The Shield of Time by Poul Anderson Page B

dangerous spies.”
    And when guards and prisoners at the hoosegow were mostly asleep, Sauvo used a timecycle to pop into the cell. Raor was willing to allow that much risk; she didn’t figure it was likely the Patrol had anyone in Bactra besides Chandrakumar and Holbrook, one now locked away, the other deprived of his gear and on the lam. Sauvo gave Chandrakumar a stun beam, clapped the kyradex on his head, and when he came to, interviewed him. Thoroughly.
    I hope he left the little guy alive. Yes, he doubtless did.
Why make the jailers wonder? What could Chandrakumar tell them tomorrow that’d show them he was anything but a lunatic?
    Draganizu stared at Raor. “You do have him besotted, do you not?” he said.
    “Him and several more,” Sauvo responded, while Raor demurely sipped her wine. He laughed. “The seething, jealous looks that Majordomo Xeniades gets! And I’m only supposed to be her employee, not her pimp.”
    Ah. Sauvo is Xeniades, chief of the household staff. Worth remembering…. I sympathize with Zoilus and company. Wouldn’t I love to get milady in the sack myself?
Everard’s grin twisted.
Though I wouldn’t dare fall asleep in her arms. She might have a hypo of cyanide tucked away in those raven locks.
    “The Greeks are holding Chandrakumar for us, then,” Draganizu said. “But what of the equipment that Holbrook had?”
    “He left it behind when he went out, at the house of the man in whose company he arrived,” Raor explained. “That person is simply a local merchant. He was dismayed when the squad came to say his guest is a spy and confiscate the guest’s baggage. We have no reason to make further trouble for this Hipponicus, and in fact, obviously, it would be unwise.”
That’s a relief!
“As for the baggage, it is here.” Her smile curved feline. “That took a little persuasion too, but Zoilus obliged. He has his ways. I have passed instruments over the property. Most is of this era. Some contains Patrol apparatus.”
    I guess she stowed it with the timecycles.
    Raor set her goblet down and sat straight. Metal rang in the liquid tones. “It shows we must be warier than ever. Overleaping space-time to get access to the prisoner was taking a necessary chance.”
    “Not a substantial one.” Sauvo presumably wanted to remind her, and perhaps inform Draganizu, that he had maintained this beforehand and that events had justified him. “Holbrook was no more than a courier, and of lowgrade. Physically formidable, but now his teeth are drawn, and it is clear that his intellect is limited.”
    Thanks, buddy.
    “Still,” Raor said, “we must track him down and dispose of him before he somehow gets in touch with others, or before the Patrol takes alarm and comes looking for him.”
    “They won’t know where to look. They will need days merely to gather the first clues.”
    “We need not help them,” Raor clipped. “If we can detect electronics, nucleonics, gravitronics, chronokinesis in action, so can they, and at much greater range. We must not give them any hint that any time travelers other than themselves are present. Between tonight and the climax, we use no more high technology. Is that understood?”
    “Unless in emergency,” Sauvo persisted.
Yeah, he’s trying to assert himself, trying not to be overwhelmed by the Varagan.
    “That emergency would likely be so extreme that our only course is to abandon this whole effort and scuttle off.” Raor’s scorn softened. “Which would be a pity. It’s gone gloriously thus far.”
    Draganizu had his own self-assertion to make, in his own more querulous style. “Glorious, pleasurable, for you.”
    He got a look that could have frozen helium. “If you think I enjoy the attentions of Zoilus and his kind, you are welcome to them.”
    Their nerves are wearing thin, after all the long underground toil. They’re mortal too.
It encouraged.
    Raor relaxed again, took up her wine, crooned, “I admit the puppeting of them has its