Verkan Vall yawned and looked up at the chronometer over the control panel of the paratemporal conveyor. It showed that five minutes had passed since the last time he'd looked at it, which seemed to him like several hours ago. He yawned again.
Why was this trip to Kalvan's Time-Line seeming to last forever? He doubted if the fatigue he was feeling helped; he felt as if he hadn't slept in a week-and come to think of it, he very nearly hadn't, making sure everything in Greffa would last through the winter without any further supervision by him.
The Upper Middle Kingdoms were in a bit of an uproar as there were rumors that the nomads on the Sea of Grass were stirring. Rumors in the streets of Greffa talked about a Mexicotal attack on Xiphlon. Verkan already had an agent setting up a Xiphlon trading firm as cover for his Greffan operation and, maybe, when the old coot Tortha got tired of shooting rabbits, he could persuade him to come for an extended visit. He had a feeling that the ex-Chief and the Kalvan family would hit it right off.
There were also tensions in Grefftscharr with Prince Varrack of Thagnor and further south with the Nythros City States City States over their growing influence in the Trygath and upper Saltless Seas. Volthus was another kingdom that was beginning to expand and flex its muscles at Grefftscharri expense.
Grefftscharrer politics had long been dominated by four power blocs: the king, the Greffan nobility, the Grefftscharrer Princedoms and the merchant magnates. Not one of the four was strong enough to enforce its will on the other three, and for centuries Grefftscharrer politics had been shaped by constantly shifting alliances among the four power blocs. This was typical of most of the Middle Kingdoms, like Dorg and Xiphlon. But, in fact, Grefftscharri rule had been further diluted by three weak kings in the last century, which had allowed their princes, such as Varrack, to act like independent rulers.
Unfortunately for King Theovacar, this power vacuum had allowed other peripheral kingdoms and princedoms time to build trade routes along with their own armies and navies. In a sense, this competition had created a thriving mercantile atmosphere and population boom, but-now that there was a strong ruler on the Greffan throne-war, and not just trade war, was on the horizon.
More changes were on the way. Kalvan's formula for fireseed was quickly spreading throughout an area that had few handguns and even fewer cannon due to Styphon's unpopular prohibitions against selling fireseed to the Middle Kingdoms. Of course, there had been fireseed smuggling going on for centuries, but there were few smoothbores in the Middle Kingdoms-and even fewer gunsmiths to make new ones. The crossbow was still the predominant missile weapon of choice.
Once the Fireseed War was over, Verkan saw opportunities for a steady trade between Hostigos and the Upper Middle Kingdoms in retired arquebuses, muskets and calivers. While lacking in firearms, the Upper Middle Kingdoms had much more history and were more sophisticated politically than the Great Kingdoms. Verkan expected there would be some interesting exchanges, both culturally and militarily in the coming decades between the two areas. He was going to enjoy watching it all unfold.
It bothered him to be leaving a friend before he'd done everything that could be done for him, even though his rational thoughts told him that he himself couldn't do much more for Kalvan and indeed not much more needed to be done.
Ptosphes was cleaning out Nostor very nicely; by the time winter came Prince Pheblon should be ruling over an untroubled Princedom-one still almost a desert, but a peaceful desert nonetheless. Prince Armanes was still recovering from his grievous wounds and his eldest son was acting in his place while his father recovered. It would be a year at least before Armanes sat in a saddle again.
In Hos-Agrys, Prince Aesklos was going to have to spend the winter by the fireside recovering, but he would be spending it with both legs-a near miracle for Aryan-Transpacific. His voice would be heard against the notion that there was anything demonic about Kalvan's knowledge. King Demistophon was blaming his disaster in Hos-Hostigos on incomplete intelligence and a lack of support by Styphon's House. Demistophon better be careful; he was making enemies on both sides of the conflict!
In Beshta, Prince Phrames was taking charge with a vengeance, and Harmakros and Hestophes were commanding the Army of Observation on the border with Hos-Harphax. Not that they had much to do; Galzar himself couldn't have made an army out of men who wouldn't stand and fight, guns that wouldn't shoot even if there was fireseed to load them and beasts who wouldn't carry or draw a load, which was all the Harphaxi had left.
The only man who might have tried, Grand Master Soton, was on his way back to Tarr-Ceros and his Knights for the campaign in the Sastragath next spring against the latest nomad incursions. Verkan had hoped Soton would be returning in disgrace with Styphon's House, although it would have been monumentally unjust to disgrace a fine soldier for common sense and loyalty to his soldiers. Instead, so rumors ran, the Inner Circle had done an about face and Soton was again considered the anointed champion of Styphon's House against the servant of demons. Once again pointing out the necessity to plant an agent at the top of the Balph hierarchy, although that was easier to say than to accomplish.
What bothered Verkan most was another rumor that Soton had been saved from disgrace at the price of an alliance with Archpriest Roxthar. If the best soldier and the most fanatical Archpriest-who was said to be a true believer in Styphon!-were now working together, the war would do worse than go on; it would very likely take an extremely ugly turn the next time Styphon's House marched.
He'd better send Ranthar Jard a few more men for his Paracop squad assigned to the Kalvan Study Team before that happened. Then he'd have enough people on the spot to take care of that majority of the University Team who couldn't take care of themselves, and meanwhile he'd be able to keep scholars like Varnath Lala and Gorath Tran from committing egregious follies-or at least he'd be able to try harder. If nothing really nasty happened, he'd at least have more people to carry messages, which would reduce the need to use possibly contaminating First Level techniques and leave the Paratime Police smelling a lot sweeter legally.
Whatever happened, Ranthar Jard was going to be much more on his own next year, because his Chief was going to have to spend most of his time on First Level until the Dralm-damned business of pulling out of Europo-American was settled, one way or another. The Study Group had been appointed, and was now sitting and talking. It showed signs of being willing to go on sitting and talking until entropy reversed itself, and meanwhile all Verkan Vall's enemies would be sharpening their knives and loading their guns to take advantage of this situation. He was just going to have to keep a close watch on the Study Group in order to get anything useful out of it, or look like a fool for appointing it in the first place.
What else could he do on Home Time-Line? Pick some more reliable subordinates who could be trusted to hold the fort when he had to go outtime, for one thing. Otherwise, it would be mostly a question of looking as though he were on the job, an image he could present much more effectively from behind his desk-a desk that didn't need a power excavator to be dug out from under accumulated paperwork.
The thought of that paperwork made Verkan look at the chronometer again, then at the display showing the parayears remaining to First Level. He'd thought of going straight to his office and making a start on at least sorting the backlog into broad categories. He'd be too tired to do even that unless he took a nap in the conveyor, and there wasn't enough time to make that nap a good one.
He'd do better to go straight home, get a good night's sleep in a proper bed and make his start at getting back to work in the morning. Sleep was something too precious to sacrifice to presenting an image, and if he ever forgot that, well, the Paracops would not only need a new Chief fairly soon, they'd deserve one.