Old Mars

“Yeah. Little green man about so high. One of those freaks from Venus. Had some sort of deal. I wouldn’t go for it. I didn’t like the smell of it. Thought he was lying. Too dangerous.” He was on his belly, stretching for the Banning.

“So you told him.”

“Was it him fingered me to the IMF?”

“Not exactly, but you didn’t do yourself any favors turning him down before you listened.”

“He was lying. I know leps. I didn’t want to know what his pitch was. I used to get crazies like him all the time, offering to cut me in on some fantasy in their heads.”

“The poor little guy was scared out of his wits. He’d found one of our time seeds and he thought we were magic. Ghosts of ancient Martians or something. Still, he did what I told him to do and he only once looked inside the bag. That nearly killed him. He almost dropped it and ran. The lep wasn’t just bringing my message. He had a bag of indigo flame sapphires with him.”

“A bag?” Stone laughed. The rarest jewel in the system, indigo flame sapphires couldn’t be cut, polished, or broken up. They had extraordinary properties. There were three known existing sapphires. One was in the Conquest of Space Museum on Terra, one was in the hands of United System President Polonius Delph—he was the richest man in seven worlds, or had been until he’d paid cash for his jewel. The other had been stolen soon after its discovery. Maybe Delph had it. “There’s no such thing.”

“There is. And Delph wants them. He thinks you’ve got them on you. They tortured Gunz, the man I sent after the lep. He told them you had them.”

“Oh, great! So I was set up by a Venusian leprechaun who was set up by a V-Image! That’s why they’ve been willing to spend so much money hunting me down. They just want to know where those mythical jewels are. They don’t care if they kill me. It’s just as easy to interrogate a fresh corpse using a couple of ccs of dreme. You remind me of my mother!”

“I can only guess what strange patchwork of information comes through the time seeds. We scatter them into our future, more or less at random. Often they are destroyed or are recalled, damaged. Enough land unharmed to broadcast back. We aren’t talking linear time as you imagine it, but radiant time. From what I understand of your world, Delph isn’t the only one who wants the sapphires. He has rivals in the Plutocracy. Another mysterious collector? Or those rivals are competing for the presidency or they think they can ruin him. As you know, it’s a vicious circle in politics. You can’t get to be president unless you have the wealth, and you can’t make really massive sums until you’re president. It was much the same in my day.”

“Your day?”

“That depends where you’re counting from.” The more he listened, the more Stone recognized the tone coming through the old accent. Miguel Krane spoke with the economical style of an army man. “Or which planet. So. Was this particular scenario set up by the IMF in order to trick you into giving up the jewels? No. The Interstellar Military Force has nothing to do with us. That was not an IMF ship pursuing you. Probably it’s Delph’s. I know you don’t have the sapphires. The lep was too scared to keep them. He brought them back and left them with the noman.”

In spite of this denial, Stone grew cautious again.

“Then who are you with?” he challenged. “And why are you so interested in me? Someone’s spending a great deal of dough on hunting me down. A real pro, that’s for sure. So—really—who are you?”

“My military experience was in Korea, in the middle of the twentieth century,” said Krane. “I’m a scientist. Later, I worked on a matter transmitter for the Pentagon. I tested it on myself. It went wrong. I was dragged back to old Mars instead. The Karnala—the clan I fell in with—have access to ancient knowledge and technology left behind by an earlier intelligent race, the Sheev. This machine is some of it. We call it a ‘memory catcher’ in Karnalan. This is the most sophisticated type.

“What is it? It’s an interactive device that can communicate across time. We’ve been studying them for years. We’re not sure we’re using the technology appropriately, but we’ve rigged it so it works for us, after a fashion. We have clear visuals and, when we get over language and other problems, can exchange information or even casual ideas! The Sheev scientists were masters of time. Many believe they abandoned Mars for past eras or the future of another planet, wherever conditions were ideal! Some think they had colonies on ancient Earth or in our future! But that is unlikely. This is about the best use we’ve found for their technology. And it’s to ask of you, Mac Stone, something that I would do myself if I weren’t merely an ethereal image in your world.”

“So you want to make a deal. Isn’t that usually the size of it? What can I do for you that you don’t want to do yourself? Isn’t that usually the deal?”

Krane’s image smiled. There was a sense of rapport between the two men. “Usually.”