The Fourth Rome (24 page)

Orlov translated. All the Russians conferred. Roebeck’s head was spinning. How could these primitives
do
this? If they
had
done it.

Neat evaluated her speculatively.
“Roebecka,“
he said, adding a Russian suffix to her name, then jabbering at her in light-speed Russian. She hardly noticed Orlov translating.
It seemed to her that Neat himself was speaking in English, so accustomed to the translation procedure had she become.

“We cannot go further until we know how you are involved with Etkin and the KGB. This is very secret technology. Not known
to much of our government. Too dangerous for any single government to control. Our government might use this technology against
the Russian people if the Politburo’s inheritors knew of this. Do you understand?”

“Da, da,“
Roebeck said. These Russians understood at least some of what was at stake here. “What can I do to help?”

Orlov translated her words, then Neat’s response. “Dr. Neat says we must have international commission to regulate use of
know-how. We wish you to help arrange this? While protecting principals, of course. Before those you met yesterday do otherwise.”

Otherwise?

“Certainly,” Roebeck said. She’d do no such thing. But she still couldn’t be absolutely sure if those at yesterday’s meetings
were the revisionists she was seeking. Neat and Orlov might be fingering their own enemies for their own reasons. If this
Foreign Ministry clique were really the people who’d sent revisionists to 9
AD
, they couldn’t have done so without Neat. And Orlov was clearly involved up to his neck. Maybe Orlov was trying to feel her
out, make her break cover. Roe-beck must be very careful.

She chose her next words slowly, cautiously. Just because these particular Russians were giving her the party line didn’t
mean they had any interest in an international commission. Their work was still government supported, after all. “When I understand
just how this technology works and what you have at risk, we’ll discuss options. I have my own credibility to protect, you
must realize. I’m sure you’re aware how fanciful all this sounds. I must have proof. And we must be truthful with one another.
Then I can act.”

“Good,” Neat said, not waiting for Orlov to translate. The bastard had better English than he’d been pretending. “Then you
will tell us about what trouble we may expect from Director Etkin.”

“No trouble. We’ve got a social dinner, at seven tonight.” She’d better play the Etkin card herself, or they’d worry she was
either stupid or holding back. “I haven’t seen anything here worth troubling about. Some artifacts of experimentation with
no viable theoretical underpinnings. And nothing’s going to happen until I see something more concrete than a disappearing
mouse.”

A disappearing mouse on a one-way short-distance time trip with no geographical displacement—if that. The demonstration could
have been rigged. She was on their turf. They controlled what she saw.

Orlov translated her words, probably to give Neat time to think. Nan was now positive that Neat understood every word she
said.

“Yes, yes, yes,” Neat agreed. “We will arrange further demonstrations.”

“When will that be?” Roebeck asked. “I don’t have much time.”

Neat laughed as if she’d made a great joke. “Right now, this day. Time is what this know-how is concerning, yes? So, we shall
make time obey us. Then you will be convinced.”

Do that, old fox, and you bet I’ll be convinced.

“I’ll want to speak with the scientists—all the principals.” Roebeck wondered if she could get Chun over here without causing
these Russians to get terminal constipation. Probably not.

“We have arranged all things,” said Nikolai Neat. “We will show you much more before your dinner with Etkin, our friend from
the Academy of Sciences. You will know everything you must know.”

At least these Russians were consistent about distrusting one another. Factions will be factions.

Orlov added, “And since you have invited me to this dinner, perhaps afterward we may continue our work?”

“You bet. We’ll get out of the Etkin dinner as early as possible without being impolite. Then I’m all yours. We can work all
night long if you wish. I’d cancel the dinner, but it might insult our host.”

There were still four mice in a cage in front of her. She went over and lifted the cage to examine it. “To get you money and
support for new work, I need to evaluate this research and its value to us. I need to know enough to write a proposal. I need
to know where the real work is centered, who’s involved. How many people. I need to project a cost estimate for any ongoing
joint effort. On the other hand, I can buy existing reports or prototypes out of hand. However, to safeguard any work or contact
with us in future, I need to know who else in your government knows about this technology. What use others are making of it.
Can you trust me enough to let me help you?”

Without waiting for Orlov’s translation, Neat spoke. “We are capable of rectifying small errors in judgment, using this technology.
So it is not a matter of trust. It is a matter of mutual interests. We can help you. If we wish.”

The bastard was threatening her. And in doing so, he was letting his facade slip. Neat was now sounding exactly like a homegrown
revisionist in need of a one-way trip to 50K.

All that remained was to find out how many others were directly involved, where the technology was kept. Once that was done,
she could bring the ARC Riders’ considerable resources to bear.

This Foreign Ministry clique couldn’t be allowed to turn the world into a Russian nightmare of a Fourth Rome, with Dictator
for Life Nikolai Neat and his boy Lipinsky running the show.

Above all, one thing bothered Roebeck. In the mouse demonstration, nothing had been said about retrieving the mouse from its
past. Of course, a mouse couldn’t implement plans or utilize technology. But she’d been shown only the capability for a one-way
trip.

She remembered what Grainger had said about technology in Russia. When one group was working on something, the assumption
had to be made that others were working independently. So did she have the right group? Was there another, independent effort
that was farther along? Or was Neat’s group, hungry for dollars, nevertheless unwilling to show the real extent to which they’d
developed their technology?

Roebeck needed Chun to evaluate what she’d seen. Now that she had formulated what seemed like an answer to her primary question
of who was messing with the timeline from this horizon, secondary questions were popping up like weeds.

The most difficult data to accept was the information about implants. How did the traveler get back? Did the effect wear off,
and the person automatically revert to his native space-time after an interval? Not very practical. Was there some way of
calibrating and reprogramming the implants on the fly? Did the handheld control all travel parameters?

If the Russian handheld could replace the whole TC in which the ARC Riders had come here, then the base technology had to
be from Up The Line.
Had
to be.

There was no other explanation. Such miniaturization of power sources was still impossible in Roebeck’s epoch. Nobody in his
right mind would take a one-way trip to 9
AD
. Or to anywhere else for that matter. So that wasn’t a possibility. Therefore, somebody from Up The Line was running a mission
in which this timeline was a secondary staging area. And that somebody was going to great pains to have the technology look
homegrown.

The science community here flat didn’t have the skill to produce a handheld with even the rudimentary capabilities demonstrated
by Neat’s group. The mouse, which had traveled minutes into the past when touched with that handheld, was proof that the handheld
and the implant worked just fine.

Now all she had to find out was who controlled the technology, where it was centered, how many key people were involved, and
how to eradicate all knowledge of it from this horizon. For starters.

If the ARC Riders were up against operators from Up The Line, people from the ARC Riders’ own future with better equipment
and superior knowledge, then they might be in over their heads on this mission. She’d never heard of an ARC mission Up The
Line, past the 26th, past Central’s locus. She was pretty sure there couldn’t be one. Safeguards against that very eventuality
had been put in place before the Up The Line folks gave their technology to the savages who comprised the ARC Riders. So if
this technology was from farther Up The Line than the ARC Riders could reach, then what?

You heard stories about adult supervision for the ARC Riders coming from Up The Line. Maybe somebody way above Roebeck’s pay
grade could send a message to those adult supervisors. But more help than that probably wasn’t going to be forthcoming from
beyond the 26th century. Whatever this furball was made up of in this century, Nan Roebeck’s team of ARC Riders was going
to have to spit it out on their own.

The more she thought about it, the surer she became that Central wasn’t going to be able to do much for them. But that didn’t
mean she wasn’t required to seek additional guidance in such an unusual situation. Damn quick, too.

Roebeck resolved to get back to the TC as soon as she could and take Chun with her. Maybe Chun could get some guidance from
Central’s download. Maybe they all ought to displace out of here, get some new orders, and then come back. They could reenter
this horizon mere minutes, even seconds after they’d left it, if that kind of risk was warranted.

Maybe Chun and Grainger had done better than she. Maybe the other ARC Riders knew for certain by now just where, what, and
who they needed to strike.

Too many “maybes.”

Grainger had warned her that Russia was like dogs fighting under a blanket. Well, now Nan Roebeck was under the blanket, too,
and she couldn’t tell one Russian dog from another in the dark.

A
Roman soldier lay dead beside Rebecca Cames with a javelin projecting from his armpit. It was a crude weapon, four feet long
and made entirely of wood. The tip was shaved to a point and seared to brittle hardness.

It did the job, though. The legionary had lurched some distance before he collapsed, but the best surgeons of this day couldn’t
have repaired the artery that splinters had perforated. The man had died alone in the brush, unnoticed by friend or foe.

The thunder was almost continuous. Rebecca staggered from a gust so fierce that the rain it hurled in her face might almost
have been hail. The horse she led shied. She didn’t let go of the reins, so the beast dragged her off her feet. She slid on
her hip for a moment, her head butting that of the desperate horse as she tried to rise.

The team had been trying to avoid the battle ever since the morning of the previous day. The Roman column had fragmented when
the Germans attacked. Lines of wagons blocked the narrow roadway, separating units of troops and forcing them to act independently.

Some had continued forward, some held in place; many had attempted to retreat. The nearby corpse had probably been one of
those who’d counterattacked, charging into the trees that made Roman close-order tactics impossible. Light-armed Germans faded
into the forest. Hidden warriors flung javelins into a pursuer’s back or thrust iron-pointed stabbing spears from the cover
of the dense undergrowth.

The marching column, miles long when Varus broke camp, had spread into an amorphous blob that thrashed and died in the Teutoburg
Forest. The team had to get clear of the battle before they could safely leave the depths of the forest and head for the Rhine.
Despite Gerd’s skill and equipment, that was proving extremely difficult.

They’d lost one of the horses the previous night. Even hobbled the mare had managed to break her tie rope and flee farther
than the team could search when they realized she was gone. Rebecca had lived through seven Asian monsoons and had been in
a Tennessee trailer park while a tornado ripped it. She didn’t remember ever seeing worse weather.

Lightning ripped the whole sky. Gerd Barthuli sat cross-legged beside a huge basswood tree. You couldn’t say he was sheltering
there because the wind came from too many directions. The air above his sensor pack spluttered with light like the corona
discharge around a high-voltage switch.

Gerd’s display depended on coherent light projected from two sources to interact precisely, forming a hologram. Raindrops
and even blown spray interfered with the light beams, blurring their meaning. Rebecca didn’t know how the analyst could use
the device; but he said he could, and there wasn’t any choice.

She’d briefly shielded the display with an ARC sleeping bag: a sock of impervious, microns-thin fabric that transferred heat
in either direction to hold a constant temperature. The wind was too strong and variable. She and Pauli together might have
held it, but they’d have lost the remaining horses if they tried.

The rain would interfere with the microwave pistols as sure as it did Gerd’s holograms. The submachine gun holstered on her
belt was a cold weight and no comfort. Beckie Carnes was no willing killer.

But the forest was full of killers tonight.

Pauli Weigand stood like a tree himself. His left arm was around his gelding’s neck. He murmured to the animal as he turned,
viewing each quadrant of the team’s surroundings as he waited.

There wasn’t much to see. They’d had to avoid the roadway. Sight distances within the old-growth forest were a matter of feet
or inches. The storm didn’t make things significantly worse.

Rebecca’s horse stopped fighting her for the moment. It stood with its legs spread and head bowed, shivering violently. She
didn’t know if it was cold or just afraid. She patted its neck and said something pointlessly reassuring, the sort of thing
she’d said often enough to a boy on a stretcher with guts poking out of his torn abdomen.