The Pillars of Eternity

He could not resist slowing down as he passed the Hat Brothers. They were staring sightlessly at one another. As the time-swat jointly hit them, it must have been the last thing they did. That mutual look was now made timeless.

At the yacht Obsoc’s robots greeted him worriedly with concerned news of Obsoc and Mace, neither of whom, it seemed, could be roused. Boaz directed the sledge into the lounge, where he briefly inspected the two.

He spoke to one of the yacht robots. ‘Take off and enter circumpolar orbit, achieving stable velocity over the magnetic north pole. Meanwhile broadcast a surrender message to the government cruiser. With luck they will intercept you rather than shoot you down, and you can gain medical assistance for your master and his friends.’

The robot inclined its head in understanding. Boaz turned to go, then paused. Already he had saved Mace from self-destruction. By his ethic, he had an obligation to her.

He did not think the time-stop would prove permanent or incurable once they were away from Meirjain. But her future with Obsoc would probably land her in the same psychological state as before.

‘Move the girl onto my sledge,’ he ordered the robots. He left the yacht with her, and minutes later was aboard his own ship. He watched The Sedulous Seeker lift off. When he gauged that the econosphere cruiser would be moving to intercept it, he ordered his own ship up.

In the opposite direction, he hurtled in a low, flat trajectory. Over the south magnetic pole he piled on power and shot away from the planet, using it to screen his ship. Soon he was through the c barrier and safe.

Only then did he realize he had forgotten something. He should have taken Romrey’s time-gems from his belt pouch. Romrey, if he did come out of time-stop, was going to be in deep trouble over those gems.

6

The matter of the meeting was so secret that all but three of those present would be subjected to memory elision before leaving the building. The privileged three had ordered the meeting. Two were econospheric councillors. The third, a man with steady blue eyes and an impassive gaze, was the heavily adplanted Director of the Department of Scientific Affairs. All three were members of the Cabal, the inner and semi-secret society by means of which the econospheric government buffered and protected its business.

Seated triumvirate fashion on the traditional raised dais, they loomed like judges over the dozen or more advisers squatting on cushions arranged in a horseshoe on the floor. These, too, were nearly all government employees – scientists, philosophers, policemen. The exception was a quiet individual who had been brought all the way from the famed colonnader planet of Aurelius. To him the trio paid a more discernible, if grudging, respect.

Not until they had settled themselves were the advisers informed that they were to discuss infringements of Article 70898/1/5: Regulations Concerning the Measurement of Time. It was in these regulations, so as not to draw undue attention to it, that the prohibition on time research was buried. The first stage of the meeting, officially called ‘Presentation of the Problem,’ was nearly over. The gathering was watching a recording of a police interrogation, and on the holocast a lean-faced man, still younger rather than middle-aged, swayed drunkenly in the straps of the chair that held him. His mind was being played back with no less trouble than a voice tape.

Gare Romrey was that man, recovered from time-stop, charged with possession of prohibited artifacts, all legal rights waived in the interests of state security. ‘The man’s crazy,’ he was mumbling. ‘The craziest alec I ever came across. By the cards, I was glad to get away from him….’

The picture faded as Romrey slumped. The whole story had been drained from him.

Into the silence that followed, Cere Chai Hebron, the Scientific Director, spoke. ‘From the information obtained from this man, from the other criminal Radalce Obsoc whose confession you have also seen, and from the robots who accompanied the latter, a probability analysis has been made of the period the fugitive Joachim Boaz spent upon the wandering planet. It is estimated with a weighted probability of around sixty-eight percent that the fugitive gained some information concerning time control that could not be perceived by his companion Romrey – remember Romrey’s puzzlement that Boaz decided to leave the alien complex so abruptly, at a point where it might seem the search was most in prospect of greater success. Added to this, possession of the time-refractive gems itself opens up the likelihood of illegal experimentation, with a weighted probability of nearly ninety-seven percent that prohibited data will be obtained – data, incidentally, not available to the authorities themselves, since previously all circulating time-gems had been confiscated and placed under interdict.