the time homo sapiens was starting to spread widely and lifted a few
tribes, brought them to Dominion, and then artificially advanced their
civilization before vanishing themselves. Possibly, they fell victim to the
Baldies.
"Anyway, Dominion was already using iron and its population was
beginning to unite in small towns and states while we were still in the
Bronze Age."
"And they hadn't gotten any farther with star flight than you say?"
Murdock demanded.
She looked at him. "They developed it, friend. No one handed them a
working ship to copy. Besides, they had other things to occupy them. They
didn't pull straight along a high-tech line the way we have, for one thing.
They moved on the mental and spiritual fronts as well, and they
concentrated a long while on developing and working with the planets of
their own solar system, which they managed to fully utilize without
raping. Also, they followed a considerably more pacific history than ours
starting shortly after what they had instead of a proper feudal period.
Advances didn't come nearly as quickly without the immediacy of major
wars to drive them."
"Hold up," Ashe interjected. "You said they developed their own
interstellar drive. Why didn't they just take the Baldies' ideas the way we
did? They had a whole fleet of ships to our one."
"They weren't technologically advanced enough to appreciate, much
less make use of, that bounty. They just destroyed what they took. Their
scientists have cursed that folly ever since, but it enabled them to go their
own way, including freeing themselves from slavery to the tapes."
Ross looked at them both impatiently. "Be that as it might, are we
supposed to somehow chase off an entire Baldy murder fleet?"
"No, that we are not. The Dominionites have to wage and win that fight
entirely on their own. Under no circumstances whatsoever are we to reveal
our presence as aliens, not to the invaders and not even to the locals."
"Why?" Something in the way she said that, in the way she looked as
she said it, sent the chill of his own grave through his spirit.
"The Baldies know there are humans, albeit primitive humans, on
Terra. We've survived the return of Hawaika and the destruction of
Dominion untouched, probably because neither was our own history. That
might not prove to be the case if they took it into those oversized heads of
theirs to play it safe and serve us the way they did Dominion, which they
well might do if they found themselves thwarted by off-world humans yet
again."
"We have to let her die, then?" Murdock asked sullenly.
Suddenly his head raised in anger. "We're not expected to go back and
undo everything, kill Hawaika?"
"No!" She gripped herself. It had been a savage question, but it was a
logical one. "We're not planning to leave Dominion to her fate, either."
"We've worked out a way to prevent that?" Ashe demanded tightly. It
was more statement than inquiry. If the brass had not, it would have been
pointless to carry this discussion so far, or to mention the disaster at all,
at least at this time.
"We have, or at least the possibility of a solution. A lot depends on
chance." The woman leaned forward, more deadly serious than she had
been even while describing Dominion of Virgin's death. "Everything
hinges on the native populace's developing their mental weapon in time to
beat off the Baldies' assault. They had it in their old history. This time they
did not. Something blocked its development."
Ross's eyes narrowed. "We're going to rewrite their history yet again,
remove that block?"
"We're going to try damn hard. You wild cards did it for Hawaika. Now
we're about to attempt to give Dominion similar service."
"We've found what looks like the crux point in a minor local war that
took place seven hundred ten years ago, our present time. If the outcome
of that can be altered properly, we should be able to leave the rest to the
Dominionites."
Eveleen drew two maps from the wide document pouch on her belt. The
first showed eight large bodies of land set in six expanses of water, all of
She pointed to one of the latter lying about two hundred fifty miles off
the northwestern coast of the largest continent. "Not much to look at, is
it? A little lump of real estate like that, and the entire life of the planet
hangs on the outcome of an ancient struggle for control of it."
She lay the second map on top of the first, this one a detailed study of
the disputed isle. "Here's our battleground."
"Glacier country," Gordon observed. The pattern of highlands and
valleys would have made that almost a certainty on Terra, and the
discoveries already made among the stars indicated that natural forces
were at least similar on planets of the same basic type.
"Yes, by the look of it. You can see from the legend that altitudes are
somewhat higher on the average than in such ranges at home, but it's
beautiful country.
"The northern quarter's considerably rougher than the rest. The
mountains are taller and wilder with narrow, rocky valleys separating
them. The soil's reasonably good, though there's not a great deal of it, and
water's plentiful, as it is throughout the whole island. The south has fewer
really steep heights, and the valleys are broad and extremely fertile."
"That horizontal range seems to sever the two sections, the north and
the south," Ross observed.
"Actually, the individual components of it are part of separate vertical
ranges, but the effect is the same. For a preflight people, they form a
nearly impenetrable barrier. Individual walkers or riders can get through
in a few places, but only at this one pass here can vehicles cross at all or
people in large numbers with any kind of speed, and that's closed for
several months during the height of the winter."
"What about this war?"
"It's the same old story," she said with a disgust she did not bother to
conceal. "It was a nice, balanced, feudal society until the ruler of one of the
domains into which the island was divided got greedy. Condor Hall was
the largest and best domain in the north, but its Ton, Zanthor I Yoroc,
wanted more. Early one spring, without any warning whatsoever, he
struck one after the other of his neighbors, swallowing them up before
they could raise any defense at all.
"Only one landowner, Luroc I Loran of Sapphirehold, had time enough
to give battle. This domain was the very southernmost, right on the
barrier range. It was large, rich for the region, and well peopled, so he had
a good army, or militia, at his disposal, but Zanthor had taken the
probability that he would be prepared into consideration in his planning.
Condor Hall possessed a fine coast and harbor, and the invader had made
use of them to secretly import a vast horde of mercenaries from the
Mainland. He sprung them on Luroc just as the two armies met. The
slaughter of the defenders was complete, and backed by the supplies he
seized at Sapphirehold, Zanthor rushed his forces through the pass to
crush the forming confederation of the southern domains before it could
raise an effective defense against him. In another two weeks, winter would
have closed the Corridor, and he would have been blocked, but he had won
the gamble. The island was his.
"His empire only outlived him by a few years. None of his sons or the
mercenary commanders he'd rewarded with land had the strength to keep
his gains. They weakened themselves with plotting and battling until the
local people were able to rise and throw the lot of them into the sea and
restore the old order as best they could, but by then, the damage was
done.
"The mutation that was to give the Dominionites of the future their
mental powers originated on the island. The seeds of it were already
present at the time, but the enormous slaughter and the subsequent
diluting of the remaining gene pool as a result of the decades-long
presence of Mainland mercenaries put its development back by centuries."
"Wouldn't all this have happened originally as well?" Ashe asked.
"We don't know. We had no reason to delve into Dominion's ancient
history apart from that one Baldy encounter. All we know is it's crucial to
change the outcome of that war now."
planet, and her people were a fine, talented race. We want to save them,
especially if we were indirectly responsible for their eradication."
"There's also the matter of their independent interstellar flight,"
Murdock interjected dryly.
"Yes, there is," Eveleen responded coolly.
"So we've got to delay this Zanthor's invasion of the south in some
manner, buy the rulers down there the winter so they can organize
sufficiently to meet his mercenaries?"
"Precisely."
"No chance of just blowing up the pass and keeping him penned, I
suppose?"
"None. We can't risk Terra."
"Is the danger to us really so great?" Ross asked, frowning.
"Apparently, it is, given the sketchy data we have."
"That doesn't matter," Gordon interjected impatiently. "Great or small,
no one's going to chance it."
"No," the other man agreed. "I wouldn't, either."
Murdock studied the map intently for several long moments. "What
kind of weapons do they use? Old-time stuff, I imagine, since you're
involved, Eveleen."
"Old time," she agreed. "Swords, bows. The basics. There are some
differences in design and style of use, of course, but you'll pick it all up
fast." She gave him a wicked grin. "They ride oversized deer. You lads'll
have real fun learning to manage those."
"I'll bet," he responded but immediately returned to his perusal of the
map. "Why a battle at all? Those fools of Sapphireholders have a partisan's
paradise if those highlands are anything like our old wild country at home.
Move everything of value and everyone into the hills where the invaders
can't get at them and use hit and run guerrilla tactics against Zanthor.
They mightn't be able to whip him, but they'd hold him the two weeks
simply by removing or destroying the supplies he'd hoped to take, they'd
stay intact themselves, and when the campaign opened up in the spring,
they could rip the guts out of his efforts to keep his troops supplied. —He'll
have to do that through the pass?"
She nodded. "He will."
"We'll have to start early. Homes'll have to be built and crops planted in
the highlands. It's all got to be ready when the time comes so we can bum
everything that's not portable and run…"
The Time Agent stopped. He looked at Ashe in confusion. "Sorry. I
shouldn't have…"
"Go on," the other told him. "You appear to be doing just fine."
Ross's eyes returned to the map, although they did not focus on it.
"We'll need the full cooperation of everyone, especially the ruler's, the
more particularly if we're going to work with the necessary speed and
secrecy. I'm afraid we might have a problem with that since no one's come
up with the idea already."
"Warfare's a matter of open, old-fashioned slash and bash, not hiding
in the hills," she affirmed. "I believe we'll be able to convince Luroc of his
danger easily enough, but it'll take maneuvering and a lot of tact if you're
going to manage the domain's defense the way you want. Even at that, you
may have to make do with a very partial victory." Eveleen sighed. "That's
why there's so much uncertainty about our ability to save Dominion."
The man glanced up sharply. "I'll have to make do?"
Ashe's eyes met the newcomer's, then flickered to his partner. "You'll be
in charge of that phase of the mission," he told him. "You've already taken
charge of it."
"It fits with our cover," Eveleen agreed quickly, before Ross could
protest. "You and I're to pose as mercenary officers escorting our learned
companion here. Doctor Ashe is to bear the warning to Luroc. After that,
it would only be logical for us to handle the planning and conducting of
Sapphirehold's war, assuming we can convince him to follow our advice."
"You?" Murdock asked sharply. "Will that be acceptable, Eveleen?" He
braced himself, although it had hardly been an unreasonable question.
The woman's nod told her acknowledgment of that fact. "Yes, indeed,"
she responded cheerfully. "Dominion isn't Terra. The Great Mother was
never supplanted there—her people worshiped a nice, highly sophisticated
version of Her right until the moment their civilization vanished—and
women retained a position of respect throughout her history. True, there
were no female Tons at the time we're discussing, but, then, there were no
male priests, either. Just about every other profession was open to both
genders, including that of mercenary. I'll be regarded as somewhat
unusual since not many of my sex did take up that work but certainly not
a freak, and my presence in that capacity won't cause any offense."
The brown eyes held his. "It's important for me to take that role, Ross,
and to involve the domain's women as heavily as possible in what's to
come. The mutation rose first in the females, and it's only through them
that their race's mental abilities can be used for any purpose save straight
one-to-one communication. The men will have to be able to channel their
power through the women to bring down the Baldies, and there'll have to
be complete trust and acceptance between the two sexes to accomplish
that. It's as important for us to do what we can to foster an early flowering
of that as it is to help thwart Zanthor I Yoroc's aim."
"My role?" Gordon asked.
"That of a wealthy, very learned physician from the central Mainland
who initially journeyed north to study manuscripts kept in the region's
temples in order to compare their contents with those in his own area.
Three mercenaries, especially soldiers of rank, on the loose on that island
would be highly suspect at the time when we plan to arrive. However, two
of us could reasonably be traveling as escorts to
a distinguished
individual… You have to be a doctor," she added, forestalling any question
on that point. "Outside of the Tons or top mercenary leaders, medicine's
the only profession open to a man that would give you the necessary
prestige to gain the audiences you need.
"The story is that we two fighters noted the presence of a lot of our own
kind in the port town where you were studying and remarked upon the
fact considering the total absence of fighting in the area to account for
their being there at all, much less in number. By dint of careful digging by
all three of us, you copped onto Zanthor's plot and hastened to spread the
alarm. That you would drop your own research to do so will be believed.
Dominionite healers of that era were totally dedicated to their oath to
preserve life, though they never hesitated to fight when they believed that
to be necessary. Reinforcing that is the fact that Zanthor's treachery
completely went against the custom of the times, which is how he was able
to take everyone so completely by surprise. No one believed it could
happen until it did. Anyone at all, but especially a man sworn to the
defense of life, would be totally repelled and would be eager to do whatever
he could to foil I Yoroc's empire building."
"I'll buy all that, Miss Riordan, but I'm still an archeologist, not an MD.
The mission will be a fairly long-term one by the sound of it, and if I'm
called upon to act professionally…"
"Given your detailed first aid training and better than basic grasp of
the medical knowledge of our own time, you're a small infinity better
prepared than any of your supposed Dominionite colleagues. They're all
functioning at the medieval level, don't forget. Just to be sure, though,
you'll be given a crash PA course before you go in."
"It takes two to three years of intensive study to qualify as a physician's
assistant!"
"You won't need everything, and you already have a good bit of what
you do require," the woman assured him. "You'll also be bringing a nice
supply of real Terran medications in your luggage, all artfully disguised…
Never fear. You'll manage quite well if you ever do have to go into practice,
Doctor."
"Wouldn't it be a whole lot simpler just to bill me as a foreign Ton on
the loose from his lands for some reason?"
She shook her head. "Unfortunately not. They simply don't go far from