Which was just how Kramer liked it.
"This is a new mission," Baretto said again, as if she hadn't heard him before. "You're asking us to go into the world - to go behind enemy lines, so to speak - without weapons."
"But you're all trained in hand-to-hand. You, Gomez, all of you."
"I don't think that's sufficient."
"Victor - "
"With all due respect, Ms. Kramer, you're not facing up to the situation here," Baretto said stubbornly. "You've already lost two people. Three, if you count Traub."
"No, Victor. We've never lost anybody."
"You certainly lost Traub."
"We didn't lose Dr. Traub," she said. "Traub volunteered, and Traub was depressed."
"You assume he was depressed."
"We know he was, Victor. After his wife died, he was severely depressed, and suicidal. Even though he had passed his trip limit, he wanted to go back, to see if he could improve the technology. He had an idea that he could modify the machines to have fewer transcription errors. But apparently, his idea was wrong. That's why he ended up in the Arizona desert. Personally, I don't think he ever really intended to come back at all. I think it was suicide."
"And you lost Rob," Baretto said. "He wasn't any damn suicide."
Kramer sighed. Rob Deckard was one of the first of the observers to go back, almost two years earlier. And he was one of the first to show transcription errors. "That was much earlier in the project, Victor. The technology was less refined. And you know what happened. After he'd made several trips, Rob began to show minor effects. He insisted on continuing. But we didn't lose him."
"He went out, and he never came back," Baretto said. "That's the bottom line."
"Rob knew exactly what he was doing."
"And now the Professor."
"We haven't lost the Professor," she said. "He's still alive."
"You hope. And you don't know why he didn't come back in the first place."
"Victor - "
"I'm just saying," Baretto said, "in this case the logistics don't fit the mission profile. You're asking us to take an unnecessary risk."
"You don't have to go," Kramer said mildly.
"No, hell. I never said that."
"You don't have to."
"No. I'm going."
"Well, then, those are the rules. No modern technology goes into the world. Understood?"
"Understood."
"And none of this gets mentioned to the academics."
"No, no. Hell no. I'm professional."
"Okay," Kramer said.
She watched him leave. He was sulking, but he was going to go along with it. They always did, in the end. And the rule was important, she thought. Even though Doniger liked to give a little speech about how you couldn't change history, the fact was, nobody really knew - and nobody wanted to risk it. They didn't want modern weapons, or artifacts, or plastic to go back.
And they never had.
Stern sat with the others on hard-backed chairs in a room with maps. Susan Gomez, the woman who had just returned in the machine, spoke in a crisp, quick manner that Stern found rushed.
"We are going," she said, "to the Monastery of Sainte-Mère, on the Dordogne River, in southwestern France. We will arrive at 8:04 a.m. on the morning of Thursday, April 7, 1357 - that's the day of the Professor's message. It's fortunate for us, because there's a tournament that day in Castelgard, and the spectacle will draw large crowds from the surrounding countryside, so we won't be noticed."
She tapped one map. "Just for orientation, the monastery is here. Castelgard is over here, across the river. And the fortress of La Roque is on the bluffs here, above the monastery. Questions so far?"
They shook their heads.
"All right. The situation in the area is a little unsettled. As you know, April of 1357 puts us roughly twenty years into the Hundred Years War. It's seven months after the English victory at Poitiers, where they took the king of France prisoner. The French king is now being held for ransom. And France, without a king, is in an uproar.
"Right now, Castelgard is in the hands of Sir Oliver de Vannes, a British knight born in France. Oliver has also taken over La Roque, where he is strengthening the castle's defenses. Sir Oliver's an unpleasant character, with a famously bad temper. They call him the 'Butcher of Crecy,' for his excesses in that battle."
"So Oliver is in control of both towns?" Marek said.
"At the moment, yes. However, a company of renegade knights, led by a defrocked priest called Arnaut de Cervole - "
"The Archpriest," Marek said.
"Yes, exactly, the Archpriest - is moving into the area, and will undoubtedly attempt to take the castles from Oliver. We believe the Archpriest is still several days away. But fighting may break out at any time, so we will work quickly."
She moved to another map, with a larger scale. It showed the monastery buildings.
"We arrive approximately here, at the edge of the Forêt de Sainte-Mère. From our arrival point, we should be able to look right down on the monastery. Since the Professor's message came from the monastery, we will go directly there first. As you know, the monastery takes its main meal of the day at ten o'clock in the morning, and the Professor is likely to be present at that time. With luck, we'll find him there and bring him back."
Marek said, "How do you know all this? I thought nobody's ever gone into the world."
"That's correct. No one has. But observers close to the machines have still brought back enough that we know the background at this particular time. Any other questions?"