Palimpsest Part 3

Torque was waiting for him in the clearing, holding a bottle and a pair of shot gla.s.ses. "You're going to need this," he said, a twinkle in his eyes. "Everybody does, the first time around."

"Feh." Pierce shuffled stiffly past him, intending to return to the reading cubicle. "What use is a Library full of lies?"

"They're not lies." Torque's response was uncharacteristically mild. "They're unhistory."

"Un-" Pierce stopped dead in his tracks. "There was no unhistory in the Branch Libraries I used," he said tonelessly.

"There wouldn't be. Have you given thought to what happens every time you step through a timegate?"

"Not unduly. What does that have to do with-"

"Everything." Torque allowed a note of irritation to creep into his voice. "You need to pay more attention to theory, agent. Not all problems can be solved with a knife."

"Huh. So the Library is contaminated with unhistory, because ... ?"

"Students. When you use a timegate, you enter a wormhole, and when you exit from it-well, from the reference frame of your point of emergence, a singularity briefly appears and emits a large gobbet of information. When you use a timegate, you enter a wormhole, and when you exit from it-well, from the reference frame of your point of emergence, a singularity briefly appears and emits a large gobbet of information. You. You. The information isn't consistent with the time leading up to its sudden appearance-causality may be violated, for one thing, and for another, the information, the traveler, may remember or contain data that wasn't there before. You're just a bundle of data spewed out by a wormhole; you don't have to be consistent with the universe around you. That's how you remember your upbringing and your recruitment, even though n.o.body else does. Except for the Library." The information isn't consistent with the time leading up to its sudden appearance-causality may be violated, for one thing, and for another, the information, the traveler, may remember or contain data that wasn't there before. You're just a bundle of data spewed out by a wormhole; you don't have to be consistent with the universe around you. That's how you remember your upbringing and your recruitment, even though n.o.body else does. Except for the Library."

They came to a clearing and instead of taking the track to the reading room, Torque took a different path.

"Let's suppose you visit a temporal sector-call it A-one-and while you're there, you do something that changes its historical pattern. You're now in sector A-two. A-one no longer exists, it's been overwritten. If there's a Branch Library in A-one, it's now in A-two, and it, too, has changed, because it is consistent with its own history. But the real Library-tell me, how does information enter the Library?"

Pierce floundered. "I thought that was an archival specialty? Every five seconds throughout eternity a listener slot opens for a millisecond, and anything of interest is sent forward to Control."

"Not exactly." Torque stopped on the edge of another clearing in the domed jungle. "The communication slots send data backward backward in time, not forward. There's an epoch almost a billion years long, sitting in the Archaean and Proterozoic eras, where we run the Library relays. The point is-back in the Cryptozoic-relay era, there are no palimpsests. There's no human history to contaminate, nothing there but a bunch of store-and-forward relays. So reports from sector A-one are relayed back to the Cryptozoic, as are reports from sector A-two. And when they're transmitted uptime to the Final Library for compilation, we have two conflicting reports from sector A." in time, not forward. There's an epoch almost a billion years long, sitting in the Archaean and Proterozoic eras, where we run the Library relays. The point is-back in the Cryptozoic-relay era, there are no palimpsests. There's no human history to contaminate, nothing there but a bunch of store-and-forward relays. So reports from sector A-one are relayed back to the Cryptozoic, as are reports from sector A-two. And when they're transmitted uptime to the Final Library for compilation, we have two conflicting reports from sector A."

Pierce boggled. "Are you telling me that we don't destroy time lines when we change things? That everything coexists? That's heretical!"

"I'm not preaching heresy." Torque turned to face him. "The sector is indeed overwritten with new history: the other events are unhistory now, stuff that never happened. Plausible lies. Plausible lies. Raw data that pops out of a wormhole mediated by a naked singularity, if you ask the theorists: causally unconnected with reality. But all the lies end up in the Library. Not only does the Library doc.u.ment all of recorded human history-and there is a Raw data that pops out of a wormhole mediated by a naked singularity, if you ask the theorists: causally unconnected with reality. But all the lies end up in the Library. Not only does the Library doc.u.ment all of recorded human history-and there is a lot lot of it, for ubiquitous surveillance technology is both cheap and easy to develop, it's how we define civilization after all-it doc.u.ments all the possible routes through history that end in the creation of the Final Library. That's why we have the Final Library as well as all the transient, palimpsest-affected Branch Libraries." of it, for ubiquitous surveillance technology is both cheap and easy to develop, it's how we define civilization after all-it doc.u.ments all the possible routes through history that end in the creation of the Final Library. That's why we have the Final Library as well as all the transient, palimpsest-affected Branch Libraries."

It was hard to conceive of. "All right. So the Library is full of internally contradictory time lines. Why can't I find what I'm looking for?"

"Well. If you're using your waypoints correctly, the usual reason why you get a random selection of incorrect views is that someone has rewritten that sector. It's a palimpsest. Not only is the information you came here to seek buried in a near-infinite stack of unhistories, it's unlikely you'll ever be able to return to it-unless you can find the point where that sector's history was altered and undo the alteration."

REPEATEDLY KILLING THE BUDDHA.

Graduation Ceremony.

You will awaken early on that day, and you will dress in the formal parade robes of a probationary agent of the Stasis for the last time ever. You have worn these robes many times over the past twenty years, and you are no longer the frightened teenager whose hands held the knife of the aspirant and whose ears accepted their ruthless first order. Had you declined the call, were you still in the era of your birth, you would already be approaching early middle age, the great plague of senescence digging its claws deep beneath your skin; and as it is, even though the medical treatments of the Stasis have given you the appearance of a twenty-five-year-old, your eyes are windows onto the soul of an ancient.

Your mind will be honed as sharp and purposeful as a razor blade, for you will have spent six months preparing for this morning; six months of lonesome despair following Torque's explanation of your predicament, spent in training on the roof of the world, obsessively focused on your final studies. You have completed your interns.h.i.+p and your probationary a.s.signments, worked alone and unsupervised in perilous times: now you will present yourself to the examiners to undergo their final and most severe examination, in hope of being accepted at last as an agent of Stasis. As a full agent, you will no longer be limited in your access to the Library: nor will your license to summon timegates be restricted. You will be a trustee, a key-holder in the jailhouse of history, able to rummage through lives on a whim, free to search for what you have lost (or have had taken from you: as yet you are unsure whether it was malice or negligence that destroyed your private life).

You will dress in a saffron robe bound with the black belt of your current rank, and place on your head the beret of an agent-aspirant. Elsewhere in the complex, a dozen other probationers are similarly preparing themselves. You will hang on your belt the dagger that you honed to lethal sharpness the night before, obsessively polis.h.i.+ng the symbol of your calling. Before the sun reaches the day's zenith, it will have taken a life: it is your duty to ensure that the victim dies swiftly, painlessly.

Out on the time-weathered flagstones, beneath the deep blue dome of a sky bisected by a glittering torque of orbital-momentum-transfer bodies, you will stand in a row before your teachers and tyrants. Not for the first time, you will find yourself asking if it was all worth it. They will stare down at you and your cla.s.smates, ready to p.r.o.nounce judgment-ready perhaps to admit you to their number as a peer, or to anathematize and cauterize, to unmake and consign into unhistory those who are unworthy. They outnumber your fellow trainees three to one, for they take the training of new eumortals very seriously indeed. They are the eternal guardians of historicity, the arbiters of what really happened. And for no reason you can clearly comprehend, they offered you, you in particular out of a field of a billion contenders, an opportunity.

And there will be speeches. And more speeches. And then Superintendent-of-Scholars Manson will utter a sermon, along exactly the lines one would expect on such an occasion. "This momentous and solemn occasion marks the end of your formal training, but not the end of your studies and your search for excellence. You entered this academy as orphans and strangers, and you shall leave it as agents of the Stasis, sworn to serve our great cause-the total history of the human species." He's going to go on in like vein for nearly an hour, you realize: one homily after another, orthodox ideology personified. Theory before praxis.

"We accept you as you are, human aspirants with human weaknesses and human strengths. We are all human; that is our our weakness and strength, for we are the agency of human destiny, charged with the holy duty of preserving our species from the triple threat of extinction, transcendental obsolescence, and a cosmos fated to unwind in darkness-notwithstanding your weaknesses, you brother Chee Yun with your obsessive exploration of the extremes of pain, you sister Gretz with your enthusiasm for the fruit of the dream poppy, you brother Pierce with your palimpsest family hobby-we understand all your little vices, and we accept you as you are, despite your weaknesses, despite knowing that only through service to the Stasis will you achieve all that you are destined for-" weakness and strength, for we are the agency of human destiny, charged with the holy duty of preserving our species from the triple threat of extinction, transcendental obsolescence, and a cosmos fated to unwind in darkness-notwithstanding your weaknesses, you brother Chee Yun with your obsessive exploration of the extremes of pain, you sister Gretz with your enthusiasm for the fruit of the dream poppy, you brother Pierce with your palimpsest family hobby-we understand all your little vices, and we accept you as you are, despite your weaknesses, despite knowing that only through service to the Stasis will you achieve all that you are destined for-"

You will not bridle angrily when Superintendent-of-Scholars Manson tramples on the grave of your family's unhistory, even though the scars are still raw and weeping, because you know that this is how the ritual unfolds. You will have reviewed the recording delivered in the internal post some days before, heard the breathy rasp of your own voice wavering on the razor edge of horror as he explains the graduation ritual to you-in-the-present. Your fingers will whiten on the sweat-stained leather hilt of your dagger as you await the signal. Though outwardly you remain at peace, inside you will be in turmoil, wondering if you can go through with it. Slaying your grandfather, cutting yourself free from the fabric of history, was one thing; this is something else.

"Stasis demands eternal vigilance, brothers and sisters. It is easier to shape by destruction than to force creation on the boughs of historicity, but we must stand vigilant and ready, if necessary, to intervene even against ourselves should our hands stray from the straightest of strokes. Every time we step from a timegate, we are born anew as information entering the universe from a singularity: we must not allow our hands to be stilled by fear of personal continuity-"

You will realize then that Manson is on track, that he really is is going to give the order your older self described with shaking voice, and you tense in readiness as you call up a channel to Control, requesting the gate through which you must graduate. going to give the order your older self described with shaking voice, and you tense in readiness as you call up a channel to Control, requesting the gate through which you must graduate.

"Weakness is forgivable in one's personal life, but not in the great work. We humans are weak, and sooner or later many of us stray, led into confusion and solipsism by our human grief and hubris. But it is our glory and our privilege that we can change ourselves ourselves. We do not have to accept a false version of our selves which have fallen into the errors of wrong thought or despair! Shortly you will be called on to undertake the first of your autosurveillance duties, monitoring your own future self for signs of deviation. Keep a clear head, remember your principles, and be firm in your determination to destroy your own errors: that is all it takes to serve the Stasis well. We are our own best police force, for we can keep track of our own other selves far better than any eternal invigilator." Manson will clap his hands. And then, without further ado, he will add: "You have all been told what it is that you must do in order to graduate. Do it. Prove to me that you have what it takes to be a stalwart pillar of the Stasis. Do it now now."

You will draw your dagger as your phone sends out the request for a timegate two seconds back in time and a meter behind you. Control acknowledges your request, and you begin to step toward the opening hole in front of you, but as you do so you will sense wrongness, and as you draw breath you will begin to turn, raising your knife to block with a scream forming in the back of your mind: No! Not me! No! Not me! But you will be too late. The stranger with your face stepping out of the singularity behind you will tighten his grip on your shoulders, and as you twist your neck to look around, he will use your momentum to aid the edge of the knife you so keenly sharpened. It will whisper through your carotid artery and your trachea, bringing your life to a gurgling, airless fadeout. But you will be too late. The stranger with your face stepping out of the singularity behind you will tighten his grip on your shoulders, and as you twist your neck to look around, he will use your momentum to aid the edge of the knife you so keenly sharpened. It will whisper through your carotid artery and your trachea, bringing your life to a gurgling, airless fadeout.

The graduation ceremony always concludes this way, with the newly created agents slaughtering their Buddha nature on the stony road beneath the aging stars. It is a pity that you won't be alive to see it in person; it is one of the most profoundly revealing rituals of the time travelers, cutting right to the heart of their existence. But you needn't worry about your imminent death-the other you, born b.l.o.o.d.y from the singularity that opened behind your back, will regret it as fervently as you ever could.

The Trial.

The day after he murdered himself in cold blood, agent Pierce received an urgent summons to attend a meeting in the late nineteenth century.

It was, he thought shakily, par for the course: pick an agent, any agent, as long as their home territory was within a millennium or so of the dateline. From Canada in the twenty-first to Germany in the nineteenth, what's the difference? If you were an inspector from the umpty-millionth, it might not look like a lot, he supposed: they were all exuberant egotists, these faceless teeming ur-people who had lived and died before the technologies of total history rudely dispelled the chaos and uncertainty of the pre-Stasis world. And Pierce was a very very junior agent. Best to see what the inspector wanted. junior agent. Best to see what the inspector wanted.

Kaiserine Germany was not one of Pierce's areas of interest, so he took a subjective month to study for the meeting in advance-basic conversational German, European current events, and a sufficient grounding in late-Victorian London to support his cover as a more than usually adventuresome entrepreneur looking for new products to import-before he stepped out of a timegate in the back of a stall in a public toilet in Spittelmarkt.

Berlin before the century of bombs was no picturesque ginger-bread confection: outside the slaughterhouse miasma of the market, the suburbs were dismal narrow-fronted apartment blocks as far as the eye could see, soot-stained by a million brown-coal stoves, the princ.i.p.al olfactory note one of horse s.h.i.+t rather than gasoline fumes (although Rudolf Diesel was even now at work on his engines in a more genteel neighborhood). Pierce departed the public toilet with some alacrity-the elderly attendant seemed to take his emergence as a personal insult-and hastily hailed a cab to the designated meeting place, a hotel in Charlottenberg.

The hotel lobby was close and humid in the summer heat; bluebottles droned around the dark wooden paneling as Pierce looked around for his contact. His phone tugged at his attention as he looked at the inner courtyard, where a cl.u.s.ter of cast-iron chairs and circular tables hinted at the availability of waiter service. Sure enough, a familiar face nodded affably at him.

Pierce approached the table with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man approaching the gallows. "You wanted to see me," he said. There were two goblets of something foamy and green on the table, and two chairs. "Who else?"

"The other drink's for you. Berliner Weiss with Waldmeistersirup. You'll like it. Guaranteed." Kafka gestured at the empty chair. "Sit down."

"How do you know-" Silly question. Silly question. Pierce sat down. "You know this isn't my time?" Pierce sat down. "You know this isn't my time?"

"Yes." Kafka picked up a tall, curved gla.s.s full of dark brown beer and took a mouthful. "Doesn't matter." He peered at Pierce. "You're a new graduate. d.a.m.n, I don't like this job." He took another mouthful of beer.

"What's happened now?" Pierce asked.

"I don't know. That's why I want you here."

"Is this to do with the time someone tried to a.s.sa.s.sinate me?"

"No." Kafka shook his head. "It's worse, I'm afraid. One of your tutors may have gone off the reservation. Observation indicated. I'm putting you on the case. You may need-you may need to terminate this one."

"A tutor." Despite himself, Pierce was intrigued. Kafka, the man from Internal Affairs (but his role was unclear, for was it not the case that the Stasis police their own past and future selves?) wanted him to investigate a senior agent and tutor? Ordering him to bug his future self would be understandable, but this- "Yes." Kafka put his gla.s.s down with a curl of his lower lip that bespoke distaste. "We have reason to believe she may be working for the Opposition."

"Opposition." Pierce raised an eyebrow. "There is no opposition-"

"Come, now: don't be naive. Every Every ideology in every recorded history has an opposition. Why should we be any different?" ideology in every recorded history has an opposition. Why should we be any different?"

"But we're-" Pierce paused, the phrase bigger than history bigger than history withering on the tip of his tongue. "Excuse me?" withering on the tip of his tongue. "Excuse me?"

"Work it through." Kafka was atwitch with barely concealed impatience. "You can't possibly not not have thought about setting yourself up as a pervert G.o.d, can you? Everybody thinks about it, this we know; seed the universe with life, create your own Science Empires, establish a rival interstellar civilization in the deep Cryptozoic, and use it to invade or secede Earth before the Stasis notices-that sort of thing. It's not as if have thought about setting yourself up as a pervert G.o.d, can you? Everybody thinks about it, this we know; seed the universe with life, create your own Science Empires, establish a rival interstellar civilization in the deep Cryptozoic, and use it to invade or secede Earth before the Stasis notices-that sort of thing. It's not as if thinking about it thinking about it is a crime: the problems start when an agent far gone in solipsism starts thinking they can do it for real. Or worse, when the Opposition raise their snouts." is a crime: the problems start when an agent far gone in solipsism starts thinking they can do it for real. Or worse, when the Opposition raise their snouts."

"But I-" Pierce stopped, collected his thoughts, and continued. "I thought that never happened? That the self-policing thing was a, an adequate safeguard?"

"Lad." Kafka shook his head. "You clearly mean well. And self-policing does indeed work adequately most of the time. But don't let the security theater at your graduation deceive you: there are failure modes. We set you a large number of surveillance a.s.signments to muddy the water-palimpsests all, of course, we overwrite them once they deliver their reports so that future-you retains no memory of them-but you can't watch yourself all the time. And there are administrative errors. You're not only the best monitor of your own behavior, but the best-placed individual to know how best to corrupt you. We are human and imperfect, which is why we need an external Internal Affairs department. Someone has to coordinate things, especially when the Opposition are involved."

"The Opposition?" Pierce picked up his gla.s.s and drank deeply, studying Kafka. "Who are they?" Who do you want me to rat out? Who do you want me to rat out? he wondered. he wondered. Myself? Myself? Surely Kafka couldn't have overlooked his history with Xiri, now buried beneath the dusty pages of a myriad of rewrites? Surely Kafka couldn't have overlooked his history with Xiri, now buried beneath the dusty pages of a myriad of rewrites?

"You'll know them when you meet them." Kafka emitted a little mirthless chuckle and stood up. "Come upstairs to my office, and I'll show you why I requested you for this a.s.signment."

Kafka's office occupied the entire top floor of the building and was reached by means of a creaking mesh-fronted elevator that rose laboriously through the well of a wide staircase. It was warm, but not obnoxiously so, as Pierce followed Kafka out of the elevator cage. "The door is reactive," Kafka warned, placing a protective hand on the k.n.o.b. Hidden glands were waiting beneath a patina of simulated bra.s.s, ready to envenomate the palm of an unwary intruder. "Door: accept agent Pierce. General defenses: accept Agent Pierce with standard agent privilege set. You may follow me now."

Kafka opened the door wide. Beyond it, ranks of angled wooden writing desks spanned the room from wall to wall. A dark-suited iteration of Kafka perched atop a high stool behind each one of them, pens moving incessantly across their ledgers. A primitive visitor (one not slain on the spot by the door handle, or the floor, or the wallpaper) might have gaped at the ever-changing handwriting and spidery diagrams that flickered on the pages, mutating from moment to moment as the history books redrew themselves, and speculated about digital paper. Pierce, no longer a primitive, felt the hair under his collar rise as he polled his phone, pulling up the number of rewrites going on in the room. "You're really working Control hard," he said in the direction of Kafka's receding back.

"This is the main coordination node for prehistoric Germany." Kafka tucked his hands behind his back as he walked, stoop-shouldered, between desks. "We're close enough to the start of Stasis history to make meddling tricky-we have to keep track of continuity, we can't simply edit at will." Meddling with prehistory, before the establishment of the ubiquitous monitoring and recording technologies that ultimately fed the Library at the end of time, ought to be risk-free: if a Neolithic barbarian froze to death on a glacier, unrecorded, the implications for deep history were trivial. But the rules were fluid, and interference was risky: if a time traveler were to shoot the Kaiser, for example, or otherwise derail the ur-history line leading up to the Stasis, it could turn the entire future into a palimpsest. "The individual I am investigating is showing an unhealthy interest in the phase boundary between Stasis and prehistory."

One of the deskbound Kafkas looked up, his eyebrows furrowing with irritation. "Could you take this somewhere else?" he asked.

"I'm sorry," Pierce's Kafka replied with abrupt humility. "Agent Pierce, this way."

As Kafka led Pierce into an office furnished like an actuary's hermitage, Pierce asked, "Aren't you at risk of anachronism yourselves? Mult.i.tasking like that, so close to the real Kafka's datum?"

Kafka smiled sepulchrally as he sat down behind the heavy oak desk. "I take precautions. And the fewer individuals who know what's in those ledgers, the better." He gestured at a small, hard seat in front of it. "Be seated, Agent Pierce. Now, in your own words. Tell me about your relations.h.i.+p with Agent-Scholar Yarrow. Everything Everything , if you please." He reached into his desk drawer and withdrew a smart pad. "I have a transcript of your written correspondence here. We'll go through it line by line next ..." , if you please." He reached into his desk drawer and withdrew a smart pad. "I have a transcript of your written correspondence here. We'll go through it line by line next ..."

Funeral in Berlin.

The interrogation lasted three days. Kafka didn't even bother to erase it from Pierce's time line retroactively: clearly he was making a point about the unwisdom of crossing Internal Affairs.

Afterward, Pierce left the hotel and wandered the streets of Berlin in a neurasthenic daze.

Does Kafka trust me? Or not? On balance, probably not: the methodical, calm grilling he'd received, the interrogation about the precise meaning of Yarrow's love letters (faded memories from decades ago, to Pierce's mind), had been humiliating, an emotional strip search. Knowing that Kafka understood his dalliance with Yarrow as a youthful indiscretion, knowing that Kafka clearly knew of (and tolerated) his increasingly desperate search for the point at which his history with Xiri had been overwritten, only made it worse. On balance, probably not: the methodical, calm grilling he'd received, the interrogation about the precise meaning of Yarrow's love letters (faded memories from decades ago, to Pierce's mind), had been humiliating, an emotional strip search. Knowing that Kafka understood his dalliance with Yarrow as a youthful indiscretion, knowing that Kafka clearly knew of (and tolerated) his increasingly desperate search for the point at which his history with Xiri had been overwritten, only made it worse. We can erase everything that gives meaning to your life if we feel like it. We can erase everything that gives meaning to your life if we feel like it. Feeling powerless was a new and shocking experience for Pierce, who had known the freedom of the ages: a return to his pre-Stasis life, half-starved and skulking frightened in the shadows of interesting times. Feeling powerless was a new and shocking experience for Pierce, who had known the freedom of the ages: a return to his pre-Stasis life, half-starved and skulking frightened in the shadows of interesting times.

And then there was the incipient paranoia that any encounter with Internal Affairs engendered. Am I being watched right now? Am I being watched right now? he wondered as he walked. he wondered as he walked. A ghost-me surveillance officer working for Internal Affairs, or something else? A ghost-me surveillance officer working for Internal Affairs, or something else? Kafka would be mad not to a.s.sign him a watcher, he decided. If Yarrow was under investigation, then he himself must be under suspicion. Guilt by a.s.sociation was the first rule of counterespionage, after all. Kafka would be mad not to a.s.sign him a watcher, he decided. If Yarrow was under investigation, then he himself must be under suspicion. Guilt by a.s.sociation was the first rule of counterespionage, after all.

A soul-blighting sense of depression settled into his bones. He'd had an inkling of it for months, ever since his increasingly frantic search in the Library, but Kafka's quietly pedantic examination had somehow catalyzed a growing certainty that he would never see Xiri, or Magnus and Liann, ever again-that if he could ever find them, shadows cast from his mind by the merciless inspection-lamp glare of Internal Affairs would banish them farther into unhistory.

Therefore, he wandered.

Civilization lay like a heavy blanket upon the land, rucked up in gray-faced five-story apartment blocks and pompous stone-faced business establishments, their pillars and porticoes and cornicework swollen with self-importance like so many amorous street pigeons. The city sweated in the summer heat, the stench and flies of horse manure in the streets contributing a sour pungency to the sharp stink of stove smoke.

Other people shared the Stra.s.se with him; here a peddler selling apples from a handcart, there a couple taking the air together. Pierce walked slowly along the sidewalk of a broad street, sweating in his suit and taking what shelter he could from the merciless summer sun beneath the awnings of shops, letting his phone's navigation aid guide his footsteps even as he wondered despondently if he would ever find his way home. He could wander through the shadowy world of historicity forever, never finding his feet-for though the Stasis and their carefully cultivated tools of ubiquitous monitoring had nailed down the sequence of events that comprised history, history was a tangled weave, many threads superimposed and redyed and snipped out of the final pattern ...

The scent was his first clue that he was not alone, floral and sweet and tickling the edge of his nostrils with a half-remembered sense of illicit excitement that made his heart hammer. The s.h.i.+fting sands of memory gave way: I know that smell I know that smell- His phone vibrated. "Show no awareness," "Show no awareness," someone whispered inside his skull in Urem. someone whispered inside his skull in Urem. "They are watching you." "They are watching you." The voice was his own. The voice was his own.

The strolling couple taking the air arm in arm were ahead of him. It was her her scent, the familiar bouquet, but- scent, the familiar bouquet, but- "Where are you?" "Where are you?" he sent. he sent. "Show yourself." "Show yourself."

The phone buzzed again like an angry wasp trapped inside his ribs. "Not with watchers. Go to this location and wait," "Not with watchers. Go to this location and wait," said the traitor voice, as a spatial tag nudged the corner of his mind. said the traitor voice, as a spatial tag nudged the corner of his mind. "We'll pick you up." "We'll pick you up." The rendezvous was a couple of kilometers away, in a public park notorious by night: a French-letter drop for a dead-letter drop. The rendezvous was a couple of kilometers away, in a public park notorious by night: a French-letter drop for a dead-letter drop.

He tried not to stare. It It might might be her, be her, he thought, trying to shake thirty-year-old jigsaw memories into something that matched a glimpse of a receding back in late-nineteenth-century dress and broad-brimmed hat. He turned a corner in his head even as they turned aside into a residential street: he thought, trying to shake thirty-year-old jigsaw memories into something that matched a glimpse of a receding back in late-nineteenth-century dress and broad-brimmed hat. He turned a corner in his head even as they turned aside into a residential street: "Internal Affairs just interrogated me about Yarrow." "Internal Affairs just interrogated me about Yarrow."

" You told us already. Go now. Leave the rest to us."

Pierce's phone fell silent. He glanced sideways out of the corners of his eyes, but the strolling couple were no longer visible. He sniffed, flaring his nostrils in search of an echo of that familiar scent, but it, too, was gone. Doubtless they'd never been here at all; they were Stasis, after all. Weren't they?

Guided by his phone's internal nudging, Pierce ambled slowly toward the park, shoulders relaxed and hands clasped behind his back as if enjoying a quiet afternoon stroll. But his heart was pounding and there was an unquiet sensation in the pit of his stomach, as if he harbored a live grenade in his belly. You told us already. Go now. Leave the rest to us. You told us already. Go now. Leave the rest to us. His own traitor voice implying lethally spiraling cynicism. His own traitor voice implying lethally spiraling cynicism. They are watching you. They are watching you. The words of a self-crowned pervert G.o.d, hubris trying to dam the flow of history; or the mysterious Opposition that Kafka had warned him of? It was imponderable, intolerable. The words of a self-crowned pervert G.o.d, hubris trying to dam the flow of history; or the mysterious Opposition that Kafka had warned him of? It was imponderable, intolerable. I could be walking into a trap, I could be walking into a trap, Pierce considered the idea, and immediately began to activate a library of macros in his phone that he'd written for such eventualities. As Superintendent-of-Scholars Manson had ceaselessly reminded him, a healthy paranoia was key to avoiding further encounters with cardiac leeches and less pleasant medical interventions. Pierce considered the idea, and immediately began to activate a library of macros in his phone that he'd written for such eventualities. As Superintendent-of-Scholars Manson had ceaselessly reminded him, a healthy paranoia was key to avoiding further encounters with cardiac leeches and less pleasant medical interventions.

Pierce crossed the street and walked beside a ca.n.a.l for a couple of blocks, then across a bridge and toward the tree-lined gates of a park. Possibilities hummed in the dappled shadows of the gra.s.s like a myriad of b.u.t.terfly wings broken underfoot, whispering on the edge of actuality like distant thunder. This part of history, a century and more before the emergence of the first universal-surveillance society, before the beginning of the history to which the Stasis laid claim, was mutable in small but significant ways. n.o.body could say for sure who might pa.s.s down any given street in any specified minute, and deem it disruptive: the lack of determinism lent a certain flexibility to his options.

Triggering one of his macros as he stepped through the gate to the park, between one step and the next Pierce walked through a storeroom in the bas.e.m.e.nt of a Stasis station that had been dust and ruins a billion years before the ice sheets retreated from the North German plains. It had lain disused for a century or so when he entered it, and n.o.body else would use it for at least a decade thereafter-he'd set monitors, patient trip wires to secure his safe time. He tarried there for almost three hours, picking items from a well-stocked shelf and sending out messages to order them from a factory on a continent that didn't yet exist, eating a cold meal from a long-storage ration pack, and trying to regain his emotional balance in time for the meeting that lay ahead.

An observer close on his tail would have seen a flicker; when he completed the stride his suit was heavier, the fabric stiffer to the touch, and his shoulders slightly stooped beneath the weight concealed within. There were other changes, some of them internal. Perhaps the observers would see, but: Leave the rest to us. Leave the rest to us. He slipped his hands into his pockets, blinked until the itching subsided and the heads-up display settled into place across the landscape, scanning and amplifying. He had summoned watchers, circling overland: invisible and silent, nerves connected to his center. He slipped his hands into his pockets, blinked until the itching subsided and the heads-up display settled into place across the landscape, scanning and amplifying. He had summoned watchers, circling overland: invisible and silent, nerves connected to his center. f.u.c.k Kafka's little game, f.u.c.k Kafka's little game, he thought furiously. he thought furiously. f.u.c.k them all. f.u.c.k them all. Three hours in his unrecorded storeroom in the Cryptozoic had given him time for his depression to ferment into anger. Three hours in his unrecorded storeroom in the Cryptozoic had given him time for his depression to ferment into anger. I want answers! I want answers!

It was a hot day, and the park was far from empty. There were young women, governesses or maids, pus.h.i.+ng the prams of their bourgeois employers; clerks or office workers skipping work and some juvenile ne'er-do-wells playing truant from the gymnasium; here a street sweeper and there a dodgy character with a barrel organ and behind him a couple of vagrants sharing a bottle of schnapps. At the center of a well-manicured lawn, an ornate stone pedestal supported a clock with four bra.s.s faces. Pierce, letting his phone drive his feet, casually glanced around while his threat detector scanned through the chaff. n.o.body n.o.body-His phone buzzed again.

"What was the tavern where you fell for me called?" An achingly familiar voice whispered in his ear.

"Something to do with wildfowl, in Carnegra, the Red Goose or Red Duck or something like that-"

"Hard contact in three seconds," his own voice interrupted from nowhere. "b.u.t.ton up and hit the ground on my word. "b.u.t.ton up and hit the ground on my word. Now Now ." ."

Pierce dived toward the gra.s.sy strip beside the path as flaring crimson threat markers appeared all around him. As he fell, his suit bloated and darkened: rubbery cones expanded like a frightened hedgehog's quills as his collar expanded and rotated, hooding him. In the s.p.a.ce of a second the park's population doubled, angular metallic figures flickering into being all around. Time flickered and strobed as timegates snapped open and shut, expelling sinister cargo. Pierce twitched ghost muscles convulsively, triggering camouflage routines as the incoming drones locked onto each other and spat missiles and laser fire.

"What's going on?"

"Palimpsest ambus.h.!.+ Hard ..."

The signal stuttered into silence, hammered flat by jammers and raw, random interference. Pierce began to roll, rising to sit as his suit's countermeasures flared. This is crazy, This is crazy, he thought, shocked by the violence of the attack. he thought, shocked by the violence of the attack. They can't hope to conceal- They can't hope to conceal- The sky turned violet-white, the color of lightning: the gra.s.s around him began to smoke.

The temperature rose rapidly. His suit was just beginning to char from the prompt radiation pulse as the ground opened under him, toppling him backward into darkness.

REDUX.

Army of You.

When you see the ground swallow Pierce you will breathe a sigh of relief-you'll finally have the luxury of knowing that one of your iterations has made it out of death ground. But the situation will be too deadly to give you respite. If Internal Affairs are willing to start start with combat drones and orbital X-ray lasers, then escalate from there, where will they stop? How badly do they want you? with combat drones and orbital X-ray lasers, then escalate from there, where will they stop? How badly do they want you?

Very badly, it seems.

There's going to be h.e.l.l to pay when it's time for the cleanup; ur-history doesn't have room for a nuclear blitzkrieg on the capital of the Second Reich. The calcinated, rapidly skeletonizing remains of the governesses and the organ grinders contort and burst in the searing wind from the Hiros.h.i.+ma miscarriage, and the four faces of the clock glow cherry red and slump to the ground as a dozen more of you flicker into view, anonymous in their heat-flash-silvered battle armor. The echo-armies of your combat drones fan out all around, furiously dumping heat through transient timegates into the cryogenic depths of the far future as they exchange fire with the enemy's soldiers. "Extraction complete. Prepare to move out," "Extraction complete. Prepare to move out," says your phone; the iteration tag of that version of you is astronomical, in the millions. This isn't just a palimpsest ambush: it's an entire talmud of rewrites and commentaries and attempted paradoxes piled up in a threatening tsunami of unhistory and dumped on your heads. says your phone; the iteration tag of that version of you is astronomical, in the millions. This isn't just a palimpsest ambush: it's an entire talmud of rewrites and commentaries and attempted paradoxes piled up in a threatening tsunami of unhistory and dumped on your heads.

You'll grab your future self's metadata and jump toward a timegate to a dispersal zone drifting high in orbit above ruddy Jupiter's north pole, nearly a billion years in the future: the rocket motors at your suit's shoulders and ankles kick hard, and as you loft, you'll catch a flas.h.i.+ng glimpse of the Mach wave from the first heat strike surging outward, lifting and crumpling schools and hospitals and churches and apartments and houses and shops in the iron name of Internal Affairs.

They won't find this dispersal zone. They won't uncover the truth about Control, either, or about the Opposition-you'll be sure of that for as long as you continue to live and breathe.

You will look down, between your feet, at the swirling orange-and-cream chaos of Jupiter's upper atmosphere. Your armor will ping and tick quietly as it cools, and you will wait while the star trackers get a fix on your position, your mind empty of everything but a quiet satisfaction, the reward for a job well-done: the extraction of your cardinal iterant from the grasp of Internal Affairs. Somewhere else in time-millions of years ago-the rewrite war is still going on, the virtual legions of you playing a desperate sh.e.l.l game with Kafka: but you've won. All that's left to do is to deftly insert the zombie ringer into ur-history on his way into Kafka's court, primed to tell Internal Affairs exactly what you want them to know, then to orchestrate a drawdown and withdrawal from the ruins of Berlin before Kafka overwrites the battle zone and restores the proper flow of history.

Your suit will beep quietly for attention. "Scan complete," it announces. "Acceleration commencing." The thrusters will push briefly, reorienting you, sliding Jupiter out of sight behind your back. And then the rockets will kick in again, pus.h.i.+ng you toward the yard, and the fleet of thirty-kilometer-long stars.h.i.+ps a-building, and Yarrow.

He Got Your Girl.

I'm alive, thought Pierce, then did a double take. thought Pierce, then did a double take. I'm alive? I'm alive? Everything was black, and he couldn't tell which way was up. There was a metallic taste in his mouth, and he ached everywhere. Everything was black, and he couldn't tell which way was up. There was a metallic taste in his mouth, and he ached everywhere.