trouble convincing him the upright vacuum cleaner isn’t a gun. He makes me lug it into the living room and demonstrate. A grin turns him human. “Give me a charwoman,” he says. “She doesn’t howl like a mad wolf.”

We leave it where it is and return down the hall. In the kitchen-dinette, he admires the pilot-lighted gas range. Tell him, “I need a sandwich-food—and a beer. What about you? Tepid water and half-cooked tortoise for days.”

“Do you offer me hospitality?” He sounds amazed.

“Call it that.”

He ponders. “No. My thanks, but I cannot in conscience eat your salt.”

Funny how touching that is. “Old-fashioned, aren’t you? If I remember rightly, the Borgias were in business in your time. Or was that earlier? Well, let us agree we’re opponents who’ve sat down to negotiate.”

He inclines his head, takes off his helmet, and sets it on the counter. “My lady is most gracious.”

A snack will do me a lot of good. And maybe disarm him. I am an attractive wench when I choose to be. Learn as much as possible. Keep alert. And beneath the tension—damn it, this is flat-out fascinating.

He watches me start the coffee maker. He’s interested when I open the fridge, startled when I pop the tops on a couple of brews. I take a sip from the first and hand it to him. “Not poisoned, you see. Take a chair.” He settles himself at the table. I get busy with bread and cheese and stuff.

“A curious drink,” he says. Surely they had beer in his time, but doubtless it was quite different from ours.

“I have wine, if you’d rather.”

“No, I must not dull my senses.”

Beer in California wouldn’t get a cat tiddly. Too bad.

“Tell me more about yourself, Lady Wanda.”

“If you’ll do likewise for me, Don Luis.”

I serve us. We talk. What a life he’s led! He finds mine just as remarkable. Well, I am a woman. By his lights, I should have devoted my efforts to breeding, housekeeping, and prayers. Unless I was Queen Isabella—Rein it in. Make him underestimate you.

That requires technique. I’m not used to flapping my lashes and cheering a man on to describe how wonderful he is. Can do it when called for, though. One way to keep a date from deteriorating into a wrestling match. Never date that kind twice. Give me a guy who considers himself my equal.

Luis isn’t the swinish sort either. He’s keeping his promise, absolutely polite. Unyielding, but polite. A killer, a racist, a fanatic; a man of his word, fearless, ready to die for king or comrade; Charlemagne dreams, tender little memories of his mother, poor and proud in Spain. Kind of humorless, but a flaming romantic.

Glance at my watch. Close to midnight. Good Lord, have we sat here that long?

“What do you mean to do, Don Luis?”

“Obtain weapons of your country.”

Level voice. Smile on lips. Sees my shock. “Are you surprised, my lady? What else could I seek? I would not abide in this place. From above, it may resemble the gates of Heaven, but I think down on earth, those engines rushing and roaring demonic in their thousands must make it more akin to Hell. Foreign folk, foreign language, foreign ways. Heresy and shamelessness rampant, no? Forgive me. I believe you are chaste, in spite of those garments. But are you not an infidel? Clearly, you defy God’s law concerning the proper status of women.” He shakes his head. “No, I will return to that age which is mine and my country’s. Return well armed.”

Appalled: “How?”

He tugs his beard. “I have given thought to this. A wagon of your kind would be of small use or none where there are neither roads nor fuel for it. Moreover, it would at best be a clumsy steed, set beside my gallant Florio—or the chariot I have captured. However, you must have firearms as far beyond our muskets and cannon as those are beyond the spears and bows of the Indies. Hand-held, yes, that would be best.”

“But, but I haven’t any weapons. I can’t get any.”

“You know what they are like and where they are kept. In military arsenals, for example. I will have much to ask you in the days to come. Thereafter, why, I have the means to pass unseen by bolts and bars, and carry off what I wish.”

True. Chances are he’ll succeed. He’ll have me, first for briefing, later for guide. No way do I get out of that, unless I’m heroic and make him kill me. Which would leave him free to try elsewhere, and Uncle Steve forsaken wherever—whenever it is.

“How—how will you—use those guns?”

Solemn: “In the end, marshal the armies of the Emperor and lead them to victory. Hurl back the Turks. Uproot the Lutheran sedition in the North that I’ve heard of. Humble the French and English. The final Crusade.” Draws breath. “First, I should assure the conquest of the New World and my own power within it. Not that I am more greedy for fame than others. But God has appointed me to this.”

My mind spins through an insanity of what would follow from the least of his projects. “But everything around us now, it’ll never have been! I’ll never have been born!”

He crosses himself. “That is as God wills. However, if you give faithful service, I can take you back with me and see to your well-being.”

Yeah. Well—being à la sixteenth-century Spanish female. If I exist. My parents wouldn’t have, would they? I’ve no idea. I’m simply convinced Luis is juggling forces beyond his imagining, or mine, or anybody’s except maybe that Time Guard-like a child playing on a snowfield ripe for an avalanche—

The Time Guard! That Everard man last year. Asking about Uncle Steve, why? Because Stephen Tamberly didn’t really work for a scientific foundation. He worked for the Time Guard.

Their job has got to include heading off disasters. Everard gave me his card. Phone number on it. Where’d I put that bit of cardboard? Tonight the universe is balanced on it.

“I should begin by learning what did happen in Peru after I . . . left it,” Luis is saying. “Then I can plan how to amend the tale. Tell me.”

Shudder. Shake off the sense of nightmare. Think what to do. “I can’t. How should I know? It was more than four hundred years ago.” Solid, sinewy, sweaty, a ghost from that vanished past sits across from me, behind soiled plates, coffee cups, and beer cans.

Eruption in my head.

Hold voice low. Look downward. Demure. “We have history books, of course. And libraries that everyone may enter. I’ll go find out.”

He chuckles. “You are bold, my lady. However, you shall not leave these rooms, nor be out of my sight, until I am certain of my mastery of things. When I venture forth—to look about, or sleep, or for whatever reason—I will return to the same minute as I departed. Avoid the middle of the floor.”

Time machine appears in the same space as me. Boom! No, likelier it’d be jarred aside a few inches. I’d be thrown against the wall. Could break bones, uselessly.

“Well, I c-can talk to somebody who knows the history. We have . . . devices . . . for sending speech through wires, across miles. There’s one in the main room.”

“And how shall I tell whom you speak with or what you say in your English tongue? Most assuredly, you shall lay no hand on that engine.” He doesn’t know what a phone looks like, but I couldn’t begin to use mine before he realized.

The hostility drops. Earnest: “My lady, I pray you, understand that I bear no ill will. I do what I must. Those are my friends yonder, my country, my Church. Have you the wisdom—the compassion—to accept that? I know you are learned. Do you have any book of your own that may help? Remember, whatever happens, I am going ahead with my sacred mission. You can make the course of it less terrible for those whom you love.”

Excitement ebbs away with hope. I feel how tired I am. An ache in every cell of me. Cooperate in this. Maybe afterward he’ll let me sleep. What dreams may come couldn’t possibly be as bad as my wakefulness.

The encyclopedia. Birthday present from Suzy a couple of years ago, my sister, who’s doomed if Spain will have conquered Europe, the Near East, and both the Americas.

Ice-thrill. I remember! I dropped Everard’s card in a desk drawer, upper left where I keep miscellany. Phone right above, beside the typewriter.

“Señorita, you tremble.”

“Haven’t I reason to?” Rise. “Come.” The cold wind through me whistles the exhaustion out. “I do have a book or two that have information.”

He follows directly behind. His presence is a shadow over me, a shadow with weight.

At the desk, “Hold! What do you want from that drawer!”

I never was a good liar. Can keep my face turned away, and a wobble in my voice is to be expected. “You see how many the volumes are. I must consult my record of them, to locate the chronicle. Watch. No hidden arquebus.” Whip it open before he grabs my wrist. Stand passive, let him paw through, satisfy himself. The card skips amongst the clutter. Like my pulse.

“I beg your pardon, my lady. Give me no occasion to suspect you, and I will give you no roughness.”

Flip the card right side up. Make that look accidental. Read again: Manson Everard, midtown Manhattan address, the phone number, the phone number. Cram that into my mind. Scratch about. What can I palm off as a sort of library catalogue? Ah, my auto insurance policy. Had it out for a look after that fender-bender months ago—no, last month, April—and haven’t—hadn’t—gotten around to putting it back in the safe deposit. Make a show of studying it. “Ah, here we are.”

Okay, now I know how to call for help. Opportunity to do it is lacking. Stay watchful.

Sidle past the time bike to the bookshelf. Luis treads close against me. Payn to Polka. Take it out, page through. He looks across my shoulder. Exclaims when he recognizes Peru. He’s literate. Not in English, though.

Translate. Early history. Pizarro’s journey to Túmbez, the awful hardships, his eventual return to Spain in search of backing, “Yes, yes, I have heard, how often I have heard.” To Panama in 1530, Túmbez in 1531, “I was with him.” Fighting. A small detachment makes an epic trek over the mountains. Entry into Cajamarca, capture of the Inca, his ransom. “And then, and then?” Judicial murder of Atahualpa. “Oh, bad. Well, no doubt my captain decided it was necessary.” March to Cuzco. Almagro’s expedition to Chile. Pizarro founds Lima. Manco, his puppet Inca, escapes, raises the people against the invaders. Cuzco besieged from early February 1536 till Almagro comes back and relieves it in April 1537; meanwhile, desperate valor on both sides, throughout the country. Right after the hard-won Spanish victory, Indians still waging guerrilla warfare, the Pizarro brothers and Almagro fall out with each other. Pitched battle in 1538, Almagro defeated and executed. His half-caste son and friends embittered; conspire; assassinate Francisco Pizarro in Lima, 26 June 1541. “No! Body of Christ, this shall not happen!” Charles V has sent a new governor, who now takes over, beats the Almagro faction, and beheads the young man. “Horrible, horrible. Christian against Christian. No, it is clear, we require a strong man to take leadership at the earliest moment of misfortune.”

Luis draws his sword. What the hell? Alarmed, I drop the volume, back off past the machine toward my desk. He falls on his knees. Lifts the sword by the blade, makes it a cross. Tears run down the leather cheeks, into the midnight beard. “Almighty God, holy Mother of God,” sob, “be with your servant.”

A chance? No time to think.

Grab the upright vacuum cleaner. Swing it on high. He hears, turns on his knees, crouches to bound up. A heavy, awkward club. Give it everything my arms and shoulders have got. Across the bike, crash the motor end onto his bare head.

He sags. Blood flows like crazy, neon-light red. Lacerated scalp. Have I knocked him out? Don’t stop to check. Let the vac clatter down on top of him. Leap to the phone.

Buzz-zz. The number? I’d better have it right. Punch-punch-punch—Luis groans. He hauls himself to all fours. Punch-punch.

Ring.

Ring. Ring. Luis takes hold of a shelf, clambers his way to a stance.

The remembered voice. “Hello. This is Manse Everard’s answering machine.”

Oh, God, no!

Luis shakes his head, wipes the blood from his eyes. It’s smeared, it drips, impossibly much, impossibly brilliant.

“I’m sorry I can’t come to the phone. If you wish to leave a message, I’ll get back to you soon’s may be.”

Luis stands slumped, his arms dangle, but he glares at me. “So,” he mumbles. “Treachery.”

“You may begin talking when you hear the beep. Thank you.”

He stoops, takes up his sword, advances. Unevenly, inexorably.

Scream, “Wanda Tamberly. Palo Alto. Time traveler.” What’s the date, what the hell’s the date? “Friday night before Memorial Day. Help!”

The sword point is at my throat. “Drop that thing,” he snarls. I do. He’s got me backed against the desk. “I should kill you for this. Perhaps I will.”

Or forget his scruples about my virtue and—

And at least I left a clue for Everard. Didn’t I?

Whoosh. The second machine above the first, its riders flattening themselves below the ceiling.

Luis yells. Scuttles backward, onto the driver’s saddle of his. Sword in hand. Other hand dances on the controls. Everard’s hampered. I see a gun in his fist. But whoosh. Luis is gone.

Everard sets down.

Whirling, keening, darkening. I never passed out before. If I can just sit for a minute.