They were clocked out above ground, equipped with floater paks, so that they would appear in Minus Time at very high altitudes, which eliminated the possibility of their appearing in a space occupied by someone or something else. Using their floater paks, they would descend to isolated areas, where they would break up into teams, each team equipped with survey equipment and a chronoplate. These were crack troops, the cream of the Temporal Corps, the most disciplined of soldiers. "I know what you're thinking," Hunter said. "It's not like a floater to desert."
"As a matter of fact," said Lucas, "that's exactly what I was thinking."
"Well, don't be too quick to pass judgment, pilgrim," Hunter said. "Put yourself in my place, first. We were sent to map out this area, preparatory to a mission in this sector and this time period. Come to think of it, I wouldn't be at all surprised if whatever hitch you're in on had something to do with it, although I can't be sure. I've been here for a while and I've clocked around some, so I kinda lost track of time, if you know what I mean. Anyway, to make a long story short, my team ran into trouble. Some of us came back dressed up like knights, nysteel armor and the works, others came done up like peasants, outlaws, serfs, whatever. My team were woodsmen. We had weapons that should have seen to our survival, but you oughtta know that it doesn't always work out that way.
"We came down in a deserted section of the forest, not too far from here. Plenty of game and the deer didn't run from you all the time, which meant that some of them had seen men and some of them hadn't. Anyway, I'm getting off the track. Point is, things were so damn quiet that we dropped our guard. We watched ourselves whenever we surveyed sectors that were populated or that had seen some traffic, but every time we came back here, we just felt real safe, you know? Of course, the moment we got to feeling that way, the shit hit the fan. We got to feeling too safe. We posted a guard every night, naturally, but this one night, one of the boys fell asleep. Maybe he fell off by accident one night and nothing happened, and after that he just took to nipping out on duty, I don't know. Whatever the case was, Jase was asleep the night we got hit.
"They were outlaws. Locksley's bunch. They shouldn't have even been in this neck of the woods; we had them charted miles away and we'd observed that they didn't like to wander too far from their stomping grounds, but this time they did. Maybe one of us got careless and was spotted. Either way, I woke up that night to find all hell had broken loose. There were about fifteen or twenty of them and only seven of us. We had no chance. They took us completely by surprise. None of us so much as got off a shot. Fortunately, we had our gear under a safety field and they couldn't get at it. They must've thought it was black magic or something.
"We had always figured they were pretty harmless. Bunch of crazy woodsmen who were drunk on their asses half the time. Just goes to show you, never underestimate the opposition. I was the only one who survived. Four of the boys had their throats cut in their sleep. The rest of us got taken out by arrows. I took two, one in the shoulder—" he pulled back his robe to display an ugly scar, "and one in the leg. Missed my femoral artery by about a fraction of an inch.
On top of that, one of 'em practically caved in my skull with a quarterstaff.
"They must have figured I was done for, because when I came to, double vision and the whole trip, they were gone and our camp was in a shambles. They wrecked everything they could get their hands on, looking for something worth stealing. They must have departed in a hurry once they came across the gear within the safety field. That probably made them think they'd just wasted a den of sorcerers. I helped them along in that direction later. Alexei was still alive. I found him with four arrows sticking out of him. No chance to save him, he died in my arms, laughing, laughing for God's sake, at how stupid it all was. And that left just yours truly."
Hunter took a healthy sip of bourbon. "I waited around for several days for S&R to show up. But there must have been some sort of slip-up. I don't know what the hell went down. They never showed. The implants of the dead men should have reported six KIAs, but no one ever showed. It finally occurred to me to test out my own implant. I stuck my finger in the hollow just behind my right ear, you know the drill, we all do it whenever we get to feeling paranoid, and nothing. No test tone. I just kept poking myself and poking myself, but no beeps went off inside my head. Only one conclusion. That rap on the head took out my implant. Still beats hell out of me why none of the others registered, but near as I can figure it, someone must've screwed up in S&R and our team never got logged. I assume the others all made it back all right, I never heard anything about them. But my team was the lost patrol. No one even knew we were back here. Typical army efficiency."
"But you still had your chronoplate," said Lucas. "You could have clocked back on your own."
Hunter nodded. "I had intended to. I doctored myself up as best I could and then I waited for the S&R pick-up. And I waited. And I waited. I finally decided to bury the dead. By that time, they had started stinking. I figured I'd put 'em in the ground and say a few words, then clock myself back. At least, that was the plan. Anyway ... I buried them all. They're all out there, just beyond the front door of this cabin. But when I was covering up the last man . . . Jase, I think it was, it hit me. Why bother going back?"
Hunter started to pour himself another shot of bourbon, then changed his mind and drank from the bottle instead. He was chain-smoking cigarettes.
"Why bother going back? Nobody knew about me. Nobody cared. So ... why bother?"
The thing that struck Lucas the most about Hunter, while he spoke, was the calm way in which he related this story. Hunter spoke without emotion. There was an animated quality about his speech, but that was not the same thing. There was a frightening coldness about the man, as if a part of him was dead. Or had never really lived. Lucas realized, with something of a shock, that he was listening to the perfect soldier, the ideal assassin. This was a man who would not panic under any circumstances. This was a man who would not know fear. It would be as alien an emotion to him as any other.
"It was raining," Hunter said, "and I was all covered with muck from burying six corpses. I sat down on the ground, right in the mud, right on top of Jase, and I considered my options. Only four branches of the service have steady access to chronoplates. Referee Corps, Observer Corps, Search and Retrieve and Airborne. The big boys keep real careful track of theirs, but us grunts can lose one once in a while. S&R might be able to home in on a lost chronoplate, like they home in on the coded implants, but suppose somebody picked the damn thing up and walked off with it? No big deal. They're fail safe. You don't know the sequence, the whole thing goes ka-boom. No problem. If there are any witnesses, it just becomes another crazy story. There are risks involved, but they're minimal compared to the risk of having a loose plate floating around.
"Okay, so I knew the sequence for my plate. I could program it. Sure, S&R could trace it, but then why didn't they trace the team through any of their implants?"
"Perhaps it was just a temporary mix-up," Lucas said. "Separations happen all the time."
"Yeah, maybe. It could happen," Hunter said. "So I decided to wait some more. I mean, what else was there to do? I could've clocked back, but all the time, I kept on thinking, what's in it for me if I return? They don't give a flying fuck about me, why should I give a damn? Well, after a while, I simply decided that I didn't. It took me about a week or two to figure out how to work a bypass on the tracer function. Then I was free and clear. My implant was out and they couldn't trace me through the plate. If they even knew a plate was missing, they'd figure it got into the wrong hands and self-destructed. I just mustered myself out. I built myself this cabin and then I set about making myself comfortable. It was easy. I had a full pathfinders program file to choose from. After a while, I started getting cocky. Started clocking into peacetime periods and locations. Just floated in, scouted around, blended in, did a little shopping and went home. I'll tell you, pilgrim, it's a fine life. I just pick myself a place and go. Paris in the 1920's, New York City in the 1890's, San Francisco in the 1980's, Greece, Singapore, Majorca, you name it. When I've had enough, I just clock back here. It's nice and quiet, no one bothers me and I go out there and tell the boys about the good times I've had."
"What about the outlaws?" Lucas said.
Hunter laughed. "They don't mess with me. We've got an understanding. They don't bother the wizard in the woods and I don't bother them. Fact is, we do each other little favors on occasion."
"What about your men?" said Lucas. "The outlaws killed them. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
Hunter took a long pull from the bottle. "I don't forget things like that," he said. He got up and walked over to a shelf, from which he took down an ancient .45 caliber automatic pistol, a Colt Combat Commander. "I've got more sophisticated weapons," he said, "but I find this very effective, especially at night. All the noise and the muzzle flash, makes 'em think I'm throwing lightning bolts at 'em." He gestured at his robe. "This outfit sorta completes the image. Impresses the shit outta them. I just gave them a few convincing demonstrations and then I told them that I wanted the men who killed my boys or they were all dead meat. They delivered."
"What did you do with them?" said Lucas.
Hunter smiled. "I clocked 'em out."
"Where?"
"Oh, North America, back in the Upper Cretaceous. Figured they'd get a real bang out of that. I wonder how much good bows and arrows were against the likes of Tyrannosaurus Rex?"
Lucas swallowed heavily. The man was diabolical. Worse than that, he was raving mad. But he had a chronoplate.
* * * *
Life was no longer simple for the merry men and, as a result, they were all somewhat less than merry. Marion was so impressed with Bobby's performance that with Finn Delaney's aid she mounted a G.I. inspection of the camp, destroying all the ale and wine that she could find. She laid down the law on drinking. From that moment on, it was to be strictly moderated.
The merry men were made to rise at dawn and given one hour in which to make themselves presentable for breakfast. Finn and Bobby had instituted the practice of bathing, which had been greeted with a great deal of alarm. Bathing was generally believed to be a health hazard and it took no small amount of cajoling and pummeling to get the outlaws to comply.