The Anubis Gates by Tim Powers Read Free Book Online Page A

at work with shovels and brooms cleaning up horse dung. The trailer was still there, looking adrift now that its telephone and power cables had been removed. Another trailer, big enough to be called a mobile home, was pulled up alongside it. As Doyle got out of the car he noticed pulleys and lines at intervals along the fence top and a collapsed tarpaulin lying at the base of the fence all around the perimeter. He grinned. The old man’s shy, he thought.
    A guard opened the gate for him and led him to the new trailer, the door of which stood open. Doyle went inside. At the far end of the walnut-panelled and carpeted room Darrow, looking no more tired than he had last night, was talking to a tall blond man. Both men were dressed in the pre-Regency style: frockcoats, tight trousers and boots; they wore them so naturally that Doyle momentarily felt ridiculous in his polyester-cotton suit.
    “Ah, Doyle,” said Darrow. “I think you already know our chief of security.”
    The blond man turned around and after a moment Doyle recognized Steerforth Benner. The young man’s once-long hair had been cut short and curled, and his wispy moustache, never very evident, was now shaved off.
    “Benner!” Doyle exclaimed, pleased, as he crossed the room. “I suspected you must be connected with this project.” His friendship with the young man had cooled off in the last month or two, since Benner’s DIRE recruitment, but he was delighted to see a familiar face here.
    “Colleagues at last, Brendan,” said Benner with his characteristic wide smile.
    “We jump in a little less than four hours,” resumed Darrow, “and there are a lot of things to get done first. Doyle, we’ve got a period suit for you, and those doors at that end are changing rooms. I’m afraid you’ll be supervised, but it’s important that everyone dress the role from the skin out.”
    “We’re only going to be staying four hours, aren’t we?” Doyle asked.
    “It’s always in the realm of possibility, Doyle, that one of our guests might run off, despite the efforts of Benner and his boys. If one does, we don’t want him to be carrying any evidence that he’s from another century.” Darrow snapped his hand up, as though physically fielding Doyle’s next question. “And no, son, our hypothetical escapee wouldn’t be able to tell people how the war will turn out or how to build a Cadillac or anything. Each guest will swallow a capsule, just before we go, of something I think I’ll call Anti-Transchrono Trauma. ATCT. What it will actually be, and please don’t start yelling yet, Doyle, is a fatal dose of strychnine in a capsule set to dissolve after six hours. Now when we get back they’ll have their entire GI tracts pumped full of an activated charcoal solution.” He smiled frostily. “Staff is exempt, of course, or I wouldn’t be telling you this. Each guest has agreed to these conditions, and I think most of them have guessed what they mean.”
    And maybe they haven’t, Doyle thought. Suddenly the whole project looked like lunacy again, and he imagined himself in court, some day soon, trying to explain why he hadn’t informed the police about Darrow’s intentions.
    “And here’s a speech you can make at the briefing,” Darrow went on, handing Doyle a sheet of paper. “Feel free to change it or rewrite it entirely—and if you could have it memorized by then I’d be very pleased. Now I imagine you two would like to compare notes, so I’ll get busy in my trailer. Staff won’t be permitted to drink at the briefing, but I don’t see any harm if you have a couple right now.” He smiled and strode out, looking piratically handsome in the archaic clothes.
    When he was gone Benner opened a cupboard that proved to be a liquor cabinet. “Aha,” he said, “they were ready for you.” He pulled down a bottle of Laphroaig, and in spite of his worries Doyle was pleased to see that it was the old 91.4 proof kind, in the clear glass