Military strategists puzzled endlessly over the consequences of being able to attack an enemy with total surprise, until reminded of the third commandment. One or two of them, it transpired, had tried just that; the typical consequence was that a bizarre accident would befall whoever planned such an attack. Interestingly, even the most secretively prepared attempts to use time travel as a military tactic seemed to be crushed, just before they could actually take place.

Rachel had discovered the hard way just why this was the case. The Eschaton was still a factor in human affairs; reclusive and withdrawn it might be, but it still kept a watchful eye open for trouble. It intervened, too, for its own reasons. Causality violation — time travel — if allowed to flourish without check, offered an immediate threat to its existence; sooner or later somebody would try to grandfather it out of history. Various other technological possibilities also threatened it. AI research might generate a competitor for informational resources; nanotechnology developments might achieve the same results through alternative pathways. Hence the third commandment — and the existence of an army of covert enforcers, saboteurs, and agents of influence working on its behalf.

Two years before, Rachel had met one of those agents. She’d been politically-compromised, a witness to his activities: a fifteen-microsecond induced error in a clock which sealed the fate of a fleet and the interstellar empire that had dispatched it to recapture a planet that hadn’t been lost in the first place. She’d stayed quiet about it, tacitly accepting the abhuman intervention in diplomatic affairs. The Eschaton hadn’t destroyed a civilization this time; it had simply caused an invasion fleet to arrive at its destination too late to alter history, and in so doing had triggered the collapse of an aggressive militaristic regime. It was the job she’d been sent to do herself, by her controllers in the Black Chamber.

In fact, it had been a very happy coincidence from her point of view, because not only had she met an agent of the Eschaton: she’d married him. And sometimes, on good days, on days when she wasn’t being hauled over the coals by bureaucratic harridans or called in to deal with hideous emergencies, she thought that the only thing she was really afraid of was losing him again.

On good days …

Rachel had been lying in bed for an hour, showered and bathed to squeaky cleanliness and dosed up with a wide-spectrum phagebot and a very strong sedative, when Martin came home.

“Rachel?” she heard him call, through a blanket of thick, warm, lovely lassitude. She smiled to herself. He was home. I can come down now, she thought, if I want. The thought didn’t seem to mean anything.

“Rachel?” The bedroom door slid open. “Hey.” She rolled her eyes to watch him, feeling a wave of semisynthetic love.

“Hi,” she mumbled.

“What’s—” His gaze settled on the bedside stand. “Oh.” He dropped his bag. “I see, you’ve been hitting the hard stuff.” The next moment, he was sitting beside her, a hand on her forehead. “The polis called,” he said, face clouded with worry. “What happened?”

Time to come down, she realized reluctantly. Somehow she dredged up the energy to point at the A/D patch sitting by the discarded wrapper. It was the hardest thing she’d ever done, harder than wrapping her fingers around -

“Oh. Yeah.” Nimble digits, far nimbler than hers, unpeeled the backing and smoothed the patch onto the side of her neck. “Shit, that’s strong stuff you’re on. Was it really that bad?”

Speech was getting easier. “You have no idea,” she mumbled. At the edge of her world a tidal wave of despair was gathering, ready to crash down on her as the synthetic endorphin high receded before the antidote patch. Dosing herself up had seemed like a good idea while she was alone and his flight was in plasma blackout on the way down, but now she was coming out from it she wondered how she could have done something so stupid. She reached out and grabbed his wrist. “Go. Fetch a couple of bottles of wine from the kitchen. Then I’ll tell you.”

He was gone a long time — possibly minutes, although it felt like hours — and when he came back he’d shed most of his outerwear, acquired a bottle and two glasses, and his face was pale and drawn. “Shiva’s balls, Rachel, how the fuck did you let yourself get roped into something like that?” Clearly the media had caught up with him in the kitchen. He put the glasses down, sat beside her, and helped her sit up. “It’s all over the multis. That fucking animal—”

His arm was round her shoulders. She leaned against him. “Lunatic squad,” she said hoarsely. “Once in, never out. I’m a negotiator, remember? There was nobody else here who could do it, so—” She shrugged.

“But they shouldn’t have called you—” His arm tensed.

“You. Listen.” She swallowed. “Open the bottle.”

“Okay.” Martin, wisely sensing that this wasn’t a good place to take the conversation, shut up and poured her a glass of wine. It was a cheap red Merlot, and it hadn’t had time to breathe, but she didn’t want it for the flavor. “Was it true you were the only one they could call? I mean—”

“Yes.” She drained the glass, then held it out for more. He poured himself one, then refilled hers. “And no, I don’t think there was anyone else who could do the job. Or any other way. Not with the resources to hand. This is a peaceful ’burg. No WMD team on twenty-four-by-seven standby, just a couple of volunteers. Who were on a training course in Brasilia when the shit hit the fan.”

“It was—” He swallowed. “There were camera flies all over the place. I saw the feed downstairs.”

“How was Luna?” she asked, changing the subject pointedly.

“Gray and drab, just like always.” He took a sip, but didn’t meet her eyes. “I’ve … Rachel, please don’t change the subject.”

“No?” She stared at him until he looked away.

“At least try to give me some warning next time.”

“I tried to get a message to you,” she replied irritably. “You were in re-entry blackout. It all blew up really fast.” She pulled a face, then sniffed again. “Jesus, I’m crying,” she said, half-disgusted. “This isn’t like me.”

“Everyone does that sooner or later,” he said. She put the glass down, and Martin stroked the side of her arm, trying to soothe her.

“Asshole thought he could use me as a public convenience,” she said quietly. “Someone holds a gun to your head and tells you to fuck, most legal codes call that rape, don’t they? Even if the gun is actually a bomb, and you get to use your hands instead of your mouth or cunt.” She took a deep breath. “But I’m not a victim.” She held out her glass. “Give me a refill. The fucker’s sleeping with the donor organs tonight, while I shall be getting drunk. All right?” She took another deep breath. Everything was getting easier, now Martin was here, and the alcohol was taking effect. “Because when I walked through that door I had a good idea what could happen, and I also knew what was at stake, and I did it of my own free will.” Stray drops of wine fell on the comforter, spreading out in a wide stain. “I’ve been in worse situations. And in the morning I will be sober, and he’ll still be fucking ugly. And dead.” She giggled. “But y’know what I want right now?”

“Tell me?” he asked, uncertainly.

She sat up, throwing the comforter on the floor. “I want another bath,” she announced. “With my favorite bath toy: you. Lots of oil, foam, and stuff. Some good wine this time, not this crap. And I want one of your back rubs. I want to feel your hands all over me. And once I’m relaxed I want to hit up a couple of lines of something to turn me on, and then I want to fuck you until we’re both exhausted. And raw.” She sat up, unsteadily, and leaned on Martin as she tried to get out of bed. “Then tomorrow, or sometime whenever, I’m going to go and piss on the fuckwit’s grave. You coming with me?”