The Gate of Time

This was very satisfying to Two Hawks, but his successes seemed to have little effect upon the battling on the ground. The enemy took one fort after another, one town after another, losing three- to-one in the process but seemingly not caring. Suddenly, the capital was invaded. A fleet bombarded the forts at the mouth of the Tems river for a week, then landed troops. The

Perkunishan air force provided a cover that day. Two Hawks led his complete force against them, and in one day the Perkunishan fliers were almost wiped out.

It made no difference to the men on the ground. In seven days, the invaders were hammering at the gates of Bammu.

Two days later, fifty of Raske’s new twin-engined bombers landed on a Perkunishan field. They refueled and took off to bomb Bammu, escorted by a hundred new fighter planes. Only half the bombers returned and 60 fighters. Two Hawks shot down ten enemy that day, bringing his score up to fifty-one. He returned with only thirty Blodlandish, all that remained of his pilots.

15

Despite the staggering losses, the bombing raid was a success. Four bombs struck the Witenayemot while the lords were in final session, before evacuating to the north. Old Lord Raedaesh was killed. Two Hawks thought that this was the best thing that could happen for the Blodlandish. But the bomb had also killed the Shofet, his two younger brothers, the queen, and the Shofet’s children. The entire royal family was wiped out, except for the Shofet’s uncle, who had been in a madhouse for twenty years. In the confusion that followed the a

Erik Leonitha also promised that after the enemy had been driven out, more rights would be given the common people and they would have a chance to advance themselves in the military and in the big businesses. The nobility were strongly opposed to him, so he needed as much support as he could get from the masses.

Two Hawks, acting on his own, had given orders to dismantle the aircraft factory and move the machinery to the north. He stayed in Bammu until the last piece of equipment had been loaded on a freight train. He and Kwasind boarded the final train out of the city. Even as he stepped onto his car, shells burst not more than a quarter-mile away. He went through several cars crowded with officers and high-born refugees. While going through an aisle, he heard his name called. He turned to look down into the blue eyes of Ilmika Thorrsstein.

“It’s been a long time, Milady,” he said. “I heard about your mother and brothers. I sent a letter of condolence. Did you get it?”

“No,” she said. “The mails are so bad now. But I thank you for your sympathy.”

He tried to continue the conversation without much success. She seemed withdrawn. Perhaps, he thought, she was just too tired. Her face was pale, and she had large dark circles under her eyes. He excused himself, saying he hoped to be able to talk with her again before they reached their destination. After passing through two more jammed aisles, he found his compartment. It was a tiny room, but he was fortunate to get it. The army had reserved it for him and for another important man, a Kreion. The officer rose when Two Hawks entered and returned the salute. Then, to Two Hawks’ surprise, he held out his hand to be shaken.

“I am Lord Humphrey Gilbert,” he said. “The fates have been good to me. I’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time.”

Two Hawks looked curiously at him. Gilbert was a name of French origin, or so he had always believed until now. There was neither a French nation nor language in this world, so he must have been mistaken. Yet he felt a warmth at coming across something that reminded him of his lost world, coincidence or not.

Gilbert was a short and husky man, about fifty. His thick greying hair was curly, and he had thick black eyebrows, grey eyes, a broad face, and a double chin. His moustache was dark and long and pointed. Gilbert invited Two Hawks to sit down, which Two Hawks would have done anyway, since he had no intention of standing. Gilbert began to talk to Two Hawks as if he had known him a long time. Two Hawks warmed up to him even more, since most of the aristocracy he had met had treated him somewhat coldly or over-politely. As it turned out, Gilbert had, in a way, known Two Hawks for a long time. He had been learning as much as he could about him.

“I inherited my title from my father,” Gilbert said. “He came from a middle-class but very weathy merchant family, most of whose riches came from a large fleet of merchant ships. Now, I have lost all my lands, most of my ships, well, this is not relevant to my story, except that I want you to know my background. You see, my family was founded by my great-great-great, I forget how many greats, grandfather. He came to Blodland in the Year of Hemilka 560.”

Two Hawks calculated the date, comparing it to the equivalent date of Earth 1. Hemilka 560 would be A.D. 1583.

“My ancestor, also named Humphrey Gilbert, did not come from the mainland. He came out of the western ocean, the Okeanos, in a ship such as no man had ever seen before.”

Gilbert paused as if waiting for a reaction of some sort. Two Hawks looked blank. Gilbert continued, “The ship was The Squirrel, sister ship to The Golden Hind.”

Gilbert looked disappointed when Two Hawks merely looked politely interested. He said, “It’s apparent to me that the disappearance of my ancestor from your world made no more than a ripple in your history, if that. I had thought he might have been a man of note. Well, no matter. Humphrey Gilbert was an Englishman -- ah, I see your eyes light up now! He was one of the early sailors to the continent of America...”

“How do you know all this, I mean, about Englishmen and America?” Two Hawks said.

Gilbert raised a fat hand. “Patience! I’ll get to that presently. As I was saying, his ship had been in a storm which separated it from its sister ship. When the storm disappeared, Gilbert could not locate the other ship, so he sailed on back until he came to what he thought was England and home. He sailed into the port of Ent (Earth 1’s Bristol). There he and his men were regarded as madmen. But to Gilbert and his crew, the others were mad. What had happened? Here was a people who looked something like the English but were speaking a tongue that only distantly resembled it. Nothing that they had known was familiar. Where were they?

‘The Blodlandish locked up the whole crew in an insane asylum. Some of the sailors did go insane, but my ancestor must have been a very adaptable man. He finally convinced the authorities he was harmless. After he was released, he became a sailor and eventually a captain of a ship. He went into African slave-trading—Africa was just being opened up then—and became wealthy. He married well and died rich and highly respected.

“He was intelligent enough not to insist on the truth of the story he had told when he’d first sailed into Ent. In fact, he never again mentioned it. But he did write down his story, plus a history of his native world. He titled it An Unpublished Romance, or Through the Ivory Gates of the Sea. The manuscript has been in the family library since his death. Most of his descendants have not read it, and those who did thought their ancestor had a rather feverish imagination.”