The screen had gone from full color to black and white with poor definition, which indicated that the probes were using infrared and that the scene was in nearly total darkness. Yet the red mare was proceeding without difficulty.
I hit the pause button.
"Tom, that horse is impossible."
"What do you mean impossible? Do you think that we'd doctor a documentary?"
"I mean that that horse can see in the dark! It acts like it's got a compass in its head! And the way it killed those highwaymen! Something's wrong here."
"You mean something's right here. Yes, that's one of our horses. She's the result of many years of careful selective breeding, along with a bit of genetic engineering. She has an IQ of about sixty and understands Polish perfectly. And yes, she can see somewhat into the infrared, and she does have the same magnetic sense that a pigeon has."
"Then what was she doing for sale in Cracow?"
"She was there because I put her there, hoping that Conrad would have brains enough to buy her, which he did.
"Look, there are some other things about this that you should understand. You know that rich American relative who put Conrad through school? Well, I'm he. Conrad Schwartz is my third cousin, and while I've never tried to run anybody's life, I have tried to see that my relatives had a decent start in life.
"Of course, I've had to work within certain rules. Besides the physical limitations of causality, I have two partners in the time-travel business, and we have agreed on some very sensible regulations. Tampering with history is out—we don't play God. But we do permit the helping of blood relatives out to the fourth generation back and their descendants.
"I had nothing to do with getting Conrad dumped into the thirteenth century. That was a screw-up by the Historical Corps, which is under Ian's jurisdiction. But once Conrad was there, I had a perfect right to help a needy blood relative. Being without arms and money in the Middle Ages is serious!"
"You mean that you set him up to get into those fights and capture that booty?"
"Not quite. I learned about the fighting the same way you did, watching this documentary I had made. I wasn't worried about him, since I had met him ten years later, alive and healthy. But after the second fight, when he was bandaging his arm, I hit the pause button and ordered a pair of 'merchants' with a chest of gold to pass through there four days before. On being attacked by highwaymen, they abandoned their cargo and fled.
"This left Conrad with enough money to live comfortably for the ten years he'd have to spend in the Dark Ages."
"And the sword, was that your doing, too?"
"Sure, diamond edge and all. What's more, had he gone to the Polish armor shop instead of to that German, he would have found a good set of Turkish plate mail, exactly his size, that he could have picked up cheap."
"Huh. Well, I guess you can't win them all."
"No, you can't. But you can sure as hell try. Now, back to the blizzard."