I tell myself a lot of things. But you knew that.
She stood, lightly on her feet, for a moment in front of that clear panel, and pointed the toes of her back leg as if she were reaching for something. Maybe she arched her back a little too much. Even from this far away, I could hear her giggle.
“Don't overdo it, doll,” I muttered. “You don't want him to die of heart failure. Just get him to show himself.”
I had told her to keep the window tuned open. On a cold night like this, she would want to keep warm, and she might forget.
Winter nights were never supposed to visit here. The Masters of Time, the Lords of Fate, the Chronocrats, the guys who can play card tricks with eons, centuries, histories and futures and human lives like stage magicians, whatever you want to call them, they are supposed to take care of all that.
They had many names. Some squires, servants or stoolies had seen them in the high places, stalking without noise through empty museums or across empty air in their strangely faceless, mirror-perfect armor of solidified time-energy, with their crowns of eternity-light and robes of entropy-mist. The servants whispered that the Masters of Time, whenever voices issued from their armor, or from the walls, or from nowhere, called themselves the Time Wardens, as if it were their job to protect time from being twisted and abused. As if they were not the main abusers.
Beneath the towers was a cloudscape of mists and fogs, a side effect of all the parachronic and anachronic energies emitted by the hidden machines of the Chronocrats. Too many changes to too many versions of the past had altered the location of land and sea. The photons wandering through overlapping fields of Schroedinger's Blur made solid objects look like phantoms, and phantoms look like clouds of mist. Maybe the towers rested on bedrock deep enough that no change of world history, no matter how far back, could touch it, or maybe the Time Wardens merely ordered gravity to stand still and then nailed the baseless towers in place. Could they do that? Why not? Gravity had something to do with Time, after all. I remember hearing that at a party.
At the moment, the mists below the towers were agitated, and smoky arms of cloudscape were climbing upward toward the black sky. In them you could see unfocused images of mountains and islands and volcanoes, all flickering and shifting. That meant the Continuum Winds were blowing. The disturbances could have been caused by a careless Chronocrat meddling with his own past, or some sort of disagreement, or duel, or war between two or more of them.
Except the Masters of Time don't fight wars—how could they?—since all of them know how everything turns out. Or so I had been told, back when I worked for those bastards.
Regardless of the reason why, the mist was rising, sending smoky fingers reaching like greedy orphans toward the bright jewels of the upper floors. And the temperature was dropping, because heat getting randomized, like photons losing their way, is another side effect of a paradox poisoning the continuum.
The rising mist did not improve my mood. You can only patch a garment so many times before it falls to pieces. But you knew that.
People don't die here. The Wardens take care of everything. I'd been told that, too. Not that I was in the habit of believing everything I'm told.
Then I remembered that there was no final Old Gold waiting for me. Some prophet from downstream had filched that last cigarette from me, the bum. So it was back to bumming a puff from Queequeg's tomahawk, or putting the touch on Sir Walter Scott, who lived two levels down. But I don't like pipes or cigars as much as ciggies. They don't suit me.
On the other hand, the next time I had access to a working destiny crystal, I could step backward through the calendar, or reach my hand across last week and snatch it from my ghostward version. I did not remember minding, not clearly, so younger-me would not mind. Probably he would not.
The third member of the little party, Jack, had been posted in front of the other entrance to this suite, the one Queequeg was not watching. He kept walking back toward me, pretending he needed to hear the plan again, but really just because he was nervous, and wanted a chance to jaw.
Jack was fit, and looked young for his age, which I pegged somewhere between forty-five and fifty. He was dark-haired and slightly squint-eyed, with a serious and strong-jawed face. He had a black eye, but told me he didn't remember where he got it.
He was the client. Usually it was a mistake to bring the client out on a job, but this time, I did not see what other choice I had.
“That's her. What do you think? Just as pretty in real life, eh?” he said as he entered the silence field.
I had to give him points for remembering not to talk outside the field. He had a broad-voweled Boston accent, the high-class Hahvahd one. His breath was a cloud of cold steam.
“So that is Helen of Troy?” I said. “She don't look Greek to me.”
“No. She is just one of them. One of the Helens of Troy. Helen of Troys? What is the Plural of Helen of Troy?”
“Hellene," I guessed.
“Anyway, that one is mine. She's an actress. She can fool him. I'm sure she can.”
He was chattering because he was nervous. I wondered if he would shut up if I said nothing.
Nope. He kept talking. “What are our chances, Mr. Frontino?”
He was dressed normally. I mean, what looked normal to me: shoes, coat, tie, trenchcoat. You'd be surprised at how rare shoes are in history. Boots and sandals for horsemen and higher classes was the norm for most centuries, while everyone else went barefoot.
No hat, though. If the men of my near future decide to stop wearing the fedora, then they are crazy. It is not as if they do not have hot sun and cold wind in the near future, not to mention bald spots.
And what would you tip to a lady if a lady strolled by? And what could you use to casually cover your gun hand if a cop strolled by?
Maybe there are no ladies in the future, but don't tell me there are no cops. Even after all history is over and done with, and the Masters of Time have retired to their golden city, there will still be cops. I know. I used to be one.
Jack was from the same timestream as me, same country, even the same century. By Metachronopolitan standards, that made us practically Siamese Twins. He was twenty years prophetic to me (or I was twenty years ghostly to him, same difference), but I could say things like: “Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more” without either of us needing to have the artificial part of our memory blur in timeshift in order to insert a retroactive recollection of having had learned a language, or a lingo, we didn't previously remember having learned.
The Wardens can do things like that for their servants and serfs and slaves, as well as the people they keep as pets.
This tower was designated Special Prestige, which meant it had a double helping of golden light shining from it by day, more ambrosia in the air by night, more soaring music pouring from upper windows at odd hours, more gaiety and laughter. It also meant that if a slob with no prestige like me tried to step onto the high-arching bridges from the balcony of another tower, I would have found myself slipping through the diamond surface of the walkway and back five seconds to the moment before. Unless, that is, Jack, or someone else the Wardens took a fancy to, walked in with me.
“Our chances are good, aren't they, Mr Frontino? You've done this before, right?. You came highly recommended. Lucky Luciano said–” Then he must have realized his voice was creeping, note by note, into a higher pitch, and he clenched his teeth, hugging himself for warmth.
At this altitude, the tower was Greco-Roman. Higher up was European Ascendancy, Industrial Revolution, and rumors said there was even chamber dedicated to a Moonshot somewhere way high up, in the Twentieth Century level. At the moment we were low down, near the boundary where history turns into myth, but the tower was still plenty bright. Just not here, in this immediate section.
Behind me was the gently arching bridge leading across the nothingness to the shining tower of Babylon, where the folk and museum pieces came from the stream of time wher
e the Greeks didn't win the pennant at Thermopylae, and it was the Persians who settled everywhere from the Mediterranean to the British Isles, discovered the jib sail, the printing press, gunpowder, and the New World. I didn't recognize any of the names that came after Cyrus, Xerxes and Darius.
But there is very little traffic between Babylonian and European Towers. There were no gardens nor cottages on this vast bridge as there were on so many others, nor were there rails, and most of the golden deck plates of solidified time energy were dark. There were even gaps in the understructure, gaping holes where plates were missing.
Why were there no rails on the bridge? Then again, why should there be? A Warden who reads in his future diary that he is due to fall off a bridge that day will just stay in bed. No, no one important cares if one of us little pawns falls off. The next time a Warden wants our services, he will simply make it so that we have not died and never did, as easily as he might ring for Jeeves the butler.
“Mr. K., there no such thing as chance in this town,” I answered him. My throat was sore and my voice was a little rawer than it should have been. Blame the hooch. I could not get good whiskey here, and I sure as hell did not go out on nights like this, on a job like this, without one shot to warm me up, and another to steady my nerve. “There are only three ways this plays out. Either the guy is running blind and he is too dead to go back and warn himself, or nothing is going to happen because he looked ahead, saw the outcome, and decided not to show.”
Jack had been some sort of big deal back in his home time. He was well-connected to the Old Money, and even better connected to the Mob, and he was an ace at politics. He was one of the most powerful men in the world in his day. But now he was just one more minor card in the deck of the Wardens. Here, even a historical somebody the Masters of Time liked to play with was still a nobody.
“Call me Jack.” I don't think he was scared. He might have been trembling just from the cold. After all, the guy had been in the service. He had seen combat. You can always tell. It's in the look in the eyes, the set of the shoulders.
“I appreciate the gesture, sir. I do." I said patiently. “But you're a client of mine, and if Beidler or Jefferson gets wind of this, or Alexander the Great… if there is any investigation, I never knew you. A man's got to watch his own back. I do what I am hired to.”
“I understand that. But if you are not on a first name basis with a man who is pulling a—is doing a—I mean, doing a job for you–”
Then again, maybe it was not the cold making him shiver. Shooting a man in the enemy uniform in a hot war when he is shooting at you, that is not the same as gunning down a guy in cold blood who dresses like you.
“It's not homicide,” I said flatly, cutting him off.
“Whatever you want to call it,” he said with a shrug. “Just so it gets done.”
His voice was normally charming, smooth, rich-toned. Now it was colder than the mists closing in. It was the voice of a judge pronouncing a death sentence, or a commander-in-chief sending brave young men to their deaths.
“No, sir,” I said. “I mean that it really will not be homicide. I am going to wait until she's in actual danger. Slaying a man in self defense or defense of others is justified. Killing him for the sake of revenge is not.”
“Not even revenge for rape? Not even for that?”
Maybe the cold was giving him the shakes. Maybe he was scared. Or maybe he was shaking with rage.
I shrugged. Don't get me wrong. I felt for the guy. I would have done the same thing in his shoes. Heck, I once killed a man for beating a girl. (I would have just broke a finger or two if he had not pulled a knife. I took it out of his hand and left it in his eye.) Girls are special. You are supposed to take care of girls. Defend them. I get it. I understand.
But I got my principles. They aren't the best principles in the world. In fact, they are pretty shabby. Someday I should take them out of hock, polish them up. But they are what I got. They are all I got.
Killing a man in cold blood, no. I won't do it. Killing a man attacking a girl in her bedroom in cold blood, you bet. Glad to.
Because if you rescue Helen of Troy, that makes you a hero, and old Homer will sing a song about you.
Old Homer lives directly below me, off the waste chute in the hall, and sometimes I bring him doughnuts, if I can steal them from the Great War commissary, which is two floors up. He sang a mighty song for Little John when John saved Helen from Paris of Troy by cracking the kid's spine with a quarterstaff. From the gut-side, I should mention.
And Homer sang a mighty song for William "Big Bill" Dwyer when Bill saved another version of Helen, who was from a parallel timeline where she was married to Theseus of Athens before being carried off by Menelaus of Sparta. The Spartan king ended up with a longshoreman's hook through his soft parts. Little John was one of Robin Hood's gang, and a cutpurse, and Big Bill had been a stevedore before he turned to rum-running and hockey.
I didn't want to be a hero. Dangerous work. Lousy pay. But it is better than being a murderer, and I wouldn't have minded that song.
Beside, Judge Roy Bean said he would buy a drink at the Stag's Head for anyone Homer sings about. Homer gets free drinks himself for singing about a guy named Demodocus.
“I will rescue her,” I said. “And I will kill him in the act if he attacks her. And smile while I do it. But I will not assassinate anyone.”
Jack was silent for a moment, his eyes cast down. He was looking at the baseball bat I had tucked under my elbow. My other weapon, my Special, was holstered under my armpit. I also had a switchblade in my pocket, giving me three weapons.
“That's only two,” said Jack.
“Two what?” I said, surprised. For a moment I was wondering if he knew I was counting up the number of guys who killed people for Helen. Or counting my weapons.
“Outcomes. Three outcomes.” He said. “But you only mentioned two. What is the third?”
“The third outcome is that he saw what is going to happen and likes the way it turned out. That means he brings the Tin Woodman.”
“The what?”
“A mechanical man. Like Elektro from the New York World's Fair. A robot. It can timeshift up to five minutes, and it will always be where it needs to be before you can. Bullets and rays and stuff bounce off its armor, unless you hit it in a joint, because the armor is made out of solid time-stuff like the tower walls. The one weakness it has is that whatever is not listed as a weapon in its orders, it ignores. Some of them are more sophisticated than others.”
“Others? Is there more than one?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. It might be the same one from different moments in time. And it's armed. It carries an ax. It can step forward or back in time through a five-minute range, until it finds the one split-second you are off-balance or not looking. It can take all the time in the world and try again as often as it likes. It takes trophies too. It chops off the heads and stores them inside its skull, which is hollow and made of glass like a fishbowl, so that everyone can see who it killed last.”
“Grisly. Sounds like something from your Man's island.”
“He's not my Man.”
“What?”
“Quickwig.” (That's not his name, but it's as close as us guys from the Bronx can say it.) “He's doing me a favor out of the benevolence of his big heart. It's not like I got anything to swap him for. Besides, he is a prince. Back in his day.”
Jack nodded. He knew the feeling.
“So Quickwig outranks me,” I said.
“He does not seem like the type who does your kind of work.”
“The first time I met Quickwig, we were rooming together. We had to share a bed, because of the crowding. He came at me with his harpoon and I was too slow with my pistol. I had to wrestle him. He broke my neck, and the Time Wardens brought me back to life. So I decided we had to be friends. I replayed the scene and gave him the bed this time, and bowed politely to his little fetish named Yojo, and once Yojo said I was jake,
everything was copacetic.”
“Sounds like a good man to have in your corner.”
“He is. Even though he eats people.”
Jack shivered again. “You come from the Twentieth Century. You know modern life has a price. The noble savage is closer to unspoiled Eden than we are.”
“Don't be a jerk, sir, if you don't mind my saying so. Every sorry last one of us is just as far from Eden as everyone else.” I said. The words tasted bitter in my mouth. I turned my head and spat over the railing. The wad of spittle arced down into the mist, lost interest in gravity, and dissolved.
“In any case, the beheading habit allows the Tin Man to make kill-identifications easier back at the station. And if there is a Warden at the station, sometimes he will backdate the Tin Man, so it when you suddenly find it standing next to you with an axe, you can see your own bloody head, with a surprised and stupid look of shock, staring out from inside the hollow glass helmet of the machine. At least, I think the Tin Woodman is a machine.”
“You mean you don't know?”
“Quickwig says the Tin Woodman is a hobgoblin called Talamaur. They suck life from the dying. and eat the hearts of healthy men when they sleep. Who can say his guess is not closer to the horseshoe stake of truth than mine?”
“Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas any more,” said Jack sourly. “So what happens if he has a Tin Man with him?”
“Then the third outcome is a sure thing.”
“What's that?”
“If he shows up with a Tin Woodman, I am already dead.”
At that moment, a beautiful, softly lilting song, half-breathless, half-panting and all-purring, came from the window. She was singing. It sounded so much like a love song, a song of erotic passion, that I did not actually catch the words.
When I did, I laughed. She really was pulling out all the stops, wasn't she?
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you-uu
Happy birthday-yy