The Year of the Ransom

15 April 1610

Machu Picchu! was the immediate recognition as Stephen Tamberly awoke. And then: No. Not quite. Not as I’ve known it. When am I?

He climbed to his feet. Clarity of mind and senses told him he had been knocked out by an electronic stunner, probably a twenty-fourth-century model or later. No surprise. The deadly shock had been the apparition of those men on a machine such as was not to be made for thousands of years after he was born.

Around him lifted the peaks he knew, misty, tropically green even at their altitudes save for snow on the most remote. A condor hovered aloft. A blue—and-gold morning flooded the Urubamba gorge with light. But he saw no railway down there, no station, and the only road in sight was up here, built by engineers of the Incas.

He stood on a platform that had been attached, with a descending ramp, to a high point on a wall above a ditch. Below him the city spread over acre upon acre; it clung, it soared, in buildings of dry-laid stone, staircases, terraces, plazas, as powerful as the mountains themselves. If those heights might almost have been from a Chinese painting, the human works might almost have been from medieval southern France; and yet not really, for they were too foreign, too imbued with their own spirit.

A breeze blew cool. Its whittering was the single sound amidst the bloodbeat in his temples. Nothing stirred throughout the fastness. With the mind-speed of desperation, he saw that it had not long lain deserted. Weeds and shrubs were everywhere, but they and the weather had hardly begun the work of demolition. That didn’t reveal much, for it still had far to go when Hiram Bingham discovered the place in 1911. However, he spied structures almost intact which he remembered as ruins or not at all. Traces remained of wood and thatch roofs. And—

And Tamberly was not alone. Luis Castelar crouched beside him, stupefaction fading out before a snarl. Men and women stood around, themselves tense. The timecycle rested near the platform edge.

First Tamberly was aware of weapons aimed at him. Then he stared at the people. They were like none he had met in his wanderings. Their very alienness made them look somehow alike. Faces were finely chiseled, high in the cheekbones, thin in the noses, large in the eyes. Despite raven darkness of hair, skin was alabaster and irises were light, while men seemed never to have had any growth of beard. Bodies poised tall, slender, supple. Basic clothing for both sexes was a close-fitted one-piece garment with no visible seams or fastenings, and soft half-boots of the same lustrous black. Silver patterns, an Oriental-like tracery, ornamented most, and several persons added cloaks of flamboyant red, orange, or yellow. Wide belts held pockets and holsters. Hair fell to the shoulders, held in place by a simple headband, arabesqued fillet, or diamond-glittery coronet.

They numbered about thirty. All seemed young—or ageless? Tamberly thought he perceived many years of lifespan behind them. It showed in both the pride and the alertness, above a feline self-composure.

Castelar glared from side to side. He had been deprived of knife and sword. The latter flashed in the hand of a stranger. He tautened as if to attack. Tamberly caught him by the arm. “Peace, Don Luis,” he urged. “This is hopeless. Call on the saints if you wish, but stay quiet.”

The Spaniard growled before he subsided. Tamberly felt him shiver beneath sleeve and skin. Somebody in the group said something in a language that purred and trilled. Another gestured, as if for silence, and stepped forward. The grace of the motion was such that one could say he flowed. Clearly, he dominated the rest. His features were aquiline, green-eyed. Full lips curved in a smile.

“Greeting,” he said. “You are unexpected guests.”

He used fluent Temporal, the common speech of the Time Patrol and many civilian travelers; and the machine was scarcely different from a Patrol runabout; but he must surely be an outlaw, an enemy.

Breath shuddered into Tamberly. “What . . . year is this?” he mumbled. Peripherally, he noticed Castelar’s reactions when Fray Tanaquil replied in the unknown tongue—astonishment, dismay, grimness.

“By the Gregorian calendar, which I suppose you are accustomed to, it is the fifteenth of April, 1610,” said the stranger. “I daresay you recognize the site, although your companion obviously does not.”

Of course he doesn’t, passed through Tamberly. What the natives of a later day called Machu Picchu was built by the Inca Pachacutec as a holy city, a center for the Virgins of Sun. It lost its purpose when the headquarters of resistance to the Spaniards became Vilcabamba, till they captured and killed Tupac Amaru, the last who bore the name of Inca before the Andean Resurgence of the twenty-second century. So nothing led the Conquistadores to find it, and it lay empty, forgotten by everyone but a few poor countryfolk, till 1911. . . . He barely heard: “I suppose, likewise, you are an agent of the Time Patrol.”

“Who are you?” Tamberly choked.

“Let us discuss matters in a more convenient location,” said the man. “This is merely the place to which our scouts have returned.”

Why? A timecycle could appear within seconds and centimeters of any point, any moment within its range—from here to Earth orbit, from now to the age of the dinosaurs, or, futureward, the age of the Danellians, though that was forbidden—Tamberly guessed these conspirators built this landing stage, exposed to outside eyes, in order to keep the local Indians frightened and therefore distant. Stories about magical comings and goings would die out in the course of generations, but Machu Picchu would remain shunned.

Most of those who had been watching dispersed to whatever their business was. Four guards with drawn stunners walked behind the leader and prisoners. One also carried the sword, perhaps as a souvenir. By ramp, paths, and staircases they made their way down among the compounds of the city. Silence lay thick about them until the chieftain said, “Apparently your companion is just a soldier who happened to be with you.” At the American’s nod: “Well, then, we’ll put him aside while you and I talk. Yaron, Sarnir, you know his language. Interrogate him. Psychological means only, for the time being.”

They had reached that structure which Tamberly, if he remembered aright, knew as the King’s Group. An outer wall marked off a small courtyard where another timecycle was parked. Curtains of nacreous iridescence shimmered in doorways and across the roofless tops of the buildings that bounded the rest of the open space. Those were force fields, Tamberly recognized, impervious to anything short of a nuclear blast.

“In God’s name,” Castelar cried when a boot nudged him, “what is this? Tell me before I go mad!”

“Easy, Don Luis, easy,” Tamberly answered fast. “We’re captives. You’ve seen what their weapons can do. Go as they command. Heaven may have mercy on us, but by ourselves we’re helpless.”

The Spaniard clenched his jaws and went with the two assigned him, into a lesser unit. The leader’s group sought the largest. Barriers blinked out of existence to admit both parties. They stayed off, giving a look at stones and sky and freedom. Tamberly supposed that was to let fresh air in; the room he entered did not appear to have been used lately.

Sunshine joined radiance from the canopy overhead to illuminate its windowlessness. The floor had been given a deep-blue covering that responded slightly to footfalls, like living muscles. A couple of chairs and a table bore halfway familiar shapes, though their darkly glowing material was new to him. He could not identify the things shelved in what might have been a cabinet.

The guards took stance on either side of the entrance. One was male, one a woman no less steely. The leader settled into a chair and invited Tamberly to take the other. It fitted itself to his contours, to his every motion. The leader pointed at a carafe and glasses on the table. Those were enameled—made in Venice about now, Tamberly judged. Bought? Stolen? Looted? The man glided forward to fill two vessels. His master and Tamberly took them.

Smiling, the leader lifted his goblet and murmured, “Your health.” The implication was: You’d better do whatever is necessary to keep it. The wine was a tart chablis type, so refreshing that Tamberly thought it might contain a stimulant. They had broad and subtle knowledge of human chemistry in his future.

“Well, then,” the leader said. His tone continued mild. “You are obviously of the Patrol. That was a holographic recorder in your hand. And the Patrol would never permit any visitor out of time to prowl about a moment so critical, except its own.”

Tamberly’s throat contracted. His tongue stiffened. It was the block laid in his mind during his training, a reflex to keep him from revealing to any unauthorized person, ever, that traffic went up and down the tiers of history. “Uh, uh—I—” Sweat sprang forth cold upon his skin.

“My sympathies.” Did laughter run through the words? “I am quite aware of your conditioning. I also realize that it operates within the bounds of common sense. We being time travelers, you are free to discuss that subject, if not those details the Patrol prefers to keep secret. Will it help if I introduce myself? Merau Varagan. If you have heard of my race, it is probably under the name of the Exaltationists.”

Tamberly recalled enough to make this an hour of nightmare. The thirty-first millennium was—is—will be—only Temporal grammar has the verbs and tenses to deal with these concepts—it is far earlier than the development of the first time machines, but chosen members of its civilization know about the travel, take part in it; some join the Patrol, like individuals in most milieus. Only . . . this era had its supermen, their genes created for adventurousness on the space frontier; and they came to chafe beneath the weight of that civilization of theirs, which to them was older than the Stone Age is to me; and they rebelled, and lost, and must flee; but they had learned the great fact, that timefaring exists, and had, incredibly, managed to seize some vehicles; and “since then” the Patrol has been on their track, lest they do worse mischief, but I know of no report that the Patrol “will” catch them. . . .

“I can’t tell you more than you’ve deduced,” he protested. “If you torture me to death, I can’t.”

“When a man plays a dangerous game,” replied Merau Varagan, “he should prepare for contingencies. I admit we failed to anticipate your presence. We thought the treasure vault would be deserted at night, except for sentries outside. However, the possibility of an encounter with the Patrol has been very much on our minds. Raor, the kyradex.”

Before Tamberly could wonder what that word meant, the woman was at his side. Horror surged through him as he divined her purpose. He started to rise, scramble free, get himself killed, anything.

Her pistol blinked. It was set to less than knockout force. His sinews gave way, he flopped back onto his chair. Only its embrace kept him from sliding to the carpet.

She sought the cabinet, returned with an object. It was a box and a sort of luminous helmet, joined by a cable. The hemisphere went over his head. Raor’s fingers danced across glow-spots that must be controls. Symbols appeared in the air. Meter readings? A humming took hold of Tamberly. It grew and grew until it was all there was, he was lost in it, he spun down into the darkness at its heart.

Slowly he ascended. He regained use of his muscles and straightened in the seat. Relaxation pervaded him, though, like that which follows long sleep. He seemed detached from himself, an observer outside, emotionless. Yet he was totally awake. Every sensory detail stood forth, smells of his unwashed robe and body, mountain air coming sharp through the doorway, Varagan’s sardonic Caesar visage, Raor with the box in her hand, the weight of the helmet, a fly that sat on the wall as if to remind him he was as mortal as it.

Varagan leaned back, crossed his legs, bridged his fingers, and said with weird courtesy, “Your name and origin, please.”

“Stephen John Tamberly. Born in San Francisco, California, United States of America, June the twenty-third, 1937.”

He answered fully and truthfully. He must. Or, rather, his memory, nerves, mouth must. The kyradex was the ultimate interrogator. He could not even feel the ghastliness of his condition. Deep underneath, something screamed, but his conscious mind had become a machine.

“And when were you recruited into the Patrol?”

“In 1968.” It had happened too gradually for him to give an exact date. A colleague introduced him to some friends, interesting sorts who, he understood afterward, sounded him out; eventually he agreed to take certain tests, allegedly as part of a psychological research project; afterward the situation was revealed to him; he was invited to enlist, and accepted with infinite eagerness, as they had known he would. Well, he was on the rebound from divorce. The decision would have been more difficult if he’d had to lead a double life constantly. Regardless, he knew he would have, for it gave him worlds to explore that until then had been only writings, ruins, shards, and dead bones.

“What is your standing in the organization?”

“I’m not in enforcement or rescue or anything of that sort. I’m a field historian. At home I was an anthropologist, had done work among the modern Quechua, then went into the archaeology of the region. That made me a natural choice for the Conquest period. I would have liked better to study the pre-Columbian societies, but of course that was impossible; I’d have been too conspicuous.”

“I see. How long is your Patrol career thus far?”

“About sixty years of lifespan.” You could run up centuries, doubling around in time. A tremendous perquisite of membership was the longevity process of an era futureward of his own. To be sure, that brought the pain of watching people you loved grow old and die, never knowing what you knew. To escape that, as a general thing you phased out of their lives, let them believe you’d moved away, made contact with them dwindle gradually to nothing. For they must not notice how the years did not gnaw you down like them.

“Where and when did you depart on this latest mission of yours?”

“From California in 1968.” He had maintained his old relationships longer than most agents did. His lifespan age might be ninety, his biological age thirty, but stress and sorrow told on a man, and in 1986 he could claim his calendrical age of fifty, though kinfolk often remarked how youthful he still looked. God knew there was grief aplenty in a Patrolman’s days, along with the adventure. You witnessed too much.

“Hm,” said Varagan. “We’ll go into that in more detail. First describe your assignment. Just what were you doing last century in Cajamarca?”

The later name of the town, observed a distant part of Tamberly, while his automaton consciousness replied: “I told you, I’m a field historian, gathering data on the period of the Conquest.” It was for more than the sake of science. How could the Patrol police the time lanes and maintain the reality of events unless it knew what those events were? Books were often misleading, and many a key happening was never chronicled. “The corps got me accredited—as Estebán Tanaquil, a Franciscan friar—accredited to Pizarro’s expedition when he returned in 1530 from Spain to America.” Before Waldseemüller bestowed that name. “I was simply to observe, recording as much as I was able unbeknownst.” And do what heartbreakingly slight things he could to lighten, the tiniest bit, the brutality. “You must know, too, those years will loom large in history—futureward of my home century, pastward of yours—when the Resurgents call on their Andean heritage.”

Varagan nodded. “Indeed,” he said conversationally. “If matters had gone otherwise, why, already the twentieth century might be very different.” He grinned. “Suppose, for example, the succession after Inca Huayna Capac had not been in dispute, Atahualpa in a state of civil war with his rivals, when Pizarro arrived. That minuscule gang of Spanish adventurers could not possibly have overthrown the empire by themselves. The Conquest would have required more time, more resources. This would have affected the balance of power in Europe, where the Turks were pressing inward while the Reformation broke what scant unity Christendom had possessed.”

“Is that your aim?” In a vague way Tamberly knew he should be furious, aghast, anything but apathetic. He barely had the curiosity to ask the question.

“Perhaps,” Varagan taunted. “However, the men who found you were only scouts in advance of a much more modest enterprise, bringing Atahualpa’s ransom here. That would be quite upsetting in itself, of course.” He laughed. “But it might preserve those priceless works of art. You were content to make holograms of them for people uptime.”

“For all humankind,” said Tamberly automatically.

“Well, for such of it as can be allowed to enjoy the fruits of time travel, under the watchful eye of the Patrol.”

“Bring the treasure . . . here?” fumbled Tamberly. “Now?”

“Temporarily. We’ve camped where we are because it’s a convenient base.” Varagan scowled. “The Patrol is too vigilant in our original milieu. Arrogant swine!” Calm again: “As isolated as Machu Picchu is at present, it will not be noticeably affected by changes in the near past—for instance, by such a detail as Atahualpa’s ransom unaccountably disappearing one night. But your associates will be in full quest of you, Tamberly. They’ll follow up every last clue they can find. Best we have that information at once, to forestall any moves of theirs.”

I should be shaken to the roots of my soul. This utter, absolute recklessness—risking loops in the world lines, temporal vortices, destruction of the whole future—No, not risking. Deliberately bringing it about. But I cannot feel the horror. The thing that squats on my skull holds down my humanity.

Varagan leaned forward. “Therefore let us discuss your personal history,” he said. “What do you consider your home? What family have you, friends, ties of any kind?”

The questions quickly became knife-sharp. Tamberly watched and listened while their skilled wielder cut from him detail after detail. When something especially interested Varagan, he pursued it to the end. Tamberly’s second wife ought to be safe; she was also in the Patrol. His first wife was remarried, out of his life. But oh, God, his brother, and Bill’s own wife, and he heard himself confess that his niece was like a daughter to him—The doorway darkened. Luis Castelar bounded through.

His sword slashed. The guard there buckled, crumpled, fell and lay squirming. Blood spouted from his throat, its red like the shriek he could no longer sound forth.

Raor dropped the control box and snatched for her sidearm. Castelar reached her. His left fist smashed at her jaw. She staggered back, sagged, went to the floor and gaped up at him, stunned. His blade sang even as she dropped. Varagan was on his feet. Incredibly quick, he dodged a cut that would have laid him open. The room was too cramped for him to get past. Castelar stabbed. Varagan clutched his belly. Blood squirted between his fingers. He leaned against the wall and shouted.

Castelar wasted no time finishing him. The Spaniard ripped the helmet off Tamberly. It thudded to the floor. Wholeness of spirit broke like a sunbeam into the American.

“Get us away!” Castelar rasped. “The witch-horse outside—”

Tamberly reeled from his chair. His knees would barely hold him. Castelar’s free arm gave support. They stumbled into the open. The timecycle waited. Tamberly crawled onto the front saddle, Castelar leaped to the rear. A man in black appeared in the courtyard gateway. He yelled and reached for his weapon.

Tamberly slapped the console.