Time Travelers Never Die - Jack McDevitt [129]
“I have access to a substantial sum.” Dave watched, certain that Cesare could not be conned. They would simply take everything, and they would still end in the hands of the Inquisition.
“And where is this substantial sum?”
“Nowhere, just now—” It was as far as he got. Cesare nodded, a barely perceptible movement of head and eye, and one of the priests knocked him to his knees.
“Please do not waste my time,” he said.
Shel struggled to speak. “I have no wish to do so, Eminence. You have the transmuters on your desk.”
“The what?”
“The transmuters. They convert lead to gold.”
The Cardinal looked at Dave to see how he was receiving this news. Dave tried to appear displeased, as if Shel had just given away a secret. He picked up one of the converters. “Such a device,” he said, “would do much to spur the mission of Mother Church.”
“Would you like me to show you how it works, Eminence?” Shel tried to get to his feet, but a guard held him tightly.
“I think not. I would prefer that your friend show us.” He motioned Dave to come forward, gave him a lead paperweight, and the converter. “Father Dryden, make us some gold.”
The lead weight was a disk-shaped stone, with an image of St. Gabriel appearing to the Virgin.
Dave set the converter to take him downstream one minute. He adjusted the lead weight as though he were positioning it. “That looks about right,” he said. Then he smiled at Cesare to be sure he had his attention and pushed the button.
The room and its occupants froze. They became transparent and faded out. When they reappeared, one minute later their time, the tableau had changed dramatically. Cesare’s face was twisted with shock. The guards had released Shel and were cringing near the door. The linebacker was blessing himself, and the squash player, eyes wide, had retreated well away from where Dave had been standing. Shel, finally, had gotten to his feet.
Someone screamed Satan’s name. The linebacker thrust a crucifix in Dave’s face. Dave pushed him away and turned to Cesare, who was equally aghast. “You abuse your power, Eminence,” he said. He scooped up the coins they’d taken from him and the remaining converters. He handed one to Shel. They were by then alone with the Cardinal, who did not seem to want to come out from behind his desk.
Dave reverted to English: “You all right, Shel?”
“Yeah.” He was shaking his head, trying to clear it. “It’s almost been worth it.”
Dave smiled nonchalantly at Cesare, whose pale expression contrasted sharply with his red robes. “I’ll see you in hell, Eminence.”
Shel clipped the converter onto his belt. “I just realized,” he said. “I didn’t get my sculpture.”
“Forget it. Let’s go home.”
One of the guards had recovered his nerve, gotten a poker somewhere, and came back into the office. Shel pushed the button and faded out. Dave followed a moment later. But when he materialized in the wardrobe, he was alone.
CHAPTER 38
Go, Stranger, tell the Spartans that we lie here obeying their orders.
—EPITAPH ON THE MONUMENT AT THERMOPYLAE
DAVE kept looking. He tried Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, in December 1903, and watched the Wright Brothers launch their flying machine. Unfortunately, there was no sign of Shel. Moreover, neither Orville nor Wilbur had any recollection of being approached by anyone resembling Adrian Shelborne. Dave thanked them and, thoroughly intimidated, excused himself, making no effort to engage in the casual conversation that Shel had always tried to initiate. Well, they were busy. But that wasn’t the reason he hadn’t tried. It was frustrating. He’d faced down Cesare Borgia and his thugs, but he couldn’t find his voice with the world’s first pilots.
He’d learned from the hunt for Michael Shelborne that it was necessary to look for an event rather than a person. Other than the comet of 1811, which wasn’t going to do him any good, Dave had two events, but he wasn’t enthusiastic about going near either.
Leonidas and his Spartans.
And Socrates on his last