begun the toppling of the Transhumanist regime. Only afterwards had the main body of the human race reestablished contact with Arcadia.
Thus, Jason reflected, this woman came of a society that had opted out of history and avoided the entire titanic, blood-drenched drama. Now, of course, in this day of faster-than-light travel, the Arcadians had reentered the mainstream of human society and subscribed to its dominant ethos. But perhaps they—and she—could not be expected to feel exactly the same thing the rest of humanity felt at the sound of the word “Transhuman.”
“You won’t find many people who’ll agree with you,” he said mildly.
“I know,” she acknowledged. “And I’m not even sure I agree with it, if you know what I mean. It certainly isn’t something I feel strongly about. I just can’t help wondering.” She fell silent, and remained so for a few moments before speaking up again.
“Com . . . Jason, I hope you won’t mind if I ask you another question.”
“Go right ahead. As you pointed out, we’re going to be working together. We shouldn’t have any secrets.”
She took another sip and laughed nervously. “One thing I almost wish you had kept a secret: what happened to Dr. Sadaka-Ramirez’s TRD.” She shivered.
“Please don’t let that prey on your mind. Rutherford was telling the truth when he said it doesn’t generally happen, and that in fact it had never happened before. People of past eras have no way to detect implanted TRDs. It was her misfortune that the Teloi did.” Jason halted his hand almost before it began to stray.
“And now we’re going in search of the Teloi. . . .”
“The surviving Teloi, if any,” he corrected. “If we do encounter them, they’ll be in a far less powerful position than they were in the Bronze Age. Furthermore, this time their existence won’t take us by surprise.”
“I keep telling myself that. But there’s something I’m puzzled about. Why couldn’t she have been rescued?”
“Rescued?”
“Yes. It seems as though it would be possible—at great expense, admittedly—to send a second expedition back to the time just after your departure, carrying a new TRD for her, timed the same as those of the expedition members.”
“Temporal energy potential doesn’t work that way. You’re linked to the time from which you come. Such a TRD would have returned to the time from which we brought it—but she wouldn’t have, because she didn’t come from that time.” Jason took a long pull on his Scotch and soda. “And besides, you misunderstand. She didn’t remain because she had to. We succeeded in retrieving her TRD. The self-sacrifice of Dr. Nagel, our third member, made that possible. She could have held it in her hand and returned. But she chose to stay.”
“Why?” Chantal’s question was barely audible.
“Very simple: she fell in love.” Jason laughed shortly. “You know the old cliché about the hero getting the girl. Well, in this case the Hero did. Remember what I was telling you about the origin of demigods? She got herself a prime specimen: Perseus. Yes,” he added as Chantal’s eyes grew round, “that Perseus. One of the female skeletons Schliemann found in the shaft graves at Mycenae must have been her.”
“I suppose he never knew what she had given up for him,” Chantal whispered.
“You know, I never thought of it from that angle. But then, I’m not a woman.”
“So,” Chantal said after a thoughtful silence, “when you came back, I suppose her TRD appeared on the displacer stage with you . . . as did Dr. Nagel’s corpse.”
“Neither. Dr. Nagel’s remains, TRD and all, were taken inside the Teloi pocket universe just before its access portal was atomized. And as for Dr. Sadaka-Ramirez’s TRD. . . . Remember I mentioned that I spent time as a prisoner in the pocket universe? We all did—and she spent more time there than Dr. Nagel and I. And the Teloi kept the time-rate there slower than in the outside universe—it helped them seem immortal to their human worshipers. And the atomic timers of the TRDs. . . .” Jason saw that she had grasped it. He grimaced. “I was the first time traveler in the history of the Temporal Regulatory Authority to return behind schedule. I don’t mind telling you I was nervous about appearing on the displacer stage at an unforeseeable moment! Fortunately, Rutherford had gone to great lengths to keep the stage clear.”
Chantal wore a look of intense concentration. “If, as you say, Dr. Sadaka-Ramirez was in the pocket universe longer than you—”
“Precisely.