boucher book oct28.pdf - Index of

Barrier 189
perversely, could discuss matters with the other travelers, and could tell him anything
he needed to know before all the listening guards of the State.
All this conversation was, of course, theoretically guided by the linguist. He gave
questions to Brent and received plausible answers, never dreaming that his questions
had not been asked.
As far as his own three went, Brent was satisfied as to the value of their liberation.
Mimi was not bright, but she seemed to mean well and claimed to have been a notable
warrior in her own matriarchal society. It was her feats in battle and exploration that
had caused her to be chosen for time travel. She should be a useful ally.
Kruj was indifferent to the sorry state of the world until Brent mentioned the
tasteless and servile condition of the arts. Then he was all afire to overthrow the Stasis
and bring about a new renaissance. (Kruj, Brent learned, had been heading for the
past to collect material for a historical epic on Elizabethan England, a fragment of
prehistoric civilization that had always fascinated him.)
Of the three, Nikobat, the Venusian, seemed the soundest and most promising.
To him, terrestrial civilization was a closed book, but a beautiful one. In the life
and struggles of man he found something deep and moving. The aim of Nikobat in
his own world had been to raise his transplanted Venusian civilization to the levels,
spiritual and scientific, that had once been attained by earthly man, and it was to
find the seed of inspiration to accomplish this that he had traveled back. Man degenerate,
man self-complacent, man smug, shocked him bitterly, and he swore to
exert his best efforts in the rousing.
Brent was feeling not unpleased with himself as he left his group after a highly
successful session. Kruj was accomplishing much among the other travelers and
would have a nearly full report for him tomorrow. And once that report had been
made, they could attempt Martha’s extraordinary scheme of rescue. He would not
have believed it ordinarily possible, but both he and Stephen were coming to put
more and more trust in the suggestions of the once scatter-brained Martha. Stephen’s
own reports were more than favorable. The Underground was boring beautifully
from within. The people of the State were becoming more and more restless and
doubting. Slowly these cattle were resuming the forms of men.
Brent was whistling happily as he entered the apartment and called out a cheery
“Hi!” to his friends. But they were not there. There was no one in the room but a
white-clad Stapper, who smiled wolfishly as he rose from a chair and asked, “You
be time traveler, be you not?”
This was the most impressive Stapper that Brent had yet seen—impressive even
aside from the startling nature of his introductory remark. The others, even the one
he had kicked in the face, or the one who killed Alex, Brent had thought of simply
as so many Stappers. This one was clearly an individual. His skin was exceptionally
dark and smooth and hairless, and two eyes so black that they seemed all pupil
glowed out of his face.
Brent tried to seem casual. “Nonsense. I be Slanduch envoy from Germany, staying
here with friends and doing service for State. Here bees my identification.”
The Stapper hardly glanced at it. “I know all about your ‘linguistic services,’ John
Brent. And I know about machine finded in deserted warehouse. It beed only machine
not breaked by Barrier. Therefore it comed not from Future, but from Past.”