The Time Traveler's Almanac

Pierce chuckled weakly. The results were predictable: when the coughing fit subsided, and his vision began to clear again, he shook his head.

“A pity.” Kafka rocked backward slightly, his shoulders hunched. “It would make things easier.”

Pierce risked a question. “Does the Library have anything?”

Kafka sniffed. “Of course not. Whoever set the trap knew enough to scrub the palimpsest clean before they embarked on their killing spree.”

So it was a palimpsest. Pierce felt vaguely cheated. “They assassinated themselves first? To remove the evidence from the time sequence?”

“You died three times, scholar-agent, not counting your present state.” He gestured at the dressing covering the cardiac assist leech clamped to the side of Pierce’s chest. It pulsed rhythmically, taking the load while the new heart grew to full size between his ribs. “Agent Yarrow died twice and Agent-Major Alizaid’s report states that he was forced to invoke Control Majeure to contain the palimpsest’s expansion. Someone” – Kafka leaned toward Pierce again, peering intently at his face with disturbingly dark eyes – “went to great lengths to kill you repeatedly.”

“Uh.” Pierce stared at the ceiling of his hospital room, where plaster cherubs clutching overflowing cornucopiae cavorted with lecherous satyrs. “I suppose you want to know why?”

“No. Having read your Branch Library file, there are any number of whys: what I want to know is why now.” Kafka smiled, his mouth widening until his alarmingly unhinged head seemed ready to topple from the plinth of his jaw. “You’re still in training, a green shoot. An interesting time to pick on you, don’t you think?”

Fear made Pierce tense up. “If you’ve read my Library record, you must know I’m loyal…”

“Peace.” Kafka made a placating gesture. “I know nothing of the kind; the Library can’t tell me what’s inside your head. But you’re not under suspicion of trying to assassinate yourself. What I do know is that so far your career has been notably mundane. The Library branches are as prone to overwrites as any other palimpsest; but we may be able to make deductions about your attacker by looking for inconsistencies between your memories and the version of your history documented locally.”

Pierce lay back, drained. I’m not under suspicion. “What is to become of me?” he asked.

Kafka’s smile vanished. “Nothing, for now: you may convalesce at your leisure, and sooner or later you will learn whatever it is that was so important to our enemies that they tried to erase you. When you do so, I would be grateful if you would call me.” He rose to leave. “You will see me again, eventually. Meanwhile, you should bear in mind that you have come to the attention of important persons. Consider yourself lucky – and try to make the best of it.”

Three days after Kafka’s departure – summoned back, no doubt, to the vasty abyss of deep time in which Internal Affairs held their counsel – Pierce had another visitor.

“I came to thank you,” she said haltingly. “You didn’t need to do that. To decoy, I mean. I’m very grateful.”

It had the sound of a prepared speech, but Pierce didn’t mind. She was young and eye-wrenchingly desirable, even in the severe uniform of an Agent Initiate. “You would have died again,” he pointed out. “I was your backup. It’s bad form to let your primary die. And I owed you.”

“You owed me? But we haven’t met! There’s nothing about you in my Library file.” Her pupils dilated.

“It was an older you,” he said mildly. While the Stasis held a file on everyone, agents were only permitted to see – and annotate – those of their own details that lay in their past. After a pause, he admitted, “I was hoping we might meet again sometime.”

“But I—” She hesitated, then stared at him, narrowing her eyes. “I’m not in the market. I have a partner.”

“Funny, she didn’t tell me that.” He closed his eyes for a few seconds. “She said we had a history, though. And to tell her when I first met her that her first pet – a cat named Chloe – died when a wild dog took her.” Pierce opened his eyes to stare at the baroque ceiling again. “I’m sorry I asked, Ya – esteemed colleague. Please forgive me; I didn’t think you were for sale. My heart is simply in the wrong place.”

After a second he heard a shocked, incongruous giggle.

“I gather armor-piercing rounds usually have that effect,” he added.

When she was able to speak again she shook her head. “I am sincere, Scholar-Agent – Pierce? – Pierced? Oh dear!” She managed to hold her dignity intact, this time, despite a gleam of amusement. “I’m sorry if I – I don’t mean to doubt you. But you must know, if you know me, I have never met you, yes?”