The Shield of Time Read online

  “I must certainly hear the full story of your Spanish adventure,” Corwin said. “Extraordinary. But you are right, duty first. Let us hope for leisure later.”

  “And let’s not talk more about me,” she suggested. “How did you come to join?”

  “Nothing so sensational. Indeed, the most common way. A recruiter felt I might have potential, cultivated my acquaintance, got me to take certain tests, and when they confirmed his opinion, told me the truth and invited me in. He knew I would accept. To trace the unwritten ancient history of the New World—to help write it—you understand, my dear.”

  “Was it hard to cut your ties?” I don’t believe I ever will be able to, not really, before—before Dad and Mother and Susie have died—No, not to think about that, not now. Yonder window’s too full of sunlight.

  “Not especially,” Corwin said. “I was going through my second divorce, no children. I despised the petty infighting of academic life. Always have been rather a lone wolf. To be sure, I have led men, but field work and, yes, Patrol personnel are more congenial to me.”

  Better not let conversation get any more intimate than this, Wanda decided. “Okay, sir, you asked for me to come around and tell you about Beringia. I’ll try, but I’m afraid my information is pretty limited. I generally stayed in the same area; the territory I have not seen is enormous. And I’ve spent only two personal years at it, including vacations back home or in some fun milieu. My presence there covers about five years, because naturally I spaced my visits months apart, according to what I hoped to observe at a particular season. It’s an awfully small sample, though.” The best that could be managed, she reminded herself.

  “Even with your holidays, yours must have been a hard life. You’re a brave young lady.”

  “No, no. It was utterly fascinating.” Tamberly’s pulse quickstepped. Here’s my chance. “Both in its own right and because it matters to the Patrol, more than meets the eye. Dr. Corwin, they’re doing wrong to stop it at this stage. I’m leaving some basic scientific problems half solved. Can’t you make them see that, so they’ll let me return?”

  “Hm.” He stroked his mustache. “I’m afraid other considerations override yours. I can inquire, but don’t get your hopes up. Sorry.” Chuckling: “Science aside, I gather you enjoyed yourself.”

  She nodded vigorously, though the sense of loss sharpened and sharpened in her. “I did, all in all. A stark land, but, oh, alive. And the We are sweethearts.”

  “The We? Ah, yes. That’s how the aborigines referred to themselves, I presume. What the name Tulat’ means. They had forgotten the preliminary expedition to their forebears, and had no clear concept of anyone else in the world until you appeared.”

  “Right. I can’t see why there’s no more interest in them. They were around for thousands of years. People like them got clear down into South America. But the Patrol sent only that one group. All it learned was their language and a vague notion of how they lived. When the machine had put the information into my head, I was, you know, appalled by how little it was. Why doesn’t anybody care?”

  His reply was measured, grave. “Surely you have been told. We lack the personnel, the resources, to study in depth what … will make no significant difference. Those first wanderers who trickled across the land bridge during an interstadial, some twenty thousand years ago, their descendants remained changelessly primitive. In fact, through almost the whole twentieth century, most archaeologists have doubted humans ever reached the New World that early. What scanty tools and firesites they left could well be due to natural causes. It is the High Stone Age people, the big game hunters, arriving between the Cary and Mankato substages of the Wisconsin glaciation, as the Ice Age itself drew toward a close, it is they who properly populated the two continents. The forerunner folk were killed off or crowded out. If some did interbreed—captive women, perhaps—that was seldom and their blood was swamped, lost.”

  “I know that! I know!” Her eyes stung. She barely kept from shouting, You don’t have to lecture me. I’m not some freshman class you used to teach. Old habits getting the upper hand? “What I meant was, why doesn’t anybody seem to give a damn?”

  “A Patrol agent must become case-hardened, like a physician or a policeman. Otherwise what he witnesses will eventually break him.” Corwin leaned forward. He put a hand over the fist that lay knotted in her lap. “But, yes, I care. I am more than interested. My duty lies with the Paleo-Indians. They bear the future. But I do want to learn everything you know about the old folk, and everything I can discover for myself. I want to love them too.”

  Tamberly gulped and straightened. She drew back from his touch, then said hastily, not wishing to seem as if she spurned his consolation: “Thanks. Thanks. What happens … at first … to the people I’ve known, the, the individuals … that doesn’t have to be terrible. Does it?”

  “Why, no. The newcomers you met probably belonged to a very small tribe. I rather imagine it was far in advance of the rest, and no more arrived for a generation or two. Besides, I’ve gathered your Tulat lived on or near the coast, and didn’t go after big game. Hence no rivalry.”

  “If only that’s true. If there is c-conflict, can’t you help?”

  “I’m sorry. The Patrol may not intervene.”

  Energy kindled anew. “Look,” Tamberly argued, “time travelers are bound to intervene, interfere. I affected people in all sorts of ways, didn’t I? Among other things, I saved several lives with antibiotics, shot a dangerous animal—and just my presence, the questions I asked and answered, everything I did had some effect. Nobody objected. I was up front about it, reported every incident, and nobody objected.”

  “You know why.” Perhaps he realized that playing the professor had been a mistake, for now he spoke neither angrily nor patronizingly but mildly, as to a young person bewildered by pain. “The continuum does tend to maintain its structure. A radical change is only possible at certain critical points in history. Elsewhen, compensations occur. From that standpoint, what you did was unimportant. In a sense, it was ‘always’ part of the past.”

  “Yes, yes, yes.” She curbed the resentment she had felt in spite of his effort. “Sorry, sir. I keep sounding stupid and ignorant, don’t I?”

  “No. You are under stress. You are trying hard to make your intent clear.” Corwin smiled. “You needn’t. Relax.”

  “What I’m getting at,” she persisted, “is why can’t you take a hand? Nothing big, nothing that’ll get into folk memory or anything like that. Just, oh, those hunters were … arrogant. If they start leaning too hard on the We, why can’t you tell them to lay off, and back it up with a harmless demonstration, fireworks or something?”

  “Because this is a different situation from yours,” he replied. “Beringia is, was, no longer populated exclusively by a static society barely past the eolithic stage—if people that thinly scattered can even be called a society. An advanced, dynamic, progressive culture, or set of cultures, invaded. Let me remind you that in the course of mere generations they swept down the corridor between the Laurentide and Cordilleran ice, into the plains, where taiga was becoming fertile grassland as the glaciers dwindled. Their numbers exploded. Within two thousand years of the day you met them, they were making the superb flint points of the Clovis. Soon after, they finished off the mammoth, horse, camel, most of the large American beasts. They developed into the distinctive Amerindian races—but you know that story too, I’m sure.

  “What it means is an unstable situation. True, the time is long ago. There will be no written record by which the dead can speak to the living. Nevertheless, the possibility of starting a causal vortex is no longer insignificant. We field researchers must henceforward keep our influence to an absolute minimum. No one less than an Unattached agent has competence to take decisive action; and such a man would only do it in extreme emergency.”

  Or woman, Tamberly thought. But I should remember when he was born and raised, and make allowances. He means well. Th
ough he does love to hear himself talk, doesn’t he?

  Irritation somehow countered anxiety. When he added, “Remember, quite likely you are borrowing trouble and in fact nothing dreadful ever happened to your friends,” she could accept it. Why had her moods been seesawing like this, anyway? Well, she was newly back from wilderness, tossed into a period whose likeness and unlikeness to home were equally disturbing. She was rebellious at having her work stopped uncompleted, concerned about the We, grieved that she might never see them again, skittish at meeting a man who had decades of Patrol experience under his belt against her paltry four. High time you calmed down, gal

  “Your coffee’s gone cold,” Corwin said. “Here, I’ll see to that.” He took her cup away, brought it back empty, gave it a partial refill from the pot, and held a flask of brandy above. “I prescribe a spot of additive for both of us.”

  “M-m, a … a microspot,” she yielded.

  It helped, more as a gesture and a taste than through the minute alcohol content. He didn’t press more on her. Instead, he got to business. Intelligent queries and comments were the real medicine for strained nerves.

  He fetched books, opened them to maps, showed her the geological ages of the land where she had camped. She had studied the history before, of course, but he recalled the larger context to her, vividly and with fresh details.

  In the era she knew, Beringia had shrunk from its greatest extent. However, it was still a big territory, joining Siberia to Alaska, and its disappearance would take a long while if you reckoned in human lives. Finally the sea, rising as the ice melted, would drown it; but by then America would be well peopled from the Arctic Ocean to the Land of Fire.

  She had much to tell about the wildlife, less about the wild folk, yet she had inevitably and happily come to know those in some degree. Already implanted in him was the knowledge acquired by the first expedition, the Tula language, something of the customs and beliefs. She found he had pondered it, compared it to what he knew of savages elsewhere and elsewhen, extrapolated from his own experience.

  That had been among the Paleo-Indians as they drifted southward through Canada. His aim was to trace their migrations back to the sources. Only by knowing what had happened could the Patrol hope to know what the nexus points were over which it should keep special watch. Though skeletal at best, the data would be better than nothing. Besides, others uptime were intensely interested as well, anthropologists, folklorists, artists of every kind seeking fresh inspiration.

  Under Corwin’s guidance, Tamberly felt her recollections grow more fully fleshed than before—family groups dwelling apart, periodically gathering together, oftener linked by individual travelers, among whom young men in search of mates were commonest—simple rites, frequently grisly legends, pervasive fear of demons and ghosts, of storm and predator, of sickness and starvation—withal, merriment, much loving kindness, childlike joy whenever life offered pleasure—a special reverence for the bear, which might be older than the race itself—

  “My goodness!” she exclaimed. Shadows stretched across the street outside. “I’d no idea we’d been at it this long.”

  “Nor I,” Corwin said. “Time goes fast in company like yours. Best we call it a day, eh?”

  “For sure. I can do horrid things to a hamburger and a beer.”

  “You are staying in San Francisco?”

  “Yes, at a small hotel near HQ till I’ve finished this debriefing. No sense in commuting between now and 1990.”

  “Look here, you deserve better than a café meal. May I invite you to dinner? I know the worthwhile places in these years.”

  “Uh, m-m—”

  “That dress of yours is perfectly fine. I’ll make myself presentable. Half a tick.” He rose and left the room before she could respond.

  Whew!… Oh, why not? In fact—hm, easy there, gal, It has been a long while, but—

  Corwin returned as fast as promised, sporting tweed jacket and bolo tie. He drove them across the bridge to a Japanese restaurant near Fisherman’s Wharf. Over cocktails he suggested that perhaps, if she really wanted to continue in Beringia, he might just possibly arrange for a partnership. She decided on the spot that she’d better take that as a joke. When the cook came to prepare their sukiyaki at the table, Corwin told the man to stand aside and did the job himself, declaring, “Hokkaido style.” He described his experiences among the Paleo-Indians of Canada at length, dwelling on the dangerous moments. “Admirable chaps, but ferocious, touchy, no inhibitions about violence.” If any implications of that had crossed his mind, he didn’t seem to think they might occur to Tamberly.

  After they were done, he proposed a drink at the Top of the Mark. She pleaded tiredness. Outside her hotel she gave him a handshake. “We should finish tomorrow,” she said, “and then I really must go straight uptime and see my folks.”

  13,212 B.C.

  Every fall We met at Bubbling Springs. When weather grew daily more chill it was very good to wallow in warm mud and wash in the hot water that welled up thereabouts. Strong tastes and smells were defense against sickness; steam-wraiths kept unfriendly ghosts at a distance. We came from dwelling places along the whole coast, as far as the known world reached, for the jolliest of the year’s festivities. They brought plenty of food, since no one family could feed such a crowd, and shared it around. Among the special delicacies were the tasty oysters of Walrus Bay, carried alive in water-filled skins; fish, fowl, animals freshly caught, stuffed with herbs; dried berries and flowers gathered on sunny slopes; blubber if someone had killed a seal ashore or, wonder of wonders, a whale had gone aground. They also brought things to trade, fine pelts, pretty feathers and stones. They gorged, sang, danced, jested, freely made love. They swapped news, dickered, laid plans, sighing recalled old days and smiling watched their little ones stump about. Sometimes they quarreled, but friends always composed that. When the food was gone, they thanked Ulungu for hosting them and went home, well provided with memories to brighten the dark months ahead.

  So it had ever been. So should it ever have been. But the time came when a sorrow and a fear lay over Us. Talk was of the outsiders who, this summer, had arrived to live somewhere inland. Though few households had seen any, word had flitted on the lips of wandering youths and of fathers who sought their nearest neighbors. Unsightly, speaking with the tongues of wolves, wrapped in leather, fearsomely armed, the invaders went in small bands wherever they chose. When they came upon a homestead they helped themselves to whatever they wanted, food, goods, women, not like guests but like eagles robbing osprey. Men who tried to withstand them had been badly hurt, pierced or slashed. Orak’s wound got inflamed and he died.

  You Who Know Strangeness, why have you forsaken Us?

  The celebration at Bubbling Springs went heavily, the laughter was often too loud. Perhaps the bad ones would go away, as bad years when snow lay well into summer finally did. Those left many dead behind them. What of this new evil? Folk drew aside and muttered to each other.

  Suddenly a boy who had strolled a ways off sped back shouting. Fright went in a wave through the crowd, dashing bodies to and fro. Aryuk of Alder River seized the lead, shook or drubbed the panic-stricken, called the men to him, until everyone but the infants was quiet, shuddering only under the skin. He had grown broody and short-spoken in the past season. Now he stood before the men, outside the settlement. Each gripped a hand ax or a club. Their women and young huddled among the huts.

  Behind them surf growled, above them birds shrilled, around them wind whistled emptily. It was a clear day, just a few rapid clouds. Westering, the sun cast heatless light over hills turning yellow-gray with autumn. A pool simmered nearby, its brown the deepest color in sight. Wind scattered its warmth, vapors, and magical smells into nothingness.

  Other men walked toward Us. The pointed shafts that they carried swayed to their stride.

  Aryuk shaded his eyes and peered. “Yes, the outsiders,” he said, low in his gullet. “Fewer than Us, I think. Stand toget
her. Stand fast.”

  As they drew near: “But what, who is that with them? A woman? Clad the same, but—her hair and—Daraku!” he screamed. “Daraku, my daughter they took!”

  He started to run, halted, returned, stood atremble. Soon she reached him. Her face was thin, and something had departed from behind those hollow eyes. A hunter went beside her, the rest spread right and left. Eagerness shone and shivered in them.

  “Daraku,” Aryuk cried through tears, “what is this? Have you come back to your mother and me?”

  “I am theirs,” she answered dully. Pointing at the man next to her: “He, the Red Wolf, wants me to help speak. They have not yet learned much about our speaking. I know some of theirs.”

  “How … how have you been, my dear, oh, my dear?”

  “Men use me. I work. Two of the women are kind when they meet me.”

  Aryuk wiped his eyes with the back of his free hand. He swallowed a lump of vomit. To the Red Wolf he said, “I know you. We met when you first came and I was with my powerful friend. Afterward, when she had gone away, you sought me out and took my girl. What wicked ghost is in you?”

  The hunter made the motion of one who brushes off a fly. Had he understood? Did he care? “Wanayimo— Cloud People,” he answered. Aryuk could barely follow the thick utterance. “Want wood, fish, omulaiyeh—” He looked at Daraku and snarled a string of sounds.

  She talked in words, tonelessly, staring past her father and brothers. “I told them how you meet here. I had to. They said it is a good time to come to tell you. They want Us—they want you to bring them things. Always. They will tell you what and how much. You must.”

  “What do they mean?” cried Huyok of Otter Strand. “Are they hungry? We have little to spare, but—but—”

  The Red Wolf ripped forth more noises. Daraku wet her lips. “Do what they say and they will not harm you. I am their mouth today.”

  “We can trade—” Huyok began.