"Right about what?" he managed to ask.
Lifting her head, she gazed at him; her eyes seemed to have shrunk so that the pupils gleamed like tiny, burning points, no longer located in space but somehow hovering before him, blinding him almost. "Someone is working against us," she said. "They have it, too. Control of time. Thwarting us, enjoying it . . ." She laughed. "Yes, enjoying it. Mocking us." Abruptly, with a swing of her robes, she turned away from Parsons and disappeared past the ring of attendants.
Parsons, stepping back, saw the final surface of the Soul Cube slide into place. Once again the figure floated in eternal stasis. Dead and silent. Beyond the reach of the living.
ELEVEN
Standing beside Parsons, Helmar muttered, "It's not your fault." Together, they watched the cube lifted upright. "We have enemies," Helmar said. "This happened before, when we went back into time and tried to recreate the situation. But we thought it was a natural force, a phenomenon of time. Now we know better. Our worst fears are justified. This did not happen through an impersonal force."
"Perhaps not," Parsons said. "But don't see motive where there is none." They are a little paranoid, he decided. Possibly rightly so. "As Loris told me," he continued, "none of you fully comprehend the principles that lie behind time. Isn't it still possible that--"
"No," Helmar said flatly. "I know. We all know." He started to speak further, and then, seeing something, he stopped.
Parsons turned. He, too, had meant to go on. But his words choked off.
For the first time he had noticed her.
She had entered silently, a few moments ago. Two armed guards stood on each side of her. A stir went through the room, among the people present.
She was old. The first old person that Parsons had seen in this world.
Approaching the old woman, Loris said, "He is dead again. They managed to destroy him once again."
The old woman advanced silently toward the cube, toward the dead man who lay within. She was, even at her age, strikingly handsome. Tall and dignified. A mane of white hair down the back of her neck . . . the same broad forehead. Heavy brows. Strong nose and chin. Stern, powerful face.
The same as the others. This old woman, the man in the cube, everybody at the Lodge--all partook of the same physical characteristics.
The stately old woman had reached the rim of the cube. She gazed at it, unspeaking.
Loris took her arm. "Mother--"
There it was. The old woman was Loris' mother. The wife of the man in the cube.
It fitted. He had been in the cube thirty-five years. The old woman was probably seventy. His wife! This pair, this couple, had spawned the powerful, full-breasted creature who ruled the Wolf Tribe, the most potent human being alive.
"Mother," Loris said. "We'll try once more. I promise."
Now the old woman had noticed Parsons. Instantly, her face became fierce. "Who are you?" she asked in a deep, vibrant voice.
Loris said, "He's the doctor who tried to bring Corith back."
The old woman was still looking frigidly at Parsons. Gradually her features softened. "It's not your fault," she said at last. For a moment she lingered by the cube. "Later," she said. "Once more." She turned for a last look at Parsons, then at the man in the cube. And then the old woman and her attendants moved away, back toward the lift from which they had emerged. She had come up from the subsurface levels that honeycombed the ground beneath their feet--unguessed regions that he had never seen and probably would never see. The guarded, secret core of the Lodge.
All the men and women stood silently as the old woman passed among them. Heads bowed slightly. Reverence. They were all acknowledging her, Loris' mother. The regal, white-haired old woman who moved slowly and calmly across the room, away from the cube. Her face creased and frozen in grief. The mother of the Mother Superior--
The mother of them all!
At the lift she halted and half-turned. She made a faint motion with her hand, a motion that took them all in. She was recognizing them. Her children.
It was clear. Helmar, Loris, all the rest of them, all seventy or so, were descended from this old lady, and from the man who lay in the cube. Yet one thing did not fit.
The man in the cube and this old woman. If they were man and wife--
"I'm glad you saw her," Loris said, from beside him.
"Yes," he said.
"Did you see how she took it? She was an inspiration to us, in our deprivation. A model for us to follow." Now Loris, too, seemed to have regained her poise.
"Good," Parsons murmured. His mind was racing. The old woman and the man in the cube. Corith, she had called him. Corith--their father. That made sense. Everything made sense but one thing. And that one thing was a little difficult to get past.
Both Corith and the old woman, his wife, showed identical physical characteristics.
"What is it?" Loris was demanding. "What's wrong?"
Parsons shook himself and forced his mind to turn outward. "I'm having trouble," he said. "To have him die again, and in the same way."
"Always," Loris said. "It's always the same way. The arrow driven through his heart, killing him instantly."
"No variation?"
"None of importance."
He said, "When did it happen?" His question did not seem to be clear to her. "The arrow," he said. "There are no such weapons in use in this time period, are there? I assume it happened in the past."
"True," she admitted with a shake of her head. "Our work with time, our explorations--"
"Then you had the time-travel equipment first," he said. "Before his death."
She nodded.
Parsons said, "At least thirty-five years ago. Before your birth."
"We have been at it a long time."
"Why? What are you trying to do?" He shot the question at her, forcing it on her. "What's this scheme you all have? Tell me. If you expect me to help you--"
"We don't expect you to help us," she said bitterly. "There's nothing you can do for us. We'll send you back. Your efforts are over; you have no further job here." Leaving him, she moved away, her head bowed, lost in contemplation of the disaster that had befallen them all.
The whole family, Parsons thought as he watched her thread her way among the others. Brothers and sisters. But that still did not explain the physical resemblance between Corith and his wife; the thing had to be carried back to another level.
And then he saw something that made him shrink into immobility. This time, he was the only one who had seen. The others were too wrapped up in their problems. Even Loris hadn't noticed.
Here was the missing element. The basic key that had been lacking.
She was standing in the shadows at the very edge of the room. Out of sight. She had come up with the other old woman, Loris' mother. But she had not emerged from the darkness. She remained hidden, watching everything that happened from her place of concealment.
She was unbelievably old. A tiny shriveled-up thing. Wizened and bent, claw-like hands, broomstick legs beneath the hem of her dark robe. A dry little bird face, wrinkled skin, like parchment. Two dulled eyes, set deep in the yellowing skull, a wisp of white hair like a spider web.
"She's completely deaf," Helmar said softly, close by him. "And almost blind."
Parsons started. "Who is she?"
"She's almost a century old. She was the first. The very first." Helmar's voice broke with emotion. He was shaking visibly, in the possession of primordial tidal surges that vibrated through his entire body. "Nixina--the mother of them both. The mother of Corith and Jepthe. She is the Urmutter."
"Corith and Jepthe are brother and sister?" Parsons demanded.
Helmar nodded. "Yes. We're all related."
His mind spun wildly. Inbreeding. But why? And in this society, how?
How was inbreeding accomplished in a world where the racial stock was thrown into one common pool? How had this magnificent family, this genuine family, been maintained?
T
hree generations. The grandmother, the mother and father. Now the children.
Helmar had said: She was the first. The tiny shriveled-up creature was the first--what?
Now the frail shape moved forward. The eyes lost their dulled film, and Parsons saw that she was looking directly at him. The shrunken lips trembled, and then, in a voice audible to him, she said, "Do I see a white person over there?" Step by step, as if blown gradually forward by some invisible wind, she approached him. Helmar at once hurried to her side, to assist her.
Holding out her hand to Parsons, the old woman said, "Welcome." He found himself taking the hand; it felt dry and cold and rough. "You're the--what is the word?" For a moment the alertness faded from the eyes. And then it returned. "The doctor who tried to bring my son back to life." The old woman paused, her breath coming irregularly. "Thank you for your efforts," she finished in a hoarse whisper.
Not certain what to reply, Parsons said, "I'm sorry it wasn't successful."
"Perhaps . . ." Her voice ebbed, like the rise and fall of a far-off sea. "The next time." She smiled vaguely. And then, as before, her faculties focused; the brightness returned. "Isn't it an irony, that a white person would be involved in this . . . or haven't they told you what we are trying to do?"
The whole room had become silent. All eyes had become fixed on Parsons and the ancient little woman. No one spoke; no one dared try to hinder her. Parsons, too, felt some of their veneration.
He said, "No. No one has told me."
"You should know," Nixina said. "It's not just unless you know. I'll tell you. My son Corith is responsible for the idea. Many years ago, when he was a young man like yourself. He was very brilliant. And so ambitious. He wanted to make everything right, erase the Terrible Five Hundred Years . . ."
Parsons recognized the term. The period of white supremacy. He found himself nodding.
"You saw the portraits?" the old woman breathed, gazing past Parsons. "Hanging in the central hall . . . the great men in their ruffled collars. The noble explorers." She chuckled, a dry laugh, like leaves blowing in the wind. Dried-up, fallen leaves at nightfall. "Corith wanted to go back. And the government knew how to go back, but it didn't realize that it knew."
Still no one spoke. No one tried to stop her. It was impossible; they could not presume.
Nixina said, "So my son went back. To the first New England. Not the famous one, but the other one. The real one. In California. Nobody remembers . . . but Corith read all the records, the old books." Again she chuckled. "He wanted to start there, in Nova Albion. But he didn't get very far." The dulled eyes blazed. Like Loris', Parsons thought. For a moment he caught the heritage, the resemblance. Bending, he listened to the dry whisper as it went on, only half directed to him, more a kind of remembering rather than any communication. "On June 17," she said. "In 1579. He sailed into a port to work on his ship. He claimed the land for the Queen. How well we all know." She turned to Helmar.
"Yes," Helmar agreed quietly.
"For a little more than a month," the old woman said. "He was there. They careened their ship."
Parsons said, "The Golden Hind." He understood now.
"And Corith came down," the old woman whispered, smiling up at Parsons. "And instead . . . they shot him. Through his heart, with an arrow. And he died." Her eyes faded, and then became opaque.
"She'd better rest," Helmar said. Gently, he led the old woman away; the other gray-clad shapes closed in, and she was gone. Parsons no longer saw her.
That was their great plan. To change the past by going back centuries, before the time of the white empires. To find Drake encamped in California, helpless while his ship was being repaired. To kill him, the first Englishman to claim part of the New World for England.
They had special hatred for the English; of all the colonial powers, the English had been the most conscious of race. The most certain of their superiority to the Indians. They had not interbred.
Parsons thought, They wanted to be there, on the shore, to meet the English. Waiting. To shoot them down with equal weapons, or possibly even superior weapons. To make it a fair contest--or an unfair contest, but the other way.
How could he blame them? They had come back, centuries later, regrouped, to regain control of their own lives. But the memory had not died. Revenge. To avenge the crimes of the past.
But Drake--or somebody at the time of Drake--had shot first.
By himself, Parsons found his way to the central hall in which the portraits of the sixteenth century explorers hung. For a time he studied them. One after another, he thought. Drake would have been first, and then--Cortez? Pizarro? And so on, down the line. As they landed with their helmeted troops, they would be wiped out--the conquerors, the plunderers, and the pirates. Prepared to find a passive, helpless population, they would instead come face-to-face with the calculating, advanced descendents of that population. Grim and ready. Waiting.
There certainly was justice to it. Harsh, cruel. But he could not hold back his tacit sympathy.
Returning to the portrait of Drake, he scrutinized it more closely. The sharp, well-trimmed beard. High forehead. Wrinkles at the outer corners of the eyes. The well-chiseled nose. The Englishman's hand attracted Parsons' attention. Tapered, elongated fingers, almost feminine. The hand of a sailor? More the hand of a nobleman. An aristocrat. Of course, the portrait was idealized.
Going on, he found a second portrait, this one an engraving. This one showed Drake's hair as curly. And the eyes much larger and deeper colored. Rather fleshy cheeks. A less expertly done portrait, but perhaps more accurate. And in this one, the hands small and even weak looking. The hands of a ship's captain?
Something about the portrait struck him as familiar. Lines of the face. The curly hair. The eyes.
For a long time he studied the portrait, but he could not pin down the familiarity. At last, reluctantly, he gave up.
He hunted throughout the Lodge until he managed to locate Helmar. He found him conferring with several of his brethren, but at sight of Parsons, Helmar broke off.
Parsons said, "I'd like to see something."
"Of course," Helmar said formally.
"The arrow that I removed from Corith's chest."
"It has been taken below," Helmar said. "I can have it brought up, if you feel it's important."
"Thanks," Parsons said. He waited tensely while two servants were sent off. "Have you given it a thorough examination?" he asked Helmar.
"For what?"
He did not answer. At last the arrow, in a transparent bag, was brought to him. Eagerly, he unfastened the wrapping and seated himself to study the thing.
"Could I have my instrument case?" he asked presently.
The servants were dispatched; they soon returned with the dented gray case. Opening it, Parsons lifted out various tools; before long he had begun cutting microscopic sections from the wood of the arrow, and then the feathers, and, at last, the flint point. Using chemicals from his supply, he arranged first one test and then another. Helmar watched. After a time Loris appeared, evidently summoned.
"What are you looking for?" Loris asked, her face still strained.
Parsons said, "I want this flint analyzed. But I can't do it."
"I suppose we have the equipment to do it," Helmar said. "But it would take us quite a time to get the results."
Slightly more than an hour later, the results were brought to him. He read the report, and then passed it to Loris and Helmar.
Parsons said, "The feathers are artificial. A thermoplastic. The wood is yew. The head is flint, but chipped with a metal tool, such as a chisel."
They stared at him in bewilderment. "But we saw him die," Loris said. "Back in the past--in 1579. In Nova Albion."
"Who shot him?" Parsons said.
"We never saw. He started down the cliff and then he fell."
"This arrow," Parsons said, "was not produced by New World Indians of the sixteenth century or by anyone of that century. It was made la
ter than 1930, considering the substance from which the feathers were made."
Corith had not been killed by someone from the past!
TWELVE
It was evening. Jim Parsons and Loris were standing on the balcony of the Lodge, watching the distant lights of the city. The lights shifted and moved constantly. An ever-changing pattern that glittered and winked through the clear darkness of the night. Like man-made stars, Parsons thought. And all colors.
"In that city," Loris said. "Somebody there. Some person down among those lights made that arrow and shot it into my father's chest. And the second arrow, too. The one that still is buried in him."
And, Parsons thought, whoever it is has machinery for moving into time. Unless these people are misleading me. How do I know Corith died in Nova Albion, in 1579? He could have been shot down here, and the story could have been a concoction, put together by these people. But then, why would they have gone to the trouble to summon a doctor from the past? To heal a man whom they themselves had murdered?
"If you went back two times," he said aloud, "after he was shot originally, why didn't you see his attacker? Arrows don't carry far."
"It's quite rocky," Loris said. "Cliffs all along the beach. And my father--" she hesitated. "He kept himself apart, even from us. We were directly above the Golden Hind, looking down on Drake and his men while they worked."
"They didn't see you?"
"We put on clothing of the period. Fur wrappers. And they were busy working on their little ship. Working very industriously."
He said, "An arrow. Not a musket shot."
"We could never account for that," Loris said. "But Drake was not on the ship. He and a group of his men had gone off; that made my father's task more difficult. He had to wait. And then Drake appeared down the beach a distance, and held some sort of conference. So my father hurried down that way, out of our immediate sight."
"What would Corith have killed Drake with?"
"A force tube, like this." She went to her room and returned to the balcony, carrying a weapon familiar to Parsons. The shupos had had them, and so had Stenog. Evidently this was the standard hand weapon of this period.