Free Debt of Ages by Steve White Page A

explained, after your obligations are fulfilled I'll return you to your office at the precise time we left it."
    "Yeah, if I'm still alive! You've implied that changing the alternate history is going to involve a lot of difficulty and danger as well as an 'extended stay,' and I know from experience how rough that era can be." He took a deep breath. "Look, I'm not afraid of personal risk—not as an individual. But my life isn't strictly my own to risk. I'm not even talking about the fact that I've got a wife and children; I'm talking about—"
    ". . . the just cause which is entrusted to you to defend," Tylar finished for him. It sounded like a quotation, but Sarnac couldn't quite place it. "Yes, I can respect that. But I cannot let it weigh in the balance against the fate of an entire reality—a reality in which the human race is doomed to be slaves and meat-animals for all that remains of its existence. You are, at this point in time, the guardian of an ephemeral polity called the Pan-Human League. I am the guardian of universal reality!"
    Memories of which he had been robbed not once but twice came back to Sarnac, for once before, in this very place, Tylar's eyes and voice had seemed to fill this artificial continuum of his own creation. And now, once again, the eyes and the voice were all that was or could be, and he was in free fall through a bottomless cosmos of the incomprehensible. . . .
    But then there was something else. There was a face in which the blood of Earth and Raehan blended into a harmony of coppery skin and dark-red hair and features which held all that that was worthwhile in Sarnac's personal universe. And all at once he knew where he was and who he was.
    "Tylar." He heard his own voice as though from a great distance. "Tylar!" he shouted—or at least the rasping in his throat told him he was shouting. Abruptly, all was as before in the elegant lakeside pavilion. Artorius and Andreas looked on in silence, and Tylar smiled slightly.
    "You've grown up," the time traveller observed. Then he leaned back, head tilted to one side, as though inviting Sarnac to speak.
    Sarnac forced steadiness on himself. "Tylar, I know there's no point in trying to refuse you. So I'll go along—on one condition. Tiraena comes too."
    Tylar's eyebrows lifted. "But that's really not necessary. She bears no part of the responsibility; she was in Britain at the time when . . ."
    "Yes, I know. But that's not the point. The half-memories you left in my subconscious but not in hers have been like a . . . a fault line between us. I don't want to take the chance of that happening again. And besides, Tylar—you owe her! I won't let you give me back my memories of what we went through together without giving them back to her as well, even if it's only for a little while for both of us." He took a deep breath and plunged ahead. "You may be able to compel my cooperation—but you can't compel my willing cooperation! The only way you're going to get that is by going along with me on this!"
    There was a moment's silence, while Andreas looked lost and Artorius's face wore an expression that Sarnac had never thought to see there. Tylar finally spoke in a conversational tone. "How can you be sure she'll want to go along on this expedition?"
    "I can't. But it has to be her choice. You have to give her memories back to her and then let her decide. So help me, that's the only way you're going to get my wholehearted participation."
    There was another pause. When Tylar spoke, it was at least half to himself, and with seeming irrelevance. "My work requires me to violate my own ethics far too much as it is, you know. In your case, I think I've already violated them quite enough." He seemed to reach an inner decision. "I believe what you request can be arranged."

Chapter Four
    The grav raft swept in out of the red sunset, knifing through the mists under the ghostly outline of the giant close moon that hung where it always hung over this