"I don't believe in magic, Colonel," I said.
"Not magic," Bayard said. "There are subtle relationships between objects, Mr. Curlon; affinities people and the inanimates that play a role in their lives."
"It's just old iron, Bayard. Nothing else."
"Objects are a part of their environment," Bayard said flatly. "Every quantum of matter-energy in this Universe has been here since its inception. The atoms that make up this blade were formed before the sun was formed; they were there, in the rock, when the first life stirred in the seas. Then the metal was mined, smelted, forged. But always, the matter itself has been a part of the immutable sum total of this material plane of reality. Complex inter-relationships exist among the particles of a given world-line—relationships which are affected by the uses to which the matter they comprise are put. Such a relationship exists between you and this ancient weapon."
Bayard was grinning now—the grin of an old gray wolf who smells blood. "I'm beginning to put two and two together: you—with that red mane, that physique—and now this. Yes, I think I'm beginning to understand who you are, Mr. Curlon—what you are."
"And what am I?"
Bayard made a motion that took in the room, and the massive pile above it. "This chateau was built in the year 1196 by an English king," he said. "His name was Richard—known as the Lion-Hearted."
"That's what he was. What am I?"
"You're his descendant, Mr. Curlon. The last of the Plantagenets."
I laughed aloud at the letdown. "I suppose the next move is to offer me a genuine hand-painted reconstruction of the family coat of arms, suitable for framing. This must be your idea of humor, Colonel. And even if it were true, after thirty generations, any connection between him and a modern descendant would be statistically negligible."
"Careful, Mr. Curlon; your education is showing," Bayard's smile was grim. "Your information is correct—as far as it goes. But a human being is more than a statistical complex. There are linkages, Mr. Curlon—relationships that go beyond Mendel and Darwin. The hand of the past still reaches out to mold the present—and the future—"
"I see. The lad with the nerve-gun is running me down to collect a bill that Richard the First owed his tailor—"
"Bear with me a moment, Mr. Curlon. Accept the fact that reality is more complex than the approximations that science calls the axioms of physics. Every human action has repercussions that spread out across a vast continuum. Those repercussions can have profound effects—effects beyond your present conception of the exocosm. You're not finished with all this yet. You're involved—inevitably, like it or not. You have enemies, Mr. Curlon; enemies capable of aborting every undertaking you attempt. And I'm beginning to get a glimmering of an idea why that might be."
"I'll admit somebody sank my boat," I said. "But that's all. I don't believe in vast plots, aimed at me."
"Don't be too sure, Mr. Curlon. When I discovered that missions were being carried out in B-I Three—the official designation of this area—I looked into the matter. Some of those missions were recent—within the last few weeks. But others dated back over a period of almost thirty years."
"Which means someone has been after me since I was a year old? I ask you, Colonel: Is that reasonable?"
"Nothing about this affair is reasonable, Mr. Curlon. Among other curiosa is the fact that the existence of B-I Three wasn't officially known to Intelligence HQ until ten years ago—" He broke off, shook his head as though irritated. "I realize that everything I say only compounds your confusion—"
"Am I the one who's confused, Colonel?"
"Everything that's happened has a meaning—is a part of a pattern. We must discover what that pattern is, Mr. Curlon."
"All this, on the basis of a fishknife and a piece of rusty metal?"
I put out my hand and he put the piece of iron in it. The upper end was broken in a shallow V. There was a gentle tugging, as if the two pieces of metal were trying to orient themselves in relation to each other.
"If it's all my imagination, Mr. Curlon," Bayard said softly, "why are you fighting to hold the two pieces apart?"
I let the smaller shard turn, brought it slowly across toward the point of the knife. When it was six inches away, a long pink spark jumped across the gap. The pull increased. I tried to hold them apart, but it was no use. They moved together and touched . . . and a million volts of lightning smashed down and lit the room with a blinding glare.
The rays of the late sun shone fitfully from a cloud-serried sky, and shadows fled across the sward, across the faces of those who stood before me, swelled up in arrogance, petty men who would summon a king to an accounting. One stood forth among them, a-glitter in rich stuff, and made much of flourishing the scrolls from which he spelled out those demands by which they thought to bind my royal power.
To the end I let him speak his treason, for all to hear. Then I gave my answer.
From the dark forest roundabout my picked archers stepped forth, and in a dread silence bent their bows. And my heart sang as their shafts sang, finding their marks in traitors' breasts. And under my eyes were the false barons slain, every one, and when the deed was done I walked forth from my pavilion and looked on their dead faces and spurned with my foot that scrap of parchment they called their Charter.
The voices and the faces faded. The shadowed walls of the old storeroom closed in around me. But it was as though years had passed, and the room was a forgotten memory from some distant life, lived long ago.
"What happened?" Bayard's voice rasped in the silence.
"I . . . know not," I heard myself say, and my own voice sounded strange in my ears. "'Twas some fit took hold on me." I made an effort and shook the last of the fog out of my brain. Bayard was pointing at me—at what I held in my hand.
"My God, the sword!"
I looked—and felt time stop while my pulse boomed in my ears. The broken blade, which had been a foot long, was half again that length now. The two pieces of metal had welded themselves together into a single unit.
"The seam of the joining is invisible," Bayard said. "It's as though the two parts had never been separated."
I ran my fingers over the dark metal. The color, the pattern of oxidation was unbroken.
"What did you experience while it was happening?" Bayard asked.
"Dreams. Visions."
"What kind of visions?"
"Not pleasant ones."
Bayard's eyes went past me to the wall beyond.
"The sword wasn't the only thing that was affected," he said in a tight voice. "Look!"
I looked. Against the stones, where only tatters had been, a faded tapestry hung. It showed a dim, crudely worked design of huntsmen and hounds. There was nothing remarkable about it—except that it hadn't been there five minutes ago.
"Notice the pattern," Bayard said. "The big figure in the center is wearing a cloak trimmed in ermine tails—a symbol of royalty. My guess is that's Richard himself." He looked around the room, bent and picked up the genouillère. The metal was dark with age, but there was no rust on it now.
"What happened here had an effect on the fabric of the continuum itself," Bayard said. "Reality is being reshaped as the Net tensions resolve themselves. There are fantastic powers in balance, Mr. Curlon, ready for a touch to send them tumbling one way—or another." His eyes held on mine. "Someone is working to upset that balance. I think we can take it as axiomatic that we must oppose him."
As he finished speaking, a bell clanged from the shuttle. Bayard leaped to the panel, hit the switches.
"There's a tracer locked on us at close range!" he snapped. "They followed us here! The energy discharge must have given them a fix to home on." The familiar humming sound started up, but this time it had a groaning note, as if it was working under an overload. I smelled hot insulation, and smoke curled from behind the panel.
"Too late," Bayard said. "He's holding a suppressor beam on us. We can't shift out of identity with this line. It looks like we're trapped!"
A deep thrumming sound started up somewhere. I could feel it vibrating through the floor of the room. Dust floated from the cracks in the walls, rose from the floor. A metal ornament made a soft thump falling off the bench.
"He's right above us," Bayard said. "He doesn't have half-phase capability; he'll use a force probe to dig his way down to us."
"All right," I said. "Let him. Two against two is fair odds."
"I can't take the chance," Bayard said. "It's not just you and me—it's the machine. It's unique, a special model. And if what I'm beginning to suspect is true, letting it fall into Renata's hands would be a major disaster."
"Renata?" I started to ask all the questions, but Bayard pulled a ring from his finger, handed it to me. "This is a control device governing the half-phase unit. With it, you can hold the machine clear until he's gone. You'll know, when the red light goes off—"
"Where will you be?"
"I'll meet him, try to steer him away from you. If he has any suspicion of what's happened, he'll be able to detect the shuttle, and grapple it."
"I'll stay, Bayard," I said. "I have a bone to pick with Mr. Renata."
"No—there's no time to argue! Do as I ask, Curlon, or he'll take both of us!" He didn't wait for an answer; he stepped out of the shuttle and the entry snapped shut behind him. His image appeared on the screen.
"Now, Mr. Curlon!" his voice came through the speaker. "Or it will be too late for both of us!"
A crack had already appeared in the wall he was facing. The time for talk had all run out. I pressed the stone set in the ring and heard a soft click! and felt space twist between my bones.
A soft, high-pitched whine started up, went up and off into the supersonic. Bayard's outline turned transparent blue, like the wall behind him. To him, the shuttle was invisible now.
"Good man," he said. His voice had a whispery quality but it was clear enough. He turned and faced the wall. A section of it bulged and fell in. A beam of dazzling light played through the opening. A man stepped through. It was Renata, the foxy man I'd left unconscious on the dock at Key West a couple of short lifetimes ago; there was no doubt about it: the sharp eyes, the narrow jaw, the slick black hair. But now he was in a swank white uniform that he wore as if he'd been born to it. But it was his face that bothered me most. I'd hit him hard, but there was no mark on him to prove it. He looked around the room, then at Bayard.
"You seem to be a long way from home, Colonel," he said, in a casual drawling voice—nothing like Renata's throaty whine.
"About the same as you, Major," Bayard said.
"Why did you come here—to this particular spot? And how did you get in? I see no entrance from the outside—other than the one I used."
Bayard glanced at the broken wall. "Your tactics seem a little rough for use in an interdicted area, Major. Are you acting on orders—or have you gone in business for yourself?"
"I'm afraid for the present you'll answer the questions, Colonel. You're under arrest, of course. Where have you left your shuttle?"
"I lent it to a friend."
"Don't fence with me, Bayard. It dropped completely off my screens less than half a minute ago—just as it did earlier, in the Gulf of Mexico. It seems you have equipment in your possession unknown to Imperial Intelligence. I shall have to ask you to lead me to it."
"I can't help you."
"You realize I must use force, if necessary. I can't permit the subject Curlon to slip out of my hands."
"I'm afraid you already have."
The little man half turned his head. "Lujac," he called. Another man came in through the hole in the wall. It was the fellow who'd used the nerve-gun on me. He had it in his hand now.
"Level three," the major said. Lujac raised the gun and pressed the firing stud on the side. Bayard staggered and doubled over.
"Enough," the little man said.
"Colonel, you're in considerable difficulty: absence from your post of duty without leave, interference with an official Net operation, and so on. All this will be dealt with in due course—but if you'll cooperate with me now, I think I can promise to make it easier for you."
"You don't know . . . what you're doing," Bayard got the words out. It wasn't easy; I knew what he was going through then. "There are forces . . . involved . . ."
"Never mind what's involved," the major snapped. "I don't mean to let the man slip through my fingers. Speak up, now! How did you do it? Where is he hidden?"
"You're wasting . . . your breath," Bayard said. "You know damned well you can't break my conditioning. Face it, Major; he got away from you. What are you going to do about it?"
"Don't be a fool, Bayard! You know the Imperium faces a crisis—and you're well aware that I'm acting on orders from a very high ranking official! You're throwing away not only your career, but your life, if you oppose me! Now—I want an explanation of why you came to this spot, what you expected to accomplish here—and where you've sent the man I want!"
"I'll bet you do," Bayard said. "Try and get it."
"Let me deal with the swine," Lujac said, and took a quick step forward, but Renata waved him back.
"I'm taking you in to Stockholm Zero-zero," he told Bayard. "You'll face a firing squad for this night's work—I promise you that!" He put cuffs on him and they went out through the hole in the wall. Half a minute later the red telltale light went off, meaning Renata's shuttle was gone. I flipped the switch that shifted me back to full-phase identity, waited for the color to come back into things, then stepped out and switched the machine back to half-phase. It shimmered like a mirage and winked out. The air was still swirling from that when the tunnel mouth exploded. When the dust cleared, it was packed solid with broken rock. The major had taken the precaution of closing the route behind him.