Free Time's Chariot by Ben Jeapes

thing.'
    Asaldra smiled. 'Not a problem, Acting
Commissioner. My wife works for the World
Executive – she's on the Oversight Committee.
There would have been a clash of interests.'
    'Oh.' Marje sighed in relief. So, no hidden Asaldra
skeletons – just the fact that his wife helped run the
College. 'I wasn't aware. But it seems unfair. Why
should I jump to the head of the patricians queue?'
    'Ekat – my wife – is a patrician,' Asaldra said,
'and I'm happy to serve the College. I'll get my due
reward.' He stood decisively. 'I'll be off, if I may.'
    Marje waved a hand. 'Of course. Will I see you at
the ball tonight?'
    'We'll be there,' Asaldra said with a nod. 'My wife
and I.'
    'Of course. I look forward to meeting her.' Apart
from anything else, Asaldra could be so unresponsive
that Marje looked forward to finding out
what kind of woman could put up with him, but she
kept quiet about that thought.
    Asaldra smiled with his mouth, but his eyes
stayed the same. 'I'll see you later, then.' He bowed
slightly and left.
    Marje stood up and began to pace around the
conference table. It wasn't much but her legs and
her spine welcomed the exercise. She would have
to deal with this office, she thought, looking
around her. Li Daiho had decorated his office as he
had decorated his Himalayan home, with books
and shelves that gave it an almost dusty feel clashing
with that ghastly twenty-first century carpet.
There was also a real-time window giving a view of
the Ross Sea outside, and on one wall an hourglass
– the logo of the College. It was cleverly arranged so
that the sand appeared to be rushing from the top
to the bottom, yet if one looked closely it seemed
the sand wasn't moving at all. And yet again, Marje
knew it was moving, but too slowly for the eye to
detect. The top half was almost empty and the sand
would be completely gone in another 27 years. To
remind the onlooker of this fact, the hourglass was
superimposed over a large 2 and a 7, side by side.
They too changed with each passing year, as Marje
knew from previous visits to the office.
    It was twenty-seven years until the end of the
Home Time, but the thought had never really
bothered her. By then she would be comfortably
settled on a retirement world.
    Enough daydreaming, back to work.
    'Display incoming,' she said, and the latest batch
of in-mail that was yet to be dealt with appeared in
front of her as she walked. She frowned at one of
the items; she had already seen, and ignored,
several like it. 'Query: why do I keep getting reports
from this correspondent?'
    All the reports of all the correspondents had of
course been logged long before she was born, but
the Register only released them little by little,
giving them the illusion of news just in. It was one
of the quirks programmed into it by Jean Morbern,
and something no one had the know-how to alter.
This correspondent had begun reporting in the
eleventh century and its stories had so far been of
negligible interest to her.
    The voice of Records spoke to her through her
symb. ' Commissioner Daiho asked to be apprised of all
reports coming from this particular correspondent. Do you
wish to discontinue? '
    'I do,' Marje said. Clearly the correspondent had
had a pre-programmed disposition which had been
of interest to Daiho, but she was more interested in
cutting down on the workload. 'No further reports
as of now. Move this one and all previous to
archive.'
    ' So noted ,' Records said.
    Pre-programmed dispositions. That was something
else she would have to get her head around.
There was always a pile of petitions from various
societies and interest groups to have one or more
correspondents from the next batch to go
upstream predispositioned to their own particular
concern. Right now, for instance, the Technological
History League of Russkaya ecopolis wanted a
correspondent who would seek out the great
engineering thinkers of their day. The Association
for Atonal Composition had supplied a list of
musicians and