The Empire of Time Read Online Free PDF

we’re about to be led off into a cul-de-sac, interrupts. ‘Let’s stick to the subject, shall we?’
    ‘But …’
    ‘
Tomas
.’
    Tomas falls silent. Beside him, Matteus raises his hand.
    ‘Yes, Matteus?’
    ‘Does it
smell
back there?’
    There is laughter. As it fades, I answer him.
    ‘Very much. And you know what? Every Age has its own distinct smell. Where I’ve been, well, things were very basic back then. Their idea of sanitation and personal hygiene left much to be desired.’ I smile. ‘It’s no place for a sensitive nose.’
    They like that. There’s more laughter. But Ernst, I can see, wants something deeper than this from me. I can see in his eyes just how much he’s missing it, how much he wants to talk about how it
feels
to be out there, in Time.
    I look down. When I look up again my features are sterner. ‘Smell is an important indicator of the state of social development of an Age, yet it’s one of the more superficial aspects. Just as each age has its own smell, so it has its own mind-set, its own store of beliefs, of
givens
…’
    ‘Religion,’ Dieter, the eldest of them, says, and I nod. ‘When you go back, you must immerse yourself in the mind-set of that era. To do otherwise … well, it’s not an option. Not if you want to stay alive. One must learn to become a man of that time in every detail: in look, in speech and in basic mannerisms.’
    ‘What do you mean,
Reisende
?’
    Reisende
, he calls me.
Traveller
.
    I pause, remembering just how hard it actually is: lying to yourself day in day out, pretending to be what you’re not, paying lip service to things you cannot,
should not
ever believe. Especially all of that Nazi stuff. Looking back at those reverent boyish faces, I find I cannot tell them. Not the whole truth, anyway. Being a time agent is like being the biggest liar that ever was.
    I compromise. I tell them part of it.
    ‘What I mean is that you must be a kind of actor. You must embrace the pretence. You cannot –
must not
– be who you really are. To let anyone suspect …’
    ‘So you live a lie?’ Dieter asks.
    I backtrack a little, noting how Ernst is watching me now, the faintest smile on his lips.
    ‘When you’re there, and it really is only when you’re there, you find yourself searching within your own character for those elements that coincide with the Age, which …
reflect
it, I suppose. You give rein to those elements.’
    I see that some of them are not following me.
    ‘It
changes
you,’ I say, and I note how Tomas, at least, nods, some small glimmer of understanding in his eyes. I know there and then that he’ll make a good agent when his time comes.
    But the others? What do I want to say to them? That you are not who you think you are? That to become a traveller – a
Reisende
– you must learn to shed one skin and wear another?
    Yes. Only that’s not all. The truth is, it is an exhilirating, liberating,
revelatory
experience. And troubling, too, for sometimes you learn too much about yourself when the restraints are cast off; when one must live by a new set of rules simply to survive.
    ‘Otto?’
    I look to Ernst. ‘I’m sorry. I was remembering.’
    ‘Remembering?’
    ‘How it was, the first day I was there. On the boat, coming down the river to Marienburg.’
    But I say no more, because I don’t want to frighten them, and if I tell them how I really felt that day, it will. You see, the Past is an alien country. It is brutal and unforgiving, and you cannot make mistakes – not with the Russians out there.
    ‘Otto?’
    ‘I’m sorry. I’m tired. I haven’t quite adjusted back yet.’
    But it isn’t tiredness, it’s sudden understanding. I know now that it was me. Something I did back there. A mistake, perhaps, or some carelessness on my part. Because there’s no other way the Russians could have known.
    ‘I’m sorry, boys, but …’
    The boys show a paper-thin understanding, but I can see they’re disappointed. They wanted