The Argonaut Affair (TimeWars 7)

"What's wrong?"

"I'm thinking," Steiger said.

"That could be dangerous," said Delaney, grinning.

Steiger opened his eyes, but didn't smile.

"It was a joke," Delaney said.

"I got that," Steiger said.

"Right," said Delaney. "Apparently what you don't got is a sense of humor."

"Everybody has their own way of breaking the tension just before a mission," Steiger replied. He glanced at Delaney. "Some people make jokes. I guess I'm not one of those people."

"How do you handle the tension?" Andre said.

Steiger swung his feet down onto the floor and stood. "I don't get tense."

Andre shook her head as she watched him leave the room, heading for the Ordnance Section. "I don't quite know what to make of him," she said. "We've been involved on several missions together, yet I still can't figure him out."

"He's been out in the cold too long," Delaney said. "Field agent Phoenix, man of a thousand lives. We've seen only two of them-Temporal Corps deserter Barry Martingale and Pathan warlord Sharif Khan. Both very different personalities. We haven't seen much of Creed Steiger yet."

"You make him sound schizophrenic," Andre said.

"That's one of the reasons I've always had a hard time working with T.I.A. people, especially field agents," said Delaney. "The best of them have never been too tightly wrapped. Remember our old friend, Carnehan, agent Mongoose? He was an excellent case in point."

"That doesn't sound like a promising analysis of our new partner," Andre said.

"Maybe it's not," Delaney said. "But on the other hand, he's a survivor. The fact that he made bird colonel in Temporal Intelligence speaks for itself. And don't forget we wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for his help on our last two missions."

"Do you really think he doesn't feel the tension?" Andre said.

"I don't know. I sure as hell do. Every time. Maybe he internalizes it. Some people just don't seem to get tense. They don't feel fear; they never panic."

"There's a word for people like that," Andre said.

"What word is that?"

"Crazy."

The outpost was located in the 2nd century B.C., high in the Alpine range overlooking the Po Valley. Several miles to the west was the pass through which Hannibal would take his 26,000 Carthaginians to meet with the Roman consul Scipio at the Battle of Trebia. The three temporal agents materialized in the heart of the small outpost, which was well concealed in the rocks high above the valley.

Beneath their coveralls, the three agents wore lightweight chitons, the knee-length universal garment of the ancient Greeks. Made from wool and sometimes embroidered with borders covered by geometrical designs, chitons were rectangular one-piece garments worn draped over the left shoulder, leaving the right arm and shoulder bare. The chitons were sometimes pleated and usually fastened at the waist by girdles, little more than cords encircling the hips. They wore chlamys with their chitons, lightweight woolen capes or mantles which were fastened at the shoulder or the throat by brooches or fibulae, metal clasps resembling safety pins. Their warp discs were disguised as heavy silver bracelets.

They were met at the transition point by Major David Curtis, the officer in command of the outpost. He wore one-piece, lightweight battle fatigues and a plasma sidearm. "All clear on this end," Curds said. "Are you straight on S.O.P.?"

Standard Operating Procedure called for them to program the transition coordinates for the other side of the confluence as soon as they went through, checking them with the outpost unit to make certain the coordinates were consistent with the confluence point on the other side. They would then have a temporal reference for the location of the confluence, which would enable them to return to precisely the same place and time when they completed their mission.

Curtis and two of his Rangers accompanied them on the short hop to the confluence point location, at the foot of the Alpine range. "We go on foot from here," said Curtis. "We don't want to make a transition anywhere close to the confluence point itself. We don't know yet how warp disc fields might interact with a temporal convergence. Orders are to play it safe."

"What's the temporal range of the confluence point?" said Steiger.

"It's a short one," Curtis said. "Three days. We've mapped it backwards and forwards to make absolutely sure. The centaur came through yesterday, Present Reference Time, and we'll synchronize temporal coordinates to have you coming through tomorrow, P.R.T., on completion of your mission."

"That doesn't give us much timespace," Delaney said.

"True, but it works for us as well as against us," Curtis replied. "We've got one day either side of Present Reference and then the rippling effect displaces the convergence and the confluence dissipates. No way to track it; it doesn't shift and move on, it just disappears. That means the opposition probably won't find it unless they luck out like we did. Even if they do, we've got it covered throughout its duration."