John G. Hemry - These are the Times.pdf - Jack_Cambell-John_H_Hemry - ms500

THESE ARE THE TIMES

by JOHN G. HEMRY

* * * *

Illustrated by William Warren

* * * *

Pratical time travel could make a historian’s job a lot simpler—or a lot

more complicated!

Like different people, some places and times in the past attract a lot more

attention than others. Sometimes a particular there and then only needs a few

Temporal Interventionists dropping by before every question is pretty much

answered. Lady Godiva, for example, who really did do her bareback ride, but no

one who saw her picture in action once wanted to see it again. They probably

forgave the taxes just so she’d put her clothes back on.

Other places get a fairly constant stream of TIs either trying to change

things for their clients or trying to collect information from the past. It’s hard to

visit Washington, D.C. anytime during the first three centuries of the United

States, for example, without tripping over fellow TIs.

Then there’s very specific there and thens, places and times where

something special happened, a turning point, and everyone wants to be there.

Like Boston, Massachusetts, in April 1775 C.E.

I’d landed what should have been a nice, simple job. No Interventions this

time by someone wanting to ensure Great-Great-Great-etc.-Uncle Ned made it to

Lexington Green so they’d have a hero in the family instead of an ancestor who’d

stayed in bed with a hangover that morning, or someone wanting to murder Paul

Revere or poison his horse. That stuff could get hazardous, especially with so

many TIs from different centuries clustered in this here and now all trying to

either carry out their own Interventions or stop someone else from achieving their

Intervention.

There wasn’t anything dangerous in my job description. I was supposed to

jump back uptime before sunset on the eighteenth, well before serious shooting

started, and any travel by me near decision points or critical individuals would be

finished well before then. No, all I had to worry about was being caught in the

crossfire between TIs fighting before that time to either create or block

Interventions. Unfortunately, this here and now had a lot of crossfire, and as a TI

myself, I looked entirely too much like one of the combatants, so I stayed as alert

as anyone else who knew a secret war was underway around them. That’s aside

from the fact that I was trying to blend in with the locals, who were also ready and

willing to commit potentially homicidal actions against each other.

I’d been sent back by the Virtual City project, whose latest plan was to

record everything said and done in Boston and the nearby surrounding area on 18

and 19 April 1775. Important places, like where the Sons of Liberty had met, had

long since been bugged, so you could get detailed transcripts of everything said by

anyone of any importance in the city on those days. But the Virtual City project

aimed to create a visual and auditory record of the entire place and time. Once all

of the data from the thousands of bugs was integrated, individuals several

centuries from 1775 would be able to “walk” down the streets of this here and

now, go into just about any building, and hear and see what had actually

happened to anyone, not just the famous people.

Historians loved it, people who enjoyed soap operas loved it, privacy

advocates screamed bloody murder and pointed out that people farther uptime

could be doing the same thing to us. But the law said no such project could include

any living person, so not enough people who were alive objected to it. And like

every other TI, my implanted personal assistant made sure I was invisible to the

bugs, so no future voyeurs would be eyeing me. Historians insisted on that so we

wouldn’t mess up the record, which is sort of ridiculous since TIs spend a good

part of their time messing up history. It’s what we do. Historians love us for the

facts we can tell them and hate us for changing the facts we tell them.

But I wasn’t out to change anything this time. My job consisted of walking

down a preplanned grid of streets while the bug deployment gear built into the

heavy coat I wore spat out bugs according to its own programming. To the casual

observer here and now who got close enough to one, the bugs looked like gnats

as they flitted into position on buildings or inside windows and doors to observe

activity inside. Each had a nice array of visual and audio recording gear that would

send their data to collection arrays, which I and other TIs had dropped off in

various places where they looked like rocks. If any local picked one up, they’d feel

like rocks, too.

All I had to do was keep one internal eye focused on the map my implanted

Assistant named Jeannie displayed my route on, and one external eye on the

assorted denizens of Boston, other obstacles to be avoided, and anything

suspicious or dangerous.

Not exactly safe, but not the most hazardous job I’d ever had, either.

Everything went fine until I realized somebody was following me.

He was aristocratic looking, fair haired, wearing very nice clothes, and

seemed the sort of guy who robbed people by embezzling from the bank he

owned rather than the sort who followed someone down an alley and hit them on

the head. But he kept showing up in my peripheral vision and that got me worried.

I finally turned quickly and focused on him for a moment before turning

away again. Jeannie, lock on. Can you ID this guy? Internal communications come

in very useful at such times.

Negative, Jeannie responded. You’ve never encountered him before, but

he’s not a local. He does have an implanted time-jump mechanism. I can’t be

certain from this distance, but it seems a couple of generations more primitive

than yours, placing the man’s origin a little more than a century before our home

now.

Any weapons?

None detected.

Which didn’t mean none were there. But I had to know what this guy

wanted with me, and accosting him in public was less risky than letting him choose

the moment. I turned the next corner as my preplanned route directed, but then

pivoted and took several quick steps back to the corner just in time to meet my tail

as he came around. “Hi, citizen,” I greeted him in a low voice as the crowds of

locals walked past us, using the anachronistic term on purpose to get his reaction.

He glowered at me. “You’ve got your nerve.” High-class British accent, and

very well done. I wondered if it was authentic. “Do you think I don’t know what

you’re doing?”

“Since you’ve got an implanted Assistant and jump mechanism I’m sure you

know what I’m doing. So what? It’s not about you.”

His glower changed into a snarl. “I suppose it’s just a coincidence that

you’re planting sensors in the same area where I was waylaid tomorrow.”

“As far as I know, yes.” Wait a minute. If he was here tomorrow and knew

what had happened, that meant he was also probably here today. “You

doubled-back? You’ve got dual-presence in this here and now, and both within

this city?” Instead of answering directly, he smiled unpleasantly. “Don’t you know

what that can do to someone’s mind?” No one knows why, but being consciously

present in the same here and now more than once can create a lot of problems

that mimic old ailments like schizophrenia and paranoia. The closer you physically

are, the worse the effects are.

“That’s only a problem for weak-minded mongrels,” he replied with that

supercilious sneer that only a many-generational member of the upper class can

really carry off. “You think yourself very superior. But you’ve met your match.”

“Look, I’m not—”

“You won’t stop me!” He must be one of the guys trying an Intervention. I

took a moment to wonder what, but it didn’t matter much. Everyone who made

any difference in the events of the next few days had TI bodyguards secretly

following them everywhere. Every building that mattered had other TIs guarding

them and sweeping them for bombs and such. The people who wanted to keep

history the way it more or less was in general had a lot more money than the ones

who wanted to change things, and could hire more TIs to protect turning points in

history. Some of them must have taken out this Brit tomorrow.

His sneer turned contemptuous. “I know your kind. Sit back safely, give the

orders, send out your hooligans to do your dirty work while you pull the strings

within your lair. It’s a regular Moriarty you consider yourself, isn’t it?”

“Actually, no.”

He leaned close, his face reddening with anger. “You stopped me tomorrow,

but you won’t stop me tomorrow this time. Try to sic your hounds on me again

and I’ll be ready.”

I leaned a little closer, too, emphasizing my words. “I don’t know you, I

don’t care what you’re trying to do, I’m not here on Intervention or

Counter-Intervention or Counter-Counter-Intervention. I’m just working for a

data collection project. Go away and I promise you any further interactions

between us will be purely by chance.”

“You lie. I have my eye on you Moriarty. Neither you nor your ruffians will

be safe if you try to cross me again.”

I started losing my temper, too. “Listen, you moron. I’m not Moriarty, but if

you mess with me I’ll do a Wellington on you. Understand?”

His eyes narrowed, he shifted his weight, and I braced for him to jump me.

I’ve got a tranquilizer crystal shooter embedded in one finger that can knock out

someone for a long time, and if necessary, I’d use it on this loon. But he just

glanced around, taking in the crowds passing by, then stepped back slightly.

“Right, Yank. Think you can rule the world, eh? And all time as well. Not bloody

likely. Keep yourself and your brutes away from me and my plans.” Then he spun

about and vanished rapidly around the corner.

I blew out a long breath, relaxed, then started walking my route again.

Jeannie, any idea what that last little speech of his was about?

He seems to believe that you’re a citizen of the United States, which

supplanted the United Kingdom as the world’s most powerful political entity.

That figured. Someone out to try to cause the U.K. to stay on top of the

world longer than it had. Since I didn’t intend going anywhere near any potential

targets for someone like that, he’d hopefully go off and follow some other

innocent TI through the streets of Boston.

My route took me down toward the docks, where the smell of the sea,

rotting fish, and raw sewage got worse. Even though the port had been closed by

British authorities since the Boston Tea Party a while back, there was still plenty of

street traffic here. The narrow lane ahead was partially blocked by a cart holding

some of those fish, so I worked through the throng squeezing past on one side.

Standing against a building up ahead was a man wearing a cloak draped

around him, his tricorn hat pulled low on his forehead. He looked up as I drew

near and our eyes locked.

I came to a dead stop, drawing some mumbles of anger from those who

had to suddenly avoid me.

The boat-cloaked figure stepped forward and extended one hand.

“Thomas? I’m Palmer. I trust you remember me from London?”

“Palmer?” I took the hand, which would have been slim on a man. “Fancy

meeting you here.”

“I had business.” Her voice sounded deeper than I recalled, probably

because her own Assistant was tweaking her vocal cords so she’d pass as a male.

The locally fashionable male wig helped, too, as did the clothes. Locals expecting to

see a man would see one. “It’s nice to see you here and now.”

John G. Hemry - These are the Times.pdf

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