The Zenda Vendetta (TimeWars 4)

Rassendyll’s eyes grew very wide. “Dead! You cannot be serious!” He abruptly realized that he could not move his arms. Realization of his situation plunged him into abject terror. “My God! Poisoned! No! No, please, in Heaven’s name, man, help me!”

“I’m afraid that you’re quite beyond help,” said Drakov. “I’m sorry.”

/> Rassendyll now found it difficult to speak. He wanted to scream, but he could not. The most he could manage was a croaking whisper.

“Why?” he said, forcing the words out. “What have I ever done to you?”

“Nothing,” Drakov said. “There is nothing personal in this, Rudolf. That is the main reason I have made it as physically painless as I knew how. It’s slower this way, but at least it doesn’t hurt. In a way, I’m even doing you a favor. You would have died within another year of tuberculosis — what you call consumption. Not an easy death, by any means, what with fever, chills, internal lesions causing you to cough up blood; this will be far less unpleasant. Soon, you will simply lose consciousness, almost like falling asleep. When your body is discovered, it will appear as though you had suffered a stroke.”

Rassendyll could no longer move at all. He could not speak; he could not feel a thing. Large tears made wet tracks down his cheeks. Drakov wiped them away gently with a silk handkerchief. While he spoke, he reached into Rudolf’s coat and removed his billfold, replacing it with one of his own. Then he systematically searched his other pockets.

“I knew all about your trip,” he said. “In fact, I know all there is to know about you, such as your relationship to Rudolf Elphberg. However, there are always slight historical discrepancies that one cannot account for and I had to engage you in conversation to make certain of a few things. You were very helpful, telling me all I needed to know with almost no prompting on my part. If it’s any consolation to you, you’re dying in a good cause. Your death is something that I find regrettable, but necessary.”

He did something inside the case and the border circuits on the floor began to glow. He shut the case; then, holding the walking stick in one hand and the case in the other, he stepped into the glowing circle.

“I’m afraid that Lord and Lady Burlesdon will believe that you must have had some sort of accident upon your hunting trip,” he said. “The papers you are now carrying identify you as Peter Andersen, the name under which I booked passage. Rudolf Rassendyll will simply disappear, as shall I. I’m sorry that it had to be this way. I truly am. You will be missing the adventure of a lifetime. However, we have someone else in mind to play your part. Goodbye, Rudolf. Better luck in the next life.”

The glowing circle flared and vanished, taking Drakov with it.

2

“Ruritania?” Lucas Priest frowned. “I’ve never even heard of a country called Ruritania. Which time period are we talking about, sir?”

“The late 19th century, Major,” said Forrester. He stood behind the podium in the small briefing room on the sixty-third floor of the TAC-HQ building. Major Lucas Priest, Master Sergeant Finn Delaney and Corporal Andre Cross sat before him in the first row of seats. They were dressed in green transit fatigues, form-fitting and lightweight, with their division pins attached to their collars and their insignia of rank on narrow black armbands.

Though Lucas Priest was the ranking officer on the commando team, Finn Delaney had the most seniority in terms of service. The antiaging drugs gave him a deceptively youthful appearance, despite the fact that he was already a veteran of the Temporal Corps when Lucas Priest was still a boy. He owed his lowly rank, out of all proportion to his length of service, to the fact that he had the worst disciplinary record in the entire corps. His most frequent offenses were insubordination and striking superior officers. Each offense, without exception, had been committed in Plus Time. On the other hand, he also held the record for the most promotions for outstanding performance in the field in Minus Time, with the result that he went up and down in rank like a yo-yo. He had only made officer once, for a very brief period of time. The irrepressible, burly, redheaded lifer was a sharp contrast to the slender, brown-haired Priest, a model officer who had quit his job as a well-paid lab technician and joined the Temporal Army on a whim, only to find his true vocation. He had been assigned to Forrester’s division after several tours of duty in the regular corps, and he had risen in rank steadily and rapidly until he was now Forrester’s second-in-command. Though quite different by nature, the two men complemented each other perfectly and, as frequently occurs with close friends, some of their traits had rubbed off on each other. Finn had learned to control his wild temper at least occasionally and Lucas had developed the ability if not to break regulations, then at least to bend them every now and then.

Biologically, Finn Delaney was the oldest of the three at the age of one hundred and twelve, senior to Lucas by almost fifty years. However, if their ages were to be reckoned chronologically, that distinction would have gone to Andre Cross. Though biologically only in her late twenties, a child by the standards of the 27th century, Andre had been born over a thousand years earlier in the mountainous Basque country of the 12th century. Hers was a case of temporal displacement. She had been taken from her own time and transplanted to the 27th century, an act facilitated by computer implant education and her own unique abilities. Tall, broad-shouldered and unusually muscular for a woman of her time, she felt much more comfortable in the 27th century than she had in 12th-century England, where she had found it necessary to wear her straw-blonde hair like a man’s and conceal her gender so that she could become a mercenary knight and live life on her own terms.

Together, the three of them made up a crack commando team. The most difficult and hazardous historical adjustment missions were usually assigned to them, a fact that they were well aware of as they sat and listened to Forrester conduct the briefing. It did not escape their notice that Forrester seemed unusually preoccupied and uncharacteristically tense. It wasn’t like him. It did not bode well for the upcoming mission.

“Ruritania was a tiny sovereign state,” said Forrester, “a vestpocket kingdom in Central Europe located in the Balkans. It was annexed by Austria-Hungary shortly prior to the First World War. Historically, it was a nation of no great significance in and of itself; however, certain recent events have given it a great deal of significance from the temporal standpoint.”

He punched a button on the podium console, activating the computer. “Forrester, code 321-G, clearance blue.”

“Clearance confirmed,” said the computer. “How may I assist you, Colonel Forrester?”

“Request general background on the conspiracy to depose King Rudolf the Fifth of Ruritania in the year 1891,” said Forrester. “Proceed when ready.”

“Working,” said the computer. “Will you require visuals, Colonel?”

“I’ll specify them as the need arises,” Forrester said.

“The file on the requested data is incomplete,” said the computer. “Available data is unsubstantiated; repeat, unsubstantiated.”

“Wonderful,” said Finn, wryly.

“Shut up, Delaney. Proceed, computer.”

“Available data is derived from a single source,” said the computer, “that source being a novel — ”

“A novel!” said Finn.

Forrester gave him an irate look.

“Repeat, a novel,” said the computer, “specifically, an historical romance titled The Prisoner of Zenda, written by Sir Anthony Hope Hawkins, also known as Anthony Hope, a London solicitor (modern equivalent: attorney) and published in England in the year 1894. The work was reportedly based on the personal diaries of Rudolf Rassendyll, born August 21, 1862 in London, England; died of tuberculosis on April 14, 1892 — ”

“Visual on Rudolf Rassendyll,” safd Forrester.